Bananapants

by Penny Reid

No problem. I can do this. I can pretend to be an auburn-haired, forty-year-old cultured heiress with impeccable manners and unsurpassed elegance.

But look at me now! Taking the place of my doppelgänger coworker at this secret society party of rich and affluent people, people who apparently met up annually to find a suitable, marriageable partner.

Nothing disorients men more than a woman who is taller than them, and witnessing their disgruntled, bemused faces when I shook their hands never failed to amuse me.

But being told something is true and accepting it as truth are separated by a mountain, one I was still in the process of climbing.

“I’ll be your first home run”—another slow kiss, another reason to shiver and shake—“and you’ll be my first girlfriend.” It was the word girlfriend that pulled me out of the electric slide of lusty recklessness.

It's amazing what a little bit of time buys, a little bit of caring about another person.

I appreciated how she’d spelled out her thoughts and set this boundary for both of us. It meant I could trust her to set boundaries in the future and be honest with me.