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And definitely more than enough to help me remember everything else. My fingers slide downward, under the comforter, to drag down my chest and splay against my stomach. It’s easy to make it real enough that flickers of revived embers seethe to life inside of me, heat pooling between my thighs as they tense and press together.
I have to get over this.
No matter how great they had been. I miss sex, I realize now. But more importantly, I missgoodsex. It’s beenmonthssince my last hookup, and so much longer than that since I can say I’ve had really good sex, if ever.
But God, there’s no way they’d be bad at everything they held back from me last night. Especially if they took their time.Especiallyif I could have both of them at once.
Still, somehow, I chase away the lust and the pleasurable burn that’s making itself known in my body. My parents are going to be home soon enough, and there’s no way in hell that I want them to knock on my door anytime within the next ten minutes or so.
At least not until I’m awake and not imagining their hands on me.
“Okay, okay,” I sigh to myself, reaching a hand up to the back of the sofa. Instead of finding the slightly rough weave of the couch, however, my fingers land on warm, soft fur covering a cat too fat for any cheap cat tree.
Stranger purrs, his body vibrating under my head. I’m careful as I pet him, minding the scars I know rake along one side and the leg that is still sensitive, even after being repaired and six months of living in the house instead of the feral colony.
“Where’s Kale?” I ask, as if my fat tabby will know where the orange cat is. Most likely in the cat tree by the window, or on the bed under my desk. Out of the two, Kale is more temperamental and less likely to be cuddling with me when I wake up.
I turn to look up at him, eyes falling on the chubby pouches on either side of the cat as he rests on the back of the sofa. His light green eyes stare at me, heavy with sleep, and I can’t help but smile at his adorable nose.
He really is my favorite mistake, since everyone had advised me not to bring home a half-dead feral that would never grow to be comfortable in the house.Everyonehad been wrong, and my chubby Stranger had moved in like he’d owned the place and had just been waiting for us to realize it.
“You’re adorable,” I sigh, sitting up and scratching his forehead just over his eyes. His purrs deepen; rattling his entire frame, though he doesn’t move, as if he’s much too sleepy to get off of his impromptu bed.
From downstairs, I hear the front door open and close, and a moment later my mom’s voice travels up the stairs.
“We’re home!” She sounds breathless, as if my dad has had her laughing the whole way home at his dumb puns. Though knowing them, he has. They’re anyone’s standard for marriage, in my opinion. At least, for anyone who wants the perfect American dream. A doting husband, a loving wife.
They’ve never wavered, though I have no idea how they manage to barely even argue at the worst of times.
“Hi Mom!” I call back, wiggling out of the shorts I’d thrown on to sleep in and chucking my tee onto the bed with them. I don’t really care what I wear around the house today, but I rummage around until I find a pair of loose black sweatpants and an orange jack-o’-lantern t-shirt. Over that I slip on a hoodie, then pause.
It’s not right.
The hoodie itself isn’tright, and I immediately know by the way it smells of too much detergent that I’ll need to wash it again. It lands in the laundry basket and I frown, glaring at it like it’s personally offended me by soaking up more than it should in the machine.
It isn’t anyone’s fault that I struggle with strong scents or weird textures against my skin, and I try to never make it anyone else’s problem, either. If I have to wash the hoodie eight times to get the smell out, so be it.
“Hey Dad,” I add belatedly, when I have another hoodie on. This one isn’t a zip up, but I’ve cut the neck hole into a slightly deeper V to prevent it from being as choking as I normally find them to be. Stranger moves when he hears my parents, striding to jump onto my bed and curl up once more on the blankets thrown on top of it.
When a door slams, Kale scuttles out from under my desk, his ears flat and his one eye wide. My parents won’t take it personally, and I don’t either when he doesn’t even stop to look at me before disappearingunderthe bed, as if Stranger’s closeness provides him with the emotional support he needs.
While I wish he’d come further from being feral and settle into the life of a house cat as effortlessly as Stranger, I sigh and remind myself that he deserves as much patience as he needs to get there. And even if he doesn’t, even if he stays a little skittish and nervous around anyone other than me, that’s more than okay, too.
My door opens a second later, and I raise my eyebrows to look at my mom, who leans against the doorframe with a frown curving her lips downward, accentuating the lines around her mouth.
“Did something happen?” My eyes linger on the different parts of her face, noting how harsh the frown lines make her look and watching as the crows’ feet around her eyes rush to answer their challenge. My mother isn’told, in my opinion. At only forty-three, her prematurely silver hair and the lines make her look older than she has any right to.
Though if there’s one gene I hope I didn’t inherit from her, it’s how quick her hair went gray and the lines became apparent.
“Do you not know?” Her pale eyes pin mine, and I stare back at her, thoughts from the party crossing into my thoughts.Does she know I almost fucked two strangers? I panic, thinking for a wild moment that someone there knew her or told her somehow…but a second later reality sets in and I look away, studying the closet doors.
“Emily,” I say, the word nowhere near a question. “You heard about Emily.”
“If you knew last night, I wish you would’ve called us.” She strides into the room to hug me around the shoulders loosely, her hands linked behind me.
I lean into her, pressing my nose against her shoulder as I close my eyes and murmur, “I wasn’t going to ruin your night, Mom. Nic called and invited me over.” She’d also told me more about Emily, and her fuckingfingers.
But I still can’t find it in myself to be, well, upset. Emily was directly responsible for Daisy’s death. The fact that she never, not once, made a real apology or had to pay for what she did has always felt unfair. And well, maybe this is karma evening the score.
