Page 48 of Getting It Twisted

Daniel knows exactly how to fuck me the way I want. He knows how to give me the sick thrill of pain I need to come, knows how to drive his cock into me until I feel like I’ll ignite with the sheer intensity of it.

I can’t believe my luck. I’m so giddy I don’t even care when he blue-balls me in the laundry room by telling me we have to care for Jessie, which I suppose is fair enough.

After dinner, I walk down the corridor to check out his old room. The door creaks in the same way I remember, but other than that, the place is unrecognizable.

The walls are bare, the sketches, posters, and drawings all gone. His furniture is replaced by rehab equipment. Even the smell is all wrong and different. Still, it doesn’t take much to remember the countless hours we spent here as kids.

The hot summers we stayed up all night, talking and playing video games. Smoking out the window. Skipping school. Evading his parents’ notice.

“Taking a trip down memory lane?”

I turn around. Daniel is leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, a smile playing on his full lips. Holy shit he’s attractive.

“You remember the night I showed up here with my face all screwed up?” I ask.

“I remember,” he says quietly.

I don’t have to explain how my mom socked me in the head with a broken bottle. I don’t have to tell him how she yelled at me to never come back. I don’t have to tell him how fast I pedaled my bike while blood stung my eyes, or how relieved I was to see him when he opened the window.

He already knows.

Nothing in my youth was ever easy. Except for Daniel.

My safe zone. My haven. The only port in my crazy storm of a life.

When I look at him now, it all comes rushing back. My throat thickens. My face burns with heat. It’s horniness, it has to be, but there’s something else there too: a tenderness I ache for but do not deserve.

The people I fuck are not my friends. They’re not my safe zones. And that mind-bending dichotomy is exactly what drove me to near madness all those years ago.

At that game of spin the bottle in senior year, I kissed him because I wanted proof he wanted me. But as soon as I got it, well . . . It just complicated matters even more. As soon as his eyes turned heated whenever he saw me, my fucked-up brain spewed up feelings of hate in return, and what happened at the grad party made it even more obvious.

The people I fuck and the people I like can’t be one and the same. The people I fuck are usually nameless, dumb assholesI don’t give a fuck about beyond what pleasure and pain they can bring me for the night. Now Daniel wants me to lay off the anonymous fucks and have sex with only him? A week ago, I’d call bullshit if you told me I’d ever agree to something like that, but with a tongue in my mouth and a crotch pressed against mine, I’ll agree to just about anything. Stupid.

Gillian Hasting’s shrill voice cuts into my thoughts.

“Jessie! Where are you, darling?”

Daniel sends me an urgent look ofdon’t fuck this upbefore he hurries down the corridor. I follow him, hands in my pockets.

“Did you leave her unattended?” Gillian kneels in front of her daughter, sending Daniel an accusatory glare.

“She’s just watching TV, Mom.”

Her gaze cuts up to me, her blue eyes so cold they send a chill down my spine. “Daniel,” she says, voice stern. “That boy is not welcome here.”

That boy.She says it the same way George says my name: as if it’s poison they’re spitting from their tongues.

Daniel motions to Jessie. “He’s good with her. You should’ve seen how she lit up when she saw him.”

“I don’t care,” Gillian snaps. “Jessie deserves better than to spend even asecondwith a criminal under her roof. If I find anything missing or broken, I’ll know who to blame.”

“Oh, come on!” His voice grows louder, more high-pitched, a childish tone peeking through. “Mom, don’t be like this.”

“It’s cool,” I say. “I’ll leave.”

“I’m driving you,” says Daniel.

Jessie stretches her arms out to me. “No! Nathan, stay.”

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