I could hear Price breathing. It sounded hurt. It sounded heartbreaking. I turned my head to face him, begging and pleading with my face. “I’ll talk to her.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t. She has no idea what we did. She has no right to waltz in here and assume, though I guess that’s really my fault.” Shame. It was a familiar thing. A painful thing. It engulfed me like second nature.
Price looked at me, a broken half-smile trying, failing, to grace his features. “I’d better get out of her house.” He took my hand into his, the heat doing nothing to melt the ice around me now. “You have my number. Will you use it to let me know how things go?”
“Yeah, I will. I promise.”
With that, he pulled his hand away from me.
And the voice only got louder, showing me the reason I never lost control. Why I never gave in.
Price had ruined me, and I wasn’t sure if he was worth the consequences yet. But the anger I felt rumbling deep in my bones, screaming at me from within, told me I had to find out. I had to talk to Willow. I had to talk tosomeoneother than the voice in my head because the only answer I got there was to slice.
And slice.
And never stop until I was empty from the inside out.
“You asshole!”I stomped my way into Willow’s room much like she’d done to me. I was fully clothed now, anger guiding me. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed with an air of audacity she didn’t deserve to have.
I growled in frustration, stopping at the end of her bed. “You don’t get it! The one fucking time I don’t beg someone to hurt me, and you treat him like that? No.” I shook my head furiously, pointing an accusing finger in her direction. “Price treated me like I was a goddamn—I don’t know. A wilting flower!”
“A wilting flower?”
“Ugh, you know what I mean! Something romantic. He touched me like my petals would fall off if he so much as breathed on me the wrong way.” Memories and phantom kisses swirled in my mind. “He kissed me, Willow. Well, I kissed him first. Not the point. Anyway, he kissed me, and he didn’t hit me. Not even once. In fact, he refused to!”
She looked at me in shock, her eyes widening.
“Yeah.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I asked him to fuck me. He said he wouldn’t hurt me, and just like last time, he went slow as shit and it felt fucking amazing even though I was freaking out and?—”
“Wait”—she put her hands up, waving them around—“last time? This isn’t the first time?”
I paused, acknowledging the slipup. We looked at each other in silence, tension building with each second that passed. I tried to avoid her gaze, looking left and right, shifting on my feet in a delusional hope that if I didn’t answer, she wouldn’t push.
Of course, that wasn’t how things worked. Willow narrowed her eyes at me before pointing in front of her. “Sit and explain before I beat your ass, dude.”
Being best friends for as long as we had been was both a blessing and a curse. We grew up together, making us as close as siblings. Unfortunately, Willow was a mean sister.
Sighing, I accepted defeat and got comfortable on the mattress in front of her. I refused to look up, though, keeping my attention on the blanket beneath us. “We’ve… messed around one other time.”
“When?”
I winced, mumbling as low as possible. “A couple of days before he approached us at The Arch.”
“Ex-fucking-cuse me?” Willow gasped, her pitch rising to a screech. “You knew him and you didn’t say anything? Crew Mitchell Hayes, you bet your ass I’d be tellin’ your mama on you if I could!”
“I know!” I groaned loudly, throwing my face into my palms. “We were never supposed to see each other again. I had no idea he worked there. When he came over, I just about shit my pants. And then he sweet-talked you, offered me a job, and I was suddenly in a very shitty situation.”
Willow’s jaw hung open. She closed it, shifting her position on the bed. “Okay, so, was he a one-night stand or a paying customer?”
From there, I word vomited almost everything about the first night I met Price. How he refused to treat me poorly, how I ran away in a panic, how he paid me more than enough money to cover the bills I had due.
I was vague enough that I didn’t reveal any true secrets yet detailed enough to satisfy her curiosity. Willow listened intently, not interrupting me until I was finished.
“So he offered you four hundred bucks, and you almost refused ’cus you only like it rough. But his sexual energy was too tempting, so y’all fucked around.”
I glared at her.
