The thingabout Rhode Island was that I was free to be whomever I wanted here. When I came here for college, it was a rebirth. No one had known anything about me, and no one had known my siblings, my obnoxious father, or anything about my mother's tragic death. They definitely didn't know I'd been banned from my high school's athletic and extracurricular programs after getting caught smoking weed—in only my underwear—on the football field, ditched more classes than I'd attended, or graduated mostly because the school couldn't handle another yearofme.
The only thing that had accompanied me to Rhode Island was a plastic box filled with my loose drawings and sketchbooks. And that was why I'd embraced Dorrance and all the freedom she'd represented. Instead of trying to figure out who I was when I wasn't standing in the long shadows of my siblings, she'd given me permission to have fun in the name of exploring the art of living. There were absolutely no restrictions in the Kingdom of Dorrance, population: anyone who was down for a wild ride. And I'dneededthat.
To apoint.
Looking back on it now, I wasn't sure whether that point had been the fish hook nipple piercings or the getting arrested after waking up naked in a pumpkin patch in northeastern Connecticut or losing my license after driving while tripping balls. To be fair, I hadn't actually beendriving. It was more like inching along an empty rural highway because I'd been convinced there were colonial people trying to crosstheroad.
Perhaps it had been the accumulation of points. Or perhaps it had been Shannon screaming at me in a country police station. Probably a bitofboth.
Let me be clear about one thing: Dorrance was great. She was a fun-time girl and we made a lot of memories together. It was probably the perfect match when it came to distilling people down to their most basic attributes, considering I didn't talk much and she never stopped. But we weren't right for each other, not by a long shot. I might've been the hell-raiser in my family, but Dorrance was the hell-raiser for all of RISD and nowNewYork.
And she wasn't especially loyal. People were interchangeable in her world, whereas they were permanent in mine. I didn't believe in swapping out friends when it was convenient or blowing off siblings because they weren't adequately entertaining. That, and Dorrance was blind to most social cues. There was no breaking it off easily with her. She required direct, forceful words, and even then, refused to hear exactly what I was saying. In her mind, we were still on some kind of years-longbreak.
I wasn't worried that seeing her again would result in me getting swept under her spell. I wasn't popping any Molly and I wasn't letting her use my dick like a rubber stamp for another one of her designs.Fuck no. I'd pissed blue paint for days the last time I'd agreedtothat.
The more I thought about it—what else was there for me to do while Alex slept an arm's length from me?—the more I regretted the suggestion that I needed protection from Dorrance in the first place. That I couldn't face her without also violating a gourd or altering my body, and required a woman at my side to block anddefend.
I could've come to this event by myself, and I should've. Then I wouldn't be staring at the exposed beam ceiling at five in the fucking morning while my cock pitched a tent that could comfortably sleep a family of four. I wouldn't be fantasizing about slipping my hand under Alex's t-shirt or pushing her little shorts down, which I'd decided she wore to simultaneously comfort andtortureme.
I'd only caught a quick glimpse at her sleepwear when she'd emerged from the en suite hours ago. Her t-shirt readBuy Me Brunch, and I'd promised I would before shutting myself up in the bathroom. I'd made a production of turning the water on and off several times, even though I was only gaping at myself in the mirror while hoping divine wisdom made anappearance.
I didn't know what to wear, what to say, how to play it, anything. It was alarming, actually. Never in my life had one woman robbed me of my game. Before Alex—and Lauren, technically, but those were some extenuating circumstances—I'd said what I thought and gone for what Iwanted.
But I couldn't do that with Alex, not all the way. I couldn't explain why her opinions and reactions mattered to me as much as they did, and I couldn't shake the feeling that we'd long outgrown the confines of ourarrangement.
Where that left us was a mystery, but I'd known hiding out in a bathroom wasn't the answer. So, dressed in nothing more than my boxers, because I hadn't planned a pajama strategy for this journey, I'd stepped back into the room with the intention of saying something. Anything, even an oblique reference to the words stretched acrosshertits.
But Alex was asleep. I'd stared at her for a bit, just watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest and the way her hair was fanned out over thepillow.
Ripping my attention away from the ceiling, I shifted to face her. She was on her side, one arm curled under the pillow and the other tucked against her chest, and her pouty lips were pursed as if she was in deepthought.
My cock was aching, and terribly confused as to why we weren't rescuing the pretty girl when the dark, wet cave wasright fucking there. I'd thought about visiting the bathroom to relieve that situation, but I couldn't do it quietly. The idea also made me feel dirty, and not the good-and-fun type of dirty, but the smarmy-skeezy type ofdirty.
"Sorry, buddy," I whispered to the sheets. "Nottonight."
* * *
"It's interesting,"Alex mused as she glanced around the Chace Center at RISDMuseum.
We were parked between a display of reimagined historical clothing and abstract paintings, but I wasn't admiring any of it because I couldn't tear my eyes away from Alex. She was wearing a dark blue dress, something that most people would categorize as simple, but I was hypnotized. Those red heels should've come with a warning label because they were equal parts Maneater and Come Fuck Me. But I didn't mind the added height they gave her. It brought her closer to me. Her hair was loose, hanging just past her shoulders, and with every movement, the scent of purple dug into myawareness.
That purple, it was much like the ticking of a clock. It'd always been there, but now that I was listening, it was the only thing Icouldhear.
"What's interesting?" Iasked.
I was working hard at keeping my gaze easy because this was a classy event and I didn't want the RISD alumni and student body watching while I eye-fucked her. That was my present level of operation. DEFCON Eye-Fucking.
And who could blame me? We'd spent the day browsing the outdoor art sale, wandering along Blackstone Boulevard, and talking about a million things. We loved old-school rap and coffee frappes, but not necessarily at the same time. We couldn't cook but did a decent job of eating. She was lakes, I was oceans. I'd climbed Mount Washington, she'd hiked the Grand Canyon. Our politics weren't fully aligned but we agreed on the importantthings.
It was possible that I knew Alex—and her residents and interns, her colleagues, her best friends from college and medical school—as well as I knewanyone.
But I wanted toknow hera littlebetter.
"It's a diverse bunch here," she remarked. She subtly gestured with her wine glass. "You've got the tweeded-up academics, but then you've also got the blue hair and septumpiercings."
I ducked my head, laughing. "I thought the same thing last night," I confessed. "The exact samething."
"And somehow they seem to coexistpeacefully."
