"So... Who was he?" Li finally asked me once she shut our dorm behind us.

A slight smile quirked up the corners of my lips, which were dried out and slightly stiff from the pool's chlorine. The sag in the rest of my body reflected how thirty freestyle laps had been exactly what the non-vagina parts of my body needed. Even though Kieran used the lane next to mine, he kept a respectful distance and worked on his own swims. As I'd hoisted myself out of the pool, he had asked for my number again but settled for an 'I'll see you around.'

Li spent most of her time swimming on the other side of me, at a much slower pace, and at one point joked I was part mermaid. I definitely caught a few curious glances that she shot at Kieran. She was beyond shy though and at one point even submerged herself underwater when he'd taken a slight break, leaned his elbows back on the pool edge, and glanced in her direction.

My roommate, which still felt weird at this point, and I left once the pool became crowded and turned into a party scene. A few other athletically built guys jumped into Kieran's lane and traded bro hand slaps and grunts, I rolled my eyes and assumed that they were his teammates.

By the time Li and I collected our shit at our table, the pool had turned into a lovefest of eye-patch sized bikini-clad girls that served up a visual buffet of silicon funbags in our abandoned lap lane. With the wrinkled up nose Li displayed on our way out, she definitely agreed with me that our fun at the pool had ended.

The early evening sun set out the windows of our quiet room, where I picked up my phone from where I'd left it on my desk before we'd gone to the pool. With a slight turn of my chin over my shoulder, I replied honestly to Li, "Kieran Meade. Just a guy I knew in high school. He was friends with my best friend's brother, not really my friend."

"That guy?" She pointed one of her index fingers at my phone.

"No, thankfully not that guy." My relaxed mood from the pool dissolved quickly when I scrolled through the messages, which included three missed calls. "Excuse me."

I dialed the first missed call and Dad's tired voice answered on the second ring, "Hey Harps."

My butt sank down on my awfully uncomfortable desk chair and I hugged one knee into my chest. "Dad, you alright?"

At my greeting, Li silently excused herself with a hand wave, grabbed her shower caddy, and stepped into the bathroom.

"Fine, just a long ride back," Dad confessed before my ear crackled with static from his sigh. "To a very quiet house."

"You can call me anytime," I reminded him and examined the worn polish on my right hand's nails.

Mental note, manicure tonight.

A quick glance down between my legs reminded me of another much-needed aesthetic upgrade.

After I find and schedule some ladyscaping.

"I've thought about what you said and..." Dad paused for a moment as his voice strained, then coughed quietly. "I'm going out with Grace."

My spine stiffened at those five words and I sat upright. A tiny thrill rushed through me and spread a huge smile on my lips, which spread and spread until my cheeks felt pinched. "You asked her out already? That's great."

"No." Dad chuckled quietly. "But I called her on the ride home and she asked if I wanted to come to Brody's home game opener at his new school."

"Oh..." The excitement in me fizzled right out. "I guess that's a start, but seriously?"

"It's not as easy when you have kids but I'm..." I felt the warmth that flowed into his voice and almost had a fangirl moment. "Looking forward to it."

Although, at the speed he's going, he'll be dead before he makes a real move.

I mentally high-fived myself when I exercised enough sense that I kept that thought to myself and just replied, "Well, whatever you do, Ellie warned me don't ever eat anything that Grace cooked."

"Note taken," Dad joked, well as much as the stiff-personality guy joked.

We hung up after a few more casual exchanges, once I rolled my eyes at how he reminded me to pack my bag and set an alarm so I made a good first day impression. Instead, I scrolled through my second missed call, which was from Ellie, and texted her while I opened up tonight's dinner option.

me: Sorry, was out with my roommate.

Ellie: It's okay, so was I! Just went to the grocery store though. ❤️

"So domesticated," I grunted at my phone screen. "You're twenty-one, not forty-one Ellie."

As a nutrition major, with her own recipe blog, and who cooked every meal she and Logan ate, Ellie's cooking standards were on their own unattainable level. On the other end of the spectrum, I'd perfect the art of appreciating food that had been prepared by anyone else, which included the chicken vindaloo, basmati rice, and chai crème brȗlée I'd picked up downstairs before Li and I came back to our room.

After I lifted back the container's lid, steam swirled over my face and smelled amazing. With a circular hand wave, I wafted a few steam puffs towards my face with my hand and breathed in deeply.

Ellie: How is your new roommate?

I typed slowly in between my shoveled bites of my dinner. In my haste, my dinner hadn't cooled, and I inhaled sharply through my mouth like that chilled off the chicken that seared into my tongue.

Hot! So good though.

A few huffed breaths later, I chewed into the bursts of curry flavor, enjoyed every bite, and repeated the process.

me: Nice, her name is Li. Reminds me of you.
me: Except she's Chinese, obsessed with pink, and a BioPhys major.

After a few paused moments where I saw Ellie's confused expression clearly in my mind, I snapped a few dorm room pictures and sent one of them to her.

me: [ image attached ]

Ellie: How is that anything like me?
Ellie: OMG, so much pink... 😂✨

"C'mon Ellie," I encouraged her with a smirk. "Pick up the obvious."

Thankfully, she noticed what I'd captured in one corner of the picture before I prompted her.

Ellie: Wait... Is that Jake!?!?! 😲
Ellie: TF?? Are those yours!?

"Please." I groaned as the whooshed running water sound in the walls stopped. The lingered chlorinated smell on my skin definitely pushed me for my shower, so I wrapped up my conversation with Ellie.

me: my exact sentiments
me: unfortunately for me, yes.
me: I mean, yes that's Jake but fuck no they aren't mine.

"Not even remotely funny," I muttered at my screen and slightly shook my head.

me: Between you, Dad, and Li, I'm sensing a conspiracy theory.
me: What did you need?

Ellie: Two things. First, good luck tomorrow!

"Thanks but what's the real reason," I replied quietly like I expected a faster answer. Thankfully, Ellie got right to the point.

Ellie: This is why I called, someone posted this on Logan's feed: link.

My thumb pressed down on the link, which brought up some video posted online. It was captioned '🔥 Hath No Fury...'

Like a morning after of regret, the right side of my nose cringed up and I squeezed my right eye closed when a shaky screen shot of one of Jake's billboards came into view as a backdrop of a sadly familiar, nondescript gas station. Before a second further passed, the curly-haired counter perv with his phone on me flashed out from the back of my brain.

Uh-oh.

A quick glance down showed that the video had two hundred thousand views in three hours and a few thousand comments. The first few comments were all I needed for confirmation.

Bruins4Life: Savage. If she's a UCLA girl, then I've met my soulmate. 🥺😍

socalgrrl90212: RIP 🍅

idkyimhere: Throws better than half the Dodgers' pitching staff.

My entire nose scrunched upwards as my backside stepped into the frame and my shoulders tensed up closer to my ears with each tomato I tossed at Jake's face.

Fuck... Please don't have my face, please don't have my face.

Thankfully, Counter Perv squeaked out an, "Oh shit!" and cut off his video right when my shoulders turned around. Thankfully, since a legal vandalism headache was the last thing Dad needed, my face wasn't shown, the only auditory sounds were my grunts, and my anonymity remained as 'pissed off tomato-throwing blonde.'

The problem was that anyone who knew me for sure recognized me, the back of my blonde-haired head, legs, decent throwing form, enraged heat that flushed the back of my neck warm, and quiet grunts I released with each throw.

Fucker took this without my permission.

I smashed my thumb on the site's 'Report This' button and closed my eyes at what the fuck I responded to Ellie, or worse told Dad. The vibrating phone in my palm slightly cracked open my eyes as I internally braced myself for her reaction.

Ellie: Logan laughed it off like he had no idea and deleted the comment.
Ellie: Only one question: did poster boy reach out to you?

"Of course you'd ask that." I sighed and closed my eyes momentarily.

me: yep. Won't stop, actually.

Ellie: And????

me: ...

Since Li swung the bathroom door open at that particular moment, her black hair slicked against her head and side of her neck around her ears, I closed out my conversation with Ellie and inhaled the rest of my now comfortable-temperature dinner. Unfortunately, as I did, I went through my phone and caught sight of the third missed call. It was from Jake and accompanied with a very long string of text messages that circulated around one central theme: him seeing me.

dickhead: Firecracker, I assume you're out since these are all going unread.

dickhead: If you don't come next Saturday then I'll come find you in person.
dickhead: And we both know I'll do it.

"In the wrong context, this comes off totally stalker-ish," I grumbled and silenced my phone. Right as my finger hovered over the off button, a new message popped up.

Please tell me he didn't see -

I flipped my phone back on and groaned quietly. As if some cruel, twisted fate laughed at me, Jake had said more than enough.

dickhead: 2/3, need to work on your aim: link
dickhead: Nice ass though.

"Fuck me," I muttered and tossed my phone onto my desk. It clattered softly, spun around a few times, and settled near my bathroom shower basket.

Definitely need a shower now.

My thoughts muddied while I stepped into the narrow bathroom, then the equally narrow shower area. I slid my eyes closed and lifted my head back under the weight of my wet hair. A loud, sharp exhale rushed out between my lips when the hard, cold tiles erupted goosebumps on the base of my shoulder blades as I leaned against them.

At least Logan did me a solid.

Or prefers to pretend he doesn't know me.

Cocky-ass football player aside, Ellie's boyfriend Logan was a giant, mushy teddy bear for her. When the four of us visited UC-Davis in high school, the way Logan tackled Jake off Ryder then pinned him down obviously showed that, if his back was against the wall, then he wasn't afraid to unleash his protective side over my pint-sized best friend if he needed to.

Ellie's still the one built for relationships, not me.

Jake knows this, so what the fuck is he playing at here!?

Jake himself, and now a video I prayed wouldn't go viral, proved how fucked up I was in the feelings department. One tender moment after another added to the endless reasons that I'd ended whatever we were in Canada but the emotionally-fucked up images flooded through my mind the longer I stood in the shower.

"Lady's lead," Jake offered my choice on positions, pinned down my naked body with his, slipped his hard, warm cock right between my thighs, and trailed kisses in a line from my shoulder up to right behind my ear. While the tender spot throbbed a pulse beat between my legs, his choice of words elicited a snort from my mouth, "Tell me what you want, it's yours."

"We both know I'm no lady," I reminded him dryly, my eyes fixated up at the ceiling past his hard, rounded shoulder muscle that took up half my view. For added insurance, I gently grazed my teeth over his skin and nipped gently.

Jake pulled back, his eyes dark and hooded like usual, but a soft, near wistful smile played on his full lips. Rough ridges from his knuckles rubbed over the curve of my cheek as he admitted quietly, "No, but you're sure something else."

I'd seen Jake after the three lowest points in his life, when he cheated on his girlfriend, beat the shit out of Ryder and jeopardized his USC scholarship, and after his Dad died. The third and most recent time, we fucked rough four times over two hours before he collapsed next to me and turned into a mushy pile of emotions.

"I miss him..." he confessed quietly while uncharacteristic tears welled up in his eyes and shone over his dark brown irises. "I never finished that damn junker car he was so excited about."

My throat tightened at his abrupt display of emotion, but I silently palmed my hand into the center of his chest. His skin was hot and damp with perspiration from four rounds and rapid heart beats vibrated into my hand. We'd checked off my last ski-trip list item and fucked all my holes senseless, and laid next to each other on a black furry bearskin rug that we'd pretty much violated earlier missionary-style while I'd bound my wrists inside the damn bears' mouth.

At the time, I hadn't minded Jake's openness, even though it scared the shit out of me. No cell in my body was nurturing, supportive, or even empathetic but I had two ears that listened, a hand that stroked over his chest, another hand whose fingers dragged the tears out of his eyes, and lips that brushed silent assurances over his.

The tenderness in Jake's eyes, the raw pain he opened and left exposed as he pressed him inside me the last time hurt more than any of the hard fucks that gave me bruised souvenirs on my hips and chest. My heart crumpled inside itself at the rush of soft, empty promises he whispered into my neck that he wanted 'this' continued, whatever the fuck 'this' was, once we got back to California.

If his words weren't enough, the way he followed them with tenderly placed kisses sobered the bittersweet reality of what we were, and more importantly, what we weren't. The reality snap was when Jake himself spelled it out perfectly later that night at dinner.

A situationship.

"It's a relationship when the situation arises," he explained as a cockyass grin tugged across his mouth.

More like a warm hole he wets his dick with whenever he wants.

While probably a sane, emotionally stable person interpreted Jake's response as an admission of his feelings, his words slapped me in the face like an insult.

My inner rage was fanned with the messages that bombarded Jake's phone from one of his sleazy hookups, which he shoved right into my face at the dinner table, then the asshole essentially called me the top of his pile. The fact Jake had gotten nudes texted to him with suggestive messages of hooking up once he got back to USC combined with his idiotic backhanded compliments and dug his grave deeper.

I'd called him out on that bullshit explanation but his response that he'd given me a 'you're more than my random one-nighters' compliment still angered me today. At the blood rush that surged through my veins just from the memory of that conversation, I gnashed my teeth, clenched my eyes tightly shut, and slammed both my palms into the shower wall. Despite my best efforts, his words echoed out from the part of my brain I thought I'd tucked these horrible memories into.

"It's the truth. Harper means more to me than a random hook up."

Jake's audacity reared its ugly head in how offended he sounded even as he admitted how much he liked sleeping with me like that was, again, some kind of compliment. No temperature reading was high enough for how much my insides broiled at his comment. The soft, almost wistful smile he gave me and the false security of his strong arm around my shoulders were the last spikes of reality that our fucked up situation drove straight into my heart.

My emotional sobriety crashed right then and I crashed hard. The only thing between me and Jake was a lifetime of messy, complicated, drama-filled mistakes, driven by our stupidly high sex drives, full of petty, immature games, and two thoughts led all my subsequent words and actions with Jake...

It was all my fault. My list, I started this disaster of a weekend.

So it's on me to end it.

I knew once we returned to California, Jake slipped right back into his old ways. Relationships weren't in my vocabulary but a long-distance relationship was dead on arrival.

He couldn't have kept his dick in his pants for more than a week. Maybe two with how much we fucked that weekend, but still... leopards don't change their dicks.

After I called Jake my biggest life's regret, I came home that weekend both disgusted and disappointed in my bad judgment for how I'd gotten physically involved with him again at the expense of my and Ellie's relationship again. Our parents had arranged a trip so the four of us reconnected and, within two days, I'd split us apart. The emotional toll Ellie and Jake's Dad's death took on Ellie were obvious. Her nightly breakdowns, muffled behind the walls of the room she shared with Logan, ripped out my heart one gasp and sob at a time.

For most years of our lives together, I'd been the shoulder Ellie cried on. Yes, I knew that she left for college, went out on her own, but the replacement factor once she found Logan, then refound him, still stung. The fact Ellie no longer needed me shut off the one emotional tie I had to the Harrison family and Jake...

Was better off left as collateral.

Ellie and I obviously stayed in touch and, by her recent contact, she still felt some level of concern for me. While I appreciated her gigantic heart's extension into my life, the irony we went on a weekend to reconnect where I realized she'd let me go was painfully obvious.

And more bitter than anything from Jake that I'd swallowed that weekend, that's for sure.

So, with that friendship detachment in mind, even though we texted daily, Ellie was distanced from my life and Jake removed. The random times he and I passed each other were only that, a passing. He rebounded to different USC sluts of the week that stretched into longer 'relationships,' if social media was any indication.

My eyes flipped open and I blinked away the wetness that ran over my eyes. A ragged sniffle drew my attention to how tears now mixed within the droplets of water that trailed over my forehead and cheeks. With one quick hand movement, I jerked the shower faucet off and patted my face with a towel.

I couldn't have imagined what kind of murderous look I wore when I stepped back into my and Li's room, dressed in my black tank top and gray flannel pants nightwear and towel wrapped around my wet hair. Her head lifted up from her reading and she smiled sweetly, which I returned in what felt like a pathetic attempt and averted my gaze at the question marks that hung in her eyes.

By the time Jake offered to delete every nude he'd been sent, I'd heard enough. I felt nothing when I looked at intimate pictures of girls with Jake that were plastered online like vaginal merit badges, other than disgust at the personal oversharing aspect. My priorities shifted inward, I needed to figure out my own shit first and relationships weren't anywhere on that priority list.

I'm moving down here for my future, not relive the past with Jake.

There's no reason for us to be in contact anymore.

And, with those thoughts at the forefront of my thoughts, only one logical next step existed that closed that chapter of my life. My fingers trembled slightly when I scrolled down to Jake's contact in my phone and looked at the thousands of messages, most of which were insults and jokes. I sighed, moved all of them into a locker folder, then pressed my thumb down hard on his contact name.

[ blocked caller ]