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I pressed Send. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed one of those chalkboard signs in front of the restaurant advertising their specials. In bright red chalk were the words: “Ten percent off your entire meal if you dare to try our hotter than hot ghost pepper.” For some reason, I linked ghost pepper to penis, and without thinking—like, without thinkingat all— I quickly sent another text:
TESSA:Hot hot hot. Like I want your ghost pepper inside of me.
Oh no! I’d hit Send without doing my usual self-review. I hadn’t meant to hit Send. Now what was Cade going to think? Clearly, when Ellis wasn’t there to guide me, I sucked at sexting, because Cade wasn’t replying. I stared at my phone, which was starting to shake in my shaky hand, waiting for his response.
Finally, it came. It wasn’t good.
CADE:Um, my ghost pepper?
Staring up at the ledge of the restaurant’s roof, I pondered for a moment why I wasn’t instead staring a gorgeous sunset next to a gorgeous man. I could still recover: I could go around the corner and play it all off as a joke. “You should have seen your face,” I could say. Then I could look at something other than twigs and rusted gutters.
But of course I didn’t do what I should have done. That would have been reasonable. That would have been normal. That would have been sane.
Instead I did exactly the opposite of what I should have done: I doubled down. I doubled downhard.
TESSA:It’s the hottest pepper in the world, you know.
Cade’s text took a little longer to come in.
CADE:Um, okay…
Not great, I know. But I was convinced I could still save this. I could still make this sexy. Sexy. Sexy. Sexy! I just had to think sexily. I closed my eyes and imagined Cade in a kitchen. He was wearing nothing but an apron, his chiseled butt bare as he chopped a pepper and glanced over his shoulder at me.
From the dark of my not-creepy-at-all hiding place in the shrubs, I peeked an eye open to add another text.
TESSA:I hope you have milk ready.
My fantasy continued. In my imaginary kitchen, Cade called me over to him. He paused his chopping of the pepper in order to lift me up and sit me down on the counter. While his eyes darkened, his fingers walked up my leg and under my skirt. I imagined myself gasping as he dragged his thumb over my wet folds, and moaning as he licked his finger before returning his attention to the chopping, leaving me gasping for more.
I was starting to get into my fantasy when a pesky realization hit me: my lady bits would probably be on fire if Cade actually touched me after cutting peppers. I could practically feel my nipples shrinking at that annoying practicality. I needed hot, but not the painful kind of hot. Why was this proving to be so difficult?
This wasn’t working. It didn’t get any better when I looked down at my phone to see Cade’s text.
CADE:Um…milk?
Didn’t he know that milk soothed the heat from hot peppers? Wasn’t that a thing everyone understood? I realized that milk was perhaps the least sexy drink out there, second behind prune juice. But I still thought I could save it. I closed my eyes, remembered how I felt sexting Ellis, and inhaled deeply through my nose.
TESSA:Key ingredient in milkshakes.Do you want to try my milkshakes?
To get back into the mood, I imagined the noise of a blender in the kitchen. Imaginary me looked over Cade’s naked shoulder and was surprised to see imaginary Jamie. Why was my idiot neighbor in my fantasy again? And why was he wearing nothing but a chef’s hat? At first I was annoyed that my grouchy neighbor continued to invade my sexual fantasies, but then my imagination had him walking over to me as I was still between Cade’s thighs. Jamie held a chocolate milkshake in his hand, and scooped out a dollop of whipped cream onto his finger. I held out my tongue. This fantasy was delicious, on all levels.
TESSA:I’ll even let you lick my cherries.
Very sexy,I thought.Very sexy indeed.
I forgot to watch the phone for Cade’s response, and instead closed my eyes to enjoy my fantasy once again. There are reasons I was a theater major with an acting emphasis—I can really get into the moment. I audibly gasped behind the hedges when in my imaginary kitchen, imaginary Cade lifted me from the kitchen counter and carried me over to the table. Milkshake in hand, imaginary Jamie followed, watching as Cade lay me flat on the table and then tore my shirt down the middle.
Dream me felt the air hit my bare nipples. But the cold of the air was nothing compared to when Jamie poured some of the milkshake over my chest. The boys each leaned over me to cover my skin with their hot tongues and I hoped the moan that escaped my lips was only loud in my mind.
I peeked an eye open to make sure no one had found me, then remembered to look at the phone. I saw a text from Cade that made my stomach drop.
CADE:So are you close by, or what?
It wasn’t exactly the sexy response I was hoping to get.
In my fantasy, an alarm went off in the kitchen because while we were getting on our hot threesome on the dining room table, the stir fried peppers burned and the smoke was filling the kitchen. It was loud and obnoxious and so unbearably loud. I felt Jamie’s tongue freeze as Cade ran toward the stove. This was not going well.
Feeling panicked, I texted the first thing that popped into my mind.
