Chapter Forty-Three
Delilah
I’m naked, slathered in glitter lotion like a disco rotisserie chicken.
Who knew I’d finally land a date where that was the appropriate uniform?
My legs curled under me at my dressing table like a pin-up gremlin.
Rhys is gonna take one look at me and forget that sparkle-free goose girl ever clucked into his hobby space.
But first I have a mission. I need the perfect offering for my rage-fucked, bare-fridged, beautiful bastard.
The chair creaks as I hunch over my laptop, a horny gremlin hacker, nipples smushed to the vanity, scrolling the county inmate search. “C’mon. Show me my mug.”
It doesn’t take long to find me.
My booking photo hits like a shot of espresso to the frontal lobe. I look deranged. Wide-eyed, hair everywhere, smirking like I came just before the flash. Perfect. A few rows down, his photo loads.
Jett.
He looks pissed. Like the kind of pissed that fucks you into the shower wall and doesn’t leave a note. Which, yeah. He did.
“Hi baby,” I say to the screen.
I save both. Screenshot, crop, enhance. Pop the contrast. Slide them side by side like high school yearbook photos, except we’re both most likely to reoffend and look hot doing it. I add a pink glitter filter to the border. Consider a caption. Bailed out by love. Or maybe: crime is hot.
A soft snort escapes me.
I print two sets. One for me, one for Jett. Because my fridge is a museum of my descent and his is so sad and empty.
I’ll make room. I want to make room. For him. For whatever the fuck this is turning into.
Because we both need to remember this. The low, the locked-up, the way we both looked a little too alive behind that county seal.
I need to remember he said “mine” with fists and bail slips and bruised knuckles. And I want him to remember I smiled for the camera.
Photos in hand, I lunge for my craft box with the grace of a horny raccoon with a glue stick addiction. Sticky-back magnets. Glitter. And now we have jailhouse romance fridge flair. Pinterest could never.
The magnets are ready. Jett’s rage-face and my own deranged smirk.
There are three bags on my craft table. Three altars. Three acts of devotion. Three dangerously targeted love spells.
Benji’s looks like a unicorn threw up a rainbow rave.
It’s edible. It’s criminally cute. It might summon a Care Bear.
I tuck in snacks he loves, gummy sharks, cookies with icing thicker than the cookie, and a cupcake-scented candle that smells like kissing him.
Sweet and soft and made to ruin you. There’s a note too: You make me want to be soft.
It’s disgusting. Never stop. I spritz the tissue paper with glitter spray and seal it with a unicorn sticker. He will cry. I hope he cries.
Rhys’s bag is brown. But not boring. Earthy.
Intellectual. Sexy in that slow-wreckage way that makes me want to masturbate on his couch and call it growth.
I line it with blush lace and tuck in white chocolate almonds, dried rose petals, a lavender candle that promises calm the fuck down energy.
There’s also a note in my lipstick: See you Tuesday.
I’m not wearing panties. I want him to open it and have a professional crisis.
And then there’s Jett.
His bag looks like anarchy. Black matte paper, hot pink skull decals, duct tape reinforcement.
I fill it with rage snacks, beef jerky, Red Vines, sour gummies that’ll punch his tongue.
His squishmallow is a neon green mushroom bat.
I have no idea what it means. That’s why it’s perfect.
Chaos to match chaos. The magnet goes in an envelope labeled: Fridge Enhancement.
Mandatory. Noncompliance will result in glitter-related consequences.
He’ll act like it’s stupid. Then he’ll put it up and never take it down.
They’re love notes written in edible glitter and the kind of mania you can’t medicate away. They are excessive. Deranged. Perfect.
Because love should feel like too much. Like getting tackled by joy and then strangled with a velvet ribbon.
And I need them to know, every single one of them, that I don’t do lukewarm. I don’t date. I devour. I rearrange my atoms to fit around the people I want. And right now I want all three of them choking on affection.
I pad to my closet and pull out the pink trench. The one that swishes with sin and desperation. Matching heels. Waist chain with the tiny pink heart that jingles when I walk, because the world deserves the warning bell.
That’s it. No clothes underneath. Just glitter and intention.
Rhys is going to draw me like this. He has to. It’s not a request. It’s divine fucking will.
I am weaponized love. I am dangerous devotion. I am walking into that art class like a Valentine ready to haunt a man’s therapy notes forever.
But before that I’m leaving presents.
Jett’s is first.
Because he left me in his house with a key to lock up, like I’m not going to interpret that as foreplay, delivering it to his place feels wrong. Easy. Expected. I want him to find me, not expect me.
So I head to his work, slip the bag into his saddlebag, and leave the buckle flapping open like a mouth ready to spill secrets. I steal his remaining glove. A ransom. A promise. A fuck your threat, I’ll enjoy the punishment.
The sun’s almost down. No time to linger. I slide onto the bike like it’s his lap and pop my lipstick, thick and pornographic. I want the kiss I leave on his gas tank to stain. I want him to ride it and see me every mile.
Full mouth. Open lip. A wet memory. A mark he’ll have to rub out with effort.
See you soon, lover.
Benji’s house is quiet. Still warm from the sun. Still his.
His room smells like him, sugar and soap and that obscene innocence that makes me want to do crimes. His gift bag goes on the nightstand like a bedtime story. I linger, fingers dragging along the edge of his pillow before I slide into his bed.
Naked. Face buried in his pillow. Breasts soft and smeared across where his chest would be.
I hump his sheets just a little. Just enough to leave something behind. My scent. My glitter. Maybe a lip print on his duvet. Then I rumple the blankets like we fucked and he didn’t remember.
I kiss the mirror in his bathroom, tongue out. He’ll see it. He’ll know.
I don’t take anything. I just leave myself behind, perfume and pink shimmer and the faint imprint of my thighs on the comforter.
Rhys is the problem.
No address. No invitation. No consent.
Because he’s stingy with intimacy.
I drive to the office, park next to his too-clean car, and scowl at the windshield. I don’t want to leave it there. That’s basic bitch behavior. Rhys deserves drama. He’s not a wiper note guy. He’s a you break in and rearrange his life guy.
While I’m debating, the car chirps.
I freeze. Then, look up.
There’s movement behind the blinds of his office.
No way.
I slide into the driver’s seat and deposit the gift bag in the passenger side. I leave a kiss on his dash with my glossed-up mouth, open, obscene, wet enough to make a priest renounce Christ.
When I get out, the car chirps. Locked again.
I don’t look at the window. I lean against the car. Let the coat fall open. One leg bare to the thigh, no underwear, just glitter and menace.
I blow a kiss toward the blinds. Let him wonder.
Then I leave.
They’ve all been touched. Marked. Loved.
And now I’m on my way to the community center.
Rhys has no idea what he’s walking into tonight.
But he’s going to draw me.
All of me.
And I’m going to make it impossible for him to forget any of this.