“I’m just going to…tell them we’re good and we’re leaving with the dress,” Nancy murmured, lips tipped up, as she walked away.

“Uh…” was my answer to Lottie’s question.

“She hasn’t,” Ryn said under her breath to Pepper.

“I’m kind of…not assertive like that,” I shared.

Lottie put a hand to her hip, hitched out that hip, and returned, “Well, sister, you wanna get laid, you better get assertive. You led that boy on a long, drawn-out chase. No shade. Just sayin’. But translation for a dude with a brain and a keenly honed capacity for sensitivity who’s into the chick who led him on that chase, he’s not gonna jump you, push you or pressure you. He’s gonna read you and wait for you to give him the next signal. You gotta give him the signal, Hatz.”

“You do.” Ryn.

“Totes.” Pepper.

“Absolutely.” Evie.

Jet again said nothing to me.

Though she did to Lottie.

“It isn’t that easy for everybody, Lottie.”

It so wasn’t.

I mean, I loved kissing him. A lot.

But I wanted more.

A lot more.

Especially after all that kissing.

I just didn’t know how to communicate that mostly because I thought I already was.

I was participating in our makeout sessions—avidly—and if memory served, I didn’t think it was me—not once—that ended them.

If you were too shy to speak the words, how else did you tell a guy you were ready for more, outside grabbing his dick?

Jet turned to me. “Take your time. If he’s worth it, he’ll wait.”

Ryn made a noise that sounded like she was being strangled.

I homed in on that. “What?”

“Well, just saying, he’s been waiting awhile.”

He totally had.

Way longer than three days.

Bah!

“So, have a conversation about it,” Jet said to Ryn. “She doesn’t have to go for the gusto.”

A conversation might be doable.

It might not.

Axl and I now seemed to have no problem communicating.

But how did you bring up the conversation that essentially said, “Dude, I want you to fuck me.”

I absolutely wanted him to fuck me. If he could kiss that well, I was really looking forward to what else he could do.

Again…

Like…a lot.

I just didn’t know how to get him to do it.

I mean, he hadn’t even gone for my breast.

It was excruciatingly frustrating.

“I think it’s sweet he’s taking things slow,” Evie remarked.

“God, if Boone slept on the couch while I was in a bed a room away, for three nights, I’d have to figure out how to muffle my vibrator, I’d be she-bopping so much,” Ryn declared. “We actually had a conversation about taking it slow. Our slow lasted a day.”

Oh God.

Seriously, I felt that.

After all our snogging?