Dishing Up Love

“Whatever is meant to be will be. I know you’ve already hit all the physical bases, but you still have time to take it slow emotionally. Y’all will figure it out organically. Take it one day at a time,” she replies, and I take a deep breath, closing my eyes and nodding before letting it out.

“I mean. He’s pretty much a keeper. We started getting naked, and he caught me in my goddamn surgery panties.” I lift my arm to place my palm on my forehead.

She lets out a bark of laughter. “What? Oh no!” She cackles some more, sounding like she can’t breathe, and I smile at the sound. “How many times have I told you it’s time to get rid of those ugly things? It’s been half a year since your surgery. You need to burn them. If they’re so comfortable, go out and find some actual boyshort panties!”

“I’ve told you they don’t make boyshort panties that stretchy! And up until about half an hour ago, no one had ever seen the bitches,” I grumble.

“They’re full of bad juju anyway. Get. Rid. Of. Them,” she urges, and I huff.

“Fine!” I agree. After a moment of quietness between us, I ask for her reassurance one last time, “So you really don’t think I have anything to worry about, about the whole no-condom thing? That scares the shit out of me. I can’t believe I let that happen. I’ve never once done it without one before. Even when I got pregnant with shithead, we used a fucking condom; it just broke. But we were already engaged by then, so we didn’t worry too much about it.”

And then I let out a shriek of surprise, my knees drawing up to protect myself, when Curtis’s deep voice echoes throughout Emmy’s bathroom. “No, you have nothing to worry about, sugar.”

“Uh-oooh,” my best friend says through the phone. “I’m gonna let y’all handle this. Love you, Rin. Call me tomorrow. Bye!” And then the whore hangs up, leaving me alone with the towering giant staring down at me where I’m sprawled naked on the tile floor.

“Came to check on you, since you’ve been gone a while,” he tells me, and a warm feeling spreads through my chest as I lower my feet back to the floor.

I narrow my eyes though when I ask, “Were you eavesdropping?”

He shakes his head slowly. “I wasn’t. Just heard that last little bit and felt I needed to make it perfectly clear that you do not have anything to worry about. I’ve never done it without a condom either. That was the first time ever. And yet I still get checked out regularly, since I have to travel to other countries so often and get various vaccinations. But if you’re worried about getting pregnant—”

I cut him off, my voice colder than I mean for it to be. “I’m not. I told you, it’d be a fucking miracle if that happened. I was just concerned about STDs.”

His face softens, and before I know what’s happening, he bends over and scoops me up. His hot flesh feels like it sizzles against my now cool skin from where I’ve been lying on the cold tiles. I allow myself to enjoy the feel of him carrying me bridal style back to my room, relaxing my head in the crook of his neck and breathing in his intoxicatingly male scent.

There’s no more talking, both of us seeming to finally reach the end of our energy reserves as he lies us down, maneuvering my body the way he wants it until my back is flush with his front, his muscled arm draped around my waist as he holds me to him.

I relax, letting my body go limp and heavy as I succumb to my exhaustion, and the last thought in my head before I finally lose consciousness is to question, Before I cut him off, what was he going to say if I was worried about getting pregnant?

Chapter 18

Curtis

WHEN I AWAKEN the next… afternoon, I see, when I check my phone where I put it on her nightstand while waiting for her to come back from the bathroom last night, I’m alone. I roll over onto my back, gaining my bearings before looking around her room. She’s nowhere in sight, but my surroundings are just so… her.

The rest of the house might be full of Egyptian memorabilia, but this space is completely Erin. It’s tranquil, soothing, bright, and clean. It’s all stark-whites and soft grays with black hardware on all the rustic furniture. The sun shines brightly through the white sheers over the windows, and it reminds me about what she said last night, how she never sleeps in, because it messes up her routine. Even as tired as we were early this morning, and how she even said she planned to, I smile at the fact that she couldn’t allow herself to stay in bed this late. So she must be downstairs or in some other part of the house, doing whatever she normally does on a Saturday.