In a way that I suspect I’ll crave far more than I shall crave sex long after I no longer have either.
27
IT MIGHT BE SECOND BEST, BUT IT’S BETTER THAN NOTHING
Bea
Daphneand I are barely home after the pizza party before my phone rings.
She takes one look at my phone screen, smirks, and heads for her bedroom. “I’m going to put on my noise-canceling headphones and rock out for a while,” she says.
“Don’t stay up too late. You have work tomorrow.”
She flashes a thumbs-up, like we’re both thinking about her working and not about Simon calling me when we both spent all of dinner trying to touch each other any way we could in public.
At least, I’m thinking about touching Simon.
Daph was at the other end of the table. She might not have been thinking about me touching Simon.
Either way, she disappears into her bedroom.
I duck into mine, answering the phone on its fourth ring. “Hey.”
“Do you have any idea how much I detest cheese?” Simon says by way of greeting.
I kick off my shoes and flop down onto my bed, which I neatly made this morning for once. “A lot?”
“It causes a level of discomfort in my entire midsection that I don’t wish to contemplate, much less describe.”
“Did you accidentally eat cheese?”
“No. But despite how much I detest cheese, I cannot stop thinking about how much I would enjoy eating melted cheese off your breasts.”
I absently rub one of my breasts as the tingling starts. “You couldn’t fantasize about honey instead? I thought you had honey fantasies.”
“It’s the oddest thing. I must have cheese on my brain. I definitely have you on my brain. But eatingcheeseoff you? I fear something in me has broken from a lack of alone time with you.”
“Are we having phone sex?”
“Very poorly if you have to ask. And if I’m thinking of cheese.”
I’m simultaneously amused to the point of laughter and turned on to the point of frustrated. “What are your kids up to?”
“They’re playing that bloody awful creature game Hudson showed them.”
“At your house?”
“In addition to her mother’s care, Lana has a client with a sudden emergency. She received the call the moment we left the restaurant.”
“Do you know who’s the best babysitter ever?”
“Mary Poppins?”
“Daphne.”
“Your roommate and best friend and semi-adopted extra child? That Daphne?”
“She has the energy of a squirrel, the background to know all of the trouble kids can get into, and now the wisdom to prevent other kids from doing what she did.”
