Page 23 of Back for Seconds

I stood naked in front of my full-length mirror, heart hammering under my breasts. I could see my pulse in my neck, gently shaking the thin silver chain of my necklace.

For many months I’d gone totally unobserved. Like an abandoned home in the woods. Time and nature were changing me, but there was no one who seemed to care. But if I tried to sleep with Joey, if I made a move…

My tattoos popped against my pale olive skin, all crisp lines and soft shadows. I’d added a few more since my divorce: a snake around my forearm and an ornamental cuff that contoured my left breast. My tan lines had come and gone without anyone ever seeing them. My hips had gotten wider, receded, and widened again in the privacy of my jeans.

I squeezed my eyes shut. If I try to sleep with Joey and he rejects me, that means I’m the problem. The thought throbbed through my skull, and I realized how hard I was clenching my jaw.

I forced myself to sit on the edge of my bed and inhale for four, hold for six, exhale for four.

My mom was right.

We were doing big, scary things. And it wasn’t going to be easy. But I didn’t need to do it all tonight. I just needed to put on clothes and show up.

***

“Dear Lord.”

My headlights bobbed and bounced, casting a narrow, erratic light over densely packed trees.

Joey’s place was an unmarked log cabin just a few yards down a dirt path that opened up quite suddenly off the side of a two-lane highway adjacent to the Atlantic City Expressway, deep in a stretch of No Man’s Land too far from the marshy, bayside suburbs to be considered still Evergreen, but not near enough to any other town to have a proper name.

I didn’t really park my car so much as simply stop a few feet from the cabin, too tired of fighting against the gripless mud. I put it in park and sighed.

If I hadn’t already scrapped the idea to invite Joey into my boudoir, that plan would have gone out the window the exact moment I turned off the narrow, unlit two-lane road that led to the cabin in the woods where Joseph Pagano filmed his sexy little viral videos—and also maybe chopped up naive lonely women. I’d known, of course, someone as handsome and seemingly normal as Joey had a freaky secret. Foolishly, I’d thought the sexy internet videos had been it.

The front door—painted a festive shade of crimson and adorned with a pine cone wreath—suddenly flew open, and Joey emerged like a beam of summer sunlight from behind a rain cloud.

I climbed out of my car and yelled out to him, “Why didn’t you warn me that you lived in the sticks?”

Joey waved at me from his front porch, welcoming warm light and the smell of cinnamon spilling out from around him. “Look at the happy camper,” he boomed, dry and sarcastic. “Who needs a warning?” He opened his arms wide, gesturing broadly at the dense, uninterrupted expanse of trees on either side of the house. “This is paradise.”

Poor Joey.

There was no doubt in my mind this little cottage nestled at the end of a muddy road in the shade of two enormous evergreen pines and a handful of bare-branched maple trees had something to do with his recent breakup. Not that heterosexual women don’t love a cozy cabin in the woods or the sweet, still smell of country air. They just usually also like a paved driveway or maybe, I don’t know, house numbers and a streetlamp.

The cabin was adorable—petite with picture windows aglow with warm light, string lights wrapped around the wooden frame of the half-enclosed porch. I could make out the shape of a Christmas tree through his front door, wide open at Joey’s back. A homey smell drifted down on the humid, chilly air, wrapping around me like a cozy blanket.

I unstuck one of my Docs and continued clomping up toward him, arms outstretched, a bottle of rosé pointed at him like a magic staff as I toddled. Joey watched on with his fists pressed into his hips, moonlight winking off his bright white canines and the gold chain around his neck. He was wearing an apron over his usual Joey uniform—black T-shirt, black joggers, fashionable sneakers.

“Want me to give you a hand?” He stood at the top of the porch steps, eyebrows tented in amusement.

“Where’s the fun in that?” I grunted, pulling my right foot loose from the muck with a big guttural suck. “Wine. For you. As a thank you.” I pushed the bottle into his chest when I reached the top of the steps, only mildly out of breath.

“Wine for me?” He turned the bottle over in his hands. His hair was loose tonight, soft ringlet curls tucked behind his ears, falling just past his shoulders. He smelled new, different. Like cologne, maybe—a clean, sharp smell that made my breath catch. “You didn’t have to bring anything.”

“Of course I did. You bought me a Christmas tree, and you’re about to feed me something delicious.”

I tilted my head back, lifting my nose into the air. The aroma of whatever he was making had reached the porch, curling on the air through the open door. Cinnamon I’d recognized right away, but now notes of lush, savory simmering herbs tickled my nose, followed by the instantly mouthwatering fragrance of garlic sweating in hot olive oil.

“I told you,” he said, fluttering his eyes at me. Dismissive, cheeky. “I got somethin’ to prove tonight.” He palmed the bottle and turned it over in his hands, running his thumb gently back and forth over the colorful label. “Tempranillo. This’ll pair perfectly.” It was a gentle stroking motion that moved all the chorded muscles in his forearms, drawing my eyes up the width of him. I pressed my lips together. Maybe ruling out a one-night stand with Joey had been a mistake.

“I just liked the label.” My voice came out thin, burdened. Palpably horny.

“Oh yeah?” He laughed. “You got a good eye.” Then he flicked his head back toward the house. “Come on, Junebug. Let’s feast.”

***

A long hallway flanked by a set of steps led to an open kitchen and living room, the back wall of the cabin lined with sliding doors that opened out to a deck big enough to fit a grill, a table and chairs, and a ramp that led down to more land. Off the big open room was a smaller, more formal dining room that was currently empty.