9. Jasmine
JASMINE
As a child, I never slept with the lights off.
I had glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling of my bedroom—cheap plastic things that peeled at the corners and lost their glow by midnight.
When those faded, I kept a cigarette lighter under my pillow.
I’d flick it on just to watch the flame, warm and alive, dancing like it could chase the monsters out from under my bed.
When I lost the lighter, all I had left was the blue light spilling in from the living room—the TV left on all night.
That soft electric glow under the crack of the door, flickering with late-night talk shows and ‘I Love Lucy’ reruns.
And when all else failed I had the moaning of my mother, her pain, love, anger flowed through the trailer as easy as air, and I swallowed it willingly, eagerly even.
If my mother had a boyfriend, I slid my toy box in front of my door and slept with my shoes on. Something my mother taught me at four.
Men are unpredictable, she’d say, lighting a cigarette with one hand, stirring boxed mac and cheese with the other. They say they love you, and maybe they even mean it. But they always love something more.
Other people. Younger people. Hurting people. Money. Drugs. Control.
Men will always love something more than you, she’d murmur, eyes heavy with an incoming high, her voice thick with resignation. And all women want is to be loved, right?
She never said it bitterly. Just… truthfully. Like it was a fact as fixed as gravity. Like heartbreak was a birthright passed from mother to daughter in place of lullabies.
And maybe it was.
Her first couple of boyfriends were kind enough to me. Mean enough to her. The kind of men who opened jars and doors, but not their mouths when she cried. They came and went like bad weather—never staying long, always leaving for someone better, someplace better.
I mean not everyone left for better. My father left because he loved music more than he loved my mother. More than he loved me. At some point, he loved drugs more than music, when he came back home drugged out and desperate it was boyfriend #4 who got rid of him for good.
It was boyfriend number four who scared me so much I pissed in a bucket instead of walking past him to use the bathroom.
He used to fall asleep on the couch in just his boxers, the TV playing old WWE reruns on a low, endless loop.
He never turned the volume down, just let the sounds of grunts, slams, and yelling fill the trailer until morning.
He’d sit there half-awake, half-drunk, slouched deep into the cushions with his legs spread wide, like he ran the place. Like he paid for anything.
There was something wrong about him.
Not loud wrong. Not obvious.
But the kind of wrong that made the air feel heavier when he walked into a room. Like everything got a little quieter. Tighter.
His eyes were the worst part.
They never stayed where they were supposed to. Always looking too long, too low. His stare felt thick, like it stuck to your skin. I’d catch him watching me and feel my stomach twist. Not because of what he said—he never said much—but because of what he didn’t. Because of what I couldn’t prove.
Just the way he looked at me made me feel like I needed a shower.
I avoided him as much as I could. Kept my door locked. Slept with my shoes on. Slept in layers, even when it was hot.
One night, I couldn’t help it. I was twelve and thirsty, and the water jug in my room was empty. So I crept into the kitchen barefoot, careful not to let the floorboards squeak.
He was already there. Sitting at the table in the dark. No shirt. Just staring.
“You always this quiet, kid?” he said, voice low and wet-sounding, like something rotting in his throat.
I froze.
His eyes moved over me in a heavily slow motion, like it was difficult for his eyes to stay above my chin. I wore one of my old childhood tank tops, stretched thin at the straps and too loose around the chest. I crossed my arms, trying to shrink.
“I’m trying not to wake anyone up,” I mumbled, trying not to let my voice shake as I moved to the cabinet, sliding an empty glass into my hand.
He walked up behind me, slow like a hunt, and brushed his hand along my arm. I flinched so hard I dropped the glass. It shattered across the floor.
He grabbed my shoulder—not hard, not soft. Just wrong.
“I have to tell your mom, that you’re growin’ up,” he said. “That top’s too small for you.”
Then he tugged the strap. Snapped it. Ripped it.
That sound—the soft rrrrip of cotton—cut louder than the glass.
I didn’t scream. I ran.
Out the front door, barefoot and breathless. The night air slammed into my lungs like a second skin. I didn’t stop running until I hit the edge of the trailer park. Then I collapsed into the faded lawn chair next to Old Man Greaves’ satellite dish, curled in on myself like a dying animal..
That was the mildest of the dreams that dragged me out of sleep in the dead of night. I don’t know what set them off—three weeks here without a single nightmare, and now suddenly, they won’t stop.
Lately, I just lie there for hours, staring at the ceiling, letting the flickering shadows from the nightlife outside spill across my walls like ghosts I can’t shake.
When my insomnia turned to hunger I found myself in the kitchen, elbow deep in my grandmother’s parker house roll recipe. It was one of the things she taught me as a child, arguably the last piece of her legacy.
The smell of flour, butter, and yeast settles around me, and I focus on the task in front of me.
Measuring. Mixing. Kneading. The motions are familiar—things I’ve done a hundred times before.
There’s comfort in the repetition, in doing something with my hands that has a clear beginning, middle, and end. It keeps my mind steady. Focused.
“Well, shit,” Landon drawls from the doorway, arms crossed over his bare chest. “Tell me what I have to do to keep you looking like this every morning.”
I glance up, my hands still sunk into the dough. He’s leaning against the doorframe---shirtless. Landon is fucking shirtless. A sprawl of black tattoos curves across his chest and crawls over his shoulder—bold strokes that look less like art and more like something spreading.
My eyes track the jagged edges, the sharp turns of ink that bite into his ribs, and then fall—against my better judgment—down to the grey sweatpants slung way too low on his hips.
His defined V almost makes me jump out of my skin.
I drag my gaze back up—his hair hangs loose, messy around his face, and there’s that smirk. That cocky, knowing, infuriating smirk.
“Maybe I should wake you up like this every morning,” he says, voice thick with sleep and heat. “So you’ll keep looking at me like that.”
A flush rises fast across my neck, burning into my ears. I turn sharply back to the counter, pressing my palms into the dough like it insulted me.
“Do you ever announce yourself like a normal person?” I mutter, rolling the dough harder than necessary.
He smirks, his gaze lazily dragging down my flour-dusted tank top to the curve of my thighs. “Didn’t realize you baked when you couldn’t sleep. It’s…weirdly sexy.”
“Yeah, nothing says ‘take me now’ like flour, buttermilk and trauma,” I deadpan, brushing hair out of my face with my forearm.
Landon pushes off the frame and stalks towards me with lazy steps. “You think I’m kidding, Peach, but I’m watching you make bread with that bitey little scowl, and it’s doing things to me.”
“Are those things bakery-related or should I be concerned?”
He stops just short of the counter, palms braced on the edge. His eyes burn into mine, lower lip caught between his teeth. “Both.”
I swallow, suddenly aware of how small the kitchen is. How warm the air feels now. How close he is.
He leans in, dipping his head so his voice brushes my ear. “You know, if you ever need help with… kneading... I’m good with my hands.”
I roll my eyes so hard it nearly resets my brain. “Do you flirt like this with every girl covered in flour at three a.m., or am I just lucky?”
“Only the ones I lose sleep over.”
And fuck, the way he says it—half-teasing, half-raw—makes something stir low in my stomach.
I look away. Grab the rolling pin. Pretend I’m not flushed.
“You’re not getting any if you keep talking.”
He grins like I’ve already fed him. “Peach,” he murmurs, stepping back with a wink, “I am getting some.”
“Oh yeah?” I shoot back, one brow arched. “How exactly are you ‘getting some’?”
Before I can blink, Landon steps forward, wraps his arms around my waist, and lifts me like I weigh nothing. I yelp, hands flying to his shoulders, the dough barely saved as I swipe it to the side a second before my ass hits the counter.
Right into the flour. A puff of white explodes into the air around us.
“Landon!” I cough, laughing despite myself. “You got flour everywhere. ”
“I warned you,” he says, grinning. “ I told you I was getting some.”
“Of the biscuits.” I giggle. “I meant the biscuits.”
“Oh, well, that too.” He chuckles, looping his hands underneath my thighs and pulling me closer to him as he steps between my legs.
My core settles right against the hard line of his V, and a shiver rips through me—sharp and needy. Heat coils low in my belly, thick and aching. He stands there between my legs, solid and warm, like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me.
He lowers his forehead to mine, breath brushing my lips, our mouths so close I can already feel the ghost of his kiss. My pulse stutters. My thighs tighten around his hips. I remember—too vividly—what a few hours ago felt like. How it feels to feed his beast. To give in. To burn.
My eyes are locked on the pink plush of his lips, drunk on the nearness, the weight of his body between mine. He’s not even kissing me yet, and I’m already unraveling.
He speaks, and I see the question form on his lips before I hear it.
“Why are you up so early, Peach?” he asks, voice low, heat curling in every syllable.