and grants and scholarships from the federal government, so she’s gettin’ through med school with pretty minimal debt. And I guess, to her, that’s worth being a stripper.” He laughed. “And, truth is, when I said she stayed out of trouble, I meant the chemical and pregnancy kind. She was kind of, um…fast and loose, you might say. Not exactly concerned with her reputation, and I guarantee you, tell anyone we grew up with that Saoirse is stripping her way through college, not a one would be in the least surprised. She’s smart as hell, she’s just not overly concerned with virtue or modesty. Part of the reason I avoided the back forty parties was because I stood a good chance of seeing my sister parading around topless. She just didn’t much care about folks seeing her topless, if not naked.”
I nodded, shrugged. “I’m…well, not prudish or overly modest, but not extroverted like Lexie, or not giving a shit like Cassie.”
“Takes all kinds to make the world go round, so no shame in being who you are.” He shrugged. “It is a little weird to me that my sister is a stripper but, like I said, she ain’t embarrassed by it, and hell, she’s almost proud of it. Some girls wait tables and pour drinks to get through college, she takes her clothes off. In the end, she’s doin’ what works for her, and I ain’t about to judge her for it.”
“Are you close to her?”
He tilted his head side to side. “Kind of. We talk pretty regular, every week or two. Text each other now and then, keep up with each other. She’s in Texas and I’m here, so I wouldn’t say we’re, like, besties, but I love her and if she needs me, I’m here for her.”
He was smirking. His eyes were glassy.
“How you feeling now?” I asked
He laughed. Nodded. “Pretty good. Just sorta…whoosh.” He rocketed his hand in an upward arc. Laughed again. “Whatever the hell that means.”
I chuckled. “It means you, sir, are stoned.”
He nodded. “I guess I was expecting something more…nefarious. This is just…mellow.”
“Right? There’s a reason you never hear about a stoner getting in bar fights.”
I peered at the tip of the one-hitter, saw there was a bit of green left, so I finished it off with another partial hit. Tapped the ash loose, put the lighter and pipe in the pocket of Rhys’s sweatpants.
You wouldn’t think ratty old sweatpants and a threadbare T-shirt could make a girl feel sexy, but somehow…these did. The sweats fit like my tightest pair of yoga pants, form-fitting on my ass, hips, and thighs, and I hadn’t bothered with underwear since I was planning on taking Rhys up on his offer of laundering my clothes. No underwear, no bra—not that I ever wore a bra, anyway. I hated the damn things and wore them as infrequently as possible.
So, like, never.
The shirt fit about the same as the pants: tight, and it was see-through, and my areola were playing peekaboo—or should I say, peek-a-boob? I know he noticed—I’d caught him staring.
And liked it.
I had a weird, out of character, impulse to peel the shirt off and see what he did. I restrained the impulse, thank god, but it’d been a close one.
Max was the only guy who’d seen me naked since I was a little girl, and we tended to do our messing around in the dark with all the lights off, so I wasn’t sure he could even pick out my naked body in a lineup.
So why the hell was I even thinking about taking my shirt off for Rhys?
More to the point, why was I wondering what those huge rough hands would feel like? Why was I wondering if the grease would rub off on me?
Why, god, why, was I picturing his hands, black with engine grease, slicking all over my body in intimate ways Max had never dared touch me? I had a distinct vision of my naked body covered in handprints of grease and oil.
Gahhh. I wished I could blame it on the pot, but I’d been dealing with these images in my head since I took my sweatshirt off and Rhys’s eyes went straight to my breasts outlined beneath my wet T-shirt.
Also, you don’t hallucinate on pot, and I had no excuse other than plain old-fashioned horniness and sexual attraction.
Rhys was shifting, wiggling. “I gotta do…something.”
I laughed. “Figures you’d get even more motivated to do shit while stoned.”
He laughed. “I’m a go-go-go type of