My white knuckled grip on the steering wheel eased as the tension in my back and shoulders evaporated the farther I got from the cabin and mortuary grounds.
I barely ever drove into the city but Spokane’s urban sprawl had never been such a comforting sight. It took me thirty-five minutes to get to Carlos’s condo but it was worth every one of them.
“Hey,” Carlos said, opening the door after I knocked.
A wide grin spread over his face. I returned it, even if mine was a little wilted. The relief of being with another person in another place hit me so hard, I felt drugged. Like I’d taken a fistful of tranquilizers after being high on adrenaline for too long.
Carlos pulled me into a hug, kissing my cheek. He smelled like marijuana and cologne applied several hours ago, but he was warm, solid, and familiar.
“I should have brought something,” I mumbled. “Sorry.”
Really, I should’ve brought some clothes and a toothbrush at the bare minimum but even closing the distance between myself and the cabin to shut the door before leaving had taken a Herculean effort.
“Nah, don’t worry about it,” he insisted, ushering me inside.
“Is Salem home? I should have asked.”
“She’s not. We have the place to ourselves tonight.”
Salem used to be an issue between us. She moved in with him when we were together and I didn’t believe him when he said he wasn’t attracted to her.
She was a curvy brunette who shared his passions for hockey, poker, and gaming. A guy’s girl. The I’m-not-like-other-girls type. The I-can-run-with-the-boys-type. I had nothing against her other than her perfect tits and the way I sometimes caught her staring at Carlos just a little too long.
But that wasn’t my problem anymore.
They were under the same roof with more than enough time to bond and grow a connection. He hated staying over at my place because it was allegedly creepy and I wasn’t moving so we were practically long-distance right from the get go. Doomed to fail.
At least Carlos and Salem waited until he and I were on the off part of the on-again-off-again cycle to start fucking so my insecurities were only half right.
From what he told me, she never wanted anything serious with him and a couple of hookups was all he got out of her and he couldn’t bring himself to ask her to leave.
She was always good with rent, clean, and easy to get along with so the awkward tension living together was worth it to him. And now that she had a steady boyfriend, it was only a matter of time before she moved out on her own anyway.
Carlos led me to his bedroom. It was the bigger of the two and had its own bathroom. The air held the smell of the last meal he ate. Tacos if I had to guess. And not good ones.
Yellow light from the lamp on his nightstand made the room feel warm and secure. Everything was just as I remembered it. The wine stain on the carpet from when he’d knocked a bottle over into my lap. The crooked curtain rod. The hole in the wall he kept saying he’d fix but never did.
That was one of the better things about Carlos, he was predictable. Static. Walking into his room was like walking into an Office episode that I’d seen seven times already. I knew exactly what to expect.
It was one of the reasons I couldn’t see myself with him long term, knowing I’d get bored. I’d resent him for making one more part of my life monotonous and stagnant.
Right now, though? I couldn’t think of anything more desirable than a boring life.
“Mind if I have a shower?” I asked, biting my lip.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll order us some food. Thai?”
“I’m not hungry,” I murmured, slipping out of my hoody, loving how the energy in the room didn’t feel like it was assaulting me.
“Yeah, yeah, all right,” he said, rubbing a hand up his other arm awkwardly. “Take your time, I guess.”
“Those clean?” I indicated the clothes piled haphazardly on the armchair by his closet.
He nodded.
“You mind? I forgot my bag.”
“What’s mine is yours, Em, take what you want.”
Thanking him, I gathered a long black t-shirt and hauled my exhausted bones into the shower.
When I came out, Carlos wasn’t there but the bedroom had been tidied up, a candle lit on the dresser.
I smirked, knowing damn well the man didn’t own a candle and likely swiped it from Salem. I dug my charger out of my bag and plugged my phone into the wall.
“Hey.” Carlos shut the door behind him as he came back into the bedroom. The baggy Washington State hoody was off and now, he was in checkered blue boxers and a white t-shirt.
“Hey.”
“Tired?” he asked, his brown eyes flitting over my face, no doubt finding purple half-moons and tension I couldn’t seem to fully release.
“It’s after midnight,” I said as if that explained everything.
“I got some of that wine that you used to like. Are you too tired for a glass of that?”
“I’ll have a glass,” I said, lips tight. When he left, I felt my chest release and I sat down heavily on the edge of his bed.
Why did coming here suddenly feel like the stupidest idea?
Why hadn’t I called Tess? Gone to her place. It was only another ten minutes from here, practically the same distance.
I heaved a sigh, knowing the answer without the need to even ask the question. I was here instead of there because Carlos was available and wasn’t in the habit of asking many questions. Tessa would ask too many questions. Questions I wouldn’t be able to answer without telling her everything.
She’d want to call the police. My dad would go to prison. We’d lose Snow’s Mortuary.
He walked back into the room with filled wine glasses.
“These are new,” I said, fingers catching on the adhesive residue from the sticker still stuck to the base.
“Yeah. Salem got them as a gift,” he said, climbing onto the other side of the bed.
“How is she?” I asked, putting my phone down after checking for any missed calls or texts from Dad and finding none. Carlos shrugged, giving me an odd look as he sipped his wine uncomfortably.
“You really want to hear about her?”
“It can’t be that bad, is it?” I asked. He laughed sadly, running a hand through his sunbaked brown curls.
“She… uh, well she and I gave things a shot when her and whatshisface were on the outs, but… she went back to him, so…”
“Sorry?”
I didn’t mean it to sound like a question but it did anyway.
“Nah. It’s a good thing. She’s a great roomie but that’s where it ends.”
I drank a sip of my wine, quickly chasing it with a second gulp. Even if it was lukewarm from being kept on the counter over the dishwasher—where I told Carlos never to put it—it was still damn good.
His jaw clenched. He finished the rest of his glass, putting it down on the nightstand. “What about you? Have you been seeing anyone?”
I blinked, a stark image of the man from last week, the ghost in the mortuary basement coming unbidden to my mind, making me almost choke on my next gulp.
“No,” I finished the glass. “No one wants to date a girl who works with dead people for a living.”
I gave a tight smile.
Carlos looked down at the space between us.
“No one, hmm?” he pressed. “What if I did?”
My eyes rolled and I wished there was still wine in my glass.
“You’d be shit out of luck,” I said on a long exhale. “Is there more wine?”
He reached for my glass but put it down next to his.
“Fine.” His lips pulled up on one side in a sly grin. “No dating.”
He slid a hand over my thigh, watching me expectantly. “We can just fuck.”
“Is there more wine? I might need a refill first.”
He put a hand to his chest.
“Ouch. Am I that bad in bed?”
“Define bad.”
He scooted in closer to me, putting a hand around the back of my neck.
“It was good enough to keep you around for a whole year,” he teased, cocky now.
“Ten months,” I corrected.
“And you’re still here,” he shot back.
He had me there.
Our lips met in a soft but emotionless kiss. His hand, warm, groped up my thigh, beneath the long t-shirt. He shifted over me, pushing me down into the bed.
Was my phone still plugged in?
I opened my eyes, trying to turn my head without breaking the kiss. His knee knocked into my thigh on its way between my legs, making me grunt.
“Oh, sorry,” he said. “I was trying to—”
“It’s fine,” I said quickly. He smiled, holding my face again, tracing his fingers down the line of my body to reach under the t-shirt, groping toward my breasts.
No life was detected from the waist down. Nothing. Not a tingle, not a spark, nothing.
I resisted the urge to go dead fish on him, he was letting me spend the night after all.
Carlos and I had a lot of sex in the beginning of our relationship but it tapered off, became something more like work, like a performance I didn’t want to act in anymore.
Unlike he liked to imagine, I didn’t keep fucking him after our breakup because the sex was good. It was because if I didn’t, I’d never see a living human being that wasn’t my dad or Tessa.
There had been two guys before him; one train wreck when I was seventeen and wanted to just ditch the v-card, and another guy who wanted to see where things went, getting boyfriend benefits without boyfriend responsibilities.
Carlos was the only one who met my dad. He appeared responsible and trustworthy, ticked all the boxes, but the sheen on him faded fast.
Carlos pawed my breast, and I closed my eyes, trying to get into it, imaging him as someone else. Someone like the men folded between the pages of Tessa’s books.
What if he just…
I reached blindly for his hand, moving it up to my throat. He proceeded to slide it back down to my tit, over my shirt. My eyes would have rolled if they were open. I tried again, bringing his hand to my neck and pressing it down, squeezing.
“Whoa,” he said, releasing me. “Are you into that shit?”
Maybe?
Maybe he could help me find out.
“Are you?” I turned the question around on him, not wanting to admit it out loud.
He pursed his lips, thinking, then shook his head.
“Nah. That’s not really my thing. Can get yourself into some shit doing that, you know?”
Okay but what if I want you to?
I couldn’t bring myself to ask the question outright, finding a bush to beat around instead.
“You wouldn’t,” I argued. “I mean, it’s not like I’m not consenting.”
“Consenting?” he repeated, his brows rising.
Any tiny spark of desire I’d been trying to ignite died a quick, quiet death.
“Just forget it,” I mumbled, pushing him off me.
He tracked my movements as I pushed off the bed, going for my empty wine glass.
“Are you fucking mad at me right now?”
More like annoyed.
“What do you think?”
“You’re mad because I don’t want to choke you?”
Well, yes, but that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was that I wanted him to in the first place. I still wanted him to.
And why not?
Why didn’t he even try? I fucking asked him to do it. Couldn’t he at least attempt something other than missionary and doggy style with very little clit stimulation?
This might actually have turned me on enough not to have to take him dry for the first minute.
“Em,” Carlos bit out, wanting a response.
“I’m mad because you’re always down to hook up but you don’t even want to try to make it good for me. Like, at least put some effort into getting me wet first.”
His eyes traveled up and down my body before coming back to my face, narrowing.
“Who the hell have you been fucking that does that kind of shit to you?”
I huffed, eyes cast toward the ceiling as I ripped open the door and left his room.
The reason why we split up was achingly clear.
Carlos didn’t do it for me.
It was harsh and it didn’t feel good to think about the almost one year that he got out of me, but it was true. He was fine, but fine wasn’t good enough. It would never be good enough.
I mean, fuck, I’d cried harder watching pet reunion videos online than I did when we broke up. Actually, I don’t think I cried at all.
I found the wine next to the fridge and sloshed a healthy dose into my glass.
“Can we go back to bed?” Carlos asked behind me, padding into the kitchen.
I swirled the wine in my glass before downing it in two long swallows and refilling it from the bottle.
“Maybe I’ll just take the couch.”
He visibly sagged, defeated. “Look, you want to blue ball me, fine. It’s fine. I can tell you’re, like, stressed or whatever. Just come back to bed at least.”
Wrong again.
This was the part where he should’ve put his hand over my mouth, held me down over the counter, and smacked my ass so hard it would hurt to sit tomorrow. After that, he’d finger me right to the edge, then refuse to let me come as payback for being such a little brat.
But if I wanted that, I should have just stayed home and read the next book from Tessa.
He waved an arm and I let it go, shuffling after him to his bedroom.
Carlos fell into bed and clicked on the TV, selecting a tv series we used to watch together and choosing a random episode.
I finished my wine and slid into the bed, pulling the covers up high as I snuggled down into the pillow.
It took all of ten minutes before there was a hand on my flank and warm breath against my ear. Carlos’ not yet hard-on pressed into my ass.
“Are you asleep?” he rasped.
I shuddered involuntarily, imagining it. Five to seven minutes of uninspired thrusting that would come to a grinding halt when he came faster than he thought he would. After he got rid of the condom, he’d be out like a light.
Was this really all I could hope for?
I rolled onto my back. Maybe it was.
He brushed a palm over my stomach beneath the oversized t-shirt. “Yeah?” he asked, his gaze heated.
“Eat me out first.”
His lips spread into a wide grin before he vanished beneath the covers.
Instead of five to seven minutes, now, maybe I’d get eight.
