I cock my hip and wait. “Go ahead. Get it all out.” I roll my hand through the air. “Laugh at my expense like a good best friend.”
She sniffs back her tears of laughter and swipes at her eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s just you act like you really believe it, and it makes it so much funnier.”
“Rave, I don’t act like I believe it.” I throw my arms out to my sides. “I am gay!”
Her eyebrow lifts high above one eye. “Really.”
Is she kidding? I look around, exaggerating with my hands out and eyes wide. “Are you listening to me at all? That’s what I’ve been telling you.”
“Fine, if you’re gay, how many women have you slept with?” She leans a hip against the counter, waiting.
I muster up a nasty evil eye because she knows the answer to this question. She just wants to hear me say it. “How many has nothing to do with—”
“Nope, no backpedaling. Just answer the question.”
I clench my teeth and straighten my shoulders. “None. But that doesn’t mean—”
“Right. And how many women have you been on a date with?”
Ugh! I want to scream and throw a fit; she’s so frustrating.
“Exactly.”
“These questions are irrelevant.” I take a pretentious sip of my coffee, pinky in the air and everything. “I hate men, so there’s your answer.”
Her eyes go soft and she tilts her head. “Hating men doesn’t mean you’re attracted to women.”
True. Vaginas actually gross me out. I shudder and cringe. The thought alone makes me gag. I’m not even a big fan of my own as often as the little slut gets me into trouble. But there’s no way I’m telling Raven that.
“Eve, you’ve been hurt badly. But just because there’s a barrel of bad apples out there doesn’t mean that no good ones exist.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re married to a seriously rad guy. Jonah’s smokin’ hot, funny, and has good taste in music.” I tick the qualities off on my fingers. “He’s sweet, rich, and worships the ground you walk on.”
No one has ever shown me that kind of care, not unless they were getting something in return. Is it possible to find a man who doesn’t have an agenda?
A soft smile tugs at her lips, and her eyes go all fucking love-drunk and dreamy. “He is all that, but can you honestly say that Jonah was all those things before we started dating?”
Jonah was a playboy and a heartbreaker, still hot and rich though, but he became a new man when he met Raven. I’m not surprised. The woman is steps away from sainthood, always has been. She radiates goodness so much that it all oozed over a dude like Jonah Slade and turned him 180 degrees. I could never be so lucky. I’m not the kind of woman a man changes his stripes for.
“So who’s to say there’s not a man out there that would be willing to be all that for you? Not a perfect guy, but a perfect-for-you kind of guy.”
“I don’t know, Rave.” They all walk away. It must be physiologically impossible for a man to stay with me long term. It’s been this way since birth, starting with my dad. With no brothers or sisters and a selfish bitch for a mom, Raven’s the only one who’s never left.
“Come on. I miss hanging out with you.” Her aquamarine eyes go puppy dog. “Pleeease? It’ll be quick and painless. I’m not setting you up; it’s just an opportunity to hang out somewhere other than the gay bars.”
I nod a few times. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. I think the chicks there are sick of me anyway. Last week I dropped half my paycheck into the jukebox on Justin Timberlake songs. Not their usual Alanis man-hater Morissette.”
Raven’s back to the look she had earlier, threatening to burst. “You’re so not gay.”
“What?” I sip my coffee and shrug. “Timbo’s hot, ya know?”
“Not gay.” Her sing-song tone is soaked in a smile.
“Am too.” No, I’m not. “I can appreciate a good-looking man. And his voice is . . . damn, it’s like sex and maple syrup.”
Not that I remember sex, it’s been so long since I’ve had it I’m sure I’ve forgotten how. Warmth spreads throughout my body at the prospect, but it quickly cools at the thought of the last man I let go there. Vince. Con-artist, manipulator, controlling, possessive, and yet I was undeniably attracted to him. He made me feel irreplaceable. Until the day I wasn’t.
He used me to get to Raven and would’ve raped and possibly killed her. If I’d been smarter, paid closer attention, he may’ve never gotten to her. As if living with that guilt isn’t enough, I have the strangest feeling that if he weren’t incarcerated I’d open myself up to him again. A sharp pain twists in my gut.
“So you’re saying you’ll come tonight?” She shifts and leans back against the counter, her hand rubbing circles on her baby bump.
How can I say no? I nod.
“It’ll be fun. No pressure to choose guy or girl. Just be . . .” Her face pinches in concentration. “Gosh, what would you call it if you weren’t attracted to men or women?”
“Asexual.”