“He punched you?” I ask. “Why? Because you talked about screwing her?”
He shakes his head, and a look of guilt washes over him. “No,” he says quietly. “Because I did screw her.”
He sighs but continues. “We were staying the night at Ridge and Brennan’s. Maggie spent a lot of time over there with me, and we had been dating for about six weeks. I know that’s not long in virgin weeks, but it’s a damn eternity in guy weeks. We were lying in bed together, and she told me she was ready to go all the way, but before she would have sex with me, there was something she needed to tell me. She said I had a right to know, and she wouldn’t feel right continuing a relationship until I was fully informed. I remember panicking, thinking she was about to tell me she was a dude or some shit like that.”
He glances at me and raises an eyebrow. “Because let’s be honest, Syd. There are some really hot transvestite-looking dudes out there.”
He laughs and looks straight ahead again. “That’s when she told me about her illness. Told me about the statistics . . . the fact that she didn’t want children . . . the reality of how much time she had left. She said she wanted to lay the truth out for me because it wouldn’t be fair to anyone who saw something long-term with her. She said the likelihood of her making it to the age of forty or even thirty-five was small. She said she needed to be with someone who understood that. Someone who accepted that.”
“You didn’t want that responsibility?” I ask him.
He shakes his head slowly. “Sydney, I didn’t care about the responsibility. I was a seventeen-year-old guy, in bed with the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, and all she was asking me to do was agree to love her. When she mentioned the words ‘future’ and ‘husband’ and not wanting kids, it took all I had not to roll my eyes, because in my head, those were a lifetime away. I would be with a million girls before then. I didn’t know how to think that far ahead, so I just did what I thought any guy would do in that situation. I reassured her and told her that her illness didn’t matter to me and that I loved her. Then I kissed her, took off her clothes, and took her virginity.”
He hangs his head in what looks like shame. “After she left the next morning, I was bragging to Ridge about finally getting to bang a virgin. Probably went into way too much detail. I also mentioned the conversation we had beforehand and told him all about her illness. I was brutally honest with him to a fault sometimes. I told him that her whole situation kind of freaked me out and that I was going to give it two weeks before I broke up with her so I wouldn’t look like such a douche. That’s when he beat the living shit out of me.”
My eyes widen. “Good for Ridge,” I say.
Warren nods. “Yeah. Apparently, he liked her a whole lot more than he let on, but he just kept his mouth shut and allowed me to make an ass of myself for the whole six weeks I dated her. I should have caught on about how he felt, but Ridge is a lot more selfless than I am. He would have never done anything to betray what we had, but after that night, he lost a whole lot of respect for me. And that hurt, Sydney. He’s like my brother. I felt like I had disappointed the one person I looked up to the most.”
“So you broke up with Maggie, and Ridge started dating her?”
“Yes and no. We had a long conversation about it that afternoon, because Ridge is big on sharing his thoughts and shit. We agreed we had to honor the bro code, and it wouldn’t really be good for us if he picked up and started dating a girl I had just screwed. But he liked her. He liked her a lot, and even though I knew it was hard for him, he waited until the term ended before he asked her out.”
“The term?”
Warren nods. “Yeah. Don’t ask where we came up with it, but we agreed twelve months was a decent length of time before the bro code became null. We figured enough time would have passed, and if he wanted to ask her out after a year, it wouldn’t be so weird. By that time, she might have dated other people and wouldn’t be going straight from my bed into Ridge’s. As much as I could have tried to be cool about it, it would have been too weird. Even for us.”