I meant to go back to the Cherry Pick on Monday, but that didn’t go according to plan. I’d worked from a nearby cafe all afternoon, and when I came back, Jennifer was sitting with her back against my door, watching the corridor. Clearly, she wanted to make sure she wouldn’t miss me.
I suspected we were going to have some kind of talk about what happened last time. I didn’t need to be a genius (or to have faerie sight) to tell she got instantly excited as I came up to my floor from the staircase.
“Hey,” I said. “Have you been waiting long?”
“Couple of minutes,” she said, getting up. She held up a small backpack. “I got brewskis. Thought we could watch season 2 of Homeland together. Or something.”
“Sure,” I said, unlocking the door.
I let her in. We moved to the kitchen. I put a frozen pizza in the oven while she opened up some beers. She handed me one.
“Urk,” I said. “They’re pretty warm.”
“They were cold when I bought them,” she said.
“Uh huh,” I said, skeptical. “You sure you’ve been here for just a few minutes.”
She shrugged. “We should talk.”
“Yeah, I guess we do. But look, I don’t want it to be weird between us…”
“Me too,” she said. “The other night… I got a little crazy, y’know?”
“That’s… an understatement,” I said, noticing her arousal rising a little as she probably remembered what had happened.
“But we’re buds, right? That comes first, not… you know… sex.”
“Hey,” I said, “I get it.”
But the truth was, I didn’t really get it. She was hot for me, but she was sending signals that she just wanted to be friends.
“Okay, I’m glad we talked about it.”
Huh? As conversations went, that was pretty short. And deceptively painless. For a moment, the coward in me thought it was over and almost let it slide. But then, I noticed Attitude sitting on the fridge, glaring in my direction. I had a hunch there would be trouble if I tried to duck out of the REAL conversation we should be having, so I shook my head.
“No, we’re not done, Jen,” I said. “What happened… it wasn’t right.”
“What do you mean?” She looked at her beer, which she absentmindedly held in front of her impressive chest. I couldn’t help notice her nipples were very hard.
“You… want us to be more than just friends, don’t you?”
“Um… I don’t think I’d put it like that.” She put her beer on the counter and got closer to me. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot, lately. At night, I mean. I mean, during my sleep…”
Uh oh. Erotic dreams. I was willing to bet my left nut this was some kind of faerie trickery. She wrapped her arms around my neck and drew me closer. She looked up into my eyes and gave me a shy smile.
“Jen, we’re buds…”
She was pushing her breasts against my chest. Then she pulled my head in and her lips met mine in a soft kiss. She held me there for a few moments, then broke the kiss.
“We’re buds, and that comes first. But I’ve had the hots for you for YEARS, y’know? And you’ve never really seen me. Even after I got these.” She pointed at her boobs, still squashed against my chest. “But now, I know what I want. Heck, I got what I want, and I liked it.”
“Um… so what does this mean?”
“I liked it, like I said. And I want it again. I don’t want you to be my boyfriend, I just want… y’know, YOU.” She slid a hand into my pants. “And I’m pretty sure you want ME, too.”
I put my beer down on the counter and kissed her. So, friends-with-benefits it would be, I guessed. We’d probably need to define some guidelines later, but at that moment, I just decided to go with it. We started peeling off each other’s clothes, then one thing led to another. We lost track of time.
Oh, and we never got to eat that pizza. We got interrupted during our busy work when the apartment fire alarm blared, signaling our forgotten dinner had burned to a crisp in the oven.
It was worth it, I say.
