“So, tell me about your date!”
I leaned back further into the comfortable couch and took a sip of coffee. I needed the caffeine after the late nights and the exhausting day. Despite everything else, a smile crossed my lips at the thought of Jake. My mind drifted to how his hips felt pressed to me during the dance lesson and the way his eyes kind of danced when he laughed. “I had a nice night.”
“Did you sleep with him?” She eyed me. “You have no poker face. You slept with him. How was it? What happened?”
“It was . . . nice.”
Her lips quirked up. “Bitch, you know that level of detail is insufficient. I can tell from your dopey expression that you’re underselling.” She pushed her hair off her shoulder and sat up straight.
She listened intently as I described everything from him showing up with my sweater to kisses on the Ferris wheel and the night in his hotel room.
“Wow,” she responded. “That’s intense, Nay. And he’s good with his hands?” Felicia waggled her perfectly shaped eyebrows. “Like, on a scale from Aiden to your wildest, porniest dreams, where would he fall?”
I laughed, remembering clumsy, fumbling Aiden Howard, my date to the senior prom who had finished in his pants without warning after I barely touched his zipper. At least we’d already taken photos. That tux never stood a chance.
“He’s—” I searched for the right word, remembering how Jake’s voice dipped low and got kind of gravelly and how he’d rubbed my back when I got sick in his hotel room that first night. “He’s a class unto himself.”
I paused again, taking a drink of my coffee. “And then last night . . .”
Felicia’s jaw hit the floor when I explained the president’s announcement and finding out Jake owned the consulting company.
“Are you allowed to hook up with him?”
“Probably not.” The anxiety that had been lingering at the base of my neck all morning returned. “He came over after the event. We talked about it.” I glanced at my mug to avoid her scrutiny.
“You talked?” Felicia asked before her eyes opened wide and her face lit up. “You were right and properly serviced last night, weren’t you?”
I nodded, pressing my lips together to pull in my smile, and holding up three fingers. “And then again this morning.”
“Shit, Turner. When you step out of your box, you really step out.”
“I know, but . . .”
She gave me a knowing look. “It was that good, huh?”
“It was so far beyond good.” Flashes of memory danced in my mind. “But it could be so bad for me if anyone found out.”
Felicia sat back in her chair. “It doesn’t sound like you’ll be doing much besides tangling the sheets. You can keep it quiet.”
“I hope so.”
“Girl, this is big. You’ve been so closed off, especially with men. And I get it after what you went through, but . . .”
I nodded, doing my best to push that thought from my head again. Instead, I pulled up the photo of Jake and me from that first night and handed her my phone. “I’ve never reacted to someone like I do to him, and he’s . . . generous.”
“Shit.” She exhaled slowly with a grin. “Does he have a brother?”
“You’re married.”
“I’ve been married a long time.” Felicia laughed. “Gonna see him again?”
“I hope so. He’s here through the end of the weekend, but he’s in a wedding tomorrow.”
She took another sip of her coffee and shook her head. “I’m glad he’s good in bed. You deserve some quality action after your re-virginizing dry spell. Not that guys before that were anything to write home about.”
That made me wince, remembering the guy I’d been with in graduate school and how he’d spend two minutes groping my breasts with kind of a honking motion before moving on to the main event. Foreplay? Schmorplay. It left me not only unsatisfied, but frustrated and embarrassed, like there was something wrong with me.
I set my cup down. “It’s weird. I feel . . . good with him. Not at all self-conscious. It’s like I can get out of my head.”
Felicia’s boys flew into the living room and simultaneously screamed for her attention. While she played referee, I warily pulled my buzzing phone from my pocket. If it kept buzzing without me answering, Felicia would know something was wrong.
Jake: Thomas wants to celebrate his last night of freedom by drinking all the whiskey in Chicago.