Playdates

“Nick is a terrible kisser,” Lauren announced, as she rolled over onto her stomach from her back on Tara’s bed.
Tara laughed, as Nick was Lauren’s flavor of the week. He was just her type, playing forward on the hockey team, cute, but not especially smart. “Is he at least a good fuck?”
“How the hell would I know? Every time I have a chance of getting laid, he’s too drunk to do anything about it. Besides, I don’t think he has what it takes to get me going anyway.”
“Really? That’s too bad. Why are you still with him then?” Tara asked. She has had the same boyfriend for the last 3 years. She was lucky. Ben was smart, considerate, and definitely what her and Lauren called “Grade A” (they had a tendency to call out grades to each other, text, whatever way they could, depending on how a guy looked. In Tara’s case, it meant in bed also).
“Because there’s nobody better,” Lauren said, sighing. “I mean, I like him, but… I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being hard on him because he’s not like Ben.” Tara knew from being friends with Lauren for the last 15 years that she didn’t mean anything by the comment, only that Tara was lucky to have found someone like Ben, which she already knew.
“Maybe,” Tara responded thoughtfully. “Maybe you two just need a little more time together. And you’ve only been with Nick like… 5 seconds. It’s not terrible that you haven’t fucked yet.”
“First off,” Lauren proclaimed, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder and sitting up. “You try going 4 months without some action. You don’t have to go 4 days without it.”
Tara got up off the floor and flopped down on the bed next to Lauren and the two stretched out side by side like they’d done for so many years. “I know, I shouldn’t talk. It’s got to be hard. I really don’t know how you do it.”

Suddenly, Lauren looked over at her. Everything about Tara that had been awkward or gawky when they were younger had vanished over the last 4 or 5 years. Her hair, which had changed colors many times as they were growing up, finally settled on a dark reddish brown that you always had to look twice at to see what color it really was. Her celery green eyes, always a shock at first, were the most intriguing thing about her. Tara was thin and beautiful and the fact that she didn’t know she was beautiful made her even more desirable to anyone who met her.
Just then, Tara screwed her eyes together and stuck her tongue out at Lauren. Lauren cracked up and sat up again.
“Remember when we were like, what, 12, and decided we needed to know how to kiss before the middle school dance?” she asked her best friend.
Tara started laughing too.