That was a good one. Pilgarlic. I’d never even seen the word before, but I liked it. It described a man regarded with contempt or pity.
I was at home drinking cheap wine, eating mac and cheese, and grumbling insults at my phone. My foster sister, Bailey, was studying in our shared bedroom. Except that by the time I muttered “skainsmate ” from a Shakespearean insult generator, she slammed her organic chemistry textbook shut and came stomping out. It only took her about three steps because neither of us could afford a place bigger than a closet.
I heard her coming but ignored her, too interested in the Urban Dictionary definition of “idiotard.” But then she whipped the phone out of my hand and held it behind her back.
“Hey!” I cried.
“Enough already. You’ve been cursing at your phone all night now.”
“I have not!”
“What’s a ‘clodpate’?”
I grinned. That was another good one. “Connor.”
“Yeah, I got that. So what did he do to you?”
Gave me a mind-blowing orgasm then insulted my entire life. Called me smart, beautiful, and a liar all in the same breath. Fueled my fantasies for decades to come, then looked at me with such disgust, I felt dirty.
My sister wasn’t taking my silence. She shot me a glare then dropped onto the couch beside me. Her dark skin smelled like the vanilla candles she loved, and her hands were rough as she grabbed the bowl of mac and cheese from my lap and started eating my dinner.
“So,” she said between mouthfuls. “This is about sex.”
“It is not! It’s about Connor!”
“The New Year’s Eve kiss guy. Also calendar guy, right? The one with the Photoshopped dick and the dreamy eyes.”
I knew now that Connor was every bit as well-endowed as that picture implied under the artfully arranged sheets. And at my blush, my sister snickered.
“Yeah. This isn’t about sex at all.”
I glared at her and tried to grab the bowl back, but she held on like the street kids we’d both once been. “You don’t get any more until you talk,” she said, whacking my hand with the wooden spoon.
“Ow!” I curled my hand against my chest. “There’s nothing to say except that Connor’s a meathead.”
“And you want him.”
I pressed my lips shut, but we’d been together since our foster parents had taken us in twelve years ago. So she knew all she had to do was wait me out. In the end, I huffed.
“He’sgreatat sex. But he’s also a great big—”
“Clodpate. You said that. Tell me exactly what happened.”
“He thinks my entire life is a lie.”
“What?”
“We had this amazing…er…thing—”
“Sex.”
“—in the women’s bathroom.”
“Kinky. I like it.”
“And then he says I should quit my career.”
She frowned. “Because you work together?”
