Right. Solange doesn’t embarrass easily—if at all. As I sit up and arrange my pillow behind me, I begin to moan. “Oh, that’s it, Solange.”

She shakes her head. “If we were actually having sex, you’d be much louder than that.”

Fair point. I narrow my eyes at her, picturing the way she owned my body just this morning. Channeling the energy I felt when she rocked against me earlier, I try again. “Yes, yes, motherfucking yes.”

“That’s better,” she says, her expression smug.

“What’s that, baby? I’m too big to fit?”

Her eyes go wide, and she grits her teeth. “Too big to fit, my ass,” she grumbles.

“Don’t worry, Solange,” I exclaim, panting heavily in between each word. “It’s not. Too big. To fit your ass.”

“Ew. You sound like William Shatner.” She punches me in the shoulder. “And anyway, that is not what I meant.”

“Oh, sorry,” I say, grinning sheepishly. “I didn’t hear the comma.”

She cackles on the inside, her mouth open and her chest heaving from the effort not to laugh out loud.

“Oh, fuuuuuuuck,” I say, pounding my hands on the mattress.

After a few more expletives, I ask, “Are you trying to insult me?”

“No, why would you say that?” she whispers.

“We’re supposed to be having sex, and you haven’t made a peep.”

“Oh, right.” She rolls onto her knees, grabs the headboard, then starts rattling it as if it were a fence. “Yes, yes, yes! Big Daddy, yes.”

“Big Daddy, eh?”

“Just go with it, Chapman,” she says, then she screams, “Ooh, right there. Yes. That. Is. Motherfucking. It.”

“Damn, I’m better in your fantasies than I am in reality.”

“True, true.”

I tackle Solange to the bed and tickle her until tears are streaming down her face. Eventually, I help her up as I listen for any sounds from our guests. It’s quiet again, so I assume Ana and Carlos got the hint . . . or finished.

Solange and I give each other a high five, then I kiss her forehead. I can’t recall ever being this silly with any person I’ve dated in the past. Not that Solange and I are dating. She’s a friend. A friend I have sex with. A friend I have fun with. And I can’t forget that she’ll be leaving town for who-knows-where in just a few weeks. My brain wants to skip over that part, though.

She makes a big production of rearranging the pillows and comforter just the way she likes them, which is to say she hogs them, then she drops onto her back and lets out a satisfied sigh. “Now we’ll be able to sleep. And think about it: All we have left is dinner with the family tomorrow night, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”