Page 18 of 10 Things I Skate About You

“You deserve what your friends have. Tina and Eunice, right?”

I nearly do a spit-take. “You mean with my brothers? No, thank you!”

“I mean the whole happily-ever-after thing with a guy who thinks you’re amazing and begs for blow jobs on their podcast.”

“Okay first of all, nice to know you’re still listening to the pod, and secondly, happily-ever-afters are not a real thing.” I can sort of hear a voice in my head telling me to stop talking, but I ignore it because my clitoris is angry and throbbing and it wants me to say more. “Everyone knows they’re a myth. Like sasquatch and orgasms with another person and the myth about cold pucks shooting faster.”

Foley’s eyes widen and he raises his free hand. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up.”

“It’s true. We did an entire episode about hockey myths. Warm pucks actually?—”

“No, sweetheart. The second thing. You think orgasms with another person are a myth?”

There it is. Judgment. “What’s your point? Not everyone has them—that’s a fact.”

He slow-blinks and shakes his head again. “That fucker never gave you an orgasm, did he?”

“What?” I finally pull my hand away and look around for a breadstick or something carby to put in my mouth. Why isn’t there a bread basket on this table? “No!”

“No, he didn’t give you an orgasm ever?”

“No, it’s none of your business!”

My outraged date smacks his hand down on the table, and I don’t know why I wish the table was my ass, but I do and I hate it. “That selfish bastard. I knew it.”

“You don’t know anything.” It feels like my sweater dress is on fire. Why am I so hot? I scoot my chair back, causing the chair legs to screech as they scrape against the hardwood floor. When I stand up, I get caught up in the stupid balloon ribbon. When I smack the balloon heart out of the way, it hits a busgirl in the back. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” I tell her as I grab my leather pocket organizer to take with me to the ladies’ room.

“The window in the ladies’ room doesn’t open enough to climb out of,” the asshole informs me as I smooth my hair down and walk very gracefully to the hallway at the back of the restaurant, refraining from making eye contact with anyone.

Shockingly, there’s only one toilet in this ladies’ room, but that’s great because it means I can lock the door and I won’t have to talk to anyone in here.

Why am I letting that guy get in my head, and why do I keep picturing his head between my legs?

After relieving some tension from my bladder, it is disappointing to find that there is still so much tension in my clitoris.

I wish this stupid little leather pocket thing had enough room for a vibrator.

I remove the largest item in the pocket—my phone. I’m going to group-text my besties and ask them to come pick meup. If they aren’t too busy blowing my brothers. There are an astonishing number of DM notifications from social media, which is not too surprising. But there is one very surprising text notification that is screaming at me—from Phoenix.

Hey,it says. That’s all. JustHey.I haven’t heard from him in three months, and he sends aheyon Valentine’s Day when I’m out with Adam Foley. I click on the conversation to see if there’s anything else from him. An emoji. A GIF. An ellipsis. But no. Nope. JustHey. Nice to know he’s still a man of few words.

But he probably did find out about my date with Foley somehow, so…

Mission accomplished, I guess?

I think I’m done.

I think I need to go home before I break a chair over my date’s head when he asks me how many people I’ve slept with.

Do I really need to spend another couple of hours with Adam Foley to make it worth the insane amount of money my excruciatingly sweet, idiot friends and family donated?

No. I don’t. I’m going to quit while I’m ahead.

I fluff up my hair and apply lip gloss before marching out of the ladies; room to return to the table. I’m going to ask the waiter if I can get my grass-fed beef to go, and then I’m going to go home and hate-vibe myself. Or maybe if the busboy who delivers the flowers to my place tomorrow is cute I can have sex with him because clearly I need to get laid. By anyone except?—

I’ve only marched three steps before someone grabs my arm and pulls me back around a corner, through a door and into a dark room.

He shuts the door, presses me up against a wall.