“What? What about me?” The gorgeous brunette squealed.
“You’ll be fine,” I assured her.
“You can’t leave me like this! You DON’T leave me like this! I wanna fuck! Come ON, Ben. Don’t you want to get back at Greg and Dawn for what they’re doing to us?”
“We’re not gonna happen, Felicia. Not tonight. Maybe never. I don’t know. But I’ve gotta talk to Dawn.”
“WHY? She’s a slut you caught making out with MY fucking ex-boyfriend! The fuck is wrong with you guys at camp? First, Greg had the nerve to dump ME last year. Now this? THIS does NOT happen to ME!!!” Felicia shrieked.
I looked around, spotting my exit. “Well… it just did.” I pulled my sweatshirt over my head and headed out the door. “Say ‘hi’ to your parents for me, Felicia.”
And then I was gone.
Dawn was waiting for me as I approached my cabin. She stood up from the steps where she’d been sitting, hugging herself tightly in her own sweatshirt. “Ben! Where’d you go? I’ve been looking for you! Brooke said you took off angry.”
I was glad to see her, happy that I wasn’t catching her naked and writhing beneath Greg’s sweaty body. But I still wasn’t thrilled with her at that moment. I stomped up and asked coldly. “What the hell were you doing with Greg Kinomoto?”
She paled in the porch light and a worried expression came on her face. “Nothing.” Her tone was that of a 6-year-old caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
“Dawn, don’t fucking lie to me. I SAW you,” I growled.
“Nothing! Really. I mean… it wasn’t MUCH.”
“But it was still SOMETHING. Not nothing,” I accused, pointing a finger at her. “I SAW you kissing him!”
“No!” A look of horror crossed Dawn’s face. “I didn’t kiss him!”
“Don’t fucking LIE to me, Dawn. I SAW you.”
“NO,” Dawn said coldly. “I didn’t kiss him. He kissed me and I slapped him for it.”
“Huh?” My face scrunched up in half-surprise and half-disbelief. “What the hell were you doing hiding in the bushes with him?”
“I was cold. He offered me his jacket.”
“Then why didn’t he just go and get it for you? Why’d you have to go back there for it?”
“Well, uh, uh,” Dawn stammered. “I wasn’t thinking. He just said, ‘Come on’ and I went with him to get it. And then he wrapped it around me and then he was putting it on me…”
“And then you kissed him!”
“No, Ben!” Dawn protested. “I told you. He kissed ME!”
“And how long was it before you slapped him?” Both my eyebrows popped up. “Hmm?”
“Uh… well… I…” Dawn stammered again.
“One minute? Two? Five?” I growled, not letting her off.
At that point, my girlfriend burst into tears. “I’m SORRY, Ben. I didn’t mean it. All I had racing through my head was that Dayna was going to be sooo jealous when I told her Greg kissed me. He’s cute. He gets my heart racing. But I don’t have feelings for him at all. And I knew it wasn’t right. So I broke it off and slapped him.”
“Then what?” I challenged.
“I handed him his jacket and ran away,” Dawn pleaded. “I came to find you!”
I sighed, upset. But if we were talking no more than a kiss that she enjoyed for a little while, I could live with it. I knew Greg was a hunk and the Evans girls all thought he was dreamy. But in the end, she’d slapped him and left. Besides, I knew I’d been guilty of much worse. Frowning, my eyes narrowed as I coolly evaluated my girlfriend. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. I swear, Ben. I’ll never let him near me again,” Dawn promised and stepped towards me, clearly looking for forgiveness and eager to hug me.
“Okay,” I sighed. “Okay. It’s okay.”
“Really?” Dawn’s heart seemed to mend in a half-second. A hopeful, happy expression crossed her face, and when I opened my arms, she eagerly leaped at me.
Gawd damn it felt good to have Dawn in my arms. I LOVED her. I had that deep emotional connection with her, and feeling the physical touch of her body against me amplified all those pleasant emotions
But just when I was starting to relax and breathe easier, Dawn tensed. Her hands gripped a little tighter and after another slow second, she pulled her head back and stared accusingly into my eyes.
One sniff. Then two. I watched the light wrinkle of Dawn’s petite nose before she leaned forward again and fixed her brilliant blue gaze right on me. And in a cutting voice that would have sliced through glaciers, Dawn spat, “Who the FUCK were YOU with, Ben?”
I gulped.
Her eyebrows went up and it was clear I wasn’t getting out of this without coughing up a name. I blanched and then managed to spit out, “Felicia.”
She didn’t hit me. She didn’t even grip me any harder. Dawn just let her head tilt to the side in a look of utter disappointment and it seemed like all the air went out of her. She released me almost immediately and turned away, stomping off three steps before turning back to me.
Shaking her head in disgust, my girlfriend looked at the floor and muttered, “You always said you’d screw things up… ‘Don’t get close, Dawn. I’m a stupid, stupid boy and I’ll screw things up.’” Then she picked her head up and gave me that glaring blue gaze. “Did you fuck her?”
Thank God I hadn’t. “No, I didn’t,” I said honestly.
“Then why is her smell all over you?” Dawn’s eyes were still accusatory.
I sighed. “I was angry Dawn. You were kissing Greg.”
“And that makes it right?”
“What?” I barked defensively. “YOU can have a momentary lapse and I can’t?”
“I’m not the one with the shitty track record here,” Dawn reminded me.
“What happened to ‘I won’t judge and what’s past is past’?” I shot back. “I made a mistake and if it makes you feel any better, yeah, Felicia wanted to fuck!”
“How is THAT supposed to make me feel better?” Dawn retorted shrilly.
“Because I didn’t!” I reached forward and grabbed Dawn’s arms. “Don’t you get it? I LOVE you, Dawn Evans. I’ve loved you since our moms washed us side-by-side in the sink as infants. I’ve loved you since I scraped my knee and you kissed it to make it all better when we were five. And I’ve loved you every second we’ve been together since then. Don’t you understand? I fuck up every relationship I’m ever a part of. A hot chick throws herself at me and my dick takes over my thinking for me.”
I sighed. “But not you. I couldn’t do it to you. I walked away from Felicia. I SAW you making out with Greg Kinomoto. I had every reason to just say the hell with it and get my revenge fuck from Felicia. But I didn’t. I don’t know how better to prove my love to you, Dawn. I CAN’T lose you.”
Dawn steamed but ground her teeth together. “So you didn’t fuck her?”
“No.”
“Did she go down on you?”
I pulled my head back. “No.”
“You go down on her?”
“No!” I insisted, shaking my head.
“You kiss her?”
I bit my lip, wincing and nodding.
“You do some petting?”
I groaned and grudgingly admitted. “Yeah, did YOU?”
Dawn paled, looking away. I wondered just how far Greg had gotten before she stopped him. I steamed inside, but I kept my temper in check.
“Look,” I began. “We both made mistakes. But I learned something from this Dawn. I love you. I’m jealous of you. And I don’t want to do anything to screw this up. I’m committed to making this work. It’s a DANGEROUS thing. It could ruin our friendship if it doesn’t work out, and given the way our families are connected, that could be really, really awkward down the line.”