9. Jump Start #2
“Because this girl”—Rose thumbs in my direction—“has turned down not one, but two men who asked her to dance. She won’t stop fidgeting in her new outfit, and she is determined to ignore my brother who has called and texted her like, a bajillion times this week.
” She slaps her hand on the table. “We need shots.”
I don’t know if I’m supposed to respond or not, but I feel the need to defend myself. “I don’t know how to dance.”
I tuck the fact that Rose knows about my Flynn situation away for later.
“Fine.” Trish stands up on the top rung of her bar stool, which is quite a feat considering the four-inch heels she’s wearing, and waves both arms overhead like a ramp service agent flagging down a plane on the tarmac.
She gets the attention of the bartenders all right, along with everyone else.
“We need three Blow Jobs and three Sex on the Beaches over here!” she yells, arms still overhead.
One of the bartenders laughs and nods in our direction.
Trish sits back down, ignoring the commotion she’s just caused.
She eyes my chest. “I’m telling you, if I had known what was under those T-shirts and jeans you wear, Jackie, I would’ve worn my push-up bra.
” Trish reaches into her dress and pulls her breasts up in her bra. A few men stumble as they walk past.
I laugh. “Trish, I think you just gave that man a mild coronary.”
Trish winks. “I still got it then.”
“Don’t think I didn’t notice how you ignored the Flynn comment,” Rose says, redirecting the conversation. “And I know you’re not gay, ‘cause even my slutty ass was intrigued by the filth you had on your bookshelves.”
“It’s not filth! And don’t call yourself a slut. I swear, between you and Jules, you are both setting womankind back decades.” I peer over the edge of my glasses and try to look admonishing. She rolls her eyes, so I’m thinking I need to work on that.
“Jackie likes herself some cowboys,” Trish puts in. “No wonder you like it here.”
“These guys aren’t really cowboys.” Rose waves in the general direction of the bar and dance floor. “I’ll take you to the ranch sometime. You’ll be in heaven.”
“Ranch?” Trish asks.
“Yeah, my family’s cattle ranch is about two hours from here.”
“Wait.” Trish puts her hand up. “Your family has a ranch?” Trish’s light expression has changed to one of concentration.
Maybe Trish has a thing for cowboys too.
“West. Rose West.” Trish’s eyes go round.
“You mean your family owns the West Ranch?” At Rose’s slight nod Trish’s mouth falls open.
For the first time since I’ve known her, Rose looks uncomfortable. And once again I’m confused.
Rose looks visibly relieved when the bartender comes by with our tray of shots.
“Now ladies, you just let me know if you get another craving for a Blow Job or Sex on the Beach. I’ll be more than happy to oblige.”
Bouncing back from the awkward moment, Rose laughs and playfully slaps his arm. “You’ll be the first to know, sweetie.” She checks out his ass as he walks away.
Trish makes a face. “Ew. No. That’s Craig. There isn’t a hole he hasn’t plowed around here.”
“Then he should know what he’s doing,” Rose mutters under her breath as another man walks up to the table. He’s tall, and good-looking in an older man sort of way.
Without asking, he takes my hand and moves to usher me to the dance floor.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t dance.” I pull my hand from his grasp. His nice smile vanishes before he walks away.
“What a douche. Didn’t even ask, just assumed you’d want to dance with him.” Rose snorts. “Men.”
I’m too amused to be annoyed. I find it funny how, in just a week, I’ve gone from being alone at a bar, with no friends and no one asking me to dance, to turning down men and sitting with friends.
Operation Social Life for the win.
“What are you thinking about with that smile?” Trish asks.
I pick up the least dangerous looking shot on the table, the overhead lights illuminating the red liquid. “Just thinking that I’ll have to thank Jules for blackmailing me the next time we talk.”
“Hell yeah, you do.” Rose raises her own Sex on the Beach shot and clinks it to mine. “Drink up, bitches!”
I watch her and Trish swallow the contents in one gulp.
“Why didn’t you drink? It’s bad luck to cheers and then not drink,” Trish informs me.
“It is?”
“Well, if it isn’t, it should be.” Trish gestures to my drink. “Knock it back, girl.”
“Here here!” Rose pushes the glass closer to my lips.
It smells like cough syrup, so I’m dubious. Still, I take a deep breath, tilt my head back and let the liquor slide down my throat. My eyes water a bit, but besides that, it tastes sticky sweet.
“I may need to rethink Sex on the Beach,” I say, licking my lips. “It’s delicious.”
Rose laughs. “Girl, you just need sex, be it on the beach or up against the wall over there.”
“I just need a new vibrator,” I mutter.
Trish and Rose laugh so hard they lay their heads on their folded arms on the table to try to catch their breath.
Trish lifts her head slightly and wipes the tears from under her eyes.
“Listen, I am the first to praise the invention of the vibrator—I’ve got three all in different shapes, with different settings.
One for every occasion, as it were. But, sugar, you’re smart and lovely.
I don’t see any reason why you can’t let a man, a man who knows what he’s doing, pick up the slack in the bedroom department. ”
The warmth spreading over my body is probably a combination of embarrassment and liquor. But I’m pretty sure it’s just the liquor that has me sharing, “Men suck.”
“If you ask them nicely, they might.” Trish’s mouth curls up at the side.
“And bite too.” Rose mimics a cat, clawing the air.
“Whatever,” I huff.
“Did you just ‘whatever’ us?” Rose looks at Trish. “The great and glorious smarty-pants NASA engineer ‘whatever’ed us.”
This time the warmth definitely comes from embarrassment. “Never mind.”
“Oh, no you don’t, Jackie,” Trish butts in. “I’ve been waiting for your man-story ever since I clapped eyes on you sitting alone in this bar. Give it to me, girl.”
“Man-story?”
“Don’t deflect,” Trish scolds.
I sigh and take a big sip of my drink. “Nothing to tell really. I just don’t see the appeal of men.”
“You realize that’s a crock of shit, right? Especially after we saw those slut books you like,” Rose says.
“They aren’t slut books! They’re r omance ,” Trish says, sounding surprisingly defensive on my behalf.
Rose puts both hands up. “Okay, okay. Ix-nay on the lut-say.”
I study the swirl of whipped cream mounded onto the other shots on the table.
“Did you know Pig Latin predates Shakespeare? But it used to be called Dog Latin.” Rose and Trish just blink at me.
“Anyway,” I drawl out, “I’m smart enough to know the difference between romance novel fantasy sex and reality. ”
“Oh, girl. If you think good sex is just a fantasy, then you truly do need to get laid. And STAT.” Rose leans over and pats my hand. “But before that you need to tell Auntie Rose all about it.”
“Let’s just do another shot.” I reach for the complicated Blow Job, but Rose smacks my hand away. “Hey!”
“No shot until you spill.”
“Fine.” I straighten my shoulders. “When I was in grad school, I was a T.A.”
“Tits and ass?” Rose gasps. “You were a stripper!”
Trish rolls her eyes at Rose.
“A teaching assistant! Sheesh.” I push my glasses up. “Anyway, I taught what a lot of people called the Jock class— remedial math. It’s the course all the athletes took hoping for an easy A.”
Rose smirks. “Were they hot for teacher?”
Trish shoves her shoulder. “Let the girl finish.”
“Sorry.” Rose waves for me to continue.
“It’s okay. I guess you could say they were hot for teacher. Or I thought one of them was at least.” I pause, thinking back.
“What do you mean?” Rose asks.
“Growing up, it was always hard to make friends. I skipped two grades, so I was always a lot younger than my classmates. But in this class, I was pretty much the same age as all the students.” I watch the mirror ball rotate above the dance floor. “He was a baseball player named Brian Hampson.”
“Holy shit.” Trish slaps the table. “ The Brian Hampson?”
“You know him?” I hadn’t taken Trish for a baseball fan.
“I know of him. The Houston Astros just signed him as their shortstop. And, I mean, did you see that underwear ad he did for Nike?” She fans her face. “He is hot .”
“Yes. He’s definitely hot,” I mutter.
“So what happened?” Rose pulls us back to the story.
“He was the first person I ever slept with.”
“You gave up your virginity to Brian freaking Hampson?” Rose yells.
“Shhhhh!” I admonish.
“Hell, girl, if you were going to wait that long, I say Brian Hampson was the way to go.” Trish salutes me with her drink. “Well done.”
“I guess if you look at it that way. But it was all just a game to him.”
“What do you mean?” Rose asked.
“All leading up to it, he acted sincere. He took me out. Introduced me to his friends. Held my hand at parties. It was... it was great. I felt like...”
“Like what, sweetie?” Trish’s voice softens.
“Nothing.” Both open their mouths to speak, but I cut them off.
“It was a joke. A real, honest-to-God joke. He’d made a bet with his teammates.
The day after we slept together, I heard him talking to them before class.
They asked if the nerd was any good. It was all part of a bet. He got the nerd to spread her legs.”
It’s quiet for a while. The music keeps blaring, the dancers keep twirling, but our table is silent. I stare at the dance floor, unable to meet my friends’ eyes. Trying to focus on not embarrassing myself further by crying.
“Like I said. It’s nothing,” I say, blinking a lot.
“Well, I think you’re an idiot,” Rose says.
Trish jerks her head in her direction. “What the heck, Rose?”
“That guy was a dick. A legit dick,” Rose says, shaking her head as she talks, her big hair swaying. “In fact, I think we can all agree on his uber level of dickdom, can we not?” Rose looks to Trish, who nods, and then to me. I’m too shocked to say anything.
“Okay, so that guy was a dick. It’s agreed,” Rose continues. “But Jackie, how many men are there in the world?”
Her question catches me off guard but allows my mind to snap back to the present, running through numbers. “There are about seven billion people in the world. So roughly, and by no means should this be taken as a hard fact, it would be safe to say that there are around 3.5 billion males on earth.”
“And of that 3.5 billion, how many are in a datable age range?”
“Datable age range? That’s trickier. On the whole I do know that the Baby Boomer generation created a shock to the world population, and in turn created Generation X and then in turn the Millennials.
I’m thinking that’s who you’re referring to when you said ‘datable’; however, you also have to take into account?—”
Rose cuts in, “Babe. I love you. You’re super smart and you rock the sexy nerd vibe for sure. But just guesstimate for me, will ya?”
“Oh, okay, sure. Let’s see, I would say, taking into consideration we would only be dating men in the U.S.
, then I could give a safe guesstimate, although I want it on record that I truly do not like to guess, about forty million datable men.
” Trish smiles and Rose rolls her eyes at me.
She must give herself headaches with how often she does that.
“And, not counting Flynn, how many men have you slept with and or dated?” Rose ask.
“Um, one?”
“And you, who love probability and all things mathy?—”
“Mathy?”
“Yes, mathy. Don’t interrupt.” Rose gives me a look. “As I was saying, you who love all things mathy , decided that you would let one man, albeit a huge dick of a man, speak for the rest of the forty million dudes on this planet.”
My mouth drops open.
“Now does that sound like a good, logical rationale to you?”
When I continue to stare at her, she turns to Trish. “Blow Job?”