Page 8 of About That Night

If I’m being honest…

“No. I wouldn’t have known the difference. It was my first time, and I was more than a little tipsy.”

“Exactly. Birth control works. You could get the shot, a diaphragm, an IUD…”

“I could, if I need any of them. Which I don’t.”

“Hmm. So who is the friend? Anyone I’ve heard about?”

“It’s Hank Young. His grandfather is one of my patients, and he came to visit him tonight. He asked me to meet him for a drink.”

“The Hank? The one who went down on you for like an hour? That one?”

My cheeks get hot, along with everything else. “Yes. That Hank.” The one and only Hank that has ever been in my life.

Or inside of me.

“I won’t wait up,” she says, gleefully. “And get on the pill as soon as possible.”

I shake my head. “I’m telling you, it’s not like that. I have to work tomorrow, for one thing. For another thing, both times I’ve hooked up with Hank, bad things have happened the next day.”

I know it’s irrational, but it doesn’t feel coincidental.

Nevaeh rolls her eyes. “My Meemaw did not have a stroke because Hank Young ate your pussy. You have got to stop thinking that. It’s the most messed up thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”

“Then how do you explain it?” I insist. A lifetime of fire and brimstone rears its head whenever I talk about casual sex. “My grandmother said bad things happen to sluts.”

“Your grandmother was a jealous bitch, that’s what I think. Damn, I hate slut-shaming. I’m not even going to bother to explain to you what all is wrong with what she said to you, because you should know it’s all bullshit. She was just hateful.”

“I know that, intellectually. But then I think about how I got in Hank’s bed, and then all my friends stopped talking to me. Then I went to his apartment, and Miss Loretta had a stroke. Is that a coincidence?”

Nevaeh nods and drops her legs down on the ground. “Yes. I wouldn’t even call it a coincidence. They’re not even related to each other. Your friends stopped talking to you because they were jealous of you.”

That makes me reach out and pat her arm. “I love you. In your version of the truth, everyone is jealous of me, when in reality, there is literally no one who could possibly be jealous of my life for any reason. But thank you. You’re a loyal friend.”

“Then why else did they stop talking to you?”

“I broke the girl code by hooking up with my friend Faith’s brother. She thought I was using her to get to Hank.” It still pains me to think about that. I would have never done something that conniving, and while I’d understood Faith’s point of view, it had hurt that she would think I was that kind of person. But, I had hooked up with her brother, so was she entirely wrong?

No.

But beating up eighteen-year-old-me is a lot of work, and I’ve been doing it for so long it’s exhausting. I was young. I was stupid. Who hasn’t done something dumb at least once in their life? I moved back home because I wanted to leave all those feelings of self-recrimination behind and get on with my life. I’ve made peace with my youthful choices and forgiven myself.

I do, however, still believe in the power of three.

And bad things always come in threes.

“Whatever. Meemaw had a stroke because of a blocked artery in her brain. It had nothing to do with you getting some action down in New Orleans.”

“But we don’t know that for sure, do we? If I hook up with him again, someone might die. It’s clearly an escalation, and I can’t take a chance.” I’ve lost sleep turning this over in my head repeatedly over the years. It’s why I’ve never texted Hank, even when I had desperately, on one or two extremely horny occasions, wanted to.

Is it rational? Of course not. I know that. But what if I’m right?

It feels too risky.

I’ve become risk-averse in the last five years.

So risk-averse that I don’t even date or do anything fun. Moving back home was the biggest chance I’ve taken since Josiah was born.

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