Page 82 of Lovefool

I avert my eyes from that delicious stretch of neck I’ve envisioned biting, clamping my powerful jowls over her life force before shaking until she’s limp in my mouth. It’s a terrible thought to have, but this woman does unspeakable things to me. The only thing more dangerous than a starving animal is one that has nothing to lose.

“Lake.”

“I’m sure there’s, like, a medical center nearby. Maybe we should get you checked out just in case? I swear I can feel a welt growing.”

“Lake.”

“Should I tell your coach? Shit, will he bench you permanently if he thinks you’re injured? Maybe we shouldn’t say anything, but then what if it gets worse?”

“LAKE,” I half-shout. “I’m fine. I’ve been hit harder into the boards.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hover. The last thing I want to do is stress you out,” she mumbles beneath her breath, staring down at the obnoxiously patterned carpet beneath our feet. Geometric, brightly colored, nauseating.

Remorse surges to the precipice, forcing my short-lived temper to recede. The pout on her face hurts worse than smothering citric acid into a fresh paper cut. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. You’re not stressing me out⁠—”

“I am,” she cuts me off. “You got all weird after I asked if we were gonna…”

I don’t finish her sentence, and neither does she. The duration of her pause would be comical if I wasn’t actively struggling to keep my shit together.

I never had sex that often before Lake. I never got what all the hype was about. I mean, it’s an endorphin booster, sure, but with no emotional connection, it seemed like a pointless act. Then she had to walk into my life, fuck some sense into me, and leave me with this aching, bottomless hole in the pit of my stomach that begs for human connection.

“Oh,” is the only thing to come out of her mouth.

I knew that keeping my composure was a losing bet. And instead of, I don’t know, approaching the situation with a level head, said head is experiencing a sudden loss of blood from everything that’s traveling south to consolidate in the groin of my sweatpants.

I truly don’t think things can get any worse until I decide to blurt out the poor thoughts that cross the threshold of my neuron-misfiring brain.

“I didn’t want to bring anything up! I didn’t—I’m not some stupid guy who thinks about sex twenty-four-seven. Well, I am stupid, but I’m not a dog. And then Foster had to play fairy godmother and give us the room and…and it just looked bad on my end, you know? This—I value our time together no matter what we’re doing. I don’t want to have sex!”

Lake’s brow crumples. “You don’t want to have sex with me?”

If this whole fiasco wasn’t embarrassing enough, my voice soars to a high-pitched frequency that probably only dogs can hear. “That’s—no—I do! Of course I do. But I don’t see you as a walking form of instant gratification. We should only have sex if you want to. And I always want to, but not in a perverted way. I want to if you want to. There’s obviously no press⁠—”

Suddenly, she cages my chin with her fingers, forcing me to look her in the eyes and take responsibility for my highly active libido. My mouth goes dry, my stomach swirls with a disgusting combination of lust and fear, and my brain is the equivalent of winter slush blanketing deadfall-rife roads in the early weeks of January.

“You don’t always have to be so chivalrous. You weren’t the last time we had sex,” she drawls, something wanton crackling in her hushed voice. Her words are textured with a subtle implication—one that ruptures a hole right through my chest and makes it exceptionally hard to breathe.

Thankfully—or not—I don’t get very far in pleading my case. “I⁠—”

“Maybe pregame sex would do you some good. It’s a great stress reliever,” Lake says nonchalantly, letting her hand fall away from my jaw. “One of the most important games of your career is coming up. Don’t you want to go into it with a clear head?”

I don’t say anything. I’m not sure it’s safe to speak yet. I’m just frozen to the spot, nursing a bothersome throb on the top of my scalp, eyes wide and (probably) sparkling as I realize that I’m in the presence of the coolest girl in the world.

All I can do is swallow my nerves and nod, hoping that they don’t make a break for the exit route of my esophagus.

She leans in enough to brush her lips against my ear. “Good. Let me help you.”

My girl has the power to make my knees buckle despite my ass being flat on the ground. Every muscle in my body constricts, the heat of her breath tripping a wire inside my head that tells me I better buckle the fuck up because things are about to go full turbo speed. Like, phasing-through-the-multiverse turbo speed.

Lake saunters over to her duffel bag with the determination of a shark cutting through water, and I sough at the sudden loss of contact, painfully aware that I’m runner-up for the most down bad, pathetic man in all of existence. It’s a title I wear with pride, all right?

She rummages around a little bit before procuring a polaroid camera, snapping a quick picture of me without warning and flashbanging my retinas. I blink a few times, praying that my ghost-like pallor isn’t forever immortalized in PVA.

“I brought this so I could take some photos for the weekend. Not for the article, though. I thought it would be nice for me to have some personal memories,” she explains, snatching the developing film between her fingers and shaking.

“Yeah, that’s—that’s a great idea,” I stammer, unsure where she’s going with this, too afraid to ask.

A sultry grin creeps onto her lips before her eyelids lower to replicate the sexiest siren eyes, and I’m fully contemplating how angry she would be if I ripped that flimsy hoodie clean off her body. It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?