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Автор Кора Кармак

LOSING IT

Cora Carmack

For Lindsay

My first reader.

Thank you for all the times you’ve listened to me vent.

You’ve heard every mortifying story.

You’ve been there through the awkward, the hilarious, and the near death experiences.

Stone love.

Chapter One

I took a deep breath.

You are awesome. I didn’t quite believe it so I thought it again. Awesome. You are so awesome.

If my mother heard my thoughts, she’d tell me that I needed to be humble, but humility had gotten me nowhere.

Bliss Edwards, you are a freaking catch.

So then how did I end up twenty-two years old, and the only person I knew who had never had sex? Somewhere between Saved by the Bell and Gossip Girl, it became unheard of for a girl to graduate college with her V-Card still in hand. And now I was standing in my room, regretting that I’d gathered the courage to admit it to my friend Kelsey. She reacted like I’d just told her I was hiding a tail underneath my A-line skirt. And I knew before her jaw even finished dropping that this was a terrible idea.

“SERIOUSLY? Is it because of Jesus? Are you, like, saving yourself for him?” Sex seemed simpler for Kelsey. She had the body of a Barbie and the sexually-charged brain of a teenage boy.

“No, Kelsey,” I said. “It would be a little difficult to save myself for someone who died over two thousand years ago. ”

Kelsey whipped off her shirt and threw it on the floor. I must have made a face because she looked at me and laughed.

“Relax, Princess Purity, I’m just changing shirts.

” She stepped into my closet and started flipping through my clothes.

“Why?”

“Because, Bliss, we’re going out to get you laid. ” She said the word ‘laid’ with a curl of her tongue that reminded me of those late night commercials for those adult phone lines.

“Jesus, Kelsey. ”

She pulled out a shirt that was snug on me, and would be downright scandalous on her curvy frame.

“What? You said it wasn’t about him. ”

I resisted the urge to slam my palm into my forehead.

“It’s not, I don’t think… I mean, I go to church and all, well, sometimes. I just… I don’t know. I’ve never been that interested. ”

She paused with her new shirt halfway over her head.

“Never interested? In guys? Are you gay?”

I once overheard my mother, who couldn’t understand why I was about to graduate college without a ring on my finger, ask my father the same question.

“No Kelsey, I’m not gay, so keep putting your shirt on. No need to fall on your sexual sword for me. ”

“If you’re not gay and it’s not about Jesus, then it’s just a matter of finding the right guy, or should I say… the right sexual sword. ”

I rolled my eyes. “Gee? Is that all? Find the right guy? Why didn’t someone tell me sooner?”

She pulled her blonde hair back into a high ponytail, which somehow drew even more attention to her chest. “I don’t mean the right guy to marry, honey. I mean the right guy to get your blood pumping. To make you turn off your analytical, judgmental, hyperactive brain and think with your body instead. “