Good Girls Say Yes
By: Penny WylderBut you know what? He didn’t say that I had to text him today, and if he doesn’t even want to send the car until Friday, I have some time to think, and even with Lily’s endorsement, you can be sure that I’m going to Google the hell out of this guy when I get back to my apartment. I put the letter in my bag and take a shower, gather my things and grab breakfast downstairs before checking out. In that amount of time I manage to avoid obsessing over the elephant in the room. Actually, the elephant in my brain. But as I’m heading to my car, I can’t take it anymore. I text my friend Jess, who is probably my best friend since Lily and I drifted apart.
Need a vent and advice session. Meet me at my place when I’m back?
She responds right away.
How long till you’re there?
I tell her my ETA and she agrees to meet me and to bring the nachos. Now all I need to do is make it two hours alone in the car without thoughts of Matthew circling endlessly in my mind. Yeah, right.
I try everything, but the entire ride back I’m thinking about our fifteen minutes, and by the time I get back to my apartment on the outskirts of Atlanta, I’m so turned on I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have invited Jess over after all. But her car is already outside my building, and she’s going to be expecting some major gossip, so that ship has sailed and disappeared over the horizon.
Jess opens the door as I arrive—she must have heard me struggling with my suitcase coming up the stairs. Only two nights away from home and I swear, I packed my entire life. That’s one nice thing about Matthew’s plan; I don’t have to bring anything. Which is both terrifying and kind of relieving. I hate packing and I consider it one of the banes of my existence, along button-gaps on shirts and the fact that donuts have calories.
“So,” she says when I’m barely through the door, “what’s going on?”
“Wine first, talk second.”
She points to my coffee table. “It’s already poured.”
“Geeze, woman,” I laugh. “You really want to know what happened.”
“That and I was bored. Andrew is out of town this weekend and I was reduced to starting Grey’s Anatomy over from the beginning.” She shoves some nachos in her mouth so I can barely understand her. “This seemed more interesting.”
I kick off my shoes and flop onto my favorite chair, not bothering to move my suitcase from by the door. That can wait. “So, the wedding was… interesting.”
“How so?”
I take a bite of the nachos and relish the crappy cheese and salsa. Nothing makes you feel better after a hangover and a long drive than junk food. “It turns out that my friend, Lily, lives the BDSM lifestyle and I had no idea.”
Jess’s jaw drops open, and she stares. “Oh my god, that’s why the thing on the invitation said it would be non-traditional.”
I snort. “Yeah, you could say that. More than half the people there were into it, too. There was a couple at my table—who were really nice and shockingly normal—but she sat at his feet the whole time.”
“No. Fucking. Way! Dude, that’s wild. You don’t really think about people who do that getting married or going to weddings, but they’re still people. I feel like my mind has been blown.”
I laugh and scoop a bigger bite of nachos off the plate. “Let me assure that it hasn’t. Not yet.”
Jess curls her feet up on the couch and pulls her wine glass closer. “Tell me more.”
Taking a sip from my own glass, I tell her everything that happened. Everything. Her face gets more and more incredulous as I speak, and when I tell her about the letter at the hotel this morning, she doesn’t believe me until I retrieve it from my bag.
“Oh my god,” she says. “Oh, my god. Oh. My. God.”
I finish my wine. “I’m pretty sure you’ve exhausted every intonation of that sentiment.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I honestly have no idea.” I cover my face with my hands. “That’s why I texted you.”
She shakes her head. “My mind is definitely blown now.”
“Thought it might be.”
