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The door closed, but then Chris popped back in. “Oh, one last question. A pickle went missing after I broke into your apartment for the first time. May I ask whether that pickle entered your body via your mouth, or…”
“Chris!” I said, clutching my temples. “Put yourself on the other side of that door and close it.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Leaving me to guess, huh? Dangerous proposition for a man with a powerful imagination.”
I felt like I needed to breathe into the paper bag my bagel had come in. Mercifully, Chris left so I could wallow in shame and embarrassment alone.
I put my hand to my forehead, wanting to curl up and pretend I didn’t believe a word he just said. Except little glimpses of it were coming back to me. I could even see the way he was looking at me like it was taking everything in him not to die of laughter as I tried to crawl on him and said all kinds of ridiculous things.
I took my frustration out on the bagel and the brittany, which were both delicious. I shot off a text to Val, because I’d reached the point where I desperately needed some girl-talk to make sense of everything.
Twenty minutes later, Val was rummaging through my kitchen for something to eat while we talked. “Why don’t you have eggs like a normal person? Your entire pantry is just a bunch of different brands of kid’s cereal.”
“Kid’s cereal shouldn’t taste so good if it has a problem being a cornerstone of my diet.”
Val snorted, then settled for taking a few handfuls from a random box. “So you basically called for an emergency conference with me. Spill it. Whose dick did you suck and why has it cast your life into chaos?”
I filled Val in on everything that had happened since my last series of texts to her, then waited while she chewed a mouthful of crunchy cereal. Her face was scrunched in thought.
“I’ve seen you drunk. You’re not usually a horny drunk.”
“Unfortunately, I think I really do like the guy. I’ve tried as hard as I can not to, but it’s like this little red freckle I had when I was younger. I scratched it off, then it grew back even bigger. I scratched it off again, and it came back bigger. So I stopped messing with it and it still got bigger until I finally had to get it surgically removed.”
Val was squinting. “You’re saying you tried to rub Chris Rose off, and he got bigger? I think that just means his sexual organs are functioning properly.”
I groaned. “Are you here to help or play stand-up comic?”
“Both. And if you’re trying to imply you’d like me to ‘surgically remove’ Chris, I charge way more for assassinations than you can afford.”
“Val!” I cried out somewhere between amusement and frustration. “I’m just trying to say that I’ve tried not liking him. It doesn’t work. So I’ve either got to give in and hand over my heart, or accept that I like him but keep fighting it with everything I have.”
“Dramatic, much? And you do realize feeling for someone isn’t a choice, right? You think you’re deciding whether to feel or not, but all you’re really doing is deciding whether to be honest with yourself. And him.”
I laid back on the couch, covering my eyes. “I hate when you say things that make sense.”
“You hate it so much that you can’t live without my advice. I know. Dr. Val is here, girl. And you know what Dr. Val prescribes in this case?”
“I don’t want to know.”
“The Big Bang. You’ve got to give all those hormones in your system somewhere to go. You two already hooked up once, so the precedent has been set. Just one more meaningless hook up to clear your mind, and then you’ll be able to think straight. If you still feel all gooey when you think about him after that, then you’ll know it’s probably legit.”
I rolled my head to look at her. “You want me to casually propose that we have sex? You really think that would work without giving him the wrong idea?”
“I think it sounds like he’s probably just as desperate for a pressure release as you are. Set it up for him. You don’t have to specifically say what you want or why. But arrange for it to happen.”
“Arrange for it to happen?” I asked dryly. “I’m not some seductress. How am I supposed to do that?” I paused, then shook my head. “Also, I’m totally not agreeing to do this, for the record.”
“Hey, the guy is technically your fiancé. It’d be weird if you didn’t sleep with him once in a while. And remember? Even if things get messy, you two have an end date. He gets his contract, and he’s going to put an end to the whole thing.”
