This is the first time I’ve ever been like this about anyone. It’s my first hookup, the first time I’ve done anything, really, and I want to share it with the girl who knows me better than I know myself.
I want to share it with the girl who knows exactly the type of self-transformation I’m going through right now. She knows from her own experience how good it feels to finally feel like you’re coming into the person that you are.
No one understands that like Lennon.
“I can’t believe you’re hooking up with a hockey coach. Anoldhockey coach, Mais.”
My mouth falls open. “You bitch, he is not old, my God. He’s like thirty-something.”
“Yeah, and you’re like twenty-something,” she teases, waggling her eyebrows suggestively. “Literally living out an age gap romance right now.”
I chew the inside corner of my lip to bite back a smile.
I totally freaking am, and God, it’s… amazing.
I mean, obviously, we’re just casually hooking up and doing it in secret, but that honestly just makes it hotter. There’s something kind of thrilling about secret rendezvous.
“It’s just fun. And hopefully, we’re going to be havinglotsmore fun soon, which means I need to make a stop on our girls’ day because I had an idea,” I say as I sit up from the floor and offer her my hand.
“Where to?”
“First? Shopping.”
Lennon’s mouth curves into a bright smile. “Wouldn’t you know. My specialty.”
An hour later, we’re at one of my favorite shops in the French Quarter, one that I’ve shopped at since high school, which has a ton of handmade pieces, both new and thrifted.
I’ve bought so much from this shop since I discovered it. Some of my favorite crochet tops, beaded skirts. Once, I evenfound this vintage denim jacket here that the owner, Mariella,swearswas once worn by Stevie Nicks.
But the one thing I’ve never purchased from my beloved Mariella?
That’s what I’m here shopping for today.
“Holy shit, Mais. Your tits lookamazing,” Lennon says, her eyes nearly bugging out of her head. She’s sitting crisscrossed on the bloodred velvet settee, watching me try on the tiniest pieces of fabric I have literally ever seen.
A girl has sexonce,and suddenly, she has to buy lingerie fit for supermodels.
That girl is me.
“I don’t know, Len. I feel ridiculous in this,” I say, my eyes dragging over the pastel blue baby doll. The cups are lace and completely see-through, so my nipples are on full display. The sheer fabric is loose around my stomach, but the matching lace panties tie it all together.
“Girl, you’re actually insane.” She balks, scoffing loudly, “Look at yourself. The man is going to swallow his tongue. I swear, I’m fully convinced that you can wearanything,and it looks like it was made for you.”
“Says you,” I laugh.
“I guess our men are just incredibly lucky. We should remind them of that on the daily.” Her grin is infectious, and I can’t help but smile alongside her.
I end up putting the one I was on the fence about and like four others in the yes pile, all because of Lennon’s insistence, and honestly? I’m glad that I do.
Each of the pieces makes me feel sexy and confident.
I stare into the floor-length mirror, my eyes moving over the last of the outfits, a pale pink teddy that’s sheer and has a lace-covered bra, and I grin at my reflection.
It’s in this moment that I realize that I don’t… even recognize myself.
Physically, yes, but in the sense of… thisversionof myself.
The girl who’s hooking up with a man who’s more than a decade older than her, a coach who is strictly forbidden.
