AN:
New Drabble? Say whaaaaaat?
This is a little reprieve for me at the moment. Something to get my creativity flowing; a little bit of fun I hope you all enjoy.
Chapters will be short, updates will be daily.
Massive THANK YOU to Ella and Kate for pre-reading, Mel for working her Beta magic, and PearlyFox for the gorgeous banner.
And to everyone in my Facebook group for the support and your endless banter.
Enjoy!
"She's such a lovely girl, Edward."
"I know it's been a while since you last saw her, but she has matured beautifully. She's in med school too."
"It's about time you found someone and started looking toward the future. Kate is perfect."
My mom's words echoed in my head, drowning out the noise and ambience of the bar. I could feel Rose watching me, worried, waiting patiently for me to speak, to open up and spill my guts, but I didn't know how.
I felt as though I was fucking drowning. A lifetime's worth of suppressed emotions crashing down on me and dragging me under.
Eventually, she sighed and leaned in closer. "You gonna tell me what's going on in that pretty head of yours?"
My smile was timid, weak, pathetic, forced. It probably resembled more of a scowl. How could I even begin to explain? How could I tell her, my closest friend, that my parents had been planning my marriage to their best friend's daughter, since I was in diapers? It was insane.
Over the years, I thought I had come to terms with it. I thought I was numb to my reality, indifferent. Until my mother called earlier that day. Now that reality was staring me in the face, standing so close it cast a dark shadow over my whole damn life, changing the colors and skewing my vision.
Worse than that? How did I even begin to tell her how worried I was?
I'd spent my whole life being the model son, spending my time studying and aiming for the Ivy League. No parties, no drugs, no booze, no rebellious teenage years—nothing. Only now was I realizing the error of my ways.
My experience with women was … zilch. Non-existent. A damn virgin at twenty-three years old, having resisted any testosterone-fueled urges in exchange for study groups and dreams of being a surgeon. Nothing else had mattered. Until that moment.
If I was to marry this girl—Kate—I'd need to have enough experience to please her, at the very least. Lord knows I was a relatively dull person, too driven and focused on my studies and my career to offer much in the way of personality. I didn't want to be a virgin, not anymore. That was my main worry, and that realization only troubled me more.
Marrying Kate was fine. I didn't care. But marrying her, being faced with the reality of a wife, as a virgin? It made me feel sick.
I remembered Kate—a pretty girl, a little shy, and a whole lot prim and proper. What would she expect of me? What if she was more experienced than I was? Bile rose in my throat, burning, adding more fuel to my embarrassment.
How could I even begin to explain that to Rose? The beautiful, tall, senator's daughter sitting to my right, watching me closely, looking concerned. My peer, a fellow med student, someone who understood my privileged upbringing. Except Rose had rebelled, and she had done it well. Her parents no longer expected much of her. She was a free-spirit: sexy, wild, intelligent. Daddy's little hellion. At that moment, I envied her.
I groaned, motioning to the bartender for another round of drinks. "I'm fucked," I told her truthfully, chuckling dryly when her eyes widened.
"You're not failing," she stated. "You can't be. You're top of all our classes—"
"It's worse than that," I interjected, reaching over the bar to pay the barman who slid another two beers toward us. It was ironic that I felt that way, having held school and studies above all else in my life; failing should have been my worst fear.
"Are you dying?" she asked, brows creasing, looking even more worried.
"No. It's worse than that …"
"You're so dramatic." She scoffed, taking a long pull of her fresh beer.
"Inside. I'm dying." I sighed, rubbing a hand over my face, feeling it burn. "This is mortifying."
Rose tilted her head, regarding me closely, her blue eyes studying, her mind clearly trying to read mine and failing. "Just spit it out."
"I'm a virgin." I literally flinched as I said the word "virgin," as though I had been slapped; slapped by the reality of how pathetic I was.
Silence. Deafening silence that made my pulse roar, thumping in my ears. The dulcet tones of the bar faded away; the music seemed to stop. I couldn't look at her, couldn't look anywhere but at my beer bottle, knuckles white under my grip.
"Huh."
Cringing, I angled my head to look at Rose, bracing myself for the ridicule I deserved. Who gets to my age without having sex?
Losers, that's who.
But she shrugged, seemingly uncaring, maybe even unsurprised, which made me feel worse. "Figures," she mused. "I mean, I didn't think you were a virgin, but that explains why you seem immune to all distractions—what's temptation when you don't know what you're missing?"
Biting the inside of my cheek, I nodded once, unsure of what else I could do or say, other than try to ignore the burning of my cheeks, the embarrassment that continued to creep in, intensifying, strangling me. "I don't want to be a virgin anymore," I told her, almost whining, hating myself more for how ridiculous I sounded.
Rose guffawed, jaw slack, eyes wide. "I'm not fucking you, Cullen—"
"Shit. No. Sorry, that's not what I was suggesting." Oh God. I gripped my hair tightly—a habit of frustration—wishing the ground would open up and swallow me. "I couldn't."
"Thanks," she deadpanned, looking mildly insulted.
"I'm fucking this up." I tried to apologize with a look, not trusting my words. "I'm supposed to get married after med school." Rose's eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to interrupt, but I sent her a pleading glance, stopping her and taking a deep breath before I tried to explain further. "My parents and her parents arranged it when we were kids, and I thought I could ignore the reality but …"
"Rich people are weird," Rose added, rolling her eyes. She would know. But she also possessed the strength to tell her parents to get lost if they were to ever suggest such a thing to her. I envied her for that too. "So, you're okay with the marriage thing?" she guessed. "But you don't want to be a virgin going into it?"
I shrugged. "I don't care about the marriage thing." Rose looked shocked, so I rushed to continue. "It worked well for my mom and dad, and my grandparents."
"You do realize how fucking weird this is, right?"
Nodding, I took another long sip of my drink, my eyes scanning the bar, truly seeing the women scattered around for the first time. I had never paid much attention before. Rose motioned to the bartender once more, calling him over.
"We're gonna need two shots of tequila," she told him. "And keep them coming." She hooked her thumb in my direction. "He's paying." On any other day, I would have laughed.
I hated tequila. I hated hard liquor, but something in the way Rose tapped her long, manicured fingernails on the bar and scanned the room told me I'd need it tonight.
Two shots were placed in front of us, and Rose wasted no time lifting hers, motioning for me to do the same. Holding the glass eye level, she smiled wide, showing her perfect white teeth and looking slightly sinister. "Here's to getting you truly fucked, Cullen."
AN:
Let me know your thoughts!
Brats isn't going anywhere, don't worry! The next chapter will be with you soon. I'm taking a short break from DTTF for the time being. Inferno will be back soon! Sometimes us authors just need a little break from the norm, to focus our creativity elsewhere for a while, and then go back in with fresh eyes.
Thanks for reading!
