Chapter 4

We stopped by the grocery store and picked up ingredients for chicken quesadillas, rice, refried beans, and a salad. The beans would be easy—remove from the can and heat. I was mildly surprised that Lori picked out a fresh chicken breast instead of getting canned chicken. That’s what my mom would’ve done.

Then after we had the food, she led me down one of the pharmacy aisles. My gut tightened when we stopped in front of the condoms. I reminded myself that I’d bought condoms plenty of times in the past. There was nothing to be nervous about if I was buying them with the woman I would be using them with.

“There!” Lori grabbed a box of a dozen Trojan Magnums.

“Magnums?” I asked.

She grinned. “You’re wide, remember?”

My face heated with how blasé she was. I looked around, but no one could’ve heard.

Then we checked out. Lori paid and the clerk didn’t blink an eye when he rang up the condoms.

We returned to her apartment to find that Liz and Terri were out. There wasn’t any note, but Lori didn’t seem to mind. We put everything away, washed our hands, and started cooking. She started me cutting up a cucumber and pepper for the salad. I chopped away while she cooked the chicken. Then I caught her watching me in amusement.

“That’s not how you hold the knife,” she said.

“Oh?” I set it down

“Mmm hmm. It’ll be easier this way.” She picked up the knife and showed me. “You also want them all the same size. It makes the salad better.”

“Okay...”

She set the knife down and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t worry. I’m not dating you for your skills in the kitchen.”

I blushed and she chuckled.

“Though...” She made a show of looking around the efficiency kitchen. “Mmm ... not here.”

I laughed. “Good, because I don’t even know how we’d do it.”

“Bend me over the counter. Take me from behind.”

My eyebrows reached for the roof. She giggled and put her hand to her mouth. She was clearly teasing, so I just shook my head. I stepped forward to claim a kiss just as her cat rushed between my legs and nearly tripped me.

“Bootsy!” Lori cried.

Bootsy continued to rub up against my legs. I stepped back but he kept doing it. I stared down at him in exasperation.

“Boots!” Lori bent and scooped the cat up. “Are you being naughty, Bootsy?”

She brought the cat up close to her face and ... nuzzled it? I couldn’t really describe it.

“He knows you don’t have a cat,” Lori said with a smile.

“Well ... that’s Dad’s fault.”

She nodded and petted the cat a bit more. Then she smiled at me. “Let me feed him.”

“Sure.”

I watched as she stopped cooking long enough to check the cat’s water bowl. She talked about what he’d been like as a kitten and the cats they owned before.

“So you really love them.”

“I do,” she said. “It started with our visits to the farm.”

“Oh?”

We continued cooking while she told me about her childhood visits to the farm where her parents met. She never used the word “commune,” but it was pretty clear that’s what it was. I listened and asked a few questions to draw her out. She smiled a lot, which I loved.

We finished cooking and continued the conversation at the table. There, we kept pausing to eat—the quesadilla was really good! I wasn’t quite sure how she’d gotten the homemade salsa to have so much flavor, but I loved it!

Eventually, the conversation turned to my childhood. It was pretty boring, really, but that didn’t stop Lori from asking her own questions. She grew especially curious when I started talking about when my mom “found Jesus.”

“We were always churchgoers,” I said, “but ... she started taking it to another level. Dad went along a lot rather than argue.”

“I can see that,” Lori said.

“It wasn’t too awful,” I continued. “At least for me.”

“Ah.” She nodded knowingly. “But for your sister...”

“Yeah. It’s been ... rough on Michelle. Especially dating.”

“I’ll bet.”

I grimaced as I thought of my visit home for Homecoming. They’d wanted me to make sure my sister didn’t have sex with her boyfriend while they were gone. Well, needless to say, I’d “failed” at that. “Failed” by not even trying.

And then Michelle had come out of the bathroom naked...

“I feel sorry for her,” Lori said.

I shook off the memory of my sister’s naked body. “Yeah. I do, too.”

“Do you do anything for her?”

I shrugged. “I try. It’s harder now that I’m here.”

“Yeah...” She smiled and sighed. “Distance sucks.”

I snorted. “No kidding.” I was not looking forward to figuring out how to make this relationship work with Lori when we lived an hour apart.

“But it’s manageable,” she said.

“Yeah,” I agreed, “you just have to cram everything in when you’re together.”

“Well, I’m not sure I’d say cramming.” She playfully leered at me.

I laughed. “Filling up the time together? Is that better?”

She chuckled. “How about filling me up?”

I glanced at our plates. We were basically done eating and my blood was stirring.

“So...,” I said, “time for dessert?”

“You read my mind!”

We quickly cleared the table and put away the food. We didn’t have many leftovers, and Lori had done some cleaning as we cooked, so after a minute or so, everything was done except for the small pile of dishes next to the sink.