AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She stroked the side of my face, gazing into my eyes with a mix of sympathy and amusement. “I wish I could, my dear. You’re tempting me—severely.”
“Then why not?”
Unbuckling her seatbelt, she opened her door. “I’ll see you on Monday.”
13
Tara
Inside my apartment, my friends shot off the couch when they saw everything I’d brought home.
“You two actually went to get furniture?” Nia asked. “I didn’t think you’d come home tonight at all.”
“What do you think of me?” I asked, heaving the last of the heavy boxes inside the apartment door. “I’m not some kind of sex-crazed lunatic.”
“But you are a red-blooded woman who was on a date with a sexy straight girl,” Kyle said.
I shoved a box further inside with my foot. I’d ended up getting four chairs for the kitchen, as well as a twin bed. The chairs could just be unfolded and placed by the table, while the bed was going to have to be assembled.
“Straightness isn’t exactly a turn-on,” I told him. “I still don’t know how to feel about the whole thing.” I told them about the way the night had ended—how Chelsea had invited me to her place, and how it had taken every ounce of willpower I had to stay away.
I brought a chair into the kitchen, and the others followed suit. We placed them around the table, and Nia stacked the milk crates by the door with an exultant grin.
“You did the right thing,” Trevor said. “Maybe she can offer sex, but it’s not going to be anything more than that. You have to protect your heart.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. I shouldn’t have gone on the date in the first place, never mind kissing her.” I bit my lip. “Now, do any of you know how to build furniture?”
We dragged the heavy boxes into my bedroom. The bed was a mess of a million different parts, wood slats and tiny screws, and I would’ve had no idea what to do if it weren’t for Nia.
“Wait, I made a mistake,” I said. “I don’t have any tools. We’re not even going to be able to start putting these together.”
Nia held up a small, L-shaped piece of silver. “This is called a hex key. It’s all we need.”
“Oh.” I’d thought it was another of the screws.
With her telling us what to do, we got started. The guys were as useless as me, while Nia seemed to be an expert. She assigned each of us a role, and we muddled our way through it.
“Here’s the thing about Chelsea,” I said thoughtfully. “Even if for some reason, I wanted to sleep with her…”
“Ah-ha!” Kyle said. “You do want to bang.” He tapped a nail on a piece of wood a few times for emphasis.
“I don’t, but if I did!” I focused my attention on the tiny screws in my hands.
He yanked one from me and brandished it in the air. “You want to scre-e-ew.”
Nia grabbed it back from him and handed it gently to me. “Cut it out, Kyle. Go on, Tara.”
“I mean… if I did… and it’s a huge ‘if,’ a hundred and ten percent hypothetical…” I spun the screw in circles on the wood. “She wouldn’t even know what she was doing. Right? It wouldn’t be any good.”
Kyle was clearly trying to repress his mirth, and then he snorted loudly. When the rest of us glared at him, he held up his hands. “I’m sorry! It’s hilarious, okay? One minute you’re all like, ‘sex means something,’ ‘I’m not an experiment.’ The next, you’d be totally down but you’re worried she’ll be shit in bed?”
“It’s not quite like that.” Except, how exactly was it different?
“There’s nothing wrong with hooking up,” Nia said seriously.
“There is if she’s going to get hurt,” Trevor insisted.
Nia ignored him. “And, you know, everyone has to start somewhere. You won’t know what you’re doing, either.”
