Page 17 of Silver Fox Mountain Daddies

He doesn’t fill the silence. He just waits, giving me the same space he gave me on the porch. When he sees I’m still too overwhelmed, he breaks the silence for me.

“You don’t have to use it,” he says finally. “You can toss it, hide it, bury it in the woods. I’m not checking in. It’s yours, or not. But I wanted you to have the choice.”

That word again.

“In fact, you have plenty of choices. I may have gone a little overboard.”

He reaches for one of the bags on the floor, the black plastic rustling in his hand. Then he passes it to me.

It’s heavier than I expected. I open it, already bracing myself.

Inside, there’s a box that readsRechargeable. Beneath that, something shaped like a ring with a button, another with a curve, packaging with pastel illustrations, one with a warning label in small print, satin drawstring pouches, batteries, and something that looks like a remote.

I drop the bag onto the bed like it burned me.

“Oh my god.”

Finn winces, though I can’t tell if he’s holding back a laugh or just trying not to be smug about it. “To be fair, I did ask the woman at the store for help. She was incredibly enthusiastic. Might’ve offered a full demonstration if I hadn’t cut her off.”

My voice finds its way through the shock. “You told her it was for me?”

“Well, I didn’t say it was forme.”

“Oh my god.”

“I didn’t say your name, not that she’d know who you are anyway,” he says, hands lifted. “I said it was for a friend who’d never had a...moment.”

“Amoment?”

“You know what I meant.”

I press both palms to my face, unsure whether I want to scream or laugh or ask him to please take the entire bag and throw it into the nearest trashcan.

He picks the pink dildo he tossed at me up off his lap, turning it over in his hand. “This one might be a little advanced. I didn’t really think this through.”

I get it now. He doesn’t thinkI’munhinged becauseheis completely unhinged.

I look at him, holding that stupid pink thing in one hand, and for some reason, that’s what does it. I start to laugh. Not loudly, not for long, but enough to knock the edge off the panic still inhabiting my body.

He doesn’t laugh back, just smiles.

“You’re kind of crazy,” I say.

“Takes one to know one.” He shrugs. “Look, it’s all up to you. I just figured...when you said what you said on the porch, it didn’t sound like you were embarrassed about never having one. It sounded like you weren’t allowed to want one.”

I pull my hands from my face. I blink at him in stunned silence.

He shrugs again. “You get to want things now.”

I don’t respond. Not because I disagree, but because the thought is too much to tackle all at once. So I stare at the bag instead, still sitting there with its pink and white boxes peeking out from the top, taunting me.

“I’m going to bury this in the backyard,” I say.

“I’ll help you dig the hole.”

“Finn.”

“Yes?”

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