Page 1 of June (New Orleans #6)

“I t’s weird,” Rory noted. “I knew he was going to propose, but I thought he was going to wait. Last I’d heard, he hadn’t even picked out a ring.”

“I guess he changed his mind,” Rory’s new girlfriend, Logan, replied as she wrapped her arm around Rory.

It was strange for Enid to watch Rory with someone. Rory had been single for as long as Enid had known her, and she hadn’t even gone on a date with a woman until Logan. That felt like just yesterday, despite the fact that they were currently sitting across from her at Candace’s bar, acting like they’d been together for years. Not only that, but Rory had also recently officially come out to pretty much everyone except for her parents, and Enid suspected that would be happening soon because Rory was clearly in love.

Logan hadn’t technically been Rory’s first kiss with a woman, though. That had been Enid, and it felt like forever ago to her that Rory had initiated the kiss. Enid hadn’t felt the same way, so she hadn’t kissed her back, but they’d managed to remain friends. She had been Rory’s only gay friend at the time, and that had been the main reason why Rory had been into her back then, but as Enid watched the two women make those heart eyes at one another, it brought that kiss to the forefront of Enid’s mind. She wished she had someone to make heart eyes with, too.

It wasn’t Rory specifically that she wanted, even though Rory was great. She was beautiful, funny, and shy at times. Enid should have liked her. She should have kissed her and gone out with her. She just hadn’t. Now, Rory was happy with someone else, and Enid was still single. Well, still was a bad word to use. She was only twenty-four.

Besides, being single wasn’t the most pressing issue that she had on her plate right now. The main problem she faced was that she’d already graduated from college and had moved to Tallahassee, where she’d gotten her dream job. It had been an entry-level position, but it was supposed to lead to an entire career. Enid hadn’t been there long when there had been layoffs, and she’d been a victim of them. After moving her entire life and using up whatever savings she had had on the security deposit for her apartment and the move, she had had no choice but to move back to New Orleans and in with her parents, who had been kind enough to let her move back into her old room and not charge her rent.

Since being laid off, Enid had tried to find another job to no avail, so she had decided to go to graduate school to give herself a better chance of getting the job she wanted after she graduated. She still had her car and had enough money to pay for gas and a few other things, but she would need to find something part-time soon to help make ends meet because she didn’t want to live with her parents forever, and she hated taking advantage of them. They had raised her and had helped her pay for college, and now, she was using student loans for grad school and not paying them any rent. None of this had been part of Enid’s plan of getting her undergraduate degree, finding a decent job, and working her way up.

Grad school hadn’t ever been in the mix, but here she was. Her MBA program was only two years, which wasn’t bad, but it went year-round instead of giving her the summers off, which meant that while Rory was now done with her own graduate program for the summer, Enid wasn’t and had to keep up with two classes during her summer session while Rory had more free time for her new girlfriend, Logan.

“I assume you’ll be the maid of honor,” Enid spoke, trying to join the conversation.

“Candace hasn’t officially asked me yet, but she got engaged yesterday, so I’m not worried,” Rory replied.

“Can I be your arm candy?” Logan asked.

Rory responded by kissing her, and it was all adorable and cute and annoying at the same time. Enid took a drink of her beer and internally rolled her eyes. She had studying to do. Her summer session hadn’t even started yet, but she had over five hundred pages of reading to get through for this class, according to the syllabus, which she had snagged online the other day.

“I’ve got to get back to work,” Logan added and kissed Rory quickly before standing up. “Break’s over. Want me to put in a food order for you?”

“Can I have a burger?” Rory asked.

“Sure,” Logan said, nodding. “Enid?”

“I was thinking about heading home to get some studying in,” she replied.

“Really? I thought we were hanging out tonight,” Rory said.

‘Yeah, we were going to hang out tonight,’ Enid thought to herself.

Then, Logan went on a break the moment they walked into the bar, and it had turned into the two of them hanging out and Enid being the unwanted third wheel.

“I can hang for another hour, maybe,” she replied.

“Cool. Food?” Logan asked.

“Maybe just a burger, too.”

“I’ll put the order in,” Logan said and walked toward the bar.

“Are you okay?” Rory asked her.

“Me?”

“Yes, you.” Rory giggled.

“Well, I’m not in the honeymoon period of a new relationship, and I didn’t recently have sex with a woman for the first time, but I’m good.”

“Don’t say that that loud,” Rory told her as she looked around at the somewhat crowded bar.

Enid laughed and said, “You two are a little annoying.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re happy, so I’m happy for you, of course. I’m just also jealous.”

“Should I knock it off when you’re around? She had a break and wanted to say hello.”

“No, you’re allowed to spend time with your girlfriend, Rory. I just…” Enid sighed. “I’m a little tired and lost, I think. You know how it is for me.”

“I know,” Rory replied. “How can I help? We can eat and go to your place. Want to take the food to-go instead? I can have her change it. I’ll help you study whatever.”

“You mean my parents ’ place,” Enid said. “I went from having a decent one-bedroom apartment in another state, where I had my own assigned parking spot and a storage unit next to it, to having my old bedroom and sharing a bathroom with my eighteen-year-old brother. Do you have any idea how much time eighteen-year-old boys spend in the bathroom? Girls get a bad rap, but he takes thirty-minute showers, and there’s no way he’s only cleaning in there. He uses a bar of soap on his face, Rory. A bar of soap.”

Rory laughed and then offered, “I can talk to Candace for you.”

“I don’t bartend. I have zero experience,” she replied.

“What about being a tour guide? I’m new to it, but it’s good so far. When I’m done with my training, I’ll make decent tips. You get to walk around the city a lot and meet new people.”

“I liked my office job,” Enid replied. “And new people are weird.”

Rory laughed again and said, “Some of them, yes.”

“I almost wish I never would have gotten that job and moved. I could’ve been done with grad school by now and in my own place, not relying on my parents for anything.”

“They love you. And it’s not like you could’ve known that you’d lose your job almost right away. It was a good opportunity, Enid. You took it.”

“Yeah, I know.” She sighed again. “I just feel stuck.”

“You’re not stuck. You’re in between,” Rory suggested.

“I guess,” she said and took another sip of her beer.

“Am I really that annoying now that I’m with Logan?”

Enid laughed and replied, “Yes. But it’s fine. She’s your first girlfriend.”

“Can we talk about this stuff?” Rory asked as she leaned in. “I can kind of talk to Candace, but she’s straight, so it’s a little different.”

“You want to talk to me about sex?”

“I don’t know.” Rory shrugged and looked at Logan, who was behind the bar. “I’m in love with her, Enid. She’s sexy and complicated and thoughtful and sweet, and sometimes, she gets really nervous, and it’s cute. She’s also really, really good in bed, and I don’t know if that’s because I have nothing to compare it to or if she is just that good.”

“Does it matter?” Enid asked.

“Not really. But I want to be that good for her, too.”

“Has she said you’re not?”

“No, she said I am.”

“O-k-a-y…”

“We were just… Last night, after we left the party here, we went back to her place, and her neighbor was in the hallway. They’ve…”

“Slept together?”

“Sort of. Logan did things to her, but not the other way around.”

“So, this neighbor isn’t a giver?”

“It’s more about Logan than her.”

“Does Logan not like to be touched?”

“No, she does,” Rory replied and looked over at Logan again. “Trust me, she does.”

“O-k-a-y… I’m still confused, then.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rory said, shaking her head. “The neighbor was rude, which I expected, and Logan told her to knock it off. We talked about it once we got inside. Logan wants to move as soon as she can. I don’t really care about the stupid neighbor, but then I thought about how much sex Logan has had. She’s seven years older than me and wasn’t exactly a virgin when we met. We were in bed, and everything was amazing, but when we ordered food, Logan got out of bed to get it and went to grab a new pair of underwear from the drawer, and I caught sight of something else in there. I didn’t say anything, but now I don’t know what to do.”

“Something else?”

Rory leaned in and whispered, “A strap-on.”

“Oh.” Enid laughed. “That’s it ? I thought you were going to say she had handcuffs or a whip or something.”

“What?!” Rory asked loudly. “No. It was a harness, and the thing was next to it.”

“The thing ?” Enid couldn’t help but laugh a little again. “I know you know what it’s called.”

“I’ve never used one.”

“Not even on yourself?”

Rory shook her head and replied, “I only had sex once with a guy, and let’s just say it didn’t make me crave what we did again, so I’ve never thought to buy one to use on myself. Logan has one, though, and I don’t know if she’s used it on other women or what that protocol is, but I don’t want that thing inside me if it’s been inside someone else.”

“Ah,” Enid said. “Well, a good rule of thumb is to tell her if you even want that so that she knows. If you don’t, you tell her that, too. You can always change your mind later and update her then. I would also tell her that you don’t want to use it if she’s used it with others, and she can go buy another one. You two can always pick it out together, if you want. It can be kind of fun, searching online or going to the store with someone you’re dating to pick out what you want or what they want.”

“You’ve done that?”

“A couple of times,” she said.

“Do you think she’ll want me to wear one? I think I’ll just look really weird and not know how to use it.”

“I think you should talk to her about that,” Enid suggested. “Your girlfriend looks like a top to me, so my guess is that she would have no problem being the one to wear it for you and that she probably won’t expect you to wear it for her, but I’d still ask her because just because she doesn’t expect it, doesn’t mean she doesn’t want it.”

Rory nodded and said, “And then we all just pretend it doesn’t look funny, kind of hanging there?”

Enid laughed and said, “Sex looks funny. Think of the faces we make when we–”

“Two burgers,” Logan interrupted them as she put the plates down in front of them. “Refill?” she asked Enid.

“Uh… No,” she replied and looked at Rory, who was blushing like crazy.

“Babe, are you okay?” Logan asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

“You’re bright red.”

“Just warm in here,” Rory lied.

Enid laughed.

◆◆◆

“I’m home!” Enid yelled to the house more than to one person.

“Hey, honey,” her dad said from his office.

“Hey, Dad,” Enid replied as she walked down the hall and into the den, which he used as his office.

“Did you have fun?”

“Rory and I just hung out, but yeah, it was fun.”

“Good,” he said.

“Working late?” she asked.

“Just for another hour or so. Did you eat? Your mom made you a plate. It’s in the fridge.”

“I did, yeah. I’ll keep it for lunch tomorrow.”

“Okay. Sounds good.”

Enid smiled at her dad, and when he returned his attention to the computer in front of him, she walked over to the living room, where she found her mom watching TV.

“Hi, honey.”

“Hey, Mom,” Enid replied. “Thanks for leaving dinner for me.”

“When you heat it in the microwave, put a wet paper towel over it so that it–”

“Doesn’t dry out, yeah,” Enid said with a smile.

“Did you have fun tonight?”

“I did,” she said in response to the same question she got every night and added, “I’m going to be studying in my room for the rest of the night.”

“Okay. Will you throw your dirty clothes down for me? I’d like to get them in the washer.”

“I can do my laundry, Mom.”

“It’s just easier. I can put yours in with the rest of the loads. You know that machine likes to fight with me.”

“Yeah, sure,” Enid said. “Good night.”

“Night, honey,” her mom replied.

Enid walked up the stairs and into her room, where she found the hamper with her dirty clothes, carried it back down the stairs, and left it there for her mom to deal with, feeling like she was fifteen all over again. As a twenty-four-year-old, she knew how to do her own laundry, but her mom always told her to drop it off.

“Hey,” her brother, EJ, said when she bumped into him in the upstairs hallway.

“Hey,” she replied.

“I was going to hop into the shower,” he told her.

Enid rolled her eyes and said, “Can you please leave hot water for the rest of us, EJ?”

“It’s Elijah now. You know I don’t go by EJ anymore.”

“Okay, Elijah James.”

“Asshole.”

“Don’t jerk off in the shower, running the hot water. Just do it in your bedroom like the rest of us,” she said.

“Gross. I don’t want to think of you doing that.”

“Guess what, EJ?” She leaned in. “I’ve had sex before, too.”

“Damn, Enid. Gross. Come on.”

She laughed and added, “With more than one woman. And it was really, really good. I can probably give you some pointers, if you want.”

EJ slammed the bathroom door, and Enid laughed on the way to her bedroom. She had accomplished her goal. No way he was going to get himself off in the shower now, with that visual in his mind. She was still laughing as she pulled out her textbook and sat at the small desk in the corner of her room. Picking on her kid brother was fun and all, but she missed having her own place. Weirdly, she missed doing her own laundry and having to figure out something for dinner because her mom wasn’t there to cook for her. She missed feeling like a real adult. And now that she thought about it, she missed good sex with a beautiful woman, too.