Chapter Thirteen
Winter
No, no, no, no. Not today. This could have happened at any time, and my car chose this moment to stop working.
“Please, not now,” I whine to my Subaru, trying unsuccessfully to turn it over for the fifth time since climbing in.
It’s been a long day, and a hot shower, clean pair of leggings, and an oversized shirt are all calling my name.
I want to sulk and eat my weight in knock-off Frosted Flakes while binge-watching an old season of Grey’s Anatomy.
Although my favorite medical drama has been compromised since meeting the dark-haired woman whose husband I have the audacity to be mad at for flirting with another woman. What the hell is wrong with me?
Too much, I’ve decided.
Emaly deserves better.
And I need to go back to therapy. Except therapy is expensive, so bettering my mental health will have to wait. Again.
I close my eyes and lean my forehead against the top of my steering wheel when I realize that my car may officially be gone.
I’ll have to have a funeral for it, like I did for Melvin the cat.
I bet Kourtney would have nicer things to say to my trusty vehicle than she did to my precious feline companion.
Like how she lost her virginity in the back seat, which is a story I wish I could unhear all these years after she shared it with me.
Or how she used to tailgate at parties that Mom and Dad never knew about because, unlike me, she’s good at being stealthy.
She definitely loves the Outback more than Melvin, and that makes me miss him way more.
I yelp when someone knocks on the window, and I hate the way my face crumples when I see Moskins standing on the other side. When I make no move to open the door, he does with arched brows as he studies my slumped body.
“Car problems?” he guesses.
All I do is nod silently.
“Got in the way of your dramatic exit, huh?”
This time, it’s me scowling.
His lips tug at the corners. “Come on. I’ll give you a lift. We can call a tow truck on the way.”
He’s nonchalant as he turns with Oreo’s carrier in his hand and heads toward his car. I still find it hard to believe he drives a Nissan Rogue and not a Mercedes or Porsche. Something flashy and…douchey.
Sighing, I weigh my options before realizing I have very few. I can call a tow truck and wait for them here and, hopefully, get a ride home with them, or…
I can go with the man whose butt looks way too good in those jeans. And screw me for noticing. And screw him for looking over his shoulder to see if I’m following at the very moment my eyes are plastered to his ass.
Why is the world against me?
I tell myself the only reason I follow him to his car is because of Oreo.
Her loud, vibrating purrs will soothe my anxiety about what’s bound to be a very expensive and unexpected repair bill.
I know I’ve been biding my time with my car, but I love it too much to let it go.
And new vehicles, or at least new to me ones, are expensive.
Janel told me that she and her husband both have car payments upward of seven hundred dollars a month each.
Seven. Hundred!
I could never. I will learn the bus schedule and pay my dues to the Fairbanks public transit before I ever get something that equals my rent.
“Care to explain why you’re pissed at me this time?” Moskins asks, breaking me from my faraway thoughts. “I’m losing track of reasons. Last time, it was because I inadvertently got you pulled from the shelter event and then made you come against the wall in apology. What did I do this time?”
Flaming heat works its way up my face and settles under the skin in my cheeks. “Is that what that was? A pity orgasm to shut me up?”
He huffs out a laugh. “It was a lot of things, sweetheart. But it did work, didn’t it?”
My chest tightens as I stare out the window and listen to Oreo in the back seat. She doesn’t seem very happy being stuck in her crate, and I’m right there with her.
“I’m so glad I could help contribute to your quota of pity fucks this year. Your charity work knows no bounds,” I reply sarcastically, staring out the window and praying that traffic doesn’t slow us down. The quicker I’m out of this car, the better.
Unfortunately for me, there’s a long line of red lights that really seem to love us as we approach them. One after another, the greens turn yellow, which then turns into the same color as the flags I seem to attract the most.
Bright-ass red.
“There’s one problem with that assessment,” he remarks, not seeming fazed at all by my biting tone. His casual nonchalance pisses me off that much more.
I deadpan, hating the knot in my chest that feels a lot like jealousy, “And what would that be?”
“I haven’t fucked you yet, Winter.”
I suck in a sharp breath at the words that soak in a little too deeply.
He hasn’t fucked me yet. That three-letter word grabs hold of me for dear life, and I hate how much it stirs something inside my lower gut.
Yet.
His lips quirk into a knowing smile. “Do you like the sound of that?” he guesses, studying me as we wait for the light to change.
It’s not an actual question he needs an answer to.
“If you want to get to know me, here’s a fact.
I don’t fuck out of pity. I fuck to feel good.
I fuck so my partner feels good. I fuck because I like it, and I like it when my partner does too. ”
He’s not looking at me as he drives, but I know his eyes are intense as they focus on the road.
His fingers are wrapped tightly around the steering wheel—the skin is pulled taut around his knuckles and white.
His jaw grinds, and a slight tic of his jaw tells me that he’s holding back a lot more than he’s saying.
And what I may hate more than my reaction to his initial statement is the way my heart leaps in my chest when he says the word “fuck” like it’s a prayer.
His mouth wraps around the word like I imagine it wrapped around my—
Oh my God.
“Stop,” I blurt, not sure if I’m talking to myself or him.
“Stop what?” he asks, still grasping the wheel tightly as we drive down the long stretch of Main Street.
“Stop the car? Stop telling you the truth? You’re the one who wants to get to know me, so I’m letting you know who I am.
I’m a man who has a healthy appetite for sex.
I have no shame about that. I love the feeling of sinking my cock into a wet pussy.
I love the sound that women make when they come around me. I love—”
I swallow past the lump in my throat as I fidget in the front seat. “Stop talking like that,” I cut him off, feeling my heart drum wildly in my chest.
“Can’t handle it?” he challenges.
My nostrils flare as I finally look in his direction. “Do you ever feel like a jackass hearing yourself talk, or do you get off on it since you love the feeling so much?”
To my surprise, some of that intensity melts into amusement. “Who says it can’t be both?”
I shake my head and wrap my arms around my stomach in a hug to keep my hands from fidgeting. “You may have no shame, but that doesn’t mean I have to be like you. I can feel bad about—” I cut myself off before admitting to him the reason I’m mad.
The annoying green monster nags at my soul after seeing him slip that piece of paper into his back pocket earlier. After watching Kayleigh, who’s notorious for being a little too friendly with people, all but grope him all day, it was hard to watch him flirt with the pretty photographer.
It’s even harder for me to accept that I’m upset about it.
I have no claim to the man. In fact, I have no right at all to feel this way.
But that’s always been the problem with me and my stupid anxious-avoidant attachment.
The second someone starts to give me attention, it’s like I hold on to it for dear life to forget that I’m normally on my own.
My old therapist said it was a trauma response to losing my family—that I crave attention and validation.
As I got older, I shifted to avoidance. When people gave me attention, I wouldn’t give them the full me.
Because if I don’t even like me, how can anybody else?
If I still went to that kind, older woman that I’d met with once a week for almost two years after my parents’ passing, she’d tell me I’m forming a pattern.
Maybe she’d even tell me that Thomas Moskins is not the type of man you fall in love with.
He’s the kind that your mother warns you away from because he’ll break your heart.
After all, I don’t have a mom to heed those warnings.
I want nothing to do with heartbreak. Losing my parents was the biggest one I could have faced. Adding an unavailable man to my life would cause nothing but trouble.
It would be really nice if my body got on board with that sentiment before I let him do something stupid to me.
“You can feel bad about what?” he presses, his voice uncharacteristically soft compared to before.
I close my eyes and realize I backed myself into a metaphorical corner. “Nothing,” I say, hoping he’ll drop it.
He doesn’t. “Tell me.”
Bite me, is what I almost say in retort. Problem is, he’d probably grin and say, happily. So I hold that response in and swallow it like the bitterness I felt all day long.
“Winter,” he says slowly. “Tell me.”
When I peek at him, he’s staring at me.
Hard.
We’re stopped at another red light, the last one until we turn onto the street that will take me to my apartment. His eyes pin me to my seat, the blue-gray color fiercely impatient.
I let out a shallow breath and give in because I have a feeling he won’t let it go otherwise. “I was jealous, okay? Happy now?”
For once, he’s quiet.
Too quiet.
Contemplative.
His lips rub together until someone behind us honks at the light that’s finally green.
Moskins nods once and starts driving again.
But we don’t turn onto the street that leads to my place. We keep going straight.