Test Drive

by Samantha Chase

  Thanking her, he walked over and scanned the selection, even though he knew he’d go for the basics. He wasn’t exactly a flavored coffee kind of guy. There was already a mug out for him and a spoon, so there wasn’t much he needed to do other than put the pod in the Keurig and wait the whole thirty-seconds. Once it was ready, he turned and sat opposite her at the table.

  “I noticed you never put cream or sugar in your coffee,” she said shyly. “That’s why I didn’t offer you any. But if you do want some…”

  Levi held up a hand to stop her. “No, it’s okay. This is fine. Thanks.”

  Then it was quiet.

  Awkwardly quiet.

  “Um…I don’t want you to feel like you need to rush out or anything,” Willow began, “but Mrs. Moore saw us get back last night and texted me early this morning. I’m going over there at nine to watch Josh.”

  Glancing around, he asked, “What time is it?”

  “Almost eight. But like I said, don’t feel like you need to rush. If you want to shower or do anything…”

  “I’ll probably just wait till I get home to do it. All my luggage is in the car, so…”

  “Gotcha.”

  More silence.

  He cleared his throat. “So, uh…you think you’ll come to McGee’s Friday night?”

  “Oh, um…I guess so. Obviously I haven’t talked to Donna and Jen yet, but…”

  It was small talk.

  Painfully awkward small talk.

  “Right, well…” He took another sip of his coffee and tried to think of how to say what he wanted to say. Putting his mug down on the table a little too forcefully, he hissed as the hot liquid splashed on his hand. Willow immediately handed him a napkin. “Thanks.”

  “Levi…”

  “Willow…”

  They looked at each other and laughed at how they both started to speak at the same time.

  “Sorry,” she said. “You go first.”

  Now he was almost afraid to, but he knew if he didn’t–if he left here without telling her how he felt–he’d regret it.

  “Willow, you know I’ve always thought how amazing you are,” he began and saw her expression fall a little. “I want you to know that…”

  “No,” she quickly interrupted. “Don’t. Please.”

  “Don’t what?”

  Her shoulders sagged as she looked up at him with a sad smile. “I know what you’re going to say, and if it’s okay with you, I’d really rather not have to sit here and tell me what a good friend I am and how fun this all was…blah, blah, blah.” She waved her hand around. “I know we talked about this back at the hotel and all and I get it. We’re still friends, Levi. And…I’ll be okay. Really. It’s not your fault that I started to think of it as something more.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” he said, shoving the coffee aside. “Are you saying that…you’d like to be more than friends?”

  She looked away, but not before he saw the flush of her cheeks. “Come on, Levi, don’t make me say it. It’s embarrassing enough…”

  Reaching for her hand, she jumped and spilled her coffee. They both stood up, and when Willow went to reach from some paper towels, he stopped her.

  “Levi, I need to clean this up!”

  “Not until I say what I need to say,” he said firmly.

  With a huff, she looked at him, but her gaze kept straying to the coffee that was now dripping off the table and onto the floor.

  “Okay, fine. We’ll clean this up, and then I’m saying what I need to say!”

  Way to sound firm, dude.

  Together they quickly cleaned up the mess, but he didn’t let her sit down. Instead, he took both of her hands in his and waited for her to look at him. “I want you to know that it’s important to me for us to be friends.”

  She started to pull her hands away, but he held on.

  “But I also want more, Willow. I realize it was all supposed to be make-believe, but…there were real feelings there for me. I don’t want things to go back to the way they were before. I want to see where this goes. I want you to be my friend and my lover.” He tugged her in close. “I want you to be my girlfriend for real.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Really?”

  “Yeah, really.”

  “Oh, okay then.” Her smile grew as she moved in closer. Levi released her hands, and her arms immediately went around him. “In that case, I’d really like to kiss my boyfriend good morning.”

  “And as your boyfriend, I’m totally on board with this.”

  Up on tiptoes, Willow pressed her lips to his, and it was the perfect kind of lazy kiss to start the day. And he couldn’t wait to start more of them this way.

  Things escalated quickly, and as much as he knew he needed to leave and she needed to get ready for work, that didn’t mean they shouldn’t commemorate this change in their relationship by doing…well…pretty much what they’d been doing for days.

  But this time, they were both a little more vocal about how they felt toward each other. He realized they’d each been holding back a little bit of themselves and once they were breathless and lying beside each other, he turned to her and said, “Was it me or did that feel so much better than it has in the past?”

  “You mean in the last four days?”

  “Well…yeah.”

  “It did,” she said with a soft hum, rolling toward him. “It was definitely better, and I didn’t think that was even possible.”

  Chuckling, he replied, “Me, either. But just to play it safe, we should keep doing it. A lot.”

  “Right now?” she cried. “Oh, God, Levi, I don’t know if my hoo-ha can take anymore. She needs a rest!”

  “Your…what?”

  Burying her face against his chest, she laughed. “Never mind! Forget I said it!”

  As much as he wanted to tease her a little more, he saw it was getting late and knew she needed to get ready for work. Placing a kiss on the top of her head, he maneuvered away from her and stood up, pulling his clothes back on for the second time this morning. She was watching him hungrily, and it took all he had not to strip again and join her back on the bed.

  “I really need to go.”

  “It was the hoo-ha, right? I ruined things. I swear I’m not really a huge dork! Just…give me another chance and I swear to say things in my head before I say them out loud!”

  Laughing softly, he leaned down and kissed her again. “This has nothing to do with your hoo-ha–and yes, I know what that is–and everything to do with the fact that you need to go to work. And honestly, so do I. It’s going to be a long day and I know I’m going to be swamped.”

  “Yeah, me too.” She rolled over and sat up, pulling the sheet up to cover herself. “And I really need to shower and get caught up with all my dog peeps too. Then there’s grocery shopping. Ugh…now I’m overwhelmed.”

  “Don’t be.” He slid his sneakers on and kissed her again. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “But…you can call me too if you want.”

  She smiled sweetly. “Okay.”

  Unable to help himself, he leaned in for one more kiss. “Have a good day, Willow.” When he turned to leave, she called out to him. “Yeah?”

  “You’re going to totally love having me as a girlfriend. I promise to take really good care of you.”

  One more kiss.

  “You already have.”

  15

  “What in the world is all this?”

  “These are chocolate-covered bananas with marshmallows on the base,” Donna explained, pointing to the platter in her hands.

  “They look like penises.”

  “They’re supposed to.” She winked.

  “Oh, my God…”

  “And these,” Jen added, “are Flirtinis and they are super yummy. You may have to ditch your boring Malibu and pineapple for them. Trust me.”

  “What’s in them?”

  “Okay, so it’s very similar to your drink, but different. It’
s vodka, champagne, and pineapple juice. You’ll love them.”

  “Oooh…I wonder if we dip the banana in the Flirtini if it tastes good?” Donna asked excitedly. “Let’s check that out!”

  “What is happening right now?” Willow asked as her friends made themselves comfortable on her sofa. “I thought we were going out?”

  “Nah, we needed a girls’ night in,” Donna said, waving one of the chocolate banana penis things around. “We want all the details about your trip with Levi, and we don’t want to hear it with him hovering.”

  “Levi doesn’t hover…”

  “Oh, please…,” Jen said, snorting. “He totally hovers. There would be no way for us to talk about him if he was right there. That’s why we decided to come over tonight and get all the details. This way, when we go to McGee’s tomorrow night, we’ll know how to be around him.”

  “Be around him?” she parroted, still not quite following this ridiculous conversation. “Why would you have to worry about that?”

  Her friends looked at each other with knowing smirks before looking at her.

  Here it comes…

  Donna put the banana down and shifted a bit on the couch, her elbows resting on her knees. “We were hoping to ease into the subject, but…it’s clear that you’re not going to let that happen.”

  “Let what happen? I still have no idea what’s going on!”

  “Oh, Willow. Sweet, sweet, naïve Willow,” Jen said, reaching out and patting her on the knee. “You had that delicious man all to yourself for a whole week and a day. Or two. I can’t remember, but either way, you had a lot of alone time with Levi. Pretending to be your boyfriend. And you were pretending to be his girlfriend.” She sighed dreamily. “I’m betting you have a lot of stories to tell about all the um…role-playing you had to do.”

  Oh, good Lord…

  “And we’re not talking about the boring stuff like hand-holding,” Donna chimed in. “We’re interested in hearing about what kind of a kisser he is and what he looks like with his shirt off.”

  Willow felt herself blushing from the roots of her hair to the soles of her feet. She knew they were going to have this conversation, she just hadn’t expected it quite so soon after she got home. Hell, Levi had only left her apartment less than twelve hours ago after declaring himself her boyfriend, shouldn’t she have been allowed a little more time before being forced to share all the sexy details?

  “She’s blushing,” Jen observed in a not-so-quiet whisper. “You know what that means!”

  “It means she found out a whole lot more than how Levi kisses and how he looks without his shirt,” Donna replied.

  “Think she’s going to give us the details?”

  “If we ply her with enough Flirtinis.”

  “I’m sitting right here,” Willow said, groaning and doing her best to hide her face in her hands.

  “Come on, Wills, don’t get prudish on us. You know you want to tell us.”

  “Not like this,” she murmured.

  “Okay, fine,” Donna said, miffed. “Have a penis banana while Jen pours you a drink. We’ll talk about something else in the meantime. Happy?”

  She reluctantly accepted the banana, but she didn’t feel right about biting into it. “Um…do we have any other snacks?”

  “I baked cookies,” Jen said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a large Tupperware container. “Chocolate chip. The big and soft kind that you like.”

  Beside her, Donna smirked. “Big and soft cookies–bet Levi’s wasn’t big and soft.” Then she laughed hysterically. “Or maybe I should say I hope it was big but not soft.”

  “Dude, you totally blew that,” Jen said and then cracked herself up. “I totally didn’t mean that the way it sounded, but how freaking funny am I?”

  * * *

  Willow had to admit they were pretty funny and found herself laughing too. “You two are utterly ridiculous, but I love you.”

  “Seriously, Willow, we are going to need details. All the blow by blow,” Jen stated and instantly started laughing again. “OMG, how do I keep doing that?”

  “Um…maybe because you have sex on the brain?” Donna replied.

  “Oh, and you don’t?”

  “Okay, okay, okay,” Willow interrupted, holding out her glass. “Someone fill me up!”

  “That’s what she said!” both friends said before falling back in another fit of laughter.

  It’s going to be a long night…

  Letting them laugh, Willow poured herself a Flirtini and grabbed one of the cookies. They really were her favorite–especially when they were still warm and gooey like this. She eyed the kitchen and considered getting herself a glass of milk and saving the Flirtini for later, but…she’d make it work.

  Once her friends had calmed down, and they were all settled in their seats eating cookies and drinking, Willow finally felt ready to share a little about her trip.

  “So…it was a good week,” she said, popping the last piece of cookie in her mouth. “A really good week.”

  “How was Gammy?”

  “She’s a pistol. I swear, if she was here right now, the three of you would have had a blast together. She poked and prodded at me about Levi too. Only she did it over mani-pedi’s. She got me all relaxed in the big massaging chair while getting my feet rubbed and then started asking about our sex life!”

  “Go, Gammy!” Jen said, nodding with approval.

  “At that point, did you and Levi have a sex life to be talking about?” Donna asked.

  “Do we really have to talk about this?” she whined.

  “That means no,” Jen commented dryly.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever,” Donna huffed. “But do you have one now? And if so, did you tell Gammy about it? Was it weird? TMI?”

  “Trust me, Gammy still doesn’t quite get the meaning of TMI. If anything, she was the one providing the TMI. She has a new boyfriend and…”

  “No one cares!” Jen cried, and then her hands flew over her mouth. “Sorry! I’m so sorry! That was mean.”

  “Geez, it’s like a mob mentality in here,” Donna murmured. “Shame on you. Dissing a sweet little old lady like that.” She batted her eyelashes at Willow. “Me? I love Gammy. So she has a new boyfriend, huh? Is he nice?”

  “He’s a Romeo.”

  “Oh, so like a player? A…what did they call them back in the day…a Casanova?”

  “Is that a thing? Like a real word?”

  “Of course it’s a real word! When have you ever known me to make up a word?”

  Willow let the two of them argue that out for another couple of minutes and helped herself to another cookie.

  “Hey! Why are you having another cookie?” Donna accused. “Why aren’t you eating the banana I gave you?”

  “Um…yeah. I’m not putting that in my mouth.”

  Jen nearly choked on her drink as she started laughing.

  “Of for the love of it, just say it,” Willow said wearily.

  “That’s what she said,” she murmured and then shook her finger at Willow. “You take all the fun out of it when you tell me when to say it!”

  “Sorry.”

  “Fine, but to make it up to me, you have to give us all the details about your time with Levi. All of them!”

  Maybe it was the Flirtini or the sugar high from the cookies, but suddenly Willow didn’t mind sharing some of the details with her friends–not all of them. Some things were just between her and Levi. But she told them about their practice at holding hands and then kissing and then sharing a bed when they got to Gammy’s. By the time she got to the part of the story when Gammy had chosen to go home with Donald so the two of them could be alone, they were both sitting on the edge of their seats.

  “So, you guys really did it?” Donna cried. “Was it amazing? Incredible? Awkward?”

  Smiling, Willow finished her drink and said, “All the above. But then it got better. Way better. Off the charts better!”

  “Oh my God! This is
totally awesome!” Jen said, practically bouncing in her seat. “So…what happens now? Are you guys back to being just friends? Friends with benefits?”

  “I just assumed that we’d go back to the way things were before we left…”

  “Assumed? You what happens when you assume, Willow.”

  She frowned. “No. What?”

  Trying to hold back a laugh, Donna said, “You make an ass out of you and me!”

  “Lame, Donna. Completely lame. Where’d you hear that joke, fifty years ago? Maybe you should…” Jen never got another word out because Donna shoved one of the penis bananas in her mouth.

  All serious conversation stopped right then and there as the two of them made a mess of what was left of the bananas. Reaching out, she grabbed the cookie container and moved it out of the way. There was no way she wanted to see those go to waste. She felt a little gipped at having her story interrupted, but for now, she was okay with it. She’d tell them about where she and Levi were at when the time was right and everyone had calmed down. But for now, it was perfect just relaxing and laughing with her besties.

  An hour passed by and they were all beyond tipsy when the conversation finally came back to the topic of where she and Levi left things.

  “Well…” she said with a hiccup while giggling. “We are no longer faking it.”

  Which caused even more hilarity.

  “Oh, no! Did you have to fake it in bed with him?” Jen cried, practically falling off the chair as she laughed. “Faking it is the worst!”

  “Fake it till you make it,” Donna hummed, smirking.

  “Wait, fake what till you make what?” Willow asked.

  Groaning, Jen slapped Willow’s leg. “Why must you always question these things? Don’t you think we know what we’re talking about?” She took a long drink of her Flirtini before slamming the glass down on the coffee table. “Because we do!”

  “Do we?” Donna asked.

  “Do we what?”

  “Know what we’re talking about?”

  Willow shook her head and knew she had to put a stop to this. Jumping to her feet, she whistled loudly to get their attention. “Okay, to be clear here, Levi and I are officially dating! Boyfriend and girlfriend. For real! No fake dating! No faking anything! The sex is great, he’s amazing, and I’m incredibly happy! Can we please move on? Sheesh!”