“You slut!” Josie said it with a tone of admiration, not condemnation, and the expression on her face was so comical it made Laura burst into laughter.
“Well, thank you, I guess.”
“No, no, I just mean—damn. So, how does this work? What the hell happened with the firefighter?”
“He’s married. Or has a girlfriend.” Josie’s face fell, shifting from eager curiosity to self-righteous anger on Laura’s behalf. What a great friend. Laura almost laughed at how bulldoggish Josie looked.
“How do you know?”
“Because I woke up in his bed at three in the morning and there were pictures of her everywhere. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”
“Maybe it was his sister?” Josie asked, her voice going up high, as if hopeful and as if there was a snowball’s chance in hell it was true.
“In a bikini at the beach? Being kissed by him? Uh, no. Unless she’s Angelina Jolie and he routinely tongue-kisses his sister—”
“OK, ewww. Point taken. So the guy is a slimeball and took you home while his girlfriend’s out of town. Fucker.” She rubbed Laura’s shoulder. “How did you handle it?”
“I woke up, saw the pictures, freaked out on the inside but stayed quiet, got dressed and almost cried in the cab.” Laura gulped a hot mouthful of coffee down.
“So you sneak home after ditching a guy in his bed, after sleeping with him within what? Three hours, four—OK, four hours of knowing him. You find out he has a girlfriend, with pictures of her plastered all over his room, so you decide you’re going to come home and write him off and...now you have a date with another guy?” Josie’s expression was, to say the least, comical. It was like a graphic of a “what the fuck” emoticon.
Only in real life.
“It is pretty freaking amazing,” Laura agreed, nodding absentmindedly as she added two spoons of sugar to her coffee. She hadn’t consumed coffee with sugar since tenth grade. Since returning home from her date, though, she’d been doing a lot of out-of-character things, including dating two men on the same day.
“Spill it.”
“I woke up, was about to shower, and this guy IM’d me on the dating site. I had just blocked Dylan, actually, and made sure he wasn’t in my ‘Favorites’ anymore. So then Mike—”
“Suddenly some guy pops up in the chat window on this website and asks you out?”
“Yes.”
“Worth it?” That was code for whether he was attractive.
“He looks like that actor who played Thor in the movie.”
Josie’s jaw dropped. “Not fair! When do I get Captain America hitting on me?”
Laura laughed and dumped her coffee, pouring a fresh cup. She started to tremble inside, the urge uncontrollable. It was all too much, too intense, and spelling it out for her best friend was making it all too real.
“What’s he do for a living?”
“Ski instructor,” Laura mumbled as she hurried to fill her mouth with more coffee and delay the interrogation. Josie rolled her eyes.
Her friend poured herself another cup of coffee, glanced at the clock and said, “Oh shit, I’m late for work, but I don’t care, this is, this is—this is awesome! Way, way better than any movie. Plus I have a front seat view!” They both winced at each other and Josie added, “Uh, you know what I mean. Not literally.” She shuddered.
“I’m so glad that I’m meeting your entertainment needs.”
“Come on, what kind of life do I have? I haven’t had sex in seven months. I have to live vicariously through you.”
Laura snorted, “Well, it serves you right after all the years I lived vicariously through you having sex. It’s only fair.”
Josie hung her head in mock shame. “Well, yeah, OK, fair enough, but lay off the years comment. I haven’t gone through that many men.”
“I beg to dif—”
“Shut your whore mouth!” Josie threw half an English muffin at Laura’s head and, with catlike precision, she dodged it, both women howling with laughter.
Laura paused, thought for a moment, and said, “You know, you can open your own profile and see what pops up. To solve that seven month problem you’ve got going on there.” She gestured vaguely at Josie’s torso.
“Oh, I’ve seen what pops up. You know the phrase, ‘shit floats’?”
Laura just laughed. Ouch. Then again, Josie’s last date had been from an online dating site. Turned out to be a sixty-year-old neocon Tea Party activist who used a Groupon for dinner and made Josie pay her half before the coupon. Capitalism at its best—he’d made money off their date. And all Josie had to remind her was a lovely restraining order when the guy wouldn’t leave her alone.