Before Him

“Nail polish? Herds?” I shake my head, not sure where to go from there.

“It’s like this. Him lion and you. Well, you’re the pretty gazelle. The gazelle that’s about to be nailed,” she adds under her breath.

“Babe, can you smell burnt toast?”

“I have not had a stroke,” she answers humourlessly. “But the night is young, and I have high hopes!”

“Crazy lady.” I turn back to the mirror and smooth back my dark hair. High ponytail still on point.

“You’re into him, right?”

“He’s nice.” April barks out a derisive laugh at my answer. “What? He is nice.”

“And super-hot.”

“So hot,” I agree.

“And super into you, which has totally pissed on Chelsea’s plans.”

I wouldn’t be human if that didn’t light me up a little inside. “But this weekend is about you and your birthday, not about hook-ups and boys.” While this sounds like the kind of thing a best friend should say, I recognise it’s also a valid form of self-protection.

“Oh, Kennedy, that is so not a boy.” She chuckles pointedly, leaning into the whole you are so naïve thing. “Remember what I told you about that barista I hooked up with last fall—the guy in his thirties?”

“That he gave you a whole latte lovin’?” I hazard.

“He was a little too hot to handle and definitely strong enough to keep me up all night.” She snickers, pulling a lipstick from her pocket. “If you know what I mean.”

“What happened with him again?” It’s hard to keep up because April breaks hearts like they’re Pop-Tarts. But then again, Nana dates more than me.

“It wasn’t a thing,” she says with a dismissive wave. “I can’t date a thirty-year-old barista. But the point I’m making is that with age comes experience. The squeal with delight kind of experience.”

“Well, Roman is just a year older than we are.”

“But he’s not some dumb college kid from PSU.” She turns to face me and gives me her patented stare. “Besides, it’s not always in the years lived but the living done in those years. It’s in the experience,” she adds. “And that man has experience. I can tell.”

The Romeo kind of experience.

I drag my attention back to my reflection, to my bright eyes and my heightened colour. “I’m not gonna lie and say I don’t like him.”

“Like?” Cocking her hip, she flicks her hair from her shoulders, affecting the catty girl from every teen movie ever made. “You look at him like you want to lick him from head to toe.”

“Eww, April.”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it!”

“Not on your birthday weekend, I haven’t.” I glance down at my shoes, wondering if I’ll ever regain the feeling in my little toes.

“As the birthday princess, I give you permission to throw off your duties for a night to get your freak on. I mean, we’re going to Hakkasan,” she says, speaking of the Vegas club of the moment. “And they already have a table booked and bottle service. Serendipitous, right?”

I have feelings. So many feelings. Relief that I don’t have to choose between my bestie and a man who looks at me like I look at a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. But also fear. Fear because Roman is . . .

Just a man, I remind myself. A hot, available, and if those wet swim shorts imply anything, well filled out in the underwear department.

In other words, I think he might know what he’s doing. Not that size is everything. After my experiences (read: fumbles) since I lost my virginity, I’d just be happy to find a man who doesn’t think foreplay is fingering a girl like her body is a game of Whack-A-Mole. It would also be nice to find someone whose horizons have expanded beyond a couple of desperate thrusts.

“This is turning out to be a pretty good night.” I blink, coming back to April’s voice. “We’ll dance, drink, hang out with hot men. And who knows? Maybe a little later, some of us will get to blow off some steam back at the hotel. Then in a few days, we’ll be back at school, and you’ll have your head stuck in some book again, and the only blowing you’ll get close to is blowing off every offer of fun that comes your way.”

“You know how important my scholarship is.” Without it, there is literally no way I’d be able to continue at Portland State.

“Yeah, yeah. I get it. But you know what they say, all work and no play makes Kennedy a dull girl. I mean, not that I believe it for a minute because you’re the funnest ever.”

“Yep, that’s me,” I deadpan, pulling open the bathroom door. “The funnest Kennedy.”

“And the funnest Kennedy whose next assignment, should she choose to accept it, and if she knows what’s good for her, she will, is to provide the current reigning birthday princess tales of hot sex at brunch tomorrow.”