Misadventures with a Sexpert Read online

  “And you’re old,” Liv joked. “I need some nieces and nephews running around my new apartment, and soon your eggs are gonna expire.”

  “It’s been lovely talking to you, sis. Gotta go, though.”

  “Wait!” Liv said. “I’m kidding. Well, sort of. I do want you to find someone soon. You deserve to find a guy who’ll tell you how beautiful you are and cook you dinner after you’ve worked all day. Someone who’ll make love to you with a passion that—”

  “I’m hanging up now,” I said, making Liv laugh, which thankfully caused her to stop talking about my imaginary sex life. Not like there was a real one to speak of.

  “Love you, Lala.” Lala was what Liv used to call me when she was learning to talk, and she still employed it from time to time when she was trying to prevent me from killing her.

  “Love you too,” I said before ending the call and tossing my phone in my bag. I waited another minute before standing to throw my trash away.

  “Sorry. I know it’s none of my business, but you definitely made the right call getting rid of the psycho.”

  I turned toward the direction of the voice, which belonged to a man who’d been sitting a few tables away. I’d noticed him on his laptop when I was waiting for Luca to arrive but hadn’t paid him much attention until now. Though maybe I should have.

  Even though he was seated, I could tell he was tall—long arms, broad shoulders, a swimmer’s build with sandy-brown hair and eyes so green, they rivaled freshly cut grass on a spring afternoon.

  “Oh, yeah, that guy was out there for sure. Who in their right mind thinks they can get someone to agree to date them when they already have a girlfriend?”

  He raised his eyebrows in amusement. “It’s ballsy, no doubt about that. But I was actually talking about the future Norman Bates.”

  I laughed. “Oh right, that psycho.”

  “And I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop on your phone conversation. I sometimes pick up what happens in the background without meaning to. I’ve never been much of a music guy while I work. I start singing along, and before I know it, I’ve either accomplished nothing at all or worked every line of the latest Taylor Swift song into my doodling.”

  “Didn’t peg you for a Swiftie,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I’m a sucker for anything with a catchy beat.” He gave me a little wave. “I’m Grayson, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you, Grayson. I’m Isla.”

  “Would you care to join me? I was just about to shut it down for the night.” He pointed at his laptop.

  “I should really get home. It’s been a long day, but I’m sure I’ll see you here again sometime.”

  My eyes went to his drawing as he sat back down, and I stifled a laugh. He’d sketched quite a caricature of Luca—wide eyes that were just as crazed as his hair, a goofy, childlike grin that made him look more dumb than it did innocent.

  “I feel like his chin should be bigger,” I offered before flashing him a smile that I hoped let him know I found the illustration amusing. Then I turned to leave.

  It took him a few seconds to respond, and it made me wonder if he was insulted or stunned. But as I reached the door, he called, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Chapter Five

  GRAYSON

  Casting a surreptitious glance to my left, I tried to figure out where my drawing had gone wrong. I’d managed to capture the anchor tattoo on his neck as well as the jagged scar that sliced through one cheek and disappeared into his brown coiffed hair, but the drawing of Isla’s date still wasn’t doing the man justice.

  It looked more like a caricature than a realistic rendering, though that was the fault of the man’s overall aesthetic, not my drawing capabilities.

  For her part, Isla was trying to look interested. I had to give the woman credit—when she committed, she went all in, despite the fact that her date likely should be committed. I erased the nose and tried to draw it a tad thicker as my ears strained to overhear their conversation. It was noisy in the Bean today, and I didn’t appreciate it. Couldn’t these people see I was trying to listen in on a date I had nothing to do with?

  “And I’m really into swinging,” the Fonzie-Popeye hybrid said.

  Isla straightened and looked at him curiously. “Like at playgrounds?”

  The laugh nearly burst out of me, but I managed to rein it in. Fonz-Popeye’s—Fonzeye’s?—lip curled. He evidently didn’t find her comment funny.

  “No,” he nearly growled. “Like swinger parties.” When Isla still looked confused, he sighed heavily. “Jesus. I like to fuck other people’s girlfriends. Or wives. Whatever. And they can fuck mine if I have one.”

  Isla said something under her breath that I couldn’t catch, but she looked a little thrown by the blunt honesty coming from across her table. “That’s…very open-minded of you,” I heard her finally say.

  I couldn’t bite back my smirk.

  I had noticed that about Isla. She always tried to find the positive in the situation. Or at least phrase her thoughts positively. She was never rude or openly judgmental. Considering the kinds of people I currently worked with, that kind of attitude was a novelty. And I couldn’t deny I was drawn to it.

  Fonzeye shrugged his brown-leather-jacket-clad shoulders—even though it was in the high seventies outside. “I just like to get my rocks off. And I’m not really a one-woman kind of guy.”

  “Wow. Okay. That’s great…for you…but I’m actually in the market for a one-woman guy, so I don’t think this is going to work out.”

  “I kind of figured that when I saw you had a crucifix around your neck.”

  “A…what?” She looked down and grasped the pendant around her neck. “Oh, no, this is actually just a silver four-leaf clover.”

  “Crucifix, clover”—he shrugged again—“whatever.”

  Fonzeye’s verbal acumen was staggering, as was his acute attention to detail.

  Isla nodded slowly as if she were trying to figure out what the hell to do with this odd creature sitting in front of her. “So, I think I’m just going to…go.”

  I raised my head at her words. She never left first, and I couldn’t ignore that I was disappointed. Goddamn Fonzeye and his creepy swinger bullshit.

  She stood.

  He followed suit. “Yeah, I’m going to hit the head and then go downtown to the club I frequent. You have to be a member to get in.”

  “Hmm, fascinating,” she said as she moved past him, trying like hell to avoid touching this person in any way. “Have fun.”

  “Always do.”

  And with that, Isla hightailed it out the front door as Fonzeye walked toward the back where the restrooms were.

  I looked over my picture and realized what was missing. I erased his eyes and drew a large one, Cyclops-style, in their place. Above the picture I wrote, I am Fonzeye, the Swinging Crucifix Slayer.

  I closed my book and began shutting down my laptop. I no longer had any desire or reason to stay. I noticed Fonzeye walk to the front of the shop and out the main door, and then I started packing up my messenger bag.

  I jolted upright when someone plopped down into the seat across from me.

  “You scared the hell out of me,” I said—or maybe more like gasped—to Isla. “I thought you left.”

  “That’s what I wanted Vlad to think.”

  “Stop. That wasn’t his name.”

  “Okay, it wasn’t. But I think it suits him better than Brian. So”—she made a grabbing motion with her hand—“let me see it.”

  “See what?” I asked.

  “The picture. I saw you doodling over here. I know you drew us, and I have to see it.”

  Shit. Even though she hadn’t been angry when she’d seen my drawing the last time, I still didn’t want her thinking I was some stalker with a pencil. But when her date had arrived, my fingers had been itching to pick up my pencil, and I hadn’t been able to resist the urge.

  “How do you know I was drawing you?” I hedged.
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  “I guess I don’t for sure, though I saw you scribbling away over here. I’m going to be super disappointed if you didn’t commit that moment to paper.”

  I hesitated a moment before saying, “Well, I wouldn’t want you to be disappointed.”

  When I reached into my bag, she did a little dance in her chair. It shouldn’t have been as cute as it was. Opening the book, I set it down in front of her and braced myself.

  Even though a lot of my focus had been on her date, I’d drawn her as well. But she’d been easier to capture. The way her hair cascaded down her back. Her aquiline features seemingly made to be drawn in profile. My pencil practically danced over the page.

  Fonzeye had been drawn with harder edges and darker matter and had required more strokes on the page. And I couldn’t resist adding his name.

  “Oh my God, Fonzeye is such a better name than Vlad, even though I have no clue what it means. And you made him a cyclops. Genius.”

  My relief was palpable. It would’ve been easy for her to write me off as some creep and get me blacklisted from the Bean, but she was taking it in stride, finding the entertainment value I had intended. Which was how I found myself explaining the moniker I’d given her date, which made her laugh.

  “I don’t look half bad,” she remarked as she handed the book back to me. “I’d rate your skills a nine out of ten.”

  “What? Where’d I lose a point?” The ridiculousness of my asking her to justify a score for a picture I drew of her without her permission wasn’t lost on me. But whatever…pride was pride.

  “You missed the nose piercing.”

  “Nose piercing?” I tried to recall Fonzeye’s face in my mind. “Wait, you mean that pimple was a piercing?”

  “Yup. A cute little stud in his nose. It complemented his neck tats perfectly.”

  A laugh burst out of me, and she joined in with a chuckle of her own. Relaxing back into my chair, I let myself revel in how much I enjoyed her sense of humor. It astounded me how difficult it seemed to be for her to find a suitable date. If I’d had any desire to go out with anyone, Isla would be at the top of my list.

  “What are you doing with these pictures anyway? Selling them to the New York Times?”

  I laughed. “I don’t think the New York Times is coming to me for cartoon submissions.”

  I left out the fact that there had been a time when they might have come to me for photographs I’d taken, but that was another life—one I wasn’t interested in bringing into my new one. But I couldn’t ignore that she’d opened a door, and I’d be dumb not to walk through it.

  “Would that bother you, though?” I asked.

  “What? Having my disastrous dating life ridiculed in a famous newspaper?” She was smiling, but her words made my chest ache a little anyway.

  “You are definitely not the one who’s a disaster.”

  She shrugged. “Eh, that’s debatable. Maybe I’m just less obvious about it than the guys I’ve been meeting.”

  “Well, from my perspective, you’re not the one who deserves any ridicule. But I can’t deny that these would make for a pretty funny cartoon.”

  Scrunching up her face, she looked across the table at my open book. “Maybe. Still. I’m fine with you drawing them because I get a kick out of them. But as far as other people seeing them—I think I’d prefer to keep my dignity intact.”

  Well, there was that. I tried to find solace in the fact that she was okay with me still drawing her dates. Creating them took me back to how drawing used to be for me—before the need to prove myself. Before chasing success took over my every waking moment.

  Hopefully I’d find inspiration soon. I needed to come up with something I could use on my paper’s social media accounts. Or maybe my creativity would shrivel up and die, my soul would become a deserted wasteland, and life would cease to be worth living. Either was equally plausible.

  She heaved a deep sigh before standing up. “I’d better go. I have an early morning meeting tomorrow.”

  I nodded. “I should probably head out soon too,” I said, though I made no move to do so.

  Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she looked down at me. “See you next week?”

  “Definitely. And I promise not to miss any piercings.”

  She smiled. “You better not.”

  I watched her go, wishing for the first time since my life imploded that I wasn’t better off alone.

  Chapter Six

  ISLA

  I tried to appear engaged, but I was failing miserably. I stared absently at a painting surrounded by red velvet ropes, but other than the fact that it was in a museum, I would have no way of knowing the piece of art was anything special. I could’ve created it in kindergarten if I’d been a more creative child.

  The small canvas was only about two feet square and was some sort of abstract work that consisted of three shades of blue. I glanced to my right at Olivia, who was jotting some notes down in a book.

  “I have a question. How can you tell what’s a real work of art and what was done by a toddler?”

  She stopped writing and raised an eyebrow at me. “Huh?”

  I knew the comment made me sound judgmental and unappreciative of fine art, but it was purely asked out of ignorance.

  “I mean…I get that these people are all famous, but if I saw this hanging on Kaitlynn’s fridge, I would’ve thought Gracie made it.”

  Liv still seemed confused. “Well, yeah, she wouldn’t have hung a famous painting on her fridge, so I’d think her first grader did it too if I saw it there.”

  “You know what I mean, don’t you?”

  Liv stuck her notebook in her purse and put her pen in her ponytail before laughing.

  “I totally do. Who am I kidding? This class ends in three weeks, and I have no idea what makes good art.”

  “I didn’t even know you were interested in art,” I whispered as we walked around the corner.

  She shrugged, and her wide-neck green shirt slid off one shoulder, revealing the top of the tattoo I tried to stop her from getting when she graduated high school—though I really had no idea why. It was a quote from a Shel Silverstein poem our mom used to read to us as a kid, so I knew she’d never regret it.

  “I’m not interested in art,” she said. “But I can draw well enough, and I figured it’d be an easy class at the end of the year. Also”—she looked over at me—“I kind of thought I might get to look at some male models.”

  “And the truth is finally revealed,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”

  She pouted. “No. Ridiculous is me studying art, not creating it. I only got to see two penises the entire semester.”

  “Which paintings? Are they here?” I realized I sounded a little too excited and was suddenly conscious of what the elderly couple standing within earshot of us might think.

  “Not paintings,” she said. “If you’re really that hard up, they make a thing called porn. It’s right there online. It even moves.”

  “Don’t give me that look,” she added, even though she wasn’t even looking at me to know what my expression was. She always knew how I’d react to things.

  “I don’t watch…porn,” I said so lowly I wasn’t sure the word had actually been said out loud. I’d watched it, a time or two, but I didn’t watch it—present tense—and there was an important distinction to be made there. At least to me. I quickly went back to the topic at hand, hoping to calm heat radiating up my cheeks.

  “Were they nude sculptures?”

  “No. Not sculptures. Just nude.” She removed her notebook and flipped through the packet she’d brought with her.

  “What?”

  “God, Isla, are you gonna make me spell it out for you in front of these old people?”

  She really had no filter, and a part of me envied her for it. Smiling politely, she gave them both a wave when they looked our way, and I felt my skin flush again.

  “I slept with two guys in my art class.”


  “Twoooo?”

  “You say two like I said the word ‘hundred’ after it. It’s not like I banged them both at once. Or they banged me. Whichever. Two isn’t that many.”

  “Oh my God, Liv! Please be careful. There are diseases and weirdos and…”

  “Bears, oh my,” Olivia sang.

  “I’m not kidding.”

  “You’re forgetting that you’re the one who got propositioned for a threesome with two men the other day. A proposition that—judging from their profile pictures, by the way—you should’ve accepted.”

  “Seriously, Liv! Did you even really know these two guys from your class? Have they been screened for STDs? Did they use condoms? Are you still on the pill? Condoms don’t work a hundred percent of the time.”

  Olivia inhaled deeply and gave me the same look our childhood neighbor, Mrs. Hayden, gave me when she had to break the news to me that our cat got hit by a car.

  “I know you’re just looking out for me, and you raised me from the time I was twelve. But I’m not a child anymore.”

  “You know I know that.” Both our voices were sadder than the conversation warranted, but somehow we’d turned a corner we hadn’t expected.

  Olivia grabbed my hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “I didn’t mean it like that.” Her eyes were teary.

  I gave her a tight smile. “I know you didn’t.”

  “It’s sweet that you care about me and want to protect me,” she said. “I just meant that we’re sisters, and we need to share this stuff with each other. Sure, now it’s just me doing the sharing, but those are the perks of being a carefree sophomore in college. And I know you didn’t get to have the same experience, which is why I’m so adamant about you making up for lost time. Hopefully, when you go out on a date with someone worth seeing naked, I can hear some of your stories too.”

  I nearly choked out a laugh. Now that I thought about it, I’d never really shared any part of my sex life with my little sister—not that I had a sex life—and I didn’t know if that was something I should be proud of. In my effort to protect her and become the role model my mother would have wanted me to be, in a lot of ways, I’d neglected to be Olivia’s big sister.