The Benefits of Sexting

Chapter 1

Nothing made for a better distraction than girlfriend hunting for my best friend. 

"The redhead, yeah the one with the tan tote bag," I said, my finger pointed in the direction of a girl from my calculus class. 

Porter turned his head to the side, his eyes squinting in her main direction. "What's a tote?"

I gave out a defeated sigh. "It's a type of bag. Almost every girl has one or will possess one at least once in her lifetime," I told him matter-of-factly.

Ty and I had made it our lunch-time mission to find a suitable girlfriend for Porter. Porter, while not necessarily shy, usually kept to himself. He rarely talked to girls, besides me and Leah, so we weren't quite sure what his type was. We'd been trying to figure it out all lunch period but he'd shrugged off every single girl we pointed out.

"You're very picky, you know that, right?" Ty said, his eyes moving back over to the redhead with a thoughtful glance.

Ty was much less reserved. As the captain of the baseball team and president of the student council, he knew a lot of people and interacted with just about everyone in the school. He was never embarrassed about being silly or loud or all things Porter avoided. 

"Guys, I don't want a girlfriend," Porter grumbled. 

"Dude, why not?" Ty questioned.

"I'd rather not expose any girl to my mother's antics. Remember when she thought Danny was my girlfriend?"

An image of Porter's mother flashed across my mind, her scary, hawk-like eyes glaring at me as if I were some sort of parasite that had attached itself to her perfect son. I loved Porter to death but both of his parents were insane. His father was married to his job and his mother expected the world, or more, out of her son.

"And on that thought, I think we should end the girlfriend hunt," I concluded.

Both boys nodded their heads in agreement. We were somewhat of an unlikely trio, Ty, Porter and I, but it had been that way since freshmen year of high school. The whole freshmen kill day at our school was a huge event for all the seniors, who took hazing the freshmen to a whole different level. Somehow we all ended up locked in a broom closet for the entire school day. There was something about being cramped in a tiny space with complete strangers for a full eight hours that formed some strange bond between the three of us.

"Hey, do you think Mandy would go out with me?" Ty asked just as the bell rang, his eyes glued to the backside of the captain of the volleyball team.

I gave Mandy a once over, taking in her tight blue skinny jeans and strawberry blonde hair. She was nice enough but way too smart to fall for Ty's sweet boy act. "No way. She'll see right through you," I told him.

Ever since Ty's first love, Emily, broke his heart, he'd been on a relationship free diet. If he was interested in a girl it only lasted a few weeks before he moved onto the next. Emily was the love of his life, or at least I thought so, and she'd ripped out his heart when she'd ended things. This was his way of coping with the pain of losing her. In my mind, they were both crazy. Emily made him a better person and Ty made Emily incredibly happy. They made sense together. 

We all stood up, Porter scrambling to finish his juice box before we deserted him for AP History. As I was good friends with the office lady, I'd managed to convince her to put us all in the same classes. Besides Calculus, we all had every class together. Some days it got a bit out of hand. Us three could be a handful together.

"Did you guys start the paper yet?" Porter asked as he caught up to us.

Ty and I looked at each other, amused grins crossing our faces. "You mean the one that's not due until the end of the month? I think you're the only one who's even thought about it," I said.