I gesture to the mountains of Egyptian cotton. “But each one says it’s better than the last. What happens if I get the soft three hundred? Will I wonder if the five hundred was the softest after all? And is bigger better? Do I need the eight hundred? How do I decide?”

She grabs a packet of four hundred thread count sheets and thrusts it in my arms with an authority that’s downright . . . hot. “That’s how you do it.”

“Damn, woman. You just made the decision like that.” I snap my fingers.

“You can’t go wrong with white sheets. And they’ll be just the right amount of soft,” she says, stroking the plastic cover of the sheets. My eyes drift to her fingers, and I stare as she runs them down the cover of the sheets. My mind leapfrogs several inappropriate paces ahead to how her fingers might feel running down my abs . . . Or if her belly is just the right amount of soft . . .

I shake my head. Of course she’s the right amount of soft. She should be soft. Women are usually soft—that’s just a simple fact.

“I’m sold,” I say, tucking the sheets under my arm with the rest of our haul and ferrying her away from the bed supplies lest any more errant fantasies pop into my head thanks to the free association of Josie, sheets, fingers, stroking, soft skin, cherries, or any fucking other thing.

As we leave this section, she stops at a giant tub of velvety pillows of all shapes and sizes. “I need a new pillow.”

I frown in confusion. “For what?”

She grabs a royal blue pillow with sequins on the edges and clutches it to her chest. “I like pillows.”

“Are you a pillow-phile?”

“Total pillow-phile.” Dropping the blue one in the vat, she dips her hand in and riffles around, rooting through a sea of chocolate brown, deep purple, and rich red pillows. Some are square, some circular, some cylindrical. She finds one that’s emerald green and long.

“Look!” Her face lights up as if she’s discovered a pirate’s booty.

“What’s the pillow love all about, Josie?”

Hugging it tighter, she answers, “Pillows are wonderful. We can nap with them, cuddle with them, put our feet on them. Also,” she says, wagging a finger to draw me closer and dropping her voice to a whisper, “they’re boob friends.”

And I’m a cartoon character knocked senseless. It’s as if I’ve been hit with a frying pan of naughty, and the dirty lobe of my brain has rattled free. “Boob friends?”

Josie wiggles her eyebrows and backs up into the aisle next to the pillows.

I follow.

I’d follow her anywhere right now because she just uttered my favorite word. Boobs. For the record, my second favorite word is tits. Third is breasts.

She bites her lip, glances from side to side, then draws the pillow right between the valley of the goddesses on her chest.

I groan.

Audibly.

And my dick springs to attention in my jeans, the shameless fucker.

Then, it’s story time for Josie Hammer, as she launches into a tale. “Once upon a time, I had a stuffed crocodile. He was a small, green creature who lived on my bed, a present from when I was younger and in the middle of a big love fest for the Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile books. I made him talk, and I named him Lyle Lyle, too.”

“Clever.”

Her eyes twinkle. “But what was truly clever was how in middle school I discovered Lyle Lyle’s real purpose. You see, he came in quite handy for this early bloomer. When I was twelve and started getting these,” she says, gesturing to those absolutely fucking magnificent globes, “I started sleeping with Lyle Lyle.”

“You slept with the stuffed crocodile?” I ask, my throat as dry as my dick is hard.

She nods and hugs the green pillow tighter between her breasts.

“Why did you sleep with him?” I ask because the answer eludes me.

She shifts her weight so she’s leaning a bit to the right. “Because when you sleep on your side, the girls kind of fall on top of each other and smash each other. It can be a little uncomfortable.”

Yeah, like the tightness in my pants right now.

“I bet,” I choke out.

“So Lyle Lyle got a job. I enlisted him as a boob friend. I slept with him every night, and he delivered complete and utter boob comfort.”

That lucky fucking inanimate animal. “I want to grow up to be a stuffed crocodile.”

Josie’s green eyes widen, then she laughs. “I like you just fine as you, though.”

I hold up my forearm. “Then consider this. Would this work as a boob friend? Hypothetically, of course. I’m pretty sure my hand would fit nicely between a pair of boobs.”

She swats me. “If the pillow fails, I’ll rap twice on the wall.”

“Honestly, you don’t even have to knock. Just come into my room, grab my hand, and slide it between the girls.” My eyes drift to her 36Cs. What? I can tell from looking. It’s a scientific gift of mine.

“What color are my eyes?”

Her question doesn’t compute. I snap my gaze back up to her face. “Green.”

She points to the bridge of her nose. “And they’re here.”

“Seriously? You were talking about boobs. Pragmatically speaking, I had no choice but to look at the topic of conversation.”

She gives me an I-caught-you stare.

I hold up my hands. “This is not a Swedish Fish moment. You brought it up.”

She lifts the green pillow and bonks me on the head with it. “And your hand offer is noted.”