Chapter 16
sixteen
. . .
Lila
Hugh and I spent the rest of the week completely avoiding one another.
I was fine with it. If he wasn’t grown up enough to own up to his feelings, then that was on him.
It wasn’t like I was pressuring him to have a serious relationship.
I was here for two more months, and weren’t flings his specialty?
I tried not to be offended by the fact that he wouldn’t go there with me, but it definitely stung.
And we’d be going to the wedding tomorrow together.
Obviously, I wanted to be prepared just in case something was to happen.
So, I’d asked my best friends for some tips, and somehow, I’d been wrangled into going to the place where Sloane gets waxed.
She’d picked me up from Reynolds’, and I glanced over as I said goodbye to Brandy and found Hugh’s eyes on me.
His eyes were always on me.
He was just too much of a baby to do anything about it.
“Rina and Del are meeting us there,” she said after I jumped into her vintage Volkswagen bug and buckled up.
I laughed. “Is it normally a group event?”
“No. But Del and Rina are in the mood for some mac ‘n cheese with a side of awkward sexual questioning at Cottonwood Café, so I told them to meet us at the wax place first.” She pulled out onto the road and glanced over at me. “So, you think Kline’s the guy? He’s perfect fling material.”
I felt guilty not telling them the truth, but it was just easier this way.
The humorous part was that nothing was happening anyway, but if there was a chance that I ended up in a room with Hugh Reynolds this weekend, and he stopped worrying about my brother and made a move, I wanted to be prepared.
The girls had all shared horror stories about being embarrassed that they hadn’t groomed anything down there, and I’d always liked being prepared for things.
I’d been preparing to lose my virginity for far longer than necessary. It was almost ridiculous at this point.
“I don’t know. Time will tell,” I said, as she pulled into the parking lot, and I looked up to see a large sign that read The Pretty Kitty.
“We’re here.” She turned off the car and giggled.
“Really? I couldn’t tell by the gigantic sign.”
“Meow,” she said over a fit of laughter. “Let’s go, girl. Del’s car is here, so they must be inside.”
Del and Rina both hugged us when we stepped inside.
“I saw Kline yesterday at the grocery store, and he actually blushed when I brought you up. He said things are going great,” Rina said with a wide grin spread clear across her face.
I didn’t know why Kline was playing along, or why I was, either. Nothing was even happening with Hugh, and nothing was happening with Kline. And I certainly didn’t want to do anything to hurt him and Danielle. But he claimed Danielle wanted to keep things casual, so he had no problem with it.
“It’s nothing serious.”
“Yet, here we are?” Rina giggled. “The first time I did this, it was not pleasant. It gets easier every time.”
“Great. I feel a little awkward about her seeing everything,” I whispered.
“Please. This woman has seen more pussies than most of the men here in Cottonwood Cove.” Sloane waggled her brows. “And I’m guessing yours is gorgeous, just like you.”
We all laughed at how ridiculous she was, when a woman with bright pink hair came out of the room. “Hey, ladies, good to see you.”
She hugged each of my friends before turning to me. “Hey, I’m Veronica. You must be Lila. You’re the virgin, right?”
I gasped and turned to glare at Sloane. “You told her?”
“Um… no,” Sloane said over hysterical laughter. “That would be on you. She just meant a virgin waxer.”
“Ahhh… okay. I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. None of my business. Let’s go, my little virgin waxer.” She led me into a room, and they each took a seat in the tiny waiting area outside of the room.
The next forty minutes were not very pleasant. And remember, I had a pretty high suffering rate with all the training I’d done over the years. But, hot waxing your vajazzle—it was up there in the misery department.
“Damn. Something is off with this wax today,” Veronica said for maybe the fourteenth time after ripping off the bandages.
“But it’s okay, right? It’s working?”
“Um, yes. It’s definitely working. It just seems hotter than usual.”
“It’s normal that it hurts, right?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, placing cold rags all over my lady parts while I lay there spread eagle. Normally, this would be mortifying, but it was burning so badly that I didn’t care. The cold rags were soothing. “It always hurts, but it’s just doing an extra good job today, I guess.”
I surged forward, sitting up on my elbows. “What does that mean?”
“I think the heater thing is on the fritz, so the temperature may have been a little off.” She cleared her throat. “Luckily, you kept that little landing strip, so I didn’t pull your entire vagina off with wax.” She barked out a laugh like the whole thing was hilarious.
I glanced down at the cloths covering me up. “Yeah. I’d sort of like to keep my vagina.”
“For sure. It’s still there. I just checked.
” Her laugh was ridiculously high-pitched.
“Let’s have you lie back, and I’m going to put some salve on it.
I get this from a special healer, and it works wonders,” she sang out.
“But, maybe you can have your boyfriend blow on the sensitive area later if it still hurts.”
I groaned. What the hell was she even talking about? “I don’t have a boyfriend. I need to have someone blow on it?”
She pulled off the towels, and I tried to sit back up, but the woman nearly karate chopped me in the throat. “Lie down. Oh, what a shame that you don’t have a man. You’ve got yourself a pretty kitty there, girl. But you could just fan it yourself with a notebook.”
I had to fan myself now?
And did she seriously just say I had a pretty kitty?
I flinched when she started applying what felt like a mix of Vaseline and superglue on my bikini area.
“Does everyone have to fan themselves after they get waxed?”
“Well, I think we all like to be fanned downstairs, am I right?”
I laughed and shrugged awkwardly. “Oh, yeah, sure.”
“You might be a little irritated. The first time is always the worst, and like I said, the wax was a bit hotter than usual, but at least it did the job. You should be fine by tomorrow, or for sure in a few days.”
“A few days?” I squeaked.
“I highly doubt that long. The healer said this stuff works miracles.”
I glanced down to see myself slathered in some sort of ointment, but I couldn’t really see what was beneath it. I sat forward and pulled up my panties, wincing a little when I pulled on my shorts. I followed her out to the lobby and handed her my debit card, and she quickly rang me up.
“Our girl is looking very chic downstairs,” Veronica said to the girls, and everyone laughed.
What was this? Hot wax banter? Is that a thing?
“Of course, she does. And I knew you’d work your magic,” Sloane said.
“How’d it go?” Del asked me.
“It was fine. Not the most pleasant experience, but I survived.”
“There were some issues with the wax, and it was definitely hotter than usual. But Lila took it like a champ.” Veronica shrugged.
“Let’s hope Lila takes everything like a champ,” Sloane said, and everyone burst out in laughter. I rolled my eyes because the virgin jokes were exhausting, and my bikini area was currently on fire.
“You okay?” Del said, leading me out the door.
“Yes. I’ll live. She gave me some salve from a healer, so she said I should be fine in a few hours or a few days,” I said as we walked. I kept my legs apart to prevent my clothes from rubbing because I was feeling super raw down there, and I was starting to get concerned.
“What? Salve from a healer? Sloane, what kind of witch doctor did you send her to?”
“I don’t know. She’s never given me any special salves. I’ve never had any issues with her,” Sloane said as we walked toward the cars.
“Wait, didn’t she take off one of your eyebrows once?” Rina asked, as we paused in front of the two cars.
“Oh, well, yeah. That did happen the one time. Faulty wax, or something. But, you’re waxed and cleaned up, and that’s what matters.”
“True. At least it’s over,” I said, shifting my legs to try to cool the fire between my thighs. What the hell was in that salve?
“Lila’s driving with me,” Del said. “We’ll meet you guys there.”
We all got in the cars and headed to dinner.
“Well, at least you’ll have this weekend to recover before you see Kline next week.” Del pulled out of the parking lot and drove the short block to Cottonwood Café.
I was quiet. “Yep. That’s a relief.”
I’d gone through all of this to make sure I looked good for this weekend. But she didn’t know that.
Del put the car into park. “Lila Mae James. Cut the shit.”
“What?”
“Sloane and Rina may have been born under a log, but I was not. You did not get waxed for Kline Barley, and we both know it. I’ve given you enough time to come clean, even pouring on all the chatter about Kline that we both know isn’t true, but now I’m forcing you to spill it.”
“How do you know nothing’s going on with Kline?”
“They don’t call me the world’s most observant human being for nothing,” she said, as we watched Sloane and Rina walk into the restaurant.
“Nobody calls you the most observant human being.” I laughed.
“Well, they should start. Because I saw the way you were with Kline at that biker bar. I saw the way Hugh lost his shit on that asshole who grabbed you and the way he looked at you. We’ve never lied to one another, so why are you starting now?”
I sighed. “I’m sorry. I just—there really is nothing going on with him, but I do wish there was. But we did share a few moments.”
I quickly told her everything. About the night at the cove, the night he slept in my room, even though nothing happened, and the way he’d run me a bath after what happened at the bar and sat there with me.
“Holy hotness,” she whispered. “What did he look like naked?”