I CHEW THE pizza, glancing up at her as she sits showered, hair wet, and dressed in sleep shorts with blue octopi on them and a white Henley on top. Despite the small, round table and two chairs behind me, we sit on the carpet, under the window of our sixth-floor hotel room, with the open pizza box between us.
Our eyes meet, but we haven’t said much since she broke down in the bathroom an hour ago.
For now, we enjoy an awkward silence, but it’s not fighting, and that’s something.
Maybe this is a play. A way to reel me in so she doesn’t lose her favorite chew toy.
But I think what happened in the bathroom was real. It’s just hard to trust anything genuine from her. As much I want to.
And whyyyyyy do I want to? I keep looking for the good in her. Why?
“I’m sorry about your dad,” she says in a quiet voice.
I look over, seeing her pick at her slice and put it in her mouth.
I shrug. “It was eight years ago.”
I take another bite, almost ready for my second. She ordered old world pepperoni. My favorite.
She nods. “I know. At least he went quickly, though.”
Her brother didn’t. The Collins’ could afford to put up a fight with leukemia, but it just prolonged his suffering. I guess they had to try, though.
“I’m sorry about Henry.” It comes out as a rasp, and I don’t know why. “I saw you with him sometimes. You were a good sister.”
My dad died long before Clay and I knew each other, but Henry was only a few years ago.
She still doesn’t look at me, just nods, and I watch the ball in her throat move up and down.
She picks off a piece of pepperoni. What’s going on in her head?
“Do you like it?” I ask her.
She pops her eyes up, still bloodshot from the crying. “Yeah, why?”
“You usually like all the fixings.” Olives, peppers, onions, sausage… She likes her pizza loaded. After years of playing lacrosse together, I know her pizza order by now.
She lifts the slice to her mouth. “It’s good.”
I smile to myself. I appreciate the sacrifice. Old world pep is my thing.
“Why do you hate me?” I ask after a moment. I don’t know why I want to know. Maybe I’m taking advantage of the opportunity to finally talk to her. “Why do you act like you hate me, I mean?”
She looks at me, holding my eyes, but when her mouth opens, nothing comes out. Her lids fall, her gaze drops, and I can see the tears pool again.
But she blinks them away, clearing her throat. “You don’t have to come back to school.”
She changes the subject, and I let her. “I know.”
“But I’ll miss you,” she adds, and her voice is as small as a needle, and seeps right into my skin just as easily.
I’m dying for air. She’s fixated on me, right? Because she has nothing else? That’s all this is, right? She couldn’t control me anymore, because I’d started to react. She’s starved for attention, and if that means going to bed with me, she’ll do it. That’s what she’s doing, right?
You weren’t supposed to leave.
“No one has left you, Clay,” I tell her. “Your brother was taken. He didn’t make a choice.”
She’s not alone.
“And your parents…” I go on. “They may be going through stuff, but they’re there. They love you.”
Demand their attention like you do mine. Why not?
“Did you feel like your mom loved you?” she asks. “Do you remember her?”
I stuff a bite of pizza into my mouth, hating how she’s so savvy at deflecting. “I remember her. And no, I don’t think she loved her kids.”
My mom had mental problems her whole life, but my dad was gifted in helping her handle it. After he was gone, she just couldn’t hold on.
“You don’t miss her?” she presses.
“No.”
She raises her eyebrows, a challenging look in her eyes that says I’m a liar.
“I wish she was different,” I clarify. “But I don’t want her back the way she was. No mother is better than a bad mother.”
Guilt curls its way through me. Maybe that was harsh. My mother’s problems weren’t her fault. I know that, it’s just hard to truly believe it. It’s hard to feel that neglecting us wasn’t something she had control of. Everywhere else in life, we’re taught our behavior is one-hundred percent up to us.
“‘If I could go back and do it again, I’m not sure I would’ve had any kids,’” I recite to Clay. “That’s what she said in her letter.”
I toss the pizza back into the box and dust off my hands before hugging my knees to my chest.
“It sounds awful now, but at the time it didn’t really hurt.” I look at her. “Everything was shit all the time anyway, I didn’t expect more. My brothers were in trouble, causing my father stress during his illness like they didn’t have a brain in their heads, but I was actually a lot happier than I am now. Behind my closed door, with my music and my books and my room, it was a perfect world. I didn’t have to deal with anyone. They just let me be.”
“Life is small when you’re a kid.” She stares at her pizza. “We get attached to what we can control and resist what we can’t.”
“Yeah.” Exactly. I’m kind of surprised she put it into words so easily.
My little room was my domain, and I sought refuge there. From my father’s failing health, my mother’s…failing health, how no one in my house understood me, and the money we always seemed to need and never had. I shut myself away from it, resisting everything I couldn’t control, just like my mother with her dark bedroom and the movies she watched all day taking her to any world but her own.
Macon won’t let me do that anymore. He doesn’t let me hide, because he doesn’t want any of us to end up like her. In our heads too much.
Unfortunately for him, it’s too late. Our mother had already taught me how to leave.
I run my hands up and down my face, so confused about what I’m doing, what I want, and what’s right. What am I searching for?
“I don’t want to be like her,” I whisper.
“I don’t think she wanted to be like her either.”
I close my eyes. I know. I know children weren’t her problem. Her husband dying wasn’t her problem. Her problems were always there.
And she hated it as much as we did.
Maybe killing herself was mercy for our family. To not put us through more. To not give my brother another mouth to feed.
Or maybe she did what she’d wanted to do all along. She left.
I want to leave. But I don’t want to leave them behind. I want the people who love me to miss me when I’m gone.
“I don’t hate you.” Her murmur is barely audible.
I look up, listening.
“I think about you all the time,” she almost mouths.
I swallow the lump in my throat.
She holds the pizza, all of her hair loose and spilling over her shoulder, and she’s so still, her gaze fixed on the food in her hands. “Was there ever anything you liked about me?”
The tips of my fingers hum, and I can’t help my eyes trailing over her mouth. She was warm when I kissed her. Like how good coffee tastes on a rainy morning.
I’d like to pull her into the bathroom and into my arms, and kiss her in the shower. I’d like to see her smile.
Her eyes meet mine, her fingers move, and I stop breathing, wanting to hold her hand.
I inch closer, she rises to her knees and leans over, her hand snaking inside my thigh and her mouth coming in.
But then the door bursts open and someone sing-songs, “Hey!”
Clay rears back, looking away as Krisjen and Amy saunter into the room, and I ball my fists, slamming my back into the wall.
Goddammit.
“You’re alive!” Amy giggles, carrying containers of food Coach probably got for us, not thinking we’d order room service. “That’s a relief.” Then she looks around, frowning. “Only one broken lamp? Y’all are disappointing.”
“I thought you guys were gone all night,” Clay questions.
I hold back my smile at the annoyance in her voice. Just get them out of here, Clay. Please.
But the door falls shut, and Amy and Krisjen set down their stuff and take off their shoes. “We weren’t going to leave you alone,” Amy tells her.
Her eyes dart to me and then back to Clay, and I tense at what she’s leaving unsaid. We weren’t going to leave you alone with her , she meant.
Krisjen presses something icy to my arm, and I look, seeing her hand me a soda. “Thanks for coming to the game, by the way.”
“Yeah, fat lotta good it did us,” Amy grumbles.
Krisjen rolls her eyes, throwing her friend a look, and I yank the can out of her hand, giving her a tight smile as thanks.
Yeah, like they would’ve won without me anyway. And definitely not without Clay and me.
“I’ll take you home in the morning, okay?” Krisjen says.
I nod.
“Jaeger, you take that bed.” Amy points to the one on the left. “We’ll take the other one.”
I raise my eyes and my chin, glaring at her. The three of them. In one bed. So the lesbian doesn’t molest one of them in their sleep, right? Jesus Christ.
“Amy!” Krisjen barks. “What, did you suck down some bitch juice before we walked in? Shut up.”
Amy lets out a bitter laugh, and I wait for Clay to step in, but she just sits there, avoiding my gaze and completely quiet.
“So, if a guy had to crash in here with us, our parents would be fine with one of us sharing a bed with him?” Amy retorts. “It’s the same difference.”
I glance at Clay, seeing her eyes downcast, and I know she has things to say. I know she wants them gone, but of course, nothing surprises me with Marymount girls. Once upon a time, I’d hoped I’d have some friends here, and if I didn’t, then maybe one person who thought I was worth the sacrifice if she could just be close to me. But none of them want to stand up for themselves. They either need me or tolerate me.
“I’ll share a bed with you,” Krisjen says.
And I shake my head, surging to my feet. “Eat me,” I say. “I don’t need any favors.”
• • •
Rain falls, thunder cracking across the sky, and I flash my gaze to the window, seeing the drops pummel the panes. Shadows dance across the ceiling, and I lie in bed, phone in hand, and contemplate dragging Trace’s ass out of bed to pick me up.
Tears hang at the corners of my eyes. It shouldn’t hurt. I’m used to being seen differently, aren’t I? I close my eyes, my chin trembling.
The girls fell asleep easily, but I haven’t slept all night. I’m ready to go home. I draw in a breath, my chest shaking, struggling to stay quiet.
But then, the bed dips behind me, the sheet moves, and a body presses into my back, arms slipping around my waist.
Clay’s scent surrounds me, and I open my eyes, seeing she’s no longer in the other bed with Krisjen and Amy. She holds me tightly.
“Just let me go,” I barely whisper.
“I can’t.”
Her breath caresses my ear, and I have no energy to fight her. The tears fall, and I just lie there, letting her mold her body to mine, holding me tighter as she buries her nose in my hair.
“Do you think I want it to be this hard?” I murmur in the quiet so Krisjen and Amy don’t hear. “It’s not a choice, you know?”
She’s silent, and I stare over at the other two sleeping.
“Sometimes I tried not to feel it,” I say. “Tried to force myself to get excited around a boy and to ignore the way my heart beat faster around…”
But I trail off, knowing she gets the idea.
I don’t know why I’m telling her this. It’s not that I need her to understand, because there are so many others in the world who will.
But for some reason, I can’t stop talking. “But it wasn’t who I was,” I tell her. “I saw women everywhere. They were all I saw. I didn’t notice men the same way. How they walked or laughed or danced. I could never picture myself in a guy’s arms.” I turn over in her arms and look at her in the dark. “All I dreamed about was someone wanting me. I wanted to look over in class and see a girl looking at me the way I looked at her. Having someone touch my fingers and hold my hand or pass me notes in class. I wanted someone to have a crush on me—someone with a soft body and soft hair. Everyone else got to have that. All the fucking movies and love songs, and…” I choke on a sob, forcing it back down. “It just got so lonely, and after a while, I just got angry.”
There were other gays at Marymount. The odds were in my favor that I wasn’t alone, but no one would out themselves in such a small town.
Except me. I was already an outsider, because of where I come from, so why hide anything else as if that would help?
“I sneak into Wind House sometimes,” she whispers.
I blink. The funeral home?
“Why?” I ask.
She’s quiet for a moment and then says, “To watch, at first.”
Thunder rolls overhead, the rain growing harder on the windows, and we both lie on our sides, eye to eye.
“When Henry…” She swallows. “When he died, my parents called the funeral director and let them know which hospital to pick him up at,” she tells me, keeping her voice just between us. “My mother was shattered, and Mrs. Gates held her hand and said, “‘I will be very careful with him.’”
Mrs. Gates is the funeral director. It’s a hard enough job, I can’t imagine having to prepare children for burial.
“She puts people back together,” Clay tells me. “She’s started to teach me how to put people back together.”
I stare at her, barely able to see her face in the darkness, but I keep listening, because I don’t think anyone else knows this.
“I needed to know what happens when we’re gone,” she says. “That night, I just couldn’t get it out of my head. How he was alone.”
The kid was only ten.
“They wouldn’t think that he was cold or scared,” she continued, “so I went to him. Broke the basement window and climbed through and stayed with him.”
I tuck my hands under my cheek, and she does the same, taking her time.
“Mrs. Gates found me the next morning.” I watch her. “Asleep against the wall outside his locker. She tried to send me home. Almost called my parents, but I refused to leave. I wanted to see. I needed to see what happens after we die. Where my brother went.”
I’ll bet she put up a fight. No one says no to Clay. I almost smile, imagining the tantrum she probably threw. She was only fourteen.
“She was so frantic.” I hear the amusement in Clay’s voice. “She didn’t know what to do. My parents would’ve killed her if they’d ever found out that she let me watch.” She paused and then continued. “Johnny Caesar came in that morning. You remember him?”
A local rock star about seven or eight years older than us. Made a couple of albums with a small label who screwed him out of rights and royalties, but he got out from under it. Got a big record deal and was about to hit it big. Become a worldwide superstar.
“She didn’t want to get in trouble, but I needed to know and she understood,” Clay says. “I stood back, way back, and watched her embalm him. Wash him. Patch up the gashes from his car wreck. The track marks on his arms and how gaunt his face had become. She cut his hair. Put makeup on him. Dressed him.”
I was at that funeral. He was a friend of Army’s.
“He looked alive again,” she goes on, lightning flashing across her skin. She put him back together so he could be remembered how I’m sure he wanted to be. He looked nineteen again, with his whole life ahead of him. Before life tore him apart.”
My mom probably wishes she was remembered differently. Or better. I’m not sure it would’ve been a comfort, seeing her dressed in her best at a funeral, even if we could’ve afforded one, but people don’t deserve to be remembered for how they died.
“She wouldn’t let me watch her prepare my brother, of course, but after Henry was buried, I…” She hesitated. “I started coming back. I’ve gone back again and again—helping, learning—because every time her phone rings, someone needs her. Someone is looking for guidance and comfort, and I need to be reminded that life is short. I don’t know what happens when we die…” Her breathing shakes, and I inch in closer. “But I do know life is too short. There is no tomorrow. This is all there is.”
“This is all there is,” I repeat.
And I reach out and touch her face. Clay. I smooth out the lines of worry and anger. The fighting and the hurt. I wipe away her tears with my thumb, feeling her warm skin and how she’s the softest thing I’ve ever touched.
“Livvy,” she whimpers, squirming against me.
“Clay.”
She leans into it and exhales, her warm breath wafting over my mouth, and slowly slides her arm around my waist, pulling me in close.
“I’m scared,” she murmurs.
“Me too.”
I still don’t trust her. I know this is a mistake.
But fuck, I need to feel her once. All of her. Just once. Fuck it.
I want to feel her come undone.
She bites my bottom lip between her teeth, and I gasp, feeling it all over my body, and I slip my hand down inside her sleep shorts and inside her panties, shivering when I feel the bare skin between her legs.
She sucks in a breath, her mouth hovering over mine, and I smile as she squirms.
This is all there is. This could be it.
“I wasn’t built for what they taught us we were built for,” I whisper, running my fingers so softly over her pussy. “I was built to feel this.”
Her smooth skin is like a feast, but all I can think about is what it will feel like on my mouth.
She holds onto me. “Don’t take off my clothes, okay?” she says. “I don’t want them to see.”
“I’m taking off your clothes.”
And she whimpers, looking like she’s in pain.
But she doesn’t fight me.
“I’m not stopping this for a hurricane,” I tell her. I slip my arm between her and the bed, and I pull her body tight against mine, stroking her cunt.
I kiss her, slow and soft, gliding my tongue up her neck and rubbing my body up on hers. I suck her lip, going back for more and more. She tastes like a drug that if I go too fast, I’ll go out of my mind and lose control. I need to slow down.
Rolling her nub underneath my finger, I feel the pulse in her clit throbbing as she starts to pump her hips into it, seeking me out.
She looks over my shoulder, breathing hard. “They’re gonna see us.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
Tell me to touch you. Tell me you want to touch me.
She pulls her arms away, and a shot of agony hits me that she’s pulling away until…her hands dip between us, and she unbuttons her shirt. My thighs warm, my clit throbbing, and lightning flashes through the room again, illuminating her beautiful body as she opens her shirt for me.
I dip my hand inside, cupping a breast, and her hard nipple makes my palm tingle.
She shivers, grappling for me like she’s dying, and I roll over on top of her, both of us glancing over to the other bed for a quick check. Krisjen is nearest, curled in the fetal position facing away from us, and Amy is on her stomach, her head facing the other wall.
I look back down at Clay, her soft, smooth flesh filling my hand, and I come down, kissing her hard.
She pulls up my top, her hands roaming up my back and over my hips, still too timid to go for what she wants. I peel open her shirt again, reveling in her naked skin, and then I sit up, carefully and quietly pulling my top off over my head.
I drop my shirt, watching Clay watch me, her eyes trailing over my body. I know she’s seen me naked, and I’ve seen her, but not like this. This is for us.
Sitting up, she holds my waist and looks up into my eyes, the heat of her breath falling on my chest.
“I’m still scared,” she whispers.
I stroke her hair. “Me too.”
I peel off her shirt, both of us glancing at Krisjen and Amy again.
Still no movement.
We should go into the bathroom. We should just wait until I have her in my room or me in hers, and there’s no risk.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’ll stop whenever you want. We don’t have to do anything.”
“I’m afraid I’ll feel different,” she tells me as I run my hand up and down her stomach, squeezing her breast gently.
She means she’s worried she’ll feel badly about it afterward.
It’s easy for women to feel shame about sex. We’re good at feeling dirty for things that should be natural. She’s afraid she’ll feel wrong. That something will change and the knowledge of who she was will be lost. It hurts a little.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” I gaze down at her. “Sex is a big deal.”
“I didn’t think it would be.”
“Why?”
“With you, I mean,” she says. “I thought…”
“You thought it wouldn’t be real.”
Because I’m a fetish.
She gazes up at me, and I move to climb off her, but she grabs my thighs, keeping me there.
“I thought it wouldn’t matter,” she murmurs. “It does. I want you so badly, and I’m scared it won’t stop, Liv.”
My insides flip, and I push her back down to the bed, her skin on mine as I cup her face.
She stares into my eyes, and then…her legs fall open, and I nestle between them. Our warmth seeps through the thin fabric of our shorts, and I’m dizzy at the feel of her underneath me… God.
I squeeze her jaw. “Keep talking, Collins,” I growl in a low voice over her lips. “Tell me more. You fucking owe me.”
She pants under my body, squirming and dying for it, and I love having her in my hands and so pliant. I roll my hips, grinding into her as I come in for kiss after kiss.
“I love the way you laugh,” she says, quivering. “I never make you laugh, and I hate it when I see you from a distance and someone else did. But I love it, too.”
A smile pulls at my lips. “You think about me?”
She nods. “I wonder how these little braids happen.” She touches my hair. “If it’s a nervous habit, you do them on purpose, or maybe a little girl you babysit plays with your hair…” I hover so close to her mouth I can feel its heat. “I stare at them in math class,” she whispers.
It feels like bubbles popping under my skin, thinking about her longing for me. Wanting me. I want her fucking spread wide on my desk while Callum Ames loiters in the hall, oblivious to what she really likes to do.
“I think about you in the mornings,” she goes on. “Right after I wake up. I can’t wait to see you.”
I take her hands, pinning them over her head as I roll my hips and rub on her, faster and faster. She turns her head to check her friends, and I trail kisses over her jaw and down her neck.
“I wanted to be in that car with you,” she murmurs.
You were.
She arches her back, sucking in air through her teeth. “I want to eat you up so badly,” she groans, “I can feel your body between my teeth.”
Lightning flashes, her hot, little mouth hanging open an inch from mine as I thrust. Thunder cracks, covering her groan, and the sheet falls down my back as I move, dry-fucking her and grinding my pussy into hers.
Releasing her wrists, I trail down her body, squeezing her breast as I cover her nipple with my mouth. The little point is so hard on my tongue, and my eyes roll into the back of my head. Fuck . My clit throbs—everything so hot. So soft. God, she’s soft.
She starts to cry out, and I clamp my hand over her mouth, not breaking stride for one second as I kiss and suck, nibble and tug. Her body is a goddamn feast. She’s so perfect. The arches, the curves, the beautiful hair and mouth and…cunt.
God, I want to taste her. The pulse between my legs beats like a drum, my thighs on fire.
I dart my gaze over to see Krisjen turn onto her stomach, feeling Clay’s body tense underneath mine. Krisjen’s mouth falls open a little, and I hear the steady rhythm of her breathing continue.
I take a mouthful of Clay, fisting her other breast and trying to keep my nails out of her flesh. I switch sides, eating up the other one as my palm glides up and down her body, touching, grabbing, savoring…
“How do we do it?” she asks. “I need more. How…?”
I lick her stomach, inching farther and farther down, my heart jackhammering like I’m having a heart attack at the thought of licking her for the first time. I don’t know if I can keep her quiet for that. I don’t know if I want to.
Moving back up her body, I press my breasts into hers, holding her head in my hands as I grind between her legs. I don’t know why, but I like that she’s worried about them waking up. It’s not that Clay thinks she’s doing something bad that turns me on. It’s that she can’t stop herself. “We can do to each other anything a guy can do to us,” I whisper, repeating the same thing I said on the field. “I can be inside you.” I flick her ear with my tongue as I slide my hand down between our legs. “You can ride me.”
And I find the little dip through the fabric of her shorts, pressing my fingers into her.
“I can do anything you want me to,” I whisper.
She stares up at me, the dim light piercing the clouds outside lighting up her face a little more, and then…she brushes her fingers down my body and holds my eyes as she pushes my shorts down, panties and all.
“Don’t leave my body,” she says. “That’s all I want.”
She closes her eyes, fists my hair, and pulls my head back down, kissing my neck as she yanks off my clothes with her other hand.
Yes.
I kiss her deep, dipping my tongue inside and tasting hers as I gently palm her breast. I slide off the rest of my clothes, leaving breathy, little kisses on her mouth, and keeping my body on hers just like she wants before I peel her shorts down.
Her skin sticks to mine, everything already so hot.
I slide my fingers between us, down inside her panties and inside her, and she gasps, her hands immediately diving down to cover herself.
I hide my smile in her neck as I leave little kisses. I like that she’s shy. Like she would be with anyone.
This is real for her.
Gently, I pry her hands off as I nibble her ear. “Let go, Clay.”
Her chest shakes, her breathing ragged. “I don’t want them to see.”
“They won’t, baby.”
It takes a moment, but she lets go, her hands falling away, and I slide down her body, her naked tits round and full, nipples pointing toward the ceiling.
I stroke her first—the soft skin between her legs, the inside of her thighs, the nub inside.
She whimpers, grabs onto me, and moves to close her legs, but I wrap my hand around her thigh, pressing my lips to her pussy.
“Open your legs, Clay,” I whisper against her heat.
She shudders, my breath tickling, and I watch her back arch again, so naked and beautiful and in plain sight if they wake up.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask.
I don’t want to take her. I want her to want it.
I feel her fingers thread through my hair, fisting at my scalp. “Lick me,” she begs.
She holds me tight, my scalp burning a little, but I don’t care.
I slide my other hand under her ass, holding her in place, and pull her panties to the side, diving in for a kiss. My lips are on fire as I suck her into my mouth, sampling, tasting…
And suddenly, I’m so hungry. Sweet and warm on my tongue, she moans as her body shakes. Her fists tighten and her breasts bob like Jell-O, and I can’t go slow anymore.
Easing her into it, I kiss, nibble, and lick her skin, tugging it gently with my teeth. She relaxes, starts pressing me to her and rolling herself into my mouth, getting demanding like Clay is so good at doing when there’s something she wants.
That’s my girl.
She spreads her legs wider, opening up for me, her body rolling on the bed like a wave, and I can’t take my eyes off her. Dragging my tongue, I bring it up and down in smooth, long strokes, back and forth, again and again. Her body tenses, demanding more, and I pick up the pace before diving down onto her clit and sucking it so hard her head shoots off the pillow. She stares in fright at the other bed, convulsing as I suck, rub, circle, and tongue her clit, tugging it between my teeth every so often.
Then, with my eyes cast up and savoring the euphoria of the expressions on her face, I slide my tongue into her cunt.
She goes rigid, losing her fucking mind as she releases my hair and throws her arms above her head, gasping and arching.
“Livvy…” She whimpers, and I move my tongue inside of her, rubbing her clit in circles with my thumb.
I know, baby. I know.
I flick my tongue over her clit. “I know you like it.”
“Yes,” she cries, sounding so vulnerable.
“You want me to keep going?”
She nods. “Don’t stop.”
“How long have you wanted your hands underneath my skirt, Collins? Tell me.”
She grips my hair again, and I can tell by her breathing she’s about to come. “So long,” she pants. “I want to press you against the wall in every empty classroom and pull down your panties.”
Heat pools in my belly, and I’m about to come too. Shit.
But just then, an alarm sings from the bedside table, and my heart leaps into my throat.
What?
Clay freezes as a bright light suddenly flashes.
