Page 52 of Seven Year Itch
“Your face!” Her round features move closer to the screen as she squints at me. “You look so different. Like the weight of the world is off your shoulders.”
“Or I just got a little sun.” I laugh and shake my head.
“Are you sure?”
“I mean... I did have sex, but my face right now is because I just found out I won the Best of Boulder award.”
“Oh my God, Dakota. That’s incredible!”
“I know.” I hold my hands to my cheeks, feeling flush and overwhelmed and crazy excited. “I can hardly believe it.”
“I can! You’re a badass, and this is well deserved.”
My mind reels with that praise because if anyone is a badass here, it’s Tot. We met in college, and from the moment I met her, I knew she had more creative genius in her pinky finger than I did in my entire body.
However, she’s one of those creative types who must be guided or nothing would ever get done. I always had a bit more business sense than creative sense, which is why we made a great team. I don’t see her as much as I’d like since she moved to Aspen, but these monthly calls end up being 90 percent girl talk and 10 percent business so we’re still well informed on each other’s lives.
“I’m just so shocked.” I shove a hand through my hair as I look over the letter again to make sure I’m not dreaming.
“I’m more shocked by the fact that you had sex. We can get back to singing your award-winning praises later. That’s not nearly as shocking as you getting laid! Did you find someone at that sex club? I’ve been dying for details about that night, but you’ve been on fricken vacation, so I was trying not to bother you.”
“Well...” I turn the letter over and focus on my friend, trying to reset my brain from business to personal. “I guess you could say I found someone at the club.”
“Holy shit, I am dead,” Tot squeals. “I still can’t believe you had the guts to go to a sex club in the first place. I still can’t believe sex clubs actually exist. I still can’t believe you went to a sex club!”
She repeats herself, and I have to hold my hand up to stop her rant. Tot has a tendency to get carried away sometimes. She’s the best.
“I ran into Calder Fletcher there.”
That silences Tot real quick. “Is that Max Fletcher’s brother?”
I nod and tell her the whole awkward encounter all the way down to getting him kicked out of the club. Which maybe was a little cruel in the moment, but he was being completely overbearing and ridiculous.
“So then we get to Mexico and end up having to share a room... and he just wouldn’t let it go. He kept begging me to tell him why I was there.”
“Oh, he’s obsessed with you,” Tot says with wide, exhilarated eyes.
“No, he’s not.”
“Puhleeease.” She waves her hand at me. “He sounded jealous. Like he didn’t want anyone to see you like that.”
“No, he didn’t!” I argue. “He wasn’t jealous, he was just overprotective. Like a big brother.”
“A big stepbrother who wants to fuck you, maybe.”
“Tot! Can I finish my story please?”
She presses her lips together, and I give her all the dirty details from Mexico. The bloody nose, the dancing, the movie watching, the fighting, the flirting, the fighting again. And then... the finale.
What a finale it was.
A flash of Calder crawling to me has my cheeks heating so much that I pray Tatianna can’t see it through the zoom video.
“He got me out of my head, Tot. Like I swear I wasn’t thinking, I was just doing and feeling and feeeling. Jesus, he has a magic penis, I swear.”
“Put that on a T-shirt,” Tatianna giggles.
I giggle too. It feels good. It feels like the old me. Like the free, confident me that I used to be.
