Her face brightens. “I’m sure I can manage that. And you’ll mostly be cuffed to a chair and unable to move.”
I pull her back against me for a second, resting my hand on her shoulder, unable to express how much her attention reassures me. “Sorry for being weird. If I’d been normal, I would’ve swept you off your feet by now, and moved you into my house where you’d be far safer than whatever this plan entails.”
Rosa eyes me cautiously. “You wanted to sweep me off my feet, did you?”
The pull in my chest is so painful I can’t bear to look at her. “Something like that.”
She turns aside, rubbing at her throat like it’s sore. “I thought you just wanted to use my services.”
My eyes flick to hers, expecting to see the tease playing around her mouth, but there’s no sign. Her gaze is steady, her face twisting with confusion.
“Yeah, but… we’re friends, too, aren’t we?”
More than friends is what I want to say. Would you be my girlfriend even though I’m a thousand miles from normal is what Iwantto say. I don’t have the adequate words to ask for that. She probably deals with sexual freaks all day long. Coming home to another one won’t be top of her bucket list.
Such a freak my proposal would be, “I’d like you to be the favourite girl on my phone. The only one I watch. The one I’ll jerk off to while not touching you, not the way you deserve, for ever and ever.”
The false vow makes me smile even as my chest gives another sharp tug.
And I need to get away, just for a few minutes, just to clear my head because this pull between us is getting stronger and stronger and I’m well aware it’s probably one-sided but I don’t want it to be. I don’t want it to be like that at all.
“I need to go,” I abruptly announce. “Got some chores to run. Do you want me to pick up something for tea?”
“Oh, I… You’re coming back here, then?”
A jolt runs through me. Touched with a high-voltage wire. “That was my plan.”
Her face floods with relief and I inhale my first full breath since Caylon announced his findings. Even if she’s just happy I’m shouting her a meal again, I’m glad to see the traces of joy.
“Fried chicken. Pizza. Fish and chips. Burgers. Something like that.”
“All four of the major food groups, wow. Someone’s working up an appetite.”
“Yeah, well. My job is very physical.”
I force a laugh but for the first time, I’m troubled. She’s allowed to work at any job she likes but I wish she’d taken up my original offer. To let me pay for everything so she didn’t need to take another session with another client ever again.
It had been a temptation for her when I made the offer. Now it sounds more like a temptation for me.
You’re not even with her like that. Stop being jealous. She’s putting herself out to arrange something you might like and that should be enough. More than enough.
Still, as I kiss her goodbye on the temple, I wish circumstances were different.
I wishIwere different.
* * *
ROSA
The countdown until the weekend takes forever. From the moment Trent made his off-the-cuff comment about sweeping me off my feet, I haven’t been able to concentrate. Not on my studies, not on my work.
Finally, I pay my mother a visit and the moment I walk through the door she knows something is wrong.
“Come here,” she orders, though with the tubes and lines running in and out of her, my getting on the bed beside her must cause considerable pain. But I obey, desperate to feel her arms around me.
Her skin’s softer today, smelling of lanolin. I burrow in beside her, placing my arms with care so I don’t knock anything important free.
“Can you tell me what’s going on?” she says in a whisper. “Has something gone wrong at school?”
