Page 45 of Good Girl’s Guide to Love (Guide to Love #4)

“In all seriousness, I need to ask,” Maeve pauses before finishing. “You and Jonathan had sex, right?”

Okay, truth time. This I can handle. “Yes, we did. It was…fine.”

“Oh shit! Fine is worse than nice!”

I nod to Quinn. “And it really wasn’t that fine.”

Quinn laughs and tips her wine glass to me. Stella and Maeve join in the laughter as Grace slides off my lap, taking my phone with her.

“I’m not saying you can judge a man’s bedroom performance by the cover, but if you told me that man was making you come, and there was no faking involved, I would’ve been floored.”

I shake my head to Quinn’s statement. “Cover was judged appropriately. It was okay. No fireworks or screams. Honestly, sometimes I didn’t know if it happened.”

“He didn’t make you suddenly start swearing?”

I laugh at Stella’s joke. “Not even a little bit. Well, maybe in frustration, because how can a medical doctor not know where certain parts are? He knows they aren’t made up.”

All three sisters either spit out, or choke, on their wine. “Holy shit, Ainsley. You’ve got to prepare us next time you’re going to say something like that.”

I level a look to Quinn. “Why? Because you give me so much notice when you crack a joke?”

“Look at our sister,” Stella says. “Linc’s making her sassy.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“I don’t know,” Maeve says. “Clapping back? Getting drunk? Being okay with random people taking your picture in public? This isn’t the Ainsley Banks we know.”

Now that’s true. Each morning when I wake up to my text from Linc, I have to pinch myself that I’m doing this. This is the most unlike-me thing I’ve ever done. Yet, at the same time, it’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time. And it all started one night when I was convinced to go to a karaoke bar.

“Okay, the question has to be asked.” I turn to Maeve, wondering what question is going to be asked, and whether or not I’m telling the truth. “When you were with Jonathan, did you ever have an orgasm?”

Phew. Truth. “No. I don’t think I’ve ever had one. Ever.”

You can hear a pin drop in the expansive room. I’m pretty sure even Grace put her game on pause to look up at me in wonderment.

“Never?” Stella asks. “Like never ever?”

I shake my head. “I’ve only been with two people.

The first was a college boyfriend, and it didn’t last long.

After that, I wanted to make sure to wait for someone who I thought I was going to spend my life with.

And with Jonathan, I did. He was someone I saw a future with at the beginning.

Even if the sex was…how do I say this nicely… ”

“You don’t,” Stella interrupts. “The pencil dick never made you come, and if I remember correctly, didn’t he cry after you had sex the first time?”

“What!” Maeve and Quinn yell in unison.

I rapidly blink because I never told anyone that. “Wait! How did you know?”

I’ve never shared a lot of my sex life—tonight is a first, even with my sisters. I never even told them small details of the semi- good things, so I know for a fact I never would’ve told them about that.

“Oh, my dear sweet Ainsley, must you forget that we once shared an apartment.”

I feel the color draining from my face. “You heard his crying?”

She nods. “Honestly, at first I thought it was you. And I was about ready to bust down your door and kick the shit out of him. And then I heard you comforting him, telling him it was okay. How you didn’t hear me laugh, I have no idea.”

“I’m so pissed you didn’t tell me about this,” Quinn says. “Dr. Crier has such a good ring to it.”

I know it says more about him than me, but still, the story doesn’t bring me joy to think about. “I hate that I’m twenty-nine and I’ve never…” I can’t bring myself to finish that sentence, and it’s not because I don’t want to say the words. It’s because I’m embarrassed. “I’ve never even given a…”

Quinn’s eyes pop out of her head. “Are you about to say you’ve never given a blow job?”

“She’s Ainsley,” Maeve defends. “Do you think she was a secret freak on the weekends, giving head to any guy who walked by?”

“I don’t even know what that means,” I admit. “But it’s true. Jonathan never wanted one. Said they hurt. And since I really didn’t know how to give one, and I would’ve died of embarrassment to ask y’all, I just never did.”

“Wow,” Stella whispers.

“Yup. I’m twenty-nine, I’ve never had an orgasm, and I don’t know how to give a BJ.”

I just admitted that out loud. And now I want to go find the nearest hole to crawl into.

“Hey, nothing to be ashamed about,” Quinn says. “If it makes you feel better, you just made my whole day by saying ‘BJ.’”

I give her a side eye. “You’re welcome.”

“Also, it’s easy,” she continues. “You suck on it like a lollipop, and most importantly, don’t bite it.”

“I know that,” I say. “Well, the biting part.”

“Then you’re golden.”

“Now that our sister has given you such eloquent advice, I’ll wrap this up,” Stella says, scooching Quinn out of the way so she can put her arm around me. “I remember what it was to be like with a man who left things…lacking. You feel like you wasted so much time and wondered what could’ve been.”

“You’re right,” I admit. “I stayed with Jonathan because I thought I loved him. And maybe I did at the beginning. But I wasted years on a man who wasn’t a fit, is now borderline stalking me, and I don’t even have an orgasm to show for it.”

“Just remember,” Maeve says, coming to sit on the other side of me.

“You’re the romantic of the group. The one who has said for years that one move, one insignificant moment, can change the outcome of everything.

You’re on the path you’re supposed to be on.

And whether Linc is it for you, or just a stop along the way, don’t take it for granted.

Have fun. Live your life. And if it happens to come with orgasms? Then so be it.”

I smile as I lean my head on her shoulder. “What would I do without you three?”

“Not know how to give a blow job, apparently.”

We all start laughing at Quinn’s joke as arms wrap around me in a group hug.

I love these women more than anything. And even though most of this conversation revolved around the lie of my life, I’m so glad that I finally opened up to them about everything.

It was a little scary, but I did it.

I feel lighter. Freer.

That’s until we break from the hug and I happen to look down.

Where Grace is with my phone.

Only it’s not the game she’s playing.

It’s a phone call.

An active one.

To Boyfriend.