Five
Foster
I barely register what has come out of my own mouth.
Ari pulls back and looks at me while I worship her breasts.
“Matchmaker?”
I freeze. Did I say that out loud?
My mouth lets one nipple fall from my lips with a soft pop.
“I just signed up to be nice to, uh…”
“Maddie? My best friend?” Ari says. She looks peeved now, but I don’t understand why.
“Yeah.” What can I say? It’s easy to forget other people’s names, or that they even exist, when I’m sitting here between Ari’s legs.
She presses a hand to her forehead and closes her eyes. “Shit. What am I doing? I’m the worst!”
“I’m confused, Ari.”
“Maddie is also setting me up with someone.” She gestures wildly, as if she’s actually done something wrong.
“Who?” I ask. “Who is she setting you up with?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “But I probably shouldn’t be making out with you days before the dance if Maddie’s trying to set me up!”
I simply tell the truth to try to reassure her. “I just bid on it at the silent auction to make up for the fact that everyone thinks I’m against funding the arts. That’s the only reason I allowed her to do my birth chart, or whatever the hell.”
Ari pets my beard and looks unnecessarily chagrined. “Stop making me like you more!”
“Wait, why did you bid on it?”
“To help my friend!” she says. “This was a mistake.”
“I wouldn’t call making out with you a mistake.”
Ari gets off my lap, shaking her head. “So the town matchmaker is in the process of matching you with someone, and you just decided to make out with me, knowing that was looming? That’s way worse than getting caught up in the moment.”
I did something wrong, but I’m not sure what.
“She…I didn’t…it’s just a date, I’m not interested in marrying the person she’s setting me up with,” I say.
Ari squints and grabs her discarded, sweaty shirt off the floor. “Then why let her set you up at all if you’re not looking to get married?”
“I…I wanted to be nice. Everybody’s telling me I’m not a team player, so this is me supporting the local business community.”
Ari does up her bra and throws on her shirt. “Well, I take this seriously.”
“I think you wanted me to kiss you just as much as I wanted to kiss you. That doesn’t make me in the wrong here.”
She throws on her poncho and her crochet granny hat. “You had it in your mind the entire time. I completely forgot about it because…”
I stand up and grab a handful of conversation hearts, popping one into my mouth. “’Cause you were watching me climb ladders and pound nails all night and got real horny?”
She watches me, seeming more horrified that I’m still eating party favors. “Oh. My. God.”
