Cat Snips - a Short Story Collection by Cat Johnson (9 page)

Hours later, Meg was still unable
to sleep. The memory of Jeff’s well-defined arm and chest
muscles bunching as he supported her not inconsiderable weight, while
her arms and legs wrapped tightly around him as he fucked her for an
impressively long time, had her up for the remainder of the night.

And when the sun rose to the
sound of his soft familiar snores beside her, she had only one
thought left.

That being,
fuck
.

She liked him.
Really
liked him and not as just a friend. She wouldn’t let herself
think that other word that started with “l”.

Meg reviewed the facts one more
time in hopes of getting a different outcome this time. She felt
jealous for the first time in their friendship ever. Tonight she’d
lain awake for hours and couldn’t get him out of her mind.
She’d spent considerable time during her insomnia planning on
how and when to get him back in her bed again, as well as what she
had in her lingerie drawer to wear for that next event.

How could she possibly be falling
for him now?

This complicated everything.

Chapter Two

“
I think I have a crush on
Jeff.”

Meg had hoped it was simply
orgasm-induced euphoria and it would fade. But the next day, while
she sat opposite her girlfriend Vicki and poked at the salad in front
of her, it was still there, that feeling of unrest sitting smack over
her heart.

Vicki glanced up from her Asian
Chicken Salad and shook her head. “I told you six months ago
when you started this friends with benefits thing that you can not
have sex with a guy on a regular basis and not develop deeper
feelings for him. It’s impossible. Mother Nature didn’t
build women to be able to do things like that. We were designed to be
monogamous and hold the family unit together.”

Meg sighed. She considered
herself a feminist and didn’t like Vicki’s theory. Men
could fuck without falling for the woman, so why couldn’t
women? Then an idea struck her. She looked up hopefully. “Maybe
I don’t have feelings for him. Perhaps it’s just
jealousy. I didn’t think I liked him like
that
until I found out he’d slept with someone else.”

Vicki put down her fork and
raised an eyebrow. “Jeff slept with someone else?”

Somehow her friend’s
reaction did nothing to comfort Meg.

“
Yeah, but it was an
accident. She was drunk and I was out of town.” Why she felt
the need to rationalize and defend Jeff to Vicki with his own lame
excuses, Meg couldn’t explain.

Vicki didn’t comment, but
her expression did it for her. Vicki had something to say but wasn’t
saying it.

“
What? You think he’s
tired of me don’t you?” Meg accused.

“
No, I don’t. Men are
simply different than women when it comes to sex. That’s all.”

This again. “So you’re
saying men are built to go around fucking a bunch of different women
and not get attached but women are not?”

Vicki nodded. “Correct.
Basically they were designed to spread their seed.”

“
Great. Thanks. That makes
me feel tons better.” The last thing Meg wanted to think about
was Jeff spreading his seed everywhere, particularly between the
nurse’s legs.

“
Sorry. But I think the
more important issue here is not that Jeff went out and got laid, but
that you’re jealous about it.”

“
Why?”

“
It means you like him far
more than you thought you did. If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t
be jealous.”

That made far too much sense for
her liking. Meg finally gave up and laid her fork on the table,
realizing she wasn’t at all hungry. She buried her face in her
hands.
“What
the hell am I going to do?”

“
Go on a date with him.
You’re already halfway into a relationship. You’re
friends, you sleep together, you just skipped the dating part. So
call and ask him to dinner or something.”

Sure they’d eaten together,
tons of times, but they were meals, never dates. Suddenly in a panic
at the idea of asking Jeff out and being rejected by him, Meg stared
down at her cell phone. She’d left it lying on the table when
she’d arrived so she would hear it in case Jeff called. Damn
it. She had it bad. This sucked.

“
What if I ask him out
tonight and he already has a date?” What if he was going out
with trampy barfly nurse?

“
You won’t know until
you ask.”

Panic gripped her. “I don’t
know if I can.”

“
I’m telling you,
invite him over for a nice home cooked meal. Show him what a real
relationship with you can be like, one that involves more than booty
calls. And while you’re at it, you can gently feel him out
about his feelings toward you.”

When Meg made no move, Vicki
picked up the phone, scrolled through Meg’s contact list. She
hit send and held it out to her.
Meg remained frozen.

“
Better take it. It’s
ringing.”

Shit.
Meg grabbed the phone and got it to her ear just in time to hear
Jeff’s voice say, “Hello.”

“
Hey.”

“
Hey, Meg. What’s
up?”

She swallowed hard. “Um, do
you want to do something tonight?”

Vicki scowled deeply at Meg’s
lame invitation.

“
Sorry. I can’t. I
have plans. Rain check?”

“
Um, sure. I’ll call
you. Bye.” Meg disconnected the call as quickly as she could
with shaking hands and glared at Vicki.

He had a date with someone else.
Maybe she’d already lost him, just when she finally discovered
she actually wanted him. Now what the hell was she going to do?

One long, sleepless, harrowing
week later, Meg stood opposite Jeff, who sat at the table in her
apartment. He looked as relaxed as Meg was nervous.

God, she hated the entire male
species.

Heart unexplainably pounding, Meg
walked past Jeff as he sniffed the air after her. “Are you
wearing perfume?” He sounded surprised.

“
What? No. I mean, yes.
Maybe. Why?” Meg could kick herself, stuttering like a
schoolgirl, and around Jeff, of all people. Jeff who probably spent
last Saturday night, and every night in between, fucking his nurse,
for all she knew. Meg probably should be happy he made time and
bothered to come over and eat with her.

He looked at her as if she were
losing her mind and shrugged. “No reason. You smell good.
That’s all.”

“
Oh. Um. Thanks.”

He thought she smelled good. Why
the hell did that make her happy? She reminded herself that he
probably said the same thing to his floozy too.

She grabbed the two plates she’d
prepared from the kitchen counter and carried them to the dining
table.

Jeff looked her up and down. “Is
that a new skirt?”

Did she tell him she had tried on
practically everything in her closet to find the perfect outfit for
tonight and had finally found this ultra-short mini skirt she’d
bought years ago shoved on a shelf with the tags still on it? Should
she tell him she hoped it, combined with the knee-length high-heeled
boots, would make him drool, forget about the nurse and instead think
of nothing but bending her over the dining table as he did wicked
things to her?

“
This? Nope. Had it for
years.”

He raised a brow. “Oh? I
don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear it before. It’s
nice.”

Meg’s mouth twisted in a
scowl.
Nice
had not been the look she was going for.

Jeff looked down at the dinner
plate she plunked harder than necessary in front of him. Ignoring
that, he commented, “This looks good. Thanks.”

It should look good. Everything
had better be more than
good
.
She’d spent the entire afternoon food shopping, cleaning the
apartment, preparing the meal and then fixing herself up—hair,
makeup, perfume, a special outfit, right down to the brand new and
incredibly uncomfortable thong underwear—all in anticipation of
his arrival.

“
Good. Great. Hope you like
it.” She plopped down in her chair with a huff and took a large
gulp of red wine.

Apparently, her nerves were
making her cranky this evening. Acting ornery was probably not the
best way to win a new boyfriend. Too bad her mouth and her brain
sometimes, all right, often, failed to communicate. Jeff glanced at
her with a raised brow before he cut into his painstakingly homemade
lasagna that she hoped had “good cook and potential girlfriend”
written all over it.

She watched closely as he took
the first bite and swallowed. He dug right in for a second mouthful
but the high praise and confessions of love she’d hoped for
didn’t come.

Finally, he looked up with a
frown and gestured toward her untouched dish with his fork. “Aren’t
you eating?”

“
I had a big lunch.”
She lied, rubbing her belly as if it were full for effect.

He nodded. “Well you’re
missing out. This is great.”

A bit happier, she digested that
compliment and decided to spin it to her advantage.

“
You know what else was
great? That sex last week. Huh?”

The fork halted halfway to Jeff’s
mouth as he looked up at her with surprise. “Um, yeah. It was.”

“
I wouldn’t mind
doing that every night. How about you?” Shit, she sounded like
one of the guys in the locker room or something. She might as well
slap him on the rear end and then hit the showers.

Jeff laid the fork back down on
his dish and stared at her. “What’s up, Meg. You’re
acting strangely tonight.”

“
Nothing’s up.”
Her voice sounded a little pitchy in her own ears.
He continued to wait and
watch and she caved. “It’s…I just…”
She sighed and started over. “You know the rules we set up when
we started this
thing
between us.”

Jeff nodded. “Yes.”

“
Like that rule about the
two of us not being exclusive, for example?” she continued in
what she hoped sounded like a casual voice.

He raised a brow. “Yes, I’m
familiar with that particular rule.”

Yeah, she bet he was. She
remembered the nurse. “Well, I was wondering if maybe we should
reevaluate all the rules, like maybe every six months or so, just to
make sure we’re still happy with them.”

He nodded very slowly. “It’s
been about six months since we started this
thing
,
hasn’t it?”

“
Has it?” She feigned
ignorance, squinting at the ceiling and pretending to count. “Yeah,
I guess it has been. You’re right.”

Jeff continued to scrutinize her
a bit too closely. “Okay. We’ll reevaluate. So tell me,
what are
your
feelings about the exclusivity rule, for instance?”

Heart pounding, she did her best
to shrug casually.

“
Well, I really hadn’t
thought about it much, but since you asked… I guess if we’re
both enjoying being with one another, we should consider becoming
exclusive. But on the other hand
if,
for example, you were
getting bored with us being together, or you’re interested in
someone else, then maybe that rule about being free to sleep with
other people should stand.” Meg couldn’t bring herself to
ask if he was interested in someone else so instead she asked, “So,
are you bored with us?”

She held her breath and waited
what seemed like an eternity for him to speak.

“
Are
you
bored with us?”
Jeff asked, his voice tinged with something she couldn’t
identify.

“
I asked you first.”

After an agonizingly long moment,
Jeff shook his head. “No. I’m not bored.”

“
I’m not either.
Especially after last week, I mean, that was great.” She
realized she was babbling.

Jeff still watched her. “I
agree. So what exactly are you suggesting, Meg?”

This was it. Do or die. She took
a deep breath and launched head first into what could end up coming
back to haunt her if he didn’t feel the same way. “That
maybe we should consider becoming exclusive.”

She thought she saw his mouth
twitch, but it was too quick to be sure.

“
But that would make us
boyfriend and girlfriend, not just fuck buddies anymore, wouldn’t
it?”

Didn’t he want to be
girlfriend and boyfriend? Maybe the nurse was already his girlfriend.
She was stupid to even bring this up. “Well, no, not
necessarily…unless you wanted to be, of course. And if you
did, then that would be fine with me. Or not. Whatever.”
Damn.
Way to play it cool, Meg
.

Jeff chewed on his lip before
saying, “Meg. I need to know. Is this all about your being
jealous of the nurse?”