JADE MADE ME promise to take the rules seriously, but how can I? Shouldn’t there just be two rules? Don’t fall for her, and when she says it stops, we stop. So when I sit down next to her at the kitchen table, and she pulls out a notebook, not a sheet of paper, I raise an eyebrow.
“Where’s your list?” Jade asks as she points at the empty spot in front of me.
“I didn’t need to write it down. It’s committed to memory,” I tell her as I tap my temple.
“I never rely on my memory.”
“Why?”
“Because memories are never true to what really happened. They fade over time.”
She looks like she wants to say more, so I encourage her. “And ...?”
“That’s what started me on my career path.”
“What did?”
“I was thinking one day that my parents didn’t take that many pictures or write anything down in journals, so I barely remember my childhood. Only the big moments. But what if they hadn’t captured a moment with a camera, but they were supposed to, and it was something monumental. I want to remember every moment. Like the way the baristas put a leaf design in my latte, or the man who always feeds the seagulls at the pier that I wave to on my walk, or this. Because the look on your face is priceless.”
Jade actually picks up her camera and takes a picture of the two of us and says, “Say screw drive her.”
She clicks away while I tell her, “You’re crazy, but I get it. I still didn’t need to write it down. I only have two rules.”
“What?” she says surprised. I hold my fingers in Scout’s honor at her.
After I tell her my rules, she opens her notebook, and there are three pages of rules. But on the plus side, her handwriting is big and bubbly, just like her personality. I read the first one, no kissing, and look at her. Not only that, but there are subcategories to that. No kissing ears, no neck, no mouth.
Lips, I get, but the rest? “Why no kissing on those particular places?”
“Too intimate.”
“Isn’t all sex intimate? I mean, it’s two naked bodies making contact in every way possible. And does that mean oral is off the table then, because I’m pretty much thinking that’s kissing?”
“No, that’s okay as long as there is no eye contact,” she says matter-of-factly.
“Well, that’s no fun. I happen to like having full eye contact as I enjoy the taste of a woman.”
She takes a long sip of her wine. At the same time, her cheeks flush along with her neck too. Her long neck as she swallows the liquid down. That biteable neck where her pulse quickens and I want to touch it. Now I’m the one who needs to take a drink of my beer to cool down.
Jade clears her throat. “How about you just read them to yourself, then we can discuss?”
No falling in love with each other; no over touching one area of the body; no public touching; no calling each other for phone sex (the only calls allowed are work related or to say the words screw drive her); nothing that can be considered a date (for example, no casual dinners alone); no sleeping over; foreplay can’t last for more than ten minutes; no cuddling after sex; condoms must be worn each time; when one of us wants to stop, we end it without question; when one of us starts seeing someone regularly, this ends; no sex with other people or we stop.
Some I agree with, but some need a rewrite, and she agrees.
“Foreplay will be longer than ten minutes. I’m not a ‘wham, bam, thank you’ kind of guy. If we are going to have sex, I plan to enjoy it. Don’t you? So, yeah, more than ten minutes will be allowed for me to explore your body.”
She doesn’t say anything back; she just crosses it off the list. Smart woman.
“As for phone sex, what if you need a quick release in the middle of the day? I have no problem providing that for you via phone, text, or video message. It doesn’t mean it’s intimate. You can dial a million 1-900 numbers and get the same service, sure. But I’m willing to do it for free.”
Once again, she doesn’t object and puts a line through that ridiculous rule.
“The only other one I slightly have a problem with is the public touching. Jade, we are friends, and I’m not going to stand a hundred yards away from you like it’s illegal. No handholding is a given. Hell, I won’t even dance with you again if you say so. But if you feel like getting busy in the bathroom while we are with friends just because you are horny as hell? Let’s just say I’m here for your pleasure.”
Where the hell did that come from? I’m not a public person. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I kissed Deanna in front of everyone. I like to keep private moments, private. I tell myself it’s because of the rules, and I never met a rule I didn’t want to break.
“Is that all you disagree with?” Jade asks me. That last rule didn’t get crossed off the list, but she did put a big question mark next to it.
“Yep. I’m good with everything else. I want to add a third rule to my list.”
“Shoot,” she says as she refills her wine and hands me another beer.
“When you go on a date, I want to know. Hell, I’m thinking we even make it a double.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Heck, no.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s not what these rules are about, and I don’t want the man I’m sleeping with sitting across from me while I’m with another man. That’s just wrong.”
I’m sure this whole idea is wrong, but I don’t tell her that. “I don’t mean sit together. Opposite ends of the restaurant, but this way we can rescue each other a lot faster if we are in the same room.”
“Huh.”
“Is that a good or bad huh?” I ask her.
“That may work. I accept.”
We shake hands like this whole thing is a deal. I feel like shaking hands is sealing my fate, and I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing yet. I am, however, feeling turned on knowing I’ll get to have a repeat of the hotel. Because as far as sex goes, that was an epic performance. Just as I was about to make a move, or at least thought about it, a timer goes off.
“Casserole is ready,” Jade declares as she stands from her seat.
She heads into the kitchen, puts on her oven mitts, and opens the oven. From inside, she pulls out a tray of baked ziti big enough to feed a family of five. After she places it on the counter, she grabs two plates from the cabinet.
“One or two scoops?” she asks me.
“Two, but isn’t this breaking a rule already?”
“No. Tonight is a celebration,” Jade says as she scoops the cheesy goodness onto the plate.
She brings the food to the table and sets one in front of me. As she sits, she grabs her glass of wine then raises her hand in a toast. “To not falling in love.”
I answer back. “To screw drive her.”
Instead of taking a sip from her glass, she punches me in the arm. I give her a lopsided smile and a wink as I take a bite of the most delicious ziti I’ve ever eaten. “I will never admit to saying this, but this is even better than Hunter’s.”
“My lips are sealed. I just got the tomatoes fresh from the organic farmers’ market and made my sauce last night.”
After we finish dinner and clear the dishes, Jade turns to me. “I have a great idea.”
I look at her because, in my point of view, nothing good ever follows those words, but I roll with it. “Oh, yeah, what’s that?”
“Why don’t we find you a date for this weekend?”
Bad idea, but then I think about it. “Does that mean you have a date lined up?”
“Not yet. Someone new did message and ask me, though. And I was on the fence until you mentioned not going alone.”
“If you feel uncomfortable with this person, you shouldn’t go.”
“No, it’s not that. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with doing this whole blind date thing,” she says.
“Then why do it?”
“I’m just ready to meet new people and I need to branch away from the group if I’m going to do that. If you haven’t noticed, we tend to only hang out together. I thought this was the way to go about it; you know, since it’s the year of technology.”
“Jade, I don’t think you need a dating site to meet new people. I’ve known you for a few years now, and can I be honest with you?”
“Always,” she says sweetly, and I’m afraid that I may fuck up everything.
“We’ve talked, but you’ve never really came out of your shell around us. You always seemed to stand behind everyone, and I don’t get why. You’re beautiful, funny, and from what I got in private, not shy at all. You could walk into any place and get noticed, but you don’t want to. Am I right?”
She sighs, and I wait for her to call me a jerk, but instead, she surprises me. “You’re right. I don’t know why, but I’ve never been one to put myself front and center. I’m an observer, a people watcher.”
“Maybe we need to work on that. This is what I propose. How about I do one of these online dates with you, but then you go out once and try to meet someone face to face?” I have no idea where that came from.
She was quick to answer and to offer me her hand to shake too. “Deal.”
I’m an idiot because, by the end of the night, I have a date lined up with some chick whose name I can’t remember, and Jade set up her date with some Joe Schmoe. All I can hope for is that her night will not end with him, and she comes home with me instead. And right there is why I’m now an asshole and idiot combined.