Chapter 8
Cassie
This is the weirdest business meeting in the history of business meetings.
I’m sitting with Simon—whose last name, embarrassingly, I do not recall—eating dry-rubbed pork ribs, smoked fried chicken, beef belly, and huge mounds of collard greens and potato salad.
It was my idea to hit this hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint on North Williams. The food is excellent at The People’s Pig, and I wanted to avoid any sense that this is a date-date.
I’m not looking for a relationship and neither is he, so I’m pretty sure a restaurant with “pig” in the name says “we’re fuck buddies” and not “I want to marry you and have your babies.”
That’s just a guess.
There’s another reason I picked this place. I get the sense Simon doesn’t have much money. He’s always walking everywhere, and I’m not even sure he owns a car. I can’t imagine his job pays all that well, so it seems wise to keep things casual and cheap.
As I pick up another rib and smile at him across the battered wooden table, I pat myself on the back for choosing the right locale. This feels like the perfect spot to discuss strategy for the rest of the Fucket List.
It’s strange to call it that now. It started as a way to remember all the lies I’d told—to commit them to memory for retelling at the bachelorette party. But now…I don’t know. Is it weird that it took me this long to realize all those naughty fibs were really my secret sex fantasies?
“Tell me about item number eight,” Simon says.
I wipe sauce off my chin with the back of my hand and take a sip of my sweet tea. “Item number eight,” I repeat. “Was that the roleplay one?”
He laughs and shakes his head. “No, that’s number nine. How is it that I know your list better than you do?”
“Because I was drunk when I wrote it, and it’s comprised entirely of fibs I kinda wish I’d never told?”
“Do you really? Wish you’d never told them, I mean?”
I hesitate a moment, not sure how to respond. If I’d never made up all those sex stories, I wouldn’t be sitting here now eating barbecue with a hot guy whose handprint I swear I can still feel on my ass. That would be unfortunate.
“There was probably a better way to convince my sisters I wasn’t boring or pathetic,” I say at last.
“Fair enough.” He sips his own soft drink, then gives me a thoughtful look. “Still, it seems like you put a lot of thought into each experience. Even if it was all made up.”
I shrug, not sure how much to reveal. “I guess so. I mean, some of them are a little cliché.”
“Like what?”
“The girl-on-girl thing.” A waitress glances over at me, and it dawns on me how close together these tables are. I lower my voice and lean closer to Simon. Not much of a hardship. “Aren’t most millennial women at least a little bit bi-curious?”
He laughs, but the look he gives me is thoughtful. Like he’s really considering it instead of making sexual wisecracks. I admire the hell out of him for that.
“That’s a good point,” he says. “It’s certainly more prevalent in pop culture these days. Katy Perry heralded in a whole movement with ‘I Kissed a Girl.’”
“Exactly.” I’m charmed that he even knows who Katy Perry is, or that he’s interested in having conversations about my desires.
That he seems to care whether the experiences on The List mean something to me or if I cobbled them together on a drunken whim.
Most guys would be whipping through my sexy checklist with a boner in one hand and a Sharpie in the other, eager to mark off one salacious act after another.
But Simon’s really giving it some consideration.
I fork up a bite of collard greens and chew carefully. “I read a study last year that said forty-three percent of eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds indicated some level of fluid sexuality.”
“Fluid sexuality,” he repeats. “I’ve never heard that term before, but I like it. Seems more accurate than bi-curious.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” I take another sip of tea. “Also, twenty-nine percent of respondents in the twenty-five- to thirty-nine-year-old age range said their sexuality was fluid to some degree.”
He laughs and takes a bite out of a pork rib. “I love that you know the science behind it. That’s sexy as hell.”
There’s nothing mocking in his tone. Actually, there’s a hint of admiration. The fact that we’ve agreed there’s no plan for a relationship here has lent a certain comfort level to this connection. I’m not trying to impress Simon, and he’s not trying to impress me.
Hence the barbecue sauce up to my elbows.
“I suppose reading that study is what gave me the idea for the fib I told my sisters,” I say. “That, and Katy Perry. I guess it’s a little out there.”
“So, are you wanting to skip that one?” He pushes a pile of napkins across the table, and I take one with a nod of thanks. “It’s okay if you’re not really into it,” he adds. “There’s no rule that says you have to cross off every experience you wrote on The List.”
I think about it a moment, dabbing my mouth with a napkin. The truth is, I’m curious. I’m not sure I would have realized that if Simon and I weren’t sitting here talking through the details like a pair of overachieving academics determined to analyze a situation from all angles.
But the truth is, I really want to do it.
“I’d like to go ahead with it,” I say. “I want to know what it feels like to kiss another woman. To have her hands on my body.”
“I can’t tell you how much I enjoy that mental picture.”
I laugh. “Pig.”
“Oink.” He grins and bites into another pork rib. I lose my train of thought for a moment as I consider how hot it is to see him gnawing on a rib bone like some sort of caveman.
Don’t get me wrong, he has perfect manners. Better than most people in this funky little barbecue joint that doesn’t even give you plates. Just a big platter of meat and sides and a massive pile of napkins.
Simon licks sauce off his finger, and the sight of his mouth in action reminds me of how much fun we had the other night with the spatula. I’m not planning to go hardcore BDSM anytime soon, but this man certainly knows the secret to combining pleasure and pain.
“So back to The List,” he says, jarring me into the conversation again. “You didn’t just say, ‘sex at a spa,’ like a lot of people would do. You wrote, ‘Naughty spa day at super-snooty place for rich assholes.’ That’s kinda specific.”
“And kind of embarrassing, now that I’m sober,” I admit. “It makes me sound like a Kardashian.”
Something flashes in his eyes, and I wonder what that’s about. He recovers quickly, leading me to think maybe I imagined the whole thing.
“Not a Kardashian, exactly,” he says slowly. “Just a woman who knows what she wants.”
He’s studying me a little too intently, so I grab the coleslaw and shovel up a few bites, buying myself a little time to figure out how to respond.
Finally, I set the salad down. “I guess like everything to do with this list, it’s about my sisters,” I say at last. “They’re always jetting off on these romantic vacations and splurging on luxury experiences. They have kind of expensive taste.”
There’s that flicker again, a flash of something in his eyes. I’m pretty sure I’m not imagining it, and I make a mental note to tone down any conversations about money. Clearly, it’s a touchy subject for him.
“Anyway,” I continue. “I guess it’s about wanting to fit in with my sisters just a little, but maybe doing it my way.
Like I’d still enjoy getting pampered at a place like that, but I’d like to do it on my own terms. Like instead of a fancy pedicure, I’d like to do one of those mud baths I’ve seen on TV.
And I’d like to do it with someone. And after we’d gotten all muddy, we’d get cleaned up together, and then get really dirty. ”
“Jesus.” Simon wipes his mouth with a napkin and grins. “You do have an impressive sexual imagination.”
“Thank you.” The compliment means more to me than he probably realizes.
Usually people praise my skill at preparing slides or cleaning the centrifuge, so I enjoy being acknowledged for something sexy.
“Anyway, my sisters ate it up when I told them the story about the naughty spa day. You should have seen the look on their faces.”
I hate how wistful my voice sounds, but Simon doesn’t bat an eye. “So you’re hoping to make it true now.”
“Something like that.” I take another sip of tea. “It’s not that I want to have their lives. I don’t want to host garden parties and wear Lilly Pulitzer.”
“You just want your own version of their lives,” he says slowly. “The Cassie-fied version.”
I blink at him, not sure whether to feel understood or creeped out. We agreed up front this was a no-strings-attached thing. How deeply should I allow him to tunnel into my brain?
I settle for throwing him a casual laugh. “Maybe. So how about you?”
Hey, if he’s opening the door to this game of get-to-know-the-person-I’m-fucking, I’m happy to step through it.
He’s seemed reluctant to share a lot of personal details up to this point, but maybe that’s shifting.
“What about me?” he asks.
He’s probably braced for me to ask him a sex question— how many of the things on my list he’s done with other women already or something along those lines.
But that’s not what comes out of my mouth. “Tell me about your job.”
He seems to hesitate. “What do you want to know?”
I take a sip of lemonade and consider why I asked the question. “What got you interested in computers? In repairing them or selling them or anything else you do?”
It’s a standard get-to-know-you question, but I realize after I ask it that I really want to know. I’m interested in hearing what makes Simon tick.
“I like figuring out how things work,” he says carefully. “How to diagnose problems and fix them for people. I love troubleshooting and educating people about how to make their machines run better. I also like the mystery element.”
“Mystery?”