The List (The List #1)

by Tawna Fenske

  I pull the computer closer and open a browser window. “Okay, then. Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to determine whether there is, in fact, a sex position called the Post Hole Digger.”

  Cassie giggles. “And if there’s not, to make up our own.”

  “It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it.”

  Cassie polishes off her last bite of pizza and wipes her hands on a napkin. She turns the laptop toward her and places her fingers on the keyboard. I can see her sisters must’ve talked her into a manicure today, and I feel a twinge of sadness. It looks nice and all, but I’ve grown fond of Cassie’s natural fingernails. No sharp claws or red lacquer. Just Cassie, perfect the way she is.

  “Thanks again for fixing this,” she says as Google flickers to life on the screen. “It’s run much faster since you worked your magic.”

  “My pleasure,” I say. “I only regret your loss of the letter X.”

  “Didn’t I tell you? It suddenly started working the other day. It was the craziest thing.”

  Maybe not that crazy. Wanting to help her out—but knowing her frugality would never allow her to buy a new computer—I rebuilt the machine a few days ago when Cassie went shopping for bridesmaid dresses with her sisters.

  If I can’t shower her with expensive gifts, I can at least do that.

  I say none of this as I watch Cassie type the words, “Post hole digger sex position” into the Google images search bar. The screen flickers and row upon row of flesh-filled photos appears.

  “Yikes.” She stares at the screen for a second, then hits the back button. “I can’t unsee that.”

  I nod and pick up another slice of pizza. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for what that man was doing to the tractor.”

  “Gross,” she says. “I must’ve missed that one. I was too busy trying not to look at the one with all the mayonnaise.”

  “I don’t think that was mayonnaise.”

  Cassie makes a face and taps at the keyboard again. “Maybe I should switch to a text search.”

  “Good idea.”

  She toggles to the Google search bar, but the screen flickers a low-battery warning. Before she can say anything else, the screen fades to black.

  “Damn,” she mutters. “I meant to plug it in earlier, but I left the cord at my office.”

  “It’s okay, I have my iPad.” I reach for the ratty-looking backpack that’s held all my important gear since my college years. I always meant to trade it in for a fancy briefcase, but that hasn’t happened. Probably never will. My mom bought me this backpack my freshman year at Stanford, and I’m kind of attached to it.

  I pull the iPad out and set it on the coffee table while Cassie studies the backpack.

  “I was wondering what you had in there,” Cassie says.

  “You thought it might be an arsenal of sex toys?”

  “One could hope.”

  I grin and flip open the case on my iPad, then hit the power button. The screen flickers to life, and I click the Google app before handing it to Cassie. “Here. Knock yourself out. You mind if I grab something to drink?”

  “Please do. Sorry I didn’t offer.”

  “No worries,” I call as I stand up and head toward the kitchen. “You got the pizza.”

  “There’s a pinot noir open on the counter,” she calls. “There should be some beer in the fridge, or you can grab Coke if you feel like it.”

  “Can I get you something?” I call back.

  “A glass of the wine would be great. Thanks, Simon!”

  “No problem.”

  As I locate the glasses and pour a little wine in each one, it occurs to me how cozy we’ve become. In just a few short weeks we’ve gone from strangers to fuck buddies to—hell, we’re still just fuck buddies. But we’re fuck buddies who finish each other’s sentences. Fuck buddies who make each other laugh and make each other come our brains out on a regular basis.

  But still just fuck buddies.

  That’s all we can be, I know.

  But it doesn’t stop me from wishing for more. For loving the intimacy that’s formed between us and racking my brain to come up with some way to protect Junie’s heart and my own from the inevitable disappointment I know would result if I tried to turn this into something more.

  “Um, Simon?”

  “Yeah?” Something in her voice sounds funny, and I pick up the glasses with a spark of alarm flaring in my chest.

  “I think I hit a button on accident. I’m in a different window, and the screen is showing something else. Another window you had open or something.”

  I sprint into the living room so fast wine sloshes over the rim of one glass. Cassie looks up, startled. Then she glances down at the screen again. She isn’t smiling.

  “What is this?”

  My heart zaps frozen in my chest. God, what is it? My new interview with Forbes magazine? My profile on the Hot Swap website? In an instant, everything flashes before my eyes. She knows who I am. The money, the status, everything. All the things that have made every woman before her morph into a different person. I swallow hard, braced for it.

  She looks up again, and I can’t read her expression.

  “You like cheesy ‘80s flicks?” Her face breaks into a grin, and she swipes a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

  I swallow hard. “What?”

  I walk around the sofa as Cassie sets the iPad on the table and turns it around to reveal my movie library in all its embarrassing glory. There they are, with their familiar, campy screenshots and promotional images. Sixteen Candles. Say Anything. St. Elmo’s Fire.

  All my favorite films, laid out for Cassie to see.

  I set down the wineglasses and feel myself starting to grin. “Guilty as charged,” I admit as relief floods through my limbs.

  Cassie grins back and cocks her head to the side. “Well, aren’t you full of surprises?”

  I laugh, so happy to learn my cover isn’t blown that I start blurting out the whole story. “It started with Pretty in Pink when I was a teenager,” I confess. “A girlfriend made me watch it, and even though I’m sure I was supposed to roll my eyes and act all annoyed by it, I loved every minute of it. Still do.”

  “Pretty in Pink?” Her grin widens as she picks up her wineglass and takes a sip.

  “I love that era of film. Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall—the whole Brat Pack. By the time I saw The Breakfast Club, I was hooked.”

  She laughs as she picks up a second piece of pizza. “Would you believe I have most of that movie memorized?”

  “No way!”

  She nods and makes a big show of crossing her heart with a fingertip. “Yep. My sisters and I watched it over and over again one summer until we could quote all the lines. Ally Sheedy’s character was my favorite.”

  “The weird girl?”

  “Yeah. Were you more of a Judd Nelson or an Emilio Estevez? The jock or the delinquent?”

  “Neither,” I tell her truthfully. “I was Anthony Michael Hall all the way.”

  “The brain?”

  I nod and take my own healthy slug of wine. I watch Cassie’s gaze drift back to the iPad. I can tell she’s thinking of picking it up again and continuing our quest. It’s the reason we’re here, after all. To figure out the best ways to cross off all the items on The List, and to execute the plan with efficiency and a healthy dose of passion. To check things off one by one and then part company with our hearts unscathed.

  But part of me wants to draw this out. To put off items number one and nine and whatever the hell else is left. Are there really only two things?

  My heart is racing again, and I know it has nothing to do with the iPad scare a few minutes ago. I don’t want this to be over, but it has to end, and I hate that. I hate it.

  When she glances up again, I can tell she’s a little nervous. “So, did you have a lot of girlfriends in high school?”

  “Not really. More in college. Quite a few in my early twent
ies, but not as many these days.”

  “Can I ask you something personal?”

  My gut balls up again. I want to scream “hell, no,” but I know that’s not the right answer to give the woman I’m sleeping with. I unclench my jaw and manage a tight reply. “Sure.”

  She bites the corner of her lip. “Have you ever had a threesome?”

  On the big list of questions I didn’t want her to ask, this hardly ranks at all. Still, I hesitate. “You really want to know?”

  “Yes.” She picks up another slice of pizza and bites into it, then licks a crumb off the edge of her lip. That gorgeous mouth gets me every time, and I forget for a moment what we’re talking about.

  Threesomes. Right.

  “Two women at once,” I say. “Yes. I’ve done it. Once.”

  I wait to see how she reacts to that. Some women ask questions like this, but don’t really want the answer. I sense Cassie might be different. I hope Cassie is different. She certainly is in most ways that matter.

  “I don’t know why, but that kind of turns me on.” She grins at me. “I like picturing you with other women. Is that weird?”

  “Nope. I think it’s actually called troilism.”

  She blinks. “There’s a word for it?”

  “Yep.” I grab another piece of pizza, deliberately grazing Cassie’s fingers as I do. I can’t seem to stop touching her, even when it really shouldn’t be a turn-on. “When a guy gets off imagining his partner with someone else, it’s called cuckold fantasy,” I tell her. “When a woman does it, it’s sometimes called cuckqueaning, but I think troilism is the more common term.”

  “Jeez,” Cassie says. “What are you, some kind of sex dictionary?”

  I laugh. “You had no idea what you were getting when you chose me as your frivolous sex toy.”

  She grins, and I wonder if she remembers calling me that back at Olive or Twist. It seems like years ago. “You’ve been a most excellent frivolous sex toy.” She smiles and leans back against the sofa, her knee bumping mine softly. “Okay, so tell me about your threesome.”

  I can tell this is turning her on, and I’m fascinated. I might have read about troilism fantasies in Playboy, but I’ve never dated a girl who had them.

  You’re not dating, I remind myself. It’s only sex. That’s what you both wanted.

  I finish chewing a bite of pizza and pick up my wineglass. “Well, I’d been dating this girl pretty casually for a couple months,” I tell her. “I guess I thought of her as my girlfriend, but she wasn’t that serious about me. She made it clear she was seeing other people, one of whom happened to be a woman.”

  “How very enlightened of her,” Cassie says. “Did that bother you?”

  “The fact that she was bi?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hell, no.” I clear my throat, wondering if I’m supposed to be playing it cool. Then again, Cassie’s seen my nuts shrink up in a snowy forest. We’re beyond the pretense of cool. “I guess a lot of guys get turned on thinking about two women together.”

  “That’s why you got so hot and bothered at Casa Diablo the other night?”

  I laugh. “One of many reasons.”

  I wait to see if she’s going to ask about the other reasons, but she doesn’t, so I continue my story. “Anyway, I got invited to a party one night, and it turned out to be at the home of the other woman. The one my not-girlfriend was dating.”

  “I’m already getting lost.”

  I grin. “Want me to make you some cue cards?”

  “I think I’m good.” Cassie picks up her wineglass and takes a small sip.

  “So anyway, it got later and later at the party,” I continue. “Before I knew it, it was only the three of us alone together. My not-girlfriend and her sorta-girlfriend in the sorta-girlfriend’s apartment.”

  “You think they planned it?”

  “Maybe. Probably. I guess I never considered that.”

  “Women can be sneaky.”

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to point out that Cassie doesn’t strike me that way at all. But I decide to continue with my story.

  “So, the three of you are alone together…” Cassie prompts, and my dick twitches as I realize how eager she is to hear this story.

  “Right,” I say. “I don’t remember who started the touching, but one thing led to another. Clothes started coming off on the way to the bedroom. Bras and shoes and shirts tossed all the way up the stairs. I let the women take the lead. I guess I didn’t want anyone to feel left out or jealous or anything.”

  “And did they? Get jealous, I mean?”

  I take a sip of my wine, considering. “A little. There’s no rule book, you know? Everyone has different expectations about who’s going to touch whom, or how far it’s all going to go.”

  “How do you mean?”

  I shrug. “I wasn’t sure my not-girlfriend wanted me to actually have sex with the other woman. I thought that might be crossing some unspoken line or something. But it turns out that’s exactly what she wanted, and she got annoyed I didn’t go right for it.”

  Cassie laughs, clearly enjoying the story for more than just the turn-on factor. “You mean you didn’t have a conversation about it?”

  “Not really. I guess in hindsight, I suppose a little communication might have been useful.”

  “That does seem to be key.”

  “True,” I say, wondering if it could be that simple. What if I just told Cassie everything? About the money, the job, my family…

  But no. I’ve done that before. And then I’ve watched Junie’s face crumple when I have to explain to her that we won’t be having lunch with Kaitlyn anymore. Or Paula. Or—

  “Anyway,” I continue, “I guess it all worked out. Everyone got off, anyway. I made sure of that.”

  “Oh, come on!” Cassie smacks my arm, making my wine slosh dangerously close to the rim. “I need more detail than that!”

  “What? Like positions or something?”

  “Yes, please.” She grins and sips her wine again.

  “Uh, well—I was on my back for a while with my not-girlfriend riding me. Then they switched spots and the other woman climbed on. You’re sure you want to hear this?”

  “Definitely.” Her cheeks are flushed, and she squirms the way I’ve seen her do when she’s really turned on.

  “In a way, I was sort of like a carnival ride or something,” I say. “They experimented with touching and licking and stroking each other while they took turns riding me. Not that I had any complaints about it.”

  It occurs to me I’m making this sound pretty passive. Cassie wanted a sex fantasy, and I’m basically confessing that my one shot at a threesome was sort of ho-hum. Not that it didn’t check a major box on my own sexual bucket list, but it left something to be desired. Intimacy, for one. Connection.

  It occurs to me that I’m sharing more with her now than I have in all the weeks we’ve spent time together. True, it’s a years-old sex story. But I’m opening up. Doesn’t that count for something?

  But then I remember what it felt like the morning after that threesome. Jade—that was my not-girlfriend—was primed for the role of a jet-setting millionaire’s girlfriend. The parties, the jewelry, the crazy sex that seemed more like a ploy to keep me hooked rather than something to build intimacy.

  It was par for the course, as far as my relationships go.

  This thing with Cassie started out sexual, too. And I’m pretty sure I’m an idiot for even thinking it could be more.

  “So, that’s pretty much it.” I take another sip of wine. I don’t know why, but I feel hollow and raw.

  “I’m impressed,” Cassie says. “This was your chance to tell me some porn-star tale about how you nailed two chicks at once with your massive meat wand and left them both begging for more.”

  I laugh and finish the last of my wine. “Sorry to disappoint you. If it helps, I could make up a story about the time I made a whole roomful of women come using only mental telepathy.
”

  “I’ll pass,” she says. “I was wondering, though. Do you think when we cross the last item off the list, there’s a chance we could still—”

  The buzzing of my iPad halts Cassie’s question right there. I glance down, and instantly regret not disabling the feature that displays incoming calls to my iPhone.

  Junie Traxel.

  I snatch the iPad off the table and hit “decline,” angling the screen away from Cassie and I hope like hell she didn’t see the name. That she won’t ask questions or—

  “Do you need to get that?”

  I swallow hard, doing my best not to look guilty. “Nope. I’m with you. I don’t take calls from other people when I’m with you.”

  She studies me a moment, and I can’t tell from her expression what she saw. She picks up her wine and takes a casual sip, her expression giving nothing away.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  I swallow hard. “Sure.”

  She seems to hesitate, looking down into her glass. When she meets my eyes, she looks serious. “Do you promise—cross your heart and hope to die promise—you’re not married?”

  I don’t know why, but the question fills me with relief. This is one question at least that I can answer honestly. “I cross my heart and hope to die, I am not, and have never been married. Never,” I add for extra emphasis, just in case she doesn’t believe me.

  “I believe you,” she says.

  “Good.”

  Again, I consider telling her. About my sister. About our parents. About all the women who’ve cut and run when they realized I wasn’t the jet-setting millionaire they thought I’d be.

  But I can’t do that. I can’t risk everything now. All I can do is see this thing with Cassie through to the end, exactly like we planned it.

  “Come on,” I say. “Let’s Google some sex positions.”

  “Okay,” she says and picks up the iPad again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cassie

  “Here, try the ’09 Golden Oaks pinot blanc. It’s divine.”

  I look up to see Missy handing a glass of wine to Lisa, who’s balancing a blue plate topped with something I couldn’t possibly pronounce. I think there’s shrimp involved.

  We’re at a fancy seafood-and-wine thing on the Oregon coast, which is actually more low-key than it sounds. I like seafood. I like wine.