There’s a scene in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlett Letter when one of the characters comments that, even if the woman were to cover up the letter A that displays her sin for the world to see, she would still be marked by the shame within her heart.
I can relate, suddenly. I crept in the house as quietly as I could when I got home, but my stealth was no match for Pearl’s hound-dog nose. I’ve spent all morning dodging her questions about last night, and when Donovan enters in his lab coat, I physically have to look away. I can feel her watching me, gauging my reaction.
“He’s such a good doctor,” Pearl muses when he exits. “Such good bedside manner. Don’t you think, darling?”
“Does anyone need anything?” I ask suddenly. I need an excuse to get out from under her prying eyes.
Otto sits on the table, and he shrugs. “I’m a little hungry,” he says.
“Yeah?” I perk up like a dog with a tennis ball. “I think I saw a vending machine down the hall. Will that tide you over?”
He nods. “Packet of crisps?”
“Copy that,” I say. I swivel around in my chair and get to my feet.
“Wait.” My mother starts fishing around in her purse. I realize she’s picking out coins.
“Pearl. You’re aware that I’m a grown-up, right?” She blinks at me, big eyes, confused. I wave my wallet at her. “I’ve got this.”
“Are you sure…?” She sounds suspicious, as if my money isn’t mine, as if I don’t have a salary that would let me afford a meager snack.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell her. And I exit the room before she takes any more air out of my confidence.
The vending machine is all the way down the hall. It’s pretty quiet on this floor, and I make it to the machine undisturbed. There, lo and behold, are salt and vinegar chips, dangling from the ring at the very bottom.
Except when I take out my wallet, something stops me. A piece of tape over the credit card reader and a message in ugly marker: CASH ONLY.
“Son of a…”
I don’t have cash. I never carry cash. This is the twenty-first century…who uses cash?
Pearl does. And she’s going to roll her eyes, and the next hour will be full of I told you sos if I go back and beg her for quarters now.
On the other hand…
I bite my lip.
The chips are, really, very close to the bottom. Nearly hanging off, really. I’d practically be doing gravity a service if I released it.
I glance behind me. The hallway is empty. The coast is clear.
I crouch down, knees on the polished floor, and lift the flap to reach my arm deep into the machine. There’s a wide enough opening that I can slip my hand into it. I have to shift in my spot and twist a bit, but I’m almost there…
My fingertips brush the ruffled edges of the chip bag.
But I can’t reach enough to actually pull it down. Damn.
I hear footsteps down the hall. Startled, I yank my arm back—
But it won’t budge.
I twist, squirm, but, somehow, I’ve got myself trapped. A snack thief locked in a bear trap of her own demise. I put my good hand against the glass and try to tug my arm out, but it’s somehow lodged itself in the contraption that’s meant to release the candy.
This is how I die. Utter humiliation in the middle of a hospital. Like a kid with her hand literally stuck in the cookie jar.
“You need a hand, pretty lady?”
That voice. I could crawl away with shame…if I wasn’t stuck.
“I have a hand,” I groan. “That’s the problem.”
Jason crouches down beside me so he’s in my line of vision. I have to say…seeing him in a lab coat? It’s a damn good look on him.
“Hi,” he says, and his smile is so charming, I could die.
“Hi, back at you.”
“What exactly is going on here?”
I sigh. “I was…trying to get Otto a bag of chips. And it didn’t take my credit card, so…”
“You don’t carry change?”
“Who carries change anymore!”
“Okay…” he says gently, like he’s trying to coax out a lion. “Can you move it?”
“Uh…” I twist my arm a little and wince. “Sort of?”
“You mind if I…?” He points to the machine.
I lift my working arm and drop it. “By all means.”
He scoots forward, lifts the flap, and reaches his arm up in it. We’re incredibly close like this, our legs practically scissoring, his knee nudging my groin. I can smell his cologne—like earth and man. I feel his fingers slide up my arm until he reaches the contraption that’s caught me in its teeth. Gently, I feel him prying it with his thumb. “This might pinch…”
It does pinch, and I gasp when, for a minute, the teeth bite tighter into my skin. But then they release. Quickly, before the candy-monster changes its mind, I yank my arm back. It slips from the jaws of the vending machine. I cradle it.
“Thank you,” I tell him. “That was…dumb.”
“I’d like to say determined. Are you okay?”
“I think…”
He glances at my arm. “Can you wiggle your fingers?”
I extend my arm and play piano in the air. I nod.
“Good.” He leans in and kisses the backs of my fingers. “Can you feel that?”
“Yes…”
He takes my index finger and slips the digit into his mouth. He sucks it and lightly rolls his tongue over the edge of it. In a flash, I suddenly have the memory of him swirling his tongue over my needy little clit. His eyes meet mine, as though he can tell what I’m thinking, and he grins. “Can you feel that?” he asks again.
“Yeah…” I say. I’m already breathless. I can feel it in the tips of my fingers. The hard pebbles of my nipples. The clench of my cunt.
“Good news…I think you’re going to live.”
“My hero.”
“You better be glad I found you here and not Donovan.”
“Oh, yeah. He would’ve left me. Teach me a lesson.”
“Would you have learned?”
“Me? Learning a lesson? Seems unlikely.”
He snorts a laugh. “That’s why I don’t try. You’re a grown-ass woman. You can make your own mistakes.”
“You’re a good person, Jason.”
“So are you.”
Something about that makes me shy. I shrug my chin into my chest. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“No, I guess not. You’re a bad girl. A naughty girl.”
I scoff on a laugh. “You have me pegged.”
Our eyes meet. “What are you doing for the holidays?” he asks.
“Um…”
I know what I want to be doing. But I also know what I should be doing—avoiding Jason at all costs.
“Retract that question,” he says stubbornly. “I know what you’re doing. There’s a Christmas Eve ferry ride they do every year. They put on a band. Serve hot chocolate. The whole thing. Departs at seven thirty. Otto will love it.”
“I’ll think about it.”
He squints at me. “You do this a lot, don’t you?”
“Do what?”
“Pretend like you’re going to commit to something and then bail at the last second.”
“I do not!”
But even as I protest, I feel my face flush. I am notorious for backing out of any and all plans.
He holds out his hand and extends his pinky. “Promise you’ll come.”
I snort a laugh. “What are we, twelve?”
“Muskrat swear that you and Otto will be on the ferry Christmas Eve.”
I hook my pinky in his. “We’ll be there.”
“Wasn’t so hard, was it?”
I crinkle my nose at him.
