Hard Facts by Penny Clarke

20

Grayson

From one to nine hundred ninety nine, no number contains the letter ‘a’ in written form.

Summer’s sleeping.

Sharks are the only fish that blink with both eyes. An average ear of corn has eight hundred kernels.

Summer’s sleeping in my bed.

Almonds belong to the peach family. Venus rotates clockwise. Diamonds are invisible on X-ray.

Summer’s sleeping naked in my bed.

My hands bite into the counter. With my head bowed over the bathroom sink, I try to calm my breathing. Recite more, I tell myself. More facts. Count numbers. Or digits of pi. Start itemizing every element of the periodic table, from memory, including electron configurations.

Except no other mundane, random bit of information or memorization technique can detract from the sole fact that Summer is currently sleeping. Naked. In my fucking bed.

I lift my head. Stare at my reflection, all dark circles and bloodshot eyes from the night before. Then, as though I haven’t already tortured myself for the trillionth time, I peek out the door at the slumbering form. A mass of buttery curls on the pillow. One creamy shoulder, a portion of her back, all bare and soft and warm. The blanket conforms to her waist, the rise of her hips and her legs, tucked sweetly into her body.

I know what lays under that bedspread. All sloping dips and rounded hills. Curves I’d had my hands on. All over. Last night.

Fuck. Last night. Brief flashes come to me as my mind wakes up. The start of the party. Having a good time, though not as good as it could be, because hadn’t I felt it? That something was missing? Until Summer stepped through the crowd. And everything was right again because she was there, and she ditched her sorority thing to be with me, and holy fuck, her in that costume.

More and more memories flood me. Margaritas and brownies and beer pong and Summer, Summer, Summer. Touching herself. Touching me. Me touching her. Getting off to the stars in an explosive climax. Falling asleep with her in my arms. Waking up to find her still there, and that last night hadn’t been a hazy, pot-brownie-induced dream.

Unless I’m still baked.

I turn away from that beautiful sight on my bed, only enough to wash my face in the sink. She’s still there when I look again.

Nope. Just super fucking hungover.

Standing in the bathroom doorway, I debate what to do because I can’t keep staring like this. Leave her to sleep? Crawl back in bed? Let her wake on her own? Or with her knees over my shoulders and my head between her thighs?

My dick twitches. Fuck, would Summer like that?

Unfortunately, the decision is made for me, since my door opens, and Natalie walks in, asking, “So I’m making—Holy shit!”

I push her right back out the moment she spies Summer’s naked, sleeping body. Making sure the door gently clicks shut, I glare at my friend. “You could knock.”

Natalie’s jaw drops. “Damn, Gray! Was that you guys making all that noise last night? Theo and I could hear you in the basement. We just thought Spencer and Kennedy were being extra rowdy—”

“Quiet,” I rub my temple to ease the pounding volume of her voice. I lead her away from my bedroom door so she doesn’t wake Summer.

“No wonder you spend so much time at her place.”

“Where’s Morris?” I look around the living room. No sign of my roommate, but there are Summer’s phone and keys, right on the coffee table. I pick them up.

“Where do you think?” She gestures to the front door, where his running shoes are gone. I note the bandage covering that hand, and she waves it. “I get a break. Due to the stitches, says Doctor Theo. Which means I’m in charge of breakfast. Now, I was thinking the usual eggs and bacon—But then I realized, Theo’s not here. Let’s live it up. Red velvet cinnamon rolls? Bananas foster French toast? You name it, Gray. You’re first up, so dealer’s choice.”

The phone’s dead. I set Summer’s keys on the breakfast bar and find the charger we keep near the counter outlet for such occasions, so it’s fully functional when she gets up. “I don’t care. Whatever you want.”

“Apple cider donuts, it is, you genius.” As she starts slamming around cupboards, I plug in the charger. “How was the rest of the party? I know about the brownies, but what else did we miss?”

“Nothing much. Did Levi get in a lot of trouble?”

“Did he ever. Theo’s already created a practice plan as punishment. I looked at it. And it is, in a word, absolutely grueling.”

“That’s two words.”

The screen flashes to life.

“And anyway, we’re just all hoping no random test pops up. Bad enough with Spencer and all the shit he got up to freshman year, but Levi’s normally much better about these things during the season. Like Theo doesn’t already have enough stress on his plate. What, with his dad breathing down his neck about the draft and…”

I tune her out.

Partly because I’m used to Natalie talking off my ear.

Mostly because of the message that appears on Summer’s phone.

Or rather, the image accompanying it.

A dick pic.

A considerably eggplant-y dick pic.

“Gray?”

“What?” I shut the phone off. Set it upside down on the counter without reading that message. I don’t need to read it.

“I said,” Natalie leans over the other side of the counter, whispering conspiratorially. “I saved the rest of the brownies. They’re in the back of the freezer. Don’t let Theo find them. We’ll eat them during the next away game.”

“Fucking throw them out, Natalie,” I snap.

She reels back. “Whoa, fine. More for me, I guess.”

I run a hand through my hair. And fuck, that just reminds me of Summer, doing the same thing. Last night. When she kissed me. When her body writhed on top of mine in a euphoric rush. And I came way too quickly, because I couldn’t believe everything that was happening and how wet and eager she’d been for me.

Meanwhile, Hunt Hammond blew up her phone with his implausibly large dick.

How could I let myself forget one very important fact—that none of this is real? Because last night may not have been a hallucination, but it sure as fuck wasn’t real. We’d been high. And before that, we’d been drunk.

Do I believe, for one fucking second, she would want me like that, if not for the total lapse in judgment caused by a couple of special brownies and more than a few drinks? When she has assholes like Hunt Hammond hitting her up? Guys with money and monster dicks and probably an ability to stave off an orgasm until she finishes first.

My bedroom door opens, and out walks Summer. The very picture of girlfriendly perfection, right down to the sweatpants she’d left on my bathroom floor and one of my shirts sagging off her shoulder. Mocking me with all I want and all I can’t have, in one all-too enticing vision.

“Morning,” she says when she sees me. Smile soft, voice hoarse and thick with exhaustion.

And last night. With how many times she’d used it on me. Touch me, Gray. Keep going, Gray. Tell me about stars, Gray.

I feel my resolve crumble at that voice. At her sleepy smile and tired eyes and those curls, somehow matted and frizzy and wildly everywhere, all at once.

They remind me of her costume last night. Wonder Woman’s lasso. She’ll rope me in with those curls. Make me reveal every pitiful truth, if I’m not careful.

“Hey,” I mumble, before helping Natalie pull down a bag of flour from a kitchen cabinet. I ignore Summer’s frown as I pass her without stopping for a kiss or a hug or even a teasing remark about her bedhead.

When I do look at her again, she’s found her phone and turned it on. Making no clue one way or the other what she thinks of that erect image. Does it make her sick to her stomach, like it did me?

She sets the phone down, face blank.

Or is it… just another secret to her?

I thought we were past that.

Were we ever? Or did she only tell me some and hold the rest, the bigger secrets, at bay, in order to make sure this fake relationship charade would go ahead, as planned?

“Ugh, no allspice? Or nutmeg? Not even brown sugar?” Natalie slams another cabinet shut. “I thought I kept you guys better stocked than that. Well, this won’t stand—Oh, hey, sorority girl.”

“Good morning, Natalie,” Summer says, sitting on one of the barstools we keep by the counter.

“Heard you had a little fun—”

“Natalie,” I cut her off, pointing at the ingredients on the counter. “Breakfast?”

“Sure, yeah, but first,” she turns to Summer again. “I have a bone to pick with you about a certain horticulture major—”

“Natalie, come on.” Like I want any more reminders of that asshole.

“Okay, fine. Someone is hangry.” She grabs her keys off the counter. “I just need to run to my house real quick for some stuff. Be back in ten—no, fifteen minutes.”

She throws on her sneakers and is out the door in less than one. Taking only a moment to pause, glancing at the drizzly, gray fall morning.

And it feels way too soon for it to just be Summer and me again. Not with me still faintly nauseous and her looking so good, sitting there in my clothes, as gorgeous as any time she’d worn a dress or a skirt or even that costume last night.

“So,” she rests her chin on her hands, that soft, satisfied smile curving her lips. “We should talk, right?”

I nod, once. She pats the barstool next to hers, but I only make it as far standing on the same side of the counter. Any closer, and I think I’d…

Fuck, I don’t know what I’d do. I’ve never been in this position before. Knowing my girlfriend, who is really not my girlfriend at all, has a photo on her phone of some guy, one who is most definitely not me, her not-real boyfriend.

“I typically like to have this conversation before getting into bed,” she says. “But those circumstances weren’t exactly, well, typical, I guess.”

My nose scrunches, not sure where she’s going with this.

Sensing my confusion, Summer looks around. Making sure no one else is up before she tells me, “I’m clean. And I have an IUD. Just… so you know. So you’re aware next time.”

Oh.

That conversation.

Then it hits me.

Next time. She said next time.

Like this will happen again.

There can’t be a next time. No again. Never again.

I’d just gotten the hang of all that kissing. Adding sex to this odd relationship is only going to confuse things more. Make it not make sense any more than it already doesn’t.

Better to just eliminate it from the equation entirely.

“Yeah, um, I’m, I’m good on that front, too,”—fuck, the way her smile lights up the dreary morning—“Look, Summer,” I want to remove my glasses. So I can’t see her. But isn’t it better, like this? So I can be absolutely sure I’m doing the right thing. “Last night was—”

She leans forward, gripping the edge of her seat.

Out of this world.

“Nice,” I finish.

Flatly, she repeats, “Nice.”

I nod, gaining back reason as each thought forms in my mind. “But we were stoned. We made a temporary error in judgment.”

Her back straightens. She blinks, staring me dead in the eyes.

I look away first. “I’m sorry, but we—It shouldn’t have happened. It won’t happen. Again. There will be no next time.”

And I think maybe, by laying it on thick, I’m trying to convince myself, as much as I am her.

Before I ignore all logic.

Before I fall in too deep.

Before she leaves.

Fuck.

This is—Why is this so hard? I shouldn’t—I should be focusing on my work. Remembering why I’m doing this. For the internship. For my future. I need—I need to fucking remember—Fifty. Twenty-five. Three. Fifty. Twenty-five. Three. Fifty. Twenty-five. Three. Fifty…

I tap a fist on the counter. Dare one more look. Confirm this is the right thing to do. The smart thing to do.

She sits there, still blinking. Processing. Deep in thought. Because I, more than anyone else, recognize when someone is lost in their own head.

“Summer?”

But that snaps her out of it. With a small shake of her head, she breezily laughs me off. “Yep, sure, got it. Actually, I just remembered, I have to run by ABB for brunch, so where are—” She searches the counter, finds her keys. “Oh, good. Here.”

She hops off the barstool, unplugging her phone and heading back into my bedroom. Leaving me dizzy with all her rapid motion. I settle back on the counter, and when she emerges, with her costume from last night bundled in her arms, I follow her, “Summer, is everything—”

“Jeez, stop worrying about it, Rowe,” she rolls her eyes as she opens the front door. “We were high. It doesn’t count when we’re high.”

“What does that mean?” I can’t help but ask as she steps onto the front porch.

But Summer’s eyes are on the dark clouds in the sky. The water-soaked road. Her car, just across the street. And just before she runs out into the rain, that red and blue and gold bundle held over her head, she tells me, “Nothing. It doesn’t mean a thing.”