I caught the jealousy, though, when Cherry's name came up. I saw it move across her face in the half second before she got it back under control, that quick hot flash in her eyes before the composure came back down.
I liked it more than I had any right to. Loved it, actually. And that's a problem. I'm keeping a running tab of problems at this point.
Throw, catch.
The kisses. We agreed, without saying anything, that it wouldn't happen again. I've been thinking about doing it again approximately every fourteen seconds since.
The worst part is I just want to be around her. That's what I keep coming back to, underneath all the rest of it. The real problem began when I started thinking it's not just sexual, though it's also that. A lot of that. But underneath it all, she's just a person who makes time pass differently. I can sit in a room where she's talking and every other conversation goes slightly out of focus. I could just listen to her, that's it, that would be enough.
That's insanity. I throw the ball harder.
I think about the tastes conversation again, and I regret saying it the second it was out of my mouth. She treated that information like a starting gun and went at it with a level of determination that should have been alarming and was instead, somehow, the funniest conversation I've had in months.
My tastes aren't that complicated, if I'm being honest with myself. I'm not rough. I'm not cruel. I've spent my adult life being careful with people. I just like a certain kind of dynamic.
The word for it is degradation, but I'm in no way serious enough about it that it needs a label.
I just like calling a woman filthy things while I'm inside her. I don’t believe them, and I don’t want her to. It's about the moment when she says the worst thing she thinks about herself, the neediest, most desperate version, the one she's afraid makes her too much or wrong. And I don't leave.
I have my reasons for keeping that particular preference out of Harbor Hill, reasons that have nothing to do with shame.
I don't need that dynamic for good sex. But I wouldn'tshow this town even the blandest version of myself, let alone that. It’s harmless and yet this town will never let it go.
But then there's Lily. I stop that thought cold, because the direction it's heading is unacceptable. I've always stuck with women who are older, women who can keep the power balanced from the start. No tipping the scales, no exploiting vulnerability.
And Lily is twenty-two. Which means she is entirely, absolutely, off-limits.
I won't imagine her like that, surrendering and needing and mine. I won't picture her on her knees, voice breaking, calling herself my...
No. My body doesn't get the memo. My cock twitches anyway, and I hate that. I hate how fast the image comes, her eyes on mine, lips parted.
No. The seven years between us feels like a chasm, one I won't cross, no matter how hard it pulls. She's a menace and trouble and she makes me laugh at two in the morning, and I have a hard time thinking about her that way.
I drop the ball on the nightstand, sit up, scrub both hands over my face. I pick up my phone. Lock the screen. Unlock it.
I should take a cold shower, not sit here thinking about texting the girl I told myself I'd stay away from nine seconds ago. And yet. Here's the thing: I’ve been searching Harbor Hill news archives for hours, looking for something, anything that would keep her from walking the streets alone in the dark.
That's the excuse I'm going with. Public safety. I found a flasher article. Some guy who wandered Main Street for twoweeks back in 2018 until one day he just vanished. It's more local history than actual threat, but it'll do.
I type out the message before I can talk myself out of it.
Me
Sending this as a public service. [link] This is what roams the streets of Harbor Hill after dark. No more solo walks.
I hit send.
Three dots appear almost immediately, which means she's also awake at two in the morning. I'm not going to think too hard about that.
A photo comes through: Obama, specifically Barack Obama mid-grin, draping a medal around his own neck. Captioned: when you are so correct that you award yourself.
I laugh hard and loud into my empty bedroom. My dad sleeps at the other end of the house or I'd be in trouble.
Me
The man does need a medal He has the face of a God and a Nobel Prize.
Trouble
