Hook Up by Miranda Baker Page B

the first time. Back then I didn’t realize how unusual that was—real communication during sex, the Holy Grail of lovemaking. We didn’t sleep, just made love all night. In the morning, he kissed me goodbye and got on a plane to California. I never heard from him again.”
    “What?” Outrage darkened Bonita’s eyes to the exact shade of her elegant jade necklace. “You didn’t give him your number? Or get his?”
    “He got mine and put it in his cell phone. I didn’t ask for his. I was trying to be cool.”
    Bonita frowned. “Oh, that’s just painful.”
    “It gets worse. That’s when the psychic stuff began. I walked out of the bedroom that morning and got flattened by depression. I didn’t know it, but I was channeling the combined hangover of the entire fraternity house. Then I staggered outside and found two people having a screaming breakup on the front porch. I knew what they were yelling at each other didn’t match what was in their hearts, so I started babbling, couldn’t stop myself. I should have kept my mouth shut, of course, but then they started being honest with each other. I guess they were my first pro bono clients.” She smiled, remembering. That incident had eventually given her the idea for Get In Touch. “After that, I learned how to keep my thoughts to myself, but I felt like I was standing in a hailstorm. I never knew when I was going to get hit by someone else’s emotions. Do you know how many kids are walking around broadcasting their feelings on a college campus?” She groaned. “I was a wreck. Thank God for Come Again. I would have gotten into more trouble than I did without that vibrator you sold me. Your pretty girlfriends were a big help too. Still are, in fact.”
    “Yes, I have to agree there,” Bonita said with a small smile.
    Crystal set her empty champagne glass on the table and snagged another one from a tray. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
    Bonita chewed on her bottom lip. “So where’d Ryan go?” she asked.
    “Stanford. Graduate School of Business. I waited all day for him to call and then I squashed my pride and went back to the frat house to ask around. Mark wasn’t there, thank God, but the house was having another party.” She swallowed hard. “You know what happens to an empath around a bunch of hot, horny guys who smell freshman meat?”
    Bonita looked horrified.
    “Yeah, it wasn’t pretty.” She had missed Ryan, but she’d filled her emptiness with every cock in the fraternity house that night. Dim lights, drawn curtains, the smell of incense and beer, salty sweat on heated flesh. Her lust had been endless, uncontrollable, fed by the frenzy around her. That night had taught her an awesome and horrifying lesson, and she was lucky she hadn’t ended up pregnant or worse. “I didn’t leave my dorm room for a week after that, not until I figured out how to shield. I’d walk outside and sidle up to someone and see if I was safe and then run back to my room. I also practiced on the pizza delivery guys because there was no way I could go to the cafeteria.”
    “I guess that explains why I never see you Upstairs at Johnny’s on orgy night,” Bonita said, offering her a smile that held no pity.
    Crystal smiled back at her. “No way in hell.”
    Bonita nodded. “So what happened this afternoon? You guys looked ready to combust.”
    Crystal didn’t spare a single detail.
    “That’s almost impressive,” Bonita said, when she had finished. “You told him you liked girls and he stole third base?”
    “Don’t remind me. My last faint hope is to prove that you and I are madly in love. Maybe then he’ll leave me alone.”
    Bonita had a pensive expression on her face. “Let me get this straight. One night of hot sex with Ryan Anderson turned you into a nymphomaniac psychic?”
    “Something like that.”
    Her friend grinned. “Don’t you want to know what a second night would do to you?”
    Crystal scowled. “Have you