“How the hell weren’t you freezing by the way?” The curiosity has been gnawing at me.
She looks at me with a twinkle in her eyes. “Oh, I was. But messing with you certainly warmed me up a bit.” Herlaughter breaks through the icy air, and I can’t help but join in, shaking my head.
“You’re crazy,” I say.
Her shoulders bunch, eyes darting away, fixing on some distant point. “So I’ve been told.”
Her voice is strange. Hollow. Like she just dropped me into the same jar as everyone else. The ‘people-are-clueless-jerks’ category. And I’m not enjoying the company. My stomach knots.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I try explaining, the words coming out too fast, tripping over each other like a bunch of idiots.
She doesn’t even look at me. Like she’s already made up her mind, decided exactly where I stand. I’m suddenly spit into the separation between who she thinks I am and who I wish I could be.
“It’s fine,” she says, and it feels like she’s putting a period on the moment. Maybe on me. Her hand reaches for the railing as she moves to stand.
“Stay.” The plea escapes my mouth before I can stop it, my fingers catching her arm and spilling coffee onto our laps.
She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t recoil, just holds the now empty mug with a resigned kind of determination, like this mess is one more thing she expected to happen, one more thing to clean up.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “Please stay,” I say again, this time softer but more desperate. I want to explain. I want to get the words right. Maybe for once in my life.
She gives me this sad, empty smile, and I watch as her spirit evacuates from it. “I gotta open the diner soon,” she tells me, the smile still clinging to her lips while her eyes appear ten miles away. “So I’d better go.”
“Nora.” Her name sounds odd in my mouth. Gentle. Like something I usually reserve for my niece when she’s feeling down, for my sister when she’s at her most stressed. I can’tremember the last time I said anything this softly to anyone else. I’m not even sure I know how. “I meant it as a figure of speech.” Can’t she see that I’m trying?
But she’s already standing, wiping the spilled coffee off her black pants. Her mouth is still set in that perfunctory curve, the same one I watched from afar the night I found her on the porch, her body trembling as she hid her embarrassment behind a brave face. And just like then, it’s a mask she wears to hide her disappointment. Only now I’m sure that I’m the disappointment. I watch her move to the door, fighting the urge to reach out again, to maybe say something that will make her want to stay, to make her look at me the way she did when she asked if I wanted a drink. Like there was some possibility of us sitting here together, warm mugs steaming between us. Like she didn’t mind me being next to her. She halts for a moment at the door, her back still to me. There’s a part of me that wants to leap into the space between us, close the growing distance.
“I know,” she replies with a small sigh. “But I really have to go. Bye, Jericho,” she says before disappearing inside, leaving me still sitting in her yard like an idiot who’s just put his foot into his mouth. I truly didn’t mean it in an offensive way, more like an admiration. Like something I wouldn’t have the balls to do. But to her, it must have sounded different.
The memories of how I first thought of her come crushing down on me. I thought her a local looney, a crazy witch. But what if everyone else thinks of her the same way? What if it’s something the whole town sees her as? There should be a reason she reacted that way to my comment. Almost the same way I reacted on the assault comment when we first met—I still remember that. Even though I know they knew nothing about my past, it still bugged the hell out of me.
Sending one last look to the witch hazel separating ourhouses more than the fence does, I get on my feet and head to my house, feeling heavier than when I came here.
I drag my feet into the shower. The house is freezing cold, so I crank up the water temperature to almost burning. Throwing my clothes on the floor, I walk into the tub and let the hot stream sluice over my skin.
It’s five a.m., and my mind is still frozen. Which cannot be said about my cock. Wrapping my hand around it, I give it a tug. Nothing. I feel fucking nothing. I try to recall the lasthotvideo I watched. Still nothing. The movements of my hand are automatic, they bring a regularfeeling, but no satisfaction.
I try recalling another video. One of my favorites. And still, big fat nothing.
Then my neighbor’s face pops in my head, and my cock bobs right in my fist. I swallow the uncomfortable feeling of doing something I’m not supposed to and let my mind go.
I remember how her hair fell over her naked body. And how I got a glimpse of her cold nipple between her red strands. My cock turns rock hard.
How her shirt rolled up her ass, and I got a glimpse of another place I’d like to visit.
My balls tighten while my fist slides up and down my length.
How she laughed when she chased the damn creature. I squeeze the base tighter. How fiery her eyes looked when we clashed at the store.
I throw my hand out to hold myself on the wall because the power of my release nearly buckles my knees. The flashes of Nora’s face still dance in front of my eyes, making me feel guilty, like I’ve been caught doing something inappropriate.
Which I was. Not caught, but doing something inappropriate. Very inappropriate.
And I’ll do it again.
12
Jericho
