Page 72 of As Long As You'll Have Me
“Okay,Miles, the sexy fireman then. He’s not your patient anymore?”
I shake my head. “Nope. He is officially not my patient which is why I am here having coffee with you.”
“So what is he now? Your sexy little play thing?” The corner of her lips pull back.
“You have said the word ‘sexy’ far too many times for this early in the morning,” I groan.
“Am Iwrong? Do you not also think he’s sexy?”
Of course I do. I’ve thought he had some level of sex appeal to him since the first time he walked into my office but I’m not going to talk about that over my honey vanilla latte at nine in the morning.
“He’s sweet. And kind. And he can cook, which is great because I do not,” I say, managing to not add another ‘sexy’ to our word count.
“That’s lovely, sweetie, but I don’t really care. I wanna know if he’s as good in bed as he looks like he is,” Rae deadpans, looking bored with my anecdotes.
I lick my lips and press my glasses higher up on my face. “I wouldn’t know.”
She blinks hard a few times before coming out of her shock. “You haven’t slept with him yet?”
I shake my head.
There’s a long pause as her face morphs into a mix of disappointment, horror, and confusion.
“Is he broken or somethin’?”
Laughing a few times, I take a breath. “No, he’s not brokenor somethin’. We just…haven’t gotten there yet.”
Suddenly I’m feeling very shy about where our conversation has led.
“And why not? I’d be climbing that tree as soon as I possibly could if I was in your shoes. You need to get some girl.Bad.” She enunciates her final word so much that if she had written it down it would be bolded, italicized, and underlined.
“We only just became…” I pause. “Whatever it is we are. I don’t even know if I’m his girlfriend or just a friend who he kisses?—”
“So you’ve kissed! Thank god, for a moment I thought you were going to tell me he’s some kind of devout religious type who wants to wait for marriage,” she interrupts, waving a hand in my direction.
“Oh, sweet Jesus.” I sigh with an eye roll.
“Exactly!” She perks up. “I’m sorry, sweetie, I just want to make sure you’re being taken care of. We have needs as women, you know. And when we don’t have our needs met”—she leans over the table and drops her voice—“we start to go stir crazy.”
“You said it, sister,” a new voice joins the conversation. It’s from the woman sitting at the table next to us, clearly eavesdropping on our conversation instead of reading her magazine like she’s been pretending to do.
“See, she gets it,” Rae says, pointing to our new friend. They exchange a devious look of understanding.
I can’t believe I’m talking about my lack of a sex life with a random elderly woman over my morning coffee.
“Would you just calm down? I’m fine; my needs are fine. Miles and I are getting to know one another and I don’t want to rush anything.”
“Yes, yes you do. You want him to rush you. Over and over again.”
“You are a lost cause,” I lament, shaking my head at her and finishing my coffee.
“All I’m saying is thatwhenit happens, and it will, that man is going to rock you into the next century. And I’ll be so happy for you when he does.” She smiles widely at me.
“And so will I,” the older woman adds. When she leans over and holds out her glass, Rae and I burst into a fit of laughter and clink our glasses to hers.
Later that morningI’m sitting in my office across from one of my favorite clients. I know I’m not supposed to have favorites, but if I had to pick, he would be it.
“Do you know what Malcolm told me he and Ophelia did last weekend? They had sex behind the bar.Behind the bar. Can you believe them? That’s disgusting. Definitely goes against the health code. And more than likely on the security footage for the bar they’ll probably watch together later, knowing them. Just, whatever you do, don’t go to Butcher and Block for a few weeks. Let them wash the bar a few times before they serve you some sort of sex drink,” Conrad scoffs, shaking his head.
