by Julia Kent
“Krysta…” Lydia drew out her name, hackles up.
“I just said that to seem trendy. I’ve never done”—she pointed to her ass—“that.”
“What?” Lydia shrieked.
“You’re the one who took it to the Tucker Max level.” She gave Lydia the evil eye. “At the rate you’re going, you’ll have your own original Netflix sitcom in a few months.”
“Because I had anal sex?”
That last sentence came out of her mouth just a tad too loud, her words carrying across the restaurant at a moment when there was a lull in every conversation in the place, and when the kitchen appeared to have gone on silent mode. “Anal sex” felt like it echoed a thousand times, growing progressively louder until folks at the post office three blocks away could hear it.
“There are some things a brother just does not need to know,” Caleb mumbled as he delivered a hot plate of coconut shrimp to them. Two women sitting at a booth a few spots down the aisle gave her a look, one a curvy blonde about to dig into what appeared to be her second sundae, the other like a petite version of Ellen Page crossed with a Boston terrier. Both looked away quickly and chowed down, which was the only appropriate thing to do at Jeddy’s when Caleb was the head chef.
“Could you say ‘anal sex’ a little louder? I don’t think they caught it on the PA system down at Gillette Stadium,” Krysta said, sharing a smirk with Lydia’s brother.
“You’re the one who told me all about pegging your last boyfriend,” Lydia said, batting her eyelashes at Krysta as she shoved a piping-hot shrimp in her mouth, burning the soft skin behind her teeth. Penance. Sweet penance.
That made Caleb skedaddle.
“You are such a jerk. You know I never pegged anyone!” Krysta stole three of the remaining four shrimps, defiance in her eyes. Lydia could almost taste victory.
She needed the dessert menu for that.
“Would you if you could?”
“What? Peg someone?” Krysta shuddered.
“Why not? If you could fake take it up the ass, you could fake peg my brother, right?”
“Conversations with you are like talking to Dan Savage on acid while being licked by Miley Cyrus.”
“That would actually be kind of cool.”
“You are hopeless.” Krysta’s words came through a mouthful of shrimp dripping in a marmalade garlic aioli.
“Says the woman who lied about her brown starfish.”
Wiping her mouth with her napkin while snorting, Krysta shook her head, hard, and avoided eye contact. Finally, she choked out, “If you’re going to lie about something…”
Lydia pretended to be offended, hand clutching imaginary pearls. “I never lie about anal. DP, yes, but not anal.”
“DP?” Krysta looked genuinely perplexed.
Waiting a beat as Caleb’s moving form caught her peripheral attention, she counted in her head. Three…two…one…
“Here’s your pretzel-crust pumpkin cheesecake with Madagascar vanilla caramel sauce,” he announced.
“We didn’t order that,” Krysta said shyly.
“I know,” he said, leaning against the back of her side of the booth, body language shifting from professional to interested. “It’s a new menu item. Knowing Lydia, you’d be ordering dessert anyhow. I figured I’d jump the gun.”
The two shared lovely smiles.
Lydia ignored him and said to Krysta, “It’s when you have one penis in your vagina and one up your ass at the same time.”
Caleb made sounds like a moose being choked to death by an anaconda. He could have done voice-over for nature shows—he was that good. And her baby brother turned fifty shades of pink.
“Why are you—what are you talking about—don’t answer that—” The what the fuck? look he gave Krysta was the stroke of victory.
And she hadn’t even needed the dessert menu after all.
“You may have two guys slobbering all over you,” her friend hissed, stealing the cheesecake, “but I barely have one. Half of one.” Stabbing the piece’s peak, she dipped it in the cruet of caramel sauce and shoved it in her mouth. “So you better—oh my GOD!” Her eyes rolled as if she were having an orgasm.
Or three.
“How does he do that? How does he make food that is better than sex?” she groaned, making Lydia ignore her protective arm around the plate and spear a piece, too.
“Better than anal sex?” she asked through a mouthful of pure delight.
“I wouldn’t know.”
Lydia chewed and pretended to think it over, tipping her head to and fro, making Krysta raise her eyebrows as she chewed, giving her a weirdly ancient look, as if she were given a glimpse fifty years into the future. Krysta wouldn’t age well, sadly.
“Dead even,” she said with a flourish, as she reached for her tall sundae spoon and prepared to wash away her anal sin with a few large scoops of gustatory lasciviousness that didn’t involve a bucket of lube.
Or a man.
Or two…
Her brother’s voice interrupted them. “Glad to hear my cooking is equivalent to having someone’s dick up your ass. I’ll use that in my proposal for a cooking show on HGTV. ‘About the same as anal sex.’ I can imagine the billboards.” Caleb’s bitter words flew out in a string of jabber as he cleared the booth next to them.
Krysta somehow glared at her while having a foodgasm at the same time. It took remarkable skill.
“I’ll bet Rachel Ray doesn’t have to listen to her clientele natter on about anal sex,” Caleb muttered as he hoisted a bus bin full of dishes up against his hip, storming back behind the kitchen doors.
Both of them had the decency to wait for Caleb to leave before laughing. Lydia filled a spoon with a chocolate-peppermint combo that took all her thoughts away, mouth completely engaged in the duel for sweet and salty in her mouth. Were those chocolate-covered salted caramels?
And those little bits on top—bacon? Real bacon?
Now she felt a twinge of guilt for needling Caleb. Especially if it meant he might withhold new culinary delights from her.
Okay, only because he might withhold new culinary delights. He had crazy chef moments. Caleb hadn’t earned the nickname “No Soup for You” without good reason.
“I hope you’re enjoying that,” Krysta said, licking her fingers and picking up her own spoon.
“I am.”
“Good. Because you’ll be eating Oreos and Little Debbie Snack Cakes for the next two months now. He’s pissed.”
“Pissed because I talked about my back door?” Lydia laughed, stuffing more ice cream in her mouth. A flash of memory—of Jeremy in bed in the cabin, under the down comforter—hit her.
Then there was that kiss with Mike in his building.
And now there was tonight.
“You’re seeing him tonight,” Krysta said, as if reading her mind.
“Yes.” Neither of them needed to say Mike’s name.
“And?”
“And what?” Lydia’s stomach felt full, but she pushed on, because when you still had more food in front of you and it tasted so divine, a little thing like an exploding organ couldn’t get in your way.
Her curves had become a bit more rounded these days, happiness always making her gain a few pounds, that brittle anxiety and drive that had dominated so much of her post-college life now a distant memory.
Besides, the calories were all Caleb’s fault.
“And who are you going to pick?”
Why do I have to pick just one? The words stayed tightly coiled in her mouth, even the tiniest twitch of unfurling forbidden and not permitted. This was her best friend. She should be able to say anything to Krysta, right? So why couldn’t she tell her about the threesome dreams, about her increasingly deep relationship with Jeremy, how her subconscious yearned for Mike even as her conscious self felt so betrayed?
That kiss.
That damn kiss.
“Why do I have to pick one?” she joked, looking at Krysta from under her lashes, head tipped
down, eyes rolling up, hooded and tentative.
Krysta’s surprised laugh carried throughout the restaurant. “You want them both?”
“Duh.”
“How would that work? Alternate days? Most guys want to be number one, you know.” Her eyes flicked over to Caleb as he set a garnish on a plate that made Lydia’s stomach feel ten times bigger. Horseradish and fig reduced sauce smothering some kind of beef, with julienne root vegetables and roasted cauliflower. The impulse to wrestle the plate from her brother and devour it was almost too great.
Caleb walked past unharmed, the food delivered a few tables away, Lydia’s spoon clinking against the bottom of her empty sundae glass.
Krysta’s half-eaten pumpkin cheesecake beckoned.
“Caleb!” Lydia called out.
He stopped and turned. “Yeah?”
“Can we get some whipped cream?”
“What for?” he asked suspiciously, staring hard at her.
“For my threesome later tonight,” she intoned. “Seriously? For the cheesecake!”
“You already had a cruet,” he said bluntly, shooting Krysta an accusatory look.
Lydia searched the full table and found the empty white dish. “You ate it all?”
Krysta looked guilty, then gave Caleb an appreciative look. “It was that good.”
His chest puffed with pride. “Thank you.”
“So, whipped cream?” Lydia’s voice was impatient, the tone one that only an older sister could get away with using on a younger brother.
“No whipped cream for you!” he announced, like something out of a Seinfeld episode.
“Told you,” Krysta muttered, holding her fork over the last half of the piece of cheesecake and pausing, rubbing her belly.
“You done?”
Krysta made a pouty face. “I don’t want to be done, because it all tastes so good, but my stomach is about to split open and an alien baby will crawl out, crying for relief.”
“Then give me that,” Lydia said, snatching the cheesecake away. Angrily attacking it, she polished the slice off—sans whipped cream—and leaned back against the back of the booth, so sated she wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep off her food coma.
Home.
Where, exactly, was home?
“Mom called.” Caleb’s voice startled her, but not enough to stop the fork from going into her mouth. “Grandma’s still doing well. The surgery was a success and there’s no reason to come to the hospital until tomorrow morning. Grandma’s got Mom and Ed there to keep her company.”
“You mean keep her under control,” Lydia said, but she was smiling as she said it through a mouthful. Lydia had spent the night with Krysta. Her mother and Aunt Karen, who had come in early that morning, were at Madge’s place with Caleb and Jeremy was staying with Mike. The fractured nature of their dispersal rankled her, but she couldn’t put a finger on why. Having space from Jeremy had been a relief, actually.
Knowing he was with Mike, though…that only fueled more, and increasingly intense, threesome dreams. And tonight she had agreed to meet Mike at a trendy tapas bar in Waltham.
Jeremy had checked in every hour by text.
His absence saddened her. There was no overt rift, and they hadn’t broken up—whatever that meant in the context of a brand-spanking-new relationship that still didn’t have enough seasoning to be labeled. Girlfriend? Boyfriend? Fuckmonkey? Friends with benefits?
Girlfriend was what she called herself in her head.
But what about him? They’d had no chance to sit down and really talk in the whirlwind of Madge’s medical emergency, and it showed. In the next few hours her father would sweep into town and take over with Sandy, giving Lydia more time, but tonight was reserved for Mike.
Some things just couldn’t be put off.
This one needed to be faced.
“Whatever,” Caleb said, sliding the check on the table. Krysta picked it up and read it, smirking, turning the sheet of paper over so Lydia could see.
Long before Caleb had turned to cooking, he’d been a very good sketch artist.
The anal sex picture defied verbal description, but looked like something 4chan would host.
Happily.
“Been reading a little too much tentacle erotica lately, baby brother?”
He snickered and tipped his head down, giving her the stink eye. “You could write some.”
“You suck,” she said, laughing, unable to pull her eyes off the disgusting picture.
“No, but I’m often the recipient of suckage,” he joked.
“TMI!” she said loudly, drawing attention. “I don’t need to know about your sex life.”
He made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Hypocrite.”
“Damn right.”
If he could have gotten away with just texting her, he would have, but Jeremy knew enough about life to understand that you don’t tell your…whatever Lydia was—girlfriend? Lover?—to go ahead and sleep with another man if she wanted to, and to do so via text.
Some things still needed the personal touch.
Spending the previous night at Mike’s, on his couch, felt like a bizarre transgression, as if he were the unwelcome college student whose parents had taken his bedroom and turned it into a sewing room. Not true, of course, and he’d stayed at Mike’s plenty of times, but after spending so many nights with Lydia, warm and pliant and soft and round, next to him, the sound of her breathing his own lullaby—that made last night profoundly worse.
Meeting her couldn’t involve having her come over to Mike’s—been there, done that, still carried the trauma, as Mike had practically fumigated his bed, even going so far as to spray the bare mattress with enough Febreze to deodorize a Manson crime scene. Instead, he found himself meeting her at the hospital, walking the now-familiar path up to CICU, and finding Madge gone.
In her place was an emaciated twenty-something man with no hair.
“Um,” he said to a passing nurse, “Madge…” Shit. What was her last name?
“Madeline Kearnsey?”
Madeline?
“Um.” He paused. “the old woman in here?”
“The one with the filthy mouth?”
“Yes,” he said, a little too loud, relieved.
“She had her surgery and was transferred.” The nurse read her room number off a chart. Jeremy set off in search of Madge.
But, really, he sought Lydia.
What he found was a veritable party, Madge sitting up and talking, looking a thousand times better than even the day before.
Lydia and Sandy looked up to find him in the doorway. “Jeremy!” Lydia jumped up and hugged him, melting into his form as he bent over, burying his face in her vanilla-scented softness. Now he could breathe.
Now he could really exhale.
Whatever part of him wanted to be with her now had to acknowledge that he needed to be with her, too, a subtle—but significant—distinction. Even an overnight was too much.
How could he ever travel again without her?
How in the hell could he sleep one more night away?
“You still schtupping my granddaughter?” Madge’s gravelly voice asked him. Sandy whacked Madge’s leg softly and a woman who must be the famous Aunt Karen just rolled her eyes. Tall and regal, she looked like a biology professor, with nerdy glasses and an overly competent appearance he’d found academics cultivated as if breeding the attitude in a petri dish.
“I’m Karen,” she said, reaching across a small chair filled with coats to shake his hand.
“Jeremy,” he said as Lydia squeezed his arm and smiled at her aunt.
“Mom! That’s rude,” Karen said to Madge. She and Sandy shared an inscrutable look, but if it had words it would say Can you believe her?
“What? It’s the truth. Just checking. Healthy sex lives are important.”
“Even at funerals,” Lydia muttered, catching a sharp look from Sandy.
“Yes, I’m still schtupping your granddaughter wh
enever she lets me,” he answered cheerfully, pulling up a chair and twisting it backwards, straddling it. “How’s your sex life, Madge?”
She motioned to the tubes and machines as Sandy giggled. “Could be better. I need Ed in here, and our videos.”
“Videos?” Lydia squeaked, and then reached over to place a gentle finger over Madge’s lips. “Pretend I never asked that, Grandma.”
As if on cue, Ed and his grandson appeared, followed by Meribeth. Jeremy found himself tongue-tied again in the presence of Alex’s mother, her outfit of choice today a simple pair of jeans and a green, scoop-neck shirt that made her seem ten years younger than she was. Why did he react to her like this? He couldn’t tell you what Sandy wore on a given day, and yet he catalogued Meribeth.
Youth. She was so young, and Alex wasn’t much younger than he was. Something about the juxtaposition of his own elderly mother and Alex’s youthful one. A psychologist would have a field day with him.
In more ways than one.
Or three…
“Eddie!” Madge gasped. Taking their cue, Sandy, Karen and Lydia slipped out of the room with Alex and Meribeth. The moms started to talk, and Alex gave them a half-wave, a chart under his arm.
That left Jeremy alone with Lydia.
Thank God.
And about time.
“So what do we do now?” she asked, standing on tiptoes for a kiss, the touch less intimate and more questioning. This was the first time her lips touched his since that kiss with Mike yesterday, and a million thoughts blazed through his mind, all of them vanilla-scented.
As his hand sank into her shiny waves of hair, sliding up to the back of her neck, he adored her heat, the little sigh that came from her, how she tilted her neck and moved with just enough effort to get more of him to touch her. Would a woman with no interest in being with him in the future act like this? He didn’t think so.
And yet what he was about to tell her could shatter everything.
He had no choice.
If he said nothing, this could destroy him.
At least saying something, and being true to who he was and what he wanted, could leave him with an intact self. Ten years of backpacking all over the world had been nothing but an escape, a way to keep the wolves at bay.
