Page 92 of Thick

I coughed on nothing. I swallowed and offered an apologetic grin. “Okay.”

His eyebrows raised. “What are your thoughts on it?”

“On sex?”

“Yeah. Sex.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you like it?”

“I love it.”

He looked off to the side and nodded. “So do I. I’m just weird about it.”

You sure are.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, sex in real life isn’t like an erotic novel, nor should it be. You know, if I write a book, and wait until eighty-five percent to have the first sex scene, people bitch about it. They complain, saying that they had to wait until the book was damned near over to have a sex scene. I think that’s fucking ridiculous. The characters warrant the commission of the act, and if the characters are like you and me, sex isn’t going to come at fifteen percent, or even twenty-five percent, it’s going to come at eighty-five percent.”

But it’s going to come, eventually, right?

“Are we talking about book sex or real-life stuff?”

“Both.”

I stared at him with a confused look on my face. “What’s the question again?”

“What do you think about it?”

“About sex?”

“Yeah. Sex.”

“In real-life?”

“Either one.”

I didn’t care about book sex. At least not at that moment. I was fairly interested in the real thing, though.

“I think sex is an important part of a relationship.”

“So do I.”

I chuckled. “I’m glad we agree.”

“If we were writing a book about our relationship, where do you think we’d be?” he asked.

I had no earthly idea of what the answer should be. But. He mentioned eighty-five percent earlier, so that’s where my mind went. “Eighty-five percent,” I said. “Maybe eighty-six.”

“I’d say we’re pretty close,” he said. “Maybe not exactly eighty-five.”

I began to think about his statement and where our book would be if we were writing one. If we were at eighty-five percent, it would mean our story was almost told. We were at the end of the book. I wasn’t ready to be at the end of the book. I wanted a happily ever after, and we hadn’t even eaten lasagna yet, or had sex.

“I’m glad that’s settled,” I said with a laugh.

“Me, too.”