25. “Someone You Once Had” - ROSIE
“Someone You Once Had” - ROSIE
Walker
I’m going to kill Maeve.
I’m sitting next to Heath in his car, and the tension in here is so thick it feels like I’m in a vat of vanilla pudding. Pudding that smells like sandalwood and orange.
I tried to block out the memories of the Archives last night. The dark circles beneath my eyes this morning prove how unsuccessful I was.
Getting mad at Heath is stupid. He cheated on me two years ago, and I’ve known about it all along. But the way he tried to write it off as self-sabotage only makes me angrier.
It doesn’t matter if that’s why he did it. The fact is, he slept with a long-legged blonde who drove a cherry-red sports car. It’s so cliche I want to gag.
He reaches over and hits the play button. Classic rock fills the car.
I turn it off.
I feel his sideways glance, but I keep my gaze firmly fixed out the window.
Rain has been drizzling down since I woke up this morning.
It’s a dull, dreary rain, the kind that makes me want to curl up in the library with a book.
Not sit in a car with my cheating ex-boyfriend with a bag of candy at my feet.
“Hey,” he says.
I hate that it makes my heart soften. I cinch my internal armor tighter.
“I’m sorry, okay?” he says. After he realizes I’m not going to respond, he adds, “Can you please talk to me?”
We’re crossing the bridge now. He came to pick me up from the manor. It was yet another of Maeve’s stipulations.
“Damn it, Walker.” He smacks the steering wheel with his palm. “What do you want from me?”
I turn toward him. Anger tightens the lines of my face. “I want you to suffer.”
He looks at me with wide eyes, darting them between me and the road. His mouth is open like he’s going to say something, but the seconds tick by before he does. “I have suffered.” He returns his gaze to the road as we navigate through several stoplights. “More than you realize.”
I want to scoff. Whatever he went through, it’s not enough. It will never be enough.
“You don’t believe me? Ask Pierce or any of the others. I was a mess after you left.”
“I don’t know why,” I mutter.
“Because I loved you!”
“You did the one thing you knew would break me!”
He’s quiet, absorbing my words or counting the cars on the road or dreaming of the surf, I don’t know. Finally he says, “I didn’t want to break you.”
“Now you tell me.”
“Walker, fuck .” His voice is quiet. “I only meant to give you a reason to break up with me. ”
I tuck my eyebrows low on my forehead. “Do you realize how fucked up that is?”
“I am aware, yes,” he says, eyes straight ahead. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty fucked up myself.”
I don’t want to feel his pain, but the memories come back anyway. His dad breaking his arm when he was fifteen, knocking him unconscious the summer of graduation, giving him a black eye a few days ago. It’s enough to fuck with anyone.
“That’s no excuse,” I say, even though I’m not sure I believe it.
“I know it’s not. And I’ve beat myself up every day since then, believe me.”
“You got what you wanted, didn’t you?” I toy with a thread on my sweater. It’s already eighty-five degrees outside, but I need to be fully covered today.
“What do you mean?” he says.
“We broke up. You said that’s what you wanted.”
“I never expected you to . . . leave .”
The hurt in his eyes cuts through my heart, adding to the wounds already there. “What did you think was going to happen?”
He digs his fingers through his golden waves. “I thought you’d get mad, we’d argue. I thought you’d break up with me for sure, but I thought we would still be friends. If I had known you’d leave and not come back—”
“Well, I did, so we can put it behind us, right?” I brush my hands across my brown trousers, trying to remind myself that we are grown adults who are capable of having a serious conversation without yelling and screaming at each other.
He nods slowly, like he’s not sure he wants to agree. “Yeah,” he says softly. “You’re right.”
We drive the rest of the way in silence. When he slows the car in front of a three-story townhouse, my heart rate picks up .
“You have the key?” he asks.
I nod and pat my pocket. Maeve gets a copy of the house key of any guy she sleeps with in case they screw her over. She makes a mold of it while they’re in the restroom, somewhere she ensures they always end up by daring them with drinks.
Heath reaches over the center console to grab the bag of Lifesavers on the floor. His arm skims my leg, and even though there is no skin contact, the touch scorches my every nerve ending.
“We’re sure he’s at work?” I say as we approach the house. The rain has darkened the sky so it feels like dusk instead of morning.
“Maeve says he leaves for work by eight forty-five.” He checks his phone. “It’s nine thirty now.”
“Okay, let’s do this,” I say.
The front door unlocks easily with Maeve’s copy of the key.
Heath closes the door behind us, and we both stare around the front room in silence.
Blankets, beer cans, pizza boxes, takeaway containers, gaming consoles, and a stuffed panda bear lie strewn from wall to wall.
Across the lake of debris, the staircase leads upward.
“Why are men such slobs?” I pick my way over a purple thong, pillow, and an empty crisps can.
“Hey,” Heath says right behind me.
We make it to the stairs without losing our lives, but whether we’ve caught any deadly diseases remains to be seen.
The second floor is in slightly better condition. “How did Maeve ever sleep with this guy?” I nudge aside a pair of briefs in the hallway with my foot. I’ll have to throw these boots away.
“I’m guessing he never brought her here. Otherwise she’d have torched the place.”
We locate the primary bathroom, if the bras and panties hanging from the shower door and littering the floor are any indication.
“Either this guy is a cross-dresser, or it’s obvious why he ghosted Maeve,” Heath says, removing a pink-and-red bra from the handle of the shower door with a pencil he found on the vanity.
“Think Maeve still wants cameras in here?” I hitch the bag on my shoulder higher, three pinhead cameras tucked safely inside.
“Too bad if she doesn’t. I hope to god she regrets this,” he says. He reaches into the shower and unscrews the metal head.
We get to work opening the individually wrapped candies.
“They could’ve at least unwrapped these for us,” I say as I drop yet another one on the floor.
It lands on top of a questionable-looking sock.
I reach a gloved hand down to retrieve it.
The gloves are necessary for fingerprint reasons, as well as preventing any number of diseases, but they make removing small plastics impossible.
“Here.” Heath holds out a hand for the candy. I ignore the thrill that races up my arm as our fingers touch through the gloves. He holds the Lifesaver to his mouth and tears it open with his teeth.
“That was just on the floor,” I say.
“If this place is going to give me E. coli, trust me, it already has.”
When we can’t fit another Lifesaver into the shower head, Heath fastens it again. He turns the knob, and a stream of water hits the back of the shower.
“Great,” I say. A sick feeling churns in my stomach. It’s not aided by the pigsty we’re stuck in. “Can you just stick your hand in, make sure it’s sticky?”
He looks at me over his shoulder. “You know that’s not what she meant.”
“She’ll never know.” I am not getting into that shower.
“It’s Maeve,” he says, tugging his shirt over his head. “I’m not taking my chances.”
I avert my eyes from the lines of muscle scrawled across his shoulders, but they inevitably crawl back. He keeps his back to me as he waits for the water to heat up. I should be grateful; that chest is not kind to me. I long to turn him around and trace all of it the way I did at the Archives.
He bends over and strips off his shorts and boxers. I steal a quick look at his ass before he steps into the shower and closes the door.
I act within seconds, having no clue why I’m doing it, except possibly a fear of Maeve too. I drape my clothes over a shockingly empty towel rack. I am not trusting that floor with anything but the soles of my shoes.
Heath spins around when I open the door. His eyes travel the length of my naked body as if he’s never seen it before. He doesn’t say anything, just moves back so I can get in.
I step into the spray, letting it hit every inch of me.
I’m not giving Maeve any reason to say we didn’t complete the assignment to her satisfaction.
The water’s warm, and I close my eyes as it washes over me.
I run my hands over my breasts and stomach.
We won’t know until we’re dry if it works or not, so why not enjoy it until then?
I open my eyes to find Heath watching me, his gaze hungry with need. His cock has sprung to life, and his fingers are clamped around it. For several seconds neither of us move, held in a trance as the water sprays over us.
Then I slowly move my hands back to my breasts and squeeze. His eyes follow my movements. His own hand moves back and forth over his dick. I draw my fingers to my nipples, pinching and rolling them, encouraging them to form hard peaks.
He responds by picking up the pace. His hand pumps up and down, his breathing growing more ragged. Keeping my eyes locked on his, I slide my fingers down over my stomach. When I reach my hips, I grab onto the shower bar beside me with one hand. With the other, I reach between my legs.
A serrated breath heaves out of Heath’s chest. His rubbing becomes erratic, more jerky than before. He must be getting close. I touch my clit, letting my head fall back against the shower wall, and moan. I stick two fingers inside myself. The heat grows stronger.
I open my eyes again when he lets out a strangled groan, in time to watch him release all over his hand.
He rubs the cum all over his cock like lotion.
The sight is so primitive, it unlocks something inside me.
I move my own hand faster, driving it deeper to where I need it most. Every time I open my eyes, he is watching me, a dazed expression on his face.
I can’t tell if he wants me to continue or if he wishes he could finish me off himself.
I don’t find out, because seconds later my own orgasm hits. I cry out and press against the shower wall, thrusting my hips forward as the waves rock through me.
When it’s over, I blink up at him. He licks his lips, but I don’t think he has any intention of kissing me. In fact, I don’t think he has any intention of doing anything.
I reach over and turn off the shower, keeping my eyes locked on his.
We stay like that for several seconds, still soaking up the aftershocks of our orgasms. Then he turns and steps out of the shower.
He waits and holds the door while I get out.
Neither of us says a word as we slip back into our clothes.
The stickiness is already making its presence known, and I get dressed as quickly as I can.
When I’ve finished, Heath has already dug the cameras from my bag and is installing one inside the power outlet over the sink. It only takes a few more minutes to get the others set up in the hallway and bedroom.
The ride back to the manor is quiet. I long to know what he’s thinking, but his face reveals nothing. The rain continues drizzling around us, a soft tap-tap-tap that only makes the silence inside the car feel louder.
When he pulls up in front of my Airbnb, I hesitate.
I’m not ready to go inside, not ready to say goodbye to him for the rest of the day.
I fiddle with the door handle. “After we wash this candy off, do you want to visit the Archives? I assume you won’t be surfing with the rain .
. .” My voice trails off as I motion out the window.
He looks out, then pulls his phone out of his pocket, checking something on the screen. “I can’t today. I already made plans.”
That feeling in my chest is not pain, I tell myself, it’s relief. Spending time with him would be one of the worst possible decisions I could make.
“Okay.” I grab cheerfulness by the arm and force it into my voice. “Tomorrow then?”
He nods. “That’s fine.”
I climb out of his car and walk toward the house. We need distance between us, or bad things are sure to happen. What happened last night in the Archives—or god, what just happened in stupid Randall the Pig’s shower—cannot, under any circumstance, be repeated.
This is good, I remind myself. Distance means we’re moving on.
But none of that keeps me from wondering who he has plans with.