Complicated

Lauren has just returned from her first year at college and finds her life becoming increasingly complicated. Thanks, in large part, to Robby. He pursues her relentlessly despite the fact that he has a girlfriend. But she has no intention of being anyone's 'other woman.' Not even for her best friend...

Excerpt:
Tell him I’m not here, I mouthed silently. Shaking my head when my mother still tried to hand me the phone anyway.

She gave me an odd look. I’d been getting a lot of those lately, all because of the guy I knew was on the other end of the phone line. “I’m sorry, Rob, but Lauren can’t come to the phone right now. Yes, I know. I’ll tell her you called.”

I tried to scurry back to my bedroom before she finished talking, but she followed me the whole way. Mom ended the call and flattened her palm against my door so that I could not shut her out. “Would you care to explain why you’ve been avoiding him since you’ve been back home?”

“I…” No excuse came to mind. And I didn’t think I could tell her the truth. “It’s complicated, Mom.”

And it only got worse twenty minutes later, when Robby showed up on my front door. I hid in my bedroom and told my mom I wouldn’t see him. I couldn’t quite hear them talking, but he didn’t stay long.

My mother returned to my room.

Carrying a bouquet of pink roses. “I think he really likes you. Lucky girl.”

“He has a girlfriend.” Someone who wasn’t me.

“Maybe he realized that you would be better for him.”

I rolled my eyes. “I doubt that.”

“Can’t you at least call him back?”

“I’ll think about it,” I said. Mainly to get her to leave me alone.

I knew what my ‘old friend’ wanted, and it wasn’t to make me his new girlfriend.

Ever since I’d come home from my first year in college, he’d made it clear just what he was interested in.

He wanted to fuck me.

That was it. Nothing more.

He needed a convenient female body to help him take the edge off his lusts, since his girlfriend was away. Traveling for her college classes or something, I can’t remember exactly what.

It should have been easy to refuse him. Or would have been, if not for the inconvenient fact that I was actually attracted to him. Had been for some time, if I was perfectly honest with myself.

And he knew it.

Because the first time he propositioned me, it hadn’t been with words.

It had been with a kiss.

A kiss I should never have responded to. Never should have let him coax my mouth open and slide his tongue between my lips. Nor should I have kissed him back.