Chapter Seventeen
Jett
The lobby’s dead except for the receptionist, the one with eyebrows that look like they lost a fight with a Sharpie and a stare like she’s wondering if I bite. I do, sweetheart. Keep looking.
What the actual fuck just happened?
Why am I staring at the door like it might explode open and spit out a glitter-caked sex demon with pink lipstick and no issues with hate fucking.
I didn’t kill Chad. That’s progress I can report to Dr. Hartwell.
The door to Hartwell’s office clicks open. Smooth. Like the man himself. “Mr. Ryker. Good to see you.”
He says it like he wasn’t the one who watched me stalk around this office last week like a caged animal, eyes wild, fists tighter than a virgin’s asshole. And now he’s pretending this is casual?
He knows who the fuck I am. Mr.? Eat my whole ass.
“Jett’ll do,” I say, pushing off the wall and following him into his crypt of an office. It’s darker than it needs to be. He’s trying to create intimacy by way of mood lighting.
I drop into the chair, not the couch. Fuck your trap couch, doc. I don’t lie down around men in cardigans who ask about my childhood. Didn’t last time, won’t this time.
Though my eyes flick to it and I wonder if she lays there when she has her sessions. Does she taunt him too? Stretch out on the couch and… shit.
“How was your week?” he asks, like we’re gonna chat about smoothies and sleep hygiene.
“Been a weird one,” I say.
“Let’s talk about weird,” he says, pen already moving.
I stretch, crack my knuckles. “You might get a call from Chad’s lawyer.”
His pen stops. Just a beat. “Oh?”
“He showed up at the gym. I had a client. He was a dick. I didn’t hit him. Didn’t even threaten him.” That’s growth, right? “That feels relevant.”
Hartwell raises an eyebrow. “And yet?”
He’s not a bad looking man. I bet Delilah does flirt with him.
“He got slapped,” I say, mouth twitching. I can’t help it. My dick twitches too. That little hellspawn of a woman walked straight up to Mr. Protein Powder and slapped the smug off his face. All nails and fury. She had to rise up on her damn toes to reach him, too. It was poetic.
“He was assaulted?” he asks, and I don’t like how his voice goes extra neutral.
“Yeah. But here’s where it gets sticky, doc. I don’t know if I should even be telling you about this. Patient confidentiality and all that.”
“Whatever you say in this room stays in this room,” he says smoothly. “Unless you’re planning to harm someone.”
That’s not a no.
I lean back and rub my jaw. “There’s this woman.” I hesitate. “Calling her a woman feels inaccurate. She’s more like a walking felony in heels. A menace.”
His mouth twitches. That almost-smile again. “At your gym?”
“And a few other places,” I say, vaguely. Like, say, on my motorcycle. With my fingers in her. And her mouth on me. And my common sense buried in the dirt somewhere behind the back alley where it happened.
I’m not giving him her name. I don’t want her catching heat for what happened with Chad. Not from the law. Not from Hartwell. Not even from herself. That’s mine to hold. Even if she wrecks me for it.
“She defended herself. Chad got nasty. She handled it.”
“You look proud,” he says, and I catch the edge in his tone. He knows I liked it.
Does she talk to him the way she talks to me? All sugar-laced filth and starry-eyed lunacy. Or does she save that particular brand of crazy for me?
“You ever hit a man?” I ask him.
“This is your therapy, Jett.”
That’s a fucking yes. “Is that why you don’t run anger management yourself? Leave it to the twitchy guy with the vape addiction?”
He lets out a low laugh. “Did you try the conflict mediation like we discussed?”
“No.” I scratch my jaw. “Didn’t speak to me.”
“Journal?”
“Sort of.” I shrug. I made notes. Mostly about thigh-highs and tonight it’ll be about the way she tasted and the feral fucking look she gave me before mounting my damn bike. “Someone stole my hat and touched my bike, and I still didn’t kill them. That count?”
“That’s wonderful. Not the theft. That you restrained yourself. How’d it feel?” he asks.
“Orgasmic.” I say, watching him just to see what cracks.
He tilts his head, mild amusement in his eyes. “That’s not the usual reaction.”
“She’s not a usual woman,” I say, and fuck me, that might be the truest thing I’ve ever said in here. And I fucking hate that I keep trying to pretend I don’t want more.
Hartwell nods, flipping a page. “We’ve discussed branching out from the gym. Hobbies. Other outlets for expression.”
“I’m not artsy.” My lip curls. “The wine-and-paint shit might be bearable if they served whiskey.”
“They have live figure drawing at the community center. Fridays and Wednesdays. I go sometimes. Charcoal, mostly.”
“You sketch naked people,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “That your thing?”
He smiles. “It’s not about sex. It’s about stillness. Discipline. Presence.”
“Right.” I cross my arms. “You’re saying it’s not kinky because it’s charcoal and not cum.”
He doesn’t even flinch. “I’m saying you might find it therapeutic.”
We talk some more. I give him the edited version of my week, every time I didn’t lose my shit. I leave out the parts where I nearly did. No one bled. No one died. The bar is low and I’m still limboing under it.
He makes some notes, nods a lot, asks more questions I don’t really answer.
Eventually, he says our time’s up.
I need air. I need a cold shower. I need to stop checking every pink blur in my peripheral like it might be her, ready to throw glitter and ruin me again.