Like I’ve got something to prove, I spin in the recliner, but as soon as my ass leaves it, I feel nauseous, and sit straight back down again.
Taking my arm, Carey guides it over his shoulder. “Just breathe. I’m not gonna let you fall.”
I want to tell him to take his sexy low voice and piss off.
He asks if I’m ready to try again, and this time I manage. My legs are wobbly, but they hold.
“You’re not gonna die on me, are you?”
“Not tonight,” I reply, just as solemnly as the question was asked.
At the back door I lean against Carey as I change out of my slippers, then he walks me outside to the lot.
With one hand around my waist, he unlocks the back door of my van with the other. “Get in.”
“You’re not my mother.”
He pockets the keys and uses both hands to spin me with enough force that I can’t reject it. “That’s right, but I can call her if you’d like. I’m sure she’d love to hear about how her sonhas been running himself ragged, skipping meals and living off nothing but caffeine.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, fuck you!” He pushes me back, hard, his strength laying me flat out on the mattress. “You’re gonna end up in the emergency room, you selfish sack a shit.”
I hardly recognize him.
With the last remaining light of the sunset behind him, he looks bigger. More dangerous than I've ever seen him.
I don’t know who the fuck I am anymore.
My mind runs hot and filthy, our time in the alley playing on a repeated loop. But now there’s the added element of being trapped inside a metal box withhimpreventingmyescape. There’s nothing between us but the air and the still unspoken knowledge of exactly what we want from each other.
If he climbed in here with me right now I wouldn’t stop him.
He could do whatever he wanted.
Straddle me. Hold me down. Put his mouth on my neck as he forces my hands above my head.
I want—fuck.
I have no idea what the fuck I actually want. For him to stay? To go? To make a mess of us both until the sun rises again, then do the same thing every day for the rest of our lives.
I can tell that he doesn’t know what the hell to do either. Does he fuck me, or punch me? Hold me in his arms, or walk away altogether and never look back? In the end he just talks to me like a child. “Can I trust you to stay here and not go wandering off while I close the shop?”
“Where am I gonna go? You’ve got my keys again.”
He throws his arms up, letting them slap back against his sides. “Who the fuck knows with you?” Then he takes hold of the back door handle. “Open or closed?”
“Closed… How long are you gonna be?”
“Seriously?” His tone ratchets up. “For someone so hell bent on going at things alone, you really are a needy son of a bitch.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No, what’s not fair, is you ignoring me all week. Treating me like a pariah you’re forced to have to be around. Keeping your distance like I’ve got the fucking plague instead of the man you’re possessive over. You don’t get to shun me, then prevent anyone else from ever getting close.”
I open my mouth but he just talks right over the top of me.
“I see every glare you give anyone who talks to me. You’re jealousy is so fucking strong, it reeks. But one blowjob doesn’t make me yours. You aren’t special. You’re not some god who gets to treat me like a fucking mistress in the shadows and think I’ll come running every time I’m drunk because I’m starved for attention. I don’t need you. Guys or girls, it doesn’t matter to me. Everyone’s free game.”
