Delaney

I’d just walked in the front door, and I was trying to decide whether I should eat my second slice of cake or make dinner when my phone buzzed with an incoming message.

 

CHELS: You sneaky bitch! How could you keep this from me?

ME: Have you been drinking again?

CHELS: What?

ME: I’m just wondering if that’s why you’re talking so crazy all of a sudden.

 

When my phone buzzed again, I saw it was an incoming call from Chelsea, so I waited to answer, letting it ring four times. This is how I get even with my friends for making me wait for a response when I text them. “Hello,” I answered, trying to sound distracted.

“Spill the beans about Sebastian,” Chelsea demanded.

“How do you know about Sebastian?” I gasped. Naturally, I was going to tell her. It was exciting news, and I’d planned to tell her right after I ate my second slice of cake—or made dinner. Who was I kidding? I was totally eating that cake. “Were you spying on me?” There was no reason I could think of for Chelsea to spy on me, but it seemed like the only way she could have found out before I told her.

“No,” she replied. “Sebastian is Luke’s friend—the one I wanted to fix you up with. He’s sitting in my living room.”

“Sebastian is Luke’s friend?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

“The same Sebastian who kissed me earlier is Luke’s friend? Luke, as in the guy you’re living with? That Luke is friends with Sebastian?”

“Why do you always have to ask me the same question several ways before you accept my answer?” Chelsea asked.

“In my defense, this is a hard one to accept,” I explained.

“I was shocked, too,” Chelsea admitted. “How did you meet Sebastian? It seemed like he recognized me.”

“He was at the sex shop,” I explained.

“Huh,” Chelsea paused to consider what I’d said. “That’s kind of pervy.”

“Not as pervy as you might think,” I told her.

“Wait! Did you say you kissed Sebastian?” Chelsea asked. “You did, didn’t you?”

“I guess it’s more accurate to say he kissed me first, and then we were just kissing each other,” I explained. “He bought me cake.”

“Then you had to kiss him,” Chelsea said in a dry tone. “If a man buys you cake, then you have no choice but to kiss him. Too bad he didn’t buy you lobster. That would have been a much more interesting story. I can only imagine how much more you’d have given him if lobster had been involved.”

“It was really good cake,” I insisted, ignoring her lobster comment. “The kiss was also really fantastic. I couldn’t even think straight after he kissed me.”

“And you didn’t call to tell me about the kiss?” Chelsea demanded.

“I was a little busy at the time,” I pointed out.

“Why didn’t you call me right after it happened?” Chelsea asked. “Did you call Brook first? I guess it’s okay if you were going to call me after you talked to her.”

“I just walked in the door,” I told her. “On the drive home, I was trying to figure out how I ended up agreeing to go out with Sebastian tomorrow. This whole thing is insane. After we left the sex shop, I decided to stop for dessert. Sebastian invited me to sit with him since there were no tables available, and we just hit it off. Don’t talk to him about Justin.”

“Why would I talk to him about your vibrator?” Chelsea asked.

“He overheard some of our conversation earlier today, and he thinks Justin is my ex,” I admitted. I was surprised by how embarrassed I was by that misunderstanding. I’d talked about much more embarrassing things in public. Research proved that more than ninety percent of women over twenty-five owned at least one vibrator. Fine! I made that statistic up, but after posting it on Facebook, half the people I was connected to now believed it. It could be true. My hesitation in telling Sebastian about Justin made no sense. It was almost like I was embarrassed about my attachment to my beloved vibrator.

Chelsea giggled. “Justin kind of is your ex. You’ve been really devoted to him and even used him as an excuse to avoid dating.”

“And I could definitely use his services right about now,” I muttered.

“Poor Delaney,” Chelsea crooned. “I guess you’ll just have to get Sebastian to fill in for Justin.”

“I just met Sebastian,” I argued. “How old is he? I thought he looked kind of young, but I’ve never been good at judging age. He’s not Luke’s age, is he?”

“It would really help if you stopped talking long enough for me to answer your questions,” Chelsea told me.

“You know how I get when I’m nervous or excited,” I reminded her.

“Which are you this time?” she asked.

“Both,” I replied. “So, how old is he?”

“I’m not sure,” Chelsea admitted. “He graduated the same year as Luke. They went to high school together.”

“So, he’s also Ty’s friend?” I asked. This was getting messier by the second. I couldn’t exactly have a one-night stand with a guy I had a good chance of running into when he was hanging out with my friends. Sebastian also didn’t seem like he was looking for a quick lay. He seemed interested in dating me.

“I don’t think he’s friends with Ty,” Chelsea replied. “They probably know each other, but Ty graduated a year earlier, and Luke said he and Sebastian met their senior year.”

“I don’t like younger men,” I complained.

“Apparently, you like Sebastian just fine since you’ve already admitted to making out with him today,” Chelsea pointed out.

“I didn’t make out with him,” I insisted. “It was just a kiss.”

Chelsea snorted. “Are you seriously trying to tell me it was an innocent kiss?”

“I didn’t say it was innocent,” I replied. “What the hell did I just get myself into? All I wanted was cake, and now I’m going out with a guy tomorrow. Not just any guy. I’m going out with Luke’s friend.”

“Don’t forget that Luke’s friend kissed you stupid today,” Chelsea added.

“I didn’t even think that was a real thing before today,” I admitted. “I write about it all the time, but I figured it was just a fantasy we all have of the perfect kiss. It didn’t seem possible to actually kiss someone stupid, but apparently, a person can be kissed stupid.”

“I know,” Chelsea said, and I could tell she was fighting a fit of giggles.

“Don’t rub in the fact that Luke has been kissing you stupid for months,” I told her. “It’s obvious to the world.”

“Hey!” Chelsea protested. “Don’t even think about starting in with any dumb blonde jokes.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, sweetie,” I assured her. “You never understand them, anyway.”

“Bitch,” she shot back. “I should tell Sebastian about your fascination with spanking. Maybe he’ll help you out with that fantasy.”

“Don’t you dare, Chelsea!” I nearly screeched. “I’ll get even with you.”

“It might be worth it,” Chelsea mused. “I’d better go talk to Sebastian. I’ll call you later.”

On those words, she ended the call. I was reasonably sure Chelsea wouldn’t say anything too embarrassing since she wanted me to start dating. My friend enjoyed embarrassing me, mostly because I’d embarrassed her many times. Thankfully, my friends had more limits in that area than I did.

I needed to get some writing done, but I decided to message Brook first. If she heard about Sebastian from Chelsea, I’d just end up having another friend call me a sneaky bitch.

 

ME: I met a guy today.

 

I gave her a minute—fine, thirty seconds to respond before texting her again.

 

ME: This is really juicy news. You have to text me back.

 

As I waited for Brook to message me back, the cake was calling me. I knew I should make dinner since I’d already had cake once that day. It would be smart to save this slice for tomorrow. The argument that cake wouldn’t taste nearly as good the next day could easily be made. Cake was always best when it was fresh. Looking at my silent phone, I decided to ask Brook. She could always respond to me when she got around to answering my other texts.

 

ME: Do you think I should have cake for dinner? I already had a piece earlier, but it was really good. Didn’t I read somewhere that chocolate is a vegetable?

 

No text from Brook, so I decided to eat my cake. It was even better than the cinnamon cake. There was plenty of moaning, and when I was done, I let out a sad sigh. There was no more cake. It was probably for the best since I’d gain at least a hundred pounds if I had an unlimited supply of cake. There are those who would argue that I’d eventually get tired of cake, but they’re insane. I could never tire of good cake.

Looking down at my annoyingly silent phone, I began to wonder if I’d somehow lost service since talking to Chelsea. I checked and my messages said they were delivered. There was only one way to figure out if Brook was intentionally ignoring me. If she didn’t respond to my next text, then her phone wasn’t with her or she was too busy to look at her messages.

 

ME: The guy I met put his tongue in my mouth. You’ll have to call Chelsea for details. I’m getting ready to start writing.

 

If she got the message right away, she’d call or message me back. If not, it was safe to assume she wasn’t ignoring me. Sitting down at my desk, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to concentrate with thoughts of Sebastian distracting me. As it turned out, I was wrong. It seemed that being worked up over Sebastian made it much easier for me to write about my main character’s sexual tension.

My fingers flew across the keyboard until my eyes were drooping and I finally decided to call it quits. That wasn’t easy when I felt inspired, but writing while exhausted was a lot like writing drunk. It all seemed brilliant until I started working on edits.

Reluctantly, I shut down my computer. I looked down at my phone and noticed I had messages from Brook and Sebastian. My stomach did a little flip when I saw his name on my phone. Since I’d been the one to message Brook, I should open her message first. Still, my finger hovered over the string with Sebastian’s name on it, and that is where my finger landed.

 

SEBASTIAN: I just left Luke and Chelsea’s house. Were you as shocked as I was to find out we already had a connection?

SEBASTIAN: I guess we would have been fixed up on a date at some point.

SEBASTIAN: I’m looking at your website. I asked Chelsea your last name so I could look up your books. The picture of you on your website is nice, but you’re even hotter in person.

SEBASTIAN: Did that sound weird, like I’m stalking you? It’s just really cool that you write books, and I wanted to learn more about you.

 

I nearly laughed at the number of texts he’d sent. It was nice to know I wasn’t the only one who had a hard time waiting for people to respond to me. Deciding Brook could wait, I messaged Sebastian back.