“This has nothing to do with your dog, or anyone’s dog.”
“But why are you so angry?” She takes another step towards me, and again, I step away.
“If you don’t know, Rachel, I’m not about to tell you.”
“I can’t believe you’re acting like this.”
“Like what?” I challenge. “Like last night meant something? Both of us know it really didn’t, right? It didn’t mean anything. A mistake that will never happen again.”
Rachel’s eyes widen in surprise and for a moment I think I’ve gone too far, that it’s all a misunderstanding…
And then her face goes blank, like she’s wiped it clean, and the sight of the nothingness pulls up a surge of rage.
“What’s the matter?” I demand. “Was that supposed to be your line?”
“No,” she snaps. “My line is going to be that you’re an absolute ass.”
11
Rachel
I can’t believehe said that.
I can’t believe he actually means it.
I stomp away without a glance. Boen’d better be watching so he knows exactly what he’ll be missing out on.
Last night meant something to me, and the fact that it doesn’t to him… it hurts.
I’ve hooked up with guys before. Girls too. I’ve had casual flings where me leaving without saying goodbye is expected and might even be preferred.
It felt different with Boen. The way he touched me, like he was examining the petal of a flower and the way it changed so that it was like he was devouring the flower, made me feel special. Wanted. Studied and found to be worthy.
I thought Boen accepted me. All of me.
But it didn’t mean anything to him. And not only that, he let me walk away.
My previous relationships had thrived on conflict, or so I thought. Liv loved to debate over anything—the ending of Handmaid’s Tale, the style of a waitress’s hair, whether she loved me more than I loved her. Bartlett just loved being right. I think he got off on proving others wrong. Even Michael, who I had been with my first year in school, had loved to fight, as long as we got to have make-up sex.
I didn’t enjoy any of those moments, but I did learn to speak my mind. Being dismissed by Boen feels strange. And it hurts.
So much that the words that I want to say choke in my throat, causing my eyes to burn and my nose to clog like the worst of a summer’s cold.
Oh my God, he made me cry!
“No. No way.” I swipe at my cheek with the back of my hand and catch the corner of my eyes with my leather bracelet. “God dammit,” I cry, unlocking the door and bringing a worried Rusty running to me. “Men suck.”
He still has my underwear.
As soon as I realize that, a plan starts to kick into place and I grab for my phone. “I need your help,” I say as soon as Biba answers. “Another retrieval mission.”
To her credit, Biba doesn’t even ask for details. “Rachel,no.”
“It’s not far, just at my neighbour’s place. He has my panties—”
A pause. “Why?”
“Because I slept with him last night and I had to leave in a hurry and didn’t put them on.”
