Page 21 of Shattered

“And you sent him asex tapeinstead!?”

“And then I went to get it back. He and his friend were watching a movie, and I stormed in. Asher was being a dick, so I made a low blow of a comment. He snapped and choked me and pinned me to the wall.”

All the sarcasm and shock dissipates from her voice, leaving only concern. “Are you okay?”

“Physically… When he grabbed my throat, I may have moaned, and it was all downhill from there. He let Bane watch my sex tape while he trapped me against the wall and fingered me, and I came twice…”

Neela pauses again, though I think she’s waiting for more. “What happened after that?”

I shrug. “We fought some more, and I left.”

Neela goes quiet for a while as she digests my story. “You know that’s not okay, right?”

“It was weird… He told me to admit I was a dirty slut, and he’d let me go. I refused, that wassonot happening.”

“So you got orgasmsinstead.”

She bursts into laughter, and I join her until my stomach hurts. It feels so good to break up some of the tension in my body. Despite two fucking orgasms, I’ve been on edge since running out of that house.

“You like him?” Neela finally asks.

“FUCK no. I hate his fucking guts!”

“Mhm, that’s what I said about Ty. Then I got to know him.”

Neela is a genius.

When we finish shopping, my SUV is packed with various decor materials. We decide to get everything done now since I’ll need help. Ty is off today, so Neela’s in no rush to get home to Marina.

It’s around three by the time we finish, and we stand at the curb in front of my house to admire our handiwork. It really does look like the sun threw up.

The yellow house was our foundation, but it’s almost swallowed by everything else. An enormous sunflower wreath covers the front door. All the front windows were covered inside with yellow decals: sunflowers, sunshine, buttercups, lemons, bumblebees, you name it. We found some yellow and green garland that we wound around my mailbox, and a half-sunflower decoration is nailed on top. The giant sun already on the front of the house is completely overshadowed.

We absolutely FILLED my gardens with yellow. There are two, uniform on either side of my front door extending to the sides of the house. Neela tends to them occasionally since she loves gardening, but it’s mostly filled with green that manages itself. We filled the empty space with stakes and hung up every garden flag with yellow thatwe could find, some mounted yellow butterflies and dragonflies, and some beetles in the dirt. The icing on the cake is an enormous, almost fluorescent yellow butterfly positioned on the left side of my house, pointed right at Asher’s, taking up a considerable portion of bare siding beside my bedroom window.

“I’d call this mission accomplished. What do you think?” Neela asks.

“I think I love you, for starters.”

Neela glances over at the dark house next door. “Well, your place will stand out, that’s for sure.”

“How can I ever repay you?”

“Payment?” she laughs. “The friend discount, of course.”

“Obviously. What else?”

She considers it before a big smile spreads across her face. “Alright, come on,” she says, heading back to my vehicle.

Asher and Bane’s house was quiet when I left this morning, and no vehicles were in the driveway. Where do two assholes spend their day?

I end up right across the street from my workplace in front of a dingy old building with a new sign I’ve never seen before.Alton Tattoo.

“We have a tattoo shop?” I ask as we park right beside the door.

“It’s new; I’m not even sure if it’s open yet. But I saw the sign yesterday and figured I’d check it out.”

I chuckle. “Do you have any skin left?”

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