29. Daniel
Daniel
I come so hard my spine turns to lava. It's not a gentle wave, not a slow build; it's a goddamn volcanic eruption that starts deep in my balls and rips through my nervous system like a seismic shudder.
A curse tears from my throat, the sound ripped from my very soul as I spill over my fist, the hot, slick mess a testament to the absolute filthiness of what just transpired.
My knees almost buckle, and I have to brace a hand against the door to keep from collapsing into a heap on the grimy tile, my breath sawing in and out of my lungs.
Through the haze, I hear Gray. His groan is lower, a deep, rumbling sound of satisfaction that vibrates through the small room.
And then there's Mara. It's not a scream, not a moan, but a choked, sobbing gasp, a sound of pure, unadulterated release that's somehow more erotic than anything I've ever heard before.
For a moment, the only sounds are our ragged breaths, the hum of the fluorescent light overhead, and the frantic thumping of my own heart against my ribs.
The air is thick, saturated with the scent of sex and sweat and Mara's intoxicating, honey-rich pre-heat.
It's a scent that's already burrowed deep into my brain, marking me in a way I know is permanent.
And then the awkwardness crashes down like a ton of bricks.
This isn't some high-end hotel room with silk sheets and mood lighting.
This is a gas station bathroom that probably hasn't been properly sanitized in decades.
I'm tucking myself back into my jeans, my hand sticky and wet, feeling a strange mix of profound satisfaction and a creeping, cold dread.
Gray is already moving, his practical doctor side taking over. He gently helps Mara stand, her legs shaking like a newborn colt's. He pulls up her leggings, his touch clinical yet tender, and then her bra, fastening the clasp with a competence I currently lack.
He gently guides her arms into her sweater. He's taking care of her, and a pang of something—jealousy? envy?—stabs me in the gut. I should be the one doing that. I want to be the one doing that.
Mara won't look at either of us. Her cheeks are a flaming red, and she's staring at a particularly interesting stain on the floor as if it holds the secrets to the universe.
She's shrinking into herself. Every instinct in my body screams at me to go to her, to wrap her in my arms and tell her it's okay, that we all wanted this.
But my feet are rooted to the spot, my brain a scrambled egg.
Gray washes his hands at the sink, then grabs a handful of paper towels and hands them to me. I clean myself up, the rough paper scraping my sensitive skin. The silence is deafening, a heavy, suffocating blanket.
"Okay," Gray says, his voice too loud in the small space. "Let's get out of here."
He unlocks the door and peeks his head out. The coast seems clear. He gestures for Mara to go first, and she practically flees, her head down. I follow, my heart pounding for a completely different reason now.
And there he is. A guy in a faded blue uniform, leaning on a mop and looking bored out of his mind. He's standing right by the door, and his eyes widen slightly as three people file out of the one-person bathroom.
Gray doesn't miss a beat. "Zipper was stuck," he says with a charming, disarming smile. "Couldn't get it undone. Had to call in the expert." He jerks a thumb in my direction.
The janitor just blinks, then shrugs, clearly not paid enough to care. He pushes past us with his mop, leaving behind the scent of pine cleaner.
Gray grabs the plastic bag with the waters and the greasy-looking sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. "Got turkey and roast beef," he says, his voice overly cheerful as we walk back to the car. "And some Cokes. What'll you have, Mara?"
"I'm not hungry," she says, her voice so quiet I can barely hear it.
My stomach sinks.
We get back in the car. The silence is back, but it's different now. It's heavy and charged with all the things we're not saying.
She's already folded herself into the back seat, curled up against the opposite door, as far away from us as she can get.
She won't look at us. Not at Gray, not at me.
Her gaze is fixed on the snowy ground outside her window, her shoulders hunched.
It's like a wall has gone up between us, a thick, impenetrable wall of shame and regret, and I feel fucking miserable.
This is exactly what I was afraid of. I don't want her to regret this. I don't want her to look back on what happened in that bathroom with disgust. For me, it was a revelation, a seismic shift in my universe. For her, it seems to be a mistake, and the thought feels like I've just kicked a puppy.
Gray starts the engine, the rumble a welcome distraction. I uncap my water and drain half the bottle in one go, the cold liquid doing little to cool the fire in my gut or the misery in my chest.
I can't take it anymore. I have to know. "Can we talk about what happened in that bathroom?" I ask, turning to look at her in the back seat.
She shakes her head, her cheeks still pink. She won't meet my eyes.
My misery deepens, settling into my bones like a cold, damp chill. I feel like I've failed some kind of test, some crucial rite of passage. I've made her feel cheap, used. Just like Jonathan did. The thought is a knife twist to the gut, so sharp I almost gasp.
"All right," Gray says, his voice a gentle intervention. He meets my eyes in the rearview mirror, a silent message to back off. "We've got another two hours on the road. Let's just… breathe for a bit."
Mara curls up on the back seat, pulling Gray's coat over her like a shield, and turns her face to the window. It's a blatant ploy to avoid conversation, a child's trick to end a discussion she doesn't want to have. And we let her. We don't push.
Gray pulls back onto the highway, the tires crunching on the slush.
The world outside is a blur of white, but inside the car, all I can see is the back of Mara's head.
All I can think about is the look on her face when she came.
And all I can feel is the cold, hard wall she's just thrown up between us.
She's scared. And she's ashamed. But she's also ours. I felt it in that bathroom, in the way her body responded to us, in the way her scent called to us, a siren song we were powerless to resist. She might not know it yet. She might not want to admit it. But it's true.
And I have to find a way to make her see it, too.
The town looks like a ghost got hold of it and shook all the life out. As the Cooper crests the final hill, the usual warm, welcoming glow of Sweet Creek Falls is just… gone.
The Hartwell Café is a black square. The Bluejay Bar is another.
Even the streetlights, which usually cast a honey-gold light on the snow, are either flickering like dying fireflies or completely out, leaving the main street in a sludgy, monochrome wash of gray and white under a heavy, oppressive sky.
The only light comes from the moon, but it's a weak, sickly-looking thing hidden behind a thick blanket of clouds, doing a piss-poor job of illuminating anything.
"What the hell?" Gray's voice cuts through the quiet cab. He eases off the gas, the headlights cutting eerie, dancing shadows across the deserted street. The silence in the car, which has been awkward since the gas station, now sharpens into something else. Confusion.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out. Dad. Of course. He's probably pacing the hospital lobby, wearing a groove in the linoleum and driving my mom insane with his worried energy.
"You boys okay?" he asks the second I accept the call.
"Yeah, Dad. We're fine. Just pulling into town now." I keep my eyes on the dark storefronts, a strange sense of unease settling over me, heavy and cold. "Tess doing okay?"
"She's sleeping. Your mom is dozing in the chair next to her. We're fine. Just… be careful out there. The storm they're predicting is supposed to be a real bastard. They're calling it a blizzard-pocalypse or some other dramatic bullshit on the radio."
"Blizzard-pocalypse?" I can't help the chuckle. Leave it to the local radio station to come up with a name that sounds like a made-for-TV movie. "We'll be careful. Talk to you in the morning."
I hang up and toss the phone onto the dashboard. The word "bastard" echoes in my head. My dad doesn't use words like that lightly.
In the backseat, Mara shifts. At some point during the long drive, she caved and picked at the roast beef sandwich Gray bought for her.
She ate half of it, which is a small victory.
A tiny crack in the wall of her silence, but I'll take it.
It's the first sign of life she's shown since we left the gas station, besides the anxious thumping of her foot against the seatback when she thinks we aren't looking.
She's still quiet, though. A deep and contemplative quiet that feels a thousand times worse than her angry silence from before.
That silence I could fight, match her anger with my own.
This one… this one feels like defeat. It feels like she's already given up, on us, on herself, on everything.
And that thought is a physical pain in my chest.
Gray navigates the deserted main street, the tires crunching on the fresh layer of snow already starting to cover the ice. The café and lodge loom ahead, dark shapes against the moonlit sky. But as we get closer, I see it. A light. An orange glow coming from the side of the lodge.
Gray pulls up and cuts the engine. I shove my seat forward so Mara can climb out, and the three of us step into air that's bitingly cold, heavy with the electric scent of ozone and the promise of more snow. And then I see him.
Leo.