Whispers at Moonrise (Shadow Falls #4)(49)

Oh, yeah, regret times ten. Kylie felt her face turn red.

Her mom's breath caught and she started coughing. "Uh..." More hacking.

"Hello, Kylie." A male voice came on the line. "I think your mom choked on her wine."

Wine? Her mom was drinking wine at three in the afternoon? Was he planning on getting her drunk and having his way with her?

"Kylie? You there?"

"Yeah." Kylie heard her mom telling John to give her the phone back. Kylie imagined her mom panicking thinking Kylie might ask John if they were having sex. Not that she would. The fact that she asked her mom was probably going on her most embarrassing moments list.

"Kylie?" Her mom must have snagged the phone back. "We ... should talk later." Her voice came out squeaky, like a cartoon.

"Yeah. Later." Kylie disconnected and stared at the phone.

Okay, lesson learned. Her mom not only couldn't say the word sex, she obviously couldn't hear it, either. Did that mean her mom couldn't have sex? Gawd, Kylie hoped so. Lesson number two. Talking about sex with her mom made her queasy. Could she possibly suffer from the same affliction as her mom?

Resting her phone by the computer, pushing thoughts of her mom having sex from her mind, Kylie refocused on the computer and tried not to listen to her roommates giggling about something-probably something to do with sex, too. Moaning, she dropped her head down on the table, feeling the blood rushing to her cheeks, hoping the coolness of the wood would chase away the heat.

Her phone, placed beside the computer, chimed with an incoming text. Sitting up, she picked it up to get the message. Her heart did a little jolt when she saw it was from Derek.

His message read: You ok? What's happening?

Kylie closed her eyes. Could he sense everything she was feeling now? She dropped her head back on the table again, so hard she probably bruised her forehead. She took a few deep breaths and then sat up and started texting him back.

Fine. E-mailing you the description of the diner uniform now. U going to the reception?

She held her breath and waited to see if he'd answer.

I'll be there. U?

Oh goodness, did he think the question was like an invitation to hang out?

Was it an invitation to hang out?

Yes. Bye. Guilt set in. But at least the guilt replaced the embarrassment of asking her mom if she was having sex.

Kylie stared down at her phone. Why did texting Derek feel wrong? She shouldn't feel that way. They were just ... friends. Heck, Fredericka was with Lucas five times more than Kylie was with Lucas. Ten times more than Kylie was with Derek. And Fredericka and Lucas had been lovers.

Trying to shake off the feeling, she finished the e-mail and hit send.

"Kylie?" Miranda called from the doorway of Della's bedroom. "Did you do it?"

Kylie looked over her shoulder and attempted to focus on Miranda's cheery voice. Frankly, she could use some cheer. Lately, it seemed she'd done nothing but chew on her problems. "Do what?" she asked a smiling Miranda.

"Stuff your bra. Did you do it?" the witch asked.

Kylie bit down on her lip and grinned as the memory filled her head. "Sara talked me into doing it in sixth grade, but I chickened out and hid behind a dumpster and got rid of the tissue before we got to school. She was livid when she saw me and she had super boobs and I didn't."

Miranda chuckled and Kylie could hear Della inside the room laughing as well.

Miranda gazed down at her chest. "I admitted that I did it for a while before I got them for real. But Della swears she never did it, but I can tell she's lying."

"I'm not lying," Della countered, popping out of her room. "Truth is, I might have done it if I hadn't seen Tillie McCoy bump into the locker with her size Cs and then walk down the hall with a square boob without realizing she'd smashed her boob stuffing." Della held her hand out in front of her chest. "Seriously, she had one boob out to here and one squared off to here. Crazy thing was, the guys still couldn't take their eyes off them. I don't think they cared one was square."

Kylie chuckled but what she really felt was embarrassment for a girl named Tillie whom she'd never met. "That would be awful."

"It was," Della said. "I think tissue sales dropped in town due to it, too. Seriously, the next day, all the girls in seventh grade had lost a couple of cup sizes and the boys were depressed for a month. That day I decided that being a member of the itty bitty titty committee wasn't the worst thing."

They all laughed again.

"You know boys stuff, too," Miranda said.

"Stuff what?" Kylie asked.

Della pointed to her pelvic area.

"Seriously?" Kylie asked.

"Seriously," Della and Miranda said in unison.

"They use socks," Della added.

"Socks? Why?" Kylie asked. "It's not as if we ... check down there."

"They think we do," Della said. "Face it, guys have sex on the brain. Girls have romance on the brain."

"Sometimes I have sex on the brain," Miranda admitted. "Well, I mean, I think about it. Does that make me a slut?"

They laughed harder, Miranda included. Then Kylie shook her head, still trying not to imagine a guy with a sock in his pants. "We all think about it, but ... that is just so ... crazy!"