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Hannah stirred and opened her eyes for a moment. “Night, Mom,” she mumbled.
“Night, sweetie.” Hope caressed the curls back from her daughter’s forehead.
“Glad you arrived okay. You’re probably beat,” she texted, trying to imagine Jordan in his hotel room.
“I am. Hardly slept last night. ;) Talk tomorrow?”
Hope chuckled silently. “Good night. xoxo.” Had she really just sent him a “xoxo?” Hope covered her face with her palms. She felt like an old teenager.
A cocktail emoji appeared in reply, followed by, “To Hope.”
When she closed the chat that melted her heart, knees, lower belly, and everything in between, Hope’s eyes fell on the chat she’d had before. Eric’s text made her ground her teeth.
“I might want the kids on Halloween. I’ll notify if I do.”
She hadn’t responded yet, knowing that it required more than the intuitive reply of, “Fuck off. You don’t get to notify; you get to ask nicely. And don’t talk to them about it until after you decide ‘if you want’ them and I decide if you get them,” that she had rammed on the keyboard then deleted. She would phrase it better in the morning. Maybe change the “fuck off” to something milder.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Definitely didn’t grow my virginity back.” Hope felt her face all flushed, probably exhibiting outwardly the way she sweated nervously under her clothes.
She looked at her shocked yet bemused friends. Roni wasn’t perched back on her chair, like she usually was, but leaned forward, her elbows on the table, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief. The expression on her face was the dictionary definition of I’m all ears. Libby’s mouth was half agape in a surprised smile, her hazel eyes wide, and her general expression was that of I want to know more, but I also don’t.
“We leave you for one weekend and that’s what you do?” Libby asked, laughing, gripping Hope’s hand from the moment the words, “I slept with Jordan,” had fallen from Hope’s mouth a moment before.
Sitting on the terrace at Life’s A Beach, they had each shared about their weekend, and when it was her turn, she had told them about the fair, how she had bumped into Jordan, how they had gone to the beach then the café, culminating the story with the four words that had them gasping in surprise.
“The moment she agreed to meet here, I knew there had to be something big that made her get over that stupid Josh thing,” Roni addressed Libby. Then, turning to Hope, she said, “I want details. How was it? Where? How? How many times? And … was it indeed something big?”
“Wipe that saliva,” Libby said, laughing and looking at Roni. She was pointing at the corners of her own mouth.
Both Roni and Hope laughed.
“I am salivating,” Roni called. “And I wanna know.”
“Shh … please!” Hope said, looking around at the other tables.
“Okay, let’s start simple. Who kissed whom first?” Roni asked.
“I invited him in and kissed him first.” She didn’t reveal that he had kissed her before. They would be pissed with her for concealing it for this long. She would tell them, just not now.
“Now for the rest of my questions, please,” Roni nudged with a grin.
Hope sighed theatrically. It was actually liberating to share. “Three times … that I can remember,” she said sheepishly, though she couldn’t wipe the smile off her face. “I had mini ones, too, I swear. And it was bed, bed, dining table. And yeah, it was very impressive.”
“Oh God. I don’t want to know all this about Jordan,” Libby said, burying her face in her palms.
“I do,” Roni said, jokingly elbowing Libby. “He’s not my future brother-in-law, and I’ve been married forever, so I need details. Though, I don’t think I could ever eat on Hope’s dining table again.”
“Then don’t eat anywhere in my apartment,” Libby said, chuckling.
“You see? You don’t want the details,” Hope said.
“So, detonation?” Roni asked.
“Oh, yes. But so much more.”
“What’s more?”
