Page 53 of Dirty As Puck
“You don’t talk much about your past,” she says softly.
“There’s not much worth talking about.”
She looks up, her eyes darker now but steady. “There is. You just don’t trust anyone.”
And for some reason, I don’t say anything in response to that.
The ceiling is nothing but shadows and faint city glow, but I keep staring at it anyway. Rochelle lies beside me, her breathing slow, skin still warm against mine. The sheets twisted somewhere near our waists and her hair spread like waves across the pillow.
For once, the silence doesn’t feel like a wall. It feels surprisingly easy.
She turns her head toward me. “Are you always this quiet after sex?”
I smirk faintly. “I’m trying not to ruin the moment.”
Her laugh is small, and she sounds tired. “Fair enough.” She pulls the sheet up a little, tucking it beneath her arm. “You mentioned Coach Reynolds earlier… he really was the only stable thing in your life?”
The question doesn’t sting the way it did in the parking lot. Maybe it’s the dark, or maybe it’s the way her fingers trace idle shapes on my chest. “Yeah. Foster care wasn’t exactly a fairy tale. He…he made it feel like someone actually cared about me in there.”
She nods slowly, eyes on my hand as I rest it over hers. “I get that. My parents wanted me to be a lawyer. Journalism was the rebellion. But when you’re starting out, no one tells you howlonely and hard the job is. Always moving, always digging. You forget what normal feels like.”
Her voice softens at the end, like she’s admitting more than she meant to.
I turn to face her fully. The distance between us now is a breath, nothing more. “I’ve never trusted a journalist before,” I say, my voice low. “Not anyone like this.”
Something flickers in her gaze. It looks like guilt and maybe something else. Her lips press together, but she doesn’t answer right away.
“I’m not who you think I am, Kai,” she whispers finally. “And I don’t think I know exactly who you are either.”
“Maybe that’s the point,” I murmur. My thumb brushes her cheekbone, catching a stray strand of hair. “We figure it out.”
She nods, but her eyes keep drifting toward the phone on the nightstand, its screen dark for now.
For the first time in a long while, I let myself believe the quiet might last.
It doesn’t.
The sound of a phone ringing cuts through the room like a blade. It’s sharp, insistent, and feels completely out of place. Rochelle stiffens instantly, and I feel her body tensing beneath the sheets. The phone rings again, and my eyes follow hers to the nightstand. Her phone glows in the dark, Marcus Webb flashing across the screen.
Of course.
She reaches for it slowly, like she’s hoping I won’t notice. I don’t say anything at first. Instead, I watch the way her fingers hesitate over the screen, her jaw tightening.
“Are you going to answer that?” My voice is even, but the air is already shifting.
She swallows. “It’s work.”
“Work?” I let out a quiet laugh with no humor in it. “Are you always this jumpy when your boss calls?”
Her head snaps toward me, eyes flashing. “You don’t get to do that, Kai. You don’t get to make this…whatever this is, into something it isn’t.”
I sit up, sheet falling around my waist. “I’m not making it into anything. But I’d be an idiot not to notice how fast you go from here…” I gesture between us, the tangle of heat and softness still clinging to the air, “to that phone like you’ve got something to hide.”
She presses her lips together but doesn’t answer. The phone stops buzzing, goes dark, then lights up again almost immediately.
Persistent bastard.
“You’re here to write about me,” I say quietly. “That’s your job, right?”
