If she lashed out the way she wanted to, she could wind up homeless as well as jobless. She could find another job easily enough, but she’d never find another place she could afford on part-time wages. She’d have to drop out of school. If she confronted Lenny, she’d lose everything.
She had to leave. This was too much for her to process here, in Lenny’s home. In her dad’s home.
But she hadn’t walked Holmes yet.
She considered texting Tristan and asking him to do it for her, but that would inevitably raise questions she didn’t want to answer. So, head swimming, she strapped Holmes into his harness and grabbed a poop baggy. She could get this out of the way and head home; maybe the air would do her good.
She couldn’t say the air was cleaner outside—it was L.A. after all—but it smelled like air instead of cloves and marijuana. It was an immediate relief to be out of the usually comforting scent of Lenny’s apartment, even with a hundred-fifty-pound dog jerking on her shoulder.
While she walked, the sound of her shoes rhythmically hitting the pavement was grounding. Holmes tugged on her, sniffing his way along the sidewalk and the sporadic tufts ofweeds cropping up through the cracks. The buzzing in her brain started to fade the farther she got from Lenny’s.
Maybe she was being too hasty. This was a problem, yes, but one she could handle. She needed space, which posed an issue when she worked for Lenny and rented from her. She’d been able to save a bit of money with her discounted rent—which, she now realized, was likely the result of guilt on Lenny’s part—but probably not enough to find another place to live. At least, not one that had electricity or running water, let alone the internet she’d need to keep up with her homework. So she couldn’t find another place to live. Maybe she could get another job? She liked the store, and it was convenient that she lived right above it, but she could look into freelance coding projects. If she didn’t rely on Lenny for her income, she would feel better. Some distance between them would help give her perspective.
Her phone buzzed as she was considering the likelihood of getting good recommendations for freelance sites from her teachers. It vibrated in her pants, and her blood ran cold. It was probably Lenny, texting to check up on Holmes or letting her know what time she’d be home. It would be an innocuous text, but the idea of replying as though she didn’t know, hadn’t found out, made her feel like someone had stuffed cotton balls in her ears.
Breathing deeply to steady herself, she withdrew her phone from her pocket and lifted it, depressing the power button just to light the screen.
It wasn’t Lenny at all. It was Des.
How presumptuous would you find it if I said I bought a vibrating cock ring?
All the air left her lungs in a rush of laughter, and Holmes lifted his head at her curiously before approaching a lamp post todo his business. Just the pure Des-ness of the text made her feel lighter, freer. Maybe what she needed was a good old-fashioned distraction.
Just presumptuous enough.
When should I come by?
20
She walked to Des’s place. When Holmes was fed and walked and safely tucked back away inside Lenny’s place, Cami thought about catching a bus, but waiting for one to arrive and then sitting immobile while she went through fifteen different stops on the way to his place would take longer than walking anyway, and she wasn’t sure she could stand being still for that long. She could hear Des’s voice in the back of her head, an echo of that night they’d run into each other at Pacific Park, urging her to let him walk her home or to take a cab. But he wasn’t here to walk her, and she didn’t want to waste money on a cab when unemployment was looking like an increasingly preferable option.
So she made the walk to Ocean Park in the fading light of evening, taking note of the extravagant houses and their opulent lawns. But she had enough on her mind without adding more insecurity over her and Des’s income disparity. Tonight, she just wanted a pleasant distraction. Something to stop her from spiraling into angst and anxiety while she processed what she’d learned. Des and his basket of goodies would be exactly what she needed to keep her mind off things.
She stopped in front of Des’s place and turned toward it. His bike wasn’t in the driveway, but the garage door was down. His porch light was on, though it wasn’t all that dark yet, and there was a set of solar-powered lights sticking out of his lawn, lining the stone pathway to the porch. She followed the path, watching her toes as they stepped from one stone to the next, avoiding the cracks for no real reason. Maybe she didn’t want to have reasons for anything tonight. She wanted to do things just because.
She stepped onto the porch, opened the storm door, and knocked on the wooden one. She only had to wait a few moments for the door to swing open and Des to appear there, backlit by his hall light and smiling as though she were the most welcome sight he’d seen that day.
“Hey,” he greeted, stepping back to make space for her to come in.
She crossed the threshold and moved into his space in one motion, then lifted to her tiptoes and kissed him.
For a heartbeat, he seemed too surprised to respond, but then his lips parted and his hand came up to cup the back of her head, fingertips sifting into her hair. She tried to deepen the kiss, but he drew back, nipping gently at her lips until she sank back to her standing height.
“Hey,” he said again. This time, he sounded a little hesitant. “I’m sorry I didn’t call or text earlier today. It was a bit of a shitshow and?—”
“It’s okay. I get it.” Cami stepped back and slid her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She cocked her head in the direction of his bedroom. “Shall we?”
His eyes narrowed at her. “Are you alright? You seem a little... off.”
She exhaled and then forced a smile to her face. “I’m alright. I had kind of a bad day, and don’t really want to talk about it. I’m looking forward to a distraction.”
Des absorbed this quietly, surveying her as he thought. Maybe he was looking for signs that she was mad at him, or that this was some kind of trap. “You sure?” he asked. “If you want to talk about it, we can. We don’t have to fool around. We could just watch a movie, or order a pizza or something.”
Cami lifted her shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor at their feet.
His tongue darted out to moisten his lower lip. “Right. Got it.” His hands found her waist and he lifted her so she could wrap her legs around him. She let herself get lost in the scent of him while he walked them to the bedroom.
The door knocked again,louder and more insistently this time, and Des reluctantly drew away from Cami, who was still bleary-eyed and sweaty from the orgasm that had swept through her a few minutes earlier. He tucked himself into his jeans, which hadn’t made it all the way off, then pulled on the shirt he’d discarded on the floor when they’d migrated to the bedroom. He wasn’t put-together, but was at least presentable when he padded into the foyer to answer the door.
