You need this excerpt from Boy Toy!
“What are you guys in the mood for?” I ask, bringing up the Netflix icon on my screen.
“Hmmm…” Ash says. “I dunno. How about something sexy? Like, The Graduate!”
That’s a little weird. Usually Ash asks for some kind of action flick involving explosions or car chases or both.
“Nah,” Brynn says. “I’m much more in the mood for American Pie. You know, I think that’s the movie where the term MILF was invented. You know, a Mother I’d Like To Fuck.”
There’s a massive scoop of New York Style cheesecake hovering just inches from my mouth when everything clicks into place. “Dammit!” The fork clatters to my plate. “What did you guys see?”
They both collapse in hysterics. Seriously, they’re laughing so hard that Brynn might go into labor. I should’ve known when I entered the door and they were al oh, hiiiiiiii. And Brynn’s eyebrows were wagging. And Ash was all smirky. They must’ve seen Liam kissing me! They must’ve driven right past and I was so involved I didn’t even notice.
“Just tell us if that runner boy is as good a kisser as I imagine him being.”
And I get a little bit jealous all of a sudden when Ash says that. Like my inner goddess growls mine.
“Please say there’s more where that kiss came from!” Brynn this time. “Please tell me there is boinking. I can’t boink right now. It’s just too much effort, but I’d love to live vicariously through you.”
“No! There’s no...boinking.” I clear my throat, set the cheesecake down. “Or blowing. Or banging. Or anything. It was just a kiss.”
Ash shakes her head. “I know what a just-a-kiss looks like, and that was not. That’s was just-a-foreplay. That dude wants you so bad.”
“Liam,” I say, and I sort of sound all breathy and ridiculous.
“Liammm,” they echo, mimicking me in the same voice.
Fucking girlfriends.
“So…” I should probably just tell them. They’re my best friends and they’ve always been my support system. They’ll tell me the truth and be real with me, and consider all the options. They won’t jump to conclusions and I know I can trust them.
So why am I procrastinating? Why don’t I just blurt it out?
“Liam wants to have a no strings attached sexual relationship with me to cure me of my sex drought and because apparently it will fulfill some inner fantasy he’s had of me since he was fourteen.”
This is the part where my besties ponder the question with me. We’ll have an in-depth conversation discussing the pros and cons and the possible emotional complications, and…
Ash says, “Do it.”
Brynn says, “Yeah. Fuck him.”
Ah. That was fast. “But aren’t I too…”
“Short?” Brynn guesses. “Nah.”
“Uptight?” Ash supplies. “Didn’t look like it a half hour ago.”
“...Old,” I finish. “He makes me feel like a cougar.”
“You can’t be a cougar until at least forty,” Ash says. “It’s a rule. So you have five years left. But in five years he’ll be thirty-four, and the differential between your ages will be inside of twenty percent. So you will have aged out of cougardom.”
“You’ll be fully amortized,” Brynn adds.
We both give her weird looks. “Do you know what amortized means?” Ash asks.
“No, but it sounds like the Latin word for love,” she shrugs. “Let’s eat cheesecake and watch a kissing movie.”
And that is why the three of us have never successfully completed a serious conversation. We have, on the other hand, successfully completed many a cheesecake.