Melanie and I are seated at our favorite dinner spot—Tucchi’s in downtown LA. It’s a pizza restaurant with a big wood-burning oven in the center and little round tables topped with white votive candles. It’s casual and cute. Every Saturday we meet for goat cheese and roasted red pepper pizza and copious amounts of local wine. Calories don’t count while we’re having gossip and girl talk.
“So what's new with you, babe?” Melanie asks. “You wear that skirt I lent you yet?”
I shake my head. “I haven't had a chance. All I've been doing this week is work.” That tiny pink scrap definitely isn't appropriate for the office. Hell, I'd feel embarrassed to look at myself in the mirror with it on.
“So wear it at work. Who gives a shit?” she laughs.
“Easy for you to say,” I reply, smiling despite myself. “Clients don't come to my job hoping to look like me.” As a hair stylist, Melanie always sports the latest color and cut, plus fashion-forward clothes that I'm way too chicken to pull off. Customers flock to her chair for just a little touch of that beauty magic. And ever since we met as college roommates, she's always encouraged me to step outside my comfort zone into more mature, sexy territory.
Well, she might just get her wish for juicy news tonight. Because I seriously need some advice about Hudson.
Even as I sit here, sipping red wine and tearing chunks off my breadstick, I still can’t believe his offer. My belly tenses just thinking about it. Hudson actually being my first. Hudson actually wanting to be my first.
Logically though, I know he doesn’t feel that way about me. He's just trying to save me from the awkward experience of doing it with some stranger I met on the Internet. I guess this is just another way he’s looking out for me. It’s just so freaking strange, I can still barely wrap my head around it, even twenty-four hours later.
“What are you doing to that poor breadstick?” Melanie chuckles, eyeing my plate.
I look down at the crumbled remnants on the plate and push it away. “I have something kind of crazy to tell you.”
Her chin perks up in interest, her third slice of pizza forgotten. “Do tell.”
“Well...you know how I registered on that dating site?”
She nods. She was totally on board with my plan—practically pushed me to do it, in fact.
“I mentioned it to my brother and Hudson, and they both kind of freaked out. Hudson insisted on walking me home, and I invited him in so we could talk a little more.”
“What do you mean he freaked out? Did he pull that bossy prick shit with you again?” She huffs out a sigh.
“Kind of. I admitted to him that I wanted one of the guys I met online to be my first, and finally lose my virginity once and for all.”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s not his business who you sleep with, Gracie.”
“It might be,” I say, taking a sip of my wine to fortify myself. “He, um … offered to be my first.”
Red wine comes spewing out of Melanie’s nose and mouth before she covers her face, coughing loudly into her cloth napkin. The nearby customers glance over at us until she gets her coughing fit under control. “He what?!” she barks across the table at me.
I thought Melanie would be happy for me. Excited, even. She knows how I feel about him; I figured she'd squeal and help pick out my outfit and give me advice. I never thought she’d get pissed about his offer. I rush to explain more.
“After we talked for a while, he offered to help me out. He said my first time shouldn’t be with a random guy, and that we could, um … you know.” My cheeks flush with heat and I look down at the table. How will I have the courage to actually seduce a man if I can’t even say the words? Maybe it is better if Hudson and I just get it over with. I’d die of mortification if I tried to seduce one of my online dates and he turned me down.
Melanie is shaking her head, her plucked eyebrows drawn together. “A guy doesn’t just offer to help you out by taking your virginity. That’s weird. Really freaking weird.” She scratches her chin. “Unless he actually likes you, too. And even then...”
I shake my head firmly. “No, he doesn’t, Mel. You and I both know that.”
She nods, agreeing. Hudson had his chance with me. He’s never acted on it. Never even given me a hint he was interested. It’s time to stop believing in foolish possibilities.
“Well, I’m against it,” Melanie says finally. “The whole thing is just begging to go wrong. Like...what would your brother say?”