‘Why? I don’t know. Maybe because I’ve met him? It’s hard to objectify someone who’s been nice to you. Besides, he’s old enough to be my dad.’
‘He is not,’ I scoff.
‘He’sgotto be pushing forty.’
‘Do you think so?’ Surely, he’s not that old. Not that forty is old exactly, but it would put him nearer to the age of my dad than me.
‘Well, Olivia said Beckett is thirty-eight, and that he and Harry went to school together or something.’ It’s then I recall him saying the pair went to university together. I knew Harry was older, the same with Beckett; I just didn’t think either of them was that old.
‘And that would make him twice my age,’ Heather continues, unaware of my moral ageist dilemma. Should I feel bad for sleeping with a man of his age? I mean, it’s not like sex with me would give him a heart attack, not the condition he’s in. It’s more likely to givemea heart attack. Honestly, who cares if he’s forty. Fit at forty. Fuckable at forty! The man just oozes sexiness into the atmosphere. Pheromones into the ozone. He’s like catnip to me. When he’s near, I just want to sniff him and rub myself against him. Roll around with him like a dog in a park that finds a patch of nasty.
I just kind of want him.
But just because he’s older doesn’t mean he’ll be ready to be a dad.
‘And twice my age is old enough to be my dad.’
‘Well, if you want to get technical, he’s old enough to have fathered me.’ .
‘Yeah, and you’re having sex with him,’ she adds airily.
‘God.’ I put my head in my hands because that’s the least of it.
‘No, I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean it would be totally seedy ifIwas having sex with him. You’re older, so it just doesn’t seem that bad.’
Older, yes, but not by that much. Almost twenty-three to his pushing forty?
‘But can you imagine having a dad who looks like him.’
‘You’d never be able to have friends around,’ I reply, propping my elbow on the table and my chin on my fist. ‘Especially not friends like mine.’
‘Skank,’ Heather mutters in reference to Tamara. She raises her teacup in a toast. ‘May all her itches be labia lobsters.’
As I raise my latte glass, I find myself muttering an incredulous, ‘What?’
‘You know, crabs.’ It’s the least the bitch deserves. And if you ask me, Harry is the best kind of revenge.’
‘I’m not sure he’d be down for the idea of being my revenge screw.’
‘Ha. I’m sure he would. Sex is sex.’
That’s not true. There are more kinds of sex than I care to explain to her, and I don’t mean in terms of what-goes-where. I’m talking about the type of angry sex that’s a fight between two winners. The slow and easy kind of sex where touches grow into moments and moments grow into toe-curling orgasms. There’s make up sex that’s often worth the initial fight, and there’s morning sex, the kind delicious enough to make you forget you’re supposed to be on your way to work. And then there’s casual sex of the one-night kind variety. The kind that’s supposed to mean nothing yet feels like the best kind of sex you’ve ever had, all rolled into one. And multiplied by one hundred.
The kind of sex that has the potential to alter your world.
In lots of ways.
‘I think it’s going to be a little more complicated than that.’ I frown down at my latte.
‘You must’ve nearly choked when he walked into the speed dating event.’
‘I think I was too drunk to be bothered at that point.’ I sigh and take a sip of my cooling coffee, pushing away the realisation that I was drunk while pregnant last week.
Note to self: check out the implications of drunkenness in the early stages of pregnancy.
Also, while you’re on that fact-finding mission, caffeine.
And sneaky cigarettes. Not that, at this moment, I feel like I’ll ever crave these vices again.
