“You aren’t ready. I know. I figured that out.”
“I thought so. You’re… a lot better at this than whatsisname.”
“I’ll be honest,” I said, “I don’t think he really cared. Not about you, at least.”
“He only cared about himself,” Christy agreed.
Brooke turned to her. “Thank you too. I remember talking about this stuff, but I never thought we’d actually do it. Did you?”
“Never in a million years.” She smiled. “But then Paul and I started dating, and I thought… maybe it might actually happen.”
“So you have been planning this all along?” Brooke accused playfully.
“No! Only, maybe yes. I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t know why I do things. I just do them.”
“Well,” I said, “I don’t think anyone’s going to complain.”
“No,” Brooke agreed. All of a sudden she frowned and looked over her shoulder, back toward the patio and the table there. “I just realized something. I haven’t had anything to drink in, like, two hours. Not since before we started.”
“Nope.”
That made her smile. “So maybe I’m not such a nerd after all.”
“I don’t think you ever were,” I said. “I think you just needed the right guy to pull you out of your shell.”
“That’s Paul’s specialty,” Christy teased, “seducing shy virgins.”
“Ha! Neither of you were virgins before I seduced you.”
“Still, it’s your specialty.”
“If anything,” I said, “my specialty is convincing women that it’s okay to like sex. Men do. Why shouldn’t you?”
“Amen,” Brooke agreed.
* * *
We eventually took a group shower to wash off the smell of sex, sweat, and chlorine. Then Brooke suggested a drive to give our hair a wind-blown look, so we hopped in the convertible and headed out. I drove up the coast road while the girls chatted, until Brooke sat back all of a sudden.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Maybe.” She dug through her purse but then relaxed when she found what she was looking for, a small brown bottle. “I burn easily, and Chris’s mom knows it. She’ll know something’s up if I don’t smell like Coppertone.” She spread it on her arms and shoulders and then had another idea. “Hey, Chris, do you think I should put on a bra? Your dad nearly had a heart attack this morning.”
“He did not,” Christy said. “He didn’t even notice.”
“Yeah, he did.”
“He did,” I agreed. I gave Brooke a reassuring nod and then whipped into a parking lot to turn around. I drove back to her house and parked in the driveway, although I put out a hand to stop Christy before she opened the car door. I turned in my seat and said to Brooke, “Let’s see ’em.”
“See what?” she said uncertainly.
“You know.” I silently counted to three and then put some force behind it. “Your tits. Now.”
She jumped and untied the drawstring on her dress. Then she looked to either side to make sure none of the neighbors were outside before she lowered her dress just enough to reveal her stiff pink nipples.
“All the way,” I said.
She swallowed once and did it.
“You like it when I tell you what to do, don’t you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you like showing off in public.”
“N-no. I mean… yeah. Can I cover up now? Please?”
“In a minute.”
She closed her eyes, and her nostrils flared as she tried to stay calm. I reached back and pinched her nipple. She flinched but didn’t pull away, so I teased her for another twenty or thirty seconds. Her breathing quickened with arousal and she completely forgot where we were.
“Okay,” I said at last. “Run inside and put on a bra.”
“Thank you.” She covered herself and held the dress in place with one hand.
Christy opened the door and sat forward as Brooke released the seat and climbed out. She disappeared through the back gate.
“How’d you know?” Christy said. “That she likes showing off?”
“Just a guess. She didn’t mind going braless today, and her nipples were poking through her dress the whole time.”
Christy grinned. “Things like that make me love you even more.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. You get us, her and me. You know we’re perverted and you like it. We’ve… had to hide it a long time. That’s one of the reasons we got along so well when we first met, like a house on fire. We both sort of knew. About the other, I mean.”
I nodded.
“But… I don’t know if you understand how much it means that you like us the way we are.”
“Like you? I love you!”
“I know. And… maybe it’d be weird to some other girl, that you want to do it with my best friend, but I don’t care. I know that you’re still coming home with me, to our house and our bed.”
“That’s what it means to be a swinger. You can have sex with someone else, but—”
“It’s just sex. It isn’t—”
“What you and I have.”
“No. And for the record, I really like it when we finish each other’s sentences.”
“We’re really finishing each other’s thoughts,” I agreed.
“I know.” She smiled and closed her eyes as I caressed her cheek. “I love you,” she said quietly. “Today more than ever.”
“But less than you will tomorrow.”
Her eyes opened with a smile. “How’d you know?”
“I know you.”
“Mmm, you do.”
Brooke emerged from the gate but then stopped when she saw us. She approached the open car door slowly.
“You were having a serious talk,” she said. “You had that look. Is… um… everything okay?”
“Oh my gosh, yes!” Christy gushed. “It’s wonderful!”
“Uh-oh. You’re in one of those moods.”
“So sue me. No, use me instead.” She closed her eyes and imagined it. “Mmm, you and Paul, both using me at the same time.”
“Oh, boy, here she goes,” Brooke said.
I chuckled and tapped Christy’s knee. She opened her eyes slowly, and I gestured for her to scoot toward the center console. “We aren’t going far,” I said. “Let her ride up front with you.”
Brooke climbed in and pulled the door closed after her. I leaned forward and surveyed her chest.
“They look good,” I said. Then I made sure to look her in the eye. “And not because they aren’t a distraction anymore. I mean ‘they look good.’ They aren’t too big. They’re the perfect shape and size for your body.”
“I told you,” Christy said quietly.
Brooke rolled her eyes and ignored her.
“How do you like a strapless bra?” I asked. “I’ve heard they aren’t very comfortable. They probably aren’t so bad when you’re Christy’s size—”
The little blonde shook her head.
“—but yours are bigger and need more support.”
Brooke clearly hadn’t expected a guy to know or even care about bras and how comfortable they were.
“They aren’t my favorite,” she said after a moment, “but they’re better than having guys stare at me.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. Sorry you have to go through that, by the way. It’s a problem with guys, not you. It’s pretty widespread, though, and I have no idea how to fix it.”
“I do,” Brooke said with a laugh. “And it should only take a few generations.”
“Oh?”
“Women just need to breed— err, have sex with guys who aren’t sexist jerks.”
“If only you could find a guy like that,” I joked.
She didn’t even roll her eyes, and her smile was full of warmth.
“Okay, one last thing,” I said. “Let me borrow that sunscreen.”
She reached into her purse and handed it over.
“I’m as pale as you are,” I explained as I squirted some into my palm. “So I’d better come home with a sunburn or smelling like sunscreen.” I glanced at my face in the mirror and rubbed the lotion into my skin. “I’m actually paler,” I said, “since I don’t have your freckles.”