His laugh is low, dark, dangerous—all the diagnostic criteria for things that will ruin my life in alphabetically organized ways. The sound rumbles through the phone, and I notice his voice has dropped half an octave. Less controlled. More hungry.
"Are you taking it off?"
I look at Izzy. She's mouthing'DO IT'like a cheerleader for poor decisions.
I pull my tank top over my head. Standing in my kitchen, in my bra, making tamales while a stranger listens to me breathe. This is it. Rock bottom with a medical degree and a side of salsa verde.
"It's off."
"Good girl."
Two words. His voice goes rougher on 'girl,' like gravel under silk. My vagina just submitted her thesis early. Summa cum laude. Full scholarship to bad decision university.
"Describe what I'm looking at."
"Black bra that cost too much. Surgical scar on my shoulder from thinking I could skateboard at thirty. Masa handprints because I'm a disaster in the kitchen. Probably flour in my hair. I'm basically a before photo for an intervention."
"You're perfect."
"You can't see me."
"I can hear you. Breathing faster. Probably biting your lip. Hand somewhere it shouldn't be."
He's wrong. My hand is firmly on the counter. The other hand, however, is tracing my collar bone, and how the hell does he know that? I check my pulse again—135 and climbing. Tachycardic from a phone call. New personal low.
"I'm forty-five," he says suddenly, and his voice changes—something vulnerable sneaking through the gravel. "You said I was too old. You're thirty-one?"
"Lucky guess?"
"Math. You've been a nurse long enough to be comfortable with trauma. Not long enough to be dead inside. Ten years, maybe. Makes you thirty-one, thirty-two."
"Thirty-one. And yes, you're too old for me."
"Probably."
"Definitely."
"Touch yourself anyway."
"My friend is literally right here."
"Tell her to leave."
I look at Izzy. She's already grabbing her purse, blowing me kisses, mouthing 'TEXT ME EVERYTHING.'
The door closes. I'm alone. With his voice. And my hand that's definitely not staying where it should.
"She's gone."
"Good. Now do what you've been thinking about since I texted you."
His voice has gone deeper still, rougher at the edges like he's fighting for control.
"Bold assumption that I've been thinking about you."
"You made forty tamales. You're stress-cooking about me."
Fuck. He's right. My grandmother's ghost is judging me in Spanish.
