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Makes me want to give her what I do have. I would also like to give her another orgasm. But that’s off the table. She told me she risked her career and her reputation once. She didn’t need to add that she isn’t interested in doing it again.
I get it. I respect it. Still makes me want to pull out my hair when I say, “I know you’re tired. I’ll be quick in the bathroom.”
Her face falls. Or maybe I’m imagining it does after a day spent wanting her so badly even my skin seems to ache. But putting some space between us now is the right call.
It has to be right, even if it feels all kinds of wrong to quash my curiosity about her family. She had a lonely upbringing, that much is clear. I may have grown up poor as shit. I may have been raised in utter chaos. But I was never lonely. My parents always made my sisters and me feel like we were the center of their universe. I did feel like an imposition being born to parents so young, but that’s on me. They loved me from the start, and have only ever wanted to see me happy.
Guess I’ve taken that for granted while jealousy and ambition got the better of me. For a while, all I could see was how much of a leg up people like Nora have. They got the kind of head start I could only dream about. But maybe I had something special too in being different—in having the kind of family I do. For so long they were the source of all my worries. I still worry about them, constantly.
Thing is, I know they worry about me too. And Nora’s showing me that that kind of concern—that kind of thoughtfulness—is rare.
It’s special. For the first time, a glimmer of light peeks around the perpetual storm cloud that inhabits my head and heart. As I wash my face and brush my teeth, an almost giddy sense of gratitude takes root in my center. I find myself actually wanting to call my mom, to chat with Shelby so I can double check that Brixton is finally leaving her alone.
I also want to give Nora a big old hug. But my dick likes that idea a little too much, so I make quick work of cleaning up after myself and head to the pullout couch.
“Night,” I say as I pass Nora, careful not to look at her or the king bed just begging for a bout of all-night fucking. The slow, quiet kind. Hotel sex. Lights out, eyes locked, sheets kicked to the bottom of the bed as I spread her legs and she reaches for me and I sink inside her. I imagine she’s so tight and hot it hurts.
My balls scream and I almost do too. I close the bedroom door swiftly behind me, running the back of my hand across my forehead. I’m sweating again.
What the hell?
I glance at my duffel bag on the desk underneath a nearby window and wonder what I should wear to bed. Usually I sleep naked, but I obviously can’t do that now. I go with a pair of athletic shorts and a fresh T-shirt. Then I call my mom, talk to my sisters, and try not to imagine what Nora does or doesn’t wear to bed as I turn on the TV.
I get in my makeshift bed and flip through the channels, stopping when I catch The Gilded Age on HBO. My family is obsessed with this show, so I’m well acquainted with Aunt Agnes’s beef with the Russells. Weirdly enough, it’s exactly what I’m in the mood to watch. Maybe because it reminds me of my family and I really do miss them after hearing about their weekend plans to play in the snow and make a big pot of Dad’s chili. I drop the remote and tuck my arm behind my head, settling in just as a new episode comes on.
That’s when I hear it. The same music, coming from the other side of the wall.
Nora’s watching The Gilded Age too.
I smile, my pulse kicking up a notch. This keeps happening, Nora and I ordering the same sandwich, buying the same pervy souvenirs, fighting over the same stinky cheese. Now we’re watching the same show. It’s almost like the universe is trying to tell us something.
I should not go there. I shouldn’t do anything except finish this episode and go the fuck to sleep. But I’m suddenly desperate to know what Nora thinks about Meryl Streep’s daughter nabbing a starring role in the show, and if she thinks the new-versus-old-money thing still exists, because I definitely do. Would a society girl like her ever consider slumming it with me, the way Meryl’s daughter is pondering a proposal from the lowly-yet-handsome lawyer dude with no money but lots of potential?
