“I’d be bad at it,” I admit.
Virginia cracks a smile. “Hey, at least you’re honest. That’s one of the things I admire most about you. You pretty much know who you are and you don’t try to hide it. It would be really easy for you to be sleazy, but I’ve never seen you pretend to be anything you’re not.”
“Are you territorial?” I ask, though I can’t say why. Curiosity. I’ve always thought of Virginia as incredibly bright, but right now I want her to tell me more things. She should stay at my house all night and keep telling me all her thoughts and observations.
“I don’t date, so it’s not really an issue for me,” she tells me.
“Why don’t you date?”
Cracking a smile, she says, “Because most people are disappointing, and I don’t feel like dealing with it at this point in time.”
Side-eyeing her, I tell her, “Isn’t that my thing?”
“You have to share your thing,” she states.
“Hey, I’m damn good at sharing my thing,” I inform her.
“Of course you had to make it dirty,” she says, sighing at my antics.
“If you have all the answers, you should take your own advice,” I tell her, leaning my head against her car door.
“Are your ears broken? I’m not lost. I don’t need advice. I don’t desire a relationship, so I don’t have one. Simple.”
Now she’s speaking my language. “See? We could fuck and it wouldn’t be a big deal.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “And if you keep bringing that up, I’m for sure not going to spend the night platonically.”
I’m tempted to keep her talking, but I’m more interested in convincing her to stay the night, so I lean my head back against the seat and close my eyes while she drives me home.
I already know she’ll come in, so I don’t bother asking, and I don’t waste my time floating an insincere “good night” to see if she needs convincing. Once we’re in my driveway, I just open the car door and climb out, expecting her to follow.
She does, but she balks a little bit. “I still think this is a terrible idea. How about I’ll make sure you make it all the way up to your bed, but then you pass out and I leave?”
I smirk at her attempt to make me compromise. “How about no?” I counter.
“I’ve been working all day. I’m gross. I don’t want to sleep on your undoubtedly nice bed in my stinky work clothes.”
“So shower and wear one of my shirts.”
Appearing to choke on nothing, she looks horrified. “No.”
“Haven’t you ever had a platonic sleepover before, Virginia? Didn’t you have girlfriends growing up?”
“Sure, but they lacked dicks, so it was a little different.”
“Dicks make everything better,” I assure her.
Laughing, she tells me, “You have that very wrong.”
I push open my front door and gesture for her to walk in ahead of me. She stares at the inside of my house like it’s an elevator to hell, her feet seemingly rooted to the stoop outside.
“Are you a vampire?” I ask. “Do I have to vocalize the invitation?”
“Maybe,” she says, nodding. “Let’s go with that. I’m a vampire. It’s impossible for me to step over that threshold.”
“Nothing is impossible,” I assure her. “Virginia, I would like to invite you inside my house. Go on in. There, all better.”
“Well, now I’m going to suck you dry, so that was a bad idea.”