While it might be easier to look at Luna and Jane, I find more comfort with Moffy. He’s the one I spent hours upon hours with at swim meets. The one who constantly had my back when assholes teased me about the hair on my arms.
“Sulli the Sasquatch!”
“Look at that gorilla!”
The snickers, the laughter was met with fuck yous by Moffy. Even when I stuck up for myself, I always hoped to avoid confrontation. And I attribute the fact that I can control the burning rage inside me to Moffy. Hecklers, haters, fucksticks, and fartholes—he dealt with them so I didn’t have to.
I let him fight a lot of my battles, and in doing so, he preserved something peaceful in me. Just like my dad did.
I love Moffy so fucking much. But I’m older now.
“I don’t fucking get why you needed to pull me away to talk to me,” I say as I climb up on the table beside Luna. I bring my foot up to the surface, knee bent. “We could’ve had this conversation in front of them. They’re our friends. Your husbands…”
Moffy uncrosses his arms. “I just thought this might be easier. For all of us. Farrow, Thatcher—all of them—they didn’t go through what we all went through, Sul.” His eyes toughen on me. “The four of us. Growing up famous.”
I touch my frayed ankle bracelet. “I guess that’s fucking true.”
Luna sways into me with a consoling shoulder-nudge.
I try to smile back.
When it comes to my relationship, I only know where Quinn and Luna stand. If Jane and Moffy were strangers, I might not give a second thought about what they think. But having my cousins’ approval means something to me. At the very least, it’d make this easier.
Especially since I don’t have my dad’s.
Moffy adds, “Plus, I don’t really want to hear what Akara and Banks have to say. I’m more interested in your thoughts on all this.”
“Me as well,” Jane says, her inquisitive, blue eyes on me, even as she curls LJ closer to her zebra-print sweater.
I rest my chin on my knee. “My thoughts are that I’m with Banks and Akara. And I hope you guys can be happy for me.”
Moffy is more tense. “How did this happen?” He gestures to his head. “I just can’t picture how it went down.”
Fuck.
How do I even rehash Yellowstone? “I’ll try to explain, but if you’re asking me to defend my relationship—”
“You’re not on trial,” Moffy cuts in quickly. “I promise, Sul.” The look in his eyes reminds me of childhood. Where Moffy has always just wanted to protect me.
If I needed him for anything, he was there, and I’m so fucking terrified of losing him like I might’ve lost my dad.
But maybe I shouldn’t be afraid of anything. Maybe I should stop relying on family to save me and believe more in myself.
So I take a breath and go through my first kiss with Banks in the motel, then the next morning my kiss with Akara. The “Bachelorette” style dating, the cougar attack, the night we spent together in a tent, and how we just grew closer. The three of us.
And I couldn’t choose.
I didn’t want to choose, and then what Beckett told me. And by the time I finish, the tabby cat is on the floor, and Jane has her fingers steepled to her lips, eyes wide. “Did you…?” She stops herself with the shake of her head. “Never mind. I can’t ask you that.” Her cheeks redden, but the curiosity is killing her.
I stop picking at my anklet. “Did I what?”
Jane asks slowly, “Lose…your virginity?”
Oh fuck. Cum, shit. I watch Moffy crack his knuckles, more tensed—if that’s even fucking possible! He’s like the Tin Man right now.
“You don’t have to answer,” Jane says quickly.
“No, I can.” I drop my foot, legs hanging off the table, and I look Moffy right in the eye. “I had sex for the first time. Once with Akara, once with Banks. And it was epic, eye-rolling sex—stuff of legends, and I plan to do it again.”
Luna is grinning.
Moffy shifts his gaze, too many emotions rolling over his face. Like bewilderment. Confusion. Maybe wondering why I sound defensive.
I realize this is everything I wish I could say to my dad. I know it’s so fucking wrong to use sex as a measure of my womanhood. But some part of me believes that others might view my virginity as being too immature, too naïve. I was none of those things while I was a virgin.
I’m none of those things now, but if this is what it takes for my dad to see me as a woman. Then I wish I could yell off the rooftops, THEY FUCKED ME GOOD! AND I LOVED IT!
“What’s going on with you, Sul?” Moffy asks with more concern. “You waited so long to have sex, and then just all of a sudden—”