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“Well. I have licked you between your legs, Cara Summers. So I think that maybe we don’t need to have barriers up between us.”
“Tell me about the cigarette, first.”
“Sometimes I smoke after sex. There. It’s that basic. Or when I’m really drunk. Sometimes both of those things are happening at the same time.”
“Oh. It’s just...”
“It’s relaxing,” he said. “That’s all.”
“I see.”
And hell, because he had had his face between her legs, he didn’t really see the point in holding back the truth of it. “I was never really all that into hard drugs. And let me tell you, there’s opportunity for all of that out on the rodeo. I’ve tried just about everything. But mostly, what I learned was how to smooth out the rough edges incrementally. Little whiskey here and there, an orgasm is a great sleeping pill. A cigarette will finish you off. That’s it. When I don’t want to think anymore, those are the things that I do. I’m a high-functioning self-medicator.”
“Oh. I guess I just... I see you as someone who’s amazing and strong and doing really well. I guess sometimes I don’t see how much pain you’re still in.”
“No, didn’t you hear what I just said? I’m not in pain, because I know how to keep all that going. An unbroken chain.”
“Sure. So it’s not really because of me specifically. This is just a thing you do.”
“I needed to think.”
“Did you... I mean... Was the sex good for you?”
He sat up straight. “You can be in any doubt of that?”
“Yes. I can. Because I’m just a person. A person who is very... Vulnerable, when it comes right down to it. There’s a reason that I haven’t been with anybody. And that is what you wanted to know. I grew up so isolated in a lot of ways. Everybody here was mean to me. I wasn’t cool. I was this poor, very unfashionable girl, who lived with her grandpa. White trash. My mom was a drug addict and everybody knew it. And I never knew who my dad was, and everybody knew that too. I was one of those kids. The ones that nobody wanted to touch. And it was my grandpa, and the bar and the town that ended up grounding me here. And yeah, I like to flirt at the bar. But can you imagine if I actually let any one of those guys sleep with me? Then they would all think that they could. It’s all fun and games when it’s flirting.” She looked away. “And anyway, what I said is true. I saw you touch this woman one time... All I could think about was what that must be like. And I swear to you, Jace, you are my friend, and you always have been. And I feel guilty about this. I do. But I’ve thought about sleeping with you. A lot.”
He took another drag on the cigarette. “Tell me,” he said, blowing the smoke out into the air.
“The night before the hotel... The night before I... I told you that I was a virgin... I couldn’t sleep. I started thinking about you and... Then it seemed like the easiest thing in the world to touch myself.”
He flicked the cigarette down onto the ground and twisted his boot over the top of it. “What are you telling me exactly?”
“I touch myself sometimes and think about you. About you being the one to touch me. About us... In bed together.”
“You know, it’s a good thing I never knew about that before now. Because you would not have been untouched all this time.”
“You don’t feel violated by that?”
“Did you really think I would?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I felt really guilty about it. Like it was an invasion of your privacy. But...”
“But, you were too horny to care?”
She laughed, and he could see that her cheeks had been stained dark pink with just a little bit of charming embarrassment. “I guess. Isn’t that kind of the human condition?”
“Yeah. Often. I guess tonight is a good example of that. Look, Cara, for me... I decided a long time ago that I wasn’t going to look at you that way. I wasn’t going to let myself think about you that way because I had to protect you. For all the people that were mean to you, from anything that they might say. Because you’re right. There was stuff. About your parents. And I didn’t want anybody to think that I was using you like that, and say the kinds of things about you that they said about your mom.”
“Oh.”
“So that’s one reason. The other is just that I wanted to take care of you the way that I would’ve taken care of Sophia. And so I put you hard in that category. Sister. I wanted to treat you like my sister. But you weren’t my sister. That’s the thing. And it’s funny, because I fancy myself a realist. I don’t talk to ash bottles on the shelf in the back of a bar. But I sure as hell have spent my life trying to compensate for her not being here like she could see it. Like she can see what I’m doing. Like it might mean something to her. Shit. I never really realized that about myself. It’s a hell of a thing. It really is. I like to tell myself that I’m too... Logical. Realistic. But I’m just living as a tribute for a ghost I claim I don’t even believe in. So, what am I supposed to do with that?”
“But not tonight,” she said softly, looking down at her hands.
“No. Not tonight. That was about you and me.”
And yet again, that feeling rose up inside of his chest. That booming need to do something.
