The Wild One by Gemma Burgess Page A

not?” I’m the worst liar. I start giggling helplessly.
    â€œYou did,” says Madeleine. “Your hair’s a mess, you’ve got stubble rash. And you look happy.”
    â€œOkay,” I admit, slightly embarrassed. I wasn’t used to being on this end of the conversation. “I had the sex.”
    â€œ Da sex,” Angie corrects me.
    â€œDa sex.”
    The girls scream with delight. “Details. Everything.”
    â€œUm, well, you know, Joe and I started drinking at the bar, and, um…” I raise my eyebrows innocently. “I guess it just happened?”
    â€œNice work,” says Angie. “Sam is, obviously, my favorite flavor. But Joe has something.”
    â€œYeah, he has something,” agrees Madeleine. “The kind of guy who walks into a room and people notice him.”
    â€œHe has that thing, ” says Angie. “That spark. Confidence without arrogance.”
    â€œHe’s confident because he probably sleeps with hundreds of women,” I say. “I’m just another notch on his bedpost.”
    Angie shrugs. “All I meant was that he has charisma.”
    Madeleine takes a tiny sip of her shake and looks up at me. “So do you think it’s serious?”
    â€œOh, fuck, no,” I reply without thinking. “Fuck, I just cursed. Oh, shit, I cursed again.” I clap my hand over my mouth before I can say anything else.
    Angie laughs so hard she splutters coffee everywhere. “So you’re just using him? Just a fuck buddy?”
    â€œUm…” I pause. “I hate that word.”
    â€œNot delicate enough for you? ‘Casual intercourse partner’? That better?”
    I laugh, but my brain is racing.
    Somehow, in the cold light of day, I know that I don’t want to date Joe. I know it without even thinking about it. I’m attracted to him, really, I think he’s gorgeous, but it wasn’t …
    I don’t know, it wasn’t it.
    Don’t get me wrong, I like him. I understand him, completely. We have this strange, undeniable connection that comes from both losing a parent. And I want to hang out with him and maybe have sex with him sometimes, but that’s it. I’m not even sure why I know, but I just … I know. It’s too easy. Too relaxed. I don’t get butterflies when I think about him. I always get butterflies when I like a guy. I’m, like, the queen of butterflies.
    The point is, Joe is naked in my bed, but I don’t want to date him, because this isn’t love. It’s lust. All-consuming lust. And it’s exactly what I need to find the new me. The wild me.
    I clear my throat. “Yeah. I guess I am using him. I mean, we’re using each other.”
    At some point during the night—I think maybe at the moment he kissed me—I stopped wondering all that stupid is-this-a-date? and is-he-out-of-my-league? shit. I stopped wondering what he was thinking. I stopped wondering if he liked me.
    I just thought, I want him. And I am going to, well, you know … have him.
    So I did.
    And it was absogoddamnlutely awesome.
    I kind of wonder if this makes me a bad person. A fallen woman.
    But why should it? Why do guys get to enjoy sex without guilt or love or relationships, and girls don’t? What’s the big deal? It’s safe. We used condoms. It doesn’t make me feel bad about myself. He wasn’t taking advantage of me, and I wasn’t taking advantage of him. He clearly has a lot of casual sex, he wasn’t, like, exploiting me. We’re not in some silly Nathaniel Hawthorne–inspired high school situation where he’ll tell people and everyone will talk about it because they have nothing better to do.
    We’re grown-ups. We’re friends. Joe isn’t judging me, he clearly does this sort of thing all the time. No one is judging me except myself. There’s a strange power in that.
    And by the