Page 51 of Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail

But why was she completely naked and where the hell were her bra and underwear? She scanned the floor, the chair, but didn’t see them anywhere.

“Hello?” Iris said.

Astrid startled, having totally forgotten her friend was on the phone. “Um...” She finally spotted her bra... hanging off one corner of her fabric headboard, as through she’d flung it off in the night.

God, please let her have flung it off in the night as opposed to whenever Jordan put that glass of water by her bed.

“Astrid, I swear to god,” Iris said.

Astrid ignored her, on a mission to find her undies. They weren’t on her headboard—thank god—and they weren’t on the floor anywhere that she could see. She pushed her bedding back to get up and check more thoroughly, but then spotted the damn things under the covers near the foot of the bed.

She exhaled and went to grab them, swearing never, ever to drink that much again, when something pink caught her eye. Peeking out from underneath her plain cotton briefs was...

... oh god.

“Astrid,” Iris said. “Are you dying? What the hell is happening?”

“Let me call you back.”

“Oh no. If you hang up, I’m coming over there and—”

Astrid ended the call and stared at that flash of pink.

Surely not.

She picked up her underwear, flinging it across the room like it was on fire to reveal the California Dreaming Malibu Minx vibrator Iris had gotten her over two years ago. She’d never used it. Not once. It sat in her nightstand next to a silk sleep mask and a bottle of lavender oil. It wasn’t that Astrid never got herself off. She did. A couple of times a week, in fact. She just preferred using her fingers most of the time. Honestly, the California Dreaming was a little intimidating. It was... well, it was goddamn huge, is what it was, and Astrid had never felt the need.

Why the hell was it in her bed?

She gingerly picked it up, using only the very tips of her fingers around the base, and inspected the toy. It looked like it always did, bright pink and smooth, a little curve to the tip. She couldn’t tell if she’d actually employed its services last night, but as she stared at the thing, little pieces came back to her, like waking slowly from a dream.

“Oh, okay, then,” Jordan had said as Astrid flung her clothes off in her bedroom, desperate for her bed. Jordan had picked up the garments after her and folded them—albeit wrongly—before placing them on her chair.

“Sleep,” Astrid had said.

“Yeah, I’d say that’s a good idea,” Jordan said. “But first, take this.” She held out two liquid blue pills and a glass of water. “Trust me.”

Astrid had obeyed. She remembered blinking up into Jordan’s hazel eyes as she sat on the edge of her bed in her bra and underwear and gulped the water down while Jordan held the glass.

She’d flopped onto her pillow after that. Covers secured around her chin and then...

“I should be the one tucking you in.”

That’s what she’d said to Jordan when the other woman had literally tucked the sheets around her arms and legs.

“Why’s that?” Jordan had asked.

“Because,” Astrid had mumbled. “She left you like you didn’t mean anything. And you do. You mean something.”

Silence. A smooth, cool hand on her forehead, hair looped around her ear. Astrid saw it all unfold in her mind like she was watching a movie for the first time, witnessing the main character make cringe-worthy, booze-infused choices.

After that, she’d slept, she supposed, but then she remembered waking up in the middle of the night because—

Oh god.

She’d had a dream.

A sex dream.