“Right,” Blakely said before hopping off of the counter and increasing the space between us. It was like someone snipped the tether between our bodies, leaving me to bleed out. I hated the tremble on her lips and the shrill ringing on my phone. I couldn’t be accountable to Lance. Something within me feared that he would know. He would hear the betrayal in my voice.
The phone stopped ringing, and we stared at one another. There was a dare in her wide stance. Those slender arms crossed at her chest were beating me down with the unspoken words buried deep there.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” I finally whispered.
16
Blakely
Decker left for work at four a.m. I know this because I was wide awake, buzzing with regret and an ache I couldn’t quite place. I heard him when the shower kicked on and the subtle slam of our front door, letting me know just how he felt about our little slip up last night.
It wasn’t a little slip up. It was a major fuck up. A divine gift.
Not five minutes after my crashing orgasm, he was scrambling for his shirt and cursing himself. “We shouldn’t have done that,” he whispered. The rational part of me knew this. I was analyzing the scene from all angles, regret pooling between my thighs like the orgasm he rocked through me.
I wanted to do it again.
“Lance is like my brother, you know?” he said while scrubbing his hands along his face, squeezing his eyes shut like it was too difficult to look at me. The turmoil in his eyes was too much to take in. I’d fleetingly predicted this somewhere between palming his dick and coming on his hand. I knew it would lead to this—we both did.
And yet we didn’t stop. We stole sighs from one another, reveled in the friction of our bodies and the taboo nature of our desire for one another. We kissed like alcoholics, sipping wine from our lips for a brief buzz. It should have felt cheap, but it didn’t. It felt selfish and wrong.
“I know. This was nothing, remember?” I took a baseball bat to those words and slammed them till they broke. How could something so vibrant and beautiful feel so hollow now? His eyes raged, daring the both of us to whisper what we both knew. Feelings like this came in waves, and both of us were drowning. I didn’t say that though.
We disappeared into our respective rooms with lead-filled steps. I could feel the ominous dare hovering over us. Say something. Admit something. Feel something. Want something.
I pitied myself for a little while. Spent hours counting the shadows on my ceiling as cars passed outside. This was what Mama did. She pined after men that didn’t care about her. She kept saying he would be different. Or, this is the one, Blakely. I can feel it.
And for all my talk of not being like her, I realized that I was just running in circles, dragging myself right back to where it all started. I was a woman that compromised her happiness for a man willing to compromise his morals for a warm body. It made me sick, and I told myself enough was enough. I couldn’t do this to myself, if not for Lance, for Mama. I didn’t watch her die a painful death just to become like her. I was smart. I was headstrong. I was deviant and determined.
So I got ready for class with a smile stitched between my cheeks. My steady hands applied soft makeup to my lashes. My heels hugged the arch of my foot as I strutted around the loft, avoiding the kitchen because I couldn’t stomach the idea of breakfast.
And I drove myself to class.
Maximillian met me at my locker, leaning against the cold metal with a notebook in his hand and a boyish grin on his face. “How are you this morning, Blakely?”
I returned his good-natured grin while chewing on the mint gum in my mouth. I was gnashing the rubber treat so hard my jaw was sore. I convinced myself that I wasn’t pretending it was Decker between my teeth, though I could almost taste rust-like blood pooling in my mouth, thanks to my overactive imagination. “I’m wonderful, you?” I asked, the lie making my teeth loosen from their blow.
“Better now.” Maximillian Hemsworth had charm in spades. It was a physical allure that teased your senses. His shirt was effortlessly pressed but not too stiff. His hair looked the perfect amount of messy and tame. His tie was slightly crooked, and those massive arms of his flexed the moment my eyes landed on them.
“You’ve got game, Maximillian,” I replied with a smile, but I wanted to scowl. Dark hair and pursed lips flooded my mind. I whisked them away. I was armor, baby. Steel.
“I feel like I’m pulling out all the stops. How about you let me take you to dinner?” Maximillian asked before shoving his right hand inside his pants pocket and bouncing on the balls of his feet, feigning that coy shyness I’m sure he thought girls loved. I breathed him in. Even his cologne, a masculine hint of sandalwood and bergamot, seemed orchestrated in some way.
No was the word I wanted to blurt out. “Why not?” I replied with a shrug. If I tried to put distance between Decker and me, Maximillian might be the man for the job—my metaphorical rehab, so to speak. Some people were like drugs. They made you feel great for a little bit, but then you felt like molten tar from the inside out. Decker was prime, white-powdered cocaine. The kind of stuff Mama bought with our tax refund money.
“Your enthusiasm is doing wonders for my pride, doll,” Maximillian replied while biting his lip. I fluttered my lashes, a move I’d seen Mama do a million times, and it made me sick. I was just about to open my mouth to lick his wounds with some verbal enthusiasm, but a dark presence breezed past us. It felt like someone had walked over my grave. I turned to stare. Decker had dark circles under his bloodshot eyes and a blank expression on his face. He walked past like I was…
Nothing. Like I was nothing. Exactly what we told each other we’d be.
“Hey, Mr. H!” Maximillian called at his back. Decker paused. His spine so stiff it could cut ice.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he spun around to face us, his eyes never once greeting mine. “Get to class, Mr. Hemsworth,” Decker gritted out before heading off toward his classroom.
Maximillian let out a low whistle. “Damn. I don’t know how you tolerate him. Grumpy bastard,” he said with a laugh. I nodded because it was the expected thing to do. Because if I didn’t, I would have dropped everything and chased after Decker to demand an explanation or a promise. Neither would be productive.
“Let’s go to class, alright?” I said before looping my arm through his in a comfortable gesture that felt like pricks on my skin.
“As you wish.”
Decker was insufferable in class. It was like someone had shoved a stick so far up his ass that he was speaking in splinters. “Taylor, are you going to raise your hand for every question I ask, or do you have plans on letting other students speak up?” he asked while clicking through a slideshow on the front screen, letting out puffs of white-hot annoyance with every exhale. Beside me, Taylor lowered her hand before leaning forward so that her brown hair covered her embarrassed flush. Biology had never been so…tense.
“What is the purpose of an enzyme? You should have learned this last year, so every damn hand in this room better be up,” Decker gritted. No one seemed fazed that he was cursing in class.
My hand was the first to shoot up, and his eyes glossed over me like I didn’t exist. Buick raised his hand with a lazy wave as he stretched his back. “Yes, Buick?” Decker called on him.