LYDIA

The weekend passes in a flurry of breaking down cardboard boxes from our move and carting them out to the recycle bin at our apartment complex. Trips to Target for miscellaneous supplies and WinCo for groceries. Discovering Del Taco for the first time and trying just about everything from their buck-and-under menu. All while I replay that kiss in my mind over and over and over again.

Tomorrow I start my first job. Well, not my first job, of course. I've had jobs, lots of them. Summer jobs, after-school jobs, part-time jobs.

But tomorrow is my first post-graduation, full-time job. It's kind of a big deal, right? A rite of passage, the first day of my adult life.

I'm as surprised as anyone that it's in Las Vegas.

At a casino.

But it turns out that casinos have a ton of jobs, especially brand-new luxury casinos that haven't even opened yet. The Windsor will employ five thousand people by the time the doors open later this month, and I'm one of them.

I majored in human resources because I'm a helper. I love to help people. Payton likes to help people too, but she majored in marketing because there's no degree in party planning at LSU. Her words, not mine. She likes to help people have a good time, whereas I like to help people with things like making sure their taxes are paid on time. Growing up, I was the kind of kid who filled in every line on the Girl Trooper cookie order form and placed the x securely in the middle of the column so there was absolutely no confusion between an order for a chocolate chip versus a grasshopper mint. So I was super fun, obviously.

I didn't meet Payton until college, but she once told me she got kicked out of Girl Troopers. Something about a pyramid scheme for badges. I never got the full story because I accidentally admitted that I had stayed in Girl Troopers until the end of high school and she laughed so hard she crossed her legs and then toppled over.

I try to keep that tidbit to myself now. I mean, it wasn't something I ever voluntarily shared, it just sorta slipped out when she mentioned something about Girl Troopers one time. And the Girl Troopers filled a maternal void for me, growing up without another woman in the house. But whatever, I rocked Girl Troopers. I sold thirty-six hundred boxes of cookies my last year.

Don't worry, I most definitely keep that fact to myself.

The point is, I like to follow rules. I like dotting i's and crossing t's, so human resources is a perfect fit for me. I did internships in human resources the last two summers so I'm not totally new to this. And it's an entry-level job, of course, but I'm thrilled to be employed in my chosen field.

When the idea of moving to Las Vegas came up, I think Payton envisioned us living in a high-rise on the Strip, but I managed to convince her that Strip living isn't exactly realistic for two girls with about a decade each of student loans to pay off, so we're in Henderson. Also known as the suburbs. Our apartment is great. We have a gym and a pool and a dog park and bocce ball courts. I don't have a dog and I don't know anyone who plays bocce ball, or even what it is really, but it's nice to have. The leasing agent was really excited about it when we toured this place. Plus, Del Taco is so close I could walk there if I wanted to. I probably don't want to when it's a hundred degrees outside, but maybe in the fall. Most importantly, it's about a twenty-minute drive to work and by sharing a two-bedroom apartment, it's affordable.

Payton will be working at the Windsor as well since we were both lucky enough to land jobs during a job fair held on campus during our senior year. I grew up in one Bible Belt state, Tennessee, and went to school in another, Louisiana, so I never imagined myself moving to the center of sin, but here I am. And so far, it's just like anyplace else. Normal, really. Nice. Plus, there's no state income tax in Nevada so I can work on repaying my giant student loans back that much faster. Win-win.

My mind drifts to Friday night. To the bar. To that guy.

Good girl.

Why did it turn me on so much when that guy called me a good girl? That guy. That's how I have to remember the most attractive man I've ever kissed, or likely will ever kiss, because I never got his name. Smooth, huh? The normal, polite time to have gotten that information would have been when he asked me for mine. But did I? No. I was too distracted by the idea that he was going to kiss me to think to ask for his name.

That's selfish, right? I was so focused on getting his lips on mine that I didn't even ask his name. Not that it matters. He kissed the hell out of me and sent me on my way, didn't he? His parting words echo in my mind over and over again. You can go home now, good girl. It was a condescending thing to say, but his tone wasn't patronizing. It was gruff. Low. Husky. Sexy as hell.

I'm sick of being good. The only kind of good I'm interested in being with that man is on my knees, with my lips wrapped around his dick while he tells me how good I am. Good girl, he'd whisper, and I'd like it. At least I like it in my imagination. I like it a lot. There's something very appealing about being called good when you're being very, very bad. Or when you're thinking of being bad, in my case.

I must be the sluttiest non-slut in the country. I'm a wannabe slut, which is just sorta sad, isn't it?

I spent my college years expecting to fall in love with the perfect guy. No, that's a lie. I'm not delusional, there's no such thing as a perfect guy. I know that, I do. But I expected to fall in love with someone worth it. Worth giving my virginity to. What? Surely you didn't think I put out in high school. I was very busy in high school, with the cookies and all. I don't want to brag or anything, but those cookies earned me a trip to Costa Rica. Granted, it was two weeks working on service projects so it wasn't like a beach trip or anything, but still.

In any case, I wasn't that interested in boys in high school. I know for lots of kids high school was about pushing boundaries and sneaking out to parties, but I had no interest. Parties sounded dangerous to me. Bad things happened at parties. Like socializing. Or underage drinking. Both scary. Good things happen when you study and work hard and volunteer your time to help others.

Graduating from college a virgin was not in my plans. Not even close. My goody-two-shoes-ness only goes so far. I fully expected I'd have earned the achievement badge for losing my virginity by the time graduation rolled around.

I envisioned myself as the kind of girl who married her college boyfriend, a wedding two months after graduation.

But it didn't happen.

I did not imagine myself as the kind of girl who'd be turned on by a stranger in a bar. Not ever. But that man, he's awoken something in me. Lust, I suppose. It wasn't just the kiss, it was him. The truth is I was eyeing him all night, my imagination rampant with the things he could do to me. The things I wanted him to do to me.

Like I said, wannabe slut. Who sits around imagining a strange man in a bar defiling her?

On Monday morning I pull into the parking garage at the Windsor, my stomach full of excited butterflies about my first day of work. Payton is driving separately because she's in a different orientation group and we weren't sure if we'd be finishing at the same time or not.

So I'm on my own, just like a real grown-up, which I am. I'm an adult. I smile so hard I have to bite the inside of my cheek to control it. Not that it's necessary, I'm alone in my car so no one can see me grinning like an idiot.

I tap my fingertips against the steering wheel as I follow the signs pointing me to the employee parking sections of the garage. The resort opens in less than a month, and new hires will be starting en masse over the next four weeks. I'm a back-of-house hire, meaning I'm not on the front lines with the guests. I'll disappear into the corporate section of the resort that you never think about. Human resources, legal, marketing, IT, accounting: it's all in-house, tucked away out of sight.

Finding an open spot, I park and double-check my lipstick in the visor mirror, then I lock my car and make a mental note of where I've parked so I can find my car after work.

Okay, this is it. First day, here I come. It occurs to me that this is going to be a big year of firsts for me. First grown-up apartment. First job. First student loan payment.

And I'm absolutely, positively ditching my virginity before this year is over, so that'll be a great big first to check off my life list.

It's not as if I haven't had chances to ditch it prior to now, it's just that I haven't been that interested. I grew up with liberal parents in a conservative town, and I was sort of caught in the middle between those two worlds. Also, I simply wasn't in a huge hurry about it. Junior year I dated a guy I didn't like that much for way longer than I should have because I liked his cat. And no, that is not a euphemism for something cooler. It was an actual cat. A huge, black, long-haired cat with white mitten paws that went by the name of Mr. McGee, and I loved him.

The guy, not so much.

I'm not saying that it was either reasonable or logical, but it is what it is.

I was still waiting for something, you know? Something that made me feel like ripping my panties off, and that feeling never came. But whatever, this is my panty-ripping year. Or maybe it's my panty-dropping year? I probably won't rip my own panties off, will I? No, that would be weird. I'll drop them, for sure. I'm open to a guy ripping them off for me, but I've never worn the kind of underwear that would snap apart under a man's hands.

Shoot. I need new underwear.

If this is my year, I'm going to need the appropriate underwear for when it happens. I make a mental note to reward myself with new undies when I get my first paycheck. Another first! My first adult paycheck! Whoohoo!

I enter the building through the employee entrance, confident that I'm about to embark on the best year of my life.

An hour later, I'm certain of it.