Page 33 of Drilled (Dad Bod Contracting 2)
“No.”
“Say it.”
“He’s not even worth speaking about. I haven’t said his name in twenty years, and I’m not about to start now.”
“You’re just giving him power over you, Audra. That’s what he doesn’t deserve.” She takes a drink and then whirls on me. “He’s not Voldemort, he’s just your ex-fiancé. He was a piece of shit, and he messed you up. I get that. But you have to at least try to get over it. To move past it. To stop letting him, and what he did, shape the way you handle everything in your life pertaining to men, love, sex, and relationships.”
“Franco said everyone should see a therapist at some point in their lives.” I sigh. “Maybe I should.”
Imogen stares at me with an incredulous expression. “You talked about therapy?”
I nod. “He said he’s seen someone before, and that everyone should do that as a routine part of self-care.”
“You never have talked to anyone about Jared, have you?”
I shook my head. “You’re the only one who knows about him. I couldn’t talk about it. It hurt too bad. The only way I could cope was to bury it and move on.”
“Which isn’t healthy. Surely you realize that.” She eyes me sadly. “You wouldn’t even talk to me about it.”
“I couldn’t. I don’t know how else to say that, Imogen. I could…not…talk…about…Jared.” My eyes widen as I realize I just said his name.
“No, and instead you turned to speed dating and casual sex.”
I snort. “Speed dating is the last goddamn thing I’d ever do.”
“Well, yeah, but you know what I mean.”
“Speed dating is matchmaking. I’m interested in the exact opposite.”
“I know what you want—casual sex. Jumping from guy to guy as fast as possible.”
“Not as fast as possible. I’ve never slept with more than one guy in the same day.”
She eyes me. “Really?”
I stare at Imogen. “You really think I have?”
She shrugs. “I guess I just assume there’s not much you haven’t done, to be honest.” She hesitates. “You tell me about a guy here and there, or complain about bad sex, or a smelly penis, or bad foreplay. Sometimes, if a guy was really good at something, or if you liked him enough, you’d have sex with him a second time. But you never really go much beyond that. You keep the really personal details to yourself.”
I frown. “Well…yeah. I mean, you don’t want to really know that I slept with a different guy every single day for the first month after my ninety-day post-Jared celibacy period, do you? Or that for the entire five years I lived in that apartment downtown I was fuck buddies with my landlord? Or that I don’t do anal because the one time I tried it the guy got carried away and hurt me? That I get checked for STDs once a month? Or that Price, the guy you saw me with that day you walked in, was the only guy to get past one fuck in over six months, and that if you hadn’t walked in, he’d have probably made it to three? Or even four?”
“Audra—”
“No, you don’t really want to know any of that. And to be honest, I’m glad you walked in when you did, because I was letting Price’s youthful energy blind me to realizing how silly it was of me to be sleeping with him.” I paused. “What else do you not want to know?”
“Did you have feelings for Price?”
I shake my head—I realize I’m feeling wobbly. “Nah. It was just really good sex. Now that I’ve had Franco, of course, everything pales in comparison. But still. Price was good, objectively speaking.”
“And you definitely have feelings for Franco.”
“I don’t know what I have for Franco.”
She blinks. “A different guy every day for a month?”
I nod, following her jump back to my previous statement. “It was revenge, I guess. Not like he ever knew, but it was—I don’t know—emotional revenge, for myself. Escaping him, or getting as far as possible from what I thought we had.”
“I thought you had a three strikes rule?” she asks. “How did that work if you were fuck buddies with your landlord for five years?”
I shrug. “He lived on the first floor, right by the front door. Sometimes, after coming home late from work, he’d leave his door cracked with the bolt out to prop it open. That was the signal. If his door was cracked open, and I was in the mood, I’d go in, lock the door, we’d screw on his couch, usually with NASCAR on in the background, and a cigarette burning in the ashtray. And then when we were done, I’d go home. I think in the five years I lived there, when we were fuck buddies, we exchanged a total of maybe a hundred words.”
She looks perplexed. “I don’t understand that at all.”
