Page 72 of Coco and the Misfits

I never noticed his tattoos before, except for the names on his chest. He’s covered in mermaids and ships, corals and seaweed, jellyfish, sharks and snapping teeth. He’s an ocean, a sea. A drowning tide.

He holds a hand out for me and I grab it, letting him haul me off the table and to my feet. Yeah, I’m definitely sore, and it makes me smile.

“What’s that smile for?”

“Don’t girls smile after you fuck them?” I breathe.

He shakes his head. “You’re something.”

“Something good, I hope.”

“The best,” he says and my smile widens.

“The best lay?”

“The best girl.”

I bite my lip and go grab my dress. My underwear is strewn over the floor. I tug my boy shorts on, then grab my bra. Resisting the urge to cover my boobs, I turn boldly to him.

“Can I see you again?”

But he looks away. “Not sure that’s a good idea, Candy girl.”

“Oh. I see.” I nod, a jerky motion. What is this crushing feeling in my chest? What did I expect, a marriage proposal? We don’t know each other. And I only wanted a distraction. He delivered. Oh boy, how he delivered. I shouldn’t expect more.

His speech about our broken pieces fitting together was obviously only referring to our bodies, not our souls.

See how easy it is to interpret things the way you want? To build scenarios out of straws and hope?

“We could be friends,” I whisper.

“No, we couldn’t. Every time I saw you I’d want to fuck you against a wall.”

“Then why not see me again, why...?” I have to swallow down the protest. It sounds desperate. Tragic. That’s not me. I didn’t come looking for a relationship.

“Because,” he says regardless, as if he’s heard the question I didn’t finish asking, “you’re the best, and I’m not.”

26

ATTICUS

Mondays are rough but coming home to the smell of a delicious meal and the sight of a pretty woman in my apartment makes up for it. It’s my newest addiction. I smell the food and then I smell her, all sweetness and allure.

I’m hard the moment I step through the door, and this has been happening for the second week in a row. Just from the scent. Just from seeing her dancing away as she stirs pots and shakes her pink hair along with her luscious ass to a tune I can’t hear.

Still, I hold back. Try to be a gentleman. She’s still vulnerable mentally after what happened, and I’m her employer now, to boot. I can’t regret it, though, when I get to see her every other day after long, boring days of work.

Not to mention, I still haven’t managed to identify the bastards who grabbed her. The cameras in the bar didn’t record their faces. Lucky assholes.

That, or they knew where the cameras are, which is a whole new fucking lot of worrisome.

The moment I see her, though, the worries fall away. That’s because I can’t focus on anything else but her when I’m near her. When I’m far from her. When I’m in business meetings. Business lunches. Jogging in the streets. Sitting to grab a coffee.

She has filled my mind from end to end.

I know she hasn’t heard me arriving, so I make some noise on purpose and step into her line of vision.

She jerks, then turns to face me. The moment she does, I find that her eyes are red-rimmed and my world narrows down.

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