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Elle’s stretched out on the nearby chaise lounge sunbathing just to taunt me. If she hadn’t pushed her skirt up high and stretched out those long, shapely legs I’d probably be getting this job done more quickly.
She glances up from her magazine. “So you really don’t have a girlfriend?”
“Nope.”
“And you don’t do hook-ups?
“Not anymore.”
She lowers her sunglasses and gives me a skeptical look. “And you don’t miss sex?”
“Of course I miss it. Some days it’s all I think about, but I’m committed to this program.”
She pats the chaise lounge next to her. “Time for you to take a break. I want to hear all about this program.”
I drop the shovel, and lift up, brushing the dirt off my knees. She gazes at my body as I approach her. I can tell she’s checking out my junk again. There’s nothing subtle about this woman. I grab the iced tea she left out for me and down half of it before I sit on the chaise and stretch out.
“So this program? Are you going to be a priest? Is that it?”
I scoff. “Hardly.”
She throws her hands up in the air. “I give up! What then?”
“I’m doing this program my dad talked me into joining. It’s called AUL, short for Abstinence Until Love.”
“Seriously? And why did your dad think you needed to be a part of something so insane?”
I rub my hands hard over my face. She isn’t going to let this go. I’m not sure how to tell the story without sounding like a complete asshole.
“He walked in on me.”
“Screwing a girl? What’s the big deal about that?”
I fold my arms over my chest and keep my eyes focused forward. “He walked in on me with three women in my bed.”
“That you were fucking?”
“Well, generally speaking. I was only fucking one at the time but there was other stuff going on. We’d been at it all night.”
Her mouth falls open and she leans over and slaps me on the arm.
“You stud! You beast!”
“It’s not as impressive as it sounds. I practically gave Dad a heart attack and I was drunk out of my mind at eight in the morning. I didn’t even know the girls’ names.”
“Oh . . .”
“And the reason he came into my apartment is I was late meeting him on an important job.”
“Ooo, you really screwed up.”
“Big time. He threw out the girls and then made me take a cold shower. And the first thing he told me was that he was going to tell my mother, Millie, all about it.”
“The mom you mentioned adoring . . . your number one girl?”
“The very one. He knew it was the worst thing he could say to me. I’m her favorite and the apple of her eye. I can bear almost anything but disappointing her.”
I look at Elle and she actually looks distraught.
“Oh that’s awful.”
“So he gave me a choice. I guess he’d been hearing stories about my antics for a while. He said he knew I had a problem—that sex had become an obsession and my constant need to scratch the itch was ruining my life. Doing research he’d learned about this program through the church he wanted me to check out. If I was willing to commit to it for four months, he wouldn’t tell Mom.”
“Abstinence Until Love? That sounds like something a church would come up with.”
“I do it in conjunction with Sexaholics Anonymous, which isn’t run by the church. Although they let them use their community room for the meetings.”
She gives me the side eyes. “Are you kidding me?”
“It was a joke to me at first, but once I stopped rolling my eyes at the meetings, it started making sense.”
She licks her lips. “You were a sex addict?”
“I still am . . . always will be. It’s all about managing the disease.”
“Oh, the irony! You are a reformed sex addict and I am sex starved. What a cruel world this is.”
I give her a big grin. “It is ironic.”
She pushes her sunglasses back up and hikes her legs up so her entire thigh is exposed. “Well at least we have one thing in common.”
I look over at her.
“We both think about sex all the time.”
Elle’s in the house when I finish the repair and run a test to make sure that it works as it should. As I finish up I think about the part of my addiction story I didn’t share with Elle. I’ve never told anyone about the call I got from the health office two months after my wild foursome, that I needed to come in for testing. I never heard the STD’s the caller mentioned, since my mind went black and my body into shock when he mentioned AIDs testing. AIDs? Had I become so cocky with my lifestyle that I forgot I was playing with fire?
That was a week I’ll never forget, starting with punching a hole in my living room wall after the call disco
That night I made a promise to God and myself that if I came out of this clean the next woman I took to bed would be the one I’d fallen in love with. Little did I know that love was a language I had to learn to speak, and after all this time I still haven’t found the girl who could inspire me to learn.
The humiliation of going for testing was profound and as I waited my turn surrounded by people I would have previously looked down upon, I realized that I was now one of them. As the minutes ticked by I promised myself I would never end up in this fucked-up situation again.
So no one knowing this would be surprised that I’ve stuck to my program religiously and have not missed a meeting. I knew the grace of God was with me when my results came back clean, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to test Him again.
I knock on the back door to let Elle know I’m leaving. When she swings open the door she’s got lipstick on and those sexy high-heeled sandals.
I swallow hard and try to look away as I point to the backyard. “You’re all set. I tested it and everything’s working as it should.”
“So no more lawn orgasms?”
I grin. “Nope.” I turn back to the yard. “Sorry, lawn.”
“Well, I suppose that’s good. Thanks for taking care of it.”
“No worries. Hey, you look nice.”
Too nice. I’m imaging her naked with just the heels on, my hands ru
She smiles. “I’m meeting that Tinder guy, Scott.”
“At the wine bar?”
She nods and twists her bracelet around her wrist.
My brows knit together. “Are you sure?”
“You jealous?” She winks at me.
I know she’s teasing but it’s a hit in the gut when I realize I am. However, I’ll never admit it. Jealously has never been my thing. I just move on.
“No. He just better treat you right.”
“I’ll make sure he does,” she says with what feels like a false bravado. “Besides, it’s just a meet-up tonight.”
“You’ve got my number. Call me . . . you know, if you need anything.”
She leans on the door jam and studies me in the most u
The next morning I pick up my phone three times and set it back down. I glance at my watch and the roll of blueprints next to me. Screw it all. I open the contact list on my phone and rub my finger over her name.
She sounds a little worse for wear when she picks up.
“So how’d it go last night?”
“Paul Junior? Is that you?”
“You can drop the junior now, you know.”
“What if I don’t want to? It sounds so . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Are you high?”
“Nah. Maybe a little hungover. Or maybe a lot. There’s a lot of wine to drink at the wine bar.”
I grip my phone tighter. I don’t like that she drank that much with a dude she didn’t know.
“So how was the guy? Was he what you expected?”