“You tell me.” Bailey shrugged. “I have no idea what I’m looking at.”

“We can keep looking if you want.” I switched it off and set it back on the shelf, scanning the other toys. “This one looks like a tube of lipstick. This one fits on your finger. This one has suction…”

“This first one sounds fine.” She turned, surveying the store for onlookers—like she might randomly stumble upon a college classmate in a random sex toy boutique downtown. “Should we go pay?”

“Yeah. Let me look at the box for a second.” Fifteen speeds, ten different rhythms, anatomically designed, made out of medical grade silicone with a USB charger. So theoretically, I could charge it in my truck. Handy. And a six-hour battery life, which I couldn’t see using in one go, but good to know.

Bailey laughed. “You’re acting like you’re buying a car.” Then her eyes fell to the price tag, widening. “Oh my god. You practically are. It’s a hundred and twenty dollars.”

“Good toys aren’t cheap,” I said. “Plus, think of where it’s going.” We’d already established that I was paying, and it wasn’t up for discussion, so there wasn’t much more she could say to that.

I held up the box. “You in agreement?”

“Sure.”

I snagged a bottle of toy cleaner to go with it, and we made our way to the cash register by the doors. Contrary to my joke about Carl, the sales associate working the register was a chick. She was close to our age, heavily tattooed with a septum piercing, and a name tag that read Harriet. Weird. She did not look like a Harriet.

She glanced up from the worn paperback she was reading, bookmarking her spot and setting it aside. “Find everything you were looking for?”

“Sure did,” I said, passing her the items.

Bailey gave her a polite, albeit uneasy, smile. I squeezed her hand again, and she squeezed it back. She’d actually come, and I was stoked that she did.

And eager to get her back to my place.

Harriet scanned the vibrator box and the bottle of toy cleaner, then I handed her my credit card. There was a display of massage candles beside the register that looked intriguing, but we could circle back to that one later too. My list kept getting longer and longer.

“Since you spent over thirty dollars today, you get a complimentary sample of flavored lube,” she said, printing out my receipt and placing it in the small black and pink bag.

“Cool,” I said.

The cashier pointed to the display. “Which flavor do you want?”

“You pick.” I nudged Bailey.

“Huh?” She snapped out of her daze, glancing over at the bottles on display: mango, pink lemonade, strawberry, watermelon. “Um…strawberry?” she squeaked, cheeks turning pink. Adorable.