Page 105 of Double Bucked

“Part of it. You wrote a joke at the end of your diary entry. Why would you do that if you were the only one reading it?”

Her lips purse. “Maybe I wanted to remind myself that I was funny, once upon a time.”

“You were an attention-starved young girl in a single-parent household where your only company was a man who wanted a prodigy, not a child. Every entry is a cry for someone to read it. To see you.”

I’m compelled to lean forward—to put my elbow on the table, to be closer to her. A magnetic, impossible-to-deny yearning.

“You wrote this wanting to be seen,” I say. “I see you, Claire.”

Her gaze measures me. “You know everything about me. Everything. Every dirty secret I wrote in my diary.”

“Yes.”

“So tell me something about you. Something no one else knows.”

“How will you know if I’m telling the truth?”

She doesn’t bat an eye. “I’ll know.”

I take my time, considering. And then I start.

“I grew up in an orphanage not far from here. That’s why I was assigned the job. Familiar territory. Stone Hollow Home for Boys.” I brave her gaze. It’s unwavering. “Hollow,” I repeat. “It’s where my name comes from. When small children are dropped off without a name or note, they belong to the home. The surname Hollow is intended to be a temporary fit until you’re adopted into your new family. Only boys like me—boys who never got adopted out—got stuck with the name. So when I say it’s just a name, I mean…it’s just a name.”

Claire listens. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t interrupt. She is quiet and considerate, so I pull the truth like thorns from my throat and continue.

“Life at the home was…difficult. Being a child with auditory sensitivity living in a communal space with fifteen to twenty teenage boys at any given time…it’s a bit like walking around with a full body rash, only no one can see it, and no one believes you when you tell them you’re itchy. So I found other ways to ask for what I needed.

“There was this dragonfly that would hover outside my bedroom window. I told myself that the dragonfly was my friend. When the Sisters asked—well, it wasn’t me who didn’t like noise—the dragonfly didn’t like noise. The dragonfly needed calm. The dragonfly didn’t like the cafeteria. The dragonfly was my brother. My friend. My companion. My voice, when I felt voiceless.

“You asked me why I took the job. You asked the wrong question. I took the job because of the money. I stayed on the job because…for the first time since my dragonfly, I felt like I wasn’t alone.”

I reach across the table. I thread those soft, lithe fingers in my own. “Everett Hollow is the fake. James Calloway…he was a real man. With real feelings for you.”

Claire looks down at our hands. Her fingers detach from mine, and the absence of her touch leaves me cold as well stones.

But then she rises, walks around the table, and puts her hands on my shoulders. I swivel my legs toward her, and she sinks down into my lap, straddling me.

She looks me directly in the eyes and says, “I’m not your dragonfly.”

“Alright.”

“I’m your Claire. I’m a real person. Not a fantasy. I’m tough. I can handle you.” Her forehead drops against mine. I close my eyes. Her hair whispers against my cheek. Her breath beats against my skin. “No more lies. No more deceit.” She whispers, “Let me know you. Let me know Everett.”

Her palm falls to my chest and rests at my heart.

Can she feel it pounding through the fabric?

Her head tilts against mine. I can’t breathe as her fingertips trickle down my chest. They find the bare skin of my arm. The hair there. They dance along my marked skin—the wolf tattoo that curls around my forearm. She clutches my arm. Pushes her thumb against the tattoo. Tracing it. Learning it.

Learning me.

I catch the back of her head and take her mouth in mine. She melts against me, giving herself. Her lips part, and I take the invitation. I taste the inside of her mouth as my hand slips up her thigh. She lifts her hips, and I take off her pants, pulling them down the curve of her rear, then off her legs. She nestles her sweet body against mine, and she whimpers as she pulls at my belt.

We need this.

She takes my cock out and rocks over me, guiding me inside of her. When she lowers herself down, we both take in a short, tight breath.

Her head curls against my shoulder. “Fuck, James—” She catches herself. “Sorry, Everett. I’ll get used to that.”

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