Page 30 of The Inquirer

She got out of bed, and I grabbed a pillow as the sheet went with her. I wasn’t embarrassed by nudity, but I didn’t want her to feel awkward. Sitting on my bed with my dick out while she picked up her clothes was probably an NC-17 definition of awkward.

I couldn’t figure out what to do with my eyes. Watch her get dressed? Stare at a wall or something? Get dressed myself?

“I can’t make any promises,” she said.

At least I felt like I could look at her now. It was only polite since she was talking to me.

“I understand.”

Her eyes met mine. “But I’ll think about it.”

Hope flared bright inside me before I could tamp it down. It wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no either. If she said she’d think about it, then she would. I had to trust that if she felt this connection as strongly as I did, she’d want to see where things went too.

Until then, I’d be waiting.

Fourteen

Nyx

What had I done?

I closed my eyes and stepped under the warm spray of water to rinse the conditioner from my hair. I’d gone straight from Bradyn’s cabin to my shower, wanting to get the smell of sex and him off me as soon as possible. Not because I regretted what we’d done, but because I needed to be able to think, and I couldn’t do that if everything I could smell made me remember our time together.

I didn’t intend to figure everything out on my own, though. No, this was the sort of thing that I needed to talk out, and that meant a call to Kaimi.

Shower. Dress. Dinner. Phone call.

In that order.

And no lingering in the shower, thinking about how many times he’d made me come. Not that I really needed to do anything in particular to call up memories. My entire body still throbbed from how rough we’d both been. I’d found hickeys all over, and the mirror had shown me ones I couldn’t have seen otherwise. There were bruises too, from where his fingers had tightened down on me, and pretty much everything between my legs felt thoroughly used.

I had a feeling I’d be feeling those aftereffects for a while, and the idea didn’t bother me at all.

I exhaled slowly and tried to empty my mind. A trick I’d learned when I needed to stop circling thoughts – or at least get a break from them – was to focus on some other noise, something repetitive that didn’t require any thought. Basically, white noise.

I actually had an app on my phone that played different types of white noise. Running water had always been my favorite, maybe because we’d used it in juvie when we wanted to have private conversations. Sinks. Showers. That sort of thing.

So, I listened to the water and let its noise fill my head.

When I finally stepped out of the bathroom, I didn’t feel clear-headed, but I did feel like I could talk to Kaimi without my thoughts being all jumbled. I made myself my go-to easy meal of two grilled cheese sandwiches, then took them and a beer over to the sofa. After I settled in, I placed the call to Kaimi and waited for her to pick up.

“Aunt Nyx!” Rose squealed as she answered the phone.

I smiled at the pleasant surprise. “Hey, little bee. Didn’t expect to hear your voice.”

“Mom’s in the bathroom,” Rose said. “And before you tell me I shouldn’t have answered her phone, I only picked up because it’s you.”

My heart squeezed. “I miss you too. Anything exciting happen since I left?”

“Not really. School’s pretty boring right now, but it’ll get better because we’re having a Halloween dance on the thirtieth even though that’s not actually Halloween.”

“Are you going with anyone?”

“A bunch of us are going together so no one feels left out. My friends and I promised that we’d never let dating come between us. We made a pact.”

“That’s good.”

I wasn’t about to tell her that dating screwed up a lot of friendships. On the off chance she and her friends would actually manage to make it through school without a guy or girl coming between them, I wouldn’t ruin it by giving her a harsh view of the truth. Besides, it wasn’t like I was some expert on what would or wouldn’t break a friendship.

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