The Lighter Side of Life and Death Read Free Page A

it still exists.
    “I can’t believe Hugo,” she says with a snort. “I can’t believe he pulled that bullshit after everything he said to me. The worst part is that he sounded so sincere. He kept talking about how the whole sex issue was a matter of trust between us and that he wanted to do whatever he could to make me feel okay with it.” Kat grimaces and goes quiet, and I know she’s embarrassed, and it embarrasses me too because we’ve never really talked about sex. I know she’s a virgin but that’s about all I know, and she knows even less about me.
    “It sounds so stupid now,” she adds, her voice hushed.
    “He’s an asshole,” I tell her. “An asshole in disguise.”
    “Disguised as what?”
    Isn’t it obvious?
Come on, Kat. Work with me here
. “You always go for that same type of guy. Somebody who looks like Hugo. Somebody who’s all about themselves.”
    “He didn’t seem like that.” She pulls at her earlobe, plays with her dangly silver earring. “He was always really sweet.”
    “Except for the last few weeks when he was trying to get you into bed,” I point out. And thirty minutes ago when he was giving it to Monica G in Yolanda’s upstairs bathroom.
    “Even the past few weeks,” Kat says. “
Especially
the last few weeks.” She strokes her cheek with one hand and taps my leg with the other. “How come you never told me that you don’t like him?”
    All this weird tension’s building in the silence, making the living room shine in a way that you don’t need eyes to see, and I stare at her hand, which is now resting on my thigh, and shrug. She’s not getting me on this. I’m not admitting a thing. “It’s not that I don’t like him. I’m just telling it how it is.”
    Kat looks me square in the eye. There’s something so nakedabout her stare that my hands tremble. I’d swear she’s reading my mind, that she knows exactly how hot she’s making me, and maybe, just maybe, that’s the point. So I reach out and touch her face with my fingertips. Then we’re gazing into each other’s eyes, on edge, breathing hard and waiting for the next leap.
    I kiss her first. Our tongues push together and I can’t get enough. We stretch out on the couch and get serious. She’s reaching into my jeans and I’m dipping into hers and it’s so out of control that I can’t believe it. She’s making a quiet moaning noise and looking up at me with hazy, happy eyes and I’m so caught up in it that there’s no room for anything else, like thinking.
    “What if your dad comes back?” Kat whispers in her tiny Filipino accent.
    “You’re right.” I sit up on the couch. “We should go to my room.” This can’t be over yet. Neither of us is ready for that.
    So we relocate upstairs and I watch her pull her top over her head. Her black bra’s next and she looks at me while she’s unhooking it, like she’s proud of what’s underneath. The sight of her bare skin makes my face burn. I kiss her breasts and slip her pants down and she looks so gorgeous on my bed like that, her hair tousled and this sexy-dirty expression on her face, that I have to stop and stare at her for a bit, just to remind myself this is real.
    I’ve spent so many hours imagining different versions of this moment over the years that my brain overheats and melts down to nothing as I watch her. When Kat opens her mouth again, her words are so husky they make my heart stop. “Do you have condoms?”
    I almost have a coronary. You’d think it was obvious where this was heading, but this is Kat’s virginity we’re talking about. I’m stunned.
    The thing is, I’m also a pretty good actor. I pull a package ofTrojans confidently out of my dresser and rip one open. I want to tell her this is crazy and that we’re both drunk and maybe she’ll regret this, but on the other hand, that’s not what I want to do at all.
    I roll the condom on and go back to the bed without a word. Kat’s staring at me with wide eyes and I