“Why would Cassie do that?”
She’d told Acacia. Granted, that was a little different from telling Parker, but it worried Erin anyway. Erin hadn’t told anyone. Though she felt better now that Carolyn knew. Like she could breathe a little easier.
“Maybe Acacia did,” Erin said. “Or maybe she saw the picture I sent Cassie on Valentine’s Day.”
“Or maybe you’re coming up with increasingly unlikely worst-case scenarios when you could just call Parker and see what’s up.”
Okay, fair. Not that Erin would ever actually call Parker to “see what’s up.” She wasn’t risking hearing an answer she didn’t want.
“What do you think would happen if Parker found out?”
Erin spent the rest of therapy catastrophizing. She couldn’t decide what would be worse: Parker angry and hurt enough to yell and cry or Parker just cutting off contact. She’d never done well when Parker cried. Adam had to take her to get her shots when she was little, because Erin would have a worse time of it than Parker did.
Even spending a half hour going through worst-case scenarios, leaving therapy, Erin felt … at ease. Untroubled. Not carefree, exactly, but like things would turn out okay. Tomorrow maybe everything would be bad again, but today, she’d said it. Someone other than her and Cassie knew it had happened. And the world hadn’t come to an end.
That was the thought she kept in mind as she made plans with Rachel to get coffee in the morning. Maybe Erin had expected judgment from Carolyn, and she certainly would from anyone else, but not from Rachel. Never from Rachel.
Even knowing that, Erin had to build up her courage the next morning. She’d already finished the muffin she’d split with Rachel and was most of the way through her cappuccino before finally asking:
“What would you say if I said I was sleeping with someone?”
Rachel let out a hoot that got the entire coffee shop’s attention on them. Erin gave her a flat stare, unimpressed.
Rachel shrugged. “You asked.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. You deserve orgasms from someone other than yourself.”
Thankfully other customers seemed to have stopped paying attention to them.
“Obviously I want to know everything. Who are they? Where did you meet? When did you start sleeping together? Is the sex good? When can I meet them?”
Erin wasn’t going to answer the majority of those. She wanted Rachel to know—maybe. She was pretty sure she wanted Rachel to know, but only about the vague shape of what was happening in her life. She couldn’t tell her details; it didn’t matter that she was her best friend. Erin was grateful Rachel hadn’t been there on Christmas Eve—as soon as she saw Erin and Cassie interact, she was going to know. It’s what she did.
“The sex,” Erin paused for effect, “is outstanding.”
Rachel giggled gleefully. She singsonged, “Tell me more, tell me more.”
“This woman is just—”
“A woman! See, I knew getting away from men for a while was going to help! What’s she like?”
Erin sighed—she didn’t even mean to, but she let out this dreamy sigh at even thinking about Cassie. She shook her head like that would make the feeling go away.
“She’s ridiculous,” she said. “She makes me do ridiculous things.”
“Like what?”
“Like sext.”
Rachel pressed her lips together hard enough they went white. She was holding back her laughter, which Erin appreciated.
“Honey. Sexting is not ridiculous. You were just in a passionless marriage for too long.”
Erin didn’t disagree, but still—“She called, at the end of it.” Erin glanced around, but the tables nearest to them were empty. “To hear me.”
“Oh shit, you mean sexting like legitimately masturbating while texting?”
“What else would sexting be?”
“I sext while I’m grocery shopping.”
“What?”
Rachel shrugged. “Sometimes someone wants to sext but I’m busy. It’s not like I’m going to rush home and take off my clothes.”
That sounded absurd, but Rachel knew a lot more about dating than Erin did, so she’d have to trust her.
“Well,” Erin said. “I was not grocery shopping.”
“I’m proud of you.”
Erin rolled her eyes, even though she knew Rachel was being serious.
“So, phone sex—does that mean she lives out of town? Where have you even been lately? How did you meet her?”
“Okay, no. We’re not doing the whole interrogation thing. I just—”
“It’s not an interrogation to want to know about the person your best friend is seeing.”
“I’m not seeing her. We’re just…” Erin trailed off.
“Just fucking?”
Erin wasn’t sure what, exactly, they were doing. It wasn’t like they were actively sleeping together—the over seven hundred miles between New Hampshire and Virginia kind of put a damper on that. But she couldn’t explain that to Rachel.
“Friends with benefits,” she said instead.
“Those benefits being orgasms.”
“I’m ready to be done talking about this,” Erin said.
“Good, then I can tell you about my latest hookup.”
Rachel launched into a play-by-play of her date last weekend, but for once, Erin didn’t particularly mind getting too many details. She’d told two people, now. And the world still hadn’t ended.
Then again, Parker still hadn’t called.
Seventeen
CASSIE
That week, Cassie talked with Erin more than her other friends. They flirted, but never got into full-on sexting again. Cassie was a little disappointed, honestly. She saved the old messages on her computer in a hidden folder named biophysics. She would’ve named it spank bank if she didn’t want to be 100 percent sure no one found it.
That she talked to Erin more often than her friends said more about her friends’ schedules than how much she and Erin were texting. Parker skipped Monday morning breakfast, which she, Acacia, and Cassie had been eating together since the middle of last semester. Cassie didn’t even see her until Wednesday, when Parker arrived at the cafeteria for lunch right as Cassie was leaving.
“Babe!” Cassie beamed. She threw her arms around Parker’s neck. “It’s been forever.”
“Yeah,” Parker said. She hugged back gently. “I’ve been busy.”
“Me too,” Cassie said. “Projects starting to pile up and midterms soon, you know? When are you doing dinner tonight? I miss you.”
“I’m not doing dinner, actually,” Parker said. “That’s why I’m eating lunch so late. I’ve got stuff tonight.”
“Boo,” Cassie said. “Well, when are you free? I want to hang out and bother you about your new lady.”
Parker rolled her eyes. “As lovely as that sounds, Cassie, I don’t know. I’ll text you.”
She started to head into the cafeteria.
“I miss my best friend!” Cassie called after her.
“Acacia’s your best friend,” Parker said over her shoulder.