The Birds, the Bees, and You and Me by Olivia Hinebaugh

Author:Olivia Hinebaugh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

* * *

By the time my mom comes back from the store, we’ve got a system set up. Evita found simple condom instructions on my computer, and we printed them out as small as we could legibly make them. We’re all sitting on the floor of my room and cutting them out when my mom tosses boxes of condoms at us.

“Don’t have too much fun,” my mom says, closing my door.

“Who knew there was such a wide variety of products,” I say.

“Right? Look at all these colors and textures and flavors!” Evita laughs as she opens a box of flavored condoms. “Theo, banana flavor. Banana!”

She tosses him a few in yellow wrappers.

“Banana flavor is the worst fake flavor. Like, banana candy is always gross,” Alice says. “Blech.”

“We’ll set aside all the vanilla ones for you,” I say.

Evita nudges Theo with her foot. “What’s your deal?” she asks him. He does not seem to find any of this nearly as fun as Alice, Evita, and I do.

Maybe he’s feeling as weird about sorting condoms with me as I do with him. But I doubt it. I feel this extra weight with each of our interactions, wondering what it means and what he’s thinking. I cannot get that kiss out of my head. But Theo mostly seems mopey. He might be sad about his breakup, and that possibility is more than I can handle.

“Maybe he’s just sad he doesn’t need condoms anymore,” I blurt out. As soon as the words fly out, I want to shove them back in.

“Whoa. Lacey. You just went there,” Theo says.

“My girl speaks her mind now. It’s a whole thing,” Evita says. “Apparently she told Bruno that smoking was gross.”

“I did. He told you that?” I ask her.

“Yeah. Oh, Bruno and I are super tight. He told me he thought you were maybe into him and that you were hot, but that you were not into kissing a smoker. Ah well, Lacey, we will get you kissed by a nonsmoker one of these days.”

“You did seem pretty into him,” Theo says, one of his eyebrows raised. I want to ask him right now if that bothers him. “Okay, honestly, I think I feel weird about this whole thing because I am the only person here who would … you know … wear one of these.” He holds up a condom.

“Darling. Give yourself more credit.” Evita grabs the condom from him and hands him one that’s branded for bigger men.

“Yeah. Gee. Why would I feel weird about any of this?” Theo says, a smile finally creeping onto his face.

“You shouldn’t feel weird,” I tell him. “That’s the whole problem at school, right? Like. You have a penis. If you’re gonna use it, you should wrap it up.”

“Wow, Lacey.” Theo shakes his head. But he’s definitely smiling.

“Sock it before you rock it,” I say as deadpan as I can.

“I’m writing that down on the instructions. Is it too late for us to print out new ones?” Evita asks, grabbing a stack of already-cut pages.

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