Chapter 4 - Nash
I make it exactly five steps into my house before I have to stop and brace myself against the wall.
My cock is so hard it hurts. Has been since the second I put my arm around her waist and felt how perfectly she fit against me.
Soft. Warm. Mine.
Except she's not mine.
She's not anything to me except a neighbor who needed help, and I'm a sick bastard for standing in my entryway with my dick straining against my jeans because I got to touch her for five goddamn minutes.
I push off the wall and head for the bathroom, shedding my shirt as I go. Cold shower. That's what I need. Another one. The third one this week and it's only Friday.
But the second I'm under the spray, I know it's not going to work. Nothing's going to work except my hand and the memory of her body pressed against mine.
I'm going to hell.
I brace one hand against the tile and wrap the other around my cock, and I don't even pretend I'm thinking about anyone else.
It's her. It's always her.
The way she looked in that blue sundress, the fabric hugging every curve.
The way her hand felt against my chest, small and warm, right over my heart.
The way she smelled: vanilla and something sweeter, something that made me want to bury my face in her neck and breathe her in until I couldn't remember my own name.
And the sounds she made.
Christ, the sounds.
Little catches in her breath when I pulled her close. The way her voice went higher when our fingers touched. She'd been nervous, yeah, but there was something else there too. Something I'm probably imagining because I want it so badly I'm inventing it.
But for a second, just a second, I let myself believe it was real.
That she wanted me to touch her. That when she looked up at me with those big brown eyes, she was feeling even a fraction of what I was feeling.
I stroke myself harder, faster, chasing the release I need before I lose my mind completely.
I imagine pulling her back against me after her parents left.
Imagine sliding my hand up under that dress, feeling how soft her thighs are.
Imagine her making those breathy little sounds right in my ear as I touch her.
Would she be wet for me?
Would she let me find out?
The thought sends me over the edge, and I come with a groan that echoes off the tile, my forehead pressed against the wall, water beating down on my shoulders.
For about thirty seconds, I feel better.
Then the guilt hits.
I just jerked off thinking about my neighbor. My younger, sweet, completely-off-limits neighbor who asked me for help and is probably over there right now thinking I'm a decent guy.
I'm not a decent guy.
A decent guy wouldn't have spent the entire conversation in her kitchen fighting the urge to back her up against the counter and kiss her until she couldn't remember her own name.
A decent guy wouldn't have noticed the way her nipples pressed against the fabric of her dress, or the way she kept biting her bottom lip, or the flush that crept up her neck when our hands touched.
A decent guy wouldn't be counting down the hours until he gets to see her again.
I turn off the water and grab a towel, scrubbing it over my face like I can wipe away the self-loathing.
This is fine.
This is manageable.
I just need to keep my shit together for one dinner. Sit next to her, play the part, don't say anything stupid. Don't touch her more than necessary. Don't let her see how gone I am for her.
Easy.
Except it's not easy, because when I was standing in her kitchen and she asked me questions, normal questions, the kind of thing people ask when they're getting to know each other, I could barely answer.
*What do you do for fun?*
I wanted to say *think about you*. *Watch your lights come on in the evening. Listen for your voice. Memorize the pattern of your days so I know you're safe.*
But I said I read sometimes, because that's true and it's not completely psychotic.
*How long were you a firefighter?*
Twenty-two years. Long enough to see things that still wake me up at night. Long enough to carry bodies out of buildings. Long enough to know exactly how fragile life is and how fast it can be taken away.
Long enough to know I should stay the hell away from her because I'm damaged goods and she deserves better.
But she didn't ask for better.
She asked for me.
I get dressed in clean jeans and a dark button-up shirt that I'm pretty sure I bought five years ago and have worn exactly twice. It's the nicest thing I own that isn't a suit from a funeral.
I look at myself in the mirror.
The scars on my arms are still visible below the rolled-up sleeves. There's nothing I can do about that. Nothing I can do about the gray in my hair or the lines around my eyes or the fact that I look every day of forty-three years old.
This is what she's getting.
This is what her parents are going to see across the table tonight.
I should feel bad about that.
I don't.
Let them see exactly what their daughter chose. Let them see that she's making her own decisions, even if those decisions involve a washed-up firefighter with nothing to offer but a strong back and a pension.
Even if it's all fake.
Especially because it's all fake.
My phone buzzes.
Claire: *I'll drive us to dinner. My parents picked some fancy place outside town. I'll pick you up at 6:30?*
I stare at the message. She's going to pick me up. We're going to be alone in her car.
Me: *Okay.*
I hit send before I can overthink it.
Then I spend the next two hours pacing my house like a caged animal, watching the clock and trying not to think about how small her car probably is and how close we'll be sitting and whether she'll smell like vanilla again.
At 6:25, I give up and go outside to wait. Better than sitting inside where I might actually lose my mind.
The evening air is warm, the sun starting to dip toward the horizon. Her house is quiet. Lights on in the kitchen window. I can see her moving around inside and I make myself look away.
At exactly 6:30, her front door opens, and I forget how to breathe.
She's wearing a dress. A different one. This one is black and it hugs her body in ways that should be illegal. It's not revealing. The neckline is high, the skirt falls to her knees, but it doesn't matter.
She's devastating.
Her hair is down again, falling in waves over her shoulders. She's got heels on. Not tall ones, but enough to change the way she walks. And she's wearing lipstick. Dark red lipstick that makes her mouth look like sin.
I'm staring. I know I'm staring and I can't stop. She locks her door and turns, and when she sees me standing in my driveway, she smiles.
"Hey," she calls out. "You ready?"
No.
"Yeah."
She walks toward me and I track every step. The sway of her hips. The way the hem of her dress moves. The nervous way she's clutching her purse.
"You look nice," she says when she reaches me.
"So do you."
Nice. That's the word I used. *Nice.*
She looks like every fantasy I've ever had come to life and I said *nice.*
Her cheeks turn pink. "Thanks. I wasn't sure what to wear. My parents picked this restaurant that's supposed to be really fancy, and I didn't want to look like I just rolled out of bed, but I also didn't want to look like I'm trying too hard, you know?"
She's nervous-talking again.
I love it.
"You look perfect," I say.
She blinks up at me. "Oh. Thanks."
We stand there for a second, and I realize I'm supposed to move.
"Car's over here," she says, gesturing toward her driveway.
Right. The car. I follow her, and when she unlocks it, I open the passenger door and fold myself into the seat.
The car is small. A compact sedan that probably gets great gas mileage and fits approximately none of me comfortably. My knees are practically touching the dashboard even with the seat pushed all the way back.
She slides into the driver's seat and glances over at me. "Sorry. I know it's tight. I wasn't really thinking about... leg room when I bought it."
"It's fine."
It's not fine. It's torture. Because she's right there, less than two feet away, and the car smells like her and I can see the curve of her thigh where the dress has ridden up slightly and I need to get a grip before I say something unforgivable.
She starts the car and pulls out of the driveway, and I force myself to look out the window.
"So, the restaurant is about forty-five minutes away," she says. "My parents picked it because apparently it's the only place within a hundred miles that meets their standards."
"What are their standards?"
"Overpriced and pretentious," she says with a laugh. "My mom probably looked up the most expensive place she could find just to make a point."
"What point?"
"That I'm wasting my life in a small town when I could be eating at fancy restaurants in the city whenever I want." She shakes her head. "They don't get it. They think I moved here because I'm running away from something, not because I'm running toward something."
"What are you running toward?"
She's quiet for a moment. "I don't know yet. That's the whole point. I want to figure it out without them telling me what it should be."
I look over at her. She's focused on the road, hands at ten and two, bottom lip caught between her teeth.
"You're brave," I say.
She laughs. "I'm really not."
"Yeah, you are."
She glances at me, then back at the road. "Thanks. That's... thank you."
We fall into silence, but it's not uncomfortable. The sun is setting, painting the sky orange and pink, and the road stretches out ahead of us through fields and farmland.
I should say something. Make conversation. That's what people do.
But I don't trust myself to talk right now. Not when she's this close. Not when every time she shifts in her seat, I catch a hint of her perfume. Not when I’m aware of every breath she takes, every movement of her hands on the wheel.
"Can I ask you something?" she says after a while.
"Yeah."
"Why'd you say yes? To this whole fake dating thing."
My heart kicks into overdrive. "You needed help."
"I know, but you could've said no. Most people would've said no. It's a weird thing to ask someone you barely know."
I don't know what to say to that. Don't know how to explain that I'd say yes to anything she asked. That I've been hers since the day she moved in and she has no idea.
"Didn't seem that weird," I say instead.
"Really? Because I'm pretty sure it was insane."
"Maybe."
She laughs, and the sound fills the car and does something dangerous to my heart.
"Well, either way, I appreciate it. I know spending your Friday night having dinner with my nightmare parents isn't exactly fun."
It is, though. Sitting next to her, pretending to be hers, getting to touch her and talk to her and exist in her space… It's the best thing that's happened to me in years.
But I can't say that.
So, I just nod and look out the window and try to ignore the way my hand is itching to reach across the console and rest on her knee.
The restaurant appears after another twenty minutes of driving. It's set back from the road, all stone and glass and soft lighting. Expensive. The kind of place where they give you three forks and you're supposed to know which one to use.
Claire parks and turns off the engine, but she doesn't move to get out.
"Okay," she says, more to herself than to me. "We can do this. It's just dinner. A few hours. Then we can leave and never think about it again."
Never think about it again.
Right.
Like I'm ever going to forget tonight.
"Ready?" she asks, looking over at me.
No.
"Yeah."
She takes a deep breath, then opens her door. I follow her out, and when she comes around the front of the car, I do what I've been dying to do since she picked me up.
I take her hand.
She freezes, looking down at our joined hands, then up at me.
"We're dating," I say. "Remember?"
"Right," she breathes. "Right. Dating."
Her hand is shaking slightly in mine. Or maybe that's me. I thread my fingers through hers and start walking toward the restaurant, and she falls into step beside me.
Her parents' car is already in the lot.
Here we go.