Chapter 5 #2
“It sounds like he knows, he’s just a dick,” she said, wiping her mouth. “You’re related to him?”
“He’s married to my dad’s sister,” Max admitted. “We don’t see them much.”
“Wow, I wonder why.”
He hadn’t thought she’d be weird about it, but he’d thought that about people who’d proven him wrong, too.
“I’m straight,” she said, tilting her head back, one hand on her cocktail glass, her throat flexing as she looked down at him. “Just for the record. In case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t, actually.”
That got her. She stopped, glass raised halfway to her mouth, startled enough that she started turning pink. “Oh,” she said. “I mean, sorry—”
“You’ve been flirting way too much for me to wonder if you like men,” Max went on, just to watch her blush a little harder. She wasn’t blushy by nature, so it was pretty rewarding. “And that’s the part I’m interested in, honestly.”
Sloane took a long drink and flipped him off with her other hand.
“I did try kissing a girl once in college, but it didn’t do anything for me,” she said when she was finished.
“Then why’d you kiss her?”
“For science. I wanted to make sure. She knew that was the point, for the record. Meghan volunteered for the make sure Sloane is straight project.”
“Most people I know just watched porn.” If Sloane could talk about face-sitting, he could mention the existence of porn.
“I don’t think that would work, because it’s hot to watch anyone get off, you know? But that doesn’t mean I want to be the one doing it with them.”
“So you like to watch, then.”
“I have a lot of interests,” she said primly, then grinned at him. “Why, did you watch porn to figure it out?”
“No, I watched Claire Milford’s older sister, Allison, at a pool party when I was twelve and then Chris Howell’s older brother, Michael, at a pool party when I was thirteen.”
“Maybe you were sexually attracted to pool parties.”
“When I was that age I probably was,” Max admitted, and Sloane grinned.
“Fair,” she said. “I think I was too self-conscious to notice hot people at pool parties. When I even got invited, that is.”
“They weren’t that great,” Max said, and shrugged. “It was mostly a bunch of guys trying to show off for the girls while also hiding their awkward boners.”
“Oh, so now you’re trying to make me feel better about being a dork in high school?”
“Is it working?”
Sloane rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “No,” she said. “But it’s fine. College was way better.”
“Because you were kissing everyone, just to make sure you knew what you liked?” Max asked. He wondered, half a second too late, if that was a weird thing to bring up again, but Sloane just raised one eyebrow and smirked.
“Not everyone, just enough people to figure out what I liked,” she said. “I’m still a nice girl.”
“Still? You were never a nice girl.”
Sloane actually looked taken aback. “When was I ever mean to you? I was nice.”
“That’s not the kind of nice I meant,” Max said quickly. “You were nice. You were…quiet.”
She tilted her head back for the last few drops of her drink, like she hadn’t already drained it. “High school wasn’t great,” she admitted. “I mean. It was fine, I guess, but college was a lot better. According to my mom, I blossomed.”
Fuck it. What was Max supposed to do besides check her out, as obviously as he could? He was pretty sure none of his thoughts were secret.
“Your mom says that?” he asked when his eyes made it back to her face. Then he finished his own drink.
“Yes, about my personality,” Sloane said, and looked at him again, unwavering. “She doesn’t know about my slutty phase.”
She said slutty phase the same way she’d have said master’s program, probably. Like it pleased her. Max swallowed and wondered if they could hear his heartbeat all the way out in the lobby.
“Well, I’m all ears,” he said, nonchalant as possible.
“I thought we weren’t kissing and telling.”
“I’m not, because I’m a gentleman. You can, though.”
“Wow, thanks.” She rolled her eyes, but she looked like she was trying not to laugh. “Sure, it’s fair for you to hear about the time I had to walk home with in nothing but a shirt and underwear with my jacket around my waist, but I don’t get your shenanigans.”
“Fuck fair, just tell me about your frat-party escapades, Sloane,” he said, leaning in.
His drink was gone, and he wanted another one—wanted that, wanted to hear Sloane tell raunchy stories, wanted to race her upstairs and see if he couldn’t top them—but he also had a carefully planned list of filming locations and shots and ghost experiments to do, so upstairs was going to have to wait.
“Oh, I can tell you that, no problem,” Sloane said.
“I went to two frat parties, both as a freshman. At the first one, I drank Jack and ginger ale for the first time and threw up in the bushes outside. At the second one, I was there just long enough to walk in on someone doing coke in the bathroom, and I panicked about drugs and left.”
“I was hoping for better escapades,” Max admitted.
“You could always tell me about yours.”
“What makes you think I had escapades?”
“Oh, did you not? Sorry—I didn’t realize I was talking to someone pure as the driven snow,” Sloane said. “Forgive me.”
Max grinned and flipped her off. “Fine. I once tried to have a threesome, only to realize I was just the third wheel, and I walked home barefoot because my shoes were on the other side of the bed where they were hooking up and I didn’t want to make things awkward.”
Sloane laughed. “They didn’t notice you were leaving?”
“They weren’t noticing a lot at the time.”
“I guess that makes you…a gentleman?”
“Sure. I think they teach How to gracefully exit a threesome where you’re not really wanted in etiquette classes,” Max said. “If I’d taken it, I’d probably have left my shoes by the door.”
“Live and learn,” Sloane said. “Did you—”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean, yes? You have no idea what I was going to ask!”
“You were going to ask if I got my shoes back,” Max said, and couldn’t help grinning at her. “And yeah, I went over the next day. It wasn’t even that awkward.”
Sloane huffed, still leaning back in her chair, twisting her empty cocktail glass by the stem. She looked like she was trying not to smile. “Is that what everyone asks when you tell that story?”
“Everyone?” Max echoed. “How many people do you think I tell about the time I didn’t have a threesome or my shoes? It’s not exactly good small talk at a party.”
“So,” she said, and leaned forward, her chin in one hand. A shiver went up his spine at the look on her face, pleased and teasing and maybe a little predatory. “You’re saying I’m one of the privileged few to know this about you.”
“Only if you think it’s a privilege.”
“This isn’t how you always flirt?”
Max’s heart kicked against his rib cage, and he couldn’t help but smile. “Only with the girls who ask me for a bear and blossomed in college.”
“I can’t imagine what you’re like with everyone else.”
“Still charming, but less flirty. I’ve got a thing for bear requests.”
“Speaking of which,” Sloane said, pulling out her phone and looking at it. “It has been way more than five minutes, and there are zero bears here, so I’m kind of disappointed.”
“Only because you haven’t opened your mind to the supernatural.”
“Also, it’s seven fifteen,” she said, and Max swore, then checked his own phone out of habit.
“Shit,” he said out loud. “We gotta eat and look for ghosts.”