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Raina was nervously biting her fingernails.
“Emma and her husband, Robbie, were high school sweethearts, and she ended up pregnant with their daughter, Kacey, right after graduation, so the two got married. And then they had their son, Noah, about three years ago. Last summer, Kacey showed up at our house, all upset and crying because her mom and dad had this huge fight, yelling and throwing things until her dad stormed out, announcing it was over. Within a few weeks, he’d moved out, and Emma filed for divorce. Kacey was pretty upset about it, so my parents let Brey spend as much time with her as she wanted. And one of those times she went to see Kacey, I had to be the one to pick her up. This was about eight months ago, which was a good month or two after the divorce was finalized.”
When I paused to send Raina a meaningful glance, ensuring she was fully aware of that fact, she nodded. “Okay.”
I nodded too and then continued. “Emma was drunk and slurring badly, unable to walk a straight line. She assured me that she was okay and didn’t usually drink around the kids, but it was the date of her wedding anniversary, which hit her hard. She showed me her signed divorce papers in her drunken stupor. I saw both of their signatures. Theyweredivorced.”
Raina bobbed her head with more certainty. “I believe you,” she said.
I exhaled in relief. “So I took Brey home and then went back to sit with Emma and make sure she and the kids were okay until she passed out. And that’s all I did that night… I just sat with her.”
“Kind of like what you did with me the other night,” Raina provided in understanding.
“Right.” I motioned toward her thankfully for getting that connection. “Emma asked me not to tell anyone how bad off she’d gotten, so I agreed not to say anything, but I gave her my number in case she ever needed help, right? I mean, this is my sister’s best friend’s mom. I didn’t want her to do anything to hurt herselforthe kids.”
“Of course,” Raina said softly, agreeing with me. “That sounds like the you I know.”
I cleared my throat and got to the worst part. “So she called one night, asking me to come over. I guess Robbie had the kids that weekend, and she was feeling extra lonely. For some reason, I had the wordsuicidestuck in my head, so I rushed over there, thinking I was going to have to hide all the weapons and talk her off the ledge, but?—”
“She was wearing something super slinky and slutty when you showed up instead,” Raina guessed.
I sighed. “Yeah…” Wincing, I asked, “I’m really lame, aren’t I?”
She only shrugged. “So far, it just makes you a typical male. But keep talking.”
“Okay. So she gives me this whole story about how Robbie cheated on her multiple times, and yet he was the only guy she’d ever been with. She told me she felt like a failure as a woman, and she just really needed something to help her boost her confidence again.”
Raina lifted her eyebrows as if impressed. “Wow. Super smooth lines. I’m going to have to remember those for when I get out of my coma.” Fanning her face, she started to dramatize what she’d say in her own situation. “Oh, my poor confidence, Foster… It’s just—it’s so low right now. I don’t even know what it feels like to be alive anymore. If you could just give me one night of amazing, life-affirming sex…”
I rolled my eyes. “Hilarious,” I deadpanned. “But strangely, that wasveryclose to what she said.”
“I’ll bet,” Raina muttered with a disgusted snort. “The lucky bitch.”
“I mean, she was in a really low place. And I kind of—I kind of used her too.”
When Raina glanced at me with a questioning squint, I heaved out a reluctant breath before admitting, “I’m not—I don’t have a lot of experience, okay? In the bedroom.” Rushing my words now, I explained, “I just feel extremely…awkward and inept when it comes to sex. I mean, the whole subject of it just kind of…scares me. So I was hoping—I mean, she’d been married for years. I thought she could teach me some things to help me out going forward, you know, so I could boost my own confidence.”
Raina’s mouth had fallen open, and she stared at me as if I’d turned into some alien being she’d never seen before. Finally, she burst out, “What do you mean you don’t have a lot of experience? How can you be afraid of sex? You’re Foster freaking Union.”
“Exactly,” I growled. “Girls expect…experiencewhen they meet me, and I just—I don’t have much,okay?”
“But—”
Bowing my face, I plowed ahead with my story. “Anyway, neither of us went into it looking for some grand love story. We each needed our own jump-start, I guess.”
“And did you get one?” Raina asked quietly.
I scoffed and glanced toward the ceiling of my truck. “I really don’t know what I got. I mean, I thought it went okay, but two days later—before we could even talk again, much less hook up anymore—she texted me to let me know her ex had come back, begging her to give him another chance. So she did, and now they’re back together and remarried.”
Raina blinked at me once, her mouth gaping and eyes flared with disbelief before she whispered, “Whoa.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, shifting uncomfortably in my seat. “I hadn’t seen her again until Saturday when I took Brey to a soccer game, where I ran intobothof them—together—at the concession stand. Robbie decided we were suddenly best friends, and he wanted to talk about football and cars and everything else under the sun for the rest of the afternoon. I had to smile and chat back, pretending I’d never slept with his wife. It was awful and uncomfortable, and I kind of never want to have sex again,ever. I only seem tofailat dating and romance. And I wish the whole thing had never happened.”
Finally done talking, I waited for Raina to tell me what I’d done wrong, but she just sat there, looking thoughtful and almost...worried.
Unable to take her silence past five seconds, I demanded, “Well?”
She glanced at me in surprise. “Well, what?”
