I reread the messages between me and Durga from two nights ago, feeling oddly guilty about them. And I never felt guilty about Durga.
Benkinersophobia: What are you wearing?
I’d sent her that because she’d sent me the same thing earlier. Then, ghosted me.
Durga: A t-shirt. It’s loose and long, hitting the top of my thighs. I’m wearing nothing under, and if you asked me to, I’d take it off.
Benkinersophobia: Don’t take it off.
Durga: Are you on your back?
Benkinersophobia: Yes.
Durga: Flip over.
Benkinersophobia: Tell me when you’re done.
Durga: I’m on my hands and knees.
Benkinersophobia: Reach between your thighs and brush your thumb against your clit. Moan my name.
Durga: I don’t know your name.
Benkinersophobia: Rules.
She hadn’t responded.
Benkinersophobia: Just call me Ben.
Still no response.
Benkinersophobia: You feel the cold air brushing your pussy?
Durga: Yes.
Benkinersophobia: I like the idea of your ass in the air as you cum, waiting for me to enter you, knowing I never will.
Durga: Never say never.
I stopped reading, changed into a tee and sweats, and wandered around the hotel, struck by how goddamned empty it was. Reed would spend this weekend with Basil and Ma, Delilah had flown to New York a few nights ago with her husband, and my plans for the weekend included Durga, who’d been acting weird, and my fist, because the idea of seeking a meaningless fuck did nothing for me.
This was probably karma rearing its head, and it was uglier than Rosco.
I watched a Hornets vs. Lakers replay with a night guard, drank a few beers, cursed appropriately when the Hornets lost even though I gave no shits, and wandered the floors one by one.
When I reached the fifth floor and heard laughter, I counted down the beers I’d drunk with the guard.
Not nearly enough for hallucinations.
Especially considering I recognized the laugh.
I should have turned around and left her alone, but I justified my intrusion with the reminder she’d snuck into my shower and onto me.
Emery wore a tee that read lypophrenia and headphones in her ears. Her body laid flat on the couch, cocooned by the rattiest quilt I’d ever seen. Checkered with holes and faded to the point where I couldn’t tell if the little dots all over were a design or stains.
Her eyes remained closed until she burst out in carefree laughter. They popped open and instantly found mine with unerring precision. I expected surprise on her face, but I got one lifted shoulder and a lazy smile.
A smile.
Weird shit she’d been doing since I caved and bought that Sisyphus statue. Usually when she thought I wasn’t paying attention.
She looked pure and innocent and beautiful, like a fallen red maple leaf before someone stepped on it. I wondered how I didn’t see it before. Maybe Fika was right. Maybe I’d misheard the argument in the office the night of the cotillion. After all, I’d been wrong about who owned the ledger.
Emery stretched. Her sad excuse for a blanket fell to the floor. The movement lifted the bottom of her shirt, flashing me with skin. “I feel like Sebastian York’s voice is the kind of thing that transcends time. Silent films, skinny jeans, and Sebastian York. Things that never get old.”
The sudden urge to rip out the asshole’s vocal cords gripped me. She never talked to anyone but Reed, and I’d assumed there was no one else.
Fuck, no, you did not just say, no one ‘else’.
I rounded the couch.
She caught my look and laughed again. “You’d think I’d just told you I sacrificed a toddler tonight. What’s your deal?” She sat up and sloped her chin to scrutinize me. “He’s a narrator. I borrowed an audiobook from the library. Entice by Ava Harrison.” The toe of her Chucks accidentally hit my Brionis. “It’s an age-gap romance.”
“You borrowed an audiobook. From the library,” I parroted, fully aware her Chucks touched my shoes again, not by accident this time.
“Jesus, Nash, are you illiterate? Do you know what a book is? They’re these things full of words, and when you read them, you live another life. You should try it sometime. Might help with the crankiness.”
The jabs brushed off my shoulders like insignificant flies. “Fuck Sebastian York.”
Transparent as saran wrap.
“Really? You kind of sound like him.”
“What does he sound like?”
“Like you. I literally just said that.”
“Careful.” I sat beside her on the couch, taking up most of the space. “It’s after hours. I could call security.”
“And I could start a Change.org petition. Your wages for interns are embarrassing, and I have a student loan payment due in two days.” She set her phone down and nodded to the television. “If I use the company’s Netflix account, I get entertainment and I can still pay my utilities bill. I was watching Twilight before this.”
I smelled her bullshit but didn’t call her out on it. Mostly because it required admitting I looked into her and knew about the Demi situation.
“Before this—”
She cut me off. “What do you think would happen if Edward Cullen met another mind reader? Who would be reading whose mind?”
I allowed her lame attempts at distraction. “Neither, because mind-reading doesn’t exist.”
“I don’t recall you being this cranky back then.”
Ignoring the empty insult, I examined her set up. Phone, charger, blanket, and headphones. “You’ve been coming here to watch Netflix every night?”
“No.” She toyed with the hem of her shirt, teasing me without ever realizing it. “Only recently.”
“What did you use before?”
“My ex from freshman year’s account. I dated him for, like, two days. He cheated, but I got four years of Netflix free. I think I came out victorious in that relationship.” She leaned against the couch back. “He changed the password a few days ago.”
“He didn’t know you were using his account?” Something about her right now didn’t add up. “Isn’t there a watch history?”
“The trick is to create a new user each time you watch and delete that user when you’re done watching. Silent revenge is the best revenge.”
Her words spiked my impulse.
I wanted to slam my lips onto hers for a second kiss, but I kicked my feet onto the coffee table and sunk deeper into the couch. “You remind me of Delilah.”
“A compliment. She’s smarter and hotter than you.” She retrieved her quilt. “She should be running the company.”
“It’s like you’re asking to get kicked out.”
I could have kicked her out, but I wouldn’t.
Reed had plans of proposing or whatever, and I had… a company I couldn’t give two shits about; a friend I couldn’t bring myself to call my best friend, even though she deserved it; Durga, who was acting weird; and… Emery.
“You can’t kick me out.” Her flippant tone suggested she knew I wouldn’t. “It’s my birthday next week.”
“According to you, the day that doesn’t make people special.”
“Why is it that you’re the one who gets me? When the hell did that happen?”
More pressing question—when had she become so candid about us?
Rather than answer, I ordered delivery from every restaurant still open because she looked like she needed ten cheeseburgers, and I wasn’t giving her an excuse not to eat one.
“We could watch a movie while we wait,” she offered. “Warning—I’m picky, and given the circumstances, I don’t have a Netflix queue, which means it takes me forever to pick.”
She grabbed the remote and scrolled through the options. “I’ll read the recommended list, but it’s mostly Chantilly and Ida Marie watching on the account. Beauty and the Beast?”
“If you’re into Stockholm Syndrome. Sleeping Beauty?”
I imagined hell consisted of Chantilly’s Netflix queue on repeat.
“Because kissing solves everything?” Her lips parted when I glanced at them. “Not to mention the DubCon. Aladdin?”
“Rub until something comes out. Great lesson to teach children.”
“That one’s realistic. Lying and stealing always lands you the girl…”
One of the night guards interrupted us with bags of delivery. Peruvian. Tunisian. American. America’s bastardized take on Italian. Emery grabbed the Tunisian first, dug through it, and took the first bite out of every item before settling on the Shakshuka.
We ate our way through four cuisines, scrolling through Chantilly’s Netflix queue and ridiculing every movie until we found one both of us agreed with. John Wick, because contrary to Delilah’s belief, I didn’t hate dogs. Just ones that resembled rats.
I shoved our leftovers into the fridge and sat down again. She glanced at me every minute, fixated on my lips like she wanted to kiss me. At this point, neither of us pretended to watch the movie.
I opened up Candy Crush, because I needed to do something with my hands or I’d cover her body with mine and kiss her until her lips bruised. She pulled out her sketchpad and shaded in a design.
The night continued like that. I moved up ten levels. She watched John Wick while sketching fashion designs on her pad. Really, I had no reason to be here other than the penthouse was empty and I enjoyed Emery’s company.
There.
I said it.
So fucking what?
When the movie ended, she set aside her designs, pulled her knees to her chest, and asked, “What is up with you and Candy Crush?”
I swiped up, obliterating the level. She waited for me to respond, burning the side of my face with her attention.
I considered my answer, but Dad thought of her as family, which meant she deserved the truth. “Dad used to play it during his treatments. We’d sit side-by-side, trying to beat levels before the other. It distracted him from the needles pumping shit into his arms.”
“Like chemo?”
“No.” I set the phone down and studied her, content to watch her watch me. “It doesn’t eat away at your health like chemo. In fact, it made him better. Healthier. Sturdy when he worked. Kept the heart running great. But the drugs were delivered intravenously and, judging from the noises in the clinic, painfully.”
Her front teeth pierced her lower lip. A coat of liquid brimmed her eyes. So fierce, yet so gentle. Typical Emery, longest claws and the biggest heart. “I wish Hank had told me and Reed.”
“So you two could suffer, too? Never.” I shook my head, remembering how Ma, Dad, and I barely made it work at times. “Ma held it together by a thread most times. She didn’t want Reed to suffer that, and Dad didn’t want you two to think of him as weak.”
“I love Hank and Betty, but it was selfish. We deserved to know each moment with him could have been our last. I could have treated him better.”
“You treated him the best, Tiger. He knew that.”
I swallowed down the idea of her taking Reed’s side on this, of possibly being involved in the embezzlement, though I now had my doubts. She had loyalty to Gideon, but she also had loyalty to us.
“Look,” I added, taking in the watery blue and grey eyes, “his illness wasn’t contagious, but it spread from him to Ma to me. His heartbeats could be fucking useless. I felt the drag of my heartbeat each time I took a punch for him. Ma felt it each time she worked double shifts. For all my life, I fucking felt it. We stopped it from infecting you and Reed. You think it wasn’t my choice to make, and you’re right. It was Dad’s, because if his heart hadn’t killed him, watching two of his favorite people suffer for him would have.”
That’s the thing about getting sick. You don’t suffer alone. You suffer with the people you love, which is too much fucking suffering.
Emery accepted my answer. The silence didn’t bother me, mostly because I knew she liked it.
Always had.
“What’s with the charities?” she asked ten minutes into the second John Wick. “Why do you volunteer at soup kitchens?”
I do it to ease the guilt. I burned that fucking ledger, thought I could use the info to build my company and save my dad, and I ended up too late. Life and regret are my punishments. Giving away every piece of me is my penance.
“Penance,” I offered without elaborating.
Her eyes flicked to my tattoo, visible under my tee. The tip of her tongue peeked past her lips. It darted back inside. “What sins are you atoning for, Nash?”
“Stay in your lane, Tiger.”
“Let’s play a game.” She tucked her legs beneath her ass, leaning closer to me.
“Let’s not.”
“Truth or Dare?”
I shot her a look, knowing which she wanted me to pick and choosing the opposite. “Dare.”
“I dare you to pick Truth.”
“Jesus, do you ever follow the rules?”
“There are no rules. It’s Truth or Dare. Now say, Truth.”
“Truth,” I said for the sole reason of shutting her up, and not because she still had a tear trail on her cheek.
“How are you really feeling about your dad?” At my silence, she added, “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
I toyed with a few words. “I don’t think there’s a word for it.”
“Try me.”
“I can’t,” I ground out, “if the words don’t exist.”
“You want to know why I like words?”
I did, but I didn’t tell her that.
She continued, anyway, “I love words, because they’re mine. Utterly, completely mine. I can share them with others. I can keep them to myself. I can use them over and over again. No matter what I do, they’ll always be mine. No one can take them from me. Want to know what the best part is?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“The existence of a word proves that someone in the history of humanity felt the same way I did and gave it a name. It means we’re not alone. If there’s a word for what we’re feeling, we’re never alone.”
“Tell me how you feel about my dad.”
“Lacuna.” She grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Lacuna is a blank space. A missing part.”
Bullseye.
I eyed the screen, where Keanu Reeves was running through New York City, bleeding out of every orifice.
When I didn’t answer, she asked, “Truth or dare?”
“Neither. You had your turn.”
“You didn’t answer the question.” She inched closer, wanting to know so much about me when no one ever did. “Truth or dare?”
“Just fucking ask the question.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “I know you want to.”
“Why don’t you kiss?”
Everyone has had a piece of me. This is one I don’t have to give away.
I could taste her breath. I turned my face, not because I didn’t want to be kissed, but because I did. That itself was a foreign feeling. Most people didn’t have shit I liked to hear, and the mouth was the biggest perpetrator of disappointment.
Kissing disgusted me.
But kissing Emery?
It didn’t.
Batshit, considering I’d stopped long ago. When I started the illegal underground fights, I came home with cuts and bruises I tried to hide under clothes. I’d cover for them by fighting at school, letting everyone assume they came from football tackles and field tussles.
The kiss thing started because my body would get too bruised to be touched. It transformed into a general disdain for people touching me. Why the fuck would I let someone I couldn’t stand touch me?
“I kissed you, didn’t I?” I shot back, keeping it light.
“Yeah, you did.” Her eyes dipped to my lips, holding the heavy gaze. She smiled suddenly and stretched, standing up. “I have to go. The bus leaves soon.”
“This again. It’s late and dark. I’m taking you home.”
“I’m going to Eastridge.” She popped a brow. “You’ll take me to Eastridge?”
Shit, I promised Ma I’d stay away while Reed visited. But Ma would tell me to make an exception. The Greyhound to Eastridge was long with too many shady stops along with way.
I stole a card from Emery’s deck, watching her gather her things. “Yes, but I need something from you.”
Your dad’s address, please and fucking thank you.
She paused and slanted her head. “Is it illegal?”
“No.”
“Is it sexual?”
Fuck, she looked too enticed by the idea.
“No.”
“If you accompany me to brunch with my mom, too,” she bartered, always set on cinching a victory. “Able will be there, and since Reed is spending the weekend with Basil…”
Get in. Get out, dick.
I would have said no on account of my promise to Ma that I’d stay away from Eastridge, but Able Small Dick Cartwright was the type of rich prick who thought he could get away with murder.
“Deal.”
“Deal,” she agreed, betraying her dad with a smile on her face.
She just didn’t know it yet.
