Not for me.
“You hurt me, Phoenix, and that doesn’t even scratch the surface of how broken I was, but it made me strong. It made me pull together a life I could’ve only ever dreamed about.”
“And now?” I ask, knowing there’s a chance her answer might gut me. But when she lifts her eyes, all I see is the girl who used to look at me like I could raise hell and she’d still stand there with her arms wide open, trusting me not to let her burn.
“Now you’ve really gone and shaken shit up.”
“I’m not sorry for that.”
“I didn’t think you would be.”
“So what about you? Dream life? You living it… or still chasing it?”
“Now that I’m not going to answer.”
“Why not?”
“Because first of all, I’m not even sure what that is, and secondly, I can’t tell you anything without you holding it against me.”
“Does it involve me? That’s all I’ll ask.”
“Hasn’t my entire life already involved you?”
I’m taking that as a fucking yes, but I hold back from pushing her.
“Can I ask you something?”
“I’m an open book, baby. You can always ask me whatever you want.”
“What happened to Greg?”
That prick.
“I just figured…” She shrugs, playing off her curiosity even though she’s dying to know if I buried that motherfucker in a shallow grave somewhere. “You kind of made your way around that group, and you never mentioned him.”
There’s a fantasy I play out sometimes when I can’t sleep, where I take him out into the woods, cave his smug fucking face in with my bare knuckles, and fling his teeth into a bag.
“Greg’s married to some rich old-money princess. But as soon as she takes a girls’ trip to the Hamptons, Greg is in a hotel room, bent over for a guy he calls Daddy, begging to get his ass beat raw with a leather strap before making the guy finish on his wife’s face in the wedding photo he takes to every hookup.”
She just stares at me, mouth open, blinking like she doesn’t even know how to process that.
“You asked, pretty girl… oh, and Cassie’s dead. Not my fault that one—that was a freak accident I wasn’t a part of.”
“Jesus… I can’t believe she’s dead—” She shakes her head, still trying to catch up. “And he’s gay?”
“I always figured he was at least bi. I caught him staring at my dick a few times, and not just mine.”
“Well… you do admittedly have a nice dick.”
I reach out and haul her into my arms, my body deciding for me that I need her closeness. She lands in my lap, her legs around my waist, my hands holding her ass over her thick coat. Her arms snake around my neck, and she looks down at me with that rare, maddening softness in her eyes that makes everything inside me ache.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I rasp, even though I’m clinging toevery second of it. Because, fuck me, please keep looking at me likeI’m not the worst thing that’s ever loved you.
My hands slide up her back, my fists twisting in her coat, pulling her down until our foreheads nearly touch.
I need her closer. I need her inside my skin.
Her fingers find the back of my neck right over the raw skin of the tattoo that hasn’t even finished healing, and I feel it everywhere. My body betrays me with a hard shudder, my breath stuttering as I’m barely holding myself together.
