Page 16 of Kind of a Bad Idea

I’m about to jump the fence to check the other side, when I hear a low chuckle and a man’s voice murmuring, “Fuck, woman, that tickles. Your fingers are freezing.” It sounds like the guy’s around the corner, so I move in that direction, spotting the back entrance to the kitchen just as a woman’s voice says, “Yeah, well, it’s October, dude. Get used to it. Only going to get colder from here on out. Now hold still.”

My ears perk up and a scowl claws into my forehead.

That was Binx. I would know her voice anywhere.

But what the hell is she doing hanging out in the kitchen with some dude in the middle of her brother’s wedding shower? And why is she touching him with her “freezing fingers?”

“I’m serious,” she adds with a husky chuckle, “the more you wiggle, the longer this is going to take, and we don’t have much time.”

The more he wiggles?

What the actual fuck?

Is the seeing someone? Or just…fucking around? Fucking around with someone she likes enough to give him a hand job while her entire family is in the next room?

“I’m not wiggling, I’m just ticklish,” comes the male voice, bringing a full-fledged snarl to my lips. “You know that. Even when you were sticking it in me for the little one, I couldn’t stop laughing.”

Sticking it in him? Sticking what in him?

And what the hell is Binx doing with some thin-skinned, ticklish motherfucker who wants her to stick things in him? That’s not what Binx wants in a lover. I would bet every acre of my hard-won land on that.

We’ve obviously never slept together, but her eyes tell me she wants to be pushed up against a wall and taken by a man who’s not afraid to show her what she does to him. She wants to be held down hard while she gives as good as she gets. She wants passion and intensity from an equal, not some wimp who can’t make it through a hand job without getting a case of the giggles.

“Oh baby, yeah,” he says, giggling like a psychopath. “Scribble on that back fat.”

The words don’t make sense, but it doesn’t matter. They still make me see red—vibrant, crazy-making red. The next thing I know, I’m charging through the door into the back of the kitchen, expecting to encounter Binx getting it on with some employee of the bar.

What would I have done if my expectations had been met?

I have no idea.

Getting jealous and possessive with a woman I’ve pushed away with both hands wouldn’t have been cool. It would have been a dick move, and I do my best not to be a dick, especially to the women in my life. Women put up with enough shit from the male population, and I have a daughter. I’m very invested in being a good example to other men as to how the feminine half of the species should be treated—namely, with respect.

And it isn’t respectful to interfere with a friend’s sexual choices, even if they are making those choices mere feet from a family function, where their father was recently singing 70’s soft rock.

But Binx isn’t giving a chef a hand job or feeling up a dishwasher. No, she’s…drawing. Drawing on Pierce Livermore, the owner of The Whiskey Bar and Grill, a regular at our gym, and the guy I call Liverwurst behind his back because he’s the worst.

He’s the kind of guy who spends half his workout taking selfies in the mirror, never cleans the equipment after he’s sweated all over it, and—worst of all—stands around naked after his shower, making small talk about the latest NHL game with his saggy balls dangling down to mid-thigh. He also talks shit about women, usually about the college girls who come to lift while they’re on break, but he’s made repulsive comments about Binx before, too.

Of course, that was before I glared him down at the sinks and told him to keep her name out of his mouth.

Since then, he’s been well-behaved when it comes to my best friend.

Or so I thought…

Right now, he isn’t behaving himself. When I burst through the door, he’s craning his neck to stare at Binx’s ass in her skintight bell-bottoms, while she doodles on him with a Sharpie, too engrossed in her work to realize he’s being a pervert.

Then, she’s too shocked by me bursting through the door.

“Oh my God, what the fuck?” she says, surging to her feet so fast that she hits Pierce’s chin with the top of her head and they both curse in pain.

“I heard you talking and thought you were in trouble,” I blurt out, catching a glimpse of what looks like a pirate ship on Pierce’s back before he tugs his shirt down.

“No, I’m fine. Jesus. Sorry about smashing your face,” she says to Liverwurst, touching a hand to his chest.

I instantly want to snatch her hand away and spray it down with hand sanitizer, and that’s before Pierce flexes, making his pecs jump beneath his long-sleeved t-shirt.

“It’s okay,” he says, rubbing his chin with one hand as he touches the side of her waist with the other.

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