A/N: Mature(ish) content. Kind of. Sort of. Maybe? 

"Fuck no." I shook my head at the stream of asinine, stupid bullshit that flooded out of Ethan's smug mouth. "No. Find another vagina, this one's closed and unavailable for service."

While a small part of me yearned for relief from the 'give Jake a chance' pressure two particular people in my life had inflicted on me lately, along with the opportunity that I saved my own face and demonstrated how much I hated Jake, I wasn't that much of a vindictive bitch. Plus, the beyond obvious fact was my sappy, sweet-hearted best friend would've never forgiven me if I'd toyed with her brother's emotions, made him fall in love with me, then dumped his ass so that his fucked up head affected his football game.

How do these mouth-breathers come up with this stupid shit?

Full disclosure, I'd never planned that I went along with any plan of some jaded rival of Jake's, especially one who I'd just met and spent almost all of the past hour with his eyes fixed on my breasts. I'd only faked my interest in Ethan's plan so that he told me what he had in mind, which was beyond stupid as soon as the explanation rolled out of his drunkass mouth.

Clearly not impressed with my response, Ethan's brown eyes rolled. "I didn't tell you to sleep with him. Just fuck him up a little."

Same difference.

Thankfully, for my dignity, the words 'I have a lot of feelings for Jake' got strangled in my throat and died on my tongue. Instead, I gnashed my teeth until they squeezed out a tiny grinding sound against each other, grabbed Li's small hand in mind, and tugged her towards their house exit.

Over the throbbed party music that now felt more like a pounding headache, I wasn't sure if anyone heard my muttered, "We're done here," but Li didn't put up much of a protest and trailed behind me.

A much-welcomed cool breeze hit my flaming warm cheeks and my eyes closed for a breath, even if the air was slightly scented with nearby 'not cigarette' smoke from the nearby human-sized lawn darts. A giant lump of uncertainty sank in my stomach as I exhaled sharply, dropped Li's hand, and looked at her.

"Li -" I started when the front door burst open and Kieran's large frame stumbled a couple steps towards where we stood on the sidewalk. As he approached, I warned him, "Look, I said -"

"I uhh..." Kieran raked one of his hands through his short, dirty blonde waves and dropped his eyes onto Li. "Wanted to ask for your number. To uhh... maybe study sometime? Together?"

Li's mouth definitely formed the word 'Oh' but only a barely audible squeak left her. Since Kieran looked more uncomfortable the longer she stared at him with her jaw practically dropped onto the sidewalk, the more I sensed he backtracked and nudged my arm into her shoulder.

"I - oh, yes... studying." She pulled out her phone, which trembled in her hands, and passed it to Kieran. He punched in what I assumed was his number, then returned the phone with a huge shit-eating grin on his face.

"Don't kiss him if he smells like the bottom of a beer bottle," I warned her and stepped away for a slight amount of privacy.

"N-no," she stammered and shook her head so violently her hair swished against her ears. One of her hands clamped tightly onto my forearm with a vice grip that pinched into the skin. "Goodnight, Kieran."

Kieran's broad chest heaved as he dragged in a slow breath, then he lifted one hand and blurted out, "Yǒu shí dǎ diàn huà gěi wǒ!"

"Explain that one to me later," I muttered to Li while she giggled quietly and lifted a pale arm in a similar goodbye wave.

"He said call him sometime..." she spoke in a low, strained voice and snuck a few side glances at me while we walked back to Reiber Hall. "But we should... talk tonight."

"Sure, but first I have to know something." I leaned backwards, gave a visual scan down Li's backside, and reached around to the ping pong padded she'd tucked into her shorts. The top part stuck out on her lower back, which I patted with my palm a few times. "Explain this."

"Oh." She smiled widely but kept her gaze ahead. Her pale cheeks, highlighted even paler under the three-quarter moon above, turned slightly pink. "My parents have a table. They... didn't let me have a lot of social time so I played a lot."

Since I was very second-hand familiar with overbearing parents as Ellie's best friend, the weight of Li's words hit me hard. With a slight cough that cleared my dry throat, I lightened the mood with, "Well if I ever catch you using this on Kieran..." I gave her paddle one more smack for emphasis. "No judgment."

"You're terrible." A few strands of her black hair flipped up as her short-legged steps became noticeably quicker. "But I do want to talk to you about Jake when we get back."

I wholeheartedly agreed that the most likely drunken celebrations on the lawns of houses we passed by weren't the right backdrop for an open confessional of how I knew my roommate's poster subject. My fingertips rubbed over my forehead a few times as our walk back to our dorm gained the vibe of a morning after walk of shame.

Only this time I'm walking into a mess, not away from it.

"Soo..." I smirked at Li as she closed, then locked our dorm room behind her with a soft click. "You and Kieran?"

"He seems nice." Her lips curled upwards but her eyes remained pensive, like her brain worked overtime. When she sensed I waited for clarification, she offered, "For a white boy."

"I - oh?" That wasn't anywhere near what I'd expected her to say but I had a hunch of why she'd given me that excuse. The one conversation I overheard when Li spoke on the phone with her parents Wednesday after dinner was filled with a lot of assurances on her side, so I asked, "Let me guess... Your parents?"

She nodded slowly, pushed past me, and turned on her desk lamp. She threw me an unreadable expression but annoyance definitely flickered in her eyes when she answered, "I have to marry a nice Asian boy who will be an at least or more successful doctor than me."

"Wow, no pressure," I mumbled. "Kieran could end up being a doctor. He's a nice guy, if you wanted to -"

"Did you two date?" she blurted out quickly, flopped down onto her desk chair, and propped her chin onto her elbow. "Or... do anything else?"

"Nope." My head shook so fast that I nearly knocked my sunglasses off. "Contrary to how it looks, I haven't slept with Santa Cruz High School's entire football team. I've actually only been involved with one player..."

I paused and dragged my eyes over Li's Jake posters, who smirked back at me like usual. "And that one was more than enough."

"Jake." Li's small frame looked completely engulfed by her lofted bed as sat down at her desk. Her thin fingers took the makeup wipe I handed her and she rubbed it over her eyes. "Can you... tell me about it?"

"Jake and I were really complicated," I started with an unusual amount of hesitation, both in my voice and a tightness in my chest. "He's my best friend's brother, we've known each other since middle school and we're just... a bad idea."

"Was that him?" She curled her fingers around the smudged wipe and pointed her index finger at my phone.

My chin tucked downward, I removed my sunglasses, and mumbled, "Yes."

A soft sigh hit my ears and the deafening silence that followed weighed heavily on the gap between us. My nails absently scratched over my forearm and I kept my eyes fixed on the floor space between Li's feet until she sighed again.

"It's your business..." she started in a quiet but firm voice. "But if my posters bother you -"

"No," I started quickly, then corrected myself, "I mean, he bothers me with his very smugass existence but I don't think anything from you could bother me. I... like you Li."

Not the direction I thought this conversation would go, but look at me expressing nice feelings.

"I like you too, Harper," she replied slowly, then sucked her cheeks inward like she literally chewed on her thoughts. "We don't have to be best friends, just roommates. And if you want nothing to do with Jake... or he reminds me of bad memories, then I'll take down the posters."

"Li, no that's not it," I assured her with a smile that trembled once on my lips. "It's not you, trust me. Jake and I have so much bad history, I'll take staring at twenty posters if it means I don't actually see him again."

"Again?" Her eyebrows drew together. "Monday when you were pissed off at lunch... Ethan said Jake was here."

"Yeah," I mumbled and exhaled sharply through pursed lips. "He was here to see me. Why I really don't know, seems like he has a girlfriend."

"So..." She reached up, removed her hair clips, and shook her hair on both sides of her ears with her fingers. "Shouldn't you see what he wants?"

A snort passed through my lips before my brain registered Li's suggestion. My head tipped sideways until a slight strain pulled down the left side of my neck but I kept my eyes on her. "Why? If you want free USC game tickets, then -"

"No. I mean yes, I'd love to go to a USC game." Her small shoulders lifted slowly. "But if you don't like him, I just thought maybe you need some closure."

Fuck, she is Asian Ellie, at least in the perception department.

I turned away from Li as I sat down at my desk and removed my own makeup. A silence fell between us that wasn't uncomfortable anymore, just two people who went through their nighttime prep. A huge smile crept over my bare lips when Li put her paddle in the closet.

Ten minutes later, I still thought over Li's words about closure when I brushed my teeth and applied my overnight mask, climbed into bed, and stared aimlessly at the ridiculously close ceiling above me. A sigh passed over my lips, I tucked one bent arm behind my head, and splayed my other hand flat on my stomach.

Jake had followed up whatever the fuck exchange we hadn't had in person Monday with a few random text messages. My brain hadn't wrapped itself around the cheesy, almost friendship-like words he'd left me recently. Thankfully, I knew he shut off his phone two days before every game so that he blocked outside distractions but the phone silence was anything but beneficial on my end because the most recent messages that lingered at the top of the conversation had thrown me into a complete mindfuck.

What the fuck is he playing at? Dickhead is changing his mood more times than me on my not-periods, going from guaranteeing that he'll fuck me to... dating? Friends?

The clearest evidence still sat in my inbox, which I'd stared at from all possible angles more times than I comfortably admitted.

HoneyBadger: Just checking that you haven't blocked me.

At first glance, Jake's choice of a new contact name made absolutely no sense but trusty Urban Dictionary informed me that honey badger meant 'fearless and ruthless' instead of some of the more colorful definitions I actually preferred. Either way, I changed it right back to my preferred contact name.

dickhead: Joking aside, I need to talk to you.
dickhead: full honesty, I had a girlfriend but she means nothing. I broke up with her after I saw you.

I'd read Jake's words right away but nearly dropped my phone at how... weird they were. Seeing them again flushed mixed feelings through me, still led by confusion. While him breaking up with Bambi was probably the right call, I hadn't asked him to do that so I wasn't sure why any part of him thought I was impressed by that action.

dickhead: She's not you.

dickhead: No one is.

My initial reaction was a sarcastic, "No shit," because Jake wasn't wrong. Given my lack of a filter, how much enjoyment I got out of dishing out insults, stubborn-as-fuck opinions, and polarizing personality, I was either loved or absolutely hated.

At the risk of stating the obvious, most people aren't also complete shit with their feelings either.

But the circle of people whose opinions I actually cared about was so small that I counted their names on one hand and, right now, Jake wasn't on that list.

So my second reaction, which poked deeper at the possible meaning behind his words, was that Jake had either lost his damn mind, gotten tackled too many times in practice, or one of his teammates stole his phone and sent those messages instead.

For his sake, it'd better be the last one.

"He's kidding," I finally muttered to myself.

Yeah, that's it. Just a joke.

The idea that Jake most likely joked or poked fun at me quelled some of my confusion but I still wouldn't have gone along with Ethan's retribution plans even if he'd paid me. While I preferred Jake and I ignored each other's existence and went along our own life paths at this point, for reasons I wasn't comfortable unpacking, I actually didn't find the idea that Jake teased about feelings funny.

Not at all.

"Not..." I groaned out through my tightly clenched teeth. "Funny."

Unfortunately, the relief from my car-quickie with Officer Davis, whose business card I'd unfortunately misplaced, hadn't lasted as long as I thought it would have. Halfway through week two and more than a week after I'd seen Jake in person with only casual, suggestive text messages sent mostly from his side, I'd fingered myself more times to him than I counted.

Okay fine. Four.

Since I needed my fingers for writing notes and homework assignments the whole semester, I gave them a break during a rare evening alone in our dorm room, locked the door as soon as Li left, scurried up my lofted bed like a foraging animal, and pawed through my dildo stash until I came across tonight's two-sided selection for relief, DPP, i.e., the Peacemaker.

Mid-week, I took advantage of a rare stretch of alone time within our room when Li met with one of her classes' not-Kieran study group. Sprawled out in a hot, sweaty mess on my bed, naked from the waist down, a small tube of lube in my left and my trusty, dual-colored, double penetration dildo clenched tightly in my right were my best options for getting myself through Hump Day.

While I wasn't the biggest fan of anal play in terms of full penetration into an area that felt more like an exit than entrance, occasionally playing with the ridges of sensitive nerves puckered around my back hole added an extra level of pleasure when I fucked myself with silicon, glass, or metal parts.

A small tube of lube and my two-sided dildo later, I slicked up and dipped the smaller, royal blue head in the shallowest possible entrance into my anus, then positioned the larger, flesh-colored head at my vaginal side. Since that area was more than lubed up from my embarrassingly quick built up of arousal, I groaned loudly and palmed my other hand flat onto the stupidly close ceiling as the silicon head easily slipped inside me.

With no ounce of shame, one hand braced flat on the ceiling and the other cupped between my legs, I thrust almost all seven peacemaking inches straight inside me. My lips parted and I moaned loudly at the wonderful stretchy tug and pull sensations that erupted as I impaled myself.

With a roll of my thumb over the on switch, vibrations shot all over my lady bits, front to back, and energized my skin like an electric current buzzed through them. The back attachment was positioned perfectly at the edge and the muscles in my anus clenched delightfully in response. I squeezed my eyes closed, parted my folds, and moved the front attachment so the vibrating hilt buzzed right into the eight thousand nerve endings clustered at my clit.

"Ahh... fuck," I cursed and slammed my palm against the ceiling.

Internally, relief crashed into angst as I buzzed out the knot of building frustration in my core area, controlled my own pleasure at my own hands, right in the comforts and privacy of my own -

"H-Harper?"

A sound halfway between a shriek and scream erupted on the side of my bed. In a slow-motion movement, I turned my head and met Li's sharp eyes stretched as round as they probably got. Her hand clamped over her mouth right as mine grabbed my blanket and pulled it over my... situation.

In an unusual situation, I actually felt slightly embarrassed, entirely for Li's sake, not mine. My vagina whimpered and anus cramped slightly since I'd left DPP on as I stated the obvious, "You're back."

"I..." her voice croaked out two octaves higher. "I... forgot... I-I don't know what I forgot."

"Sorry, I didn't hear you come in," I mumbled, propped myself up onto my elbows, and pointed down to the cringe-worth buzzing sounds between my legs. "Otherwise, obviously I wouldn't have -"

"It's my fault, I heard you groaning through the door as I came - oh shit, it's not like what I thought. Oh... shit." Li's pale cheeks flushed an adorable shade of her favorite color and she stepped backwards until her butt hit the door knob.

"How about we not mention this again and I'll make sure you don't see it happen again?" I offered with a bitten back smile as her hands fumbled around her. Against the vibrations that edged me closer, my thighs clenched together and a few inadvertent trickles of arousal slicked over the dildo. "Or hear."

"Yes." She flashed me, of all hand gestures, two thumbs up, then fled out the door and slammed it shut.

She forgot whatever she -

With the loudest knock on the door, I burst into loud laughs at Li's muffled voice from the hallway outside, "I forgot my lecture notes."

"It's okay, I'm decent," I called back at her as my shoulders shook with a stifled laugh.

Well, as decent as I get considering there's still a -

"Sorry." In the straightest line path marched from the door to her desk, Li never looked at me once. Her hands flew over her desk materials, she grabbed three notebooks, and slammed the door behind her.

The mood obviously killed, my head flopped back down onto my pillow and I groaned quietly. My head rotated as I checked for any more Li entrances and caught seven Jake smirks aimed in my direction. A few huffed breaths later, my hands got back to work.

Challenge accepted, asshole.