Page 64 of Feels Like Coming Home

“Oh, Hays, you crack me up. So, how was it?” Piper swung herself back around on her stool and straightened herself again, facing me. Resting both elbows on the counter, she looked at me with anticipation, like a small child waiting for someone to tell them a story.

“The date was nice. Food was good. Service was good. We should go sometime.” I set the coffee mug down in front of me and stirred in some creamer, completely avoiding Piper’s gaze and the real question she was asking me.

“That’s nice, sweetie, I’m so glad you had a nice date. Now tell me what I really want to know.”

“What do you really wanna know?”

“Hisdick,Haley. Tell me about his dick. Was it good? Bad? Too big? Give me all the gory details anddon’tleave anything out.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me and grinned ear to ear.

My lips pursed at her bluntness but I couldn’t really be mad. This exact personality trait is part of the reason I loved Piper so much. She never beat around the bush and she always kept things straight with you.

I shooed my hand at her and took a sip of my coffee, reliving last night and this morning in my head. I sucked my lips under my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut, then started to smile and laugh. When I opened my eyes again, I finally met Piper’s gaze.

“Oh my god! IT WAS GOOD! AHHHH!” She started to squeal and clap her hands. We sat there squealing and jumping around together, laughing as we did. It was totally ridiculous to be acting like this at thirty-two, but I was living for it.

“Okay, okay. For real”—Piper took a deep breath and held both hands out in front of her, palms down, trying to get serious again—“I need more than just giggles and stupid smiles.Tell me everything.”

I took a seat next to her at the counter and gave her every juicy detail from dinner to our after dinner dessert. She nearly fell out of her stool again when I told her about how Cam wanted ‘to keep things fair’ and squealed again when I gave her the play-by-play of Cam’s pre-breakfast feast.

By the time I was done, her eyes were wide and her mouth hung open.

“Holy fucking shit, so it was like,reallygood,” she gushed.

“Holy fucking shit, it was like,reallygood,” I repeated back, looking into my coffee mug with a smug smile.

She was nodding her head at me when she spoke again. “And he didn’t get upset that you brought up Connor? Not even when he just had his dick inside of you?”

“Could you not say it like that please?” I rolled my eyes at her. I loved Piper but sometimes her frankness was just a little bit too much. “No, he wasn’t. He was actually really sweet about it and told me that if I ever wanted to talk to him about Connor, I could. I don’t think I will but still, it’s nice to know that the door is open.”

“Yeah that is really sweet of him,” she paused for a moment, “So, now what?”

I inhaled, bringing my shoulders to my ears, and on the exhale dropped them heavily down my back.

“I don’t know. We didn’t talk about dating or being together or anything. Shit, I don’t think I'm ready to be in another relationship officially yet. Part of me is still trying to even believe it’s okay to be with Cam like this so close to losing Connor. And…” I trailed off, not sure if I wanted to vocalize the last bit of my thought out loud.

“And you’re worried you can’t fully trust him after everything you guys have been through before,” Piper finished, knowing full well about the crap Cam and I have been through.

“Yeah…” I worried my bottom lip, thinking about all the times Cam had let me down in the past.

Like in middle school, when I told him I had a crush on him and he laughed and told me to stop being stupid. Then, during our sophomore year, I swear he looked at me differently, like more than a guy looks at his friend who is a girl, just to show up a few weeks later dating an older girl. Even senior year, after the last home game of the season, Cam had won the game for our school and he ran into the stands and kissed me on the cheek in front of the entire student section.

Then there was that night in my dorm room. The one where he promised to be there for me and whispered in my ear that he loved me, just to vanish the next day and not text me back for over a month. After I deleted his text message, I never heard from him again and I never reached out to him either. I had clicked send on my texts and made a vow to myself to move on.

The next year I met Connor, and the rest is history.

“Do you want my opinion on the situation?” Piper’s voice broke me out of my memories and brought me back to the present.

“Isn’t it your duty as my best friend to give me your opinion whether I want to hear it or not?”

“Oh my god, I’m so glad you agree!” She rolled her eyes and flicked her hand at me. “Here’s what I think. I think you need to give him a chance. You’ve been hurting for so long and I haven’t seen you as happy as you were when you walked through that front door an hour ago in months. You don’t need to be official to have fun with the man, so just have fun. Keep your heart protected but try to believe that what he is saying is true. He’s given you reason not to trust him in the past, but men are idiots, especially when they’re only boys. But if we always closed them out, we would never have any orgasms or things to gossip about, now would we?”

I laughed at Piper because I knew she was right. Cam had told me, multiple times now, that he was here to stay and that he wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe this was our chance to start over, start fresh, and let this new beginning be the start of us. I didn’t have to date him in order to just have fun with him, right? That’s what this could be, just some fun while Piper and I are here planning the conference.

As my mind started to replay last night and this morning, the space between my legs started to tingle.

I guess I was already ready for some more fun.

33

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