Blood rushes into my face. A dull, hot throb in my cheeks quickly spreads to my ears and neck.
“Uh-oh,” says Brody. “She’s gone radio silent again.”
“Normally I’m not this easily rattled, but I must admit, Mr. Scott, you really know how to throw me for a loop.”
The smug tone makes a reappearance. “Aha! So you know my last name! You’ve been stalking me on the internet, haven’t you?”
I say drily, “Let’s not get carried away.”
“Speaking of getting carried away, what’re you wearing to my party on Saturday?”
In spite of myself, I chuckle. “Number one, that was the absolute worst segue I’ve ever heard. And number two, I never said I was coming to your party.”
“You are, though, right? The flowers totally worked?”
He still sounds playful, but I hear the undertone of seriousness. I sigh, rubbing a hand over my burning cheek. “No.”
“You know what that tells me?”
I look at the ceiling, hoping for a stray asteroid to demolish my building so I won’t have to continue this conversation. “I can hardly wait to know.”
“That you’re afraid.”
“I’m not afraid, Egosaurus, I’m just otherwise engaged.”
“So be otherwise unengaged. I told you: bring him.”
“Are you always like this?”
“Like what?” he asks innocently.
“Like a friggin’ goat.”
“A goat?” He sounds insulted.
“You know, because they’re so stubborn.”
“No. No, that’s an absolutely terrible comparison. C’mon, seriously, a goat?”
“What would be better, a dog?”
“A dog?” he shouts. “You’re terrible at this! Dogs are like the most obedient animals on the planet!”
“Okay. I give up. What animal would you like me to compare you to?”
His voice turns reflective. “Well, cats are really stubborn, but they’re also mostly assholes, too, so we can’t go with a cat. I would say mule, but there’s absolutely nothing sexy about a mule—”
“God forbid he doesn’t get a sexy animal,” I mutter.
“—and birds are just dumb. A panther is super cool and probably totally stubborn, lone hunter and all that, but also technically a cat and therefore I’m sure it has all that cat assholiness.”
I start to giggle and can’t stop. This is alarming, not only because I’m not a person who giggles, but also because I’m enjoying this conversation way too much for my own good.
When Brody starts to talk again, I can hear in his voice that he’s trying to stifle his own laughter. “Okay, so we’ve gone through canines, felines, aves—”
“Aves?”
“That means birds—keep up, Slick—bovidae, and equidae—”
“Did you want to be a zoologist when you were growing up or something?”
“And we’ve gotten nowhere fast, so I’m thinking we should maybe move on to fictional animals.”
There’s an invitation in his pause. “Apes!” I declare.
“Can you be more specific?”
“King Kong. He was super stubborn.”
“Also big. I approve of this comparison! He probably had a huge—”
“Brain?” I say sweetly.
“Appetite, I was going to say. Imagine the amount of vegetation a one-hundred-foot-tall ape would consume in a day.”
“Imagine the size of his ape-y turds.”
Brody makes a disgusted sound. “No. I’d rather not, thank you. God, now that you mention it, that jungle probably stunk like a port-a-potty at Woodstock.”
That does it. My giggles turn into full-on, uncontrollable hoots of laughter. I even snort a time or two, I’m so out of control.
“And she’s snorting! Do you snore, too, you delicate flower?” Brody teases.
Still laughing, I say, “Probably. Although I couldn’t say for sure.”
“What, none of your boy toys ever told you?”
“None of them have ever spent the night.” It’s out of my mouth before I can censor myself. Instantly, my laughter dies.
Brody senses my sudden distress. He says gently, “Easy, Slick. I won’t ask.”
Relieved, I release a slow breath.
He adds, “Unless you feel the need to, you know, unburden yourself or something. I hear confessions can be quite cathartic.”
“No, thanks. And I think that’s bullshit, by the way.”
“What is?”
“That confessions are cathartic. I think it’s the coward’s way out.”
His silence burns. He says softly, “How do you mean?”
“I mean if you did something bad and the guilt is eating you up, find a way to handle it yourself, in a constructive way. Don’t go blathering your guilt all over the place for everyone else to deal with. I see it all the time in my practice. A couple comes in because out of the blue the husband couldn’t take the guilt of some one-night stand he had and confesses it to his wife to make himself feel better. Only now she’s devastated. They would’ve both been better off if he’d just kept his mouth shut and dedicated himself to being the best husband he could be in the future.”
After a while, he says cryptically, “Well. That answers that.”
I frown. “Please don’t tell me you have something terrible you need to confess.”
His pause is so brief I think I imagined it. “Well, I was going to confess that I’m sitting here with my dick in my hand because your voice is so fucking sexy it gets me hard, but geez, after that little speech I’ll just keep my mouth shut and deal with it myself.” He chuckles. “Constructively.” He chuckles again. “If you hear any odd moans or groans, just ignore them.”
The heat comes back into my cheeks. “Are you trying to have phone sex with me, Mr. Scott?”
He groans. “God, it’s hot when you call me that in that stern librarian tone. It totally gets my sexy teacher fantasy going.”
“Hmm. Perhaps I’ll have to spank you with a ruler.”
He sucks in a low breath. “Oh, you’re an evil, evil woman.”
“And you, Mr. Scott, are a bad, bad boy.”
“Fuck. I’m gonna ruin these new sheets,” he mutters.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” I say evenly, trying to keep the tremor running through my body out of my voice.
“Wait!”
I hesitate. “What.”
“Say you’ll come to the party.”
I don’t respond.
He says, “Please.”
I still don’t respond.
He says, “Pretty please?”
“I can’t trust myself around you!” I blurt, and instantly want to punch myself in the face.
His tone gets all growly and gruff. “Because . . . ?”
I sit on the edge of the bathtub, close my eyes, and sigh. “Because I’m too attracted to you.”
Even his silence sounds confused. “You realize that makes zero sense, right?”
“It does to me. I don’t expect you to understand.”
“I would if you explained it.”
“No.”
“Gee, hesitate a little, why don’t you?”
“Stop being cute, it’s aggravating!”
“Sorry, Slick, cute is my middle name.”
“Argh.”
“Is this a bad time to ask you what you’re wearing?”
“Oh. My. God. I’m going to strangle you when I see you next!”
His voice brightens. “So you are coming to the party!”
“Good-bye, Brody!”
He says quickly, “How about this—think about this whole situation over the next few days—”
“Which whole situation, specifically?”
“Us. Me wanting you. You wanting me. You being a big wuss and not giving me a chance because I’m so scorching hot your panties melt off every time you look at me.”
“Dear God,” I grumble. “I’ve created a monster.�
�
“Ahem. As I was saying. Think about what you want to do here. Then come to the party, and we can talk about it.”
When I make a dangerous noise in the back of my throat, he quickly adds, “Okay, we don’t have to talk about it . . . you can wear something that will tell me what your decision is.”
“I think you were right when you said you needed therapy. Seriously, Brody, you’re crazy.”
He completely ignores that. “A green dress for ‘Go.’ A red dress for ‘No go.’ Whaddya say?”
“I say you’re nuts.”
“Good,” he says, sounding as if I’ve just agreed to his terms. “See you Saturday then, Slick.” His voice drops. “And please don’t break my heart—wear a green fucking dress.”
Then the bastard hangs up on me.
I open my eyes, stand, and stare at myself in the mirror. “We’re not going to that party,” I say firmly to my reflection.
She doesn’t look convinced.
The next few days pass quickly. I’m busy at work, and exhausted by the time I get home because I’m not sleeping well. I’ve been eating dinner and going to bed early.
And getting up early, screaming and covered in sweat.
It’s a good thing my condo building has excellent soundproofing, because I’d be giving poor old Mr. Liebowitz upstairs a nightly heart attack if he could hear me.
On Friday I have a date with Marcus. By “date” I mean rough, animalistic sex at my place. I come more times than I can count, primarily because the entire time I’m fantasizing about—guess who?
Yes, that’s right. The panty-melting, guitar-slinging, King Kong–channeling, velvet-voiced lusciousness that is Brody Scott.
I’m so screwed.
Lying next to me on his back—sweating and panting, the bedcovers demolished beneath us—Marcus starts to laugh. “Holy hell, Grace. You almost broke my dick off. That was epic.”
I smile drowsily at the ceiling. “I know. I’m a goddess.”
“You taking new vitamins or something?”
Yep. Vitamin B.
When I chuckle at my own inside joke, Marcus rolls to his side and gazes down at me, his eyes warm. He pulls the sheets down to my stomach and begins to languidly trace a finger over my breasts. He says casually, “So . . .”
I look at him sharply, already knowing where this is going. “The answer is no.”
His finger falls still beneath my left nipple. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“You were going to ask whether or not I’d thought about extending our one-month stand. And the answer is no.”
He looks confused. “No, you haven’t thought about it, or no, you don’t want to extend it?”
“Both.”
He blinks. “Ouch.”
I sit up, sighing, and push my hair off my face. I prop my elbows on my knees and look at him over my shoulder. “You’ll find someone else within a week.”
“Yeah, probably. That’s not the point.”
“That is the point. We’re both tramps. It’s what we do.”
“And we’re good at what we do—together.”
I groan.
Marcus sits up and slides his big, warm hand up my back, under my hair. “All I’m saying is that a thirty-day limit seems arbitrary.”
“It isn’t. Believe me. It isn’t.”
He studies my face for a while in silence. Then he quietly asks, “Does this have to do with that big binder you keep on your kitchen counter?”
Immediately I’m in uber-defensive mode, hackles up and hissing. “That’s none of your business!”
It’s as if he takes that as a challenge, because he bulldozes straight ahead. “The binder that contains pictures of your friends and work associates with their names on labels and descriptions of how long you’ve known them, and detailed lists of your bank accounts, insurance policies, credit cards and mortgages, and a letter to yourself explaining that if you wake up and don’t know where you are—”
I jump out of bed and stand livid at the side, my hands clenched to fists, my pulse thundering in my ears, glaring daggers at him. “Get out,” I say, deadly soft, “right now.”
“Grace—”
“You had no right. No fucking right to look at that.”
His eyes are big, dark, and full of something I’m horrified to recognize as pity.
He says, “I get it. Why you do what you do. Keeping people out, pushing them away. It’s a defense mechanism. It’s self-preservation—”
“So help me God, if you say one more word I’ll pick up that letter opener on my dresser and stab you to death with it.”
“Grace,” he says softly, his eyes pleading with me. “I know what it’s like to always be alone.”
“You don’t know anything, Marcus,” I say bitterly. A hot prick of tears stings my eyes. “Now get dressed and get out of my house.”
He purses his lips, looks at me for a while, and then declares, “No.” He leans back against the headboard, his arms behind his head.
I almost scream I’m so frustrated and furious.
I whirl around, stick my hands into my hair, close my eyes, and count to ten. Then I count to ten again. Finally when I’m more calm, I cross my arms over my chest and say, “All right. Go ahead and say your piece. But at the end I’m still going to throw you out.”
There’s a long pause, as if he’s carefully choosing his words. “I saw that binder the first time I came over here, a month ago.”
Mother. Fucker.
“I didn’t say anything because I knew it wasn’t my business. I hoped you’d eventually talk about it, thought maybe . . . after we’d been together a few times and had such a connection, I guess I hoped you might feel safe with me. We’re, like, exactly the same person, Grace. Except I have a dick.”
My voice is hollow when I answer. “We met at a sex club, Marcus. There is zero chance of this ever becoming anything other than what it is: meaningless sex.”
“It isn’t meaningless,” he protests.
I turn to look at him, letting him see the truth in my eyes. “It is to me.”
His nostrils flare. “You’re only saying that because you’re angry with me.”
Suddenly I feel so tired I just want to lie down on the floor, go to sleep, and never wake up.
I sit on the edge of the mattress and take Marcus’s hand. “No. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. It’s not you. And I know that sounds like a total cliché, but it isn’t you. I can’t have that kind of connection with anyone.”
He pulls me against him, tucks my head into his shoulder, and winds his arms around my body. Against my hair he says, “You could have that kind of connection with someone. And he’s right here.”
“Oh God,” I groan. “You have a bigger vagina than I do, buddy.”
My head jiggles up and down as his chest moves with his laughter. “Are you calling me a girl?”
“No, I’m calling you a cab.”
His arms tighten around me. He whispers, “Are you sure? For sure for sure?”
When I answer, “Yes,” without hesitation, Marcus sighs.
“You’re shit for my ego, lady.”
“You’ll survive.”
We lie together for long moments, just breathing. The room is warm and quiet. Beyond the bedroom windows, I hear a dog barking somewhere outside.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything as lonely in my entire life.
Finally Marcus stirs. I look up into his face. He says, “Technically we still have one night left.”
“Oh.”
He chuckles. “Try not to sound so enthused.”
“It’s just . . . it sort of feels like we already broke up. Adding one more night so we can just break up again seems redundant.”
Still chuckling, he kisses me on the forehead. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
Yes. More than anything else, that I do know.
He suggests, “Maybe we could go to the movies. Or somethi
ng that feels not like a breakup but like an ‘ex-fuckbuddy who got friendzoned’ outing. No sex, just hanging out, for our last night together. What do you think?”
A light bulb blinks on over my head. “Like a housewarming party?”
“Sure. That works. Maybe you could introduce me to some of your single girlfriends,” he teases, but I’m too distracted to reply.
Brody did say I should bring Marcus to his party. He also said I should wear something that would let him know, definitively, one way or the other, what I’d decided to do about us.
Us. Like that’s a thing.
I start to get excited. This could be a perfect solution all the way around! I’ll bring Marcus on our last date to the party of a rock star, where there will undoubtedly be several hundred hot, single women milling around like piranha, ready to bite, and I’ll wear a red dress which will signal to Brody in no uncertain terms that there is not and never will be anything between us, and I won’t have to talk about it with him.
Well, isn’t that all wrapped with a pretty bow.
Feeling much better, I sit up and look at Marcus.
“Okay. Housewarming party it is. Pick me up at three thirty. And wear something hot, I want to make sure we pick out a good replacement girl for you.”
As I trot off into the bathroom to take a shower, I hear Marcus’s amused laugh behind me.
He’s going to be just fine.
BRODY
“Check. One, two. Check, check, checkeroo.”
“You’re good!” calls SpongeBob from behind the amp. He pops his square blond head around the big black amp box, grinning, showing off the space where his tooth went missing when he took a drunken header into a curb on our Eurotrash tour in Germany last year. He was so fucked-up he didn’t feel a thing. I haven’t asked him why he hasn’t gotten it fixed, because he’d probably answer with some supremely SpongeBob-y thing like, “Dude, I’ve got, like, two dozen others.”
Some of my best friends are roadies, but they’re generally not the sharpest tools in the shed.
“Cool, man. Thanks.”
I jump down off the stage and survey the setup. My backyard is fucking huge—you could land a jumbo jet out here—and has an amazing view of the Pacific. It also has a private beach, two swimming pools, a separate guest house, and an enormous stand of king palm trees that have been growing on the property since it was first developed back in the forties.
Sin With Me (Bad Habit) Page 7