There it was again. Cai above all else. Silly to expect more after the short period we knew each other. From now on, I’d keep reminding myself just how short that period was.
Darryl and Rosa were busy loading my dishwasher despite already knowing I had a maid who came in to do just that. I didn’t miss their not-so-casual glances our way.
I said my goodnights and avoided two-stepping the climb upstairs by the smallest of restraint.
In my silent, lonely room, I stripped to boxer briefs and crawled into the cold sheets, trying not to conjure up images of Peter climbing into Darryl’s arms.
Whore-Colored Glasses
I woke up to Peter spooning me from behind, his teeth chattering in my ear, “Cold,” he whispered while he insinuated his legs between and over mine.
“Try clothes,” I said, feeling his body mold against me.
“You’re warm.”
“If you’re here about the oral exam, I’m playing hooky,” I said groggily.
He yawned in response, nuzzling the back of my neck. “Too tired to get off,” he murmured and settled into the embrace, hips pressed against my ass. His nudging hardon started a chorus of beats in my pulse. I stiffened—in more ways than one.
I wasn’t used to this Peter. The one who affectionately cuddled with me while he shuddered from my air conditioning. “Good,” I lied. A brief flicker to my bedside clock read 3:22 a.m.
When his hand slipped down my chest, resting against my stomach, my brain twitched on as the slew of questions chugged through it. “I thought you were sleeping with Darryl?”
“Are you telling me to go sleep with Darryl?”
“I’m trying to figure out why you’re here.”
“Because I like you and you invited me?” He rolled off me, and I twisted to watch him push a hand through his hair. In the diminished light, the strands resembled the shade of oxygenated blood. A sense of foreboding started a shiver at the base of my spine.
“You like me, Darryl, and who else?”
“Are you asking me if you and me are exclusive?”
“Definitely not. We barely know each other.”
“I haven’t decided if I like your jealousy,” Peter mused.
“I’m not jealous over a guy I met a week ago.” Yes, I was. Fucking ridiculously jealous over a guy I met a fucking, lousy-ass, goddamn week ago.
“My father married my mother three days after they met.”
“Your father also killed and maimed people for a living. How about we just place him in the Not-To-Emulate pile?”
“And obviously you can’t marry me,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken.
“Obviously.”
“It’s not legal in Colorado.”
“Which is of course the only reason I wouldn’t marry a whore I met a week ago, who plays me like the Philharmonic’s conductor, and alternates between hostile, affectionate, murderous, manipulative and horny. We’d have to put Sybil on the fucking license.”
“Who’s Sybil?”
“A woman with multiple person— you know what? That’s not the point.” I twisted full around to sigh at him.
“I thought we were discussing a question, not a point.”
“Then answer the fucking question.”
“I did. You just had your whore-colored glasses on and didn’t believe me.”
“You like me.”
“Yes.”
“Or you feel obligated to me?”
The beat of silence was my answer.
“Okay. So what if I do?” He shrugged, pulling his knees up and leaning back on his hands. The sheet fell below his waist. So did my attention.
Christ. “Because it’s just another way of whoring yourself!” I forced myself to search his face for a response. He lifted a shoulder.
“Again. So what? I’m attracted to you. You like me. You want me. That’s why you’re doing all of this, right?”
What was I going to answer? That I wanted to save him from himself? That I didn’t want what happened to Jesse, to happen to Peter? That Rhonda Pendergrass had given me a taste of what was to come, and that I was wrapping a chain around Peter if I had to, in order to keep him from becoming that.
“I’m just supposed to accept your obligatory fucks and call us even?”
“Maybe I’d be up here for a different reason if every word out of your mouth wasn’t ‘whore’?” He said it so calmly, just resting back on his hands, staring at the ceiling, breathing slowly, that it was hard to tell if he was angry. It took a little work on my part, studying the way his mouth trembled an in the dark, to consider maybe he was hurt.
“Yeah, well, I’m an asshole,” I said.