The F-Word

“Of course not,” she mimics, folding her arms over those I-didn’t-realize-they-were-breasts breasts.

“No.” I run my hand through my hair. “I mean, wait. You’re taking this wrong.”

“Oh, I saw that look.”

“What look?”

“I saw how you reacted to the sight of me.”

Jesus, I hope not!

“Bailey. You’re dead wrong. You look great.”

She makes a sound somewhere between pshaw and what Walter says right before he heaves.

“You do,” I tell her. “You look wonderful. Any man would be…”

“What man? I don’t have one, remember? That’s what started this entire stupid thing!”

“Well, you don’t have one now. But any guy you ever, you know, you were ever with, dated, any boyfriend in the past…”

“Did you really tell me you went to NYU, Mr. O’Malley? Because that had to be a lie. I don’t think somebody as stupid as you could graduate from—from Degree-Mill U, let alone NYU.”

“Degree-Mill U?” I laugh. Wrong move, but I can’t help it. “Listen, Bailey—”

“No.” She stalks towards me, chin raised, eyes glittering. Damn, she looks magnificent! “No, you listen!” One hand rises, forms into a fist with just the index finger sticking out. She jabs that index finger into the center of my chest. “I-have-no-boyfriend. I have never had a boyfriend. And if I did, I would have no idea what to wear for one of what you and the editors at Cosmopolitan call quiet nights at home. Get it?”

“Got it,” I say, and the next thing I know, I’m reaching for her and pulling her into my arms.

She’s warm. Soft. Her hair smells like a summer day. Flowers. Sunshine. Lemons.

Her hand, the one doing the jabbing, flattens against my chest.

And I bend my head and my mouth is on hers and the kiss is amazing, amazing, sweet and tender and innocent, except her lips are parting and I play the tip of my tongue over the fullness of her bottom lip and that hard-on is with me again…

I let go of her. She stumbles back. Our eyes meet. I need to apologize, to promise her this won’t happen again, that it was a mistake.

She licks her lips, as if to take in the taste of me.

My dick salutes, and I turn away. Fast.

Impossible. This is going to be impossible. My brilliant plan to help her deal with Cousin Violet and Elevator Boy is not going to work…

“I know you had to do that. Eventually, I mean.”

I blink and turned towards her. She’s looking at me in a way that takes me back to seventh grade, a birthday party at Laura Devlin’s house, all of us downstairs in the Devlin’s finished basement playing Truth or Dare. I don’t remember what my truth was, only that I ended up taking the dare, which was Laura and me stepping into the unfinished part of the basement and kissing.

The same expression that was on Laura’s face is on Bailey’s, a mixture of confusion, worry, anxiety…

And something I’d been too young to identify.

But I’m old enough to identify it now.

It’s—it’s pleasure.

“Right?” she says.

I blink again. “Right?”