Chapter 33 Need Your Love So Bad
FLEETWOOD MAC
Moths are in love with the moon.
It’s their map to the sky.
Their anchor.
Their guide.
But then we replaced the moon’s glow
with cheap lights and lies—
porch bulbs, flames,
streetlamps, and neon signs.
And moths can’t tell the difference anymore,
spiral on anything that feels real,
then crash into the wrong thing.
That’s the part they don’t put in poems.
That’s the tragedy.
Moths die not from craving,
but from confusion.
They were just trying to get home.
Maybe that’s the truth of us, too.
We think anything that shines brighter
must be the real thing.
We keep mistaking a kitchen bulb
for the moon.
Even if it’s not.
Even if it burns.
Even if it hurts.
Even if it kills.
The wrong thing still feels better
than being lost in the dark.
Now I’m half-frozen, lungs sucking on frost, watching cigarette embers glowing from neighboring stoops like distant stars—a lonely, city girl on a cold November night, chasing whatever’s lit after her sky’s gone black.
The back door creaks.
Then he’s beside me,
all breath, all body heat.
He leans one arm on the railing,
turning into me.
His other hand sinks to my hip,
then slides up under layers,
thumb dragging across my skin,
finding truth in how I feel
before my mouth opens and spills lies.
“You wanna talk about it?”
My eyes stay forward, staring past his garage,
the smoke pumping out of chimneys
and into the night sky.
“What’s there to talk about?”
Laughter and Dean Martin spins from inside again, seeping out through the cracks in the house. Scratchy. Nostalgic. He leans closer.
His chin’s near my temple now,
thumb circling slow at my waist.
“What my ma said,
“it didn’t mess you up or nothin’?”
“Nah—that? Pshh—”
My eyes follow with a half-roll.
“I just came out here ‘cause I was cold.”
He laughs under his breath with a nod,
then pulls me into him,
circling my arms around his waist,
where he needs me.
“So you’re just out here… chillin’, huh?
“None of that hit?”
He’s got that cocked brow again—
half tease, half test.
Dean croons through the silence while I keep hearing it replay—‘If he ever fell in love, he’d take her to the Astor roof.’
I lift my chin, glancing up at him.
“Can’t hit if it’s not anything.
“And you don’t feel that way. You don’t.”
I shrug, tossing the whole thing in the trash.
“And if you do? You don’t. It’s just a—a fucking kitchen bulb. Doesn’t mean shit. Can’t get mad about kitchen bulbs. Not like they’re the moon or anything.”
“A kitchen bulb,” he repeats. “Yeah—nah.
“Can’t get mad about kitchen bulbs.”
A cold wind slips past,
and a shiver runs through me.
His hand follows it along my arm,
dragging heat,
until his fingers anchor behind my neck,
thumb brushing the spot below my ear.
He pulls me in—full flush, no air left.
His head tips into mine, temple to temple.
“So you’re cool as hell right now, huh?” he murmurs close, breath stirring between us. “All good? Don’t give a shit?”
“Yeah,” I breathe, then swallow. “I’m real cool. Nothin’ to give a shit about.”
If I don’t care, it can’t hurt me.
I’ll brand it before it brands me.
And I’m calling it what it is—
a goddamn kitchen bulb.
His lips graze my cheekbone.
A kiss without a kiss.
Just the weight of his lips.
And I don’t know if he’s swaying us,
or if the night is.
“So that’s what this is now?” he says into my skin. “You, all easy-breezy?”
I nod, slipping my hands under his shirt,
finding warmth at the base of his spine.
“Yeah. That’s what I’m saying.”
His palm drags up my neck, then down again.
“What happened at Vice,
“that’s just gone now? You’re over it?
“Show up today with a blanket, a record,
“chocolates for my moms, and—what?
“That’s you not caring and rollin’ with the punches?”
He can keep asking,
change the words,
change the tone,
hold me close, sway me to Dean Martin.
It doesn’t change the answer:
I don’t give a fuck.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m over it.
“Whatever happens, happens, right?”
He lets out this huff of a laugh that knows where we’ve been.
And I wonder if that just threw him back to Type No. 45 too.
The beat right before we said fuck it,
then gave ourselves permission to fall into everything we’ve always wanted.
Everything we didn’t think we deserved.
The night we let it be everything just once.
‘Cause we didn’t think we’d get to keep it.
So we crashed into it with everything we had,
and called it nothing.
His breath brushes my temple as he pulls back, his gaze climbing from my mouth to my eyes. “Miss Allison Taylor just hangin’ out in Jersey.”
“Yup.”
“Showin’ up on Thanksgiving,
“meetin’ my family,
“and it’s all nothin’.”
“Yeah. Nothin’. No big deal.”
“Cool. So you’re stayin’ the night then.”
The wind drops.
My brows jump.
Another moth zaps when it flies right into the bulb.
He wets his lip, then shrugs.
“I mean—we did have a bet.
“You still owe me a sleep next to you. And since you don’t care and nothin’ means shit, why not knock out both debts in one holiday? Walk away debt-free in the mornin’.” He nudges closer. “Could call it closure if that’s what you want.”
Closure. The word’s worse than a pap smear.
Simple word, brutal impact.
I glance off to the side,
as if it didn’t knock the air out of me.
His finger hooks under my chin,
turning my gaze back to him.
Navy eyes dig through me,
searching for the truth inside.
“Unless… this means somethin’.”
I lift my chin in his hold.
“Doesn’t mean anything.”
I swallow.
“I’ll stay.”
// HALF HOUR LATER //
This has got to be the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever agreed to.
He’s actually going to sleep next to me.
Like, Gonngggkkkkkk Shhhhhh.
And it’s not even about the unconscious part.
It’s not the skin. It’s the silence.
It’s the… being there.
No contracts. No rules.
No black and white. All gray.
Two bodies. Laying still. Breathing.
Feelings in the dark.
And I won’t be able to hide a damn thing.
And what’s worse? What if I don’t sleep at all?
What if I lie there wide-eyed till sunrise,
counting every breath he takes?
Wait.
No.
Worse than that—
What if, for the first time, I do sleep?
All night.
Deep.
Wake up inside his arms
and don’t wanna leave them?
Oh, shit. What then?
Seriously.
What the fuck then?
I’m standing at the bottom step of the finished basement, where it’s cold and smells of Andrew—
detergent, leather, cedar, leftover cologne.
He said, “Everything’s set. Fresh towel. Somethin’ to wear. Got the shower goin’. Takes a minute to heat.” Then his stare brushed mine, as if he was two seconds from abandoning the leftovers to join me.
I didn’t realize I close my eyes every time I breathe in his scent.
Not until now.
Like my heart inhales him,
then my head panics and pulls the blinds.
There’s a washer and dryer in the corner,
where an ironing board’s left out.
A whole second living room.
His bedroom.
His bathroom—light on, shower running.
A large leather sectional,
Andrew pressed into its cushions.
Crates of vinyl stack high across the wall.
A collection of turntables lined up on a console table, one open and holding Bruce Springsteen.
Guitars slouched in the corners in their stands.
His bed’s a navy linen world,
with plaid sheets and walnut wood.
And there’s a door leading straight outside.
I walk up to the turntable and move the needle.
The record spins I’m On Fire,
and the song follows me to the bathroom.
I undress,
tie my hair up as steam creeps across the glass,
stare at myself in the mirror,
not recognizing the girl staring back at me.
I don’t look like the girl from the penthouse.
The one in the gilded cage to keep her safe,
her rules, her contract written across iron bars.
She’s not here.
I don’t know where she is.
This girl is one I’ve never seen before,
standing in his bathroom,
her cage unlocked,
skinned raw,
exposed to anything that can hurt her.
A towel’s on the counter next to his electric toothbrush.
A tee and sweatpants stacked beside it.
Another toothbrush sealed in plastic on top—
which is fucking weird.
So I open the drawers.
There’s a pile of disposable toothbrushes.
Travel-sized mouthwashes.
Tongue scrapers. Floss.
Dental hygiene in bulk.
Okay. So.
Either he’s secretly a serial killer, or—
Nope. Serial killer’s all I got.
He said no girls have been here...
I glance over at the door leading directly outside from the basement.
Three hundred girls?
Odds are, he lied, and this is his whorehouse.
Then I spot the trash bin,
where a crumbled yellow Post-it sits on top.
I uncrumble it,
expecting a phone number
or arsenic measurements,
but it reveals: put yourself first.
My heart calms as the day replays,
reminding me that I'm overreacting,
jumping to conclusions.
I leave it, step into the shower,
and reach for his soap.
Minutes later, I step out wrapped in steam,
skin flushed, mirror fogged.
I grab the pad of Post-its on the shelf, the pen, and write a note, open the medicine cabinet, and stick it behind the mirror: you're enough.
I throw on the clothes—too-big sweatpants and a tee hanging past my hips—then head back upstairs where the house has gone still.
For the first time all night,
there’s no laughter bouncing off the walls,
no clinking glasses,
no Italian women out-talking each other.
Only hush, darkness,
the whole place turning over
and going to sleep without me.
The fridge hums, dreaming.
The oven exhales its last clicks as it cools.
Andrew’s at the sink under one dim light,
rinsing the last glass,
water running,
forearms flexing with each pass.
He's seems more at ease now that the day finally let go of him.
Makes me wonder if this is his favorite part.
After the chaos clears.
After everyone shuts up.
He crosses to the fridge,
pulls out a carton of eggs,
then drifts back to the counter in front of a mixing bowl.
I follow, his socks on my feet slide soundless over cold tile. “Seriously?” I say. “You’re cookin’ again? Who the hell are you?”
He turns mid-laugh—