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"Peter! Stop that right now!" I giggle and he continues to nuzzle his nose against my neck. I try to push him away, but his intense UVA lacrosse practices had bulked him up a bit more. His biceps, though they were impressive in high school, had doubled in size and seeing him shirtless was always my greatest secret thrill. "What? You love it. Plus you smell so good" I scrunch up my nose and this time he lets me push him away. Though a perfect puppy dog pout rests on his face. "I wish I could say the same for you stinky. Look at you, messing up my sheets!" He frowns and wipes at a grass and dirt stain that would probably never come out of the pristine white ruffles of my bedspread. "Oops. Sorry... Bae" I cringe. We were trying out pet names to spice up our long distance relationship. "Take that one off the list" he kisses my neck before smiling almost devilishly. "Sure thing, babycakes" "Ew!" He laughs, standing up from my bed. It's then that we both notice that we had more than a few grass stains to worry about. A green imprint of his ass stared back at the both of us. "Oh fuck Lara Jean I'm sorry I-" I wave him off and stand up too. I strip off the bedspread and crumple it into a pile on the floor. "It's fine. Really, it is. Stormy once told me how to get grass stains out of white clothing. It's likely the same" Peter laughs recalling the helion of an old lady that I used to keep company. "What? Don't tell me Stormy played football!" I blush and shake my head before bending over and picking the bedspread up to throw into the hamper labeled 'LJ'. "Oh, no. She slept with a lot of the players though... On the field." Peter's eyes go wide the way they do when anyone anywhere even hints at sex.
"Legend" he praises before attempting to sit down on my bed before I yell a quick,
"No!" He holds his hands up in surrender before peeling off his jersey and tossing it across my room. I'm terrified when it lands neatly on top of my roommate Leighton Blair's pristine monogrammed pillow.
"Shit!" I squeak, racing over to grab it and toss back at Peter. Leighton wasn't in the room of course, though she never was. Her boyfriend Chad Wellworth was in town visiting from Harvard and she'd, unbeknownst to her parents, rented them a gorgeous bed and breakfast in the vintage area of North Carolina.
"Has she uh, calmed down?" I shrug. I was a little distracted by the way his muscled flexed and moved as he walked towards me sans shirt. Was it hot in here?
"Shruggy Covey" he teases and that get a (drool filled) smile from me. He folds his jersey and stuffs it into the extremely nice team athletics bag that all players received before kissing my cheek and abruptly dropping his pants.
"Peter!" I screech, naively covering my eyes as if he'd whipped out his junk then and there.
"What Covey? I'm in my undies see!" I peek through my fingers and sure enough there he stood in tight compression short underwear that left a speck to my imagination. My eyes followed the cutouts of his abdomen before focusing on the trail of hair that disappeared into the shorts.
"I feel like a piece of meat" he jokes before I shake my head and push past him to grab a towel from my dresser so he can shower. I hand a huge blue fluffy one that I had bought just for him because his body was so wide and long I couldn't imagine him ever getting dry with the small child size ones I used.
"Join me?" He's only half kidding when he says this, but the 50% is enough to make me blush. We reached a huge milestone a month or so ago. That milestone? Boobs. We were making out in his dorm room and in a rare showcase of boldness I took off my top then I reached behind to unstrap my bra and once it fell he'd looked like a kid on christmas. Not bad for a B cup.
"I already showered." I say biting my lip and he pulls me in for a kiss.
"Don't bite your lip like that Covey. Drives me wild." His voice is husky and deep and I feel the blush spreading all the way to my toes.
"Yeah?" I whisper and he makes a sound in the very back of his throat.
"This will be the fastest shower ever I swear." He promises racing to my bathroom and shutting the door with a loud bang.
"Hey! Keep it down!" Someone yells from the room nextdoor and I shrug, smile, and sit down on my bed. "Fresh as hell" Peter boasts once he's out of the shower and dressed in only a pair of loose fitting flannel pants. I grab a smaller towel and motion for him to come towards me so that I can towel dry his hair. He spreads out on my bed and rests his head in my lap. I bend down to sniff at him and let out a sigh of relief when the smell of sweat and grass is missing.
"Much better," I say as I dry his hair to the point that it's a little damp and a lot wavy.
"Should I join a sorority?" I blurt out. He had been thinking about joining a fraternity on his campus and a few days back Leighton and I had been all but ambushed by girls in matching t-shirts.
"You'd be such a hot sorority chick oh my god." I press the towel across his face until he gasps out 'mercy!'
"It would look really good on my resume and I mean... I could always use more friends." Peter scoffs. "Lara Jean you're the most popular freshman here" I blush. College had already proved to be different from high school. I'd started my baking club during my first month here, joined the Asian American Association, and even taken up ballroom courses. John Ambrose Mclaren was my partner, but that was something I neglected to tell Peter.
"Official recruitment starts next Wednesday. I was invited. How prestigious is that?" He wrinkles his nose and looks up at me.
"Invited? For the frat events you just... show up. Doesn't even matter if you're wearing clothes or not"
"Fraternities are kind of gay" I admit teasingly and for a minute Peter gets serious.
"Everyone's a little gay" he says and I look down at him with questioning eyes. He only shrugs before rolling over like a labrador retriever.
"Hey. Let's watch a movie. Your pick."
"I choose... Clueless!" Leighton and I had already watched/ bonded over it a few times.
"Is that the one with the hot white and black chicks?" He asks bluntly and I swat his arm and press my index finger to my nose so that it mimicked a pig snout.
"What! They're smokin'. Hey be one of them for Halloween we'll get you a short plaid sk-" I get up from the bed to turn on the tv and DVD player.
"Got snacks?" Peter wonders before shaking his head and scolding himself.
"Nevermind. Meat only diet." I don't question him. I never do when it comes to lacrosse. He must be doing something right to have had won 'Most Valuable Rookie" his starting week. He grabs a blanket from a chair and drapes it over both of us before starting to pepper kisses all over me. I giggle and he laughs and before he relaxes he lets out a sigh.
"What?"
"If you join a sorority and I join a fraternity we will have even less time together" here it was. The vulnerable side of Peter Kavinsky.
"Not true. We'll have formals to go to and parties to hit up..." He smiles lightly before leaning in for a kiss. It's urgent, the kind I like the most from him, and with a strike of boldness I swipe my tongue against his lips and initiate a french kiss. We'd done that before, but recently Peter had brought up how 'sexy' it was for girls to make the first move. I didn't forget anything easily, or ever. We pull away for air just as Cher begins to make her opening monologue.
"Fuck my diet. Just for today. Let's get a pizza"
"Peter..." But he is already dialing.
"I'll get a meat lovers. Same thing as a big ole steak" I shake my head.
"I want mozzarella sticks" I say in defeat and he smiles and nods.
