Chapter 24
“Am I fun?”
“What?” Raya asked. It was Monday morning.
Raya was reporting to me on the weekend business.
Weekends were always the busiest, but since the review, they’d been declining.
She had some ideas for marketing posts, and I agreed that we needed to step up our social media game.
I hoped that would help until we could figure out what to do for atmosphere.
I had a feeling nothing was going to change until I got back though. I needed to get back. “Fun?”
“Yes, I can have fun, right?” The fence outside my bedroom window stared back at me.
“When?” she asked. “No, that came out wrong, I mean, like in what setting are you asking about?”
“Ever,” I said, realizing that if she was having a hard time just saying yes, then the answer was obviously no. “Oh, god, I’m not, am I?”
She laughed. “Sutton, I enjoy your company. I opened a business with you for fuck’s sake. You are one of my favorite people to be around.”
“None of those statements included the word fun.”
“Is being in your childhood home for this long giving you an existential crisis?”
“Yes,” I said. “You have no idea.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I can’t wait to come home.”
“I can’t wait for you to be home.”
I sighed and closed my daily planner that I had been referring to for the questions I wrote down to ask her. I rubbed my eyes.
“Are you even going to ask about the new waitstaff?”
“Did I not ask?”
“You didn’t.”
“How are they?” She ended up hiring both the people I’d sent in for interviews.
“Amazing. Thanks for vetting the list first.”
“I didn’t vet the list,” I said.
“I know you did, Sutton.”
I laughed. “Fine, but I’m sure you would’ve picked the best from the pool as well.”
“You’re not sure, that’s why you vetted the list. But that’s okay, it made my life easier, so thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And Presley? She’s happy with the additions?”
She grumbled something under her breath, then said, “She’s fine. Now stop trying to make my life easier and work on making your life easier.”
“And fun,” I said.
She laughed like that was a joke. “Talk to you later. Chef just got here and I need to go over some things with him.” With those words, the line went dead.
I wondered what she was going over with Chef and if I needed to be part of whatever conversation was about to happen. No, she could handle it. I trusted her.
Next to my closed planner on my desk was the scratch-off that Dr. Franklin had given me to plan a date.
I had meant to give it to Tara. My hand ran over the page.
“I can have fun,” I muttered while searching the drawers for something to scratch off the first box with.
There was nothing. I pushed myself, rolling chair and all, away from the desk, then stood.
In the kitchen, I dug through the junk drawer.
“What are you doing?” Mom asked, muting the television.
“I’m looking for a penny or a dime or any coin, really.” I freed one from beneath a pen and a spool of black thread and held it in the air. “Aha!”
“What do you need a penny for?” she asked.
“To prove I’m fun,” I said and headed back to my room.
Maybe I wasn’t fun. Because I wasn’t sure I could do what the first revealed box asked me to do. And it wasn’t even that hard. Send a suggestive text to your partner requesting a date.
I knew this was a date sheet. I knew it was going to give me date prompts. I didn’t know I’d have to send sexy texts.
I could do this, I told myself. I’d been telling myself that since I scratched the box that morning.
In between helping my mom and doing household chores, I was hyping myself up.
It wasn’t that I’d never sent a sext. Just a few weeks ago I’d sent that text about the meat to Nate, and he’d responded by asking if I was requesting a dick pic.
I’d said I would take one of those, too, if he was offering.
“That was fun,” I said. Sure, it happened after the breakup and I was being more snarky than anything, knowing he wouldn’t actually send a dick pic, but … shit, I’d never sent a sext.
How does one even ask someone on a date in a suggestive manner?
“Hey, baby, you want the possibility of seeing me naked tonight after you feed me?” I sucked in my lips at the laugh that wanted to escape.
Elijah would be good at suggestive texts.
Dr. Franklin should’ve given the sheet to Elijah.
I was sure that was the exact reason she’d only given one to me.
The pot I was washing in the kitchen slipped through my soapy fingers and clattered into the sink. I cringed and turned off the water to listen carefully. I had just helped my mom into bed for an afternoon nap thirty minutes ago. All was quiet from the back of the house. I turned the water back on.
“Hey sexy, I want to see your penis tonight. Clothe it in some jeans first and I’ll unwrap it later.” This time I did laugh. I was hopeless. I thought about asking Raya or Tara for help, but how embarrassing would that be? I’d think of the perfect way. It might take all day, but I’d think of it.
I wrote and erased a handful of texts that day, including:
I have a red, lacy bra that wants to go get dinner this week. Would you be open to showing her a good time?
You mentioned ravaging me. Can we put that on the schedule for this week?
I want to go out and then I want to stay in. Are you up for one or either of these things?
Elijah, I don’t think I’m fun. But you make me want to be.
And now it was late and I was sitting in bed with a glass of wine, frustrated with myself. How could I overthink a stupid text that he was going to respond to in five seconds without analyzing at all?
I was hoping the wine would loosen up my thoughts a bit or my inhibitions, but it seemed to be doing nothing except reminding me, in detail, of the make-out session we’d had in his room the other day.
His tongue on my inner thigh, his hands on my body.
I closed my eyes and took another sip. Then I put my wineglass down, picked up my phone, and typed:
I thought of more places I’d like your tongue to explore. Is it available for a date this week? And if you have to come too, that’s fine.
I hit send this time and immediately wanted to press unsend.
I didn’t. Instead, I threw my phone onto the bed like it was on fire, downed the last of my wine, and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth.
It wasn’t until my toothbrush was in my mouth that I remembered I’d never sent Elijah a text before.
Not a single one. This would be the first one he’d ever gotten from me.
How had I even saved myself in his phone?
Had I put a name? I didn’t remember. I’d entered my number, for sure, but a name?
I must’ve. He was going to think this was common texting fodder for me.
That I just habitually wrote sexts as my inaugural text to people.
When I came back into my room, I stared at my phone sitting innocently on my bed for a moment. I rubbed at the knots in my neck, then approached it slowly.
The text waiting for me read: Are you trying to turn me on before bed?
I smiled and typed back: If I’m turned on, you have to be too.
My phone buzzed in my hand with an incoming call, his name lit up on my screen. I took a deep breath and answered. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself,” Elijah said. “Are you asking me out?”
I climbed into bed, pulling my blanket over my legs.
My room looked just like it had when I’d left it almost ten years ago.
A soft gray comforter, a desk, a few perfectly placed band posters on the wall.
I wasn’t surprised my mom hadn’t changed it.
She hadn’t done anything to the house since Dad left.
Maybe she wanted it to be exactly the same when he came back.
“I am,” I said to Elijah. “Are you free a night this week?”
“I am,” he said. “What did you have in mind?”
“Aside from the tongue thing?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Yes, that’s a given.”
I looked toward my desk and the date sheet, its other boxes still behind their scratchable surfaces. “I’ll surprise you.”
“Sounds good,” he said.
I snuggled even more under my blanket, adjusting the pillow beneath my head. I wondered if he was in bed too. What he was wearing, what his adult room looked like.
“Can I ask why you’re turned on?” he said.
A small smile flitted across my lips. “I was just thinking about what someone was doing to me in a certain bedroom during this one party.”
“Less than five minutes of action and it’s on your mind for days? Imagine what memories an entire night would leave you with.”
“Has it not been on your mind?” I asked, my overthinking self creeping in.
“It has,” he said in his husky voice. “I wanted to taste more of you.”
A jolt of pleasure shot between my legs.
“Your little noises are making me want to be there.”
“Did I make a noise?” I asked.
“You did. A really sexy one. Were you imagining my tongue again?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you want it?”
“I don’t know,” I said, suddenly shy. Just like I’d never sexted, I wasn’t a dirty talker either. Most sex I’d had in my life happened with little to no words exchanged.
“You know,” he said.
Images of my breast in his mouth, of his face between my thighs, played like a reel through my mind. I moaned again. “I want you here now,” I said.
“God, Sutton, don’t tempt me.”
“My bed is tiny or I’d insist you get your ass over here.”
“How tiny?” he asked.
“Twin.”
“Twin?” he asked incredulously.
“Weren’t you the one who said you could perform in an airplane bathroom? A twin should leave you room to spare,” I teased.
“Don’t make me prove to you that I can definitely excel on a twin bed.”
“You and your pretty words,” I said.
“I’m coming.”
“I was kidding,” I said.
“Too late, I’m coming.” And then the phone was silent.
I bit my lip and sat up. Was he really coming? Yes, I decided, this was Elijah we were talking about. A smirk found its way onto my face.
“How’s this for fun?” I said to nobody.
I got up to change into some better pajamas and more thoroughly brush my teeth.