“How many . . .” Rebecca’s voice trails off as she stops herself.
“You can ask me anything,” Daniel prompts her.
“How many men have you been with?”
Daniel narrows his eyes as he thinks. “Hmm, not many, I would say more than ten but less than twenty.”
“Jeez.” My eyebrows raise by themselves.
“What’s that look for?” Daniel smiles.
“Well, you said that you haven’t slept with many men. If that’s a low number for you what’s a high number? I mean . . . what are your numbers for women?”
Daniel laughs. “Too many to count, I’m afraid. I meet some beautiful people in my industry, sometimes the temptation is just too great.”
Disappointment fills me and I screw up my napkin and throw it onto the table in disgust. “I wish I was more like you,” I sigh.
“Meaning?”
“You know, all liberated and cool and”—I pause as I think of the right terminology—“I guess, free.”
Daniel’s face falls. “You don’t feel free?”
Oh God, why did I say that? Now I sound like a freaking drama queen. “What I meant is, I guess I would like to be in your shoes, you know, sleeping with whoever I wanted to for fun.”
“You don’t have sex for fun?” Daniel frowns.
This is all coming out wrong. “I mean, I have in the past. I guess I just got out of the swing of it as I got older.”
“How old are you?” he asks.
“Twenty-seven. I had a few boyfriends in high school and college, and then after that I had a long-term boyfriend. We broke up a year after my parents died.”
“Your parents died?”
I sip my drink; how did we get onto this subject?
Why did I say that?
“They were involved in a head-on collision car crash,” Rebecca replies; she knows how much I hate saying that out loud.
Daniel’s eyes come to me in a question.
“My mother died at the scene, my father died on the way to hospital. The driver that hit them had a heart attack and veered onto the wrong side of the road.” I feel the heaviness come over me as my chest constricts, and I glance up into the kind eyes of Rebecca, who gives me a soft smile and takes my hand across the table. I had just moved in with Rebecca at college when my parents died. She’s been my rock and a wonderful friend and has been there for me on many lonely sad nights.
“I’m so sorry,” Daniel whispers. “Do you have any other family?”
“Yes.” I smile. “I have a wonderful brother, Brad, and I have a sister who . . .” My voice trails off.
“Who what?” Daniel asks.
“Is a raving bitch,” Rebecca snaps. “I have no idea how the two of these girls are genetically related. They have nothing at all in common. Chalk and cheese.”
Daniel smiles in surprise as he looks between us. “Why, what’s she like?”
“Beautiful.” I sip my drink.
“Entitled and mean,” Rebecca interjects.
I smile sadly. “She’s not so bad. She’s taken our parents’ death the hardest and somehow her personality changed overnight. Brad and I have held each other up and limped along and yet, all she wanted to do is be on her own. She hasn’t handled grief the same as we have.”
“You don’t see her at all?” Daniel asks.