Page 54 of Just One Bite
I wake alone, tangled in the sheets. The memory of my dream is enough to get me to my feet to warm my hands at the hearth. I brush my finger over my lips as it replays over and over.
I’ve had that dream before. More than once.
The first time proceeded a night I’d rather forget. The last time I let myself get entangled with a man, I'd given him what he wanted and then he left before returning the favor. I never even got undressed. I believed it was my fault, but he’d been my dance partner for four years and a constant in my life, never let me fall, and we pushed each other. He supported my dreams. Dance is passionate,and we shared that passion growing up until we were adults and those close performances and variations became more. Those lingering touches turned to kisses in the dressing room and then a date and then another.
Then it ended the first night we were truly intimate.
I’d cried myself to sleep only to dream of a man making his way into my bed. Typically a thing of nightmares, but I knew this man. I reached for him and his safety and welcomed his warmth and his hands caressing my body as he sank into my sheets. There was comfort in him wiping my tears and filling me till I couldn’t speak. Despite how well I remember that dream, I can’t see his face, but I remember his grip and the euphoria of him satisfying me till the pressure in me shatters and pleasure spreads through my body like wildfire.
His voice.
There’s no denying it’s the same. It’s the same words. The same everything, except this time, I identify those hands, those lips, that voice—it’s Parker.
It was Parker’s warm hands holding me close and cradling my head. Has it always been him? I chuckle out loud at the thought and press my forehead to the cold stained glass. That’s absurd. My subconscious must have inserted him into what has to be a random dream sequence.
“That’s it. Ride me, Olivia.”
My mouth dries and I swallow. The infliction of my name has always been specific. The way his words roll off his tongue, and the way he speaks my name like a whisper of praise. It can’t be. I’m remembering it wrong.
Parker became an addition to the dream because of our recent encounter. Were we considering that sexual? He probably didn’t, so I shouldn’t since we’ve decided to have this whole fake relationship, which means nothing is technically real. But it felt real, and the ache between my thighs had been consuming me alive. All those kisses. His hushed warm breath against my skin sent my head into wild fantasies. It didn’t mean anything to him, but obviously, my subconscious made a different choice. That’s all it is.
My shoulders fall from my ears as I let out a breath. With that decision, I make my way to my dresser to get a start on the day. There’s no way I’ll be able to sleep again.
It’s been a full week since the audition. After I finish my morning class, I get a notification that the results will be posted this afternoon. Which means I’ll be totally useless until then. The sun is up, and I haven’t seen or heard from Parker yet. We almost always walk out of our doors at the same time. If not, he texts me as soon as he gets up without fail with a little smiley face and some type of flirtatious good morning, and I respond with a quick hello and head to the dining hall to eat breakfast with my sisters.
I’m already used to him walking with me, and there’s a strange emptiness as I do all the things he usually does with me, like chatting to the lunch staff while he hands me a plate. He holds them for a few seconds first because they’re hot right out of the wash, while I gather the napkins. So today, I burned my hand on the plate and I skipped the napkins because there were too many people.
As I eat my egg and cheese bagel, I check my phone again. I think I’m hiding the disappointment well until Eva leans over my right shoulder and says, “Oh, you like him.”
Emma chuckles on my left. “She does.”
“I don’t.”
“You’ve just checked your phone at least three times in fifteen minutes.” Eva isn’t wrong.
“I’m checking about the audition.”
“Right. I knew this relationship wasn’t going to be fake.” Emma butters her scone and crinkles her nose after taking a large bite. “They’re overmixing these. Too dry.”
“You only say that because you have your head in the clouds.”
Emma is a romantic, and up until recently, I’ve avoided her and her rom-coms and romance books, but as we get older, we have more in common. Now she’s roped me into her and Eva’s monthly book club. I had to tell her I needed a break from romances centered around vampires. I couldn’t take another Donor Program love story.
“I like my head in the clouds, and up here, I can see you very clearly.” She takesanother bite and adds more clotted cream to her apparently dry scone. “It’s okay to like him, you know. The world won’t end if you decide to trust another man and—” She gasps. “Find him attractive.”
“I wouldn’t consider ‘what’s his name’ a man,” Eva says, but she knows his name. We just never say it anymore. My sisters were the ones who convinced me the situation was a lot more embarrassing for him than it was for me. And they’d been the only ones I could turn to when he’d told all my ballet friends I was inexperienced, so he broke it off. What I never understood was the cruelness of it. What did I do wrong to deserve that?
I was mortified. I still am. My skin crawls when I think of it.
“I don’t need the distraction.” And Parker is the definition of distraction.
“Whatever you say. I did see that picture of you in the hallway.” Emma giggles. “I had to sign up for the blog so I can keep tabs on my sister, who is apparently getting neck kisses from her fake boyfriend.”
I note the ends of her hair that she dyed a Luxxia blue. Blue suits her.
“He has to scent me … for things.”
“For the record, I’m protesting the blog.” Eva smiles sweetly. Not surprising—she hates drama.
