Page 32 of The Best Friend Experiment
Dylan brought a bottle of red wine and a wine opener to the table. “What’d she say? How’s your dad?”
“I guess he’s doing okay? As okay as you can be with prostate cancer, anyway. It’s always hard to decipher the truth beneath my mom’s relentless positivity.” Brooke shrugged and went to get two wineglasses.
“Did you smooth things over with her?” Dylan asked as he twisted the corkscrew. “About not telling you what was going on?”
“As far as she’s concerned, everything’s already smooth. It’s no big deal that they didn’t tell me anything.”
“I’m sorry. That sucks.”
“Whatever. It is what it is.” She didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She’d spent too much time today thinking about her parents already. For the rest of the night, she just wanted to relax and enjoy hanging out with Dylan.
When Brooke turned around with the wineglasses, Murderface was standing at Dylan’s feet. “Hey, look at that!” she exclaimed in surprise.
Dylan grinned as he pulled the cork out of the wine bottle. “Oh yeah, me and this cat are totally buds now.”
Brooke set the wineglasses on the table. “How’d you work that miracle?”
“I found your stash of cat toys and bribed him with catnip. Turns out he’s a total slut for the nip.”
“I’m impressed. You really are the cat whisperer.”
“Yeah…so, that’s not all I found.” Dylan’s grin got wider as he leaned forward to fill both their wineglasses. “While I was poking around for the cat toys, I may have found your stash of—ahem—adult toys.”
All the blood drained from Brooke’s face. “Oh.My god.”
He smirked at her. “That’s quite a collection you’ve got.”
“Excuse me, I need to go throw myself off the balcony now.”
He let out a throaty laugh. “We’re only on the second floor, so I don’t think that’s going to accomplish what you’re hoping. Anyway, it’s no big deal.”
“It’s a big deal to me,” she said, rubbing her temple. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to look you in the eye again.”
On an intellectual level, Brooke knew it wasn’t something she should be embarrassed about. She was a grown adult, there was absolutely nothing wrong with engaging in self-pleasure, and quite frankly her vibrators made better partners than a lot of the men she’d dated. Vibrators didn’t get you pregnant and then call you a slut. They never tried to neg you or promised to call and then didn’t. They never got clingy or accused you of being emotionally unavailable.
You only had to spend five minutes in the “Am I the Asshole” section of Reddit to realize how many people were trapped in toxic relationships with truly ghastly men. Looking at it logically, vibrators were a far saner choice than dating.
Nevertheless, Brooke was embarrassed to be having this conversation with Dylan of all people. It wasn’t like they’d never talked about sex before, but…well, they hadn’t ever really talked about itmuch. Not in detail, anyway. Mostly they’d skirted around the subject.
She’d always assumed that was him being respectful. So many adolescent boys made gross sex jokes all the time, like they’d just invented the concept, and Brooke had always appreciated that Dylan didn’t do that around her.
But maybe it had been about more than respect. Maybe they’d both shied away from the subject for other reasons.
Like that it struck too close to feelings neither of them had ever acknowledged.
“I think it’s cool,” Dylan said, shrugging. “Good for you. And now we’re even for you seeing me naked yesterday.”
Brooke tilted her head. “Are we though? It’s not like I didn’t know you had a penis, but you didn’t know I had sex toys.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “If you ask me, it’s pretty hot.”
She couldn’t tell if he was teasing her or…no, he couldn’t possibly be flirting. “Is it? Because I was thinking more sad and pathetic.”
“There’s nothing sad or pathetic about getting yourself off. Also? They can be a lot of fun with a partner.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Are you speaking from experience?” It was so strange to be having this conversation with him. They never talked like this. It felt a little like picking through a field studded with landmines: terrifying, but also kind of exhilarating.
He gave her a sideways smirk. “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”
