Page 23 of Most Likely to Match
I shove her panties into my slacks pocket.
Then I leave.
The only timeI can open my bedroom window is at night, when my parents are already in bed. Dad would refuse to acknowledge a window’s existence if he could, because “who needs windows when you have air conditioning?”
It’s a habit I picked up in London. My first few apartments were nice but didn’t have air conditioning. Now, I just like to be able to hear the breeze in the trees, the cars slowing down in my cul-de-sac. I like to hear the quiet at night, something easy to come by in the suburbs.
Mom brought me tea before she went to bed, with the reminder that I need to stop working eventually. They’re leaving for a summer’s-long European vacation soon, and I think she’s trying to get as much mothering in as she can before then, like they’ll come back and I’ll have already gotten everything figured out, a steady list of clients and a new place to live.
The tea has gone cold by now, but I still take sips once in a while as I click through Chloe’s photos, adjust the saturation here, the balance there.
My music plays quietly through the earbud in my ear, the other sitting in the case on my desk. It’s not hard to look at Chloe’s face over and over. I don’t hold any anger or resentment. Mostly shame.
I fucked up.
I let my emotions get the better of me. I let mydickget the better of me.
I stole her fucking panties.
They’re still crumpled in the pocket of my pants, at the bottom of a pile of dirty clothes that I’ve avoided washing and not because I don’t want to do my laundry or because I’m avoiding seeing her panties and processing what happened.
I’m avoiding the laundry because I don’t want to wash them.
I haven’t taken them out and sniffed them or used them to masturbate; so there’s that, at least. I’m notthat muchof a creep. I simply want, hope, that if Iwereto take them from my pocket. If Iwereto hold them up to my nose. Maybe. Just maybe. They’d still smell like her.
“Fuck.”
I drop my head into my hands. “I am a fucked-up person,” I say, because someone needs to say it.
I get up from my desk, fast enough that the Scandinavian ready-to-assemble furniture shudders in my wake, and stomp to the pile of laundry, find the pants, and shove my hand into the front pocket. Her panties are still there, thank god. I envelop them in my fist. They’re no longer warm from her. They’re not wet. But my mind and body are happy to play tricks on me.
I stomp back over to the desk, stand next to the small waste basket beside it. My closed fist hovers over the basket. I can buy her new panties. She gave them to me anyway, flimsy compensation for years ago.
I can do whatever I want with them. “So do it,” I order myself. “Throw. Them. Out.”
I fall back down into my chair instead, hit pause on my phone, and pull up her number. Then I press Call. When she finally answers, I have laid the panties out flat on my desk.
“Dean?” Her voice is quiet, unused.
“Shit,” I breathe. “It’s late.” I wasn’t thinking.
“No. No.” The sound of movement interrupts her, behind it, the hushed noise of a laugh track. “I wasn’t sleeping.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“It’s fine —”
“Not about that,” I say, pressing my hand flat against the soft cotton. “About the other day. The library.”
Chloe is silent for long enough that I think she wants me to say more. “I was unprofessional and—”
“Forget about it,” she says. “I just mean, I don’t want to talk about it.”
Now it’s my turn to be silent.
“Let’s….” She sighs, soft, tired. I worry the pretty bow between my thumb and forefinger. “There are things you don’t want to talk about, right?”
“Right.”
