It was my turn to laugh. “No. I’ve never slept with a guy—at least knowingly—that was involved with someone else. Nor have I kicked any animal. This girl was mad because I was friends with her boyfriend. I’d known him for years, long before she came into the picture. We went to high school together and had gone to homecoming as each other’s dates one year. That was it. According to her, based on my reputation, I’d slept with every guy I’ve ever talked to.” I paused, thinking back. “Ironically, they are no longer together and I still chat with the guy whenever we see each other.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “The funny thing is, Donnie—that was the girl’s boyfriend—he was such a player before he met Nikki. Now he is probably someone who has two legs and two arms worth of girls he’d been with, and she didn’t have a problem with him sleeping with an entire zip code worth of chicks, but boy did she have one with me, and I hadn’t even so much as kissed the dude on the cheek.”
“They never do,” was Katie’s sagelike reply.
“I don’t get it.” Roxy slathered a continent-sized amount of cream cheese on her bagel. “Like why would anyone care who someone was with if it was in the past and everyone was safe about it? Consensual sex or whatever between two people isn’t shocking. I don’t walk around thinking Reece has never been with anyone but me, and he knows I’ve been with other guys before. And I know damn well Avery and Teresa don’t think their guys haven’t been with anyone else. That whole mentality is stupid.”
“Yeah, it is,” I murmured, staring at my plate as an old burning sensation picked up in my gut. What people thought of me, especially virtual strangers who had absolutely no impact on my life, didn’t bother me most of the time. But I genuinely liked Cam and Jase, so that meant I liked their girlfriends by extension, and . . . yes, I wanted to be liked by them, too. I didn’t want them to think I was lurking in the shadows somewhere, about to pounce on their guys. Truthfully, though, there were times when the opinions of virtual strangers like that of Nikki Glenn did get to me. Moments when whispered words and harsh looks had cut deeper than they should—moments when words like “slut” and “whore” were laced with enough venom to take me down.
I’ll never really understand it, I realized as I sat there, staring at the red and green flecks of the leftover peppers, why others’ sexual habits bothered people—especially other women—so much. Of all people, you’d think women would be more tolerant of other women’s choices, but sadly, a lot aren’t. In a lot of ways they could be worse than the guys. It wasn’t like I was sitting in judgment over those who waited for marriage or believed sex automatically equaled love. I could care less if someone had two partners or fifty. So why did they have to?
“You know what? Fuck ’em,” Katie replied, moving onto the waffle that was as wide as her plate. “That’s my motto. Because here’s the deal. They hate on you because you had mutual, consensual humping with some guys who weren’t even involved with anyone, while they worship the dirty-ass ground the guy walks on, like they slipped and fell into your vagina, for doing the same thing? That’s what we like to call dumb double standards, and what we in the business like to also call ‘Mind your own business.’ No matter how many times it’s explained to those kind of people, they aren’t going to understand. Never. Dude, that’s their problem. Not yours.”
“True,” Roxy said, nodding.
“Women are each other’s worst enemy, you know?” Katie continued. “Wives and girlfriends all the time come into the club, pissed off at me, because their husband or boyfriend came there on his own free will. Like, just because I strip, I want to get with their goofy ass husbands.” She rolled her blue eyes so far back I worried they’d get stuck. “And if doing that and having safe and fun times with available dudes makes me a slut, I have no problem getting that tattooed on my middle finger.”
Suddenly, without any one reason I could put my finger on, the back of my eyes started to burn, and I think I fell a little in love with Roxy and Katie at that moment.
These were my people.
Roxy’s gaze bounced from Katie to me, and her smile turned soft and mischievous. “Speaking of guys who are players, players, I have to bring up Nick.”
A strange pressure clenched my chest as I scooped up the last of my omelet. Nick. Oh, Nicky boy. I was so doing my best to not think of him and his parting words.
That you and I are the way we are.
What in the hell was that supposed to mean and why was it a shame? And why did he have to be so freaking hot and really shitty when it came to dealing with the opposite sex? Ugh. Double and triple ugh.
“Yeah,” Katie said. “Now let’s get to the good stuff.” She twisted toward me. “So you and Nick hooked up. Congrats on that. I imagine that was a good and decent hard fucking.”
The fluffy egg and diced bell peppers I’d just eaten almost got stuck in my throat. I swallowed quickly and then dragged in air. “What?”
Finished with her food, Roxy pinned me with a no nonsense stare that would’ve made my mama proud. “We know you hooked up with him.”
“Did he tell you that?” I blurted out.
Roxy grinned. “No, but you just confirmed what we already knew.”