Taking the Heat (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 3)

“Can I ask you something?” he ventured.

“No,” she answered immediately, but then she sighed, her gaze flashing up to him before she looked at the chips again. “Fine, go ahead,” she said, then stuffed a chip into her mouth.

“How did you manage to get through high school and college and New York City without ever having sex?”

Her expression didn’t change. She wasn’t shocked by the question. She must have known that he would ask.

She folded her hands and leaned forward, her voice going quiet. “You have to swear you won’t tell anyone, Gabe. Nobody else knows. I wish you didn’t know. I don’t know why I told you.”

“I swear,” he answered immediately.

“I was so drunk.”

“I get it,” he promised.

“You can’t even tell Lauren,” she said.

He felt his eyes go wide. “I guarantee that I don’t discuss sex with Lauren. Or any other woman in my workplace.”

“Of course. I just...” She waved a hand. “This is just embarrassing. And ridiculous.”

“I’m sure there are a lot of people who’ve never—”

“No,” she interrupted. “Not people who claim some expertise in the area!”

He nodded. “Okay. I get that.”

“And even aside from that, it’s just... It was okay for a while, you know? I wasn’t a popular girl in high school. It was complicated. I didn’t really go out with anyone. Not seriously. I dated in college, but back then I thought I wanted my first time to be special. I wanted to be in love. Now I wish I’d just slept with that cute guy in my philosophy class during sophomore year. I can’t even remember his name now. That would’ve been perfect.”

Gabe smiled. “I’m sure he’d have thought so, too.”

“After college I went to New York, and then... God, then it was like a weird weight I was dragging around with me. I felt like the only adult virgin in the whole damn city. I told one guy. Only one. And then I never told anyone again. Until you.”

The last words could have been meaningful and sweet, but she said them with the rough edge of frustrated regret so that they sounded like “Until you, asshole.” He tried not to take it personally.

“So what happened with that one guy you told?”

“He made a big speech about how he wasn’t ready to settle down. After we’d been on two dates. I mean, he actually stood up to pace back and forth in his living room as he talked about his five-year plan. It was as if I’d presented him with my virginity wrapped in a spell of eternal connection and topped with an engagement ring. Jesus, he was trying to get a BJ—I just thought he should know!”

Gabe tried not to laugh. He really did. “I’m sorry,” he choked out, trying to control his amusement, but when she rolled her eyes and smiled, he burst out laughing. “You’re really good at painting a picture,” he managed to say, but then he had to stop and wipe tears from his eyes. “And you’re really, really funny.”

“Thank you,” she said, still shaking her head at his laughter. “That’s sweet. But I swear it wasn’t funny.”

“But he was just trying to get a BJ!” Gabe gasped, then totally lost it again.

Veronica finally laughed, too. “God, it was like he thought I was going to superglue his penis to me forever. Because that’s what I’d dreamed of my whole life. Getting my hands on a first-year stockbroker’s penis. And never letting go.”

She collapsed onto the table, laughing too hard to stay upright. Once his own laughter had died, Gabe found himself grinning at her, he was that damn happy he’d cheered her up.

“I guess things didn’t work out for you two?”

“No. I never saw him again. I’m sure we were both relieved by that.”

Their food arrived, and they settled into a silence that was surprisingly comfortable considering how little they knew each other. In fact, he didn’t know much about her at all, aside from maybe the most intimate of things.

“You grew up here, right?” he asked, deciding to drop the subject of her virginity for a while.

“Yes. My dad was an attorney here, then a judge. He’s a federal judge now, but this is his district. So I lived here until I went to college in Cheyenne.”