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“Tell me about your first time.”

Oakley stretched out next to her, though the opposite direction, his head positioned at her feet. “Okay. With a guy or a girl?”

Sadie was undaunted. “Your first first. Was it with a girl?”

Oakley shook his head. “Nope. It was a guy. Friend of mine from school. We were sixteen. His name was Jacob.” Oakley’s gaze remained on Sadie’s face and Joel got a sense Oakley didn’t want to say more.

Joel was surprised to realize he didn’t know this story. He and Oakley had shared so much of their lives with each other, it didn’t occur to him until now that the one thing they didn’t discuss was Oakley’s affairs with guys. Had Oakley purposely avoided telling Joel about them? Had Joel somehow given him the impression those stories would make him uncomfortable?

“Details,” Sadie prompted.

“Jake was an oops. A late-in-life baby for his folks. Which meant he had a lot of older siblings who were adults. Jake was housesitting for his older brother one weekend. His parents had said it was cool for him to stay at his brother’s place to take care of the dog and stuff. I got invited to sleep over too. His brother left us a twelve-pack of beer in the fridge that Jake’s parents didn’t know about. Neither one of us really partied so it didn’t take much for us to get tipsy. Next thing I know, Jake’s kissing me.”

Sadie tilted her head. “Did you know then? Did you know you were into guys?”

Oakley nodded slowly and for the first time since he started talking, his eyes drifted to Joel. “Yeah. I always knew I wasn’t exactly like the other guys. My straight friends. They were all about girls, and while I could appreciate boobs as much as the other guys, I sort of got the same tingle whenever I caught a glimpse of a guy’s ass in the locker room. Jake was completely out of the closet, one-hundred-percent gay. A lot of the guys stayed away from him because that freaked them out, made them nervous. It didn’t bother me.”

“What happened then?” Joel was strangely aroused by Oakley’s story.

“Kissing turned to touching. Clothes came off. It wasn’t Jake’s first time. He put on a condom, filled my ass with lube and we fucked.”

Typical Oakley description. Straight forward, graphic language, nothing extra or flowery.

“You liked it?” Sadie asked.

Oakley’s grin grew. “I fucking loved it. Jake and I sort of kept going for a while, but he was a giver, not a taker, and not into girls at all. Six months later I was at a campground with my parents. We’d met and started hanging out with another family. They had a pretty daughter about my age. The two of us snuck out of the tents one night, started making out. One thing led to another and it was finally my turn to put the condom on.”

“And you liked it?” Joel asked.

Oakley laughed. “I fucking loved it.”

Sadie picked up a pillow and batted him in the head. “It occurs to me from your story, you clearly haven’t grown up a bit since high school. An eternal man-child. Peter Pan.”

“Growing up is for pussies. My turn.” Oakley took Sadie’s foot in his hand and sucked her big toe into his mouth as she gasped and squirmed. Oakley didn’t release her. Instead, he said, “Sadie. Truth or dare?”

She narrowed her eyes. “God. Both choices are potentially dangerous.”

Oakley gave her a wicked wink.

“Fine. Truth.”

Oakley dropped her foot and sat up. “Good. I was hoping you’d pick that. There’s something I’ve been wanting to know ever since I moved to Maris, but every time I bring it up, you change the subject.”

It was clear from Sadie’s groan she knew where this was going. Which sparked Joel’s curiosity because he didn’t have a clue.

“You don’t strike me as the Homecoming-Queen type. Tell me how that happened.”

Joel could understand Oakley’s confusion. Hell, he knew her then, but he was still hard-pressed to remember the conservative, clean-cut blonde, run-of-the-mill girl she’d been then compared to the powerhouse, opinionated, take-no-prisoners, stand-out-in-a-crowd beauty she was now.

Sadie shrugged. “Why can’t you let that go?”

“I’m curious too,” Joel admitted.

She glared at him. “You were there, Joel. Didn’t you vote for me?”

He nodded. “I was a sophomore.”

“Oh yeah. Only the seniors voted.” She looked at Oakley and confessed, “I guess I have changed a bit since high school.”