“Fun?” I drink because that one word is a whole-ass question. “One thing I never call this place is fun.” I point the bottle at her. “You, however, are a hell of a good time.”
She blushes and takes the bottle back. “Well, I can’t say I could ever see myself…I don’t know…” She’s quiet for a moment, as if she’s convincing herself it’s okay to say the words. “Snorting coke off Jackie’s stomach. But I had fun today.”
She takes a long sip, and I notice she’s not wincing as much as she did yesterday. Maybe it’s the full belly, or maybe my girl is already building a tolerance to the burn. “Two-part question.”
I expected questions about my dick, and she dives in headfirst, wanting to know about my frenum piercing. I explain that, no, my piercing never shreds through a condom and, no, it doesn’t require any special care other than keeping it clean.
We pass the bottle back and forth and answer what feels like two hours of sexual questions that get me hot and hard. Finally, she’s sitting in my lap and kissing me with every shot she takes. We’re both fully dressed and enjoying this game, but just like last night, I start to see signs that she can’t take much more booze.
“Shadow,” she pants my name against my ear. “How the heck are you so delicious?” She trails her tongue along the side of my neck.
I clamp my fingers against her plush ass. “That’s a question. You’ve got to drink,” I tease.
She does, and I reward her with a kiss so deep and hungry that I swear I come back a little drunker from the whiskey on her tongue.
“My turn.” I’ve been waiting for the right moment to ask this, but if she passes out, I’ll miss my chance. I drink, and then, holding her face in my hands, I ask, “So, this fucker Clive. What’s his deal?”
She sobers up a little and looks down. “That’s a big question, but I guess it’s a fair one.”
She climbs off my lap and turns away from me. She shoves her ass between my legs, and I stretch them out along the length of the couch, letting her rest her back against my chest. I lower my chin so I can smell her hair, which, despite the cigarette and weed smoke in the main room, and the cooking and cleaning she did today, still smells like her.
“I never really dated much,” she explains, slurring her words a little. “I’m thirty-two, but I never had a serious boyfriend until after college. My second one was in grad school, a fellow librarian. But neither one of them lasted. It wasn’t any big thing. I just…” She draws in a huge breath and sighs. “I never felt like I was enough for the guys I dated. I was too thick, too smart, made too much money, and that made them insecure.” She laughs. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t make a ton as a school librarian, but back in grad school, I had a great job when most of the other students were unemployed or doing part-time work-study jobs. I had money and a car. The car I still have, by the way.”
She swallows and is quiet for a minute. “Clive was different, right from the start.” She sighs. “It all happened so fast. We met about a year ago, and within six weeks, he told me he wanted to marry me. He was so intense. I think it’s called love-bombing. He fell so fast and was so, I don’t know, into me. Half the time, I didn’t even know what I felt about him because I was too busy thinking about how devoted he was to me. We took weekends away, spent all our time together.”
I stroke her head absently while she talks.
“He surprised me with a ring when we’d only been dating for four months.” She doesn’t look up at me, but I notice her stroking her left ring finger with her right hand, as if feeling for something that was once there but isn’t anymore. “I had never been proposed to, and my first instinct was to say no.” She turns slightly to face me. “I should have listened to my gut. It was too much, too fast, but Clive was good to me. I had no excuse to say no.”
The blood freezes in my veins. “What you deserve is a reason to say yes, not an excuse to say no.”
She gives me a half smile and then runs her fingertips along the tops of my thighs. “Thank you,” she says quietly. “I guess I know that now.”
She goes on to explain how fast everything changed. “Once I took that ring, he moved in to my townhouse. We hadn’t lived together before, and I found out later he’d been evicted. Had been crashing with friends the entire time we had dated.” She shakes her head sadly.
“He never told me how much trouble he was in. Financially, that is. He has a good job, but I don’t know, Shadow. He had no place to live. In four months, I’d only been to his place a couple times early on. After that, we’d always go to my place. I never thought it was strange. I liked my place, and it seemed easier to have him pack a small bag than for me to live out of a huge bag with toiletries and clothes and stuff.” She laughs, but it’s a dry, brittle sound. “Things fell apart fast once he was under my roof.”
She tells me the basics—the control over her schedule, time with her friends. Normal douchebag shit that guys like that do to feel powerful. Big.
“Did he hurt you?” It’s a question, but this is no game. I can’t help my hands clenching as I imagine taking a fist to this Clive asshole’s face.
She nods, a slow, slight movement. “In his way. He hurt me in ways that wouldn’t show. Holding on to my neck a little too hard and too long during sex. Not letting me keep anything private. He believed our relationship meant he had an all-access pass to everything about me. That’s why I don’t have a passcode on my phone. He never trusted me, but I never had anything to hide. I keep telling myself to put one on my phone now, but I don’t know. Maybe I’m afraid he’ll catch up to me one day and break my phone instead of just looking through it to see who I’m talking to.”
I start to feel sick with rage, fury simmering in my gut. “What else?”
She yawns sleepily and laces her fingers through mine. She holds my hands over her soft belly and squeezes my fingers. “I ended it,” she says. “That was the biggest insult of all.”
I feel her shoulders rise and fall, and I’m pretty damn sure she’s asleep. The storm is still raging outside, and the candles flicker, casting a dim yellow light over her sleeping body. We sit there, Violet snoozing and me just holding her, until that damn ringtone I recognize from earlier jerks me awake. I must have dozed off, but Violet is out cold.
She doesn’t flinch as I reach over her to the opposite corner of the couch, where her phone blares incessantly against the leather.
I climb out from under her and settle her back against the cushions, and then I swipe the touchscreen to answer the call. I say nothing.
“Violet? Do you think this is a game I’m playing? You want to play with me, I play to win, Violet. You know this about me, you know?—”
I can’t stand the sound of the douchebag’s voice. I cut him off. “The only thing I hear is a whiny prick of a loser. Now, shut the fuck up and listen.”
There’s a split second of silence in which I swear I hear him gasp. But then, he takes off. “Who the fuck is this? Where the fuck is Violet? Put her on the phone. Put that stupid bitch on the phone, asshole.”
