Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Kayleigh laughs, sharp and bright. “Please tell me it’s the skinny one. The yoga instructor.”
“God, no. The tattoo artist. He brought his equipment too.”
She snorts. “That’s so Stella. You know she’s seeing two guys, right? The other week, I came out of my room, and she was there with the skinny dude. How the hell did we get such a awkward living arrangement?” my friend giggles.
I reach into my tote for a napkin, come up with a wadded Italian worksheet instead, and try to mop the dew from my face. “I know, but it’s more than just awkward. It’s downright X-rated even at 6 a.m. sometimes. OMG, I’m a disaster,” I say as I scrutinize the damp worksheet.
“You’re a work in progress,” Kayleigh corrects. “Besides, I’m only here because you said you had hot gossip. So spill it, girlfriend. Is it something that Stella can’t know about? Are you seeing one of her boyfriends? I haven’t seen you in ages, come to think of it. It’s because you moved home temporarily, right?”
I nod. “Yes, for the time being, to help take care of my stepdad. It’s more that—well, it’s something I need advice on.”
Kayleigh leans in, her gaze sharpening. She’s always been the kind of friend who can switch from sitcom banter to full therapist mode in a single sentence. “Is this about your mom?” she asks, voice lowering.
I shake my head. “No, she’s in California now. Still texting me about her juice cleanse, still pretending she’s going to come back before summer.”
Kayleigh makes a sympathetic face, then signals to the barista with her empty cup. “Do you want anything? The guy at the register thinks I’m cute. I can get you a free refill.”
“I’ll get it. I need to move or I’ll lose circulation.” I stand, knees knocking the table, and thread my way to the counter.
The barista with the tattoos leans forward, all attitude. “What can I get for you?”
I want to say something new, something Italian and frothy, but default to old habits. “Drip, just black. Thanks”
He nods, pours, slides the cup across to me. I drop a dollar in the tip jar and stare at the tattoo on his forearm: a flayed anatomical heart, hyper-realistic. I think of Kent, of the steady thud of his pulse under my fingers, the way his hands looked splayed on the white duvet. A shiver runs through me, colder than the outside air.
Back at the table, Kayleigh has commandeered a second chair for her legs. “So,” she says, “what’s this about? Did you finally break down and buy a vibrator, or are you—wait, no, don’t tell me. You started drinking at work.”
I almost spit my coffee. “Jesus, no. Neither of those things.”
Kayleigh grins. “Then what? You’re about to burst.”
I take a long sip, let the bitterness coat my mouth. My voice drops to a whisper. “It’s Kent.”
She sits up, all playfulness gone. “Who?”
“My stepdad, Kent Robinson.”
Kayleigh thinks hard. “The doctor, right? He’s not—oh god, he’s not, like, dying, is he?”
“No,” I say quickly. “But he has this thing. A condition. Testicular lithiasis.” I say it the way Kent said it, like a fact, a diagnosis from a chart.
Kayleigh’s face is blank, eyebrows raised to maximum altitude. “What the fuck is that?”
“It’s like kidney stones, but in the…” I glance around, lower my voice further. “You know. In the balls.”
Kayleigh lets that hang in the air for a beat. Then, in a stage whisper: “There are ball stones?”
I nod, fighting the urge to laugh or cry or do both at once. “It’s allegedly not that rare, and lots of guys have it. But most men are asymptomatic. Unfortunately for my stepdad, he’s not most men so it’s really painful, and the only treatment is, um—manual massage.”
My pretty friend’s mouth drops open, and she stares at me as if I’ve just confessed to harvesting human organs. “You’re shitting me.”
“I wish,” I say. “But it’s a real thing. Kent showed me the Mayo Clinic article.”
Kayleigh recovers with a gulp of her latte. “So, what? Doctors have to, like, have to squeeze his balls until the rocks break apart?”
I nod. “Basically. Or help massage them out.”
She closes her eyes, pinches the bridge of her nose, and takes a breath. “Mary Kate, are you telling me you’re massaging your stepdad’s nutsack? For medical reasons?”
I flush so hard I can feel the heat in my hairline. “Not yet. But—I said I would. Tonight.”
The table is silent. Kayleigh puts her cup down a little too hard, coffee slopping over the edge. “Let me get this straight,” she says. “Your stepdad, who is, not to be weird, a hottie physician, asks you—his stepdaughter—to give him a ball massage? And your mom is in California, just chill with this arrangement?”
“It’s not like that,” I say, too fast. “He’s my stepdad, not my real dad. And he’s in so much pain, Kayleigh. He said he can barely sleep some nights because of the ache. It’s not sexual, it’s, like, physical therapy. Besides, Kent said he could get a nurse, but he doesn’t like the thought of someone he doesn’t know touching him there.”