by Megan Hart
“Yeah.”
I shook my head. “No, you’re not. You’re going to be great. I told you not to worry, kid. You’ll get it.”
“I don’t have enough time. I’m never going to learn it all. And the whole thing is making Mom and Dad fight.”
I hesitated. “About you?”
“About the whole thing. The party, all that stuff. Dad and Grandma and Aunt Jill and Mom are all arguing all the time. Nobody asks me what I want,” Willam said fiercely and stabbed a fork into the almost empty paper tray of fries. “Nobody bothers to find out what I want to have for food or what the stupid napkins should say!”
“Have you told your mom and dad this?” Susan, the mother of a single son, had always been a little prone to anxiety about anything regarding him, but my brother, I’d thought, was a little more even-keeled.
“No.”
“Want me to talk to them about it?” My stomach hurt a little already in advance at the thought of having to tell Susan anything remotely derogatory about her parenting skills, but for my nephew I was willing to do it. I’d had a lot more experience dealing with my mother and sister, but I could do that, too.
“No. Mom will get more upset.” He looked up at me with my brother’s eyes, which were by extension my own.
I wanted to hug this kid so tight, to squeeze the breath out of him. In a lot of ways, though I’d never dare say so to his mother, I thought of William as my own. The way things were looking, maybe the only one I’d ever have. The fact that all these adults in his life were supposed to be taking care of him and making this huge transition easier, not harder, made acid rise in my throat.
“Your mom loves you, William. She doesn’t want this to be harder on you than it has to be. I mean…do you need some extra tutoring? Would that make you feel better about it? I know it would suck if you had to go for some extra hours, but if it makes you feel more confident about it, maybe you could meet with the rabbi another hour a week or something.”
He looked at first hopeful then shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Tell you what. I want you to stop worrying about the party bullshit, okay?” I watched him grin at the curse word. Yeah, I knew how to connect with an almost thirteen-year-old boy, that was for sure. “You concentrate on your stuff. And if you really want something special at your party—”
“I don’t want a baseball theme.”
I studied him. “Okay. What kind of theme do you want?”
“Robots, I guess.” William shrugged. “Can you tell my mom?”
“Sure, buddy. I’ll tell her.” I ruffled his hair before I could stop myself. William suffered my touch and even gave me a grin that seemed much more like his normal self. “It’s all going to be okay.”
CHAPTER 19
The Chinese Acrobats were amazing. Alex and Olivia’s tickets were Orchestra, three rows back. I’d never been to a show at the Hershey Theater before, but the art-deco architecture was beautiful, and they sold chocolate during intermission. You can’t beat that.
“He’s cute,” Olivia told me in the bathroom during the break. “Alex says you guys met through your brother?”
I’d washed my hands and now touched up my makeup in the mirror. “Is this lipstick too much?”
She eyed me critically then shook her head. “No. It works on you. That red is great.”
“I don’t want it to look like, you know.” I laughed, self-conscious. “Like I’m trying too hard. Like this is a date?”
“Isn’t it?” She laughed and dried her hands.
I shrugged. “He asked me out for Saturday night. I asked him to go tonight, but…I don’t know. I haven’t been on a date in forever, not the kind where the guy calls you up and asks you out.”
“Why not?” Olivia smoothed the front of her dress and looked to me for unspoken affirmation that she was put together all right before we both headed out of the ladies’ room.
“Haven’t met anyone. Haven’t tried,” I added. “At least not for the boyfriend-type thing.”
She nodded. “Yeah. I get you.”
When we got back to our seats, Niall had bought me a glass of wine. It made me laugh a little, because the theater rules stated you could take drinks into the theater, so long as the cup was covered. It was like drinking out of a toddler’s sippy cup. But still, it was good wine, and he’d bought chocolate, too.
“My favorite,” I said about the rich milk chocolate and almonds. “Thank you.”
“Not everyone likes nuts,” Niall said. “But you looked like you do.”
Beside me, Alex started to laugh. Olivia, on his other side, punched him in the arm. I laughed, too, still channeling teenage boy, I guess, but I also got warm and tingly because he was right. I do like nuts in my chocolate. We were both still chortling when the lights flickered and dimmed, and as the theater got dark, Niall leaned close to me to murmur in my ear.
“You have the best laugh I’ve ever heard.”
I found it very hard to concentrate on the show’s second act.
His knee brushed mine every so often. His pinky finger, splayed on his thigh, brushed mine, too. I waited, semi-breathless, for him to take my hand. He didn’t. But I wanted him to.
Just before the end of the second act, my phone pinged. I scrambled for it, embarrassed that I’d forgotten to turn off the ringer. The music in the show was loud enough that I don’t think anyone heard it, at least not enough to be severely annoyed. I thumbed the screen to see a notification from my message app.
New message from JohnSmith
I didn’t read it, and I tucked my phone into the side pocket of my purse, but the blink, blink of it lighting up let me know he was sending me a lot of messages. The show ended, and the lights came up. While we waited our turn to exit, Niall gestured at my bag.
“Do you need to check that?”
“Not right now.”
We let the crowd sweep us outside and into the parking lot, where we said goodbye to Alex and Olivia. Neither of us made a move to get into our cars. It was a repeat of the first night we’d hung out, though much warmer. I found myself wishing it was cold, so I’d have an excuse to borrow his jacket again.
“So,” Niall began, his standard start to a conversation. His phone rang from his pocket. “Ah, hold on a second. It’s my mother.”
While he chatted with her, I pulled out my phone to check the messages from Esteban. Close to twenty of them, increasingly graphic, and though he had to have seen that I wasn’t reading any of them, increasingly inquisitive, as well. The last one was the direct question:
R U there?
Sorry. Out right now, will catch you in a bit, I typed, hitting Send as Niall disconnected.
“I told her I was going out tonight, but she forgot.” He shrugged. “Since my dad died, she’s been a little…needy.”
“But you’re a good boy to take care of your mother,” I said lightly.
He didn’t look thrilled. “Good boy, nice one. Thanks.”
“I was teasing you. Good man?”
“I’d rather be called a man,” he said, and looked at the phone in my hand, which was merrily lighting up every time a new message came in. “Everything okay?”
“Oh. Yeah. That…is a friend.”
“A pretty insistent friend, huh? One of the guys from the pictures?”
I shook my head. “No.”
Weird, awkward silence. The parking lot had cleared out, and we were among the last people there. Security would probably kick us out soon.
“So…” I laughed at how I’d picked up his pet phrase. “Do you want to go somewhere else, or…?”
“It’s kind of late. Work in the morning.” Niall looked around the lot then back at me. “Unless you wanted to? I mean…”
“No, it’s all righ
t.” I waited to see if he’d lean in for a kiss. A handshake. An awkward shoulder punch. Something, anything, but all he did was take a few backward steps toward his car.
“I’ll call you about Saturday,” he said.
I nodded. “Sure. Talk to you later.”
Feeling a little disgruntled, a little put off, I watched him drive away. In the front seat of my car, I looked over my phone again to find another few messages from Esteban.
Where R U?
What R U doing?
There’d been plenty of times when I didn’t hear back from Esteban immediately. For him to be so adamant about a reply from me was irritating. I thought about simply deleting the texts, but that was a thing with me. I hated not being answered so fiercely that it had become sort of sadly pathological for me to never ignore a message.
I was out.
He read it and replied at once. Where?
The problem with having a conversation via written messages on a tiny screen is that you can’t judge the other person’s tone of voice. Add the tiniest bit of a language barrier—Esteban’s English was impeccable, but he didn’t always get the idioms correct, for example—and I knew I should be careful about assuming he was grilling me versus merely being curious.
I went to see a show with some friends.
After that, he didn’t message again until I was walking in my front door.
May I call you?
Before I even had time to type an answer, my phone was ringing. “Hello?”
“Hello,” he said in a low voice. “I’ve been missing you.”
There are things that men say to women that should be flattering, but sometimes are not, depending on how and where and when and who. “You have great tits” whispered in a whiskey-soaked voice late at night in bed can make a woman moan; that same “compliment” shouted at her by a bunch of strangers as she crosses the street, not so much. Esteban had told me that he missed me before, but tonight it sounded more like an accusation.
“I was out,” I said.
“Was it a good show? What did you see?”
I described the show to him as I undressed, an eye on the clock, thinking that the morning was going to come too early. “Listen, it’s late, and I’m tired.”
“Who did you go with?”
“Some friends.”
“Was it a date?” he asked.
We were more complicated than we were supposed to be, but I was not his girlfriend. He was not my boyfriend. We had an arrangement that had been carefully constructed and was still somewhat fragile in the aftermath of his abruptly breaking it off.
“Yes, it was,” I said.
Silence, then a sharp sigh. “I see.”
“You know, Esteban, I don’t ask you where you go or who you go with when you’re not with me.”
“You could. If you wanted to know.”
“Well,” I said sharply, “I don’t want to know.”
“I want you now, so much. I’m so horny.”
I was not in the mood for phone sex, nor in the mood to coddle Esteban through whatever shit he obviously had going on. However, a good, hard fucking was not something I’d ever be likely to turn down, especially not these few days before I was due to get my period, when my hormones were raging. If I couldn’t eat everything in sight, an orgasm or three would suffice.
“Come over.” I’d never invited him to my house before, but I didn’t feel like going out again.
“I…can’t.”
“Well, then, I guess you’re out of luck.” Annoyed again, I took off my earrings and bracelets and put them away. Next step would be the bathroom to brush my teeth and shower. His time was rapidly running out.
“I’m on fire for you.”
I frowned. “And? What do you want me to do, sweetheart, talk you through jerking off?”
“Oh, please! Por favor…” He lilted another long plea in Spanish that normally would’ve melted me, but tonight I only felt manipulated.
That was it. We were going to have an honest-to-goodness argument. Part of me wanted it, in that twisted sort of way that happens in complicated relationships where too much goes unsaid until finally you end up exploding with it. Part of me wanted to remind him of his place, because he did have one, and it was meant to be at my feet.
“You seem to have forgotten something, sweetheart, and that is you exist for my pleasure. Not the other way around.” In panties and bra, I stood in front of my bathroom mirror and ran a hand over my body, thinking of Esteban.
“Oh, yes,” he muttered. “Yes, I know that. I exist to serve you.”
“Words. Nice words, but really, you don’t, do you? You exist to work and eat and shit and sleep. Not to serve me.”
“No,” he protested. “I do. I want to! I want to please you, I want to give you—”
“You want me to get you off,” I told him coldly.
“Yes. I do.”
I looked away from my reflection. “I’m tired now. I don’t want you to beg me. I want to go to sleep.”
“Take me into bed with you. Let me help you fall asleep, touch yourself, I want to hear you make yourself—”
“You are not listening to me,” I said. “Do you remember what I told you in the beginning? At the very start?”
He sighed. “I remember many things you told me.”
“I said I wanted a man who would listen to me,” I said.
“And obey you. Yes, I remember.” He coughed a little.
“I don’t feel like getting you off right now. I don’t feel like making the effort. I am tired, and I have cramps and what I really, really want is to just eat something really bad for me. Okay?” I put paste on my toothbrush, but had lost the energy for more than toothbrushing. “I know your cock is hard, but you’ll have to take care of it yourself tonight, and the more you pester me about it, the more aggravated I’m going to get.”
“I understand.” He sounded angry.
I didn’t care. “I’m going to sleep now.”
“Thank you for letting me call you,” Esteban said, and my heart panged.
The bitchy domme is a stereotype for a reason—because there are plenty of men who get off on being humiliated, and lots of women who like to assert their control with arrogance or cruelty. And hey, I’m all about whatever works. If a guy wants someone to put his balls in a vise and his cock in a cage or to get whipped by a riding crop, I’d never say it’s wrong. But that’s never been my style. I would never call myself particularly tenderhearted, and certainly never unselfish. I might not always be kind, but I’m never purposefully cruel. I fumbled, sometimes, with him.
“Good night,” I told him. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Will I still see you Friday?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“I thought maybe no. If you were angry with me.”
“No. I still want to see you. Even if I’m a little angry with you, I still want to see you.”
He made a noise as though he meant to say more, and I waited, giving him the chance to speak. But all he did was disconnect, and all I heard was silence. I looked at myself again in the mirror. Tits and ass and belly, tired eyes and no smile. And I was alone.
In bed, beneath the weight of a sheet that was too heavy for the heat, I cradled my phone and wept until I had to flip my pillow. Then I stared with swollen eyes into the dark and tried to imagine the stars. I couldn’t do it. All I saw was dark.
I miss you.
The message went out. Unread. Unanswered. I was too tired even to cry again, but one thing I decided before I at last let sleep overtake me.
I’d wanted to be alone for a long time, but I didn’t want to be alone anymore.
CHAPTER 20
Thursday passed in a flurry of work. Friday,
Alex was out of the office, meeting with clients and working whatever magic he did to get people to invest their money with him. I’d seen him put on the charm. It was pretty impressive. His absence left the office too quiet, though, which I noticed during a welcome lull in the steady stream of phone calls and emails I’d been dealing with all day.
Niall had not called. I’d checked my phone several times, when I remembered, and checked it again now. Nothing. I had his number. I’d called him already; I could do it again. Yet something stopped me. He’d said he would call me about Saturday. Shouldn’t I wait to let him?
The pseudo fight with Esteban had left me restless. We hadn’t spoken since. My stupidly predictable late-night text to George had been less than cathartic, even if it had made me think about my life and what I wanted from it now. The idea of actually dating made my stomach twist, but…well, who really wants to be alone forever? Monthly and even weekly hot sex dates were great and all, but there was a lot of time left in the month when that was over. Love could keep its distance, but finding someone to go out with on a regular basis, someone to cuddle with while watching TV, that was suddenly looking a lot more appealing than it had in the past few years. I wasn’t quite ready to sign up on a dating site, and besides, when a ready-made date slaps you in the face, you don’t turn it down.
I called Niall.
“Hey,” he said, sounding wary. “I was going to call you.”
“I had a little break at work and thought I’d call you,” I said, then paused. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah. Sure. I was just, um, hey, I’m pretty busy now. Can I call you back?”
“Of course. Later, then.”
“Sure. Later,” Niall said.
And that was it. The full extent of our conversation had taken oh, fifteen or twenty seconds, tops. And he had not sounded glad to hear from me; nope. I didn’t need a degree in astrophysics or even interpersonal communications to figure that out. I put my phone flat on my desk and ignored the chiming from my computer of more emails coming in.
To Esteban I might be Goddess—benevolent, stern and fully at ease with the knowledge I deserved every bit of his worship, but that self-confidence was not always natural. Sometimes, all it takes is twenty seconds of blatant disinterest to make even a goddess feel unwanted. Nobody likes that.