“I can’t believe we’re eating here,” I said, gazing up at the Tit Tastic massive boob logo through Yosefin’s car window. Yosefin had one of the biggest smirks on her face while she adjusted her hair inside her beanie. “Can we go somewhere more... discreet?”

“What? You rather eat in a German household with my parents breathing down your neck rather than dine at a place where women in exposing outfits serve your food?”

“Uh... um... Yeah?”

“You must be super gay,” she said with much sarcasm. “My papa was right about you.”

“I’m not gay,” I said, feeling agitated. “I like women,” I reminded, lightly forcing my index finger into her meaty upper arm.

“Then you’ll have fun here.” There weren’t any more words for me to show how annoyed I felt coming out here. “Let’s go.” She got out of the car and waited for me near one of the two stone benches outside the front door. “Joshy, let’s go!” She said in a high-pitched voice similar to a typical annoying English female voice in an anime show. A couple came out of the restaurant when she yelled that. They looked my way after staring at her for a measly second. I pretended to mess with the radio so they wouldn’t think it was me she was talking to. “Joshy, get out of my fucking car, you shy boy,” she said, laughing between her words. “Come here!”

“Okay, okay. Calm down.” The moment I shut the door, the couple looked back at me. Their glance made me feel embarrassed to be called out like that in such a manner. “Yosefin, don’t say my name like that ever again.”

“Why not? Doesn’t your ears melt to the way it sounds?” I cringed but laughed a little when she spoke again in that same hyper-punctuated anime English voice. “Or would Joshy prefer I said in this voice instead?” Her British came out so perfectly that my mouth dropped in awe. “Such a cute face,” she said, caressing my cheeks with her cold thumbs. “Come on. My hands are freezing out here.” We rushed inside to get out of the cold. The warm heat of the establishment washed me with its warmth. I saw a sea of hot waitresses serving people in their black denim booty shorts, fishnets, and pink bra-like shirts with the logo behind them.

Someone ahead of me asked for a table for two. I didn’t realize it was Yosefin getting us a seat because I was so focused on looking at the hot women walking throughout the room. She had to call my name twice for me to snap out of it.

“Dude,” Yosefin said, snapping her fingers in my ear. The subtle pop made me flinch. My eyes immediately went to Yosefin but focused on the short hostess. We both raised our fingers at one another. She claimed to know me before I could confirm my suspicion of what her name could be.

“Kaga Kamie?” I said.

“Joshua McEwan!” Kaga screamed with joy before ramming into me for a hug. “Oh my god! Look at you!” She reached for my face, curling her fingers rapidly. I bent forward so she could touch my face. “Jesus, dude. You’ve grown!”

“And you’ve...”

“Stayed short?”

“I was going to say you made your hair grey.”

“Looks steller,” she said, clawing her fingers down her hair to put some of it over her right shoulder. “Don’t it?”

“It looks great on you.” Out of my peripheral, I saw Yosefin tug on the tips of her hair. The second she saw me looking at her, she looked away but came back.

“Oh, shoot! I’m sorry, you guys.” Kaga ran back behind the desk to grab two menus. “Is this y’all’s first time being here?” She asked enthusiastically. Her wonderful smile came out with pearly white teeth. A wave of infatuation hit me like a raging bull. That smile brought back old memories of my childhood and our friendship before she left for a different high school.

“Dude,” Yosefin said, lightly elbowing my arm. “She asked you a question.”

“Sorry. I was distracted.” Kaga pushed her lips forward slightly in a smiling way while lightly humming.

“Yes, it’s his first time here. Including me.”

“Well, welcome to Tit Tastic. I hope y’all enjoy your time with us. Follow me to your table,” Kaga said with a cheerful, lively voice.

She found us a booth with a nice window out to the parking lot where the highway is. I took a seat that faced the inside of the building, where all the women were moving around.

“How’s the view?” Yosefin asked. Kaga’s back faced me while she talked with one of her employees. Her ass looked firm and round. She had toned legs. Ever since I knew her, she always rolled her feet every step. I saw people perform that in workouts, but for her, it was natural.

“Perfect,” I said.

“Um,” she said, leaning to her left to look at Kaga. “I was talking about the girls.”

“Oh!” I looked around to see all the other women. Everyone was fine, like wine, including the chubby ones. “The view is amazing.”

“So... You two seem... acquainted.”

“Yeah. Kaga was my friend in middle school.”

“What happened?”

“We went to different high schools and started talking less.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yup,” I sighed, feeling a little bit depressed. “We also dated.” Kaga came to our table to be our waiter right when Yosefin’s eyes blew open from what I said.

“Howdy again!” Kaga said in a high-pitched voice to me before coming back to her normal voice to greet Yosefin. “Hiya! What type of drinks would y’all like?”

“I’ll take,” Yosefin paused as she read the menu. “Iced lemonade. Cherry.”

“All right.” She wrote down her order but didn’t write mine. “Lemon-lime?” I nodded rapidly like an excited boy. “Coming right up!” Yosefin and I watched her walk off. Once she moved passed Yosefin, Yosefin locked her eyes on me without moving her head.

“I thought I was the only one who knew what soda you liked.” She stared at me angrily, yet it felt like it wasn’t.

“You look bothered by that,” I snickered.

“Does she call you Josh?”

“No.”

“Joshy?”

“No,” I snickered some more. “You’re the only one.”

“Good,” she smiled with her lips forward.

“Do I detect a bit of envy?” I whispered. All I got from her was a cheeky smile.

“Dude,” she said, shaking her head after taking off her beanie. “I brought you to a restaurant full of hot women for you to droll over.” She combed her hair with a black comb out of her back pocket. “If I were envious, I wouldn’t have done this.”

“So, is that truly your reason for bringing me here?”

My question got several excuses. One excuse was about me seeing the hot girls. Another reason she said was the restaurant’s great food selection. Whatever the case, I didn’t want to push for the truth. I knew she liked to get me out of the house to spend time with her. But, the day at Tit Tastic gave me an unusual feeling I never got the answers to. The day before this, she confessed her deep interest in me. If she wanted me, why did she put me in a situation that’ll put my focus on other women? Was it a test, or was she looking for something?

After breakfast, Kaga gave me her phone number by inputting it into my phone. Not a minute had passed before I got a text from her asking if Yosefin was my girlfriend. Before Yosefin and I headed out the door, I turned around and shook my head to tell Kaga no. Kaga rolled her eyes at me, then said, “I don’t believe you,” with her lips.

“Joshy,” Yosefind randomly said in a hyper-fake orgasmic voice.

“Yosefin,” I timidly grunted in cringe as I turned around. “Don’t do that.”

“Give me a kiss, and I might stop,” she playfully said. She tapped her right cheek with her index finger and turned her head to make it face me.

“Huh?” I blurted in shock. She came closer with her eyes fixated on me. Her boobs pressed into my stomach. All I had to do was lean down to her lips. “I won’t do it.”

“Then I will.” She got on her toes to get in reaching distance to my lips. I thought she would kiss me on the lips, but she kissed my cheek instead. The weight of her boobs moved back when she stepped away. I nearly stumbled forward into her if it wasn’t for her pushing on my waist.

“Yosefin...” I couldn’t look at her for a good moment. The kiss made me blush with warmth and feel uneasy that she did that in public. It grossed me out in a way that wasn’t disgusting, but I wished she hadn’t done that. “Why did you do that?”

“I wanted to see if that Christmas buzz was still controlling you,” she said, then winked before sitting in the car. It quickly dawned on me that she foresaw that I would end up losing that high from Christmas day. On that day I was willing to go the whole nine yards for more than a kiss.

“Fuck,” I sighed. “That was quick.” She yelled through her car to tell me to jump in. I took one more glance at the restaurant entrance to see Kaga. Yosefin honked the horn before I could look at Kaga’s face. “Okay! I’m coming!”

“Come faster, or you’ll freeze your balls out there!” My body was warm from the kiss. The cold didn’t creep in until the skin of my back touched the leather seat.

“Jesus!”

“Here.” She turned on the heat for my seat. “So, where do you wanna go?”

“Uh, home.”

“Okay, my place.”

“Yosefin...”

“God, dude.” She put the car into reverse and backed out. “You really want to get away from me.”

Before I could tell her that was a stupid thought, a black SUV T-boned us hard. All the airbags on the left side of her car deployed. Every window on that side shattered, throwing some glass into my face. Our car skidded and lifted on two wheels but luckily fell on all fours.

I remained conscious of the whole event. Unfortunately, Yosefin didn’t take the accident well. She was slumped over to her side with a gash across her forehead over her left eye.

“Yosefin!” I screamed in a panic. The car’s emergency system dialed 911 and sent ambulances our way. Many people came out of the restaurant to surround us, including some of the women from the restaurant.

“Joshua!” Kaga said from the front of the car. “Are you okay?” I unbuckled my seatbelt to get closer to Yosefin. I said her name several times, but she never responded. My heart sank into my stomach from seeing how quiet and still, she sat. I couldn’t tell if she was breathing.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

“No,” I said many times.

“Oh my god! Is she dead?”

The ambulance came and took us out of the car. Somehow I made it out without any sort of injury. Paramedics took her into a van on a stretcher. My parents took me to the nearest hospital where she was heading. We waited in the emergency room for hours with her family to await the doctor’s results of Yosefin’s surgery. Once the doctor entered the hallway, her parents and I stood out of our seats to hear the news.

“Mr. and Mrs. Böhme,” the doctor calmly said. “Yosefin will be all right.” Her mother broke down in tears. I nearly did the same when I saw her father embrace her mother. “She suffered minor shoulder and collar bone fractures and a mild concussion.”

“May we see her?”

“You may.” They followed the doctor. My dad came over to me to ask if I was okay.

“I’m fine, Dad. I didn’t get hurt,” I said.

“I wasn’t talking about that,” he said.

“I’m... shaken up. But I’m okay. Once they’re done, I’m going to go see her.” He didn’t bother me with any more questions. I waited patiently for her parents to leave so I could be alone with her. Hours went by. I thought about popping in until Kaga randomly stopped by.

“Thank god you’re okay,” Kaga said, squeezing her little body on me. “Did you get hurt?”

“Somehow, I didn’t.”

“How’s your... uh, your friend doing?” Something sounded off when she said, friend. The last three words were slower than the rest of the sentence.

“She got lucky. All she got was a concussion and minor fractures.”

“Jesus...”

Kaga and I spend an hour together in the waiting room. We reminisced about our middle school memories and talked about our lives during high school. Then, she reminded me of our first failed kiss attempt and how she tried many times to make it feel right.

“God, Kaga,” I cringed while laughing. “I remember that as if I did it yesterday.”

“Same,” she replied, blushing severely. “Gosh, we sucked at dating.”

“What do you expect? It was our first time.”

“I know,” she said with a poke to my rib cage. “Did others improve it?”

“You were the only one.”

“Huh? I can’t be the only girl.” For a split second, I thought about my interesting relationship with Kat. My love for her wasn’t the type I shared with Kaga or the logic Yosefin advised me to follow.

“Yes,” I said, nodding my head. “You’re the only girl.”

“So far,” she smiled. “I saw that kiss Yosefin gave you. Are you two dating?”

“Well,” I stopped because of my nervous laughter. “It’s complicated.”

“Complicated?” She leaned closer to say, “Y’all have a kid?”

“Whoa!” I shouted before slapping my mouth at how loud I was. “No. She can’t.”

“She can’t?”

“I meant,” I stuttered to say something that wouldn’t expose Kaga to the strange truth about Yosefin. “We didn’t.”

“Okay. Have you kissed her?” Kaga asked me quietly. I nodded, smiling. “No, you must’ve done more than kiss. Made out?” My smile got bigger the more I tried to hide it.

“No,” I said, covering my mouth until I stopped grinning. “We’ve done many things together. She took me out of my comfort zone a lot.”

“Sounds awful. Why are you still around her?”

“They weren’t all bad. She became my best friend.”

“Yet,” she paused to look at Yosefin’s room. “Y’all are seriously not dating?”

“Yeah...”

“But y’all kissed?” I reiterated, telling her how complicated our friendship was. “Joshua, what are you doing, man?” There were no words for me to say. “How are y’all still friends?” That constant exposure to what I was doing with my life pissed me off in a funny way. She was telling me to date a

“What should I do, Kaga?”

“Do you enjoy being with her?”

My heart started beating faster. Every special moment Yosefin and I created flooded into my mind. I thought about the crash and how lucky I was that I didn’t lose her.

“I do,” I said. “She’s amazing in a crazy yet fun sort of way.”

“When she’s well, let her know.” Yosefin’s parents came out just in time. A nurse went in into the room but kept the door open. “There’s your chance.” Kaga tried to shove me from my seat so that I could hurry. There was a nurse with a clipboard inside the room. She didn’t notice me walk in until she turned her head to view the mounted TV.

“Oh! Hello,” she said, clutching the board against her chest. “Are you coming to visit?”

“Yes. How’s is sh-” I said, catching myself. I assumed the nurse had access to Yosefin’s medical records and read them thoroughly. “How is... he?”

“He she should be sleeping,” she said with her finger over her mouth. “I applied some drugs to help with pain while sleeping.”

“Thanks.” When I passed her, she put her hand on my stomach to stop me.

“Sorry for being nosey,” she whispered. “Who operated on Yosefin?”

“What do you mean?” I whispered back.

“He could’ve fooled me.” The answer to her question clicked into my head a second later.

“He naturally looks like that. No surgeon did that.” The nurse looked like she didn’t care or believe what I said. She walked away before I could defend Yosefin’s life-changing mutation. “Whatever,” I said loudly, hoping the nurse would hear it.

“You sound mad,” Yosefin said in a soft voice.

“It’s nothing. Did I wake you?”

“I wasn’t sleeping, but I might be soon with the drugs they’re giving me.” I sat in a seat on the right side of the bed so I could hear her better. “Poppa told me you didn’t get hurt. Lucky.”

“It was more emotional hurt I got,” I said in an attempt to lessen the traumatic experience.

“Thank goodness you’re okay. I wouldn’t want to see you here.” Her caring words made me cry. I hid my face to avoid her seeing my tears.

“I thought you died.”

“Good thing I didn’t. My parents would probably rummage through my room and find that I secretly bought a vibrator.” Her attempted humor stopped me from crying. “They could realize how much of a freak I am.”

“That would be,” I paused to clear my nose, “terrible.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, then yawned in laughter. “What a fucking day.”

“I know, right?”

“Hey.” Her voice got softer, probably due to the drugs kicking in. She opened her hand out to me, then curled her finger inwards. I got closer until her finger stopped. “Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?”

“Sure.”

“Just in case,” she chuckled. “Y’know... something stupid happens.”

I stayed in the room until the same nurse forced me out even after Yosefin fell asleep. The next day the hospital discharged her. Her family came by to take her home, but she insisted I do it. I didn’t hesitate to say yes. A nurse wheeled her to my car even though she told them she could walk.

The next morning, I came to the call for another time to hang out. Yosefin’s parents headed to work before I arrived, so I felt the day could be exciting. Maybe not as crazy as Christmas was, but with some of that energy.

To pass the time while she kept herself busy making hot cocoa, I messed around on her computer, spying on the type of things she watched daily. It ranged from gaming, beauty tips, skating vlogs, and a rave music playlist.

“Incoming! Live cocoa on deck,” Yosefin said, rushing into the room with two steaming thermos cups in her hands. She put the pink cup on the desk and handed me a blue one.

“Wow, that’s hot!” I said.

“Let them cool down for a bit.” She took the cup from me to place it with hers on the desk. We sat together while we waited for them to cool down, discussing various things based on the videos we watched. Most of what we saw were drama channels of toxic internet couples.

“Jesus, dude,” I said with one side of my cheek filled with warm cocoa. “This makes me so mad.”

“Just saying, you could have headed there,” she illuded while slowly sipping her cocoa.

“Are you actually bringing her up again?”

“Sorry, Joshy,” she playfully said in a pitched voice. “But it is the truth.”

“I get it. I fucked up,” I said with a raised voice.

“Josh,” she said softly with her hand gently rubbing my arm. “I’m sorry for bringing her up again.” To add to the apology, she got out of her chair to hug me despite the pain she expressed through her teeth. Her boobs pressed into my face for the full moment. Even though they felt nice and smelled wonderful, I wasn’t going to let this go easily.

“Can we move on from her?”

“We can. I’m sorry.”

“I know you are, but let’s not mention her. I don’t want to be reminded of what I did and what it did to you.”

“Sorry,” she repeated in a soft voice.

“Yosefin,” I said in the same calming volume while looking her in the eyes. “Enough.” She stayed quiet throughout the twenty-minute episode of the toxic couples we watched. On the next auto-played video, I noticed she wasn’t paying attention. She kept finding other things to put her mind on. Her fingernails and phone kept her attention away from the video for some odd reason. I saw nothing interesting, but her nails took the most attention.

“Hey,” I said.

“Yeah?” She quickly responded with a quick head turn to look at me.

“Something wrong with your nails?”

“I wanted to paint them before you came here. But, I was impatient.”

“Why were you impatient?”

“You’re going to find this silly,” she said, blushing. “I wanted to greet you at the door so that you won’t stay outside another second in the cold.”

“Yosefin,” I chuckled at how cute that sounded. “That’s not silly.”

“Oh,” she smiled.

“Hey, how about I paint your nails for you since you didn’t have time to do them.” She glanced at all her nails, including the ones on her feet. “I’ll paint those too.”

“This is so out of character for you.”

“Nah,” I scoffed. “I’ll do it without any hesitation.”

“Um...” Her lips tightened before she bit down on them. After that, her eyes darted all over the room to find where she had last left the nail polish. They were on the ground next to the nightstand near the bed. It was a black bottle with black polish in it. “Ah!” She hopped out of her seat, walked over to pick up the polish, and then jumped on the bed with her toes pointing at me. “Do feet bother you?”

“Um, I don’t know,” I said, sitting near her feet. Her feet looked fine to me. They were soft, clean, moisturized, didn’t have any calli, and smelled peachy.

“Jesus, Yosefin. Do you go to spas daily?”

“Nope. I’m just really good at taking care of my skin.”

I painted all twenty of her nails with such amateur attempts. The process went longer than I expected. Painting nails were for those with artistic skills. I sucked major ass at keeping the paint on the nails. Yosefin had to step in to clean up my mistakes. In the end, I did a pretty good job doing someone’s nails for the first time.

“I give you a passing grade for effort. Well done, Josh,” Yosefin congratulated.

“Thank you.”

“Wanna try doing my makeup next?”

“Are you crazy? Where would I even begin?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll do it. You can pick the colors you want to see.” Oddly, I liked that idea. Since we first met, the most she wore was when we went to the rave, but that wasn’t something she wore all the time. She naturally looked beautiful. There wasn’t a need to enhance her looks. “It’ll take a while to finish, so get ready for some boring moments.”

“That’s fine with me.”

“Awesome. What’s your least favorite color?” When she asked me that, my mother texted me a shopping list of items to get for New Year’s dinner. Since I was the closest to the grocery store, she made me the delivery man. She had already ordered the food, so all I had to do was pick it up.

“Damnit. I gotta go run an errand.” A different message came in. This one was from Kaga. Her text asked if I had asked Yosefin out yet. “Shit,” I said under my breath.

“What’s going on?”

“Uh, my mother wants me to get New Year’s fixings.”

“Drive safely, you hear? It’s snowing out there, so remember to drive slowly.”

“What are you, my driving instructor, now? I’m a safe driver. You’ve seen how I drive.”

“Okay,” she whispered with a smile.

I could tell she didn’t want me to leave right now by her hand resting on my thigh. She tried every move in the book to prolong my stay with hugs, intentional hand-holding, small talk, and questionnaires about random things. I gave in to everything. She became the one to ultimately send me away after staying for half an hour.

“Go,” she said. “I’m being clingy.”

“If you don’t want me to go, I’ll stay.”

“No. Your mother needs you to get food.”

“I’ll talk to you later.” When I got halfway out the door, she tugged on my hoodie, but her finger slipped. I came back inside to be with her, but it was just her being clingy. “How about you come with me.”

“God knows I would, but I have to take another dose of my medication. It’ll put me to sleep.” She forced me out with a gentle push. “Text me when you get home,” she said behind the door.

“I will!”

I calmly left her to get the fixings my mother wanted. The time spent with Yosefin left me sick with so much happiness that I had a hard time not thinking about her every minute. I found myself going through the gallery on the phone with pictures of her I had taken over the months. They were enough to make me talk on the phone with her while I shopped for food. We were like magnets that couldn’t separate from one another.

For New Year’s Eve, I spent the entire day with my family. Some of my friends surprised me with a visit. They went to different colleges to pursue the degrees they wanted to achieve right after high school. I hadn’t talked with them for my entire semester at community college. It was nice to see they’re doing well. We told stories about our time through the fall semester. Everyone had their run-ins with girls. Some had one-night stands, but I was the only one out of the group who got a close best friend. Neither one of them talked to the girls as much as I did with Yosefin. I was amazed at their success with their hookups yet failed to befriend at least one of them.

Fast forward to February, I enrolled in the Spring semester with a part-time job in a gaming store inside a massive mall. Yosefin and I took the same classes to pursue our interest in game design. Like me, she got a part-time job as a barista at the Come and Go Café inside the mall. Lucky for us, we were close enough to see where we worked. All we had to do was walk across the cafeteria.

My shift ended half an hour before Yosefin finished for the day. At the time, Yosefin was searching for a new car since her previous car was totaled to oblivion. I became her chauffeur for rides back home. Every time she came out of the shop to greet me, I’d always look at the pink scar above her left eyebrow as a reminder of how I almost lost her in that stupid accident.

On the third of February, after work, I bought Yosefin cinnamon rolls when her shift ended. We ate our fill in the cafeteria before heading out to my car and talking about things on our minds.

“I wanna go on a car trip,” Yosefin said.

“Let me guess,” I asserted, knowing the potential answer. “You want me to join you.” She stood in front of me with begging hands.

“I will love you forever.”

“No,” I said as I unlocked the car.

“Joshy!” She blew out her cheeks to make herself look mad. I gently pressed them back in and held her face until she stopped frowning.

“No, Yosefin.”

“But you’ll have fun.” I found being peer pressured in this amusing. I knew if I kept saying no, I would say yes later down the road.

“Where would we go?”

“We’ll start small. A few hours from out of town. Two days max.”

“But we just started working, Yosefin, and we’re in school.”

“Save your money,” she said, smacking my right thigh where my wallet was. “I’ll pay for all the food. You pay for the gas.”

“Jesus, Yosefin,” I chuckled. I rested my back on the left side of my car, staring at her in silence. She did the same but laid her shoulder on mine.

“What?” Her smile made me feel warm inside. I felt butterflies grow in my stomach. “You’ll love it,” she said, resting her head on my shoulder. The butterflies grew more. She was making me feel too good by doing the smallest thing. “I promise. Money back guaranteed.”

“Money back guaranteed?” I said, laughing.

“Mhmm,” she chuckled, looking up at me. “What do you say?”

“I’ll go with you.”