“Twat?” I said. I laughed out loud. “Did you really just use the word twat in casual conversation?”
“What’s wrong with the word twat?”
“Nothing.” I snorted out another laugh I couldn’t hold back. I laid my head back and chuckled, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that. “Twat.”
“What’s so funny?”
“Twat, Shelly. That shit’s funny.” I took another bite of my pizza. I pointed to hers. “Eat,” I said. “The way your stomach was sounding, I thought it was going to attack me. You need nourishment. Eat.” I pointed to her pizza again.
She lifted the pizza and took another bite and made another face.
“Sheila is happily remarried to a friend of mine,” I said. “His name is Ralph and he’s a nice guy. You’d like him.”
“Does he know she wants to fuck you?” Shelly parried.
“She doesn’t want to fuck me.” Just then a rap sounded on my window. I looked over to find Sheila. She smiled at me and motioned for me to roll my window down. I did. She leaned over and held out a piece of chocolate chess pie. “Thought you might like this,” she said.
I took it from her, and she leaned into my car and kissed my cheek, lingering just a little too long for comfort.
“Thanks,” I croaked.
“Any time,” she said, and she winked at me. Then she went back to her food truck.
Shelly smirked. “Told you so.”
“I hate you,” I said as I rolled the window back up.
“And yet you still would give your left nut to taste my lip balm,” she said quietly. Then she stuffed her pizza into her mouth and took a huge bite.
I snorted. “Shows how much you know. I don’t have a left nut.”
She turned to face me, her mouth open ever so slightly. “You’re kidding,” she said around her food.
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” I pushed her chin up with my finger. “Close your mouth. I can see your pizza.”
She opened her mouth wide. “You mean like this?”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had this much fun. My life, it wasn’t full of fun and games. It was work. And other obligations. But not much fun.
She glanced down at her watch. “Can you drop me off in front of the rec center on Front Street?” she said. “I have a class in just over an hour.”
“What kind of class?”
“Self-defense. I teach it two days a week.”
“How much do you know about self-defense?”
She glared at me. “Duh…” she said. “Only, like, everything.”
I picked up her hand and looked down at her bruised knuckles. “You might want to go easy on punching people today. Those knuckles are pretty bruised.”
She laid her head back against the seat and smiled a salty smile at me. “If you’d wanted to hold my hand, you could have just asked.”
I dropped her fingers when I realized that I was, indeed, still holding her hand. “You suck so bad, Shelly Punter.”
“Actually, I don’t,” she said. “I’m really good at sucking.” She grinned at me. The thought of her sucking anything shot straight to my dick. I looked away from her.
I drew in a slow breath. “Why do you