Austin gasps like I just told her I kill kittens in my spare time. “There’s no fucking way.”
“Sex really isn’t that great. I don’t get why you and Colt like it so much,” I say, then I realize that sounded harsh. “I don’t mean that in a bad way. There’s nothing wrong with liking sex. It’s more of a chore than anything to me—making sure you have a condom in your wallet, going to the bar, finding someone to take home, making sure you’re both on the same page about it all, the whole town gossip?—”
“Wait,” she cuts me off and her voice sounds strange. “You’re telling me you don’t enjoy sex?”
“Sometimes I do, but most of the time, it’s just to relieve tension,” I say. I haven’t talked about sex with someone this openly since locker room exaggerations in high school. I know my sex drive is low, but I’ve never thought it was an issue before. Now, I’m pretty sure it’s making Austin lose her attraction to me.
“Are you gonna say something?” I finally ask when the silence gets too to be too much.
“I’m thinking,” she says.
“About what?”
“If I’ve ever seen you picking up a woman at Quitter’s.”
“You haven’t. The last time I did was before you were old enough to work there.” I don’t dwell on that for very long.
“There’s no way,” she decides with conviction. “Men need sex. Trust me, I make half my living off of it.”
“Some men, maybe, but?—”
“But not all men?” she asks, and her tone is dripping with venom I recognize from my sisters and Mama.
“But not me,” I reply gently, not wanting her to think I stand with any of the ideals that phrase is usually tied to.
The silence is heavy for a little too long, but then she finally says, “I guess it makes sense that you’ve never witnessed it then, because it’s sort of a… full body experience.”
It takes me a second to realize she’s returned to the orgasm discussion we were having before I derailed it with my terrible sex life.
“Most of a woman’s orgasm is in her mind, so if you're just having super transactional sex without any sort of intimacy, she’s probably coming, but she’s definitely not havingthosetypes of orgasms. They really only happen when a woman’s comfortable enough to let go completely, and without intimacy, it’d feel too vulnerable.”
“So I’m bad at sex,” I deadpan. Not a huge fan of the way she said ‘probably’ before ‘coming.’
“No, just at intimacy,” she diagnoses cheerfully.
We stay up a bit longer and she tries to talk me into phone sex, but despite how rock solid my cock is, I turn her down. She hangs up soon after, a little extra bratty about it like I knew she would be.
I sit there for a long time after, staring out the window but not really seeing much, my mind whirling. Tonight made me sure of something that I’d wondered about for a bit now.
Austin Taylor uses sex like a weapon.
I’m not judging her for it, but it does make me mad as hell, because that sort of thing doesn’t usually just come from nowhere. A person doesn’t just start having sex and immediately decide to use it against people.
I get the feeling that she’s been hurt. Badly.
And the way she made a point to bring up how unimpressed she is by men multiple times during our conversation, like she was begging me to get defensive and prove her right, has me thinking the worst.
SIXTEEN
AUSTIN
Cedar Creek doesn’t havea mall—or anything like it—so when we need to go to a specific store instead of the mom-and-pops around town, Kenny and I usually make the hour and a half drive to the mall in Billings and make a day out of it.
As Kenny pulls up to pick me up, Tate’s unbuckling her seatbelt to crawl into the backseat so I can have the front. I smack her ass playfully as she does, and she lets out a yelp that makes me chuckle.
“Nice to see the warden let you out of his sight,” I tell her as I get myself settled in the cab and Kenny pulls away. It’s always a trip when Tate tags along out with us.
Kenny laughs. “Only because he’s already in Billings for a side job he’s doing and we’re dropping her off with him afterward.”
