Page 51 of Beg Me

Me: Yeah, probably. But I’m suddenly nauseous, so I think I’m going to go.

Gianna: If you get up, I’m following you.

Astrid elbows me in the side, but I don’t look at her. Mostly because I don’t know what to say.

This just got seriously out of control.

Me: Look, it’s complicated.

Gianna: Let me uncomplicate it for you.

Astrid: She knows how to have sex, Gianna.

I stifle a giggle, grimacing as my brain feels like a knife sliced through my skull.

Me: Can we talk about this later?

Gianna: I don’t know why we can’t talk about it right now.

Me: Look around.

Gianna: Done. I see Brooks. That tells me this conversation is not the first semi-inappropriate text exchange that’s ever happened from these pews.

Audrey: True.

Me: It’s a long story. We don’t have time to go over it all.

Gianna: I HAVE TIME. I don’t understand half of what the pastor says to begin with.

I roll my eyes, swiping out of the text thread when my phone vibrates again. This time, there’s a new text from an unknown number.

My foot taps the floor. Astrid places her hand on my thigh to still it. She gives it a gentle pat once I stop moving, then returns her hand to her lap.

I stare at the text on the screen, wondering how he got my number—by nine in the morning, at that.

Unknown: Can we talk?

Me: Depends on who this is.

I already know who it is, but I’ve made wrong assumptions before. Like last night.

Unknown: It’s Jory.

I drag in a lungful of air and blow it out slowly, saving his name in my phone.

I don’t want to talk to him. I mean, I’ll have to talk to him at some point. I’ll probably even want to talk to him eventually. But not when my head feels like nails are being driven into it, and not when I haven’t had coffee, and definitely not when I haven’t been able to wrap my head around how I feel about last night. About … us. I mean, there isn’t an “us,” per se, but his words keep rolling through my mind.

“You deserve better than this. What kind of man would I be if I had sex with you, in a public bathroom, after you’ve been drinking? I let this go too far tonight, and I’m sorry. It’s so easy to get carried away when I’m around you because, I mean, just look at you. But I would be a total asshole to do this.”

So, yeah, there isn’t an us, exactly, but those words don’t match that conclusion.

Gianna staring holes into my back doesn’t help, either.

“This morning, we’re opening our Bibles to Proverbs, chapter fourteen, verse twenty-nine. It reads, ‘Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly.’ Let’s read that one more time.”

I stare at the pastor. You’ve got to be kidding me.

I swipe back to the group chat.