Falling for Rex by Shayne Ford
4
LUNA RAE
“Believe it or not,he said good things about him too... Other than that, of course,” she mutters.
“Tell me,” I demand again.
“He said he’d never seen him court a woman. The way he did with you.”
I scoff.
“Court a woman? What is he talking about? What’s so special about what he did with me? We hanged out and left the beach to have a bite.”
Her grin widens.
“That meant a lot in Carlos’ book. The men in their group don’t date or have steady girlfriends.”
“Huh? I’m not his girlfriend.”
“Yes, I know... But still. He spends time with you. He has patience with you, for fuck’s sake,” she jokes, but I have no patience for this kind of humor.
Annoyed, I leap to my feet, bend at the waist, and put my heels on.
“Would it be better if I slept with him and got dumped?”
“That’s not what I said. I truly hoped that this thing would work out between you two. What Carlos said was encouraging to me. Maybe, you mean something for Rex.”
I finish tying the bows around my ankles and shoot up, straightening my back.
“Who cares what I am for Rex? Listen. Let’s just not fool ourselves. They are what they are. They’re not our boyfriends, and for that reason alone, I wouldn’t read too much into Rex’s behavior. To his admission, he also has a strange brother. I can’t imagine they don’t share some traits. Him being patient with me means nothing to me. I’m not planning to do anything with him. If it happens, fine. If not, I’m good. Either way, I don’t want to expect things from him and get disappointed. I mean, look at us. We’re talking about stuff we have no business talking about.”
I spin around to face the mirror.
Nervously, I arrange my hair, my collar, and my skirt.
“Do you think it's an accident that they texted us and summoned us to the party? No. They don’t want us to think they’re our boyfriends. I’m fine with it,” I say, slapping my hand against my hip in frustration, contradicting my words.
“Who wanted a boyfriend anyway?” I blurt, analyzing my reflection.
The sexy shoes go well with my pink dress. The combination is flirty without revealing too much.
“It works,” I say before twirling to her and starting to take my shoes off.
I slide them off and sit on the bed next to her.
Her hand is up as if she wants to argue with me.
“I know,” I sigh with frustration, swatting her hand down. “I know. But that’s not how it works. I can’t think of things that aren’t real.”
“He wouldn’t be with you if he didn’t like you. That’s real,” she says as I look down.
I shift my eyes to her.
“I could say the same thing about you. Carlos likes you. He sleeps with you, and then he goes home when all you want is to spend the night with him. And then he meets you at a party when all you want is him to pick you up. We want so many things, Frankie, but men... They don’t care,” I say, gesturing, frustrated.
I suck in a long breath while she studies me in mournful silence.
“Last night, everything was great...” I say. “I think we could’ve gone all the way. I don’t know if I could’ve stopped myself. He was considerate enough not to do it, perhaps, thinking that I might regret it later. I was grateful for that. And he was probably right.”
She searches my eyes.
“Why did you have to wait for so long, anyway?”
My chest expands with another breath as I tuck a pillow behind my back and lean against the headboard.
It’s not as if we’ve never discussed this.
We’ve talked about it when we were sixteen, and she was secretly meeting boys. And after our freshman year in college, when there was no one else we’d known who hadn't lost their V-card.
She knows it wasn’t intentional. I didn’t plan to wait for so long. I didn’t take a chastity vow as she’d teased me so often.
I couldn’t find an explanation for it.
“I was afraid I wouldn’t know how to deal with it,” I say sincerely.
Her mouth pulls open, her eyebrows lifting in surprise.
“Seriously?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“What did you think you needed to do?”
I shrug.
“I don’t know. Dealing with stuff... Relationships. No relationships. Breakups. Ghosting. Stalkers. Too much sex. Too little sex. ”
She muses over my words for a moment.
“Oh... You were afraid they were trying to convince you to have sex with them, and...”
“Dump me? Yes.”
“That can happen now too.”
“Yes, it can. But I’m better equipped to handle it.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes. What else?”
“I thought you didn’t find the right man.”
“That too. Although I don’t believe in the right man. He doesn’t exist. The right man is the professor you are dreaming of, and he might come one day, but he might not. In the meantime, you’ll kiss a lot of frogs until you find someone you want to share your life with.”
Smiling, she falls back onto the bed.
“But that’s not what Carlos and Rex are,” she argues, tilting her gaze up to me. “They’re not frogs.”
“I know. But even so, we cannot lose our heads over them.”
Amused, she rolls to her side and props herself on her elbow.
“That’s not what I’m going to do. Tonight, I want to lose my head over him. And depending on how the evening goes, I want to ride that big boy and get my fix. I don’t care if we end up at his place or mine. Or if we spend the entire night together or not. Honestly, I no longer give a damn. I have to indulge in what I have. He’s no different than the ones I had before, and I’ll find more like him if things don’t work out with him in the end.”
“That’s the spirit,” I say, smiling.
“What about you?”
My grin dies out.
“I’ll... um... I’ll do my best to go through this evening, trying not to think about it or have unrealistic expectations. I’m not going to do anything tonight–– I can tell you that much. I’m not doing it in the back of his car,” I joke.
“What’s wrong with the back of a car?”
“Nothing, if it’s the tenth time.”
She laughs.
“The back of the car is perfect. I speak from experience.”
“I have no doubt,” I say just as her phone starts to ring.
She picks it up with a clipped gesture before pulling upright.
“Amber,” she says, taking the call. “Hey...” she mutters before palming the microphone and mouthing to me. “We should get ready.”
