In Real Life ✓

44. That's What She Said

My phone told me Gilbert had already gone home, because he didn't know how long sorting out Felicia's situation would take. I wasn't even surprised by the fact that he and probably everybody else at our school already knew that I had come in to break up the fight.

So I took the bus and walked up to his front door to ring the doorbell, and to my amusement, he opened up almost immediately.

"Hi?"

"Hey, come in," he said. "I'm trying to make food and I need your help."

I rolled my eyes and followed him to the kitchen, where we spent the following twenty minutes frying eggs and screaming at each other. When we finally sat down at the table, I said, "So I have... news."

"Yeah?" he mumbled as he shoveled a piece of egg into his mouth, before looking up at me with those big, brown, curious eyes of his, but I chickened out. I couldn't just fucking say it. I couldn't. I mean, how would I even say it? I masturbated. How the fuck do you say that?

So I told him about Felicia instead.

"A-ha! So that's how you got her to back off when she kept harassing me!"

I nodded.

"Now my mind can finally rest," he chuckled.

I nodded, again.

After a moment of silence, he asked, "Is something wrong?"

"No, why?"

"You're quiet."

"I just..." I don't know how to tell you.

"What?"

"I, uh..." Gosh, Eve, just say it then. "I did it."

"You did what?"

"You know..."

He stared at me with a very confused frown for a very long time, but then, the realization hit. I could literally see the blush creeping up his cheeks. "Oh."

"Yeah."

"Okay." He nodded, feigning nonchalance, but incapable of hiding his flushed face, and I almost laughed. I knew he was thinking about it—perhaps even envisioning it—and that made this situation a whole lot less embarrassing and a hell of a lot funnier.

When he saw me trying to hide a smile, he demanded, "What're you laughing about?"

"Nothing."

"Shut up," he grumbled, knowing exactly what I was laughing about. "So, uh... How did it go?"

"It went... okay. It wasn't bad."

In all honesty, I'd spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to even get in the mood in the first place. Even after reading all that bullshit on the internet and indirectly asking Travis for advice. I couldn't just watch porn and instantly get turned on like everyone else. Some asexual people could, but it had never done anything for me, so I'd already thrown that option out the window.

And don't even get me started on how fucking weird it all felt at first...

"It wasn't bad?" Gilbert repeated. "That doesn't sound great."

"Yeah, well..." I trailed off, not sure how to describe it without majorly embarrassing myself, so instead of doing that, I asked, "What was your first time like?"

"Oh, I..." He put his cutlery down and looked up at the ceiling with a thoughtful frown as he said, "I was pretty young, so I had no idea what I was doing. Or why I was doing it. I remember being pretty freaked out about the whole thing until I realized that it felt kinda good."

"How old were you?"

"About eight or nine, I think?"

"Okay, well, don't laugh or I'll punch you in the nuts, but it was like that, kinda," I told him. "I didn't know what I was doing, and it was weird as fuck, but I didn't hate it."

He started nodding slowly. "Okay, that's good. It must've been strange. To just... try and do all that and... I mean, I probably wouldn't know what to do either, if I... But you—" He looked down for a moment and I could tell that his imagination was a lot more vivid than I thought, because he cleared his throat in that awkward, no-I-was-not-thinking-of-that way.

Oh, he was definitely thinking of that.

This time, I did laugh.

"Stop it," he groaned.

"You keep thinking about it, don't you?"

"Of course I keep thinking about it!" he replied, throwing his hands up. "It's normal, remember?!"

I bit my lip to keep from laughing, and before he could yell at me for embarrassing him again, I leaned across the table and kissed him. He froze, before returning the kiss and lifting his hands to cup my cheeks. He squeezed them together and murmured, "That's really not helping, Evie."

I moved back with a chuckle. "Eat your eggs before they get cold. And only my dad can call me Evie."

He rolled his eyes, but went back to eating his eggs nonetheless. After he'd taken a few bites, he asked, "Okay, but... just to make things clear, you're sure you're okay with it?"

"Yeah. One hundred percent."

"Only one hundred?"

I gave him a look.

"I need at least a thousand percent," he said with a cheeky smile.

"That doesn't even make sense."

"Sure it does."

"Two thousand percent then."

"Yeah, that should do it."