Sexy Jerk(49)

Just then the server delivers our sushi. I wait until she's cleared the area and once again lean across the table. "Tell me more."

With her chopsticks, she dips a piece of spicy tuna into the soy sauce. "The room was so romantic, Tess. It had a white sheer curtain all around it and the view out to the ocean was to die for. Everything about the resort was magical. Ethan and I couldn't keep our hands off each other. We had sex in our room, in our pool, on the beach, and in the ocean."

"I can't believe you did it morning, noon, and night," I say around a mouthful of sushi. "I wasn't sure Ethan had it in him."

She points her chopsticks, the ends stained with soy sauce, at me. "To be honest, I didn't either. He even tied me up one night and we," she lowers her voice to a whisper and looks around, "had anal sex."

This time it's a piece of rice I choke on. "Did it hurt?"

Fiona and I have always talked about sex candidly. She's the one who told me what to do with the twins the first time I put my mouth on them. She was promiscuous. Then again her parents were kind of hippies, and the camp they took her to each summer was more like a commune. Fiona told me the married couples there would exchange partners. My parents would have died if they knew. I guess her parents had somewhat of an open marriage. But even that didn't keep them together. After Fi graduated high school, they divorced and both moved away. Her mother now teaches yoga in Monterey and lives with her girlfriend. Her father remarried and has six kids and lives in a little town along the coast Washington. Fiona hasn't seen either of them in years.

Whereas I always yearned for the wild, she dreamed of the tame, but when you put the two of us together, she was always the wild one, and I was the tame one.

Fiona licks her chopsticks seductively. "At first, it did, but it didn't take long for the stretching and burning sensations to fade, and then I didn't mind it."

I stop with a piece of sushi halfway to my mouth. "Mind it?'

She shrugs. "I think it's one of the things men like to do to feel like they own you. I didn't love it, but Ethan did. I'll do it again if he asks."

I laugh so loud I'm surprised the other diners don't turn their heads. "Fi, you are too much."

"Hey, we both want to keep each other happy." 

I raise a brow. "Is Ethan on that page?"

"He is now," she grins. "We talked a lot on this trip about making sure he makes time for me. I think he finally gets it. And will do it."

Our dinners arrive and we spend most of the meal talking more about Fiji, and Fiona and Ethan's sexual exploits.

They did some crazy things like watch a guy jerk himself off under their outdoor shower. I guess he'd thought their villa was his. I laughed when she told me he opened their door to see them both staring at him, and screamed before running.

Story after story, she never stopped amusing me.

I draw my fork through the last of my garlic-parmesan potatoes, but then set it down. "I'm full."

Fiona pushes her plate forward slightly. "Me too. I ate way too much."

I wipe my mouth with the napkin and consider how exactly to tell her about Nick and I-casually, or just blurt it out?

This is so much harder than I thought it would be. Besides, I'm really worried about you Nick too. What if later when we all meet up, Nick has an aversion to being seen with me? Hell, I'm driving myself crazy. "Do it already," I chastise myself.

Just as I'm about to open my mouth, Fiona waves down the server. "Can we have our check, please?" she asks her.

The server nods. "I'll bring it right over."

Fiona pulls her wallet out. "Let's head over to Studio Paris early so we can dance before the guys get there. Knowing you, you'll probably leave the minute Nick opens his mouth, and then we won't have any girl time."

Right here, this is my chance.

But instead of telling her about Nick and I, I say, "That sounds like fun. I haven't danced in ages," and then I pray Ethan doesn't text her the news before I get the courage to tell her.

Looks like I've found God again.





Tess

THERE'S NOWHERE LIKE home.

You can take the girl from one big city and put her in another, but it isn't the same. Chicago is my home, and even though I've been gone for six years, it feels like I never left.

Arm in arm, Fiona and I traipse around the block. It's a three-minute walk at most, but both of our feet are frozen before we see the black awning with the white letters spelling out the club's name.

Studio Paris has been around for a long time, and Fiona and I came here often during college. It's one of chicest nightclubs in River North. With bottle service and an outdoor lounge, it has always drawn a crowd.

Tonight DJ Jazzy Jeff is spinning, and the line is around the corner. He's known for playing classics from the eighties, nineties, and two thousands, with a bit of techno mixed in. When I lived in New York, he'd come play at Cielo, and he'd always draw the biggest crowd. Luckily, we don't have to wait in line. Nick knows the owner, and he left our names at the door.