Lover | S.R.

Spencer

My knuckles roll against the wood of the door to the hotel room to the right of mine.

Derek answers after I knock three times.

"Reid, I'm trying to sleep. What's going on?" He asks, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow at me.

"I, um, I need a condom," I tell him, looking down at my feet. "The vending machine is out, and I thought you would have one—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," He holds his hand up. "Back up. Why do you need one so badly?"

I look at him like he's an idiot and scoff. "I— I'm about to have sex. Why else would I need a condom?"

"With Ophelia?" Morgan chuckles. "My man!"

I huff and roll my eyes at him. "Do you have one or not?"

He gestures for me to step inside the room and I do so, following him to where his go-bag sits on his bed. He unzips an inside pocket and pulls out a few foil packets.

"Here's a few to tide you over. Don't use them all at once, now," My colleague laughs and reaches over to ruffle my hair.

I swat his hand away as I look down at the three squares in my hand. One of them is 'watermelon flavored'. Interesting. The other two are just run-of-the-mill condoms.

"Watermelon?" I raise an eyebrow at him.

Derek gives me a sly grin. "I've been told it tastes like a Jolly Rancher."

I scrunch my nose up at him and shake my head. "Well, thanks. I'm gonna— I'm gonna head back," I gesture over my shoulder with my thumb.

"Go get her, pretty boy!" He cheers as I turn to walk out.

I close his door and pocket the foil packets, running back to the vending machine to get the snacks that I promised. I grab us each a pack of cookies before heading back to our room.

When I step back inside, the first thing I see is Ophelia, only in her underwear. Her back is to me as she's pulling a large, black t-shirt over her head. She has gray and white striped underwear on which quickly disappears underneath the bottom of the shirt.

She turns to me and walks over. "It took you that long of a time to decide on cookies, huh?" The girl smiles at me. I see the design on her shirt, it says 'Taking Back Sunday' in yellow letters. I've seen her wear that shirt around the apartment plenty of times. It's a band that she likes.

I hand her a bag. "I didn't actually go to the vending machine for snacks," I confess, watching as she opens up the bag of cookies and pops one into her mouth. "I, um, I actually went... I, um..." I can't seem to choke out the real reason I went to the vending machine.

A knowing grin takes over her lips. "You went for condoms, didn't you?"

"I did, but the machine was out. I had to ask Derek," I let out a sigh and pull the packets from my pocket.

Lia laughs and takes the condoms from me to inspect them. "So, we're the type to have sex on the first date, huh? Or, y'know, before the first date."

I look back at her, not sure what to say. "We really don't have to—"

"No! I mean, I wasn't objecting to it! I just... do you think it would make things weird or...?"

I shake my head, thinking of an article I read once. "In a survey of two thousand people, fifty-eight percent of men and fifty-six percent of women had sex on their first night meeting their long term partners."

She smiles. "Right, and those people were only meeting for the first time! We've been friends for over a year now and if you count movie nights and times we went out to eat, we've probably been on around fifty dates."