I’m a good friend. But I have limits.
She grabs my wrist as I pass. “I want to talk to you about something.”
“Oh my God,” I mutter, fully annoyed with this girly fit. “Like I haven’t been trying to get you to talk for the past twenty minutes.”
She licks her lips and looks away as her fingers release my wrist.
I cross my arms and stare her down. She has about six seconds to spit out whatever has her all knotted up—
“Do you ever talk to the girls you sleep with?” Parker blurts out.
I lift an eyebrow. “You mean, do I remove their gag and allow them to speak? Only when they please me.”
Her foot sneaks out and nearly connects with my shin, but I dodge. “You know what I mean,” she says. “After you’re done saying whatever you need to to get in their pants, but before you begin your usual Get them out of here routine, do you talk to them?”
“Sure,” I say, completely unclear on where the heck she’s going with this.
“No, I mean do you really? Do you enjoy them?”
“I enjoy their—”
Parker holds up a hand. “No, I mean them as people. Do you like them?”
I scratch my cheek. “Why do I get the feeling I’m walking into a conversation in which I’ll inevitably look like an asshole?”
“So you don’t like them,” she concludes.
“Jeez, I don’t know, Parks. I don’t dislike them; otherwise, I wouldn’t bring them home or go back to their place or whatever. But it’s not like I—”
I scratch my cheek again, not really sure what she wants me to say. I’m a bit of a womanizer. I get that. But I never give anyone the wrong impression. I never imply that I’m interested in anything other than the one night.
I’ve never really felt bad about my relationship habits (although relationship feels like a strong word), but the way Parker is positioning these questions makes me feel like she’s setting me up for something.
“Are you having second thoughts about this whole casual sex thing?” I ask.
“Yes.”
Thank God.
Still, I’m surprised. Not so much that she’s changed her mind—she’s really not a one-night-stand kind of girl—but that she’s changing her mind before she’s even tried it.
Because as far as I know, despite our nearly nightly outings to various bars, she hasn’t hooked up with anyone since she and Lance split a couple weeks ago.
“I’ve been going about it all wrong,” she says.
“Well, yeah,” I say, folding my arms and leaning back against the counter. “But only because you seem to have a knack for finding the biggest douchebag in every bar we go into.”
“Exactly!” Her eyes light up, her voice excited. “I can’t even carry on a conversation with these bozos for more than a minute without wanting to blow my brains out.”
“Ah, and you want to know how I manage to carry on conversations with girls that I’m not really interested in,” I say, finally catching on. Or so I think.
“Um, no,” she says. “I don’t really give a crap.”
God help me, I might strangle her. “Do I even need to be here for this conversation?” I ask. “Seems to me like you can talk yourself into a circle all by yourself.”
She stands. “When I said I’m giving up on the casual sex thing, I meant I’m going to give up on doing the casual sex thing your way. Haven’t you ever wanted to enjoy the person you sleep with? To finish up doing, you know, and then not want to shove them out of bed?”
“Um, sure, but…”