I laugh. “He’s ours, is he?”
“I crushed on him too, don’t forget.”
“Who are we talking about?” Ned asks.
“His name is Jude Braddock. He plays for the Thunder,” I explain.
Ned turns to my brother and raises his eyebrow. “You have a crush on a hockey player?”
Morgan shrugs. “I did when we were kids. But don’t worry. He’s straight and totally into Zoey.”
I take a sip of my beer, trying to use the can to cover my smug smile, but they both catch it. Morgan grins and Ned laughs. “That face says something has progressed since we last talked about him. Something good.”
“We’ve…we’re involved,” I say, trying to sound casual, but I am not at all casual. Since the inappropriate and unprofessional but totally worth it sex in the newly constructed townhouse, we’ve seen each other every day. I’ve been sleeping at his house almost every night, and the one night I stayed here, on the air mattress I bought, he stayed with me. The booty call texts from other women only happened once so far. Well, once since the initial sushi poisoning night. Last night at a little after midnight. He scooped the phone off the night table and ran into the bathroom to answer it. I heard him whispering a firm but polite turn-down, and then he crawled back into bed and spooned me.
“Is the sex good? Oh my God, I bet the sex is mind-blowing.” Morgan sighs and Ned rolls his eyes. He knows he’s married to a pervy Nosy Nelly, and I think it amuses him more than anything.
“It’s incredible,” I admit.
“Yes!” Morgan shouts and pounds a fist into the air. Mylanta, he’s a dork. “Is he wild? I bet he’s wild and kinky. Give me a detail. Nothing that reveals anything about your girl parts but something about his boy parts.”
“No!”
“She’s no fun,” Morgan tells Ned. “I thought it was Adam making her that way, but clearly she’s lost her edge forever. I bet it’s all boring and vanilla because of her. Poor Jude is probably wasting his talents.”
“You’re a dick,” I tell him, not really offended by his insults. Well, not totally. But enough that it makes me want to prove him wrong, which I realize is what he’s going for. “We had sex in front of a window in an empty house I was showing him.”
Morgan fist-pumps again, and Ned’s jaw hits the floor. “You did that?!” Ned looks stunned.
I cover my face with a hand. “I know. It’s completely insane and wrong, but it’s not my fault. He has a way of sucking the sanity right out of me.”
“Like a vampire,” Morgan adds helpfully. “He’s a sexual vampire!”
“There are gay ones too. I dated one. His name was Enrique,” Ned explains, and Morgan gives him a look, but Ned winks at him and turns back to me. “So are you two officially dating or just sucking the sanity out of each other? Not judging, just asking.”
“I feel like it’s too soon to say we’re boyfriend and girlfriend,” I tell him as I lean back against the counter. “I mean, I’ve been divorced about sixty seconds and Jude’s been back in my life about five minutes. It’s crazy to think this is serious already.”
Morgan looks up at Ned with a “bullshit” look, and Ned looks up and gives the same look to me. “Are you telling us that or convincing yourself?”
I shrug and take another sip of beer.
Morgan puts his beer down on the table he just brought over and stands up and walks over to me. He grabs both my shoulders and gives me a little shake until I take my eyes off my can of beer and look at him. “Fuck timing. It really isn’t everything.”
“Morgan has a point, Zoey,” Ned chimes in. “I mean, you did the sane thing already with Adam. You dated for a reasonable amount of time, you were engaged at an appropriate age, you got married after an acceptable period of time. And no matter how right the timing was on that, the relationship itself wasn’t.”
“True.” I smile. “I’m not seeing anyone else and don’t intend to, so I guess he’s my boyfriend.”
“Well, you should make that clear to him,” Ned advises. “Because boys like him have girls throwing their bits at them everyplace they go. He sounds like he really likes you, but if he doesn’t know the rules, he might not follow them.”
I feel a little flutter of anxiety at that comment. Ned isn’t wrong. I haven’t dated in a long time, but when I did, I was a total guy about it. I could have sex and not at all believe it automatically meant some kind of commitment. And Jude’s late-night drop-ins, phone calls and texts prove he definitely has girl bits being hurled his way.
“I’ll have the talk with him when I see him again.” I groan. “Ugh, it feels so high school but I will.”
“So when will you be having sex with him again?” Morgan asks and clears his throat. “I mean see him again?”
“Tomorrow afternoon I’m taking him to see some more houses, and then he has a preseason game I’m going to,” I explain. “Tonight I’m actually having a girls’ night with Dixie.”
“Has she asked about me?” Morgan wants to know and turns to Ned. “She had such a crush on me.”
