The Sexpert

CHAPTER ONE – EDEN

Zoey: Turn your radio on. 93.3 is talking about us!

That’s the text that just dinged on my phone. I stare at that message for a few seconds, forcing it to make sense, then have this exact thought process:

First of all—do people still listen to the radio?

Second—why the hell would 93.3 be talking about us? That must be a typo.

Third—why is it so fucking hot out this morning? I mean, Jesus Christ, it’s not even eight AM and the Kenny Rogers temperature-gauge bobble head on the dash is telling me it’s already eighty-five degrees.

The last one is really the only thing I care about right now because I’ve been sitting in standstill bumper-to-bumper traffic for the better part of ten minutes and this old truck has no AC, which means I have all the windows down and the hot July wind is making everything a million times worse than it needs to be. Plus, I forgot my hair tie, so my hair is sticking to my neck sweat because I can’t pull it back into my professional pony-tail. Which is just gross.

My phone dings another text.

Zoey: Are you listening?

I love that Zoey uses proper punctuation in her texts. It’s so cute.

Me: WTF you thinking abt I tink your lats tit was typo

I tell everyone I’m hip and cool and don’t use proper punctuation but the truth is I’m just a really bad texter. My fingers just don’t work the little keyboard right. I’ve tried the two-thumb technique and found it just takes too long because I always press two letters at the same time and it’s rarely true that you’re aiming for two letters right next to each other on the keyboard. So I use the tried-and-true pecking method when I text and… well, example A above. (I can’t take all the credit because autocorrect helps me make that magic.)

Me: Do you tink the sun shitting my bobbled makes it red the wrong tampon

Then I add:

Me: Temp. ?

To make it clear.

My phone rings in my hand.

Incoming Call

Zoey

“Hey,” I say. “Sorry, autocorrect turned ‘temp’ into ‘tampon.’ I wasn’t really asking about a tampon.”

“Are you listening to the fuckin’ radio?”

“I thought that was a typo.”

“It’s not! They’re talking about us! Turn on 93.3 quick!”

“Hold on,” I whine. “You know I have one of those pushbutton radios from the Sixties, right?”

“Just turn it on.”

So I turn the knob on the radio to the right until it clicks, get nothing but static because I wasn’t even aware this thing worked until right this moment, and then start pushing those little placeholder buttons to see if it’s been magically programmed to 93.3.

It hasn’t.

“Hurry! They’re gonna go to break!”

“I’m trying, dammit. I’m not really sure how to find an analog radio station, OK?” I turn the other knob down towards 93.3 and get a station playing I Can See Clearly Now by… someone I don’t know. But I do know the words. “‘I can see clearly now the rain is gone…’” I sing to Zoey. “Is this the right one?”

I can hear her taking deep breaths on the other end of the phone.

“What?”

“No,” she snaps. “That’s the Rock. 93.7.”

“Well, excuse me if I’m not precise. OK, hold on.” I sigh, nudging the dial to the left just an eensy bit more…

“And did you see the one about the butt plugs?” is followed by hysterical male laughter.

But that’s when I notice the pickup truck next to me must be listening to the same thing because I hear it coming from the open window.

When I look over I see a guy with light brown hair and a scruffy chin—also talking on the phone. Our eyes meet for a brief second and I look away real fast, but then look back just as quickly because damn. The guy is cute.

He smiles and I roll my window up. It protests with a sickening squeak noise that makes my teeth hurt, but I soldier on because I don’t need some cute stranger hearing this conversation.

“What is this?” I ask Zoey. “What the hell are they talking about?”

“Us, you dipshit! Us! The Sexpert!”

“Oh, my God,” one of the radio guys says as he tries to breathe through his laughing fit. “Where did she come up with this stuff?”

“Wait,” I say, holding up a finger. “Is he saying my lesson was inaccurate? Because I did a lot of research on proper butt-plug technique. And,” I add, stressing the word, “that is our most popular video. It’s got like twenty-seven thumbs up and only three thumbs down. So people must find it helpful.”

“Eden,” Zoey says in her stern mom voice. “Who cares what they think about the video? They’re talking about us! We’re going viral, baby! We’re going viral!”

She’s literally talking to her baby. I think. Then he coos back at her on the other end of the phone, and yes. She was talking to him.