“This,” Vixen says and grabs a small white bottle covered in red Xs and Os. “This stuff is great. Just put a little on your clit before the action and it’ll enhance the pleasure.”
I will myself not to blush. Hearing someone talk so openly was refreshing, but a little unexpected.
“After three kids,” she goes on and scans the vibrator. I watch with wide eyes as the total pops up on the little screen. Thank God. I have enough cash to pay for it and pick up food on the way home. “I need a little pick-me-up before the hubs and I get down and dirty, ya know?”
“Yeah,” I say and unzip my wallet. I considered myself an open book, but hearing Vixen talk about every detail of her sex life makes me feel like I had a lot more opening up to do. I pay and take my bag.
“Have fun tonight!” Vixen says as I turn to go.
“I will, thanks,” I say automatically before I realize she’s referring to me having some solo time with this neon-pink new best friend. Whatever. I smile and shake my head. “Have a good rest of your day.”
“I get off in an hour,” she says. “I can manage.”
I hike my purse back up on my shoulder, not exactly sure what’s accumulated in it make it so heavy, and push open the door, signaling a moan from the censor. I get one foot through the threshold when two women come up, stopping and stepping to the side to let me through.
“Felicity?” one of them asks.
On its own accord, my head turns to the source of my name. Then my brain kicks in a millisecond too late, reminding me that getting noticed was major crisis number one. But as soon as I see the angelic face of Mindy fucking Abraham, I’m in major crisis number two, which is seeing Mindy fucking Abraham anytime, anywhere, let alone here, several towns over from where we grew up.
It’s amazing how just one glance at a person can make you feel so much.
And right now I’m feeling like we’re back in high school and she’s sitting at the popular table after being the new girl for two days while I’ve been trying for two years to get those kids to even know my name. I’m feeling like I just saw her making out with Todd Overman, my crush since seventh grade who I was sure would eventually fall for my nerd-girl charm and make lots of babies with me. Just looking at her flawless skin and perfect hair reminds me of everything I wasn’t back then, of everything I’m still not now, and how unfair it is that people like Mindy fucking Abraham get ahead in life just by being pretty.
From the day we met nearly ten years ago, that woman has made it her personal mission to one up me in any and everything. Except, not really. She’s just naturally better than me, and her lack of trying only made me hate her even more when we were teens.
Just once glance at her and the self-esteem I’ve spent years building comes crashing down and I’m shaken to my core. It took me until I became an adult to finally accept myself—to an extent. I still have a ways to go, I know—and embrace my flaws and fly my freak flag high with pride. And yet standing here, feeling like a sixteen-year-old girl hugging my X-Men notebook to my chest as I blink back tears and feel the burn of embarrassment in my cheeks, questioning everything.
Fuck.
After a mishap at MIT, I ended up graduating from our local college, and low and behold, a few classes with Mindy fucking Abraham. She never said anything to me, never acted like she had once mocked me to the point of tears over my Harry Potter obsession.
“Nope,” I say and reach into my purse, fingers catching on the straps as I madly wrestle the contents for my sunglasses. I stab myself in the face in my haste to put them on. “You must have gotten me confused with someone else.”
“Oh, sorry,” Mindy says and walks past. “You have a familiar face.”
“I get that a lot,” I say with a nod and keep walking.
“I swear that’s her,” Mindy whispers to the woman next to her. I keep walking, not stopping until I’m next to my Malibu. I press the button on the door handle and plop into the driver’s seat, exhaling. I’m a bit ashamed for letting myself come undone so easily. I shake my head, put my parcels in the seat next to me, and start the car. I’m calmed when Taylor Swift comes on, reminding me to shake all this off.
I grab Taco Bell on the way, thinking more and more about trying out the new vibrator the closer I get to home. I pull into the narrow, one-car garage attached to my town house, sliding sideways out of the car to avoid hitting my bike.
“Hey, Ser Pounce,” I say to a fat orange and white cat that slinks around my ankles when I walk into the house. I kick off my black kitten heels and pad through the laundry room into the kitchen, sitting at the small island counter. I dig into my food as I unpackage the vibrator, more excited than I should be to discover it’s fully charged. I toss it on my bed for later, do a bit of much-needed housework, and then log onto my computer.