The Hookup Experiment Read Online Crystal Kaswell

Categories Genre: Insta-Love Tags Authors: Crystal Kaswell Advertisement

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"I told you."

"You've been with other people," I say.

"Yeah."

"But you're jealous I've been with other people?"

"I don't like thinking of some guy taking advantage of you."

"That's kind of sweet." A little possessive but sweet.

"And if you told me you were jealous of all the women I fucked, I'd tell you not to be. 'Cause it never meant anything. I wouldn't let it mean anything."

"Never?" I ask.

"No. It was always bullshit. After Deidre, I tried to go back to my routine. I had a few casual flings, but I didn't enjoy them. I could feel the falseness. There was no honesty there, no vulnerability. It was all pretense."

"And that's why you liked me?"

He nods. "'Cause you were straight with me. No bullshit."

"I don't like bullshit either."

"I know."

"I don't have to talk about the other guys," I say. "If it bothers you."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I guess there isn't much to say. Guys were always willing."

"Of course," he says. "You're gorgeous."

My cheeks flush. I'm not gorgeous, really. Conventionally attractive enough? Sure. Athletic? Absolutely. But I'm not a knockout by any definition of the word. "I did have fun, sometimes, experimenting. But I wasn't there, really. I would check out of my body, go somewhere else. And then I'd think about why I wasn't enjoying myself enough."

"Always?"

"No." My cheeks flush. "Sometimes, if the guys were talented… I had moments, you know. Never the acts themselves, but the anticipation. I guess I… I've always had these impulses."

"That's nothing to be embarrassed about."

"I don't want to push things to sex," I say. "I want to talk to you."

"I promise not to jump your bones." He stays glued to the dresser.

My lips curl into a smile. "For how long?"

"Five minutes."

A laugh spills from my lips. "That's a long time for you."

"I can even make it ten."

"A new record," I say.

"I can wait as long as you want."

"You get off on it."

"Yeah," he says. "But that's not what I mean."

"I guess sex and love are tangled for both of us, huh?"

He nods. "I've had girlfriends before, but it was the same as everything else. It was surface level. I liked them and they liked me but we didn't share anything meaningful."

"Even sexually?"

"Sex doesn't have to be intimate," he says.

"No. It doesn't. But it is with you."

"I like it."

"I do too." I sit up straight. "Was that the biggest way you hid from yourself?"

"No. I drank too much. Then, when Deidre died, I drank way too much. I wanted to forget. But I only felt it more… until I drank enough, I passed out. I didn't run to understanding her. I hid from that for a long time too."

"What happened to change things?"

"There wasn't one big moment. It was a bunch of little things, adding up. I was here, surrounded by her stuff all the time, in her space, feeling her absence."

"You took over her lease?"

"Mortgage," he says. "She left it to me. Not an official will. A note. Enough nobody fought it. Or maybe… sometimes I think they let me have it as a bribe, so I'd stay quiet."

"That must hurt."

"I'm used to it."

"Do you want to talk to them about it?"

"I don't know. I can't force them to face it. I'm still trying to understand it myself."

"I'm sorry," I say. "I know how hard that is when your parents want to deny your reality. I… I'm really sorry."

"Thanks."

"Is that why you read her books? To understand?"

"Am I that obvious?"

I nod. "Did it help?"

"It did. And it didn't. I can see what she was going through now, how she felt, but I still don't get it. There's something that just doesn't make sense to me. How she could leave me that way? How she could hide this from me? I know it's not about that. I know she was too hurt, she probably thought she was doing me a favor. I know, but I can't quite wrap my head around it."

"Do you have to?"

"I don't know." He sits on the bed next to me. He sits close enough our legs touch. "It gets kind of exhausting, thinking about her in these terms. I annoy myself for making it about what I could have done, how it affected me. She deserves better. She deserves to live in my memory as the person she was too."

"What was she like?"

"Witty. She always had a literary reference. For a while, she threw out Shakespeare quotes as quips. I never got it. Our parents hated it. Molly hated it. But that only encouraged her."

"A troublemaker?"

"Yeah." He smiles. "She was like you. In her head a lot. I always wondered what she was thinking, what it was like to have such deep, interesting thoughts."

"You looked up to her?"

He nods. "She stood up to our parents, she stood up for me. Hell, she stood up for people who needed it. She ran the Amnesty International chapter at our school and she volunteered to teach at community centers. She always said it was for her, too. That she did it 'cause it made her feel good. But sometimes I think… she was doing what I did, staying busy to stay away from her ugly thoughts."

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