47. Bleeding Love
JILLIAN EDWARDS
HELL WEEK: MONDAY, DAY ONE
First day of the Fuckening.
Always punctual, never polite.
It’s five a.m. Still dark.
I’m on the pantry floor,
the Fuckening basket at my feet,
digging out the bottle of noir,
scanning the labels one by one.
AirPods in, volume high, my period playlist blasts “Red Red Wine.”
Then a cramp fists through,
and suddenly—
I’m horizontal,
clutching my survival kit to my chest.
Wine, chocolate, heating pad, ibuprofen.
The four horsemen of menstruation.
A shadow creeps across the marble path through the kitchen. Ben—bedhead pointing north, gym shorts sagging south.
He’s a zombie walking toward the fridge, half-asleep. Then his eyes drop, and he spots me on the floor,
a creepy The Ring girl in the dark corner.
His body jerks back, a six-foot-two man
lifting high off the ground.
His scream rips out, pure horror—
the kind right before the chainsaw revs.
But I only see the shape of it on his mouth as he bounces off the drywall, the sound drowned out by the wine-soaked reggae slurring in my ears, palm trees rocking while his face melts into terror.
He rights himself fast, mouth going a mile a minute, boxer hands beating the air faster than his Brooklyn tongue can keep up.
He’s still silent to me.
All I hear is Red Red Wine sludging,
like my bloodstream’s half merlot.
Another cramp hits, and I keel over,
groaning and crawling toward him.
Ben jumps back.
“Yo, bro—nah, get up. Get the fuck. Up.
“Don’t crawl at me in the dark.
“The fuck’s wrong with you?!”
Another groan claws up my throat.
// 7:04 AM //
The sunrise is spilling onto the terrace as I walk into the kitchen.
Ben’s at the counter, blond hair spiked from sweat, gym tank clinging as he reorganizes his new spice rack.
“Mornin’, Period Poltergeist,” he grunts, then turns to me and points into the living room with the paprika. “Mind explainin' the Jersey trash passed out on the couch?”
My gaze follows his hand to a shirtless Andrew lying face down, his dark, sleep-ruined bedhead buried under a pillow.
His back’s a whole summer skyline, broad, warm, breathing in and out and alive, melting my frozen heart into the marble, and my ass into the chair at the breakfast table.
I curl my knees up into my chest, hating that he’s sleeping out in the open, exposed. An easy target for anyone stupid enough to fuck with him, touch him, hurt him.
He wouldn’t see it coming.
And my heart turns violent at the thought of it, starts loading weapons, tugs on my veins, ordering me to stand guard as he sleeps, unwilling to take any chances now that Hunter’s out of prison, cocking her pistol and unsheathing her dagger like—why the fuck’s my Andrew on the couch?
“Baby, you crazy?” Ben says, eyes narrowing. “How far you goin’ with this shit?”
I turn my attention to the window,
ignoring him.
Stage one of Hell Week:
I’m one hundred percent mute.
All week.
Ben calls it childish.
He’s right.
Childish works when the goal is to drive people away, make them frustrated enough to leave, just to see if they do.
Andrew wakes, muscles stretching warm under morning shadows. He pushes up slow, groggy, lifting onto his elbows, hair wild, back tight, sleep still dripping off him.
He grabs his glasses from the arm of the couch, slides them on, and glances over into the kitchen.
The second he sees me,
his tired face snaps into a mosaic of
hungry, relieved, undone
all at once.
Last night bleeds out between us in felt-green and neon—
the floating chalk,
the chatter and clatter of the pool hall,
the contract,
Hunter’s shadow
following us out the door.
Then the Lexus.
The slam of the car door.
His hands.
My moan.
Fogged windows.
Heated eyes.
Broken breaths.
City lights spotlighting
the sweat along his neck.
My climax flooding the night.
Then him,
this very moment,
in the morning after,
our entire night caving around our stare.
If Andrew survives the next five days of Hell Week, our contract officially begins.
Until then, his ass is on the couch.
Ben’s voice snaps me out of it—
“The fuck he doin’ here? He lost?”
Andrew yawns on the way to the coffee machine, checks the pot with the back of his knuckles. “Nah, I stay here.”
He yanks open the cabinet and finds the mugs, acting as if he’s lived here forever.
Ben stares at him for a silent stretch of seconds. “Stay here?” A laugh leaps out of him. “Stay here?”
Andrew doesn’t turn, keeping his back to Ben, and he shifts onto one hip, stoic, as if Ben is dust he can’t wait to sweep up Friday. “Don’t know what to tell you, man,” Andrew sighs, pouring into his mug.
Ben snatches the salt off the counter angry, blue eyes drilling into me, then back at Andrew. “Yeah? So now you stayin’ here, huh? You a Boy or what?”
“Nah, I ain’t a Boy,” Andrew’s quick to correct, then throws his hand out at the spice rack. “An’ you don’t throw oregano in the back.”
Ben gives him a nasty once-over.
“Shit looks good by color.”
“Shit’s stupid,” Andrew mutters. “You build sections. You got the Italian herbs: oregano, basil, parsley, and rosemary together.” He lists out, “Savory spice base: paprika, cayenne, chili flakes by the oils. Then the baking corner—that’s how you fuckin’ do it.”
He said baking corner,
and my cunt’s half ready to gush,
half ready to ghost.
Ben’s nod turns to me, his knuckles turning white around the salt.
“Nah, you hear this guy? He your man now? Got yourself a boyfriend, Baby?” He smiles at me like he got thrown into an MMA ring by mistake.
“Cute. Him gettin’ cozy, kickin’ back on my couch.
Tellin’ me how to arrange my spice rack? Bullfuckin’shit.”
Then—
Ding goes the elevator.
Ben’s salt-holding hand lowers slow.
“Now who the fuck could that be?”
The elevator doors slide open.
Honor stands there, duffel clenched in his fist, shoulders squared—tall, tatted, sexy in the way that makes men glance down at their own hands, their bodies, their dicks, as if he snatched the swag right off them.
Ben sizes him up, growling,
eyes cutting back to me.
“Baby, nah. What the fuck is this?”
Andrew’s face hardens,
eyes crashing into mine,
the navy going dull.
All confidence drains from his gaze,
leaving nothing but doubt.
He knew Honor was coming,
probably hoped I’d change my mind.
I didn’t.
Honor walks into the kitchen and holds out his hand to Ben. “Hey, man. Honor, from Philly.”
Ben coughs up another laugh, wide eyes flying back to me. “Hell Week? You serious? That’s why you ain’t talkin’,” he mutters. “How about that timin’, huh? Real convenient you got Clocktower Crybaby and whatever-the-fuck-his-name-is movin’ in the same week you play mute—”
“Honor,” the new Boy corrects.
Ben’s eyes swing to him.
Then back to me, his salt-holding hand up and pointing. “That why you were crawling across the pantry floor this mornin’? Hell Week and the fuckin’ Fuckening?” his voice rises as he bends forward. “HOW FUCKIN’ CONVENIENT.”
Convenient?
Hunter’s out of prison.
My uterus’s ripping wallpaper off its walls.
My heart’s confused.
Little Death’s jonesing for a fix.
And worst of all:
today’s Mom’s birthday.
Dropping all this on Hell Week?
Call it what it is—masterful art.
Call me the fucking Picasso of petty.
Call Hell Week my rehab, ‘cause Baby’s about to go five straight days with no climax—my way of proving I still have control over my body, that I own my addiction, it doesn’t own me, and if I can go a whole week, then I win, and I don’t really need the Baby Contract, or the Boys, and if they can’t handle me at my worst, then they don’t deserve to be here at all, so for the next five days, call me Sober Sue, and this addiction my bitch like this was a sane fucking decision.
And somewhere between convenient and decision, the kitchen fell silent.
Ben and me stare each other down.
Honor clears his throat. “You really puttin’ nutmeg next to the paprika?”
Ben grits his teeth. “It’s color-coded.”
I press my lips together,
holding back a laugh.
Honor drops the duffel on the floor.
“Hear me out. You don’t line ‘em up by color. Put salt, pepper, garlic up front. Shit you actually grab. The rest? Back row or in the trash. That’s it. Done.”
Ben straightens. “The trash? Nah. Look at this shit. All the reds in one row: cayenne, paprika, chili flakes. Then the oranges. Then the browns. I know where everything’s at. The ombre system’s stayin’. Shit looks fire.”
Honor snorts.
“Fire? Looks like you tryna start one.”
Andrew grabs another mug from the cabinet.
Ben nudges his chin at Andrew.
“You makin’ that for Baby?”
Andrew doesn’t answer, unfazed, but his shoulders flex, as if the name Baby got stuck between the blades.
Ben chuckles, placing another jar into the rack. “Word of advice, bro—she’s picky as shit. Get her coffee wrong? You just ruined her whole day.” Then Ben turns his attention to Honor. “An’ you—rules are, you stayin’ here? Hands off my spice rack, or I’ll fuck you up.
“Serious. I know how.
“I’m a boxer.”
Honor holds out his hand to Andrew,
going for the handshake.
Andrew bypasses it, lifting his mug for a sip on his way to me.
Ben nudges his chin.
“That’s Andrew from Joisey,” he mutters. “He ain’t important.”
Andrew slides a steaming mug in front of me, then drops into the chair.
At my breakfast table.
Next to me.
Making me freeze.
‘Cause this isn’t normal.
No one sits there.
My gaze falls to his coffee.
Then drifts to my own.
We’re both having coffee.
At my fucking breakfast table.
Is that… coffee together?
Andrew winks, like—
another check off your wishlist, angel.
I scoff and reach for my coffee.
“So silent treatment’s your play, huh?” he says. A shadow of a grin slips into his mug as he brings it to his mouth.
My eyes bail to the terrace,
to the skyline,
anywhere else.
Honor scratches his jaw. “Just so we’re clear, thought I was here to keep you comin’? But if one of these guys is your man, what’s my lane? ‘Cause I ain’t tryin’ to piss nobody off.”
Silence falls around the kitchen.
A handful of awkward beats pass.
Honor turns to Ben.
“Yo, why ain’t she talkin’?”
“She does that sometimes.”