Good Girl(44)

"Just pack whatever you'd normally wear, Lydia."

"Whatever I normally wear is not what you think it is, Rhys. Are you sure you don't want me to run out and get some stuff? Or I could ask my new friend Staci for help. She could probably tell me where to order online if you're into something a little more hardcore than what I can find at the Fashion Show mall. Do you want me in leather or netting or dressed like a pony or something? Just tell me."

She brings the straw to her lips and takes another sip, blinking at me in innocent curiosity and without a hint of judgment.

"I want you exactly the way you are."

"Oh." A tiny line furrows her brow as if this is confusing to her. Or perhaps she was hoping I was into bondage or some shit, it's hard to tell with her.

"Were you hoping to experience something extreme, Lydia? Did you want me to get you a butt plug with a tail and ask you to crawl around my apartment? Pierce your nipples? Paddle you?"

"Not particularly, no. I just want to be good for you. I like it when you tell me I'm a good girl. That really does it for me."

"Does it?"

"Mmm-hmm," she murmurs and wiggles in her seat.

I tell her I need some quiet time after that.

The complex she lives at is nice. An upscale development just twenty minutes from the Strip, close enough to be convenient but far enough to have a relaxed residential feel. She lives in a unit near the clubhouse which must have a gym, as some sweat-covered asshole passes us on his way out. He calls out a “Hey, Lydia,” as he passes, which pisses me the fuck off.

"Friend of yours?" I question as I trail behind her to her door, carrying the orange cat lamp.

"I met him at the pool once," she says, flashing me a chagrined smile over her shoulder. "But I can't remember his name so I'm always just like 'Hey, you!' when he tries to talk to me."

I'd tell her that he wouldn't give a shit about reminding her what his name is if she'd be willing to give him the time of day, but fuck that. I'm not paying her to give her tips on picking up other men.

She unlocks her apartment door and calls out for her roommate, who doesn't appear to be home.

"Weird, I thought she was here," Lydia says. She looks sad about missing her. "I guess I'll see her tomorrow," she says with a shrug.

"Are you close?" I ask for lack of anything else to talk about.

"She's my best friend."

"Have you known her long?"

"A couple of years. We met in college, then we both got hired at the Windsor so we decided to move here together and be roommates."

"Ah." I hadn't realized her roommate was an employee too, but it makes sense. I know we did a lot of hiring at college job fairs. Fuck, I hate the reminder that Lydia was in college so recently.

"I'll take this," she says, taking the lamp from my hand. I'd forgotten I was even holding the hideous thing. She disappears into one of the bedrooms so I take stock of her apartment. I think this is a relatively new development. The apartment itself isn't huge but the floor plan is open and the appliances look new. The couch looks new, along with the end tables and lamps. Normal lamps, I note, not shaped like a cat or a unicorn or whatever the fuck else she's into. There's an old dresser that's been painted teal being used to hold the television and a kitchen table with mismatched chairs that I suspect came from Goodwill. There's a sash of some kind hanging from a cork board near the kitchen table. Like a pageant sash, but uglier. I walk closer to check it out as Lydia calls out from the bedroom that she's packing normal stuff.

This sash is even more ridiculous than the lamp. There's something called a bar badge sewn onto it. And a dating app badge. And a confidence badge. Pinned to the bulletin board but not sewn onto the sash is a Rhys badge. And a sex badge. And a butt stuff badge.

My cock throbs at the idea of taking Lydia's ass but my mind is stuck on the Rhys badge. Am I some kind of a game to her?

The front door opens and Payton appears. I step away from the bulletin board as Lydia pops out of her room with a happy exclamation over her friend's arrival. She introduces us and then pauses, taking a second glance at her friend.

"Payton, why are you still wearing the same thing you had on last night?"

"Um," Payton replies, glancing down at herself as if in confusion. "Am I? Enough about me. How was the sex last night?"

"Payton!" Lydia's eyes widen and she shoots me a look, her expression mortified. "I'm not going to tell you what Rhys is like in bed when he's standing right here."

"Okay, so tomorrow at lunch?" Payton seems totally nonplussed over Lydia's rebuttal. Lydia's eyes dart back and forth between me and Payton.

"Probably not then either, Payton."

"Ohhh," Payton drawls, looking between us. "Of course not. We'd never discuss such a thing. Wink, wink."

She actually says ‘wink, wink’ out loud.

"Are you almost ready? I've got a lot of work to get done this afternoon." Including giving Lydia multiple orgasms so they're fresh on her mind when she recaps it during her lunch. Because impressing this virgin has somehow, inexplicably, become my thing.





Twenty-Two