Modern Girl's Guide to One-Night Stands (28 page)

“This looks great.” Peter piled food on his plate, ignoring the tension between the siblings. He elbowed Megan and leaned over. “Remember that time we spent summer break in South Carolina, and Matt came back to the beach house with that cooler of pork he’d bought from the back of a truck?”

Megan smiled. “I can’t believe you guys thought it was a good idea to eat that.” She pointed at Simon and laughed. “Simon was so sick someone had to walk him to his class the following Monday. We were afraid he’d pass out and die in the bushes.”

“If you were that sick, why didn’t you stay home?” Julia asked.

“If I had a choice, I would have. I was taking Applied Regression Analysis over the summer. I was able to take most of the class online, but I still had to go in for the test. And I swear it wasn’t the pork. I was the only one who got sick, so it had to be that drink you made." Simon turned to Julia to explain. “She made this awful drink that had raw eggs in it.”

“A prairie oyster is a known hangover cure. You were bitching all day about how much your head hurt and snapping at everyone, so I had to try something. Besides, I told you to drink it at your own risk.”

“No, I believe you said stop being a pussy and drink it. Then you proceeded to complain about Peter for the next twenty minutes. I only did it to shut you up.”

“Whatever. Peter was being an ass. The first day we were there he wrapped me in a beach blanket and carried me back to the house. He didn’t approve”—she used air quotes——“of the bikini I’d bought.”

“I wasn’t being an ass. I was trying to keep yours covered. The frat boys in the house next to ours kept snapping photos of you with their phones. I didn’t want you to end up on some kiddy porn website.”

“I was nineteen! If I wanted to display my
ass
ets, I was well within my rights. It’s not as if you guys weren’t going all shirtless every time the girls came out to sunbathe.” Peter tried to argue the point, but Megan held up a hand in front of his face. “Don’t start. Manwhore doesn't begin to cover it with you guys. Did you even bother with names that summer or did you just give them numbers? I’d be surprised if there was a woman left on the island who one of you didn’t sleep with. You guys forget, I had to share that house too, and those walls were thin.”

Julia was a little uneasy about the current topic. It wasn’t anything that Megan hadn’t told her before. But now, hearing about Simon’s past conquests made her queasy. She put down her fork and started to gather the dishes. Not wanting to bring down the mood, tried to sneak out while Megan was distracted. And it almost worked. She’d made it all the way to the kitchen when Megan caught up with her.

“Sweetie, you know that was a long time ago, right? They were stupid boys,” Megan said, frowning. “From what Peter tells me, or more like whines to me, Simon's taken a vow of celibacy since they acquired their new office. That was back in January.”

“It’s fine.” God, there was that word again. Julia was going to have to come up with a different word. “I never thought Simon was a saint. It doesn’t matter. Go back and finish eating. I’m just going to clean the kitchen.”

“Like hell you are. Come back,” she said. “I’m sorry if my teasing made you uncomfortable. I promise to stop. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that you’re with my brother. I’m happy for you. Cross my heart."

“I’m not with him. Not really.” Julia set her plate down and sagged against the counter. All the tension from the night spilled out in a messy verbal train wreck. "This is all so complicated. Nothing was supposed to happen between us again, but after the Luke thing at the party…” Julia waved off the excuse. The reasons didn’t matter. "And then to find out he’s your brother. Megan, you’re my best friend. I never want you to think I’m using you. Besides, he’s leaving for New York. Not that that’s even a bad thing. I don’t need a relationship right now. This is the first time I've ever lived alone. I’m just starting to discover myself again. What am I supposed to do?”

Megan slid up beside her and bumped her hip. “You’re supposed to come back to the table”—she tapped Julia’s forehead—“and don’t let that brain of yours get too far ahead of the situation. Of course I know you’re not here because of my brother. I was the one who wanted to set you two up, remember? And as for the other stuff? That’s life, Julia. It’s messy and unpredictable. If you have a chance at something, take it. Because you never know what tomorrow will bring.”

Julia sighed and rested her head on Megan’s shoulder. “When did you get so wise?”

“Sweetie, I’ve always been the wise one. You just never listen.”

They went back to the silent dining room. Simon stood up and she waved him off. “I brought back pie,” Julia said with a weak smile.

“Oh, my God. It’s apple,” Peter said, taking it out of her hands. “I think I’m in love.”

“Hey, Julia might be able to cook, but I have the wine. Where’s my love?” Megan pouted.

“You know you’re my number one girl,” Peter said, kissing her on the cheek.

“I better be. So, I was thinking maybe we could do a trip to Reno over Thanksgiving break. I mean, now that Matt’s gone all family man on us, I don’t expect he'll make it, so it would be even, now that Julia’s in the fold. Finally I won’t be drowning in testosterone.”

“I don’t think I can,” Julia blurted.

“That sounds great,” Simon agreed.

Julia and Simon spoke at the same time. Julia glanced over at Simon, who looked away. What did he expect? They hadn’t even figured out if this was going to work. It was too early to start thinking about making plans to vacation together. But Megan would have probably invited her even if there wasn’t something going on with her brother. God, the whole situation was confusing.

Megan pressed the issue. “I know you have your mom, but you can slip away for a long weekend.”

“Maybe,” Julia hedged. “Thanksgiving is a long way off. We’ll see how things go.”

Megan shrugged and tossed her napkin on the table. “Looks like everyone’s done. Why don’t we take the pie into the living room and play Scrabble?"

“Not Scrabble,” Peter groaned. “It’s never a fair game. You have an MFA in English. I barely passed business writing.”

“Come on. We can play on teams.”

“As long as I’m on your team,” Peter said.

“Sorry, you’re on your own. I think we should have a battle of the sexes.”

“I’m in,” Julia said. A game sounded like a great idea to Julia. She knew once they got started, Megan would focus all her attention on winning and completely forget to needle Simon.

“I don’t really want to play,” Simon said.

“Please,” Julia looked over at Simon, giving him her best puppy dog eyes.

“Fine,” he sighed, obviously not thrilled by the prospect of playing Scrabble. “If that’s what you want to do.”

They cleared the dishes and set up the board in the living room. Peter opened another bottle of wine. Everything seemed normal. There was no more awkward tension in the air, and Julia started to relax. After the rocky start, spending time with Megan and Simon wasn’t as bad as she imagined it to be.

“Are each of us going to play our own hand and combine scores or do we work off the same letters?” Simon asked.

“Let’s use the same letters. That way it’s more of a team effort,” Megan said. She tapped her finger on the board before passing the bag of tiles. “But you know Peter is right. I do have an unfair advantage. So I’ve got an idea. Let’s play Dirty Scrabble.”

“What do you mean, Dirty Scrabble?” Julia asked.

”All the words you place have to be dirty,” Peter explained. “If a word isn’t inherently dirty, then you have to explain why it’s dirty.”

Julia sagged against the sofa. She should have guessed something was up the minute Megan suggested the game. “Why can’t we just play normal Scrabble?”

“Come on, Julia. We used to play it all the time in college. It will be fun, I promise,” Megan begged. She leaned in and whispered, just for Julia to hear. “It's not like you’re a prude. I’ve heard you swear. You’ve got quite the colorful vocabulary. And besides, you know what I write. I know all the best dirty words.”

“Fine. But you have to promise to be on your best behavior.”

“Swear.”

Julia probably should have checked for crossed fingers, because it just took a few words for things to go downhill. The game started out as expected with the usual words like
penis
,
tits
, and
fuck
. But after a few glasses of wine, everyone was more relaxed and the words got dirtier.

“
Fingered
.” Peter placed the tiles. “That’s on a double word score, so we’re ahead.”

“
Queef
.” Megan put down the tiles. “So much for your lead.”

“Classy,” Simon said. He rearranged a few letters on his rack. “Finally, a word I can get behind.
Climax
.”

He knew a thing or two about that word, that was for sure. Julia suppressed a smile and played her tiles.

The game play went on for a few more rounds before things went downhill again. An evil grin spread across Megan’s face and she looked right at Peter when she placed the letters on the board. “
Spank
."

“That’s not sexy,” Peter said.

“The way I do it, it is,” Megan said. “I’d be happy to demonstrate."

“Wow. I so didn’t need that image in my head,” Simon said and put his hands over his ears.

Peter ignored her teasing and stared at the board for a long time. Julia thought he might pass, but he finally placed
suck
off the K in
spank
.

It was their turn again, and Julia looked at the rack. They had crap for letters: two G’s, two I’s, an F, an N and a Z. She could use a T in
tits
and spell out
gift
. It wasn’t very sexy, but she could argue that it was a euphemism for sex.
Fit
?
Giz
? Was that even a real word?

Megan rearranged the letters and pointed to the word she’d spelled out. “Use the G in
vagina
for the last letter.”

“And spell what?” Julia whispered. “I’ve never heard of that word before.”

“Trust me. This word is going to win us the game.”

With a shrug, Julia placed the word. “
Figging
.”

“I challenge that,” Peter said. “Even if that is a legit word, it’s not a sexy word. And don’t pull that crap about feeding each other food. If I couldn’t use
bath
as a sexy word—which I still argue can be used to describe any number of sexual acts—you can’t use
fig
as one.”

“It’s not
fig
,” Megan said, leaning over the board to get closer to Peter. "It’s
figging
. Do you want me to define that for you?”

“Let me guess. It’s stuffing something with figs. Gross, but not sexual.”

“Just let her have the word,” Simon said. “She’s got that look. I don’t think I want to know.”

Megan grabbed Peter’s shirt and pulled him close so she could whisper in his ear. Whatever she said had an instant effect. Peter turned beet red and pulled away.

“Holy shit. How do you know that word?”

“I have a very extensive vocabulary,” she said in a low, husky voice. “You’d be surprised by the things I know. I have even—”

Peter stood up and backed away from the table with his hands up. “Nope. I don’t want to know. Never repeat that word again. I’m going to go bleach my brain."

Megan leaned over and said to Julia, “See, I told you that word would win us the game. I learned years ago that all I have to do is play a really perverted word and one of the guys would quit. It’s usually Peter. He still treats me like I'm a little girl.”

“What does figging mean?” Julia asked, wishing immediately that she could take back the words. By Peter’s reaction, she was pretty sure she didn't want to know.

“It’s when you use a peeled ginger root as a butt plug,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “It can be used as punishment or pleasure, depending on how you swing.”

“Okay. I’m going to pretend like I didn’t hear that. I need some fresh air now.” Simon stood up and stretched. “Julia, want to join me for a walk?”

Chapter Eighteen