Page 92 of All Twerk, No Play

Like she hadn’t been thinking of him when she kissed me.

I stared at the stone fireplace, unsure whether to sit or stand, speak or shut up. I’d agreed to pretending to be her boyfriend—hand on her back, brushing lips, getting her drinks, whispering jokes. I'd agreed to take care of her.

But I couldn’t shake the image of his hand gripping hers, too tight. The panic I’d caught in her eyes. I’d promised to keep her safe, yet we’d been here for less than an hour and I’d already failed.

“Can we talk about what happened in the pantry?” I asked, trying not to sound pissed.

“It’s a scullery kitchen,” she corrected, voice brittle. “And there’s nothing to discuss.”

“Didn’t look like nothing to me.”

“I’m going to bed,” Victoria said, her voice deceptively calm as she white-knuckled her suitcase handle. On the threshold to the bedroom, she paused to look over her shoulder to where I stood, locked in place. A flicker of … something crossed her face, there and gone in a second.

“Seriously?” Frustration propelled me to follow her. “You don’t think it’s worth discussing that your ex-husband told you he wants to get back together?”

“He says a lot of things he doesn’t mean,” she turned away, standing at the vanity, screwing off her earrings with surgical precision.

“And you just stood there. You didn’t shut it down."

She spoke through clenched teeth. “I was handling it.”

“No, you were tolerating it.”

Her nostrils flared with rage, which I’d take any day over being iced out. “This is none of your business.”

“You’re right, it isn’t,” I barked. “But I’m here anyway. And you kissed me to make him jealous.”

Her hands froze mid-air, the second earring half out. “You think that’s why I kissed you?”

“Why else?” I growled, wishing that she’d tell me that it meant something. But she didn’t.

I stormed to the bathroom to brush my teeth, quietly seething. When I opened the door, she stood with arms crossed, tapping her bicep, her toiletry bag dangling from her fingertips.

Fine. I saw how it was.

While she used the bathroom, I started shoving all my shit in my duffle. She emerged a few minutes later, wearing her glasses and a set of navy silk pajamas. I hated seeing her like that, so soft and vulnerable, like last Saturday when I’d woken up with her curled over me and thought that maybe I’d been wrong about always leaving after a night, wondering how it would feel to stay … yet at the first hint of something better, she was ready to run back to her ex.

“I’ll take the couch. Catch the jitney to Queens tomorrow,” I muttered, punching a stiff throw pillow. “If you want him, don’t let me stand in your way.”

“I don’t want him.” Her voice was barely audible.

“Then why let him talk to you like that?” I asked, but she didn’t reply, just wrapped her arms tighter around her stomach. Shrinking. “Just like last weekend, when you let that cheater off the hook. Now you’re going to let another douchebag trample all over you? Smile through it, pretend it isn’t happening instead of—”

“You think I haven’t tried?” she yelled over me.She gestured to the hallway, the whole house by extension. "They don’t hear me. They never have. In this house, if I yell, I’m hysterical. If I reason, I’m condescending. Silence is the only thing they can’t twist.”

That shut me up. I shook out my fists, the fight draining out of me. My heart ached at the steel she’d wrapped around herself just to survive. “I’ll listen. All night, if you need it,” I said softly. “But I’m in the dark here. I can’t handle your silence.”

She stared at her manicured toes, blinking too quickly. Her shoulders dropped, just slightly. “It’s exhausting. Being here, in this house. Being Vickie Sinclair.”

It hit me all over again—the strength she had to broadcast just to survive.

I stepped close enough for her to lean into, if she wanted to. After a moment, she did—her shoulder brushing mine, her cheek resting on my chest. So close I could feel every inhale and exhale like it was mine.

“You don't have to be her with me.” My hand found her back automatically. Warm. Familiar.

Her voice was so quiet I might not have known she was speaking if I didn’t feel the vibrations.

“I gave him a part of me that doesn’t exist anymore. An innocent, stupid part that didn’t know that you aren’t supposed to love with everything you have. Loving him broke me.” Her confession hovered between us, fragile as a soap bubble. I held my breath for fear of scaring her off. “And when I saw him tonight, it felt like being thrown into a pool of memories I didn’t want to relive. I couldn’t speak, the words just wouldn’t come. He … ” Her next breath was ragged, her fist tightening in my shirt. “He doesn’t have to lay a hand on me to hit me where it hurts.”

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