Something.

Anything.

“Thanks.”

“Let me know how it goes?”

“I will.” Rhett runs a hand through his shaggy locks, stepping back down onto the path in front of my house. “Night.”

“Good night.”

Rhett: Hey.

Me: Hey yourself! How did it go today?

Rhett: Great. Won both my matches.

Me: Are you on your way home?

Rhett: Not yet. We’re staying the night then head out in the morning.

Rhett: It’s fucking loud in the hallway—the groupies for this school are everywhere.

Me: Groupies?

Rhett: Yeah, you know…

Me: They seriously hang out at the hotel?

Rhett: Yeah. The guys usually tell them where we’re staying and they follow the bus back to the hotel, for hotel sex I guess.

Me: Can I ask you a personal question that’s none of my business? You don’t have to answer.

Rhett: Sure.

Me: Are there any groupies in your room right now?

Rhett: LOL, no.

Me: Why is that funny?

Rhett: You really think I’m the type groupies latch on to? They usually hang on the other guys, thank God.

Me: Okay. Good.

Rhett: It was a good day. I’m freaking tired—I can’t believe these guys are going to be up all night.

Me: I really wish I could have seen you in action.

Rhett: Well, I mean, you can—if they’re not being aired live, they’re usually on one of the sports networks or YouTube. Just Google it.

Me: Really???

Rhett: Yeah. The matches are all televised.

Me: Well then excuse me while I go find vids of you wrestling…

Laurel

I totally Googled him.

I couldn’t stop myself—didn’t want to.

An image gallery of Rhett fills the screen of my computer, almost every small thumbnail a photograph of him in a wrestling singlet. Pictures of a younger, high school-aged Rhett. Three state championships wins, I note with pride. Arm raised after each sweaty victory, sometimes held up by a coach or ref.

Him in a purple and yellow singlet from Louisiana. A few team composites. Surrounded by teammates in a practice gym.

Bent over in what the caption calls a “guardian stance”.

There are so many photos and articles of him, I could sit clicking on them for hours.

My face burns hot from the images of Rhett in his wrestling singlet, from the sight of his sinewy, sweaty muscles, growing more defined with each year that passed.

The mouth and ear guards.

His thighs.

Oh my God, his thighs.

His dick beneath the spandex material.

I stare at that spot between his legs, pulling my monitor in close, studying the screen like a pervert, like a horny teenage boy.

I assumed he had a great body, but the actual sight of it half naked?

Jesus, it’s making my panties damp.

I zoom in on an image of Rhett with his hands behind his head, catching his breath, perspiration on his chest gleaming under the bright stadium lights. His brawny biceps inflated, flexed. The veins pronounced from the increased adrenaline.

The tight black spandex that leaves so little to the imagination.

The sensitive nub between my thighs throbs and I squeeze my legs together to alleviate the pressure building there.

This creeper session is seriously better than porn.

The only difference is, this boy? He’s real, not unattainable, and lives only nine houses away.

I imagine all the sneaking around we could do on our roommates. I imagine him crawling through my window, waking me up with his face between my legs. His hands running along my skin, up under my sleep shirt, sliding into my white eyelet shorts.

Imagine myself running my hands under the straps of that black singlet, sliding them down his brawny biceps, hands dragging down his damp, sweat-covered chest.

“Uh, what are you doing?” My roommate stands in my doorway, hand braced against the doorjamb, brows arched.

“Oh my God Donovan, Jesus Christ!”

“Scared you, did I? What are you doing in here?”

“Nothing! Jesus.” Shit, did I say that already? “You scared the crap out of me. Don’t you ever knock?”

I slam my laptop closed with a thwack, heart rate accelerating at an alarming pace.

He laughs. “What were you looking at? You look weird.” Donovan narrows his eyes. “Your face is as red as your damn hair.”

“Nothing, God Donovan!”

“You look guilty as all hell. Just tell me what you were looking at and I’ll leave you alone.”

“No you won’t.”

“You’re right, I won’t. So just tell me.” His manicured eyebrows rise and the nosy asshole laughs, wriggling his fingers. “I want to see. Learn to share, Bishop.”

“No.” I hug my laptop. “Mine.”

“Tell me what it is!” he whines, entering the room, his big body filling my personal space. Ugh, he is so annoying sometimes.

“Get out!” I sound like a little kid telling her pesky brother to get out of her room. “Seriously, I’m not kidding.”

“You never act like this.” He sits on the edge of my bed instead, resting his chin on my footboard. “Truth: were you looking at porn?”

“Truth? No!” It was something better. My panties are so damp, I might as well have been.

“If it’s not porn—not that I’m judging—why the hell are you bright red? Tell me.” He holds up two fingers like a Boy Scout. “No judgment. I jerk off at least twice a day.”

Gross. “I did not need to know that.”

“Would you just freaking tell me before I wrestle you to the ground?”

Wrestle me to the ground? My red face gets warmer, imagination getting the best of me as it produces visuals of Rhett wrestling me to the ground.

I almost tremble with delight.

“Fine, you win—I was looking at pictures of Rhett. He’s the guy I’ve been, you know…” The inflection of my voice conveys my meaning, and Donovan nods.

“The guy Alexandra had you text that you’re not hooking up with?”

“Right.”

“Let’s see him in action, come on, come on.” He bounces on the bed, impatient. “You know I can’t resist men in tights.”

I crack the laptop. Enter my password with nimble, eager fingers.

He looks over my shoulder. “You totally want to text him right now, don’t you?”

“Oh my God, yes.” I click on the browser window. “So bad.”

“Where’s he at this weekend?”

“On his way home I think, from Penn State.”

“Penn State? Woo, fancy.”

Donovan slides my laptop to his lap, scans the screen with perceptive eyes, raking over the images of Rhett emblazoned there. One photograph after the other. Clicks on one, zooms. Studies it. Clicks another, then another, all without saying a word.

“Well.” My roommate sighs. “He’s certainly no Thad Stanwyck.”

“Thad?” I huff indignantly. “Seriously Donovan? Why the hell would you bring him up? Ugh.”

Thad was a guy I dated last year for four long, exhausting months. As gorgeous as he is vain, Thad is a stereotypical carbon copy of your tan, arrogant, privileged student athlete with a revolving door of bed partners.

I don’t know what the hell I was thinking hopping on the carousel; being his girlfriend was emotionally draining.

The sex was robotic and routine.

Dick? Average.

Dates? Nonexistent.

Communication? Worse.

To compare Rhett to Thad isn’t fair, despite their obvious physical differences.

“He’s nothing like Thad.” He’s better.

He’s amusing, and charming, and refreshingly oblivious.

Clueless. Obtuse. Naïve. Take your pick.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know.” I chew on my thumbnail. “Think I should text him?”

Donovan nods, handing me back the laptop. “No, I meant—what are you going to do with him?”

Guh! “I honestly don’t know yet.”

“Do you like him?”

“I think so, yeah. I mean, yes. I’m starting to.”