Rule 10: Have a sense of humor! Guys like to laugh!
“God, I love you,” Ben said, squeezing Alexia to his side as they hung out on her bed. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me since my brother peed his pants in that carnival fun house six years ago.”
Alexia laughed because Ben’s twin brother, Will, often held himself as if he were above everyone else. And Alexia had gone into that fun house. She hadn’t peed her pants.
Ben kissed her forehead, his fingers running over her ribs through her T-shirt. An excited shiver teased her back. She bolted upright. “I think I’m going to check my Email.” She went to her desk and shook the computer mouse.
She, Alexia Bass, was no longer a virgin, but she’d only had sex that one time and it’d been over a week now. She was still a little freaked out by what had happened.
Ben sat on the corner of her desk. He was wearing his usual cargo shorts and a blue T-shirt. The only skin Alexia could see was his legs and his arms, but her brain filled in the rest using the night of the Fourth as reference.
A blush spread across her cheeks, and she looked back at the computer screen. “I’m just checking my Email.”
“Except you’ve been staring at the screen for about five minutes. Are you trying to check your Email using mind control?”
She shook her head, barely cracked a smile.
“What is it, Lexy?”
She sighed and rubbed at her forehead. Could she tell him what she was thinking? Of course she could. He would never make fun of her.
“The other night,” she began.
“Are you regretting it?”
“No.” But that wasn’t entirely the truth. Still, that’s not what she’d wanted to talk about. And besides, she couldn’t go back and change her mind. It was done. What she could control was what happened from here on out.
“I know we used something,” she muttered, looking at her hands in her lap, “but…”
“I know. Look.” Ben pulled his wallet from his back pocket and showed her two condoms slipped inside. “Take one. So you always know you have it.”
She shook her head.
“Take it.” He put it in her hand, closing her fingers around it. He leaned over, put his finger beneath her chin and kissed her. “I love you, Lexy. All I want is for you to be happy.”
She nodded, butterflies flapping satisfied wings in her belly.
Despite everything with the sex issue, she loved him, too. And she felt like the luckiest girl in the world to have him. She knew he cared for her, that sex hadn’t been his goal right from the start.
She was just happy that the stress of making the decision was over. Now she just had to deal with the aftermath of having made that decision.
It would be okay, she thought. As long as she had Ben, it’d be okay.
Later that night, after Ben left, Alexia called Raven to hang out. Alexia wanted to talk to one of her friends about the sex thing because she needed to tell someone, and Raven seemed the obvious choice. Alexia and Raven had always been closer than the other girls. Not to mention, Raven wasn’t a virgin, and Alexia hoped Raven would make her feel not so stupid for having lost her virginity.
When she got no answer on Raven’s cell, she decided to drive over.
Pulling up to the curb, she noticed Raven across the street at her neighbor’s house hanging out on the front porch.
Alexia parked and walked over. Blake was in the middle of a story about his visit to L.A. last week. Raven, head back, laughed at a joke about Hollywood “Bimbinos.” Blake smiled, clearly pleased with Raven’s reaction.
Rule 10 said to have a sense of humor. Guys like to laugh!
Was Raven using the Crush Code on Blake?
“Hey,” Alexia called, waving from the bottom of the porch steps.
“Alexia, right?” Blake said, nodding his head just once in a greeting. He waved her up. “Come hang. I just got back from L.A., and I’m starving for conversation with chill people.”
Raven went quiet, the smile having left her lips.
“Actually, I just wanted to talk to Raven for a second,” Alexia said.
Raven got up and tugged down her tank top. “I’ll be right back,” she said to Blake and followed Alexia to the street, out of Blake’s hearing range.
“What’s up?” Raven asked, crossing her arms defensively over her chest.
“Well.” Alexia swallowed, licked her lips. Suddenly her problems vanished, and she said, “Are you cheating on Horace with Blake?”
Raven widened her eyes, hung her mouth open in disbelief. “No. How could you even ask me that?”
Alexia shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “It just seems…I don’t know…like you’re hanging out with him a lot, and I thought maybe you’d decided to use the Crush Code on him. I know how you are, Raven. You like the thrill of the hunt.”
Brow furrowed, Raven straightened, putting herself an inch taller than Alexia. “You make it sound like I’m some…cougar or something. God, Alexia. I’m not a slut.”
“I didn’t say that—”
“But you implied it.”
“No.” Alexia shook her head, feeling the situation spiraling out of control. She didn’t know how to fix it. Or how to calm Raven down. Blake and Mil-D were suddenly quiet on the porch.
Alexia leaned closer to Raven and lowered her voice. “I just don’t want to see Horace get hurt and then have you calling me because you’re upset that you screwed up the relationship. You love Horace, Raven.”
“Yeah, Alexia, I know.” Raven’s shoulders went rigid. “And I’m not cheating on him, so why don’t you butt out of my business and go psychoanalyze someone else.”
Raven stomped across the street to her own house, opened the front door and slammed it shut behind her. Alexia stood frozen by Mr. Kailing’s mailbox, wondering what had just happened.
Her face was hot, her throat felt ready to close.
She glanced up at Blake’s house, and he and Mil-D quickly looked away. Alexia shot them a scowl before getting in her car and leaving.