Sex Says

Well, in a roundabout way, it has prepared you to hear about my bike. Brace yourself because this girl is what makes my heart beat faster.

Daisy was a true beauty. With her pretty white frame, her bright pink wheels, and her convenient metal basket hanging off the handlebars, she was what little girl bike dreams were made of.

Besides walking, taking the bus, or catching a cab, Daisy was my sole means of transportation. She was also the absolute apple of my eye.

I mean, if you owned a car in the city, most days you were five minutes away from selling your soul to the devil just to find a parking spot. But Daisy—we might hit a couple bumps in the road, but she never let me down.

BØRNS was just starting to serenade my ears with “Holy Ghost” when I finally reached the San Francisco Times’ offices. If I weren’t supposed to attend an important, last-minute meeting, I might’ve just said fuck it, got back on my bike, and pedaled around the city—a less busy part, of course—and enjoyed one of my favorite albums of all time.

But I didn’t have that option today. Joe had woken me up with an eight a.m. phone call to summon me for a powwow.

So, like the good little employee I was—well, I tried really hard to be…most days—I parked my bike inside the bike rack, locked it, and headed through the entrance of my place of employment.

Although I did my very best to avoid these offices, I occasionally had to attend team meetings and monthly in-person chats with my editor, which were mostly nonsense created for the sole purpose of annoying me.

I just preferred to do my work from home, or at my favorite diner, or coffee shop, etc, etc, etc. I had a long list of places I loved to work, but these offices were certainly not one of them. I was not one with them, but they weren’t one with me either.

One month after they had hired me to write Sex Says, I had driven Joe to the point of insanity with my inability to stay seated for more than fifteen minutes. After watching me skip to get coffee, tap dance to the bathroom, and twirl to the break room one too many times, he had decided it would be best for everyone if I worked from home.

In my humble opinion, besides hiring my eccentric ass, it was the best damn decision he had ever made.

It should be noted that I wasn’t always an expert in the world of sex, dating, and relationships. To say I was a bit of an awkward late bloomer—cough, nerd—would’ve been an understatement. A plastic banana ripens faster than I had blossomed into an actual woman.

While my fellow horny teenage classmates were going to dances and boning like bunnies, I coddled in my womb of unconventional nerddom. Anyone who had the opportunity to go into my parents’ garage and find my Pandora’s box of teenage embarrassment would understand what I meant. Gilmore Girls DVDs, Harry Potter—the books and memorabilia, not the actual wizard—Danielle Steele novels, and trophies from my high school bowling team made up about half of the contents. The other half I refuse to talk about.

Yeah. Tame your boners, boys.

Although, I had to say, my glittery pink bowling shoes and matching ball were still something to be proud of.

My first kiss didn’t occur until I was a junior in high school, and my first experience with sex happened when I was nineteen. It was terrible, in the back of my then-boyfriend’s van, and if there would’ve been a lava lamp, it could’ve easily passed as an actual nightmare.

Eventually, after a few long and bumpy roads of self-discovery, I had bloomed and blossomed and gained a better understanding of sexual exploration, healthy relationships, and how to navigate the dating world.

My early twenties had been filled with bizarre dating situations, one-night stands, several failed relationships, and a personal blog on Wattpad where I shared all of my love woes, no matter how embarrassing or absurd.

And by some stroke of luck, my ridiculous yet oftentimes hilarious dating and relationship stories and love anecdotes had gained some attention. By the time my blog had over 300,000 followers, I had received a call from the San Francisco Times, and voila, Sex Says was born.

I’m sure none of this comes as a surprise.

I mean, I ride around San Francisco on a bike named Daisy.

It’s safe to say I’ve still got a little bit of geek in me.

I stepped onto the elevator and rode up four stories. My Converse tapped across the hardwood floor of the hallway until I reached the conference room Joe preferred. For a guy whose office was a throwback into a seventies time machine, he was such a weirdo when it came to the aesthetics of pretty much everything else.

He refused to use the conference room on the third floor because he said the walls were too white. Cue my slow blink—I honestly had no idea that was a thing. I thought white was just that—white.

He also refused to eat lunch at this kitschy, fifties-themed diner on Market Street because he claimed they were trying to blind him with their ambient lighting.

Personally, I didn’t care how bright the restaurant’s lights were. Their bacon cheeseburger and double chocolate milk shake tasted like they were made in heaven, on the actual cloud nine. If my eyesight were the price, I’d pay it.

My eyebrows rose in curiosity when I reached the glass-lined walls that looked into the conference room. Only Joe and Miranda, one of my fellow columnists, were sitting inside.

That was odd. Generally, Joe didn’t call a meeting unless all of his staff was involved. Efficiency and all that jazz.

I wrapped my fingers around the cold silver metal of the handle and pulled it open. As I walked into the eerily empty conference room, neither of them glanced up to note my arrival. Instead, they sat hunched around her laptop, perusing something intently.

Miranda pointed toward the screen, and Joe grinned, a soft chuckle falling off his lips with ease.

“Uh…hey, guys,” I announced.

Both of their eyes went wide, and Miranda quickly shut her laptop.

“Hey, honey,” Miranda greeted. “How was Daisy on the ride in?”

I ignored her question. “What were you guys looking at?”

“Facebook,” Miranda said.

“Twitter,” Joe also said, at the same time.

I raised an eyebrow as I sat down in the black leather chair beside Miranda. “You guys are acting strange.”

“Strange?” Miranda asked in a pitchy voice, and then she forced a fake laugh. “I’m not acting strange. Are you acting strange, Joe?”

“Nope,” Joe said and cleared his throat. “I’m not strange.”

I pointed an accusing finger in Joe’s direction. “You’re always strange.”

He pointed back at me with a teasing smirk. “Like you should talk. You ride a bike instead of driving a car like a normal adult, and when you come to meetings, you dress like that.”

I glanced down at my attire and then looked back at him, holding both arms out. “What’s wrong with how I’m dressed?”

“Lola, I adore you,” he started. “But look at how Miranda’s dressed, and then look at how you’re dressed.”

My face scrunched up in annoyance. I didn’t even have to look at Miranda to know she was most likely wearing heels, an A-line skirt, a silk blouse, and a sleek jacket or sweater. It was her go-to workplace appropriate outfit. She must’ve had twenty different versions of that very outfit, just different colors and patterns.

“Just because she sticks to the business dress code like she works for Human Resources doesn’t mean I have to do the same,” I retorted.

Miranda scoffed, “Hey, I look fabulous.”

Joe laughed. “Lola, honey, you’re so far from sticking to the office dress code it’s not even funny.”

I stared back at him in annoyance, but he just continued on.

“Pigtails, cutoff jean shorts, gym shoes, and your tank top says ‘Tacos.’” He ticked off the items that made up today’s outfit. “It literally just says ‘Tacos.’”

“So what? I like tacos.” I shrugged. “And these aren’t gym shoes, Joe. They’re Converse.”

He grinned. “Appropriate office attire is still a pointless conversation with you, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Pretty much.”

“I honestly think you might be the weirdest, yet most likable employee I’ve ever had.”

“I’m not that eccentric.”

Miranda laughed. “Last team meeting, you wore roller skates.”

“They were my transportation!”

“You never took them off,” Miranda added. “You had them on the entire meeting, and Joe continually had to ask you to stop skating around the table.”

“First of all—” I held up my index finger “—they’re new and San Francisco has a lot of hills, so I was utilizing Joe’s rambling time wisely by getting in some roller skating practice. And, secondly—” I added another finger “—it was the only way for me to stay awake. And I wasn’t the only one suffering. Mike from accounting was two blinks away from falling into a coma.”

“I was not rambling,” Joe muttered.

“Yeah, you were,” Miranda said and I nodded.

He narrowed his eyes at both of us. “I don’t ramble.”

“Last week, while you were on the phone with your wife, she actually called your assistant, while still on the phone with you, and asked your assistant to tell you that you were needed in a meeting,” Miranda retorted. “Even your wife tries to escape your rambling.”