“You want to do what now?” Taylor quirked a suspicious brow at me over the whipped cream topped triple shot of expresso atrocity I bribed him with to get him to meet me at the coffee shop.
I sighed. “I want to plan the perfect first time for Dex. To give him a better memory than, well, you know.”
“Than you fucking him in the dirt and tossing him aside?”
I sighed again. “Yeah, than that.”
Taylor snorted but instead of commenting took another sip of the sugar-laden drink in front of him.
“You think it’s a bad idea?”
Taylor shrugged. “Not bad, exactly, just not sure it’s good, either.”
“Because?”
“Because he actually does remember, unlike you?” Taylor’s words were harsh, but his tone was kind. “How are you going to swing making a new memory,” he mimed the air quotes, “without telling him that he’s supposed to forget the actual first time?”
Ah, sothatwas what he was worried about, me manipulating Dex.
“That’s easy,” I said with a smirk, stopping to take a swig from my own black coffee. “I’m not.”
“You’re not? You’re not what?”
“I’m absolutely going to tell him exactly what I’m trying to do. I’m asking him for a mulligan.”
“A mulligan?”
I nodded. “Yep. A do over.”
Taylor looked skeptical. “You’re going totellthe man who saved himself for you that you want to try a take two on him losing his virginity?”
“Now you’re catching on. I’m just hoping to tell him that after I do it instead of before.”
Taylor shook his head disbelievingly. “Are you sure you’re over that head injury?”
I chuckled. “Well, the hospital said the actual head injury was minor, but I guess we’ll have to see how this goes to be sure.”
Taylor was still shaking his head. “Okay. What is it you want from me?”
I pushed my coffee cup to the center of the table so I could lean forward. “You guys have been tight for a while, right?”
“Well, yeah. Why?”
“Surely at some point you’ve sat up braiding each other’s hair and dreaming about what your first time would be like, right?”
“Fuck you, Otto,” Taylor huffed before laughing. “We’re not teenage girls.”
“Which is convenient since I am interested in neither teenagers or girls,” I said with a grin, “but can I assume that as Dex’s best friend who absolutely wants him to have a happy memory you might have some ideas to help me accomplish it?”
“Oh, for fucks sake,” Taylor groaned, shaking his head. “You are one manipulative asshole but, yes, I do. And yes, I will help you plan a romantic encounter that will knock Dex’s maternity socks off.”
I cocked my head. “Are there really maternity socks or are you making that up?”
Taylor grumbled something under his breath before shaking his head again. “Let’s just get this brainstorming out of the way, yeah? I don’t want Dex to hear we’re having clandestine meetings and get the wrong idea, okay?”
“Sounds good,” I agreed, pulling my mini notebook from my pocket and clicking my pen open. “I’m ready any time you are.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
