A woman's arms encircled him from behind, one arm clutched possessively around his taut waist and the hand of the other one working at the top button of his low-slung jeans.
Peeking out from behind him, I saw the face of a young woman who looked obscenely happy to be there.
That face was my own.
"Oh my God," I said, feeling the blood rush to my face. "How did you –" I stopped, speechless.
Erika burst out laughing. "You should see the look on your face," she said, almost choking on the words as she struggled to speak.
I couldn't help it. I started to laugh too. The thing was too ridiculous for words. "You know," I told her, "you are seriously twisted."
She put a dainty hand to her chest and assumed her best innocent face. "Me?"
"Yes, you," I said, pointing to the title of this so-called movie. "Riding the Rastor? What, like he's some kind of roller coaster?"
"Hey," she said, "if he is, buy me a ticket, seriously."
Instantly, a version of our nights together flooded my brain – Lawton kissing me in all those secret places, me tasting him in all his masculine glory, him carrying me up to his bedroom like I weighed almost nothing, him entering me as he cupped his hands –
"Oh hey," Erika said, plucking a napkin from the table. "You've got a little drool on your chin. Here, let me get that for you."
Instantly, my hand flew to my chin.
This sent Erika into another fit of laughter. "Did you actually believe me?" she said. "Girl, you must have it bad."
I did have it bad, but for some reason, I didn't feel like sharing the whole truth. Erika had always been more adventurous than I was, sexually speaking.
While I'd been focused on survival, she'd been focused on fun. But I couldn't resent her for it. She had a way of bringing something into my life that I sorely lacked, an escape from reality.
In a way, Lawton was doing the same thing, even if the respite was temporary. Erika, I hoped, would be around forever. Lawton, well, I knew he wouldn't.
But until the moment where we actually parted ways, I guess I wanted him all to myself. In an odd way, that included all the distinctly ungory details of our intimate time spent together.
"Wow, you're so serious all of a sudden," Erika said.
I looked up and gave her a smile. "Well, it certainly is thought-provoking," I said, raising my eyebrows suggestively. "Where'd you get these pictures?"
She shrugged. "The one ofhimwas easy. It's from some poster from a few years back. The one of you was a lot harder. It made me realize I don't have hardly any shots of you."
There was a reason for this. I totally hated having my picture taken.
Erika pointed to the poster. "The arms aren't yours, but the face, that's from Erin's bachelorette party."
Oh yeah. Her sister's bachelorette party. I barely remembered it, thanks to cherry vodka shooters and nonstop goading by Erika. It served Erika right, though. From what I vaguely recalled, she was the one holding my hair, long after the male stripper had danced off into the sunset.
"Notice the text?" Erika asked, pointing to the so-called movie's promotional blurb. "Go on," she urged. "Read it out loud. Isowant to see your face when you do."
"You are so bad," I told her as I held up the poster in front of me. I cleared my throat and started to read.
I'd gotten only a couple words in when she stopped me. "Oh c'mon," she said. "You can do better than that. Say it like you mean it."
Grinning in spite of myself, I started over. "What happens when a good girl goes bad? Very, very bad." I stopped, my face absolutely scorched from embarrassment. If Erika only knew. This was no movie. I was living it for real.
"Don't stop now," Erika said. "You haven't even reached the best part."
I looked down, scanning the text, laughing in spite of myself. "I can't read this," I said. "Seriously."
"God, you are such a lightweight." She snatched the poster out of my grasp. In an overdramatic, breathy voice, she finished where I'd left off. "Watch in all its naked glory as the innocent neighbor girl is spectacularly corrupted by the resident bad boy, Lawton 'Horse-Hung' Rastor, every girl's wet dream, every parent's worst nightmare."
