The apartment echoes with sex smells and the ghost of the sound she made when she came. I am so hard I could pound nails, and so emotionally compromised I might need to call the team doctor.
I go to the bathroom. Turn on the shower she just vacated. Step in under the water that's too hot and brace one hand against the tile, a position that’s becoming routine for me, the longer I live with Rookie’s sister. The position of a man who is losing control. I start to move my fist along my length.
I close my eyes and see her face. Relaxed. Open. Beautiful. The way she looked in the moment after, when every wall she had built was down, and she was just Ella, undone, in my arms.
I come fast and hard and stand there with the water hitting my back, breathing.
She’s training for the right guy. Not me. I keep saying it. Preparing her for the right guy. Some future man who'll get to touch her, hold her, and make her make that sound.
The thought makes me want to put my fist through the tile.
I can't be the right guy. She's my best friend's sister. She's living in my apartment because she has nowhere else to go.
But the idea of another man's hands where mine just were — another man learning the sounds she makes, the way she arches, the grip of her fingers — fills me with a rage so white-hot it scares me.
I turn off the water. Dry off. Get dressed.
I sit on the couch where she lay twenty minutes ago, and I text Mayhem.
You free?
Mayhem
What's up?
Me
Nothing. Can we get meatballs?
Mayhem
I'll be there in 20.
I put my phone down and press my palms against my eyes.
This was supposed to be a favor.
I am so far past favors I can't even see them in the rearview.
Chapter 11
Ella
Aarthi picks me up in a dented Honda Civic with a READY TO WED bumper sticker her mother put on before Aarthi could stop her. McKenzie is already in the back seat with two iced coffees and a bag of cashews.
"Fuel," she says, thrusting a coffee at me. "We're going to need upper body strength, and I have been surviving on vending machine Doritos."
The aerial silks studio is in a converted warehouse in Lawrenceville, on a block that also has a ramen shop and a tattoo parlor. Inside, it smells like chalk and rubber mats, and long panels of purple and red fabric hang from the ceiling like something out of Peter Pan. I count eight silks, each pooling on the floor in graceful heaps, and a handful of women already stretching on mats.
We find a spot near the back and spread out. McKenzie touches her toes with ease. Aarthi sits cross-legged and pulls one arm across her chest, grimacing. I bend forward and feel the burn of a twelve-hour shift in every muscle south of my ribcage.
"So," McKenzie says, switching arms. “Aarthi, we need to discuss that bumper sticker.”
Aarthi groans. "My mother sent me seven — seven — profiles on a matrimonial site this week. One of the men listed his hobby as 'breathing.' Another one's photo was clearly taken at a funeral."
"A funeral?"
"He was standing next to a casket, McKenzie. In a suit. Smiling."
