Page 185 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

His brow jumps. “Little Death?”

“It’s what I call the urge.” I shrug.

“But, hey, if that’s too much for you⁠—”

“Nah, don’t even finish that sentence. I’ll handle the schedule. You just call when some bitch-ass sets you off, aight? And we ain’t doin’ shit in Room-613-whatever-the-fuck.”

A laugh builds in my throat. “Andrew afraid of four walls and some toys?”

His tongue presses against his cheek. “Allison not know how to fuck outside her playpen?”

I squint.

He smiles, leaning over the pool table with the cue, slamming in his last solid, clause twelve following right after: “You got the when, but I got the where and how,” he says.

I stop pacing,

standing scared stiff at the idea of it.

He continues, “You’re in my hands now.

“I decide where you come

“and how you come.”

His words crawl at the same speed as the sweat sliding down my spine.

I shrug out of Dad’s jacket. I feel cornered without corners. This is becoming too much, and even though I’m acting tough shit, I don’t know how much more I can take.

“I need a break.”

Andrew’s gaze pauses on me,

concern slamming into his eyes.

He studies me, nods,

laying his cue against the wall.

“Yeah, okay. No worries.”

He hooks a thumb toward the bar.

“I’ll grab you somethin’.”

The laptop’s shooting daggers at me from the table as Andrew falls into the background, all the rules we’ve made so far…

My heart’s clinging to the idea of us,

but the rest of me is dizzy with panic.

It feels like standing at the edge of something wonderful, while being smothered by something terrible inside me.

I pace the pool table,

trying to shake out the nerves.

Andrew has his back turned at the bar,