Page 9 of Filthy Little Midlife Fling

“Normal people take vacations when they need a break.”

“Normal people don’t run Organizing Goddess, Incorporated.”

I tilt my head from side to side. “Fair.”

“There’s another reason a fling is what you need.”

“Yeah? Can’t wait to hear it.”

“Stop being snarky. You’re a woman in your prime, Audrey, and you need to be reminded of that. You need a man to run his hands over your body and have his eyes go hot and dark. You need his skin against yours. You need to hear him groan in your ear because it feels so damn good to be inside you. You need to get yourself out of your head and into your body.”

I look at her body, then down at mine. I grimace. “Right. And this mythical, wonderful man who makes me feel like a goddess—where do I find him again?”

“You open your eyes and look, for once. Six years and no sex is a recipe for running your company van into the neighbor’s tree.”

“Low blow,” I grumble. It’s my turn to rub my temples. I don’t mention that Terry and I weren’t intimate for the last two years of our relationship, so it’s been more like eight years since I did the deed. Eight years: over a third of my adult life. Good God. I stare at the block of cheese in the middle of the rug, my teeth marks still visible through the wrapper. “Maybe.”

Laurel comes to sit beside me. Her knee nudges mine. “You okay?”

I glance at her and tell her the truth: “I’m exhausted.”

“Okay,” Laurel says, bringing her hands together in a no-nonsense clap. “New plan.”

“What was the old plan?”

“Wallowing, and when you weren’t wallowing, you were running around like a maniac. It wasn’t working. Keep up, babe.” She shifts on the couch to face me fully. “You’re going to make a pie or brownies or get some flowers or something, and you’re going to go meet your hot neighbor—”

“We don’t know that he’s hot. And we don’t know that he’s a he.”

“—but first, you’re going underwear shopping.”

We stare at each other for a beat. I love Laurel like a sister; I do. But I’m not sure I can continue having this conversation. “I should probably get to bed, Laurel, so…”

“Don’t you dare kick me out. You’re buying sexy underwear and you’re wearing it under your clothes from now on. And then you’re dressing in something cute, you’re marching over there, and you’re introducing yourself to the owner of the tree.”

“What’s the point of all this?”

“The point,” Laurel explains patiently, “is that you’re so focused on doing everything perfectly that you’re letting life pass you by. Stop worrying about organizing everything to the nth degree. Start inviting a little chaos into your life. Have hot sex on the kitchen counter and then eat pie.”

“I crashed into a tree, Laurel. Don’t you think that’s enough chaos for this week, at least?”

She doesn’t acknowledge me in the slightest. “After that, you’ll go to the garage and find out what’s going on with the van. You can borrow my car to get there. You’ll get the prognosis, and you’ll either get it fixed or buy a new one. Meanwhile, there’ll be a bunch of hunky mechanics lusting after you because you’ll look so hot.”

I stare at her. She stares back.

“Mechanics are the scourge of the earth,” I inform her. “One of them screwed me over and told me to buy that van.”

Laurel ignores that comment and says, “Men can tell when a woman’s wearing hot underwear, you know. It’s a fact.”

I narrow my eyes. “How did we become friends again?”

“We were study buddies in college. Keep up, honey.”

“You copied all my notes, you mean.”

“You’re an insane notetaker, Audrey, I’d’ve been an idiot not to take advantage of that. Now listen. The goal is to get you the hottest, sexiest man to worship the ground you walk on for, say, a month. After a month, you’ll be out of the danger zone.”

“And what danger zone is that?”

---