Chapter 34 Neve
THIRTY-FOUR
NEVE
My phone vibrates beside my head while I lay in the dark, teeth brushed, skincare routine done, trying to sleep in my black and white pajama set. But despite the fan on just right, the background noise doing its best to calm my thoughts, I’m still wide awake and staring at the canopy in the dark.
Cynthia and I left Karter’s nearly two hours ago—it’s two in the morning now according to my phone. What am I awake for? An orgasm between two hot hockey players? Slut D isn’t really fitting with that vibe. I need to earn my nickname better.
Mine and Cynthia’s Uber driver told us to be careful when she dropped us off at the bookstore, saying something about all the murders around here.
Cynthia’s gaze had caught mine.
When we walked through Blackwell’s, she told me that Faust seemed like a better choice for me and Sylvan was just a fuck boy. But the problem is, I’m pretty sure I’m the female equivalent.
My phone unlocks with my face and my heart ricochets in my chest as I see Faust has texted me.
33
How do you feel?
A politely blunt question. Very Canadian of him. I consider not replying but I won’t be able to sleep anyway, my social media accounts are dead since I haven’t been posting lately, and besides, I don’t want to scroll through and see endless conspiracy theories on the murders at Drayton.
Faust, I tell myself, is a good distraction.
I feel like you should be asleep.
He texts me back immediately and butterflies flap their wings in my low belly.
But shouldn’t he be asleep, like, really? He has a game tomorrow. Yeah. Maybe I checked the schedule.
33
If you were here, I would be.
Okay. I didn’t expect sullen and surly Faust Darling to be so smooth on the comebacks, but that last name really seems to fit him, the more I get to know him.
But how well do you actually know him, Neve? And why was he okay with his friend’s fingers doing all the work he should have done? I can’t deny it was both of them that got me there; the feel of Faust at my back heightened everything.
I roll over on my side and yank my covers over my head. In the cocoon inside my canopy, I send something I’m sure I’ll regret.
So would I.
I bite the inside of my cheek and see he’s typing immediately, but then he stops, and I get antsy.
I close my eyes tight one second, willing sleep to come.
But of course it doesn’t.
Because I’m obsessing over what Faust might say next. Like a fool.
33
I could come get you tonight.
Absolutely not. No.
You have a game tomorrow.
33
And?
No, no, no.
Before I can truly talk myself out of it, he double texts.
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I want to cook for you again. Let me pick you up after our game tomorrow night and you can stay over. You know… so we can sleep?
If you just want to fuck me, you can say that.
I keep it light, and I mean it, don’t I?
I don’t care if he wants me as some kind of dirty little secret.
But then again, he’s offering to cook for me after he plays a game, and considering this seems to be his future career, I think that means something, doesn’t it?
Although since when did I become the girl who wants a meal to mean something?
In this moment, I disgust myself. I’m supposed to be the hot, single therapist who fixes women’s marriages by telling them to leave their fuck boy husbands and popping them with a Jungian quote to justify it.
Not the love sick puppy pining after a fucking hockey player.
33
I will. In person. I’ll take you out tomorrow night. Not to a club. Not to a bar. We’re going for dinner. Brighton is five minutes away.
The team he’s playing. Not that I’ve memorized it.
I don’t reply.
I do better with casual sex. And I can’t remember the last thing I ate. Just thinking about it, my stomach growls.
33
That wasn’t a question.
Fuck me. But instead of being a brat back, I try a different tactic.
You don’t owe me anything. After tonight. You know that, don’t you?
He doesn’t have to be a gentleman. Buy me a meal for letting him get hard behind me. I didn’t get him off, and he didn’t even touch me, really.
33
If you owed anyone anything, it would be Connor for letting him touch you.
This is better territory for me. That slight anger in his text. The annoyance.
Did you like letting him fuck me against you?
My heart is about to fly out of my chest, but this is where I thrive.
33
I wanted to be inside you too but I didn’t want to destroy you.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I did not expect him to say that. And I’m not entirely sure what he’s implying. That he wanted his fingers inside me too? That he wanted me on his dick? He is big; I could feel him against me. But how does he like to fuck?
I want to find out.
What if I want you to? Destroy me, I mean?
33
Oh I will, just not yet. I like to play with my food before I eat it.
I’m not your snack. But you might be mine.
He starts to type, then he stops again.
The same thing repeats three times, and my heart slams around inside of my ribcage as I wait for him to reply.
Finally, a text comes through.
33
Make sure you lock your door tonight.
It won’t stop me, but it’ll be cute to watch you try.
I clench my teeth together and close my eyes tight.
In my head, I see Jackson.
Right after I collided with Faust’s chest.
He held me in the dark, menacing and a stranger to me.
But isn’t he still, in too many ways?
But didn’t you like it, when you didn’t even know his name?
I pop open my eyes.
Do you know what happened to them?
I don’t specify whom. We both know.
He doesn’t start typing right away, not like he has before. And for two minutes, he says nothing at all.
The apprehension twists tighter in my gut.
I need to stay away from both of them, don’t I? And Tasia too, for that matter. It’s like I’ve gotten myself wound up in a circle that is full of danger.
Used to be the most dangerous person to me, was me.
That means I can bite back, though. Karter warning me away from Tasia reminded me of just that. I’m not scared of that bitch.
33
Are you afraid I do?
What is the right answer to that? What’s the real answer?
But before I can settle on either, I hear something.
Outside my open bedroom. It sounds like it’s coming from further down the hall, at the front door, and I know Cynthia was heading to bed and her lights haven’t come on.
She doesn’t like to wander around the place in the dark.
She’s slightly afraid of it, but she refuses a nightlight. To toughen herself up, she says.
So who is it?
I throw my covers off and sit straight up in the dark, phone clutched in my hand, heart racing.
Maybe it was nothing.
My overactive, jagged imagination.
I should’ve gone to therapy over seeing that body.
Even I know that. Every time Cyn asks me if I want to talk about it, I tell her it was nothing. I’m totally fine.
Yeah. I’m a fucking liar.
Maybe I’ll book an appointment in the morning. That seems like the responsible thing to do now that I’m hearing things.
But as I look down at my phone, Faust still waiting for my answer, I hear it again.
It’s definitely outside the apartment door.
Like a scratching sound.
Someone is there.