Page 17 of Shake the Habit

“So did I,” Caleb concurred. “Not so much with the academics, but I was lost when it came to dealing with the other kids. I could kind of get by with the boys in my dorm. A lot of them were there because they had family problems, too, so we understood each other better. But the girls?” He whistled. “I was stunted. I was physically unable to speak to them and act like a normal human being.”

“How did you get over it? Because I’m a girl, and you’re doing great,” I said encouragingly.

“Thank you. By the time I was finishing college, I had relaxed. It was habituation more than anything else. I asked a woman out and she said yes. We had dinner and it was very normal, up untilthe point when she wanted to sleep with me and I…uh, never mind.”

“Everybody does it for the first time at one point,” I encouraged again. “I would imagine that she was pleasantly surprised.”

“I don’t know about that. She was nice, though, and gave me credit for trying my best.” He hesitated. “I think I’m blushing.”

I checked. “You are,” I confirmed. “I’m pretty glad you’re saying things that embarrass you after I told you some of my personal horror story. I’m not going to do that anymore.” That statement was meant to reassure him, and also to remind myself.

“What should we do tonight?”

“What should we…we?” I echoed.

“I don’t have plans and you took off the fancy dress. I’m still not exactly Casanova, but I do know that most women don’t wear sweatpants to go out on New Year’s Eve. I also remember how you told me several times that you don’t have any plans tonight. What if I picked up dinner? Is the sushi restaurant still open?”

“My Lord, no,” I said. “I could tell you stories about some really unfortunate stomach problems stemming from that place. How about pizza? That’s usually a safe option.” I looked over at him. “Do you have any friends from high school around here?”

“They were mostly boarders and unlike me, they were mostly from other places. I’ve kept up with some of them but not too many.”

So, if he didn’t have pizza with me, he’d be going back to sit alone in his cold house. Having him over for dinner wasn’t exactlycharity, though. It would be great for Sir, for one thing, and it would also have been good for me. I’d been thinking about staying up to watch the ball drop, but the thought made me pretty sad.

But our dinner together was much, much better. We had fun, mostly talking about future improvements on his house and the iffy behavior of the dog. Caleb was sure that Sir needed to have obedience classes, but I pointed out that he obeyed just fine.

“See? He’s not allowed to beg at the table, so he’s over there—my Lord, Sir! Stop chewing on my shoe!”

I woke up the next morning at the beginning of an empty chapter with that dog next to me. My phone was full of messages and pictures from my cousins, like Aria kissing her husband and kids, Cassidy kissing Jack, Amory and Aubree with their husbands, and Brydon sitting with a duck. He did his own thing and seemed very happy about it. I sent back a picture of me and Sir, in which he looked sleepy but extremely handsome, as always.

Aria called me a moment later. “Happy New Year!” she said. “I was awake to ring it in, since both kids are sick.” I said I was sorry, but she seemed pretty cheerful. “Only colds,” she explained. Aria was generally cheerful, even on just a little sleep. “Sir is such a beautiful dog.”

“I’ll tell him you said so.” He was currently jumping up and down at the patio door and I also told him to be quiet. I accompanied him outside to make sure he stayed that way, anddidn’t disturb my next-door neighbor. That guy had also been up late the night before.

“Is that…” Caleb’s eyebrows had raised almost to his hairline when the sounds had started coming through the wall.

“I think my neighbor has a girlfriend. I mean, that’s live, right?” We’d listened until Caleb had started to blush again. “It sounds authentic to me.”

“Did she just ask him if he took a shower this week?” He shook his head as the woman had screamed more, now phrases of encouragement about keeping the pace and going harder. “How often does he have company over and get, uh, active like that?”

“It’s a new thing for him,” I said. And it was a little sad—not for my neighbor, but for me. He didn’t seem to shower very much, enough that it was sometimes uncomfortable to pass him in the driveway if there wasn’t wind to blow the smell away…and yet, he had somebody. It was somebody who’d screamed, “I’m coming!” and had apparently done that for a super-long period of time. I was able to count “one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi,” all the way up to twenty-seven! Was that normal? It had never happened to me!

“I don’t know,” Caleb had said when I’d asked him that question the night before, and he’d held up his fist to hide his laughter. “Can we turn on some music? Loud music?”

Aria also laughed when I told her about the extended orgasm, but she wouldn’t tell me how high she could count when she was with her husband, Cain. “I’m very satisfied,” she said primly.But then she added, “It has nothing to so with me alone in the shower, either,” and we laughed together.

I was in a good mood as we chatted and I threw the bouncy thing to Sir. That lasted right up until my cousin asked, “So…is this serious?”

“I don’t really know my neighbor well enough to ask.”

“KayKay!” she scolded, and I imagined her shaking her head, her auburn hair bouncing. “I meant with you and this Caleb. Did you kiss him at midnight?”

“He was gone by ten. I thought it was a good idea because of all the drunks on the road.”

There was a silence that my cousin broke by clearing her throat. She, like the rest of my family, remembered that I had also been one of the drunks—not on the road, not as far as I remembered. My Lord, had I done that? Probably.

“How bad was I, Aria?” I asked her.

“I love you,” she said, an avoidance answer if I ever heard one. “I love you so much, and you and Cassidy have always been my best friends.”

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