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Chapter Seven
“Tell me literally everything,”I said to Linley the next day when I went over to her place. Clearly the date had gone well, because she had slept in and was still yawning and disheveled when I knocked on her door after she’d buzzed me up.
Linley smiled and then tried to hide it as she set a cup of coffee in front of me and shoved a plate with a piece of heirloom tomato quiche on it toward me.
“I can’t tell you everything,” she said, pulling her legs up onto her chair and setting her cup of coffee on her knees. “But it was good. It was really good.” She couldn’t stop smiling.
“You totally got laid. I’m so jealous.” I hadn’t had sex since Wyatt, and even though it wasn’t that long, it felt like much longer. It wasn’t just the sex part that I missed. It was the stuff that accompanied sex. Cuddling naked with another body, having deep conversations that you might not have in normal circumstances, a post-coital shower. The intimacy. My skin craved to be touched.
“I mean, we didn’t have sex in his car, but we did do some things.” Her face got red.
“Was it good?”
She bit her bottom lip and her cheeks got redder. “Oh yeah. He has very talented hands. He has a hobby carving miniature wooden animals.” That was absolutely adorable.
“Can I see?” I asked.
She gave me a weird look.
I clarified. “The stuff he carves. I don’t need to see his hands.” Although, I did like a nice set of hands. Forearms too. Mmmmm.
While I finished my coffee and quiche, Linley showed me Gray’s social media page and his online shop. His work was absolutely incredible.
“Wow, this is so impressive,” I said, scrolling through page after page of lifelike animals that he posed outside on a stump with acorns for scale.
“Yeah, he’s been doing it since he was in college. His grandfather taught him to carve and he’s been doing these guys. He’ll do a drop of a limited edition one and they sell out in like a few hours.”
“Very cool. Now tell me about the sex.”
Linley groaned, but gave me the dirty details.
“So, when are you going to see him again?” I asked.
“Well, we’ve been texting and we have a video chat for tonight.” She could not stop smiling, and it was so great to see.
“Have you told your mom yet?”
Linley snorted into her coffee. “I didn’t tell her about the sexy stuff, but she knows that the date was great and I really like him. It’s still early, I know, but it feels good.”
She was glowing, and it wasn’t because a cute boy had touched her boobs in the backseat of his car.
“I bet he’s carving you a little animal right now,” I said. “If he doesn’t, you should ask him to. Request something weird like a wombat or a pangolin.”
“A pangolin?”
“Yeah, you know what a pangolin is.”
She shook her head.
“Oh my god, okay.” I pulled up pictures of pangolins and showed them to her.
“Aw, they look so nervous. I love it,” she said. “I’m totally sending one to Gray.”
“I’m telling you. He’s going to show up at your next date with a carved pangolin. I would put money on it.”
I was completely and totally happy for my friend. But that little tiny whisper of jealousy wouldn’t go away. I missed feeling the way she felt. The energy and fizzy happiness of a new relationship. Where every single message or call made you giddy.
“You want to take a walk?” I asked. There was a sweet ocean breeze that swept away the heat from the pavement outside.
