“Sweet dreams, baby.”
“Have a good day.”
That night, I don’t have it in me to leave Mike’s house. In his room, I help myself to one of his giant T-shirts, and I crawl under his covers. His pillow still smells like him, and I smile against the soft cotton when I realize he ate banana peppered pizza and sour candy for breakfast, since our date started at six o’clock in the morning for him.
His hair was damp, his face was clean-shaven, and he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, which means he’d woken up ridiculously early just to shower and get ready for our date. He ordered me flowers and candy and made me feel like I was traveling the world with him, and I don’t know how I got so lucky to deserve a man so thoughtful, but I never want to let him go.
Not even if Danica is determined to win him back. Not even if he has girls pining after him in every country of the world.
I want to keep him.
But with Danica’s threats hanging over my head and two years of school left before I graduate, before I can get a decent job and apply for an assistantship to cover my doctorate, I’m just not sure how I can. In twenty-nine days, Mike will want to take me on real dates, and it will be impossible to keep him a secret.
Chapter 42
“You never came home last night,” Danica accuses with a devilish smirk when I finally return home to our apartment Sunday evening. After leaving Mike’s place this morning, I spent the afternoon trying—and failing—to get Phoenix to let anyone else pet her, and my brain is so fried, I can’t even think of anything to say.
“I, uh—”
“Have you slept with him?” she asks, and my face goes slack with panic.
Danica laughs and sets down her textbook, and while I should be relieved she’s actually studying for once in her life, I’m too busy trying to decide if I should run back out the front door before she can catch and gut me like a pig.
“Oh, come on, Hailey, don’t hold out on me,” she pouts. “My sex life is dead until Mike comes home. I’m trying to be good and not cheat on him, but I need details.”
She’s clearly not referring to Mike, so I search my brain . . .
“You mean Leti,” I guess, and Danica raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow.
“Is there someone else?” At the panic that flashes across my face again, she sits forward on the couch. “Oh my God, two?!”
“No, no,” I stutter. “I just, I didn’t think you remembered him.”
“Hailey Harper!” Danica scolds. “Stop lying. You’re terrible at lying.”
I make sure my lip is relaxed and freed from my teeth when I say, “I swear, just Leti.”
Danica narrows her eyes at me, but then her mouth curves into a satisfied smile. “Okay, so what did you two lovebirds do last night?”
“Just hung out . . . ate pizza . . .”
Her face falls. “Pizza? Seriously?”
I think of the half of a pepperoni pizza I had to throw out this morning, since Mike had eaten his half in Indonesia, and I give her a genuine smile. “It was fun.”
“Did you at least have some real fun afterward?” she asks, and when I don’t answer her, she says, “You have slept with him, right?”
Again, I stand there with my tongue tied.
“Oh my God! Hailey, you’re not a virgin, are you?”
My face is bright red when I throw up my hands. “No! God, no.” I drag my fingers through my hair as I go to the kitchen for a glass of water, and Danica trails gleefully behind me.
“You had me worried there for a second.” She hops up on the counter, perching her toes on the edge. “So when was it? Where was it? Who was he?”
“Who was what?” I ask after gulping down some much-needed water.
“Your first. You’ve never told me.”
“Oh.” I drink more water to stall, wondering when Danica and I suddenly became best friends. Eventually, my glass turns up empty. “Um . . .”
Danica grins as she waits.
“A guy named Will. Senior year. Barn.”
“Barn sex,” she chides with a friendly laugh. “How romantic.”
I smile and let her teasing relax me. “You?”
Her smile softens, her brown eyes warming with memory. “Junior year. Prom. Mike.”
My heart skips a painful beat, and I choke out, “Mike?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” Danica says with another laugh. “Mike and I started dating when we were fifteen, Hailey. Who else would it have been? We were both virgins. We gave our virginities to each other.
“It was pretty romantic, actually,” she continues while I just stand there frozen in hell. “He got us a hotel room, and I think he was even more nervous than I was. His hands shook as he struggled with the ties of my dress.” She smiles with her cheek resting on her knees. “It was so adorable.
“I’ve never had anyone make love to me the way he made love to me,” Danica says, and the acid in my stomach crawls to the back of my throat. I should have known Mike was her first, but I . . . just didn’t think about it. I still don’t want to think about it. I desperately need to get out of this kitchen, or I’m going to be sick on her silver toes.
“I just didn’t expect him to be so big—” she continues, and I thank God when my phone rings in my pocket.
“Hello?” I answer, walking away from Danica before she can notice the pallor that’s spread across my face. I listen to Luke tell me about some new achievement he got in Deadzone Five, and I reel from the realization that Danica was Mike’s first, and she was his.