“Against the counter. You against the counter,” I whisper roughly in her ear, then lick my way from her earlobe down to the hollow of her throat, kissing her there where it makes her gasp and arch her back even while she’s standing.
“Okay,” she says and she sounds the tiniest bit nervous.
We’ve had tons of sex, countless rounds, and we’ve tried many positions, but I’ve never fucked her from behind. That’s the only way I want her right now.
“I like looking at you though,” she says, and she’s so damn sweet, and so damn kind, and so fucking perfect, I can’t take it, because I don’t want it right now. I bend my head to her neck, lay a kiss in the spot that drives her wild.
“I know, but it will feel so good this way. Do you trust me?”
She nods. “You know I do.”
“Then let’s do it this way, okay?”
She nods. And hell, I like to look at her too. But I can’t right now. I turn her around.
“Put your hands on the counter,” I tell her, and she listens, pressing her palms down.
“Like this?” She asks, all sweet and willing to try.
“Yeah.”
I slide a hand between her legs, and her underwear is wet, and the feel of her heat makes me even harder. I peel off her underwear, letting it fall to her ankles. She starts to step out of them, to shimmy them over her boots, but I stop her. “Leave them on. You look hot like that.”
She wiggles her ass once, then turns to me, an eager look in her eyes as if she’s asking me if she did it right. God, it kills me. Because she does everything right. “Beautiful,” I say, as I hike up her skirt. I unzip my jeans, push my briefs down, and guide my hard-on to the Promised Land, rubbing my dick against her wetness, and I start to push in.
“Fuck,” I say, cursing myself. “I’ll grab a condom.”
She laughs, drops her head in her hand. She turns back to me. “Don’t know if you got the memo, Trey, but we don’t have to use those anymore.”
I take a sharp breath, the reminder I don’t need or want right now. “Right,” I say, managing a laugh as I press my thumbs against her ass, spreading her cheeks, lifting her up a bit for the perfect angle. I sink into her, and close my eyes.
The feel of her heat is almost too much, but I know how to control myself, because I’ve had sex without condoms before. Some of my ladies liked it that way. Mrs. Fitzpatrick had her tubes tied, and Sloan was on the pill. I was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and when the thirty-year-old hottie told me it was fine to fuck her without a rubber, I didn’t question the wisdom of an older woman. I slid home. So this isn’t my first time riding bareback, but it’s one of my first few times like this with Harley, and she’s so tight and hot against me that I have to still myself so I don’t come too soon. I don’t want to come yet. I don’t want to come for hours. I want to fuck her for as long as I can, for as long as it takes to numb me again.
So I do, taking slow, deep strokes. In. Out. Hot. Wet. Deep. I close my eyes, let my instincts take over, fucking her against the counter like I did the others. Bent over their bathroom sinks. Up against their walls. In elevators. On the counter while no one was home. Them telling me how good it felt, how much they loved it, how I took care of them like no one else did.
They took care of me, too. They turned my mind blank, and they coated my neurons in pleasure and ecstasy. And I’m going back there now.
“You look so fucking hot in this position,” I tell her, because they all did, and that’s what they all wanted to hear.
She moans, and pushes back, letting me fill her.
“You like that?”
“Yes,” she says, and I can hear the desire thick and hot in her voice. But she’s not Harley anymore to me. She’s anyone.
“Do I make you feel good?” I ask, falling into my old persona, the things I said and did, even though they were the ones who talked more. They were the ones who said you make me feel so good.
“You always do,” she says.
“Rock back into me. You’ll come easily like this.”
“It feels so good,” she says, all breathless and needy.
“Because you love this position,” I say.
She flinches, but I keep going, the words spilling out of me of their own accord. “It makes you come so fucking hard.”
She says nothing.
“I want you to shout so loud it drowns out everything.” I hardly know what I’m saying, but the words are flying from my mouth like I have no control over them.
Then she stops moving.
“Everything,” I repeat, losing myself in the rush, in the feelings, in the ecstasy of fucking her.
Her shoulders tense, but I can feel the blood racing faster in my body, tearing through my veins, the sparks building, and I start to pump harder, faster, and I can feel it building, and it’s going to wash away the pain, the fear, the worry, the five stages, the way I’ll never hurt again. It’s going to do the job, and if it doesn’t we’ll do it again and again and again, and then once more.
“Fuck,” I shout, as I drive deeper into her, coming inside her. Then I slump against her back, resting my cheek against her shoulder, savoring the way I’m buzzed, and no longer worrying about anything.
But she wriggles away from me. She turns around and stares sharply at me. A noise catches in her throat, but then she buries the tears, and her brown eyes are blazing mad. She grabs her underwear, yanks them up, adjusts her skirt, and pushes me away.
Hard.
“Don’t fuck me like that. Don’t ever fuck me like that again.”
I stumble against the wall, my underwear and jeans at my feet. “What are you talking about?” I ask, playing dumb, or maybe I’m not playing because I feel pretty stupid right now.
She points a finger at me. “You know what I’m talking about, Trey Westin. I’m not one of them. I’m me. I’m the woman you’re supposed to love. Don’t ever fuck me like that again.”
Then she grabs her purse and marches to the door.
“Wait!” I call to her, grasping for my briefs and tugging them up. “Don’t go.”
She breathes in through her nostrils. Breathes out, hard. “I’m going, and it would be really great if you don’t come after me. If you don’t show up at fucking midnight acting all sorry. And if you don’t call Kristen and convince her to let you in.”
My heart plummets. Shit. “Harley, I’m sorry.”
“I’m so impressed you remembered my name,” she spits back.
“You’ve gotta let me apologize.”
“I am letting you. That doesn’t mean I want to see you again tonight. You can say you’re sorry six ways to Sunday, but that doesn’t change what you just did to me.”
“You act like I raped you.”
She rolls her eyes. “Get over yourself. I never said that. You fucked me and pretended I was one of your women. You love this position. We’ve never done it in that position, you fucking ass. Did you think I would forget? You come hard like this? What the fuck is wrong with you? You pretended I was someone else. You used me like a drug. Just because you have more experience having sex than me doesn’t mean you can pull the wool over my eyes.” She taps the side of her head, her eyes dark and filled with fire. “You might be the only guy I’ve ever slept with, but I’m not stupid. Don’t forget—I’m an addict too, so you can’t fool me.”
Deny. That is all I know. It is all I can rely on. It is my only recourse. I have a fucking master’s degree in it. It’s been a daily practice of mine. “I didn’t, Harley, I swear. Jesus, I just wanted to do it against the counter. You act like it’s such a big deal.”
She parks her hands on her hips. “It is a big deal. Us. This. You and me. It’s the biggest deal. Sex between us is a big deal and if you can’t handle that, then sorry, Trey. But it’s a big deal for a million fucking reasons, not the least of which is this,” she says, pressing her hands to her belly. “Everything matters.”
“You are seriously overreacting and you need to calm down.
Is this preg—”
She holds up her hand. Her palm could stop a truck right now. “No. Just don’t, Trey. Just don’t.”
She turns around, grabs the door handle and pulls it open. She looks back at me one more time. “I need a break. I don’t want you to show up tonight saying you’re sorry. Or tomorrow. Or Sunday.”
This is the real bullet, and it shoots straight through my chest. “Are you breaking up with me?” I ask, my voice wobbly.
“I’m saying we need a break right now. Goodbye.”
Then she leaves. She doesn’t slam the door. She closes it quietly, and walks away, leaving me alone with all my terrible loneliness.
And I don’t feel an ounce less pain. I feel everything, all the weight of my stupid decisions, and it hurts so much, because my trick didn’t work. I didn’t fool myself. I didn’t fool anyone. She is gone, and the memories and the images play on a reel in my head. Each one. Each brother. Each death.
It’s on a punishing loop that I deserve.
Chapter Eleven
Trey
Michele would kill me if she knew what I’d done. Okay, maybe not kill me. More like wallop me verbally. So I don’t call her the next day. I don’t crawl on my hands and knees begging for her to solve this problem the day after, either. I made the mess. I fucked things up. I need to fix my shit.
I give Harley the space she needs, though it takes all my resistance to do what she asked. I become a zombie, clunking to my history class, to No Regrets, to the gym, to hang with Jordan. But the whole time there’s this persistent ache in my chest, a hollowness that longs to be filled with her. That can only be filled with her.
At work one night, a punkish-looking girl comes in to plan out a tat she wants on her shoulder, and I’m shot back in time to the night I first inked Harley, to all the things we shared in the coffee shop, on the train, at my place. Then when I redid her ink and made it ours.
“I was hoping you could do a cherry blossom tree,” the punk girl says, showing me a photograph she took of a tree in Japan, then running her hand from her back across her ribs and to her belly. She explains her vision, and the tat will be huge and incredibly intricate.
“Give me a few days to work on the design,” I say, and when she leaves I tell my boss, Hector, about her request.
“It’s way more complex than the stuff we usually do,” I tell him.
“Hell yeah. That’s going to take hours. I hope she can sit still for that long,” he says, shaking his head in admiration.
“I hope I can do it,” I say.
“Of course you can. You’re my best artist. Just sketch it out. But you should see my buddy, Ilyas, at Painted Ink in Brooklyn. He can give you some pointers. He’s a real artiste.”
Hector calls Ilyas and sets a time for me, and I’m grateful for the potential guidance and the fact that I just passed another hour without Harley.
But she’s never far from me. She’s a part of me, and when I leave the shop and walk home, my neck is bent the whole time as I scroll through pictures of Harley on my phone. Harley on the Staten Island Ferry this summer, leaning over the deck railing, her long blond hair wild in the sea breeze. Her at the Jane Black show we went to at the Knitting Factory, singing along to her favorite songs from the rock star. Then, this one where she’s all tucked up on my futon, wearing only a long, clingy shirt as she’s reading a book, a worn and tattered paperback about characters in a play that come alive.
Our summer together.
I nearly cave one night when I walk over to her block, stare up five flights to her window, and will her to sense me, to fling open the window, and joyously call me up. Throw her arms around me and tell me I’m forgiven for being a dick. That doesn’t happen, so I sink down to the stoop and park my ass there for a few minutes, drawing in my sketchbook, mapping out the cherry blossom tree.
But I feel like a stalker, so I stand, glancing one more time at her window. The pangs of being near her but not near enough stab like little knives.
I walk away, leaving her alone like she wants, and I wander around Chelsea, stopping in a bodega, grabbing a bag of chips and munching them on my way home. But I don’t want to go home and be without her, so I head for the gym, even though it’s midnight, and I work out for two hours until my body is so tired I have no choice but to crash.
My arms feel empty all through the night. And even though I’m tempted to knock on Sloan’s door to say hi, only to say hi, just to prove I can resist because I’d never ever cheat on Harley for real or in my head again, I know this isn’t about Sloan.
This is about my brothers.
I go to see them the next night.
To their tree.
A delivery truck backs up along Eighth Avenue, ready to unload food to the all-night grocery store near the park, its persistent beeping mingling with the sounds of cab horns that never stop, cell phone conversations that flood the sidewalks, and music filtering out of bars. I cross the street and reach the park on the next block, stopping at the entryway. Abingdon Square Park is tiny, a triangular patch of greenery that straddles the top of Chelsea and the bottom of the Village. There are benches and a circular walkway, and trees and flowers that line the grass. There are no playgrounds or swings, so it’s a park for contemplation. And, to be honest, for late-night drunk pissing, and the homeless, because this is New York, after all. There’s no purity in the city; even a park like this could never be a place of respite.
I head for the tree I planted four years ago for my dead brothers – to remember them. I’ve visited it many times. I even took Harley here a few months ago and she kissed the tree, and I think that was the moment when I knew I was wildly in love with her, and that the love would never stop; it would only grow. And now it’s really growing, and I’m a fucking mess.
I touch the tree. The bark is rough against my hand. But I run my palm along the small trunk, remembering how awful I felt when Will died. How hard it was to tell Harley. How much I miss three people I never knew.
It makes no sense sometimes; how could I miss a baby? But they were my blood, they were the brothers I never knew, and I miss the lost chance. I miss the chance to have been a family.
I grip the branch harder, and then I sink to my knees, the grass cool against my jeans. I lean my forehead on the branch and close my eyes, flashing back to the best piece of advice Michele ever gave me. “You can shut off and shut down, but none of those reactions are ultimately going to heal your heart. What will help you is speaking your truth. But don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t make assumptions. Say only what you know to be true.”
I bite my lip, as if I can hold it all in. But it’s simmering inside me, bubbling up. The ground feels uneven, like it’s swaying and ready to crumble under me. I grab harder onto the branch, trying to hold on. But it’s no use. I can’t hold on. I have to let it out. A thick giant tear that rolls down my cheek. “I’m so fucking scared,” I whisper. “I’m so scared the baby is going to join you, and I don’t know how I’m going to get through this in one piece. Because if I lose someone again, I don’t know that I can handle it.”
A nearby car somewhere slams on its brakes, causing a chain reaction of honking horns.
“You can.”
Someone is speaking to me, and I stand and swivel. I see a guy leaving the park, nodding at me, tipping his cap. “You can,” he says again, and walks off into the night.
I shake my head, because maybe I’m seeing things. Maybe I’m hearing things. But maybe this is the kindness of strangers saying what you need to hear.
Fate. It works like that, right?
I take out my phone and snap a picture of the tree. Then I tap out a message to Harley, speaking my truth.
Chapter Twelve
Harley
“Let me try. Move your fat ass,” Kristen says, bumping my hip.
I roll my eyes as I scoot over on the carpeted floor of our apartment. “Oh my god, how long are you going to make fat jokes? I’m eight weeks. I’m not even s
howing, beyotch.”
She strokes her chin, adopts a contemplative look. “Hmm. Let’s see. If my calculations are correct, I’m going to make jokes for the next seven months. Now, watch what happens when a pro with the camera takes the shot.”
Kristen is a film major, and I’m not sure that means she takes better cell phone pictures, but I’m just glad to have a partner in crime.
Kristen centers her phone in her line of sight, and snaps a photo of one of the vintage cards. Our coffee table is littered with them.
Kristen has been playing detective with me for a few days now. I started by Googling my father’s first name—John—and San Diego. But, big surprise, I wasn’t able to narrow it down. Then we stopped in a fancy stationery store in the Village and I showed the owner the cards, but she shrugged and said she had no clue where they were from. After that, Kristen pretended to hypnotize me into remembering my grandparents’ names.
The added benefit of playing detective? It helps me to not think about Trey. I have a focus for my too-busy mind. This is a puzzle, this is something to be solved, this is a task that I can figure out.
“All right, the weird owl that’s looking at me is done,” she says, pointing to the card with a raised illustration of an owl with huge eyes.
“That’s what they do. Owls stare.”
“Spoken like an ornithologist. Now that one.” She snaps a picture of an orange fox with a bushy tail. “And how about the hedgie?”
I slide the chubby-hedgehog card across the wood, and she captures its likeness.
“All righty,” she says, wiggling her fingers. “Let’s have Google do its magic.”
She emails me the pictures. I flip open my laptop, download the images, and then upload them into Google image search.
I cross my fingers. “Dear Google: please tell me everything.”
But Google returns a search result for an online store that sells rubber stamps with the owl design.
I try the others. The hedgie yields a craft shop. And the wise old owl? Nothing but related images of cartoonish owls. I flop down on the carpet. “This sucks. I was hoping to find out who made the cards, or if this is some crazy business my grandparents own and then I could call them.”
Every Second With You Page 6