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“And here I thought you were going to say ‘better than murder-y podcasts’.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
“Good. Because nothing’s better than a solid episode of The Mountain Murders.”
Oh, sweetheart, there are things that are so much better than that.
Things I would be happy to teach you.
Why, God, does Kate’s have to be so far from uptown? The drive is starting to feel dangerously long.
I decide to keep my eyes on the road and my mouth shut. It’s my usual MO. Except, apparently, when I’m around Greer.
Heat warms the car. The lights illuminating I-85 flicker through the glass roof. Greer is quiet too, and I can’t help stealing a glance in her direction. My heart dips when I see her looking at me. Studying me, more like it, the lights slicing across her pearlescent forehead and cheeks.
“Tonight was great,” she says quietly. “You’re doing a beautiful job, Brooks.”
My heart dips again. I wish she’d stop saying my name.
I wish she’d say it again.
“Of what?”
“Honoring your sister’s spirit. I didn’t know her, but I imagine she was a lot of fun if she never missed a Friday night glow-in-the-dark skate.”
The tight feeling in my throat returns with a vengeance. I clear it. “She was fun.” Too much fun. And I was too much of a self-involved idiot to pay attention.
Greer’s lips move into a small, soft smile. “Amazing how womb mates can be so different.”
I let out a bark of laughter. It’s unexpected, her joke, and just the hit of levity I didn’t know I needed. My throat immediately loosens. “How have I not heard the womb mate thing before?”
“Because you’re not fun?”
“I am too fun!”
“You are.” Greer meets my eyes. “I mean that. I had the best time, and I hope you did too. I had no idea how badly I needed to blow off some steam and just . . . I don’t know, let my hair down. Even though my hair is, in fact, still tied up.” She reaches for the knot at the top of her head, smoothing the tendrils of dark hair that have escaped her clip.
The gesture is unselfconscious. Obscenely sexy.
I bite the inside of my lip. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I am well satisfied in this department. I shouldn’t be so fucking hungry right now.
Time to change the subject. Turn the conversation back on her. That feels safer. More satisfying too.
“So you have thought about what you need.”
She sighs. “I’ve thought about it all day. How sad is this, though? Until I was skating with you, making an ass out of myself singing and dancing and falling all over the place, I had no clue that’s what I needed. I kept reaching for ‘my needs’”—she uses air quotes—“and just felt like I was grasping at air.”
“Self-erasure is real.”
Greer pulls back. “Wow. I knew you were book smart, but I didn’t know you were in touch with psychological concepts like erasure.”
If only she knew why. “I am the total package,” I joke instead.
“I guess at some point I really did learn how to erase even the concept of having needs. To be honest, I think all girls are taught that. We’re told good women aren’t needy, that we shouldn’t be a ‘stage-five clinger’ or a pain in the ass by asking for anything. That’s what makes us good, that’s what makes us desirable—how little we can get by on. It’s fucked up.”
“It makes me rage-y. I can only imagine how much it infuriates you.”
“The anger—that’s real too.” She scoffs. “Only good women aren’t allowed to be angry, so that’s another thing we swallow. Anyway. Rant against the patriarchy over. But long story short, I’ll answer your question by starting with this: I need more nights like this one. Time away from the bakery. I mean, I don’t think I’ve thought about work at all tonight. Like, not once. And I feel like I can finally breathe, you know?”
“Probably because I was distracting you with my excellent skate . . . manship. If that’s even a word.”
Greer smiles. “If it’s not, it should be.”
“Keep thinking about it,” I say. “What you need.”
“I will.”
I think about it too.
Scrolling through my phone in bed the next morning, I see a marketing email from a resort I’ve visited with my parents that makes me sit upright.
Immediately I think about Greer.
That’s a lie. I was already thinking about her.
I woke up with a hard-on, despite tugging one out before I went to bed last night. Didn’t take long to get it done, clean it up, and climb back in bed. But I had some . . . interesting fantasies while I worked my wrist. Ones that involved Greer’s mouth. Her eyes. The way they’d both water as she sucked me off.
I’m getting hard again.
Shit.
A sign from the universe that I definitely shouldn’t text her right now. I need to put some distance between us before this little crush I’m nursing gets out of hand. No pun intended.
