Curves For the Boys: The Complete Romance Series: 4-Book Box Set Page 3

  I hate that he can read me so well. I don’t even answer. I walk over to the trash can and throw the towel away while he does something with the TV.

  “Oh, shit…” I hear him mutter as he presses some button.

  “What?” I ask, turning around.

  “Huh? Oh, nothing. Just…this stupid thing.” He waves a dismissive hand and I shrug and head over to the couch to find my dress. As I slide it on, Colton gives me a look I can’t quite read.

  “What?” I ask.

  “You…you don’t want to stay over?”

  Is this a role reversal? Isn’t it the girl who always wants to cuddle and spend the night and the guy who wants her to get lost so he can get back to playing video games or whatever?

  “I…don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I reply. Colton frowns. It’s funny; when I first decided to do this, I was sure I’d be able to keep my emotions out of it. One quickie to get rid of the ol’ virginity, and then back to the dorm to hang out with Fran. And I don’t know if it’s just post-sex endorphins flowing through me, or the way Blue looked at me with those amazing eyes and asked me how I felt when we were done, but I am falling hard right now, and that’s a big problem.

  “I should go get Plan B anyway,” I tell him as I fix my dress. “Don’t want any unwanted babies!”

  “Who said they’re unwanted?” Colton responds.

  “What?” I reply, stunned. “You—you’re saying you want to get me pregnant?”

  It seems like such a ridiculous question to ask that I can’t even believe I’m saying it, but what other possibility is there? I expect him to crack a smile, laugh, do something to show me that he’s joking, but he does the complete opposite; Colton steps forward and wraps his arms around my waist like we’re long-term boyfriend and girlfriend going to the dance.

  “Red,” he says. “Hey, is that your real name?”

  “No.” I shake my head.

  “You gonna tell me your real name?”

  “We’ll see,” I reply. “What were you about to say?”

  Colton smiles and brushes my hair aside. God, his eyes are insane, and I can smell his Adonis scent as he holds me.

  “I’m tired of the party life, Red,” he says. His voice is sincere. This isn’t a joke. “I’ll be graduating soon and I’ve been looking for a girl to settle down with.”

  I wait, expecting him to go on, but he just stares at me, waiting for my reaction. And there it is again—that feeling deep down that I want to attribute to post-sex hormones, but can’t. There’s something else going on inside me that I was hoping to ignore, but Colton isn’t making it easy on me.

  “What do you say, Red?” he asks. “You wanna be the girl that made an honest man out of me?”

  6

  Red

  As I walk back across campus to my dorm, I feel like a whole new girl.

  No, a whole new woman, because that’s what I am now. Blue made a woman out of me last night when he claimed my innocence, and then again and again and again, three more times before I finally had to tear myself away from him so I could get to class.

  As I walk, the soreness between my legs makes me smile, reminding me of just how much better my little plan had gone; I could never have expected for the random guy I picked—just basically on his looks and superficial personality traits—would end up being a fucking dreamboat.

  I’m doing my best not to let myself catch too many feelings for Blue, but it’s practically impossible. What else can I do? Not only is he the most gorgeous man I’ve ever met, but he’s also a gentleman who actually cared about my needs. He didn’t want to get it in and get me out; he wanted me to stay. And I did. And if he didn’t have practice and I didn’t have class, I’d still be there.

  As I near the science building, I see a guy in a Fortnite shirt smiling at me from the steps. He’s glancing down at his phone and then back up to me. I just ignore him, but that’s when he shows his phone to his friend, whose mouth drops wide open like he’s just seen Michael Jackson come back from the dead.

  Okay, what the hell?

  “What?” I ask, stopping dead in my tracks. I have an Instagram, but there’s nothing incriminating on it; it’s just mostly pictures of my art and a few silly cat memes.

  “Oh, nothing,” the Fortnite guy laughs.

  “No, seriously. What!?”

  “Next time you see Colton,” his friend smirks, “tell him thanks for leaving the camera on!”

  Before I can react, the two scurry up the steps and vanish into the building. What the fuck was that? Camera? I don’t know what’s going on, but my heart is racing and I’m starting to sweat as I walk quickly across campus, anxious to get home.

  I pass a couple of guys playing volleyball; one of them is on his phone and does a doubletake when he sees me. My heart skips a beat as he shows his phone to his friend and they all start gawking at me.

  “Seriously, what the fuck!?” I snap. “What are you guys doing?”

  None of them have the balls to respond. They just keep looking down at the phone and back up at me. I’ve had enough; I march right over to the guy holding the phone and snatch it out of his hands.

  “Hey, hang on!” he protests, but it’s too late. I turn the screen and what I see makes my whole world shatter.

  There I am, in crystal clear high-definition, lying naked on my back on Colton’s couch as he takes my virginity. Brain hiccup. I can’t even process what’s happening. The guy whose phone I stole stays silent, but his stupid friends start cackling like a bunch of middle-schoolers.

  “What…what is this?” I mutter, more to myself than anyone else, but the guy in front of me answers.

  “Colton was streaming last night,” he says.

  “Streaming? What is that?” My chest is tight. My hands are tingling like they’re on fire.

  “Like…webcamming while he games?”

  “Okay…”

  “And…I guess he forgot to turn his camera off when you guys…” His voice trails off and when I look up at him, I see a look of pity in his eyes.

  “Yeah!” one of his friends bellows. “He ‘forgot’ to turn the camera off!”

  My legs go weak as I watch Colton coming inside me. I drop the phone to the grass as panic floods through me, and then I’m running across campus as fast as I can and I don’t stop until I’m barging into my room. Fran just about jumps out of her skin as I slam the door behind me and lock it.

  “Whoa, you okay!?” she asks. I shake my head as the tears start to fall. This is worse than betrayal; in fact, they need to invent another word for what this is. This is beyond my worst nightmares. Colton taking my virginity was broadcast live on the internet, and now apparently all of campus has seen it—or if they haven’t yet, they will.

  “Did Colton…do something to you?” Fran asks. I know what she means, and I don’t even know why I still have the urge to defend him, but I do, so I quickly shake my head.

  “No…not like that,” I tell her.

  “But you guys had sex?”

  Wiping my tears, I nod. “Yes…”

  “And it was bad?”

  “No,” I sob. “It was…it was amazing…”

  “Well then what the fuck is going on, Red?” Fran asks impatiently. I know she’s worried about me, but her tone is just making things worse and I’m feeling attacked.

  “He—” I stop. It’s like I can’t even put it into words; it’s just too unbelievable. I hang my head, and as I do, Fran’s phone dings, alerting her to a text message. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her check it, then instantly look up at me. I already know what it says. Now she knows.

  “Red…” she says, her voice a whisper. “I…”

  “Yeah,” I nod as my heart breaks. “Yeah…”

  7

  Blue

  My chest is burning as I come off the field from practice. Morning practices always kill me, and after all the cardio I got in last night with Red, I’m spent and ready to hit the showers. I stop and grab
some water from the fountain and catch Coach giving me an odd look from down the hall. I wave to him, but he just sort of looks at me.

  I’m last into the locker room and start to strip down out of my gear when Sam, our kicker, comes over to me and gives me a huge slap on the back.

  “Congraulations, you son of a bitch!” he laughs. “You are a fucking legend!”

  “What?”

  Laughing, he heads to the showers. A few other guys clap and I turn around to see everyone staring and smiling at me. Confused, I glance over to Reggie, who’s looking at something on his phone, and see him look up at me like he just read online that I had just been cast in the next Tom Cruise movie or something.

  “What?” I ask to everyone. The guys just keep laughing and clapping. “What!?”

  I’m getting angry. There’s obviously some kind of inside joke going on that I’m not part of.

  “Well, it looks like you won the bet,” Johnson says. “And boy did you do it in style.”

  I know the bet he’s talking about, and suddenly feel tight in the chest; the guys on the team had a bet that none of us would be able to get with any of the “stuck-up art girls,” specifically Red. But I didn’t tell any of them about last night; I was going to wait until after practice. So how could they know?

  Wait…no. My heart seizes in my chest when the realization hits me. After Red and I finished up on the couch last night, I did notice that I hadn’t completely shut off the X-Box, but it looked like I’d turned off the stream…

  …is it possible that I left it running…through the whole thing?

  “Might get you kicked off the team.” Adam shrugs. “Or out of school—”

  “Or the NFL might not let you play anymore,” Chris adds.

  “Oh, fuck,” I mutter.

  “But I’d say it’s worth it,” Chuckie laughs, wrapping a thick arm around my neck and pulling me in for a hug. “Man, I’d kill to be you for just one day.”

  “What are you looking on your phone, Reggie?” I ask.

  “Look at him,” Reggie chuckles. “Playing innocent. You don’t have to worry about us, man; we’ll back you up.”

  “Back me up?” I say as I walk over to him and grab his phone.

  He’s still smiling when I turn it around and see a fucking video of me and Red going at it on the couch.

  “Oh, shit. She’s gonna kill me.”

  “Hey, Blue!” I hear Coach bark from behind me and turn around to see him glaring at me from the door. He beckons at me with a hand. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I mutter as I toss Reggie his phone back. Coach’s eyes look like they could bore a hole through me if he tried. He chews me the fuck out, explaining to me how poorly this reflects not only on me, but on the school as well. As I expected, he tells me that the NFL isn’t going to like this and that he’s going to need to do some serious PR work to keep my image from being destroyed. Then he tells me I should get a lawyer to try and scrub the footage from the internet.

  “It’s already on fucking PornHub!” is the last thing he says before turning his back on me. I’ve been chewed out before; I can take it. It’s definitely a scandal, but I don’t think they’ll bar me from the league because of it. What I’m really worried about right now is Red. She must be losing her shit.

  I skip my shower and throw my clothes on. Grabbing my phone, I realize I don’t even have her number or know what dorm she lives in. I’ll have to figure it out. The boys are still clapping and cheering as I race out of the locker room and head across campus. It’s like a scene out of a movie; every person on their phone makes me nervous. Are they watching my fucking sex tape?

  I know it’s stupid, but I look around for Red—as if she’d be walking around campus after this—but I don’t see her anywhere. Ignoring the glances I’m getting, I sprint over to the art building and head inside. Someone in here must know her and be able to point me to her dorm.

  There’s no one at the desk, so I pick a hallway and run down it, glancing in each studio room as I pass. There’s a girl throwing paint against a canvas on my right, and I yank the door open and practically scream at her.

  “Red! Do you know that girl Red?”

  The way she looks at me lets me know she hasn’t seen the footage from last night. Thank God.

  “What do you want with her?” she asks. Clearly she’s not a fan of athletes.

  “I just need to talk to her,” I explain. “Do you know which dorm she lives in?”

  “Ew, creep,” she scowls. “Why would I tell you that?”

  I sigh. “Fine.”

  I turn to leave, but as I do, she calls after me. “She’s on the second floor in the gallery.”

  “Right now?” I ask.

  “What’d I say?” she replies.

  “Thank you!”

  I take the steps two at a time, pick the wrong hallway first, then find the one that leads to the gallery, where I find Red sitting at a high table working on a painting.

  “Red…”

  She turns and I can already see that she’s been crying. Fuck. She sees me, and her eyes narrow. She stands, and keeping her brush in her hand, walks slowly towards me. For a second, I wonder if she’s going to try to stab me with the wooden end.

  “Please, let me explain,” I say as she advances on me, but I can tell from the look in her face that she has no desire to listen.

  “Explain?” she replies, almost laughing. “Explain how you’re a piece of shit, lying asshole who broadcasted himself taking my virginity to the whole world?”

  “I didn’t mean to!”

  “Explain how you had a bet between your friends on who could fuck me first?”

  “It wasn’t like that!” I protest. “It wasn’t about you—it was a joke!”

  “I thought you were a good guy, Colton!” she shouts.

  “I am a good guy—”

  “I thought you actually gave a shit!”

  “I do!”

  She’s backing me out the door. I want to throw my arms around her and stop her, show her how much I care. But right now, that would just make things worse.

  “Bullshit!” she shouts. I take a step backwards and she slams the door in my face. I hear the sound of the lock latching and hang my head. I stand there for a full hour and a half until it’s time to go to class. When I come back afterward, she’s gone, and seeing as how I don’t know where her dorm is, I head back to my house feeling utterly defeated—a feeling I’m not accustomed to.

  I don’t care about my reputation anymore. I don’t even care about the NFL. I care about her; I wounded her, and all I want to do now is fix that. I don’t care what it takes.

  8

  Red

  Three weeks later…

  For the first time since my non-consentual sex tape spread across the internet like wildfire, I wake up not feeling like I want to crawl into a hole and never come out again. I pull the covers off my head and see that Fran’s gone to class already, which I’m actually grateful for. I prefer being alone these days.

  Well…that’s not completely true. The truth is that I actually miss Colton—seriously. I know it sounds ridiculous. I should hate the son of a bitch, and the majority of me does, but there’s this growing feeling inside of me that I just can’t ignore that misses him.

  I wonder if it’s just because of the way things went with him and it’s my subconscious being upset about what could have been. I could have hung out with him again and again. I could have maybe gotten something going with him. I could have really fallen for him…

  …or maybe I already did, and that’s what’s making this so hard.

  I put a hand on my belly and look up at the ceiling, knowing I have some difficult decisions ahead of me. Things haven’t been easy and they’re only going to get worse.

  I started wearing disguises when I went out, my favorite being a pair of mens’ aviator sunglasses with an oversized hoodie and baggy carpenter jeans. Some people still spot me, or thi
nk they do, and it was a week before I stopped overhearing people talking about “that girl who had sex online” and people stopped talking about it on social media.

  I had to get rid of my Instagram completely and make my Facebook profile completely private. I also had to cull some “friends” who couldn’t help themselves from making jokes on my wall. I haven’t had the heart to break the news to my parents yet; thankfully both of them are technologically illiterate, so I’m hoping the news hasn’t reached them. I haven’t had any angry phone calls yet, so I guess it’s so far so good.

  And as for Colton—well, I haven’t seen him. I mean, I have, walking across campus a couple of times, but I stayed covert and avoided him. He doesn’t know where I live and I’m keeping it that way, because I know that if I see him again, well…it just won’t be good.

  On the bright side, I’ve managed to be a good little artist and channel all my pain into my work. I’ve finished seven new paintings that I’m extremely proud of, abstractions of the semi-nude female form surrounded by nature with hints of Grecian influence, and am planning on spending the whole day at the studio.

  I get up, stretch, slide out of my clothes and into a towel and pull open the door.

  “Oh!” I gasp, jumping back, shocked to find Colton kneeling in front of me with his hands clasped in front of him. He has a really goofy smile on his face.

  “Please let me talk to you?” he says. My body takes over and slams the door for me. “Come on, Red! Please!? You know how long it took to find where you live!?”

  “You think that’s okay!?” I shout back. “To just show up here!? I don’t want to talk to you!”

  “Red, I didn’t mean to do what I did!” he says through the door. “I left the stupid fucking camera streaming and forgot about it, okay? You have to believe me. Why would I want to do something like that and put my future in jeopardy too? You think the NFL looks kindly on sex tapes?”