He stretches one arm along the back of the couch and beckons me with the other. “You sitting or what?”
“I’ll stand, thanks.”
“Aw, come on. I don’t bite.”
“Yes, you do.”
Those green eyes twinkle. “You’re right. I do.”
He looks way too comfortable sitting there on my couch. A blond Adonis with his golden chest and sculpted muscles and perfectly chiseled face. If the hockey thing doesn’t work out for him, he ought to consider going into modeling. Dean Di Laurentis oozes sexuality. He could slap his face on a laxative label and every woman in the world would be praying for constipation just to have an excuse to buy it.
“Seriously, Allie-Cat, sit down. You’re starting to make me feel unwelcome.”
“You aren’t welcome,” I sputter. “I was having a perfectly nice evening until you showed up.”
He looks hurt, but I don’t know if it’s genuine or if he’s putting it on. I suspect it’s the latter. “You really don’t like me, huh?”
Guilt pricks at me. Crap. Maybe it is genuine. “It’s not that. I do like you. But I wasn’t kidding when I said I’m not into casual sex, okay? Every time I think about what we did this weekend, I feel—”
“Horny?” he supplies.
Yes. “Slutty.”
I don’t expect the flare of irritation I glimpse in his eyes. “You want some advice, babe? Erase that word from your vocabulary.”
I suddenly feel guilty again, but I’m not sure why. Very reluctantly, I join him on the couch, making sure to keep some distance between us.
“I mean it,” he continues. “Stop slut-shaming yourself. And fuck the word slut. People should be able to have sex whenever they want, however many times they want, with however many partners they choose, and not get some shitty label slapped on them.”
He’s right, but… “The label is there whether we like it or not,” I point out.
“Yeah, and it was created by prudes and judgmental assholes and jealous pricks who wish they were getting laid on the regular but aren’t.” Dean shakes his head. “You need to stop thinking there’s something wrong with what we did. We had fun. We were safe. We didn’t hurt anyone. It’s nobody’s business what you or anyone else does in the privacy of their bedrooms, all right?”
Oddly enough, his words succeed in easing some of the shame that’s been trapped inside me since Friday night. But not all of it. “I told Sean,” I confess.
Dean frowns.
“Not about you,” I add hastily. “I just told him I had sex with someone else.”
“Why the hell would you do that?”
“I don’t know.” I moan. “I felt like I owed him the truth, but that’s crazy, right? I mean, we’re broken up.” Another moan slips out, this one more anguished than the first. “But we were together for so long. I’m so used to telling him everything.”
Dean absently rubs the cushion behind my head. The movement directs my gaze to his biceps, the delicious flex of muscle honed from years of physical activity. “Be honest,” he finally says. “Do you want to get back together with the guy?”
I slowly shake my head.
“You sure about that?”
“I’m sure.” I think about the nonstop arguments Sean and I had since the summer, and I feel even more confident in my decision to end it. All those spiteful comments he’d hurled my way…mocking me about my dreams…giving me ultimatums for the future…
Sean might have forgiven me for what I did after our breakup, but suddenly I’m not sure I’ve forgiven him for what he did before it.
“We weren’t right for each other anymore.” I swallow the pain in my throat. “If it was possible to stay in college forever, then yes, Sean and I would probably be together. But it’s time to grow up, and we want completely different things for the future. Or at least I think we do. This breakup is screwing with my head. I don’t even know what to think anymore.”
“That’s your problem. You think too much.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Gee, is that your advice? Stop thinking?”
“Stop obsessing.” Dean shrugs. “You broke up with the guy for a reason—a damn good reason, if you ask me—and now you’ve gotta follow through on it. Quit talking to him and quit second-guessing yourself.”
“You’re right,” I say grudgingly.