For the first time, Audrey blushed furiously and looked deeply embarrassed. Whatever it was that bothered her, as far as Hallie was concerned, it didn’t need to. Audrey could say whatever the hell she wanted and Hallie would be a receptive audience.
“Uh, well,” she said eventually, not quite meeting Hallie’s gaze, “I actually haven’t had a lot of… sex. Of any kind. I don’t do a lot of dating because… Well, it doesn’t matter. Or, maybe itdoes, actually, given what I… Maybe we don’t even need to talk about it—”
“Audrey,” Hallie said soothingly, her thumb caressing the back of Audrey’s hand. “Whatever it is, I promise you, I want to know. Even if we decide not to do anything, I want to have it to think about.”
Audrey laughed and groaned. “That’s not going to help with my resolve.”
“Sorry. Not very sorry, but sorry a little bit. I wouldn’t want you to do anything you don’t want to.”
“I want to.” The words hung in the air between them. They’d already known, but hearing it out loud, so plainly stated, felt like it was igniting the whole market.
“Tell me what you think you’d like, Dr. Bee,” Hallie said, her voice darker, deeper, more seductive than it had ever been when she’d called Audrey that before.
Audrey’s breath caught, but she cleared her throat, sipped her drink, and looked back at Hallie, bold and resolute. “It’s another area where my family has… shame, I suppose. It’s a functional thing, not for pleasure. So, I guess, I just want to not have to make decisions, not have to think about whether I’m in charge of that.”
“You want someone to tell you exactly what they’re going to do to you and be responsible for all your pleasure.”
“Yes,” she whispered, her pupils blown.
Hallie had, in the past, had plenty of conversations about sex, but this was her favorite one ever, the one that set her alight and made her want. “Where?”
“Oh, uh, wherever you—they’d want.”
Hallie smirked. They both knew this wasn’t a conversation about hypothetical people but she appreciated Audrey’s efforts. “Bed?”
“Yes.”
“Living room?”
“Yes.”
“Shower?”
Her eyes went wide as though she’d never considered that before but she absolutelywasconsidering it now. “Yes,” she said eventually, emphatically.
Hallie knew that, a lot of the time, shower sex turned out less sexy than you imagined. However, she was suddenly very aware of the shower at her mom’s place with its massive head and coverage area. It could probably keep them both warm and wet…
Audrey cleared her throat. “This is not an appropriate conversation to be having here.”
Hallie laughed and glanced around. “Fair point. It’s a great conversation, though. I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
“Me too.”
She nodded slowly, sucking in a breath. “How in the world am I supposed to just walk away from you?”
Audrey’s brow furrowed, solemn and steady. “I don’t know. Maybe think about my family every time I pop into your head. Remember that, by not being with me, you at least get to avoid them.”
“I’d put up with them for you. Well, actually, I’d probably end up screaming at them for not treating you well.”
“Right. And you shouldn’t have to do that.”
Hallie didn’t know how to explain that it would be worth it, that standing up for Audrey was no difficult task. That wasn’t generally an appropriate thing to say to someone you’d only just met. But there was something about the situations they’d been through together this week that told her it was worth it, that the two of them would be worth taking that shot on.
When she’d been younger, she’d talked about wanting to move to California. They’d visited on vacation and she’d loved the sun and the fun, but she’d been eleven and that was beforelife set in, before work and rent and she’d discovered how expensive it was to live there.
Audrey’s whole life was there. She had the kind of job that could afford California. Hallie never felt like Audrey was judging her job, but it was simply a fact that she didn’t make enough to move to California. And Audrey wouldn’t want to move back to Michigan. She’d moved far away on purpose, she’d talked about the bug populations in California, she had to be there.
And you didn’t take on the family of someone you’d just met. She just wanted to care for Audrey, wanted Audrey to see and know that she deserved to have someone be on her side, to tell her family off for how they treated her. She wanted to be by Audrey’s side as she figured out how to walk away from them herself, to tell them off alone, if that was what she wanted. They both knew she wasn’t there yet, but the desire was simmering under everything Audrey said about them. She wanted to figure out how to exist without her need for their approval, and Hallie had all the patience in the world for that.
