It’s college move-in day tomorrow for campus athletes and I’m in my room putting the last few pairs of shoes in bins. There’s a loud thump before I hear, “Oh, fuck!” from Carson’s room.
Sighing deeply, I move down the hall and knock on his door. “Everything alright in there, Carse?”
I’m met with deafening silence, so I try the doorknob to find it’s locked. “Carson, are you okay? I heard a loud noise, and I know you’re in there. Will you just tell me you’re alright?”
A few moments pass, the silence eating at me. Then, finally, Carson opens his door, seemingly out of breath and covered in sweat, before he replies with, “Yeah, everything is fine. Just had a trophy fall off the shelf.”
“Right . . . well, I’m glad you’re okay—” I stop short when I hear a light giggle from the other side of the door. A laugh that soundsveryfamiliar.
“What the hell? Is that . . . is thatKatie?” I demand.
Appearing from the other side of the door and looking quite disheveled, Katie says, “Oh, please, Kenna, as if you could talk! But before you get your panties in a twist, it’s not what it looks like.”
“Uh-huh . . . and what exactly does it look like?”
“Like I was just giving Kitty a life-changing orgasm?” Carse guesses.
“He most certainly was not.” She turns and swats his chest. “I was helping Carse pack some of his shit to avoid packing up my room. I was getting too emo packing up all my pictures. Anyways, a trophy did fall—the most prized one—the one from our wheelbarrow relay race.”
“Show me . . . I’m having a hard time believing Carse wouldn’t be crying in the corner if that were the case.”
“Hey, I’m not that big of a pussy. Besides, we said it fell. It didn’t break.”
“Don’t talk about parts of the female anatomy you know nothing about,” Katie snarks, crossing her arms across her chest.
Carson rubs his palm across his chest, feigning hurt. “You wound me. But it makes me feel better knowing you’re so obsessed with my sex life, Kitty.”
“Oh, please. You’d have to actuallyhavea sex life for me to be obsessed with it,” she retorts.
“Delusion doesn’t look good on you. In fact, neither does jealousy. If you want to know what it feels like to receive an orgasm from a man, I’d volunteer as tribute,” Carson propositions.
Katie’s face turns red before she snaps back, “I told you that in a moment of weakness. I’d rather get fucked in the ass by a cactus than receive an orgasm from you.”
I think I might die from laughter. It’s hard to breathe through the belly laughs. Sometimes I feel like I’m watching a ping-pong match with these two. The back and forth is both hilarious and exhausting.
“Do you see what I have to put up with now that you stole my best friend?” Carson gripes. “G never wants to hang out with me anymore because he’s too caught up in you.”
“Alright, alright. Katie, let’s leave Carse to his packing. I just finished up, so why don’t I come over and helpyou finish?”
“You’re going to wish you didn’t make that suggestion when you see the disaster that is my room,” Katie says as she makes her way down the hall toward the stairs.
I hold back a second, looking at Carse. “Do I have anything to worry about here?”
He gives a chin nod in the direction Katie just retreated. “The only thing you have to worry about is Kitty eating someone alive with that mouth of hers.”
Shaking my head I say, “That’s not what I meant. Do I need to worry about you breaking my best friend’s heart? I can see something has changed between the two of you. I’m not blind. We’re all going to the same college. So I’m going to ask again. Do I have anything to worry about?”
He breathes out what sounds like a defeated sigh. “No, you don’t, but you have to swear not to say anything.”
“Okay, I swear.”
“We kissed once over the Fourth of July. It was stupid. We were both drunk, and we agreed nothing else would ever happen.”
I’m not really shocked by his admission. More so hurt that Katie felt like she couldn’t tell me when that happened over a month ago.
“I’m not surprised that it happened. So I take it you’re not the mystery guy she was seeing?”
He shakes his head. “No clue who that was. But, no. There hasn’t been anything going on behind anyone’s back. It was one kiss, and no offense, it was like kissing my sister.”
