One for the kitchen? No, he just couldn't picture a sex toy alongside the spatulas. So that was only four. Which left eight unaccounted for. He tried to imagine other uses for them, but drew a blank. These were no cat toys.

Maybe she had ordered them online and had changed her order from one to two. Only when she had added the two, the one hadn't been removed and it had shown up as twelve. He could live with her buying two. Twelve was alarming.

Of course, Ashley's really good friend, Kindra, was getting married soon. Maybe these were gag gifts for the bachelorette party. That sounded reasonable. And Ashley liked to throw really fun parties.

Not that he’d ever been invited to any of them.

Ashley still thought of him as her little brother's geeky friend, Lucas.

Which, he supposed, was true.

But that didn't stop him from having a killer crush on her. She was so vibrant, so energetic, so enthusiastic that he got pleasure just from being near her.

But not twelve dildos' worth of pleasure.

Lucas set his beer bottle down with a hard slap. He picked up the box, grimacing.

Heading out onto the porch he took the two steps to Ashley's front door.

As he rang the bell he wondered if he should tape the box back up and plead ignorance.

Nah.

He'd never sleep again if he didn't hear the explanation for the package of pleasure addressed to her.

Ashley was a little astonished at what she'd do for money.

But she had gotten herself backed into a corner with her spending habits, and while her girlfriends were buying houses and taking nice vacations, Ashley had a closet full of expensive clothes and an empty checking account. Not to mention those credit card bills, which had crept from "Hmm, that's kind of high" to "Yikes!" level. Third World countries had less debt than she did.