Then he’s gone, leaving the door rattling on its hinges after he slams it.
Once I’m left alone, I know that I have a monumentally, seriously huge problem.
I don’t want my hand. Don’t want my vibrator.
The only tools I want giving me what I need are West’s fingers.
And that’s only my default if I can’t have his dick.
Slut-sheeba cheers in the background like she just won the goddamn Super Bowl.
By the next morning, I’ve done another one-eighty.
I want absolutely nothing to do with West’s fingers or any of his other extremities.
I’m also highly annoyed.
Not just because I had to rely on my own hand to finish the job that he started last night, all while listening to his ridiculously deep voice through the paper-thin walls. It’s because yoga—the one activity that’s always managed to clear my head—has now become a problem.
Practicing yoga makes you hyper aware of your body. Feeling your muscles stretch and contract, building up their strength, testing the limits of your own flexibility, while at the same time improving your mind’s ability to meditate.
And now…
Goddammit, now…
All I feel are West’s hands on my inner thighs, helping me spread them wider, when I go into Warrior I.
His hands clutching my ass as he drives his erection into me from behind while I hold Twisted Cat.
His hard chest looming above me as I thrust my hips upward in Wheel, listening to him tell me to “shove that pussy up in the air for my mouth, princess, that’s right.”
I mean, how dare he have the nerve to work me up like that? I might have been flaunting my stuff in front of his friends last night, but it’s not like I worked him up into a frenzy by groping his junk and then walking away before he could drain all that tension. I didn’t light the fuse and then snuff it out before the fireworks could go off.
By the time I begin my cool down, I feel more knotted and wound up than I did before I stepped foot onto my mat. That’s evidence enough that the master yogis’ methods aren’t foolproof.
Or man-proof.
West blows out of his room wearing his standard work uniform—white polo with the helicopter tour company’s logo in the top left corner, flat-front khaki shorts, and tennis shoes—car keys in hand, scowl on his face. His eyes briefly cut to me, crawling over my tight yoga pants, before darting away half a second later.
Good. I hope he’s coiled up as tightly as I am.
“Off to work, flyboy?”
He mutters something under his breath I don’t catch. “I started the dishwasher,” he bites out louder.
I lose my balance and stumble out of Dhruva’s Pose.
He…cleaned up after himself? He’s actually following the rules?
After last night’s encounter, I had absolutely no idea what I’d have to face from him today. And this sudden turnabout of polite acquiescence is already wigging me out. Is this his way of apologizing for the desperate state he left me in?
“Um…thanks?”
He grunts in response as he opens the door. But just before closing it, I swear I see him grin to himself.
I find out why ten minutes later.
When I’m sprawled flat on my ass on the kitchen floor, swimming in a sea of bubbles.
I slip in something wet on my way to the fridge, and my feet go flying out from underneath me and into the air. I land on the hard tiles with a loud splat that echoes off the kitchen walls. Cursing up a storm that would make Jay and Silent Bob blush, I try rolling onto my side—
And face-plant into more bubbles.
There’s an ocean of them, covering every inch of the floor.
I’m completely soaked in whatever liquid I’m backstroking in and can’t find purchase—
“Where the hell is this coming from?” I screech to the empty house.
Then I see it.
The fucking dishwasher.
He put dish soap in the dispenser instead of dishwasher detergent. I’ve seen this before on a YouTube video prank.
“That bastard!”
I spend I don’t know how long frantically trying to clean up the soapy, bubbly mess. My mood darkens to EF5 tornado-level with every second that passes. About halfway through my cleaning escapade, my phone chimes with a text.
That was for last night, princess. Don’t test me.
Really? It wasn’t enough that he left me stranded on top of a sexual plateau without food or water and forced me to fend for myself? He has to pull this shit, too?
Oh, payback’s coming, flyboy.
And just like me when I’m pushed to my limit, she can be one hell of a bitch.
My balls are on FIRE, you witch.
I casually read that text from West on my phone and spit out a mouthful of water on the sidewalk by my feet. If he thought I’d let that dishwasher prank go unavenged, he knows me even less than I thought. I just had to wait a few weeks to lure him into a false sense of security before I struck back.
Maybe you’ll learn to not leave your underwear where anyone with a little itching powder can grab them.
I guess I never told him that I’m sort of a chemistry whiz. Otherwise, he might have proceeded with caution when it came to pranking me. Not that the itching powder was that complicated to make. All it took was a few maple seedpods and a razor blade to give West the fire crotch from hell. One he would be wise to not soon forget.
Is this shit going to make me sterile?
I laugh so hard I get a stitch in my side.
No, but I’d watch my step if I were you. I know of ways to make that happen.
I can just picture him shuddering in fear at the threat. At least, that’s how I see it in my head. In the face of my mounting sexual frustration, his trepidation makes me feel a little better.
When I see the time on my phone, I realize it’s much later than I thought. I stash the device in my purse and pick up my pace. By the time I breeze into the café and spot Shae sitting at our usual table, I only have about twenty minutes left of my lunch break.
Smiling, I take my seat across from her. “Hey. Sorry I’m late. Busy day.”
My smile fades when I see nothing but a glass of water, ice melted, sitting on my side of the table, while she’s nearly finished eating her entire meal.
Her expression turns apologetic as she mumbles around a mouthful of food, “Sorry. I would have ordered for you, but you didn’t say what you wanted and you’re so fickle with food. I ordered your soda, though.”
I force the smile back onto my face.
I choose to ignore the sliver of annoyance tickling the back of my neck. I might always get the chicken avocado caprese salad every time we eat here because it’s amazing, but Shae doesn’t always notice that kind of thing. Not like how I remember that Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are her low-carb days, so I know she ordered the garlic chicken collard wrap. If it had been a Tuesday or a Thursday, she would have ordered the turkey, mozzarella, and kale pesto panini.
“No problem,” I tell her, just as the waitress sets a glass of soda down in front of me.
“Coke, right?”
I nod, even though Shae should have also known that I never order anything except Diet Coke. But I don’t raise an issue because one, it’s petty, and two, I need sugar immediately.
Hypoglycemia is a bitch, let me tell you.
I’m not a diabetic, but the disease runs rampant on my father’s side of the family, so I have to be super vigilant about monitoring my blood sugar levels. It’s been that way since I was a kid, and I’m usually able to keep it under control. But this morning at the Foundation sucked ass, leaving little room to worry about my sugar or protein intake. Taking stock now, I realize I haven’t eaten so much as a peanut since breakfast. On top of that, I guzzled down entirely too much coffee.
The shakes have set in.
If I don’t want to embarrass myself by having an attack in the mi
ddle of this café, I need to get some food in my belly, pronto. But my purse is empty of the usual snack stash I keep in there.
That I’ll blame on West.
He’s been so distracting that I forgot to refill my purse with more crackers and pieces of candy for these low blood sugar episodes. It’s all his fault that I’m about to pass out right now. He’ll get a medical bill in the mail if I fall and crack my head open.
Damn sexy man with his damn sexy voice.
I quickly give the waitress my food order and down half of my Coke, willing the sugar to work its magic.
“How’s work going?” I ask the girl I’ve been friends with since third grade.
She rolls her eyes. “Annoying. Mr. Bouchard is up all of our asses about our survey ratings.”
She works in customer service at the Charleston Tourism Center, a job that I sort of helped her get. Since my mother has an unofficial seat on the city tourism board, I asked her to put in a good word for Shae. She’s had difficulty over the years making a job stick. She’s either had a problem with the boss, the hours, her co-workers, or she just plain hates the work.
In hindsight, a job in customer service may not have been the best idea.
She doesn’t exactly play well with others.
“Well, you know Bouchard,” I say in a placating tone. “He’s all about approval ratings. Especially since he wants to run for mayor next term.”
She scowls. “If he tells me one more time that I need to speak to callers in a ‘peppier’ voice, I’m going to rip his toupée off and shove it down his throat.”
I chuckle. “Yummy.”
When she opens her package of crackers and doesn’t offer me one, knowing I’m hungry and need to eat, I dismiss the frustration before it even has a chance to manifest. Quinn might keep snacks in her purse for me at all times because she knows I can get a little scatterbrained—
But Shae isn’t Quinn.
Shae isn’t used to looking after anyone other than herself or caring for another person. She’s never had good role models in her life to look up to. No one to teach her the best manners or show her right from wrong. She’s had to learn much of that on her own.
And none of that is her fault.
She spends the next several minutes venting about the many frustrations of her job and obnoxious neighbors at her apartment complex.
“Do you have that moisturizing cream with you?” she asks, frowning at her reflection in her compact mirror. “The cucumber lime stuff you made?”
“Yeah, sure.” I reach into my purse and hand over the non-descript, plastic container.
“Thanks. My skin has been so dry lately.”
As she dips her finger into the cream and dabs it over the dry spots on her forehead, my chest swells with enormous pride. I get so much pleasure from seeing other people use my products. The ones I’ve created with my own hands from the formulas I’ve personally developed and tested. It’s even better when I know the products not only work, but that people actually request them. Sure, my “customers” have mostly been friends and co-workers so far, but I know they’re all being honest when they say they legitimately love my stuff.
Part of me thinks I should just go for it. Take the ultimate risk, quit my job, and pursue my cosmetics line full-time. Put all of my effort into it. Quinn, Sloane, and Gretchen think I can make “hella” money from it. Gretchen has even offered countless times to create a marketing campaign to help me “sell the shit out of it,” as she so eloquently puts it.
But look what happened the last time I told myself to stop being such a panty-waste and be brave for once. When I threw caution to the wind and gave my fear the knockout upper cut, look what happened. I now get to stare at the consequences of my actions in the six-pack every day for the next five months.
“You mind if I keep this and get it back to you tomorrow?” Shae asks, her voice piercing through my wayward West woes.
She’s already placing the container in her purse before I’ve had a chance to answer. “Yeah, that’s fine.”
Honestly, though, it’s hard for me to let that one go, as it’s currently my favorite product. But if I thought I could be a little self-conscious—my long-time frustrations with my skin are why I started fiddling around with makeup in the first place—Shae is a thousand times worse.
She’s a beautiful girl. Truly.
But she’s one of those who sees something different in the mirror than what everyone else sees when they look at her. She’s reed thin, too thin, in my opinion. In hers, her waist can never be small enough. Her ash blond hair is long and shiny, the cut resembling mine. In fact, she switched her hair color not long after I went to platinum blond. I suspect she’d been aiming for platinum, too, but the color came out wrong. Then she just leaned into the ash and kept getting it colored again and again. As if to say, no, this is how it was supposed to look all along. I’m not trying to copy you.
It’s just another example of this weird competition-slash-jealousy thing with her toward me. I don’t always know how to react to it, so I mostly ignore it.
“You want to come over this weekend for a Friends marathon?” she asks hopefully. “I can make that frozen mango punch stuff you loved so much from Halloween last year. I just bought a giant bottle of Captain Morgan and it needs to find a home.”
Everything inside me softens until I feel like my body has the consistency of a mushy sponge. Her hopefulness reminds me of her fourteen-year-old self, who practically leapt into my arms, laughing and crying tears of joy, after she’d gotten a B- on her English Lit test. A test I helped her study for. For two weeks straight.
“I can’t believe I got a B!” she’d screamed ecstatically. “I’ve never gotten anything higher than a D on those tests. And it’s all because of you, Harp. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
That was back when Shae still had a lot of her childhood exuberance. Before she got overly defensive of her disadvantages. I guess you could say that since she didn’t get to have a normal childhood, she emotionally developed a little slower than everyone else. In the sense that she was enjoying things as a teenager that most people experience as kids.
“Count me in,” I say, slapping the table. “My port has plenty of space for the good Captain to drop his anchor. Plus, I’ve needed some Ross in my life lately.”
She huffs out a laugh. “God, you’re such a dork. And you do realize that you’re probably the only person on the planet whose favorite Friends character is Ross, right?”
I grin. “What’s wrong with Ross?”
Her face twists like she just swallowed something sour. “He’s weird. And he’s a Debbie Downer, like, all the time. And he’s a scientist or whatever. And he’s weird.”
“He’s sweet,” I argue. “Besides, he makes you laugh, and you know it.”
We continue debating over who the best Friends character is, a victor-less battle if ever there was one. Sensing that neither of us is going to admit defeat, she leans back in her chair and changes the subject. “Did you score me that invite to the Foundation Gala yet?”
I shake my head, my stomach grumbling. My food better hurry up and get here or they might be scraping me off the floor soon. “Not yet. They’re really cracking down on expenses, so they’re being very particular about who gets plus-ones this year.”
Her shrug is nonchalant, unconcerned. “So, talk to your mom. I’m sure she can finagle one for you.”
Being Eleanor St. Clair, one of the most influential people in this entire town, she could absolutely get me an extra ticket.
But this is my job.
Going to Mother and asking for an extra invite is the equivalent of me going over my bosses’ heads. And that makes me uncomfortable. I’ve never wanted to get ahead in life by throwing my last name around, or by riding my mother’s coattails. I might hate my job, but no matter what, I aim to earn any success I have in life honestly and fairly.
“I’ll see what I can do,” is all I tell Shae. With a smile, o
f course.
It doesn’t escape my attention that not once has she asked how things are going with West at the house, which is the very first thing Quinn, Sloane, and Gretchen demand to know every time we speak. They haven’t managed to pry every detail out of me—like how I dry-humped West’s fingers in front of my bedroom mirror a few weeks ago—but they’ve certainly been useful for helping me come up with ways to prank him.
Cram tampons in all of his pockets. Unused ones, of course. That was Quinn’s.
Shrink his favorite Braves jersey in the dryer. Sloane’s suggestion.
Put jalapeño sauce in his body wash. Talk about getting him all hot and bothered. No bueno for his wango. That gem was from Gretchen.
Oh! Replace his protein supplements with estrogen pills. Would it make me a lesbian if I thought a dude with boobs was hot? Or is that kind of a bi situation? Also Gretchen.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Shae never liked West from the beginning, for whatever reason, and made that dislike known. When I had to drop the ball about how I was stuck in a six-month lease with a guy I just broke up with, she’d been noticeably annoyed that he was even still in the picture. Then she more or less laughed at me, saying sucks to be you. Didn’t offer up her place for me to stay in while I figured shit out or anything.
Gretchen had her spare bed made up for me before I’d gotten off the phone with her.
Shae needs her space, though. The world tends to get overwhelming for her. She struggles with keeping her daily frustrations at bay. Having a roommate would not be conducive to her peace of mind.
I get that. I really do.
And I know what you’re thinking.
I’m a doormat. A push-over.
But here’s the mantra I’ve repeated to myself ever since I met Shae: some people in life require more patience, understanding, and compassion than others.
The Six Month Lease (Southern Hearts Club Book 2) Page 6