Page 28 of Never Say Yes To Your Brother's Best Friend

Cold showers never work for me, even in the summer. I could be boiling yet I still can’t bring myself to get under a frigid spray. What I need is a glass of water to try and put out this fire. A glass ofwhat the fuck am I even thinking? I need to stop thinking about it, feeling it, and wanting it.

I can go right from my room to the top of the stairs since it’s the first one down a hallway that only goes in one direction. The other direction is the bathroom, but I doubt there’s a glass for water in there. I’m going to have to go down to the kitchen, and I can do that without disturbing Rick.

I think he’s in his office. I heard the desk chair creak an hour ago. Maybe that’s where he sleeps. Or doesn’t sleep. He could be one of those people who’s been trained to literally sleep withtheir eyes open. Maybe he just goes into catatonic states, and that’s how he’s survived without sleeping for days already. I’ve been here long enough that he should look well-rested, yet he doesn’t. I’m not sure if not sleeping can be termed as a pace, but if so, I’m not sure he can keep up the pace. Not even downing copious amounts of coffee will help, and I was serious when I told him it isn’t healthy. Just because he doesn’t require much sleep doesn’t mean he doesn’t need any.

I should leave well enough alone. I check the stairs. Rick isn’t hanging off of them or over them, so that means he’s probably okay. A crew came today—part of the morning move-out people—and wrenched the offensive painting out of the wall using a proper ladder with two guys supporting it at the bottom. I’ve never seen anchors like that. No wonder Rick couldn’t get it out by himself. The house is starting to look less like a home—or less like a super minimalistic home—and more like a shell. It looks like Rick is moving out. I know he’d like to do that. I doubt he’ll buy a bunch of new furniture that’s more to his taste and stuff it in here when he doesn’t want to be here in the first place. Honestly, I have no idea what he’s going to do.

Take care of him. He’ll need it. He’ll act like he won’t, but he does.

My reasons for that aren’t purely honorable. I’m still on fire. My ovaries sit up and do a happy dance when I change directions and walk back up those stairs. My nipples join in, tangoing in time to the steps I take back past my room and past a closed door to the one that’s only partially shut. Rick’s office.

It would be a darned relief if Rick weren’t there. Or at least, I tell myself it would be. I would have time to take a breather and talk myself down. Go back to my room, forgo the water, and screw myself. What I need is a good orgasm. The trouble is, I’ve never been very good at it—at giving them to myself. I know it’s mostly mental, but I’ve always felt so pathetic that I’m just notthat into pleasing myself because it’s healthy and good, and it’s right to be able to know your own body. It’s not that I haven’t tried. I mean, I haven’t invested heavily in toys or tried anything kinky. I don’t think it’s wrong. I just haven’t. I’ve tried pretty much every trick I can think of with my own hand and once with the detachable showerhead in my apartment back in Atlanta, but nope. Just no. It doesn’t work.

For real.

Who can’t get off with a detachable showerhead? Those things are pretty much the salt of life when it comes to orgasms.

One time, I confided this shit to a good friend. I don’t have any real best friends, but I do have a number of good ones I’ve kept in contact with since high school and college. Anyway, back when we were supposed to be studying for finals in our last year, we were both a few beers in. While she was supposed to be quizzing me on statistics problems, she decided the night was too dry and served up a few beers from her fridge. It wasn’t anything crazy, but I’m not a drinker, and it was enough to make me say things I wouldn’t normally say. It was actually my friend Lisa who started the conversation about how, since she’d broken up with her boyfriend, she’d discovered the joys of pleasing herself.

We quickly forgot all about stats and discussed the merits and drawbacks of masturbation. She got way into it. She talked about technique, gave me pointers, asked questions, and was totally fascinated. Then, she ended the discussion by telling me that some women just need the D, and I appeared to be one of them.

Thankfully, she didn’t rattle off a list of plastic toys that serve as what she termed D. She meant the real thing.

I think what she actually meant was that there has to be an emotional investment. Just getting myself off through basic biology and the science of stimulation isn’t satisfying. Does itfeel good? Yes. Does it feel good all the way to a mind-blowing or even semi-satisfying climax? No.

Good lord.

This isn’t about sex. It doesn’t matter that my body has done a complete one-eighty about its opinion of Rick’s attractiveness, and now, instead of thinking he’s not so attractive, I can’t stop watching him. I can’t stop analyzing the way he moves and the way his muscles look under his clothing. I can’t stop noticing how strong and sometimes how lethal he moves, all with a crazy amount of grace.

Also, his butt.

Maybe it would all be okay if it weren’t for his butt.

It’s burned into my brain the same way my science teacher used to literally shout about things he was adamant we remember forever. BIB. Burn in brain. Or as my computer teacher from elementary school used to call it. Brain mapping. Memorize the keyboard and imagine yourself hitting that key in your brain. It will make you a better typer.

I’ve memorized the wrong things and brain-mapped them into all the parts of my brain where they’re burned in for life.

Rick’s bum + my brain = together forever.

Fuck.

I just want to check on him and give him a hard time about not sleeping. Maybe make sure he does it, even if it’s just to take a quick nap on my bed. Without me in it. I’ll even take that chair if he can get a good sleep sitting up, and I’m not convinced he can’t.

He told me enough stuff last night in the park that it makes me wonder what else is going on. There’s probably a lot. I don’t know if that’s why he can’t or won’t sleep, but there are a few things he said that we left off, and I want to pick them back up. Mostly because they’re like little pins pressing deeper and deeper into parts of my heart that I would do better keepingclosed off. I can take care of him without risking my out-of-control hormones masquerading as emotions.

He’s in his office, and he’s not sleeping. I know that because he’s angled in his desk and facing the windows, but also half facing the door like he doesn’t want there to be any way anyone can sneak up on him. His head jerks up as soon as my shadow casts into the room. It’s the hall light that does it. He’s sitting in the dark, the bright light of his laptop screen illuminating his face in a ghostly way that makes it very obvious just how amazing his bone structure is in his fascinating face. Yes, I’m at that point. The point where I’ve looked at him enough now to have changed the word from interesting to fascinating.

I’m so full of shit.

He’s beautiful.

In a very masculine, rugged, tough guy, still not at all conventionally attractive kind of way.

Also, in the most perfect, lovely, gorgeous, I’m losing myself to whatever this is kind of way.

“Rick?”

He shuts his laptop and leans back in the chair. What was he doing in here and looking at that I couldn’t see? Maybe he likes the cover of darkness. Maybe his eyes are bugging out from all that screen time in the dark, and he needs to shut it down. I don’t think that’s healthy. He could have been doing nothing at all, zombified from a total lack of sleep.

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