Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 98909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
My phone chimes, and I pick it up fast. But it’s not Annika. It’s my frat brother Munsen. Dude, thanks. I will make good use of it.
Hmm. The message doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but rando texts from my friends are pretty common.
But then I get another thank you, just a moment later. Beer money! You guys are the best.
Beer money?
My phone rings, and this time it is Annika. “Hey!” I say brightly.
“This is interesting, Keat,” she says, but her tone is cautious. “What do you know about this guy, besides his abs?”
“He’s a part-time Darby student. Undergrad, I think.”
“There are part-time students at Darby?”
“Uh…” This detail had never jumped out at me before. But I don’t think I can name another part-timer, come to think of it. “Apparently?”
She does not sound convinced. “What else do you know about him?”
“He’s played with couples before. He likes the thrill.”
“Do you know his real name?”
“Not yet. Because that stuff is quid pro quo, and I wasn’t going to give your name to a stranger.”
“Okay, good. But what if he’s dangerous?”
“Annika.” My tone is gentle. “I thought you wanted to do this.”
“I do,” she says quickly. “But I thought we would pick someone more… Verifiable. Apps make me nervous.”
I chuckle uneasily, because it’s not like her hesitation is crazy. “The whole thing is an adventure,” I admit. “Do you really think I’d let anything happen to you?”
“No, of course not. But we could ask someone we know.”
“Really? I’m not in the habit of asking my buddies to get naked with me. What if they’re disgusted? Then I have to avoid them until graduation. No—longer. There we’ll be at the ten-year reunion, drinking our first beer of the weekend, and I’ll see him across the way. And his eyes will go all squinty. There’s the pervert who wanted to see my dick.”
She bursts into nervous giggles. “Okay, point taken. But I could’ve done the asking. It’s less weird coming from me.”
I suppose that’s true. “Did you ask anyone?”
“No,” she admits. “I wasn’t sure we’d go through with it.”
“Really?” Annika doubts me? “But I said I would, and so I did. At least the set-up, anyway. It’s been very educational. He asked me a lot of questions we haven’t considered. Like who gets to touch who. He says we have to figure that stuff out ahead of time.”
She gets very quiet for a minute. “How do we decide?”
“Well, that’s kind of up to you. You never really articulated what you wanted out of this experience. And it’s coming up soon. So tell me what you want to happen.”
“Um, I guess…” She laughs nervously again. “I want the feeling of being overwhelmed with passion. Like, double the touching. Double the desire.”
I can work with that. “So you’re on board with letting him touch you?”
“Of course. But are you going to let him touch you, too?”
“Um.” Again I kick myself for not having this conversation in person. I need to see her face. “I don’t have a problem with it. Do you think he should?”
I don’t know how much time it takes her to answer, but it feels like a year. “Yeah. I think he should. And I think you should touch him, too.”
“Does that—” My voice actually cracks. “—turn you on?”
“Um. Yes. It does.” She pauses. “But does it turn you on?”
You’d think I would have expected this question and prepared an answer. But honestly it stops me in my tracks. “I…” Jesus. “I guess we’re going to find out.”
Yep, I took the coward’s way out.
She clears her throat. “So, you think this guy sounds normal? Like he’s just some laidback student who sometimes likes to mash with two other people at once?”
“Yeah, I do. Exactly.”
“Okay. But I don’t want him to learn our names until we meet him. Just in case someone is catfishing you.”
“Well…” I guess I’m not quite so paranoid. “What about photos of faces?”
“No,” she says emphatically. “I think we set the whole thing up. And if he shows, great. And if not, we haven’t lost anything.”
I grin. “And if he shows and he’s butt-ugly?”
“Then we have a drink out of politeness, and then pretend to chicken out, apologize profusely, and get the hell out of there.”
A laugh slips out. “Out of where? Where should this happen?”
“We need a hotel room, of course.”
“Of course,” I agree, although she’s way ahead of me as always. “I’ll book a suite with a hot tub.”
“And if the whole thing is a disaster, we’ll get drunk on champagne and laugh about it in the hot tub.”
“I knew you were special,” I say, and she laughs.
So this could have gone worse.
After we hang up, I’m feeling pretty good about it for a couple of minutes. But then I check my texts, and there’s a fresh pile of thank-you’s there. One of them is from Tanner.