43
Sailor
All Boys Suck, Especially the Masked Ones
SHOVING THE LADDER AGAINST THE side of the house, I tried to remember what Jim had instructed. I’d gone round this morning with another peach cobbler, exchanging sugar for tools.
What had he said?
Lock the legs, hoist the middle, brace the joints?
The clunky wooden thing weighed a freaking tonne. My arms already shook before I’d climbed one rung.
That could partly be thanks to the struggle of carrying it over here but also mostly thanks to X.
How dare he message me last night?
How dare he spy on me, contact me, and then ghost me when I’d replied?
He’d cut contact for almost two weeks and then out of the blue, I get a message that he’s watching me and we can chat. What sort of game was he playing? In what world did he think that was acceptable?
My phone pinged in my back pocket of my jean shorts.
I’d heard it ringing while carrying the ladder over the lawn, but had no intention of answering it. I didn’t want to run the risk. I’d already answered one call that rattled me this morning; I wasn’t ready for another one. I flinched despite myself, recalling the case officer handling Milton’s incarceration telling me a court date had been set a few months from now.
I would have to testify.
That chat had almost, almost sent me spiralling backward.
I’d hovered my fingers over my phone, desperate to message X even though I was furious with him. He’d opened communication between us again, and the temptation to share the scratchy, scared feeling inside at seeing Milton again almost overwhelmed me.
But he hadn’t messaged me back even after I’d threatened him.
He’d sent me nothing, and I refused to put my hurt out there only for it to hang in neverland.
Curling up the sleeves of my paint-splattered shirt, I sagged in the blistering hot morning. Ever since the call about Milton, I’d stayed busy. I’d baked cakes for Jim and Zander. I’d played with Peng, added a final coat of paint to my skirting boards in the living room, and now decided to attack the gutters where arrogant dandelions grew.
Autumn was coming, which meant bad weather and rain, and no way did I want my newly decorated house to leak.
I marched back inside and grabbed a pair of rubber gloves and a few trash bags. Peng came trotting from where he’d been cooling himself on an ice mat I’d bought him. I’d learned he didn’t like the heat, and after freezing the mat overnight, it stayed nice and cool for most of the day, giving him a reprieve.
He meowed and wound himself around my ankles.
Ducking, I scratched his chin. “You don’t want to be out there today. It’s roasting.” Standing upright, my cell phone fell out of my shallow back pocket, clattering to the floor.
The SIM inbox from the phone X had given me—the one I shouldn’t still care about—flashed with a new message.
I moved embarrassingly fast.
X: Please don’t go to the police. I’m within your twelve-hour deadline. And I’m sorry for messaging you last night. It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.
Frustrated anger roared through me. I almost punched my screen.
Me: A mistake? What was the mistake? The fact that you got caught spying on me or that you can’t seem to stop?
Glowering at my phone, I wished I had the willpower to block him and throw away the device. I wouldn’t go to the police. I wasn’t the type to hurt someone who’d helped me. But I also couldn’t stay in touch with someone who’d broken up with me.
He didn’t break up with you! You weren’t going out, for goodness’ sake!
Every emotion I’d done my best to pretend wasn’t real raged into being. I’d shoved X out of my head and heart and replaced him with Zander. I’d baked my neighbor a vanilla sponge this morning to thank him for Peng but also because I was going to be brave and ask him out.
It might be too soon, and my triggers might still flare, and I might have unresolved feelings for another man, but…BUT…I was ready to move on and get out of this house and start living again.
X: You’re right. I shouldn’t still watch you. But I had to know you were okay.
Me: And you don’t think I deserve to know that you’re okay? You don’t think it’s cruel to barge into someone’s life, make them care, then vanish like you never existed?
X: I’m sorry.
Me: That’s it?
X: I don’t know what you want me to say.
Me: How about you tell me your name and where you live? Tell me why you went so cold? Tell me how you could be with me the way you were and then just disappear?
Angry tears pricked my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall.
Peng meowed again, headbutting my ankle. I wasn’t done. I sent another message .
Me: You said you had a crush on me, yet you walked away so easily. That makes me think you never felt anything toward me or you’re utterly heartless because no one who said those things and did what you did could walk away without a goodbye.
X: I agree on all those points. I’m not a good guy. I did warn you. I started watching you to keep you safe and by staying with you I put you in danger. I did the only thing I could.
Me: Do you honestly think I’m buying this nonsense? How did you put me in danger?
It took him a few minutes, but my phone finally vibrated.
X: I put you in danger because when I’m with you, I lose control. You make me become someone else. And after everything you’ve survived, no way could I ever do that to you.
Me: So you’re saying you’ll snap like that bastard did and strangle me to death?
X: No, of course not.
Me: You’re saying you’ll beat me black and blue just for talking to my neighbor?
X: Never. I’m not a lunatic.
Me: I kinda think you are actually, because if you wouldn’t strangle me or beat me, then how would you put me in danger?
X: Christ, don’t you get it? Do I have to be black and white with you?
Me: Yes. Be VERY black and white.
X: Fine. I can’t be around you because when I’m with you, I want you. I want you so fucking badly, and I honestly don’t know if I’d be able to stop myself.
A full-body shudder woke up every nerve ending and desire.
My heart burned like a comet.
My core clenched.
I grew wet and needy and angry. Very, very angry that, for the first time in my life, I’d responded to a man the way I’d always hoped. He’d delivered pleasure in ways I’d only read about, and then he’d left because he thought I was a fragile little victim who would break if he let loose.
Stupid, idiotic man.
He sent another text while I stewed in lust so violent, so vicious, I snarled at nothing and paced the kitchen.
X: That night in your bedroom, when I helped you come for the first time, drove me into some pretty nasty places. I meant what I said when you’d be fucked five ways to Sunday and that isn’t how you should be treated.
I almost convulsed at the imagery.
Of X taking me without apology. Driving into me. Freeing me from the chains Milton had wrapped me in.
I needed sex to shatter my rickety prison.
I needed to replace my past with the present, and I didn’t want quaint missionary in the dark. I didn’t want someone to whisper sweet nothings and touch me with velvet gloves.
I wanted bruises to replace old bruises.
I wanted real and messy and hard and fast and connection.
And that hurt because as much as I crushed on Zander, I couldn’t see him delivering the type of explosive, obsessive, animalistic chaos that I needed. And I didn’t think I could move on until I’d been thrown around in pleasure instead of pain. I didn’t know how to fully heal until another man made me feel as weak and as vulnerable as Milton had that night, only to deliver mind-splintering orgasms instead of life-stealing horror.
Did that make me messed up?
Would it make sense to anyone but me?
I didn’t know, and I was sick of not knowing, but I needed to know. I wanted to be taken, and ruled, and protected, and pleasured, and the fact that X had woken all these dark colliding, chaotic needs inside me pissed me the hell off. He might be man enough to make me come, but he wasn’t man enough to make me heal, and that was fine.
It’s fine.
It’s not his job.
I don’t need him.
I’m done.
Me: You know you could’ve just asked what I wanted instead of assuming for me. If you had, you would’ve known I wanted everything you just said. But it’s too late now. You left, and I’m busy. You have twenty-four hours to remove those cameras or else.
He responded within a few seconds.
X: Or else what?
Fury made me grin like a madwoman. I didn’t know how he did it, but good God, he turned me on. Just a few messages, and I was as wet as I had been on my couch when he’d kissed me.
Me: Or else I’ll take the gift you gave me and masturbate in my back garden. I’ll show you just what you’re missing all while I prove that I don’t need you.
“There.” I grinned at Peng. “That’ll teach him.” Swiping away my ponytail, I marched toward the back door. “If he didn’t see how I responded to him or how much I wanted him, then he’s as blind as a freaking bat and good riddance.”
Stomping to the ladder, I shoved the bin liners into my waistband, then wrapped one hand around a rung.
My phone buzzed .
X: If you climb up that ladder, I’m going to snap.
My heart added feathers to its burning comet, turning into a flying fireball.
Me: I can do whatever the hell I want.
X: Like hell you can. I didn’t put this much time and effort into keeping you alive only for you to kill yourself.
Me: Stop watching me. Stop messaging me. Leave me the hell alone.
X: Last chance, Lori. Hire someone else to clean your gutters. It’s not safe to do it on your own.
The fact that he cared so much about my well-being. The fact that a text about something as mundane as house maintenance could somehow become foreplay ought to have warned me not to push any further.
But…screw it.
It was my turn to snap.
My turn to be ridiculous and wild and stupid.
Me: The only way I’m not going up this ladder is if you make me.
And then I tossed my phone onto the chair and scurried up to the roof.