Page 70 of Sunset Catchers

“What? Am I dying? Did he give me some sort of boy disease?”

She laughs. “Yes, Win! You’re sick with infatuation.”

My stomach drops. “What? No!” My neck muscles shake from left to right, to add to the point, “No.” I pour some milk over the ice cubes piled up in my glass. Then, I top everything up with the freshly brewed espresso.

“Yes! You totally fancy him.” I snort out a laugh.

“Quick reminder; this isn’t the eighteen hundreds.”

Junie always yearns for the past. Whether it is the 1800s or the ’90s, she is always nostalgic, always looking over her shoulder at what came before her, to inspire what comes next.

“Winnie, you have a full-on crush on Levi.”

I freeze on my feet. I can’t deny that I like him. But I wouldn’t go as far as saying I have a crush on him.

“No, I don’t. I’ve had crushes before. A lot of them, in fact. And this feels different.” My insides feel warm and gooey, yet a pang of something sharp is mixed in; a marshmallow poked by a stick being swirled above a campfire.

“Well, before it was your vagina that was crushing on boys. Now, I think it’s your heart, babe.”

My heart picks up its rhythm into a frenzy, seeming to agree wholly with Junie’s observation. Fucking traitor.

It’s not true. Is it?

I am a twenty-eight-year-old woman. I’ve had plenty of crushes before. For sure.

“You are mistaken,” I argue, pacing the length of the kitchen. “There was Jasper when we were fourteen. What would you call that, if not, a crush?” I came to a stop in front of my phone on the stone counter, hands propped up in my hips, waiting with bated breath for my best friend’s reply.

“You mean Jason?” She scoffs. Fuck, that’s right. Not Jasper, Jason. Well, that is a weak starting argument point. Still your honor, I plead not guilty to having a crush on Levi.

“All you ever talked about was his hair. The only time he tried to talk to you, you basically told him to fuck off.”

“He asked if he could borrow a pen. On the first day of school! What’d he do, eat them?” That has her laughing. I open my mouth, ready with my second argument, but Junie cuts me off before I can utter another word.

“Guys from books and movies do not count, Winnie.”

A frustrated breath slips out of me. I don’t see how that’s fair, but whatever. I rack my brain, trying to come up with another example, but my mind remains alarmingly blank. Sure, there’s a long list of names in the folder dedicated to my hook-ups, but all that had been about attraction, or even just about availability if I am being completely honest.

I can’t remember if I even liked any of those guys. Or much of their faces. Barely their names, really. I just remembered if they’d been a good lay and how much of the gaping hole of emptiness inside me they’d filled for a pleasurable moment.

Gosh, that’s kind of bad.

“What about ice cream guy? I had a crush on him,” I try.

“No, you had a crush on his employee discount and how good he was at licking.” I hum my agreement. It’s true that he had been good at licking ice cream and other wet things that may or may not be found on my body. Closing argument it is, then. Even if I’m not proud of what I’m about to say.

“Wiener guy.”

“The one who asked you to be the bun to his ‘Costco sized dick’?” I cringe, remembering I had indeed let him put his sausage in my bun, even after his atrocious pick-up line. I mean, heck, I’d been curious to verify his claim.

I did it for science, if for nothing else.

“Yeah. I was crushing hard on him,” I lie.

“No, Win. The only thing that was crushed was your vagina. You told me it was the worst sex of your life.”

“It was,” I concede, scrunching my nose.

His dick might’ve been big, but he did not know how to use it. He just kind of put it in, without the necessary amount of foreplay required for such a big stick, and did very little else. My vagina twitches; it is still pissed off about it.