Grace leaned over. “What did you send her?”
“You’ll see.” Aliya took another sip, hiding her devilish smile.
“I dropped Aaron off at school and had to drive to the next town over for my annual woman’s appointment.” Kelcie’s neck flushed, and the pink traveled up to her cheeks. This was going to be good.
She took a deep, thorough drink. “I can’t believe I’m telling you all this story.”
“Take another sip.” Aliya rested her chin on her hand and giggled. “Keep going…”
Kelcie covered her eyes, ran her hands over her forehead, and leaned into me further. “After I dropped off Aaron, I had my earbuds in and started the audiobook, listening to it all the way over to the doctor’s office and...” She let it trail off, not making eye contact with anyone, but her blush deepened.
“What kind of book was this, Kelcie? If it had this kind of reaction, it must have been interesting,” Dylan said, leaning forward.
“It was a…ahem… steamy romance.” She straightened, waving us off. “That wasn’t the part that’s embarrassing. I read those all the time.”
“Which book was this?” Grace asked.
“The one I told you about with the house contractor,” Aliya said to Grace, waving her off and not taking her eyes off Kelcie, to whom she said, “Keep going…”
Dylan held up a hand, sitting up so straight he almost fell off his seat. “House contractor…nice.”
Aliya motioned with one hand to get on with it while she drank from her glass in the other one.
“So, when I got to the doctor’s office, things in the story were, um…reaching the pivotal scene Aliya had warned me about. So, I paused it and went to check in.” Kelcie sipped her drink, and we all sat in silence, waiting.
“Once the nurse took me back, I changed and was sitting on the table, waiting for the doctor. The nurse said he was with another patient and would be in shortly. I pulled out my phone and started checking emails and such.” She shifted and, still not making eye contact, continued, “The doctor came in and startled me, and I didn’t manage to close all the apps on my phone.” She looked up and gestured to the girls. “He darted around the room, getting things together, pulling out the stirrups, and chatting while he worked, and I, um…assumed the position.” She gestured with her hands as if she were talking about the weather, not lying buck-ass naked, legs spread in front of a man who wasn’t hers.
She continued, “The doctor asked, ‘How are things? How’s your son?’—the normal chit-chat that he always does—so I didn’t think about the fact that I was spreading my naked lady parts open to him, and he was inserting a mini-metal pry-bar inside me.”
Dylan and I simultaneously cringed. It was more than either one of us wanted to know about gynecological exams. Our enthusiasm for the story lessened slightly.
“I laid down, holding my phone next to me as he started the breast exam.”
Dylan put up a hand and said, “Whoa. I understand that we’ve all been close friends for a long while, but there are certain images I don’t think I need to have in my head, Kelcie.”
She rolled her eyes. “Anyway…I went to lift my hand holding my phone, and it slipped, fell, and after a bit of juggling, it landed on a chair nearby. But not before it tripped my audiobook into playing…quite loudly at a very…um…eh…descriptive, intimate moment.”
“Which scene?” Grace was on the edge of her seat.
Kelcie took a sip of her drink and said, “The shower scene…”
Aliya’s face beamed. “Ohhh—no.”
Grace’s mouth fell open, and she let out a roar, “No!”
“Yep. Just as the doctor was scooting his stool around and propping my legs in the stirrups, my phone blared out, “Oh, yes, baby! Right there. Please, don’t stop?—”
Dylan made the rookie mistake of having a mouthful of beer. Kelcie delivered that last description in an overly dramatic falsetto, and beer sprayed from his mouth.
She continued, “There was a good deal of descriptiveness of body parts and moaning before I could work my fingers well enough to shut it off.”
Kelcie simply downed the rest of her drink as our friends enjoyed her embarrassment. As her newly minted, self-appointed boyfriend, I took the glass from her, stood, and went to refill it.
Kelcie joined the laugh-fest with a freeness I didn’t think I’d seen in…God, in ages. Before Aaron, before James. Her smile was sunshine with a hint of that rascally smirk that told us that she liked the fact that she still had it in her to shock us.
It was my kryptonite.
My eyes burned. “There you are,” I whispered without even realizing it.
