I dipped my spoon into the container and lifted a bite to my mouth. “Because those are my Ladies’ Days undies.”
His eyes flew to mine. “Your what?”
“Menstruation?”
Will nodded, unfazed as he turned back to the box. “Got it.”
“You’re so progressive sometimes it’s actually a little dorky. Cute, but dorky.”
He looked back up again, giving me a crooked smile. “You have special underwear for when you’re on your period and I’m the dorky one?”
I shrugged. “Well, yeah.”
He blinked a few times. “Why do you bother?”
“These days I wouldn’t want to ruin my nice ones, but back in grad school I didn’t have nice ones.” I snorted as I took another bite. “Nobody saw my underwear then. You know, I even remember a Kickstarter this guy did for something called Period Panties. They all had names like Shark Week or Cunt Dracula. I think there was even a pair that said Rambo: First Blood and had a unicorn that had just been in a bar fight or something.” I lifted a bite of fudge brownie to my mouth, only to see Will staring at me. I paused. “What?”
“I can’t decide if that’s terrifying or absolutely genius.”
I nodded, taking the bite and swallowing before saying, “If I’m remembering correctly, it was so you didn’t have to ward off unwelcome advances that week. So instead of saying, ‘Sorry, baby, it’s that time of the month!’ you could just throw this gang sign near your vagina and flash your Period Panties.”
I made what I’m sure was a crude V motion with my spoon directly at my crotch and then took another bite of ice cream.
“Have you always been this weird?” Will asked.
I stared blankly at him.
He picked up a pair of blue cotton briefs. “What’s wrong with these?”
Hopping down from the counter, I grabbed them and tossed them back into the box. “Well, nothing really. Except they look like something my mom would wear.”
“Okay, yeah, you’ve ruined it.”
I laughed, throwing a pair at him. “Ruined what? I’m as lazy as they come, and if not for Chloe I’d probably still be wearing the same pair until the elastic gave out. But no guy actually finds these sexy.”
“You obviously don’t understand a thing about men. Or, specifically, this man.”
I let out a laugh. “I don’t?”
“No,” he said, reaching for a pair of yellow ones. “I’m not scared of periods, and you could walk out in five pairs of the worst underwear known to man, and I would still want to have sex with you.”
“Is that right?”
Will picked up my spoon and the ice cream and took a bite. “Absolutely.”
Twenty minutes later, I walked out of our room—naked except for a white tank and five pairs of the ugliest Ladies’ Days undies I owned—and sat on the couch across from the TV.
Looking up from the box he was taping, Will watched me. “Hiya, Plum.”
I crossed my legs, picked up the remote, and turned on the TV. “William.”
He straightened, placing the tape gun on top of the bookcase, and walked the box over to a stack by the front door. Crossing back to the couch, he sat on the edge of the coffee table across from me. “What are you doing?”
“Just watching TV.”
He looked back at the screen, and then to me again. “But you don’t speak Spanish.”
I blinked over at him with a glare and changed the channel. “I was reading the subtitles.”
Will tilted his head, eyes moving from the tips of my toes back to my face. “You look pretty.”
I wasn’t really sure what I was doing, and was actually starting to sweat a little. Why did I always decide to prove a point first and think about it later?
“Thanks,” I replied.
His hand curved around my ankle, his thumb brushing up and down along the top of my foot. Moving my foot away, I stood, turning toward the kitchen and trying to remember everything Chloe had told me about being sexy. I think I shook my ass, but it probably looked more like I had a charley horse.
“Do you want a beer—” I started to ask, but didn’t make it that far.
Will cracked up, bending over laughing before he tackled me back to the couch. “Are you trying to prove a point here, Plum?”
“Yes!” I shouted, trying to escape. “Admit you don’t think this is sexy. Admit it!”
“Are you kidding?” he said, tucking his head into my neck and covering me in kiss after kiss. He tickled my stomach and pushed my shirt up to my ribs. “It’s been long enough, I could absolutely do it again.”
“Are you serious?” I screamed, laughing and attempting to twist away from his fingers.
He kissed his way across my chest and down between my breasts, over my shirt. His fingers moved to the waistband of my panties and he slowly tried to peel them down my legs. Tried being the operative word because five pairs of underwear don’t really fit the same way as one . . .
“What in the actual fuck—” he started to say, tugging at the fabric.
“Just . . . Oh my God, Will—” I curled on my side, laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. He managed the first pair, holding them up victoriously before he went back for the second.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, attempting to pull them down without stretching them or damaging the elastic. “Are these on with some kind of adhesive?”
“No!”
“Okay . . . It’s possible this wasn’t my best plan. And will you hold still! It’s like trying to peel a wiggly onion!”