Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 7 by Rachel Kramer Bussel

Author:Rachel Kramer Bussel
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781627785242
Publisher: Cleis Press
Published: 2021-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

PUZZLE

Gabrielle Johnson

If Kerri’s phone didn’t implode before her brain, the evening could be considered a success.

Two bridesmaids were already late and they were giving her shit excuses about it. Her sister’s fiancé kept texting to ask if his bride-to-be was having a good time at her bachelorette party.

And her study group chat was blowing up. Kerri had assumed that getting in a group with uptight Melissa and nerdy Mark would result in excellent notes. If she was going to be the only Black girl in her law school cohort, she could at least have the benefit of someone else’s obsessive need to succeed. At least they would have that in common.

She hadn’t banked on Melissa’s wanting to be in constant contact, or her insistence on a Friday night study group. Yeah, if Kerri could have chosen when to schedule her sister’s bachelorette party, it would not have been the weekend before one of her biggest exams. Candace was just this side of becoming a bridezilla and there was no changing the date of the party. This was unsatisfactory to Melissa. She wanted to know why neither she or Mark could make the emergency study session that night.

On the one hand, Kerri kind of understood that: Mark’s socials were full of him doing puzzles, binging documentaries, and making delicious-looking Thai food from his grandmother’s recipes. Kerri also liked puzzles, documentaries, and Thai food. But, those things, plus his quiet demeanor, didn’t really make him seem like a contender for wild and busy Friday nights.

The thought of him made her take another sip of wine. Some divine entity sure had gotten its wires crossed about Mark though: tall and broad with dark hair and a gem-cutting jawline. He should have been a model, not a dorky soon-to-be-lawyer who whipped out words like preposterous and multitudinous in everyday conversation. And in a deep voice that made her middle tighten when she thought about it too long.

They’d gotten along right away. She’d found any other people of color as fast as she could, and he had immediately put her at ease. His quick, brief smiles and serious approach to his work made them fast friends. Only friends. Her eyes certainly shouldn’t have been wandering toward him during class. She definitely never ruminated on the way his forearms looked when he rolled up his sleeves. She really wasn’t going to let herself think about how he never failed to make her laugh, with that dry humor of his.

He was as silent in the group chat as she was, leading to a string of increasingly demanding texts from Melissa. Being in party planning mode meant her phone was attached to her palm. It did not mean she had to listen to her classmates all night.

Besides, she needed the break from being herself. From being the good middle sister with the color-coded grocery lists and sensible shoes. She’d poured her extremely generous curves into a short dress, donned a pair of sky-high heels, and committed to having fun.

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