Don't Hate the Player...Hate the Game (16 page)

“Shh, Noah. Let me make you feel better,” she
whispered, as she pushed me back against the bed. Since my headache
was almost gone and she was an incredible kisser, I gave in, and we
made out for a few minutes. My hand traveled up her shirt when I
finally released her lips, desperate for air.

As I gasped and panted, she grinned seductively at
me. “I’ve got a secret.”

“Yeah, so?”

Her breath was hot over my earlobe. “I’m not wearing
any underwear,” she whispered, as she crisscrossed her legs.

“Um, yeah, good for you.”

Her hand trailed up my calf to my thigh. Uh, oh, this
wasn’t good.

“You’ve got a secret too, don’t you?” she asked.

“No, I’m wearing boxers as a matter of fact.”

Presley rolled her eyes playfully at my response. “No
silly. I mean, you’ve got a secret about Jake.”

My eyes widened. How the hell did she know about
that?

Suddenly, her hand was inching further up my thigh.
“Wonder what color boxer shorts you have on?”

I silently willed that traitorous part of me to be
still, but it wasn’t hearing anything about it—especially after
Presley’s fingers found my zipper.

“Look, you’re drunk, and we really shouldn’t be doing
anything,” I protested.

Her head shook wildly back and forth. “I haven’t had
a drop to drink. I swear. I just…” When she nibbled her bottom lip,
my erection jumped in my pants. “I just don’t want to be alone
tonight.” Her hand was inside my jeans now. Fuck me. I had a
freight train running through my head, and a wildfire burning in my
crotch. But with just one sniffle from Presley, my hard-on began to
wither. When I gazed up at her, tears sparkled in her dark blue
eyes. “Noah, I don’t know what to do without Jake, and I need to be
with someone who loved him like I did.”

At her words, a shudder ran through me. Just the
thought that she wanted a connection to Jake through screwing me
was like a douse of prickly ice water crashing over me. What the
hell was I doing? Presley was Jake’s girl—at least one of his
girls. More importantly, she was the last girl he had been with
before he gave up sex. Now here I was being the ultimate
backstabbing douche by making out with her and getting a partial
hand-job.

I knocked Presley’s hand away. “Stop it.”

Her blonde brows rose in shock. “Don’t you want
me?”

Running my hand through my already disheveled hair, I
grunted. “Of course I want you. You just brought me from half-mast
to raging hard-on.” I shook my head. “But don’t you realize how
incredibly fucked up this is? You were Jake’s…girl, and I’m his
best friend. We can’t screw each other to make our grief go
away.”

My mouth fell open when embarrassment tinged
Presley’s cheeks pink. I don’t think I’d ever seen her blush in my
life. “Yes Noah, I know.” She jerked her chin up to stare sadly at
me. “I’m perfectly aware how incredibly fucked up am I without
Jake. I don’t sleep. I barely eat, even though I know I should. I’m
so scared and alone. I need some way to deal with it, and this—”
she motioned to the bed and our rumpled clothes. “
This
is
all I know to do to make things better—to feel anything with
someone.”

Mascara blackened tears ran down her cheeks, and her
shoulders began to rise and fall with her sobs. That familiar
suffocating feeling crept on me, but I fought like hell not to let
it come over me. Reaching over, I handed Presley the box of tissues
off her nightstand. After she’d wiped her eyes and blown her nose,
she stared intently at me. “Have you heard that there’s some big
secret going around about something Jake had in his room?”

Uh, oh. “Well, yeah, maybe.”

Presley’s brows rose in surprise. “Do you know what
it is?”

“I was there when it was found.”

She gasped. “What is it?”

“Nothing much,” I lied.

“Please tell me. I promise, it’ll be our little
secret.”

Trying to keep her from riding my ass, I teased,
“Like your lack of underwear?”

She laughed. “Ugh, I’m sorry. I can’t believe I said
that to you earlier. But hey, me not wearing panties isn’t that
huge secret, but sure, we can say we’ll keep it between us.”

My mind whirled with thoughts. I knew I probably
shouldn’t tell Presley, but at the same time, it was probably the
quickest way to find out if she was the one. “Um, they found a
ring,” I admitted.

Presley stared at me in disbelief. “A ring? What kind
of ring?”

“Just a ring,” I replied.

“Come on, Noah. You can tell me what kind of ring it
was.”

I sighed. “It was an engagement ring, okay? A one
carat engagement ring.”

What she said next floored me. “That’s it?”

“That’s it?” I repeated dumbly. I shook my head.
“Yeah, that’s it. Did you expect something else? Like a car or a
yacht?”

She laughed nervously. “No, I wasn’t thinking that.”
She shrugged. “Do you know who it’s for?”

“Nope.”

“Hmm.”

I drew in a breath. “So did you guys have like a song
or something?”

“Huh?”

“Like a song that meant something to you.”

When she nodded, my heart surged in my chest. This
was it.

“It was
Crash
by Dave Matthews.”

I exhaled like a deflated balloon. “Are you
sure?”

Presley laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure. We played it every
time we…were together.”

“I see.”

She shifted on the bed and stared down at her
manicured nails. “Noah, I really want to thank you for putting the
brakes on us tonight and for comforting me.”

“You don’t have to thank me. That’s what friends are
for.”

Presley smiled. “And since you were such a good
friend to Jake and now to me, there’s something I want to tell
you.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I-uh, it’s—” she began when the bedroom door
flung open and Blaine and a Freshman girl fell inside.

Blaine stared at us with eyes swimming in booze.
“Whoops! I thought this room was free.” He glanced at the two of us
before wiggling his eyebrows at me.

I stood up. “Yeah, I was just leaving.”

“Hey, no need to rush. We can all party together,”
Blaine argued.

“No, man, I don’t think so.” I turned to look at
Presley. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yeah, catch you later.”

As I started to the car, I realized that I’d learned
two things that night....Presley wasn't the girl, and after
learning about
Crash
and their sex habits, I would be
forever scarred from Dave Matthews.

***

After my escapade on Friday night, I spent
most of Saturday partially hung-over and in a shitty mood. Luckily,
Mom was on call, so I had the house to myself. With everything that
had been going on with the headache that was the investigation into
her,
I hadn’t had time to focus on my personal life, or more
importantly, the specter of Greg. Mom and I skirted around the
issue—especially after the couch incident. I could tell she was
still mortified because whenever she would glance at my wounded
eyebrow, she’d blush.

Things were tense between us in many ways. Some days
she cooked breakfast for me, and we made small talk over pancakes
or French Toast. She always tip-toed on eggshells around the
subject of Jake, but eventually she always brought him up. I could
tell Mom was worried to death about me. There were the sleepless
nights, sheets drenched in sweat, and dark circles under my eyes
from the nightmares that she pretended not to notice to let me save
face.

But there was also something else—a thickness hung
heavy in the air weird hanging in the air—like something dark
looming over the horizon with him. I couldn’t quite put my finger
on it, and to put it bluntly, I was freakin’ tired of playing
Sherlock Holmes all the time.

So instead of feeling like I had the fucking rug
jerked out from under me, I should have been prepared for what
happened on Wednesday afternoon. But I wasn’t. The moment I breezed
through the garage door after work, heavenly aromas filled my
nostrils. I gazed around the kitchen, and I saw something truly
shocking. Not only was Mom home relatively early, but she was
cooking.

And not just that. She was taking bread out of the
oven.
Homemade
bread. Oh, something was definitely going
on.

“Hey sweetie,” Mom said.

“Hi,” I replied hesitatively. I glanced past her into
the dining room where the table was set conspicuously for three.
“What’s going on?” I asked.

Mom laughed. “It’s called dinner, Noah.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I know that. It’s just you
very rarely cook, least of all set the dining room table.”

Mom didn’t answer me. Instead, she slipped on some
oven mittens and grabbed the lasagna off the counter. I followed
close on her heels into the dining room. “So, I’m gonna ask one
more time. What the hell is going on?”

She whirled around. “Language, Noah!”

Geez, she sounded just like Maddie. I couldn’t catch
a break. When Mom started back into the kitchen, I stepped in front
of her. She sighed. “All right fine. I need to talk to you about
something.”

She ushered me into the living room. I side stepped
the now infamous couch and plopped down into the chair.

Mom stared at me before drawing in a deep breath.
“Noah, Greg has asked me to marry him, and I’ve said yes.”

The wind left my body in a long, exaggerated whoosh.
Kinda like the time I fell off the monkey bars in first grade.
Well, I didn’t actually fall. Jake pushed me off because I was
taking too long to get across them, but that was another story.
“Wait, what?”

Mom fiddled with the hem of her skirt. “I’m engaged
to Greg.”

Christ Almighty, could this be happening at a worse
time? “When did he ask you?”

“A couple days ago.”

My gaze flickered toward the ceiling as I tried
taking a few calming breaths.

“Noah?”

“Huh?”

“There’s something else.”

I met her gaze. “You mean something even better than
you’re getting married?”

She winced before lowering her eyes. “I’m
pregnant.”

I tore out of the chair in an instant. “You’re
what?”

Peeking up at me through her eyelashes, she murmured,
“You heard me.”

Oh no. Oh,
hell
no. This couldn’t be
happening. Wasn’t it bad enough she’d found another man? Now she
was going to have another kid. I was practically being phased out
of my own family.

“When are you due?” I demanded.

“October.”

My eyes widened. “Bullshit! You’re that far along,
and you didn’t think you should tell me?”

“Yes, and I’m sorry,” she replied. She stood up and
slowly stepped over to me. “Honey, I know you’re upset.”

“Really? What makes you say that?” I snapped.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but at my age, I
wanted to make sure everything was okay before I told you. Then
just as I got the green-light out of my first trimester and with
the Amnio, Jake got killed, and I didn’t want to spring it on you
then.” When I refused to acknowledge her, she sighed exasperatedly.
“Noah Andrew Sullivan, stop acting like a two-year-old throwing a
tantrum and talk to me about what you’re feeling!”

I snorted as I jerked my head up to glare at her.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry I’m being ‘childish’. It’s just I’m not
really sure how to act when I get the fucking rug snatched out from
under me!”

“Nothing will change between you and me—”

“Are you shitting me?
Everything
will change!
How can you be so blind as to why I’m not thrilled at your news? Of
course, after it’s just been the two of us all these years, I want
you to bring a total stranger into our house and into our lives.
What could be better? No wait, there’s more? Ah, you’re going to
have another kid. Fabulous! Then you’ll have a whole new family.
Even better, maybe it’ll be a boy, and then you won’t even need
me!”