Boy, am I glad you’re off tonight.” I sit on the edge of my bed and let my body fall backwards as I speak into the phone. Stretched out on the bed I stare up at the ceiling. I know Mom is fast asleep, but I keep my voice quiet.

“Oh, no. What happened? Did you drop out of the game?” Jenny sounds deeply sympathetic, but almost like she expected this to happen.

“No! In fact, there are only six teams left now.”

“Really? That’s fantastic! So what’s the problem? Did Mr. Gorgeous piss you off?”

“Not exactly, but he is the problem.”

“Not exactly? Come on. Don’t tiptoe around it. Tell Aunty Jenny.”

I snort. “Excellent choice of words, since my toe had something to do with it.”

“Wait…What?”

After a deep breath, then another one, I spill the entire story without leaving anything out. Okay, I leave out a few key bits, but those are things that are filed under too much information.

“Dakota!” she gasps.

“I know! You don’t have to tell me what a huge mistake I made. I’m already well aware.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you it was a mistake, but the fact that you immediately went there, makes me a little concerned for you,” she says thoughtfully.

“Actually, I don’t know what I feel right now. You’re right. I can’t stop thinking it was a mistake, and that’s not a good thing.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Oh, God, what do you think?” I close my eyes and let myself go back to that alley for just a moment. “Was it the most romantic spot? No. Did I sort of feel trashy for letting it happen there, of all places? Yes. But it was all I wanted in the entire world at that moment. And he wanted it too. It was fast, dirty and hot, but part of me still can’t believe I allowed it to happen. I’ve never done anything like that in my whole life. Hell, anybody could’ve walked in that alleyway and caught us at any time.”

“Girl, you are making me seriously jealous right now.”

“Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” She laughs.

“You’re right.” I laugh with her, covering my face with my hand. “Oh, I don’t know what to do! I mean, he’s still my competition, Jen. We’re down to five other couples and us. Eventually, it’ll be me and him. What do I do then? I know I won’t be able to forget what happened tonight, or how much I loved it.”

“And neither will he,” she reminds me in a quiet voice. “Don’t forget that.”

“You don’t think he was using me, do you?”

“Absolutely not. He did it for the same reason you did it. Because even though it was bad for business, both of you wanted to do it. The game show had nothing to do with this. You were just two people for the first time since you met in the parking lot. The sparks flew even then. When you first told me about him, do you wanna know what I thought?”

I sigh heavily. “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.”

“I thought it sounded like you two were perfect for each other.”

“That’s crazy. I hated him. He was behaving like such an entitled jerk.”

“It’s not crazy. I’ve never been more serious in my life. It was that same something that made the presenter zero in on the two of you. It was fate,” she proclaims dreamily.

“You’re fucked in the head.”

“What’s your point?”

She has me there. “Anyway, it’s irrelevant. It’s all irrelevant. I have to beat him. I can’t keep thinking of him as, you know…a man.”

“You’re setting yourself up to fail. Nobody can do that after someone they really fancy just got them off in an alley.”

“You’re supposed to be helping me through this, not reminding me how my life is going to get even more difficult from here on out. This is the first lesson in Best Friend Basics, 101.”

“Oh. Okay. Let me try again.” She clears her throat, then lets her voice get breathy and high-pitched. “You can do it, Dakota! I believe in you!”

“You’re the worst. You know that?”

“Just think of him as a Ken doll. Nothing down there but molded plastic!”

I burst out laughing. “Trust me. That’s not the case. He’s a lot, lot more than molded plastic.” My body flushes at the memory of his hard, probing dick pressed against my thigh, and the way he groaned when I brushed against it.

“Please, lay it on thicker. I’m not already hating your guts over your luck,” she laughs.

“I don’t know that I would call it luck. More like…the natural progression of what happened because of our stunts.”

“Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? Stop kidding yourself. You lucked into getting paired up with a guy who can’t keep his hands off of you.”

“I wouldn’t go that far…”

“You don’t have to,” she teases. “He’s already done it for you.”

“Jenny!”

“And I bet he would like to go even further, if you’d let him. No man does what he did, where he did it, and doesn’t want more. Trust me, girlfriend.”

She might have a point, though I’m still afraid to let myself believe it. I guess I already like him too much and I don’t want to let myself get more tangled with him when there’s a chance he doesn’t genuinely like me back. I don’t want to get hurt.

I roll onto my stomach with a groan. Leaning my head on my arm, I stare off into space. “I still can’t believe I did that. It’s so…”

“Hot?”

“Yeah, hot, but it’s so not like me.”

“Maybe this is who you are,” she reasons.

“Thanks a lot,” I grumble.

“Jeez, I’m not calling you a back-alley slut, Dakota. All I’m saying is, maybe you have a touch of bad girl deep down inside you, and you’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this to let that bad girl out. You just got excited by the taboo aspect of the situation.”

“I would argue the point, but it’s shocking how turned-on I became in the restaurant.”

“See? You’re a naughty girl at heart. I knew you had it in you.”

“I wish I knew what to do now. Do you have any wisdom for me?”

“What would you do if you had an illicit encounter with a guy from work?”

“Illicit encounter at my workplace? Please. There’s only old Mr. Douglas, two married middle-aged men, Ryland who is gay, and the cleaning lady.” I work at a dusty warehouse where we store stuff for people. Nobody keeps anything of value there, just old files, and stuff they wouldn’t really care about if it were lost. They leave it with us because we’re so cheap.

“Seriously. What would you do?” she insists.

“I guess, I would find a way to face him after it was over.”

“You’ll find a way to face Trent, too. Hey, he wouldn’t have pulled you into that alley if he didn’t want you like crazy. You said he was turned-on by all that word play in the restaurant.”

“Are you kidding? He led me into half of what I said. His reaction was what turned me on to begin with.”

“Ugh. I hate you so much right now,” she mourns. “A hot guy, salivating over you in front of a restaurant full of people. Sucking your toe in public… Anyway, I’m getting off-track. My point is, he’s probably going through something similar right now. Not regret, per se. But I’d bet he’s wondering what you’re thinking, if he made a mistake, how he’ll face you during your next stunt. I know it’s easy when you’re dealing with a super gorgeous, confident guy to assume they have everything together and are just so much cooler than you, but sometimes that’s not the case.”

“You’re a wellspring of wisdom, Aunty Jenny.”

“I know,” she agrees smugly.

“It must come from working as a bartender,” I muse. “You get to experience so much.”

“I work in a dive bar,” she says dryly. “It’s not glamorous.”

“You know what I mean. You seem so much wiser than me. I’m always the one who’s like, duh, what do I do now? And you’re the one with all the sensible answers.”

“You scored a few points tonight, though,” she points out with a giggle. “I’ve never had a guy go down on me in an alley before.”

“I’m never gonna live this down, am I?”

“Oh, God, no.” She’s still laughing when she hangs up.

My cheeks tingle with my little secret…and maybe with a little bit of pride. Just a little. A smidge. I have a dirty sex story. Me. Dakota. Good Girl Dakota has a sexy story! I’m now a woman with a past. And I don’t entirely hate it.

I only wish it wasn’t with him—even though I’m glad and slightly more proud because it was him in that alley with me. Why can’t something fun happen in my life without strings attached? Other people get to have fun, be young and not worry about it. I can’t even have a fling with a hot guy without worrying it’ll cost me a million dollars and my mom’s life.