“I heard you playing. Am I interrupting?”
“No.”
“I kind of am, though, right? You were playing, and now you’re not.”
I didn’t want her to talk herself out of coming inside, so I changed the subject. “It’s Sunday, right?”
“Yes.”
“You want some bourbon?” Although maybe it wasn’t bourbon time. “Is it noon yet?”
“It’s eleven—close enough.”
I stepped back to let her in. “We should probably eat something.” I hadn’t eaten anything since last night, when Lena and Marion had run us through a McDonald’s drive-through on the way back to camp. I went to the kitchenette and got another bag of camp-store almonds, which was all I had. “You hungry?”
She didn’t answer, and I was halfway through pouring the first bourbon when she burst out with, “I’m here to ask you if you want to do some horizontal hugging.”
I would have liked to say that my startlement—I tipped over the glass—was due to the fact that she had basically shouted her question at me, but nope. It was the violence with which the answer roared through my body. The answer wasyes. And not only because of the instant boner that sprang up, but because something in my stomach… I don’t know, sort of thunked.Thunked in a good way. As if my guts were settling after a period of unease.
This whole bizarre bodily response reminded me of my hand reaching back into that van last night to help Gretchen out even as my brain was confused as to what was happening. It was as if something inside me, something not of my intellect, or even of my conscious emotional self, had answers at the ready, answers to both articulated and unarticulated questions.
Maybe that was what had happened with that song last night.
But of course it wasn’t that simple. Even if the answer to Gretchen’s questionwasyes, it couldn’tbeyes.
So I got my shit together, wiped up the spill, and took my time pouring the drinks.
I turned and leaned against the counter, holding out one of the glasses to her. “Wow. I’m flattered, really flattered, but—”
“I have to say, I didn’t have ‘Dude tries to get out of horizontal hugging’ on my bingo card.Thatnever happened on Tinder.”
Oh, shit. She was hurt. She was trying to be breezy, but she was overcompensating. She had a tell, I realized: she was her usual sarcastic self, but without the twinkle in her eye that tended to accompany sarcasm when she had the upper hand. This was defensive sarcasm.
She was backing away. Getting ready to leave. I didn’t want her to do that. Even if I couldn’t sleep with her.
It was confusing.
“I’m not trying to get out of it,” I said, but I could tell she didn’t believe me. I wasn’t sure this was the right move, but I glanced down at the visible evidence of my excitement—my thin sweatpants weren’t hiding anything. I didn’t want to becreepy, but I wanted her to know I wasn’t saying no because I wasn’t attracted to her.
“I held my breath as her eyes widened. “Ohhh. Wow.”
“Yeah. I’m trying to think with my brain here.”
“Didn’t you just give a speech last night about getting out of your head, about relying on muscle memory?”
“That was about playing music, and also, we don’t have any muscle memory when it comes to this.”
“We do, too. We have Fruit Roll-Ups in the forest. We know how to do horizontal hugging, we just need to… take it up a notch. Or several.”
That cracked me up.Shecracked me up. Once you got to know her, Sourplum wasfunny. Speaking of muscle memory, my gut apparently didn’t have any memories of what it was like to laugh. It was sore from our laughing fit yesterday.
“You’re right, though,” she said. “This is a bad idea.” She didn’t seem hurt anymore, and she came to fetch her drink.
I had successfully delivered what I’d been aiming for—a rejection that wasn’t being taken personally—so I had no idea why my next move was to open my mouth and say, “If this were to happen, what would we do for protection?”
She raised an eyebrow in a way that seemed to telegraph skepticism, or amusement—or both. “I have an IUD. A relic from my pre-crone days.”
“Tell me more about this crone thing.” This was the second time she’d mentioned it. “You mean like a wicked witch in a fairy tale?”
