My phone goes dim and I lean back into the couch, closing my eyes as someone gets murdered on TV.
Maybe I should pick a new genre because I’m still feeling twitchy.
I hold my phone over my head and open my eyes, and my pulse quickens as a stupid smile I can’t fight curves my lips.
Sloane
Yes, and the door is still locked, Daddy.
Fuck.
You missing me?
I shouldn’t fuck with her, but I do like her, and I feelcalmwith her. Besides, whether this is a thing or not, I don’t want anything to happen to her on account ofme.
I know these are excuses, but she’s leaving next year. In the spring, she’ll graduate, and she’ll leave this place and me farbehind. I tell myself I’m glad. I tell myself she’d never survive me. I tell myself I can’t deal with a complication.
I tap the side of my screen and want to roll a joint. But since the hotel, I’ve tried to let the habit go for a little bit and now it seems I’m replacing it with a prettier one.
I’m fucking missing you.
It’s not even a lie. I shift on the couch, leaning up, elbows on my knees. The unmistakable sounds of two people having sex start up on the TV and I glance at the screen. The woman has the butcher knife on the man’s throat as she rides him and he’s wearing a mask that obscures all of his features, but the way the nails of her free hand are digging into his shoulder blades, I don’t think she minds. If anything, when she lifts her chin and her blond hair flows down her back, nearly to her ass, I think she’s fucking into it.
My screen glows brighter out of my peripheral and I drop my head down to read Sloane’s text, my pulse racing and I’m not even sure why.
Sloane
So you’re horny?
My breath catches because we’ve never done this before, whateverthisis.
I imagine her in her apartment, snug under her lilac sheets and the cloud-like white comforter she owns, her long, bright blond hair piled into a thick bun on her head with a silk hair tie.
Fuck. Me.
Let me come over and show you.
The woman is moaning louder now and the masked guy groans, too.
I rest my temple in my hand and watch Sloane typing. If she lets me, I’ll drive over there right fucking now. Not to fuck her. I don’t trust myself with that.
To protect her.
Sloane
I just started my period and…
As if I fucking care. I’d go down on her and paint the inside of her thighs with blood from my tongue.
My leg starts bouncing and I squeeze my eyes tight shut for a second, clenching and unclenching my teeth.
It’s been so long since I’ve had sex, sometimes I think I might explode fromwant.If Sloane sent me a photo right now, I might even come in my fucking pants.
But it doesn’t matter. I’vemasteredself-control.
I think I’d dive into Sloane’s bed and hold her all night if she wanted me to. Not that she’s ever seemed like she needed something like that. I’ve been to her place but always with Remi and Cortland, and we’ve flirted, but nothing more. I only really started to talk to her at all during Thanksgiving last year when Remi hosted a Friendsgiving dinner. I was in a bad mood but she kept looking at me, smiling, and it reminded me of the one morning at West River and I obviously didn’t fall in love with her either of those times, but I can’t say I felt nothing.
Yet as soft and sweet as she is, there’s a way she keeps everyone at a polite distance that makes it hard to get inside her head and I don’t know what she actually thinks about me, but I want to find out.
