Full Package(11)

“I’ve got your back,” she says, and pats me.

Then she points to a cupcake tin. She pants like a dog. “Must. Have.”

“Don’t you have twenty of those?”

She nods as she grabs it from a shelf. “Yes. But I need more.” She spins around, and her hand darts out for something else. “It’s an icing smoother. I need a new one. Gah, this aisle is like baker porn.” She smiles gleefully.

“Baker porn. I like that,” I say, then offer to hold the kitchen goods. She hands them to me, and I tuck them under my arm.

When we turn the corner toward the next aisle, Josie stops at the end cap. She taps on a big silvery box. “Quick. Waffle maker. This is the true test of our roommate compatibility. Do you need a waffle maker?”

I peer at her through narrowed eyes, then slam my free hand as if I’m hitting a buzzer on a game show. “And the correct answer is: No. Never. That’s what Sunday brunch is for.”

She holds up a palm and we smack hands. “You win this round of the New Roommate Show. Because who wants to buy a monstrosity for the kitchen counter to make waffles in once a year and then have no place to put it in our tiny New York apartment?”

“Not this guy.”

“And not this girl.”

Damn, we rock at living together.

We soldier on through the store.

On our quest for sheets, we wander through sconces. And seriously, what the fuck is a sconce? Does anyone even know what a sconce is? No, no one does, because it’s not a thing. Then an entire rack of high-end ice cream makers, which forces me to ask—who the hell decided we should make our own ice cream? Have people, I dunno, not heard of Talenti’s, Edy’s, Ben and Jerry’s, or the corner ice cream shop?

At the end of a maze of aisles and escalators, we arrive at the sheets. I blink and stare. Up and up and up. “Josie, there are literally five hundred kinds of sheets here,” I say, my tone heavy.

“Choice is good,” she says, tapping her finger on her chin as she checks out the options.

I survey the rows upon rows of navy, black, white, dotted, and other manly-patterned sheets, and immediately I’m overwhelmed. Why is sheet shopping so complicated? I swear restarting a heart is easier than figuring out the proper thread count.

I gesture to the mountains of Egyptian cotton. “But each one says it’s better than the last. What happens if I get the soft three hundred? Will I wonder if the five hundred was the softest after all? And is bigger better? Do I need the eight hundred? How do I decide?”

She grabs a packet of four hundred thread count sheets and thrusts it in my arms with an authority that’s downright . . . hot. “That’s how you do it.”

“Damn, woman. You just made the decision like that.” I snap my fingers.

“You can’t go wrong with white sheets. And they’ll be just the right amount of soft,” she says, stroking the plastic cover of the sheets. My eyes drift to her fingers, and I stare as she runs them down the cover of the sheets. My mind leapfrogs several inappropriate paces ahead to how her fingers might feel running down my abs . . . Or if her belly is just the right amount of soft . . .

I shake my head. Of course she’s the right amount of soft. She should be soft. Women are usually soft—that’s just a simple fact.

“I’m sold,” I say, tucking the sheets under my arm with the rest of our haul and ferrying her away from the bed supplies lest any more errant fantasies pop into my head thanks to the free association of Josie, sheets, fingers, stroking, soft skin, cherries, or any fucking other thing.

As we leave this section, she stops at a giant tub of velvety pillows of all shapes and sizes. “I need a new pillow.”

I frown in confusion. “For what?”

She grabs a royal blue pillow with sequins on the edges and clutches it to her chest. “I like pillows.”

“Are you a pillow-phile?”

“Total pillow-phile.” Dropping the blue one in the vat, she dips her hand in and riffles around, rooting through a sea of chocolate brown, deep purple, and rich red pillows. Some are square, some circular, some cylindrical. She finds one that’s emerald green and long.

“Look!” Her face lights up as if she’s discovered a pirate’s booty.

“What’s the pillow love all about, Josie?”

Hugging it tighter, she answers, “Pillows are wonderful. We can nap with them, cuddle with them, put our feet on them. Also,” she says, wagging a finger to draw me closer and dropping her voice to a whisper, “they’re boob friends.”

And I’m a cartoon character knocked senseless. It’s as if I’ve been hit with a frying pan of naughty, and the dirty lobe of my brain has rattled free. “Boob friends?”

Josie wiggles her eyebrows and backs up into the aisle next to the pillows.

I follow.

I’d follow her anywhere right now because she just uttered my favorite word. Boobs. For the record, my second favorite word is tits. Third is breasts.

She bites her lip, glances from side to side, then draws the pillow right between the valley of the goddesses on her chest.

I groan.

Audibly.

And my dick springs to attention in my jeans, the shameless fucker.

Then, it’s story time for Josie Hammer, as she launches into a tale. “Once upon a time, I had a stuffed crocodile. He was a small, green creature who lived on my bed, a present from when I was younger and in the middle of a big love fest for the Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile books. I made him talk, and I named him Lyle Lyle, too.”