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“Tell me anyway,” he insists.
“A couple of years ago, I was looking to purchase my first vibrator. I didn’t want to go to a sex store, so I thought I’d order online. But it turns out, there are like a million options. Some of them are body-safe, and some of them aren’t. I finally ordered a good one, but I wanted to help other people who are new to adult toys. People shouldn’t have to choose between safety and pleasure. You can have both.”
“And that’s why you have the other toys? For the video channel?” He presses.
“Yes,” I answer, thankful when my voice doesn’t crack. They’re a pale replacement for him, but he can’t ever know that.
We’re both quiet for a few long minutes when he says, “Tell me something else.”
“Why are you so curious today?” I chuckle. He ignores me most of the time when he comes around the house or Mom’s candle shop. I mean, I get it. I’ve always been the girl who annoyed him, who followed around him like a lost puppy. He must think I’m pathetic.
“I love the sound of your voice,” he says.
“No, you don’t. You hate it when I babble.” I stop touching him and try to push against him. I don’t want to have this conversation when he’s still inside of me. When he’s still touching my hair and acting like he could be my boyfriend. “You hate me too.”
8
GRIZZ
“What the actual fuck, Ginger?” I demand as she pushes against my chest. She thinks I hate her, that I can’t stand it when she talks. Nothing could be further from the fuckin’ truth. All that time trying to keep my distance backfired in a big way. She didn’t realize I was doing that for a reason, trying to keep her safe. Fuck me, I hurt her.
“It’s fine. You don’t have to like me,” she sniffs.
“Don’t do this,” I pull her closer, not willing to let her go. “Let me explain.”
She doesn’t melt back against me like she did earlier, but at least now she’s stopped trying to get out of my embrace. I don’t know what to say, how to tell her that she owns my heart. She’s owned it for the past two years. “You showed up at the camping store. Knew it was my birthday.”
“You were so grumpy that day,” she says, her voice tinged with a note of sadness.
I squeeze her hips, wishing I could absorb her pain. I’d rather walk on a bed of rusty nails than ever hurt her, but that’s exactly what I did.
“I only knew because you left your wallet at our house a few weeks earlier. I may have, um…gone through it.”
“You did?” I don’t even remember losing my wallet, but I’m not surprised that she found it. Before that day at the store, she was always around. My bubbly girl, my sweet sunshine.
“It’s not my fault. I wanted to know if you had condoms, if there was a woman you liked.” Her voice quivers on the last word.
“There’s never been anyone but you,” I promise her fiercely. I’ve spent my life celibate, always thinking no woman deserved to be saddled with me. I’m still not sure if I deserve anything good, if I’m worthy of Ginger. I doubt I’ll ever be. That won’t stop me from spending the rest of my life trying to spoil her.
“Really?” She finally looks up at me again.
“You’re my first, my only.” I brush a soft kiss to her mouth, relieved when she opens to me. I sweep my tongue inside, only pulling away when she’s panting. She’s curled up against my chest again. My dick is still wedged firmly between her thighs, his new home. “You noticed that something was wrong. You called me on it back then, remember?”
“You kept insisting that everything was fine, but you seemed so disconnected,” she says. “Well, more than usual.”
Somehow, I’m not surprised that my sweet girl noticed my pain, the darkness that’s always been around me. “My mom had died a few months before.”
She makes a noise of sympathy. “Grizz, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“No one did,” I explain. “She was a junkie, and even though she abandoned me, I still had this idea in my head. I thought that one day she’d want me back. Spent sixteen years waiting for the day she’d care.”
She reaches for my face, cupping it in her tiny hands. The look she sends me is filled with affection. Affection that I don’t feel worthy of. “She missed out on getting to know an incredible man.”
“I thought it was my fault. I kept blaming myself for not saving her. It took over a year of cognitive behavioral therapy to realize she needed help,” I admit and brace myself. No one knows I went to therapy, not even Greer. I know there’s nothing wrong with it, but it was in the back of my mind that everyone would know I’m broken.
