Chapter 3
Sadie
I’m still grinning when the next message comes through.
I wouldn’t be the only one…
Heat blooms low in my stomach instantly.
“Oh my God,” Dani says, grabbing my arm hard enough to slosh wine across the couch cushion.
“Shut up.”
“No, seriously.” She points dramatically at my phone. “That was hot. That was aggressively hot.”
Rain lashes against the windows outside, harder, thunder rolling through the house, deep and steady.
The living room glows warmly beneath the lamplight.
The empty wine bottles sit on the coffee table next to Dani’s bangles, lazily scattered across the surface alongside the other jewelry she shed. I told her she was a magpie.
I stare down at the messages again. Tyler has never talked like this before.
At the gym, he’s flirty, sure, but in a polished, practiced way.
Compliments, lingering touches, and cocky smiles.
This feels different somehow. Like whoever’s texting me actually enjoys the conversation instead of just trying to get me naked.
Which is ridiculous because obviously he’s trying to get me naked too.
“Hey—” The protest dies on my lips as Dani snatches my phone before I can overthink my reply again.
“You hesitate too much.” Her thumbs fly over the screen. “Men can smell fear.”
“You sound insane.”
She arches her brow at me. “I sound experienced.”
My phone buzzes almost immediately in her hand. Dani gasps. “He’s so into you!” I grab for the phone, laughing, but she twists away from me on the couch. “No. I’m steering now.”
“You’re drunk.”
“So are you, and I’m the more experienced drunk sexter. I won’t say anything bad, promise.” She finally tosses the phone back into my lap dramatically.
Bet you look pretty when you blush, too.
“Oh, I hate you,” I mutter. Mostly because she was absolutely right, he is making me blush. My cheeks feel warm enough to catch fire.
Dani smiles indulgently. “You absolutely do not.”
I’m not blushing because I’m shocked or offended; it’s just been so long since somebody flirted with me like this. Like they’re genuinely paying attention. Like they enjoy getting reactions out of me.
I look much the same when I blush as I do when I’m all hot and sweaty at the gym. So, not exactly.
Dani reads my reply, cackling with delight.
“If you were trying to put him off, that’s not going to work.
For one, he’s seen you all hot and sweaty at the gym and came onto you.
Secondly, now you’ve made him think of other ways you might look all hot and sweaty,” she says with a wink.
Dani watches my face closely and immediately starts cackling. “Oh, you’re gone.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not gone.”
“You’re one message away from climbing this man like a tree.”
I laugh into my almost-empty wine glass. My last drink, I mean it this time.
The phone buzzes again.
Let me see you then.
My stomach flips. “What does that mean?” I ask, my eyes widening in panic.
Dani snorts. “He wants a picture, Grandma.”
“Oh.”
I suddenly become hyperaware of myself. My messy hair and smudged makeup, the oversized sweatshirt slipping off one shoulder, my bare legs curled beneath me on the couch.
Dani rolls her eyes dramatically. “Sadie Cross, if you don’t send that man a selfie right now, I’ll do it for you.”
“I look awful.”
“You look hot in a divorced wine mom kind of way.” She waggles side to side.
I grimace. “That is not comforting.”
I open the front camera anyway. The screen startles me a little.
Not because I look bad exactly, it’s just been a while since I’ve looked at myself like this.
I look softer than I used to. Tired around the eyes, hair messy from wine and laughing, and running my hands through it all night.
But my cheeks are flushed, my lips look fuller, and there’s something brighter in my eyes, alive.
I angle the phone slightly and take the picture before I can chicken out.
Dani immediately grabs the phone to inspect it. “Oh, bitch. You look GOOD.”
I pull a face as I study the result. “I absolutely do not.”
“You absolutely do. You should send it,” she insists.
I don’t know whether it’s the wine or Dani’s attitude rubbing off on me, but before I can second-guess myself, I hit send. I immediately regret it. “Oh my God,” I groan, dropping backward against the couch cushions. “Why did I do that?”
Dani is practically vibrating beside me, waiting for the reply. It comes fast.
Jesus.
Then another.
You’re fucking gorgeous.
And another immediately after:
Good God woman.
Heat rushes through me so hard it almost hurts.
Dani clutches my arm dramatically. “He’s down bad.”
I’m laughing helplessly when she suddenly snatches the phone out of my hand again. “Dani—”
She bats my hand away. “You’re terrible at this.”
I groan. “What are you doing?”
“I’m helping.” Her brow furrows as she taps at the screen.
“That sentence has literally never ended well.” I reach for the phone, but she holds it out of my reach, holding me back with the other hand.
Still laughing, she opens my camera roll and begins to scroll, ignoring my protests that he isn’t going to want a picture of Owen, my meals, or whatever other random crap I’ve snapped. “Oh my God, there’s the bikini picture. And it’s HOT!”
My soul leaves my body. “Dani, don’t!”
She’s already cackling.
It’s from six months ago. Owen and I were at the lake.
I set it up, ready to run over to Owen for a long shot, but I timed it wrong, and it ended up only getting my body in, me half turning back toward the camera, ass, side boob, and everything else practically on display.
I almost deleted it afterward because I hated how my stomach looked in it.
Now, wine-warm, reckless, and laughing too hard to think properly, I watch in horror as Dani hits send. Beneath it, she puts an eggplant emoji and the words ‘your turn’.
I freeze, stunned. The room falls silent for half a second, except for the rain pounding the windows. I slowly turn toward her. “What,” I say carefully, “does the eggplant mean?”
Dani innocently stares at me, blinking slowly. But then she absolutely loses her mind laughing so hard she’s bent over, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
“Oh, my God. Dani. What does it mean?”
Dani shakes her head. “You sweet summer child.”
Realization dawns slowly. Horribly. My jaw drops. “Oh, my God. You just asked him for a dick pic, didn’t you?” I lunge for the phone with a shriek while Dani curls into the couch, laughing so hard she can barely breathe. “You psychopath!”
“You needed character development!”
“Oh my God, oh my God—” I finally wrestle the phone back, nearly dropping it onto the floor.
My face feels like it’s about a thousand degrees.
“No, no, no, no—” I mutter as I frantically try to delete the messages, but they’ve already been read, and the dots are appearing and disappearing.
I send an update with the same words, removing the emoji, trying to pass it off as a typo.
Dani wipes tears from beneath her eyes. “Honestly? Iconic behavior. I have no regrets.”
“I’m blocking you. We’re no longer friends.”
“Love you too.” She blows me a kiss.
I stare at the screen. There’s no typing bubble, no response at all, nothing. “Oh my God,” I whisper.
Dani immediately notices the lack of response, too. “Okay, maybe he died,” she jokes nervously.
“You ruined it. I’m going to have to change gyms!” I press my face into the cushion, screaming quietly.
“He probably just passed out. It’s late,” Dani says with a yawn.
“He definitely thinks I’m an insane sex freak.”
Dani rolls her eyes. “Yeah, because no man wants to date a sex freak.”
Thunder rattles the windows hard enough to shake the lamp beside us. I stare at the silent screen in complete horror. One minute passes. Then two.
“Oh my God,” I groan, burying my face back in the pillow. “I’ve scared him away.”
“Impossible. Men would survive war for bikini pictures.” Dani grins wickedly. “I bet he’s, you know…” she waggles her brows and mimes jerking off and snapping a picture.
I groan, falling dramatically onto the couch. I’m not sure what would be worse—getting back a cringy dick pic or him ghosting me. Another minute goes by. Still nothing. “See?” I say miserably. “He thinks I’m weird.”
Dani snorts. “Sadie. You literally asked a hot gym trainer for a dick pic. If anything, he’s probably just getting the best angle.”
I groan louder. Finally, I grab the phone again, thumbs flying nervously over the keyboard.
In my defense, my friend is a terrible influence, and I’m deeply concerned about all my life choices right now—
Before I can hit send, my phone buzzes violently in my hand. Image received.
Dani screams. Actually screams. “Open it!”
“I don’t want to.”
“You absolutely do.” I’m laughing so hard I can barely breathe as she climbs halfway over me, trying to snatch the phone again. “Lemme see, Sadie! Open it!”
Heart hammering, I tap the image. My mouth pops open, and I forget how to breathe for a moment.
Dani goes dead silent beside me for exactly one second. “Oh my God it’s huge!”
I nearly drop the phone directly onto the floor. “Jesus Christ!”
Dani is fully wheezing now, clutching her stomach.
Meanwhile, I can’t stop staring. I should probably be offended, or scandalized, or something more appropriate for a mother and progressive, modern woman.
Instead, heat pours low through my stomach so suddenly it almost makes me dizzy.
Because the picture is confident, not awkward or cringey, and I have to admit, very impressive.
Dani is still laughing beside me. “Girl, that thing has its own zip code.”
I shove her away with a horrified laugh. My phone buzzes again.
Is your friend still helping?
I realize then that I must have hit send in my shock. I bite my lip hard enough to stop another laugh as I type my response:
She’s being aggressively supportive.
His reply comes instantly:
I like her already.
I like that he sent such an intimate photo and yet didn’t expect a response, didn’t expect me to praise his manhood. He didn’t send it to seek validation. He sent it because he knows it’s hot, and I asked for it.
The conversation spirals after that, with texts coming in faster and growing increasingly hot. Every message leaves me more flushed than the last.
The storm outside grows louder while the house gets quieter around us, the clock pushing later and later into the night. Owen sleeps upstairs, completely oblivious, while I sit curled barefoot on the couch, sexting a man I barely know, while Dani coaches me like some deranged life mentor.
At some point, she stands up dramatically. “Okay. I’m tapping out.”
I blink up at her. “What?”
“You heard me.” She points toward the hallway. “I need sleep. You need to go to your room with your vibrator and let that man remotely give you an orgasm. Lord knows you’re overdue one.”
I laugh so hard, my stomach hurts. “You are unbelievable.”
“I’m also right.” She bends down and kisses the top of my head before stumbling toward the linen closet for blankets.
My phone buzzes again.
Where’d you go?
Heat curls through me instantly.
Dani notices my face and lets out a loud groan. “Oh, you’ve got it bad. Better go upstairs before you start humping the couch, or you try to make out with me like that one time in college.”
“That was one time, and it was your idea, you wanted to impress that bass guitarist, remember?”
She tilts her head to one side. “Oh yeah, still the best kiss of your life,” she winks, blowing me a kiss.
I flip her off affectionately while typing back:
My friend says I need sleep before things get too heated.
The response comes immediately:
Too late for that, sweetheart.
My stomach tightens again. God. Nobody has talked to me like this in years.
Another message appears.
Dream about me. I know I will about you.
I stare at it, smiling, before I can stop myself. I finally type:
Goodnight.
Night, trouble. Speak to you tomorrow.
The promise of continuing our conversation makes my stomach flip. I help Dani make the couch bed while trying very hard not to think about the picture still sitting in my messages, trying and failing.
The storm has finally abated, but rain still taps steadily against the windows as I brush my teeth upstairs. The house feels quieter now without Dani laughing downstairs.
My bedroom lamp casts soft amber light across the room while thunder rolls low outside, growing fainter. I lie staring at the ceiling thinking back to the earlier conversation. Unable to resist, I grab my phone again.
I reread the conversation from the beginning, and the more I read, the stranger it feels.
This doesn’t sound like Tyler. Not the Tyler I know anyway.
Tyler has flirted with me at the gym for weeks now, but this version of him feels different.
He’s funnier, wittier, confident, sometimes teasing, and sometimes strangely dominant, and somehow far more seductive than the polished gym-trainer version I know in real life.
Also, the response he gave when I sent him my photo made it seem like he was surprised at my appearance.
He’s seen me numerous times before, he knows what I look like.
I stare at the messages while rain taps softly against the windows. Then I can’t help but look at the picture again. Heat blooms low between my thighs. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this aroused.
“Oh my God,” I whisper to myself.
I haven’t done this in forever. Not properly, I thought that side of me was gone, that I had hardly any libido left.
It’s been a long time since I wanted someone this badly.
My body already feels tight and restless with it, thighs pressing together beneath the blankets almost instinctively.
The vibrator hidden in my bedside drawer suddenly feels impossible to ignore.
I hesitate maybe ten seconds before reaching for it.
After that, thinking becomes significantly harder.
I allow my body to take the lead, touching myself as I think about the conversation and the photo of Tyler.
But soon his face disappears from my mind, as if blurred, replaced by a mixture of men I’ve fantasized about in the past. Mostly, I focus on the words and imagine that perfect cock thrusting in and out of me.
I picture a man solely focused on my pleasure—a man who is confident and skilled in bed without being selfish.
The orgasm hits me harder than I expect. Sharp and overwhelming after so long untouched, that I actually have to bite down on my hand to keep quiet as I shudder with the waves of pleasure.
Afterward, I lie there breathing hard beneath the blankets while rain rolls outside and my phone glows beside me in the dark. Still warm with messages from a man I suddenly can’t stop thinking about. Dani’s right, I’m totally done for.