“Hey,” she said. “Seriously…the thing with Mason’s. You’ve got ethics. You don’t want to take their scholarship and run, even if Marsha’s giving you that option. You love the job…because it gave you independence. I get that. My crappy job is crappy, but I really love having my own paycheck, even if it’s a pittance.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “And I’m whining about the fact that she’s letting me off the hook and that realistically, if I wanted to just blow it off, I could supplement with the delivery. I have money in savings, and it’s not like Archie’s letting me pay any of my bills.”
“Letting you?”
I shook my head. “Let me put it this way, he’s paid everything. Like months in advance. The rent, the electric, the water. Everything.”
“Wow,” Rachel said before she abandoned the chair to flop on the bed next to me. “Sounds like a horrible problem to have. Rich Boy at your beck and call…”
“Rach…”
“I’m giving you shit,” she promised, bumping my hip. “You don’t want him taking care of everything.”
“I don’t want him to feel like he has to,” I corrected. “I know he wants to, because Archie is a fixer—and this is getting off topic. We talk about my problems all the time. I want to talk about yours.”
“Well, the topic was Mason’s, not my problems,” she said with a laugh. “What makes you think I have problems, anyway?”
Too light. Too easy. Brush it off.
“And I like helping with yours. I meant it when I said I was going to be your friend,” she reminded me.
“Friendship isn’t a one-way street.” I rolled onto my side and propped my head on my hand and stared at her. “You focus on me a lot, and I adore you for it. You make me feel good about some really crappy stuff, and you’ve been there for some even crappier stuff. I haven’t been the best of friends, but that’s changing. I want to be your friend too.”
“You are my friend.” With a sigh, she pushed up and moved to sit against her headboard. That put us at opposite ends of the bed. Distance.
Yep, just like me.
It would be almost funny if it didn’t make my heart hurt. I did that, too. And next she’d…
“The thing with Mason’s, before we get too distracted,” Rachel said. “Marsha cares about you, and you’re not the one asking for the out. She’s offering it to you. Just like Rich Boy wants to fix things for you and I want to be there for you. You’re not used to people doing things for you, even if those four idiots have been for years.”
“It’s not the same—then versus now. And at the end of the day, I’m still their friend, too. I help them. At least I hope I do.” Yeah, I did. I shook off that thought. “And you’re not distracting me. Something’s been bugging you since before Christmas. You’re usually acerbic, but you’ve been a little more razor sharp since going to Ohio.”
She thumped her head back against the wood of her bed frame.
“And you haven’t said anything about Skylar other than it didn’t work out.”
“Well, it didn’t. We wanted different things.” A faint smile pulled at her mouth. “I’m not head over heels for her, and she definitely wasn’t for me. This isn’t apples to apples, Frankie. Skylar and I had fun. Then we weren’t having fun.”
Pursing my lips, I considered her, then sat up and crisscrossed my legs as I faced her. “Okay, if it was that simple, then what was eating you?”
“Well, no one, that would be why I was grumpy.” Not even a flicker of expression change.
“Then hang out with Sally Thumb and her four sisters,” I retaliated.
Rachel laughed out loud and clapped her hands. “Damn, you didn’t even blush. Those boys are doing their job.”
I rolled my eyes and then glared at her. “Don’t start.”
“Hey, if you’re going to worry about my orgasms, then why shouldn’t I worry about yours?”
“Because you started it with your tongue advice, so I’m just returning the favor.”
Head cocked, she considered the argument. “I’ll give you that one. Fine…you don’t have to worry about me or Sally Thumb.” She reached over and tugged the drawer next to her bed. “I have an assortment of gadgets for my pleasure.”
An assortment was right. Holy crap.
“Wait…” I half-crawled over there and stared down at the dildo and then at her. “I thought you said you didn’t like dick.”
“I don’t like it anywhere near as much as you do,” she said with a smirk. “And that one is free of other irritating attachments, like a personality or bossiness. It does what I want, when I want, how I want.”
I burst out laughing.
I didn’t even have words for it as Rachel gestured from one device to the other. “I pretty much have all my options covered. See…” She held out one that when she turned it on, it made a little waving motion. “Good tongue action.”
Hands over my face, I cracked the fuck up. There was no way to hold onto that seriously. “How do you have so many?”
“The internet is a pathway to many things some would consider unnatural. Or at least too kinky. Besides, I like experimenting. Can’t know what you like if you don’t try.” She waved her wiggling tongue vibrator at me, and I made a face. “And it’s not that many. Some don’t work like they used to, so I probably should clean it all out. Maybe order some new ones. How many do you have?”
I just stared at her.
“Frankie.” Her mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”
I lifted my shoulders. “When was I going to go buy one?”
“You could have ordered one.”
I gave her a look.
“One, that meant spending money. I never spend money if I can help it.” I could get by on a little, and I socked everything into savings. Turned out, I was right to do that, even if I had the guys right there like a safety net trying to make my landing as soft and bouncy as they could.
Yeah, okay, don’t think about bouncy and the boys while looking at Rachel’s sex toys.
Just…don’t.
“And now I’m guessing you think you don’t need them,” Rachel said as she put her toys back into the drawer. “I suppose with four of them, one of them is probably always ready. Then again, they all talk too, and sometimes a girl just has to scratch the itch and get back to it.”
Scratch the lack of blushing from earlier. My face was on fire.
“And law of averages suggests that among that many partners, at least one of them has to have a kink. I mean, having four partners is a kink all its own.” Rachel tapped her lower lip. “Even if they’re not, sooner or later, multiples are gonna happen at some point. So in that case, sex toys might help ease you into it.”
Yep and on that note, I rolled forward to bury my face against the pillow. How did she do this to me? I was talking to her about her, and now we were talking about my sex life.
“Frankie Curtis, you bad girl! You’ve already double dipped, haven’t you?”