“I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“I’ll teach you everything you need to know about your finances. We’ll go through it together. And about Rich . . .” I inhale a breath. On this, I don’t want to budge. But when she was out there, being pissed, I promised myself I would try harder to be more understanding. “Tell your dad when you’re ready. As long as you and I and Rich know the arrangement, I can live with it a little longer.”
She smiles. “You’re so good at taking care of me.”
Fuck fuck fuck. My chest aches. Nobody ever said that to me, not my mom, definitely not Kendra. I’m not even sure Marissa will think of me as a good dad once Kendra’s through with her. Halston’s hands are nice and warm in mine now. I kiss the place where her palms meet. “We’ll do the photo shoot. I need to have final say, though.”
“You will.”
“There’s a right way to do this, I knew there was, I just didn’t even want to entertain the idea. I’ve tried so hard to separate money and art. I don’t like them to overlap, because it feels cheap. And the thought of putting you out there like that for other men to look at worries me, but that goes without saying.”
“I promise, Finn, nobody gets me but you. I’m yours to share with the world, not the other way around.”
“I’m not sharing you. You’re mine, and that won’t change.” I unwrap her scarf from her neck, and her hair frizzes with static. I smooth it down. “I would’ve gone to look for you, but I didn’t know where to start. I don’t even know exactly which block your apartment’s on.”
“I wasn’t there long. It doesn’t feel like home. I got the journals, then walked around until I ended up here.”
“You should give up that apartment.” As soon as I say it, I know it’s right. I want our lives merged for real. This will be the first step toward showing everyone—exes, parents, children—this is real. “If we fight, if we piss each other off, I want you to come back here. Always. No matter how bad it is. Even if it means I’m banned to the couch.”
She doesn’t hesitate. “My lease is up in March.”
“Do you think it’s too soon for us to move in together?”
She answers with a small, goading smile. “Totally.”
“March it is, then?”
She stands and floats onto my lap, into my arms, her laugh soft and angelic. “I got your message.”
“Which one? I sent like eight.”
She kisses my cheek. “You know which one.”
I whisper her own words into her ear. “When you’re gone, there is no light.”
25
I can admit when I’m wrong.
At my desk in the studio, I browse the twenty images I’ve just edited, chosen from more than a hundred taken yesterday. I may be biased, but my girlfriend wears lingerie like no fucking other.
In one of my favorites, Halston stretches in a doorway, her arms over her head, fingers resting on the doorframe. Her head is turned to the side. A curtain of white-blonde curls covers her face, stopping right above her breasts. The sheer, black leotard—or bodysuit, as I was told—has a faint lace design that conceals her nipples and a neckline that dips to her belly button.
I was nothing but professional. I spent the entire session with a hard-on and didn’t even touch her.
Halston comes into the studio in head-to-toe sweats, the same pink color of the Mont Blanc I bought her, spooning yogurt into her mouth. She sits on my knee. “They’re beautiful, Finn.”
I have no better word to describe her. “Yeah.”
The black lace is stark against her white skin and colorless hair. The pieces curve smoothly with her hips and breasts. Her nipples point through a nude silk negligee. Her tummy is flat in a baby pink bustier with black garters that connect to matching thigh-highs.
“I’ll be honest, some of the stuff they sent looked pretty unattractive in the box, but fuck. Who knew bodysuits could be sexy?”
“I did. That’s why I wanted to do this.”
I laugh. “Fair enough. Did you also know Butter was sending thongs? They would’ve shown your entire ass.”
She holds out her spoon. “Have some yogurt.”
I loop an arm around her waist and pull her deeper into my lap. “Will they let you keep them, even though we didn’t shoot them?”
“You can’t have it both ways,” she says.
I slip a finger into the waistband of her sweats and slide it down her crack. “Can’t I?”
She freezes. I don’t blame her. We’ve discussed each journal she laid out on the table last week except the “dark” one. I’m in no rush to get through them, but I’m only human. I’ve had my nose stuck in one any time she’s not around. She probably thinks I have a problem, since my erection’s going strong each night she gets home from work.
I give her ass cheek a squeeze and change the subject. “I need to share one of these today. Valentine’s is ten days away and we promised ten posts.”
“Bodysuit,” she says. “Men looking for gifts will need a few days to get used to it.”
I slide a pen and notepad in front of her. “Write the caption while I upload the photo to my phone.”
“You think I can just snap my fingers and come up with something?” she asks.
“Kind of. You’re a pro like that.”
“No, I’m not.” She pushes the notepad away and tries to get up. “Actually, I’m really not, like not at all.”
I keep her in my lap. The tautness of her muscles tells me something’s wrong, and I can take a pretty good guess what it is. She must’ve read a comment or message she shouldn’t have, which means she’s checking our posts faster than I’m able to catch the bad stuff. There’s rarely anything negative, but I never know when it’ll come. I have to be more vigilant. “What happened?” I ask.
She sets her yogurt on the desk and looks out the window with a sigh. “I don’t know. It’s not coming as easily as it did.”
I tilt my head, trying to see her expression. Maybe this isn’t about our photos. “What isn’t?
“The words. I used to be able to sit down and let it flow. Even when it was a couple words or lines, writing something down cut the tension in my body like scissors to string.”
“And now?”
“Nothing. The blank page stares at me. I can practically hear it laughing.”
“But . . .” I put my hand on her shoulder. “We’ve been doing this for months and you haven’t mentioned this.”
She shifts toward me. “Because you’ve gotten almost everything from my journal. What happens when we’ve used all the passages?”
Now that I think about it, she’s right. I almost always turn to her journal, and the few times I’ve asked her for a caption, it’s taken her days to get something to me. “We won’t run out,” I assure her. “There are hundreds. Plus,” I slide my hand inside her sweatshirt, “now I’ve got even more to work with. I know I haven’t mentioned it yet, but I’ve been reading the other journal.”
She shudders but pushes my hand out of her top. “I’m serious, Finn. What if I’m all dried up?”
“You’re not, believe me. It’s probably just . . .”
She rubs the inside of her elbow. There’s a dry patch of skin she absentmindedly scratches when she gets nervous. “What?”
I cover her hand with mine, lacing our fingers together. She got self-conscious about the itching when I brought it up, so I’ve figured out other ways to help. “Well, things are good between us. You’re happy, so maybe it’s a little harder to create.”
She considers this a few seconds before nodding at the images on the screen. “But you can create. Does that mean you aren’t happy?”
“No. It just means I work differently than you. Look, don’t worry about the caption. I’ll go find one.”
“Aren’t you getting tired of having to look through my stuff for each photo?”
If I could only put into words how not tired I am. How I could page through her thoughts for hou
rs on end, envisioning how she was before me, then us together, then our future. When I think of her words, I feel as though I could photograph her for weeks and not run out of ideas. Briefly, I wonder if the opposite is true for her. Does my work not inspire her? Not even a little? I kiss the side of her head. “I’ll never grow tired of it.”
I get up, and she takes my place at the computer. I find her journals in the kitchen next to yesterday’s mail. On the top of the pile is a check from Butter Boudoir. Five grand. Everything I told Halston is true—I don’t have to worry about money just yet, but half this payment will cover almost a month of rent, and I earned it doing something I love.
I glance over my shoulder and open the journal she described as explicit. From what I’ve read, it’s mostly what I suspected. There are entries about the sting of a hand on her ass, being bound and helpless to her lover’s whims, and even some that walk the line of force. I hadn’t expected the anal, though.
Face down, you won’t see my shame,
But you’ll know with each tight forbidden thrust
By the blush that spreads
Down my spine.
I have to look up at the ceiling a moment to ramp down my arousal. I’m going to whittle her down to nothing if I don’t stop fucking her at every turn. I don’t have to ask if she’s ever tried anal. The tense of her body any time I’m in the area tells me she’s not sure she wants it. It’s not the only thing in the journal that caught me off guard, though. I flip to the middle, to a passage about several hands and mouths on her at once. I had to read it a few times to process it.
Just tonight, tomorrow we’ll go on, but just tonight, I’ll be all-loved by lovers all.
If I had any question about what I was reading, one line in particular spelled it out for me.
Fucked from both ends, I’m your willing doll.
I hadn’t known what to think. Still don’t. I got fucking hard, I’m a man after all, but the idea of someone else touching my girlfriend also made my blood boil. She said she didn’t necessarily want everything she wrote about in the journal, but I’m not sure how to clarify without upsetting her. If she thinks I’m weirded out by it, she might react again.
I put it away—I’m not able to go there now—and return to my tried and true journal. I can find what I need in here. I pick an entry that describes waiting for her man to come home that’ll work for the bodysuit image.
Her phone lights up on the counter, so I take it and the journal back into the studio. “Found what I need in practically no time at all,” I say. “I told you it’d be—” Two steps into the room, I stop. Halston’s head is blocking most of my view of the picture on the computer screen, but I’d know those tits anywhere. The fan of black hair on the cushion of Kendra’s hideous, deceivingly uncomfortable green velvet couch.
Sadie.
Halston doesn’t move, but her sweatshirt quivers with each breath. “You told me you never photographed anyone else,” she says. “Not like this.”
My throat and mouth dry up. As I walk up behind the computer chair, Sadie comes into full view. She stares at the camera with her intoxicating, purple-blue eyes. Her back is arched off the couch, her breasts on full display. Desire is clear in her face. “It’s not . . .” I try to explain. “This was something else . . .”
“What was it?”
That afternoon with Sadie hits me in the chest like a slab of concrete. I’d thought I finally had her, but what a fucking fool I’d been. We’d spent the day together, gotten caught in the rain, and sought shelter in my apartment. Her own was across the hall, but she’d come to mine. Wet. Cold. Lonely. I’d warmed her up all right. Caught up in the moment, I’d loved her with my camera before devouring her head to toe on that couch.
I can’t speak. Halston asked me a question, and I need to answer, or her imagination’ll run wild. My silence will hurt her more than I already have. “What?”
Halston only gives me her profile, avoiding my eyes. The cute tip of her nose is bright red, her lips parted. “I asked you what this is.”
I set her journal and cell on the desk. “It’s Sadie.”
“I figured, since the folder’s named Sadie.”
“It was just . . . when we were together, I took these. It wasn’t for any other reason than I felt—”
“Inspired?” Her voice breaks.
Fuck. Halston of all people knows what that means. For me to feel moved by someone. She’s that to me every day. “She never inspired me the way you do.”
“Why should I believe that?”
“It wasn’t real. I was looking for something and Sadie came along.”
She continues to stare at Sadie, even though I want nothing more than for her to close out of the photo. “What were you looking for?” she asks.
“A way out of my marriage. I didn’t think I could do it on my own. I wanted an excuse, a partner to go through it with. I put all that on Sadie’s shoulders. I was a coward.”
A notification pops up on Halston’s phone. She goes to pick it up.
“Leave it.” I move it out of her reach. That fucking phone’s in her hand more often than it’s not. “We’re having a discussion.”
“But my phone keeps vibrating. Something’s happening.”
“I don’t care. I need your attention on me right now. Please.”
“Fine.” She returns to the computer and clicks to the next photo in line. And the next. Sadie flips between poses.
I have to look away. “Stop.”
“No.”
“I never looked at these again, not once after she left,” I say.
“It’s taken you this long to get over her—if you even are—there’s no way you haven’t been jerking off to these. Probably even when we were together.”
My face warms. I’ve been nothing but good to Halston. Her accusation is unfounded. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. She’s married. Looking at them never felt right.”
“But screwing her was?”
I shake the chair a bit to get her attention. She turns to me, startled. “You don’t have to believe me, but it’s true,” I say. “I never looked at them. I never thought of them when I was with you. I would’ve deleted them, but I forgot they were there once I met you. I’ll delete them now.”
She glances at the phone, then Sadie, then me. “She’s beautiful. I had no idea she was that pretty. I mean, I guess I figured she was. Is . . . Kendra like this too? Are all your exes like models?”
The way Halston says it, she almost makes it sounds like a contest. Her, versus the other women. I tell her a lot how beautiful and sexy she is. Even if I didn’t, she sees herself through my eyes on a daily basis. Will it ever be enough? If I forget to tell her sometimes, will she spiral down, comparing herself to every woman who crosses my path?
“Kendra’s . . . cute, I guess.” Cute? How the fuck do I describe my ex-wife and ex-lover without hurting Halston’s feelings? “She’s spunky. Not beautiful like you.”
Halston’s shoulders lower a little. “Oh.”
“And Sadie, she was attractive, yes, but cold.”
Halston shifts against the leather. She unpurses her lips, the lines in her forehead smoothing. With a tilt of her head, she asks, “How so?”
I’d rather drop the subject, but I think Halston needs to hear this. Sadie, the dark beauty on my couch, will eat at Halston if I don’t share her flaws. It’s true, Sadie was cold. “For the longest time, I didn’t see that about her, the way she could so easily detach. I thought she was unhappy, and that she needed someone to make her smile, and I did, but it wasn’t enough.”
I’m relieved when Halston relaxes, pulling her feet in to sit cross-legged. “I think I can see it in her eyes,” she says. “She doesn’t look friendly.”
I nod. It’s working. “She belongs with him—Nathan—her husband. He’s right for her, I guess. I think I would’ve realized after it was too late, that I wasn’t.”
“Is that how you saw me?” she asks. “
Unhappy? Cold? Someone to be rescued?”
“Oh, God. No.” I squat and take her face in my hands. “You’re the warmest, most loving girl. You know that? You have so much to give, and I just take and take. I’m not even sorry about it.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. “I wasn’t like that with Rich. Or anyone really. Just you.”
“Good. That makes me happy.” When she smiles, my heart melts. I never want her to feel inferior or question my feelings for her. I hope her insecurity is only because we’re still new, and that one day soon, she’ll hear me when I tell her how wonderful she is and stop needing reminders. I lean over her, blocking her view, as I trash the photos. She lets me. Seeing them again makes me feel many things, but mostly just sick to my stomach. I’m not sorry about erasing them for good.
Halston kisses me on the cheek and rolls the chair back to get up. She takes her phone and leaves the room. I think I’ve diffused the situation, but I’m not entirely sure. Because once in a while, rare as it is, it feels as though the more I get to know Halston, the harder she is to read.
26
The afterimage of Sadie’s naked body is still burned into my vision when I walk out of Finn’s studio. If he photographed me that way, face and all, would I come off as confident as her? By Sadie’s expression, she knew she had Finn on the hook. He and I have been together longer than they were. He didn’t love her like he does me. I know that’s true, but sitting there, faced with her beauty and poise, I couldn’t help thinking about all the things I’m not—normal, calm, cheerful, charming. But I am warm, unlike her.
I check my phone. I was only away from it half an hour, but the amount of notifications makes me stop in my tracks. I can’t even scroll to the bottom of the lock screen. I type in my passcode and my mouth falls open. “Finn? Finn. Come here.”
He appears in the hallway. “What?”
Yours to Bare Page 25