Page 21 of Room Serviced
“He’s married to my dad’s sister,” Max admitted. “We don’t see them much.”
“Wow, I wonder why.”
He hadn’t thought she’d be weird about it, but he’d thought that about people who’d proven him wrong, too.
“I’m straight,” she said, tilting her head back, one hand on her cocktail glass, her throat flexing as she looked down at him. “Just for the record. In case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t, actually.”
That got her. She stopped, glass raised halfway to her mouth, startled enough that she started turning pink. “Oh,” she said. “I mean, sorry?—”
“You’ve been flirting way too much for me to wonder if you like men,” Max went on, just to watch her blush a little harder. She wasn’t blushy by nature, so it was pretty rewarding. “And that’s the part I’m interested in, honestly.”
Sloane took a long drink and flipped him off with her other hand.
“I did try kissing a girl once in college, but it didn’t do anything for me,” she said when she was finished.
“Then why’d you kiss her?”
“For science. I wanted to make sure. She knew that was the point, for the record. Meghan volunteered for the make sure Sloane is straight project.”
“Most people I know just watched porn.” If Sloane could talk about face-sitting, he could mention the existence of porn.
“I don’t think that would work, because it’s hot to watch anyone get off, you know? But that doesn’t mean I want to be the one doing it with them.”
“So you like to watch, then.”
“I have a lot of interests,” she said primly, then grinned at him. “Why, did you watch porn to figure it out?”
“No, I watched Claire Milford’s older sister, Allison, at a pool party when I was twelve and then Chris Howell’s older brother, Michael, at a pool party when I was thirteen.”
“Maybe you were sexually attracted to pool parties.”
“When I was that age I probably was,” Max admitted, and Sloane grinned.
“Fair,” she said. “I think I was too self-conscious to notice hot people at pool parties. When I even got invited, that is.”
“They weren’t that great,” Max said, and shrugged. “It was mostly a bunch of guys trying to show off for the girls while also hiding their awkward boners.”
“Oh, so now you’re trying to make me feel better about being a dork in high school?”
“Is it working?”
Sloane rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “No,” she said. “But it’s fine. College was way better.”
“Because you were kissing everyone, just to make sure you knew what you liked?” Max asked. He wondered, half a second too late, if that was a weird thing to bring up again, but Sloane just raised one eyebrow and smirked.
“Not everyone, just enough people to figure out what I liked,” she said. “I’m still a nice girl.”
“Still? You were never a nice girl.”
Sloane actually looked taken aback. “When was I ever mean to you? I was nice.”
“That’s not the kind of nice I meant,” Max said quickly. “You were nice. You were…quiet.”
She tilted her head back for the last few drops of her drink, like she hadn’t already drained it. “High school wasn’t great,” she admitted. “I mean. It was fine, I guess, but college was a lot better. According to my mom, I blossomed.”
Fuck it. What was Max supposed to do besides check her out, as obviously as he could? He was pretty sure none of his thoughts were secret.
