Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77719 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77719 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Why were they going in with my groceries? Maybe she couldn’t fit them in her part of the cart?
“You planning on having an orgy?”
“Girl’s gotta be ready to go. I took the liberty of having a look in your bathrooms before we left, and not one prophylactic to be found.”
Leaning into me, she tutted and shook her head sadly. “Such an unwise decision not to use birth control. Do I need to sit you down and tell you about the amount of sexually transmitted diseases I see every month which could have been prevented by a rubber?” Then something occurred to her, and she turned back to the shelves, scanning them for whatever it was. “What if he’s allergic to latex? We’ll get some latex-free ones, just in case.”
My mouth opened and closed as I tried to figure out exactly what to say to her. Just as I thought of it—i.e., screeching out she was insane—a deep familiar voice said, “If you buy that many all at once, you’ll get a reputation when the cashiers catch up after work and the tally gets shared.”
Making sure to do it as slowly as I could to give him time to disappear, I turned my head to look at Jordan—no, I had to get used to calling him Jinx. Unfortunately, though, he was still there when I was done. “They’re—”
“Just in case she gets in the mood. Hi, Jinx, nice to see you again.”
My head flew around so I could glare at my best friend, and I managed to get out through gritted teeth, “She’s joking. This is all one huge joke.”
Leaning on the shelf that had boxes advertising extra-large condoms, she shook her finger in the air. “I never joke about safe sex. Jinx, do you know how many STD tests I do in a month and how many of them come back with something? Guess.”
Judging by the puffs of air I could feel on the back of my neck, he found this amusing. The fool. “Ten?”
“No, try multiplying that by at least ten.”
“Is that how many you do, or how many come back with a positive for an STD?” Jinx sounded way too interested as he asked for clarification.
“That’s how many I do, and three times your guess come back positive. And that’s just at one doctor’s surgery. Imagine what that’d be through the state or the country.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah,” Maddie nodded vigorously. “We get crabs, syphilis, chlamydia, gonorrhea, trichomoniasis—”
“What’s that?”
While I was glancing around us to make sure there were any other customers around to hear this, she gave him a lesson in crotch nasties.
“It’s a tiny parasite that makes it hurt when you pee, makes your crotch feel like it’s either itchy or painful, and you get an abnormal di—”
“Whoa, whoa,” I cut in, holding my hand up. “Please, for the love of all that’s sacred, don’t finish that sentence. There’s food around.”
“Jesus,” Jinx choked.
This time when I glanced at him, he looked disgusted. “You brought this on yourself, mister.”
Shuddering, he nodded. “Consider me informed for next time.”
“Well, being the kind and caring friend that I am, I decided to spare my bestie the burning and di—” She cut off when both of us held our hands up. “I just don’t want you in my office, begging me to fix your coochie rot.”
“Is she always like this?” Jinx asked me, not bothering to lower his voice to spare her ears while she went back to selecting condoms.
“This is mild in comparison.”
Not taking her eyes off the new pack in her hand, Maddie hummed. “Still hold that against me, do you?”
Oh, she knew I did.
“What are you holding against her?” When I didn’t answer, he turned his attention to Maddie. “What’s she holding against you? If it’s worse than this, I really want to know.”
Finding what she wanted on the box, she nodded and dropped it on top of the others. “Well, see, my bestie here was in a jam at school, so she asked me to help her out. It was a female kind of problem, and I still don’t get what the big deal about it was. Every guy knows women and teenage girls have periods, so why hide it?”
“Okay? So what did you do?”
“She asked me for a pad just as we went into history class, and my desk was in the same row but on the other side of the room. I took a pad out of my bag, wrote her name on it, and asked Jeff Adams, Lowe Perkins, and Sam Jones to pass it over to Sienna.”
All these years later, and I could still remember it being passed like a note down the row.
Wincing, Jinx gave me an understanding look. “I can kind of get why she’d be upset about that.”
Rolling her eyes, Maddie straightened up and crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, I don’t. You know, she wouldn’t even ask to go to the bathroom because she said they all knew why she was going after the pad got to her. The likelihood of a teenage girl needing to change her pad or put one in her panties is high when they ask to go to the bathroom during class, so it’s not like she’s the only one who ever did it.”