Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
“So, did you two break up in the middle of the night?” I asked carefully.
She sniffled and shook her head. “Last night. I just couldn’t sleep. I miss him and hate him at the same time.”
Relatable. I missed being with someone, but I wasn’t sure I could. Other than ending up at a few women’s apartments the past couple of years, I’d kept my distance. The hatred for women didn’t burn as hotly as it once had—far from it, actually—but the resentment lingered, misplaced or not. The betrayal still kept an internal wall slammed into place.
“Mister, would it be too weird if I asked you about sex?”
Ugh, yes. Yes, Pipsqueak, it would be weird.
“I’m uncertain about the social boundaries here,” she mumbled.
Goddammit. I rubbed the back of my head and eyed the coffeemaker. “Uh. I filled in for a colleague during sex ed once, so if you keep it very clinical and objective, I might pull it off. But don’t fucking tell me you’ve already—actually. Fuck.” I blew out a breath. I wasn’t supposed to judge her. “Whatever it is, lay it on me. Better me than Darius or Ethan.”
She snickered at that, a sweet sound. “Can you imagine…?”
“I’m not sure who’d suffer a brain aneurysm first,” I chuckled.
This better not give me a brain aneurysm…
Pipsqueak appeared to struggle with how to phrase herself, so I stayed silent and fixed our coffee before I joined her at the table.
“Several of my friends have already had sex,” she confessed.
I nodded, not surprised. But I hoped the way she said that meant she wasn’t one of them.
She hesitated. “Is that normal?”
Well, I couldn’t lie and say that everyone waited until they were in their twenties. It was probably something Darius would’ve gone with, though.
“Yeah, it’s pretty normal,” I replied. “If I remember correctly, the average age both boys and girls lose their virginities is around seventeen, so you can give or take a few years on each side of that number to get your range of normal.”
She nodded slowly and chewed the inside of her cheek. “Were you seventeen when you…?”
I shook my head. “I was twenty.”
“Really?” She hadn’t seen that coming, for some reason.
Did I give off a vibe of having screwed around at an early age?
“When I was your age, I didn’t even see girls,” I told her. “I was focused solely on school. Hell, I didn’t even have friends.”
“Huh.” She knitted her brows together and stirred her coffee with the spoon I’d shoveled sugar with.
“You probably shouldn’t compare yourself with me, though,” I reasoned gently. “You know I was in foster care, right?”
“Yes.” She nodded minutely. “Mom hinted a little… I asked her once—about your scars, I mean.”
No shock there. I’d never been very careful around the Quinns. They were safe.
“It’s fine,” I assured her. “But you could say it left me with some trust issues, so I kept to myself for a long time. School was my ticket to a better future, and it replaced everything else. I didn’t go on dates or to prom or to the mall.”
“I understand.” She took a small sip of her coffee-flavored sugar and started drumming her fingers against the table. “I don’t know that I want to wait that long, but I’m not ready for sex now.”
Good.
“Don’t ever let anyone pressure you,” I told her. “I hope Chad didn’t do that.”
She shook her head quickly. “No, we only talked about it. He let it go when I said I wasn’t there yet.”
“That’s good—and very strong of you.”
That seemed to relax her a bit, and most of her nerves left her smile.
Was it over? Could I breathe out? It hadn’t been as bad as I’d feared.
I blew some steam off my mug and took a slow sip.
“Besides,” she went on more casually, “it’s more fun exploring myself first.”
I coughed and spluttered, sending a mouthful of coffee splashing onto the table. And what didn’t come out, burned its way down my throat instead. Christ. I coughed some more, and then I was assaulted by images that had no business in my brain.
“Too hot?” Pipsqueak guessed.
Bad fucking wording. I left my seat, still coughing, to grab a few paper towels.
“Maybe that’s something—” I cleared my throat loudly to get my voice back. “Something you discuss with your mother and sister.”
“I do!” She smiled happily. “It was Willow who helped me pick out a vibrator—”
“Brain aneurysm!” I snapped in fucking panic. Too far, too far—holy shit, way too fucking far. “We can’t talk about that, Pipsqueak.” God, the images were goddamn disturbing. I felt like I was being forced to be a predator, because I couldn’t unhear her, nor could I unsee what my mind had conjured.
Pipsqueak widened her eyes. “Why? You just said—”
“Vibrators are not clinical.” I used approximately seven paper towels to wipe the table, as if that would erase the last fifteen seconds from my memory. “I mean—I can’t go that far. If you want details about STDs, I can give you a fucking slide show of pictures off the internet that will steer you away from sex for years to come. But we can’t discuss masturbation. It’s entirely inappropriate.”