Page 71 of Kiss Me, Maybe

“Iwasjealous,” she admits in a low growl that makes my toes curl. “Twice in one night. Even though I know you don’t like men. How pathetic is that?”

“It’s not pathetic.” I bump her shoulder with mine. “Ego boosting for sure, but not pathetic.”

“You don’t need any help in that department.” I let out a guffaw, but she just laughs in my face. “Am I wrong?”

“Only a little.” Her brows furrow in question. “It’s a facade. Back when I thought I had something to prove, I flirted with lots of guys. Maybe it’s comphet, or maybe my cousins fucked me up more than I even knew. I thought my world would fall apart if people found out I’d never been kissed. I did anything to counteract the damage Briana and Esme caused. Anything but actually kiss someone.”

“You weren’t ready,” Krystal says. “I hate that they pressured you like that, and then made you feel like you weren’t enough as you were. You shouldn’t have had to become someone you’re not just to appease them.”

“I think I would’ve been ready a lot sooner if it wasn’t for them,” I confess. “Ever since I figured out my identity, I keep thinking about all the time I lost trying to prove to everyone how straight I was. I like who I am now, but my family doesn’t get it. I stopped wearing makeup and feminine clothes, and my parents thought I was depressed. I can just imagine how they’d look at me if I did what I really want to do.”

“What do you really want to do?”

I burst off the couch before the question is out of her mouth.

“How good are you at cutting hair?”

“Decent, but there’s a reason I’m a bartender and not a hairdresser,” she says. “Why?”

“Want to give me a haircut?”

Her stare lingers on me for a moment before I realize what she’s doing. Her hand reaches out to push my hair back from my shoulders as her head tilts, assessing.

“Let’s do it.” Her smile spreads. “Scissors are in my bathroom drawer.”

I barrel past her to the bathroom, barely registering as she calls out, “Wait!” when I reach out to pull open the first drawer I see below her sink.

“That’s a lot of vibrators.” I feel Krystal standing over me, waves of mortification coming off both of us. She kneels beside me, moving my hand from the drawer and shutting it with a loudthump.

“Let’s just pretend this didn’t happen, all right?” Krystal clears her throat and finally looks at me. “Let me grab the scissors.”

She seats me on top of the toilet seat and wraps a bath towel around my shoulders, tying it at the back of my neck. Her fingers sink into my hair, massaging my scalp. Her touch is exquisite and does nothing to clear my mind from what I spotted in the bottom drawer.

“The bathroom is sort of a weird place to store…those.”

“I thought we agreed to pretend you didn’t see anything,” she says, and for a moment I think that’s the last of it. She fills a spray bottle with water, wets my curls, and brushes through them with a comb. “Those are my waterproof ones. I… take a lot of baths in here.”

“Oh…oh.”

Before I can ask any of the myriad questions that come to mind with that little tidbit, she asks, “How short were you thinking?”

“The shorter the better,” I reply quickly. “I didn’t know they made waterproof vibrators. Are they designed for… bath play?”

I hear her suck in a breath behind me. “They’re not technically vibrators. And they’re made to use in or out of the bath.”

“What do you mean they’re not vibrators?”

“I guess the more appropriate term would be… suction toys.”

Holy shit.

I don’t have much time to react to this knowledge before she asks me a few more questions about the length. I give her a quick rundown of the style I have in mind, wondering at her many talents when she doesn’t so much as bat an eye at my request. Even though I’ve always been tempted to chop off my hair, I never have. I’ve gotten lots of compliments for my long hair over the years. I always thought my hair is what made me pretty. But if I’m being honest, I think I’m done with pretty.

“What does it feel like?” I stare down at the floor, watching more and more of my hair fall to the tile. “Using one of those things.”

She stops cutting for a moment. “A vibrator or suction toy?”

“I don’t know.” I bite down on my thumbnail. “Either?”

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