8. Nick
8
NICK
I don’t know how I got here. I came to tell her that I think she made a mistake, that I am not the Nick she thought I was. Instead, I’m on my knees in her kitchen, pulse thrumming, dragging her black athleisure pants down her legs.
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this, but I can’t stop. Not now. Not when she told me what she wanted. She said pussy for fuck’s sakes. French cab sauv drinking, hand sanitized, bullet listed wardrobe requirements Jasmine said the word pussy and told me to eat hers.
Her underwear is black, cotton, a little faded. A few short, dark hairs are visible against the fair skin of her upper thigh. I don’t know how I got here. I shouldn’t be here. But look at her. God, look at her.
The heat she ignited in me when her lips touched mine is burning hot now. I rub my thumb along the hairs at her panty line, relishing the prickle against the pad of my thumb.
That’s all it takes for the horny haze she’s floating in to burn off. With a gasp, she clamps her legs together, and her body goes stiff. Jasmine strikes me as the kind of woman who keeps a regular bikini or Brazilian waxing appointment, and apparently I must strike her—wrongfully—as the kind of man who fucking cares about body hair.
I should put a stop to this. I need to, but if I do, then there’s a good chance that she’ll assume my reluctance has something to do with her body.
With my hands splayed on her thighs, I hold her gaze and lean in, pressing my nose, my mouth, against her body. I don’t close my eyes until I’m enveloped by her, her scent, her warmth. I take a deep breath, just to make a point.
“Sorry,” she says, a little breathless. “I didn’t think we’d be…”
“I like it.” Though I’m unsure of whether she’s apologizing for the not-traditionally sexy lingerie, the pubic hair, or something else entirely. “And please don’t ever apologize for letting me anywhere close to your pussy.”
Her legs relax beneath my hands, and she lets me spread her apart, even though I shouldn’t.
“Hold on to the counter,” I tell her, my body clearly unwilling to listen to my brain’s warnings.
“Okay,” she says, her fingernails disappearing underneath the lip of the laminate.
I angle in, eyes closed again. I should not be fucking doing this.
Like she can read minds, she closes her legs once more. “Do you need a cushion?”
I growl, pulling her legs apart. “No.”
“But the floor is hard.”
“So am I, Jasmine.” I grip my dick in my Jockeys for emphasis. “I’m on the hard ground and I’m still hard for you.”
I squeeze myself enough to hurt, because it feels good in that weird way that painful things sometimes do and because I’m mad. I’m fucking livid at the men she’s been with. The men who have clearly made her feel like she has to apologize for these things. Even if they didn’t explicitly make her feel that way, they still, clearly, never cared enough to consider her pleasure.
I’m mad at myself for letting it get this far.
I breathe deep again, to collect myself, to get my anger under control. Because it’s not her I’m mad at. None of this is her fault. When I open my mouth next, I’m still not sure what I’ll say, if I’ll ask her to give me more or if I’ll finally be the man I hope I am.
“Do you want this?” I ask.
Fuck.
She bites her lip, plump and pink. Her eyes are blasted, black eating up all the color. Her hair falls in long tendrils around her temples and in front of her ears. She looks messy and messed up and fucking beautiful.
My heart stumbles at the sight. Fuck. How did I get here?
“Do you remember,” she asks, “what our compatibility percentage was?”
I blink slowly. Like I’m drunk. Maybe high. When I’m this close to her, so close I can almost taste her, there’s absolutely no way I can process her words and make responsible choices.
“Remind me,” I say, my mouth dry.
“99.338%,” she says with a little thrill in her words. Like she’s proud of the percentage.
Of course she would be. She would think that getting an A+ in compatibility is something that is both achievable and normal to want.
She runs her hands through my hair, not pulling but not gentle either. I close my eyes and let my head fall wherever she wants, lean into her as she scrapes her French tips along my scalp.
“I didn’t trust this process before,” she admits, her voice a whisper. “I didn’t think there was any way some computer code could find the One for me, but I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong.”
My heart hits my ribs like a hammer. The words stop and never fucking stop are fighting a war in my head.
She grips my hair tighter and tips my head back. “I want you to eat my pussy, Nick.”
It’s my name that sends the blood in my body back to my brain and away from my dick. I can’t do this with her. Not when there’s some other Nick out there. Not when she thinks I’m him.
Maybe he ghosted her that night. Maybe he’s fucking dead. It doesn’t matter what the reason. If I do this with any kind of secret between us, I’ll never see her again. We just met, yeah, but I’ve learned enough about her to know that.
I sit back on my heels. The lust and anticipation on her face fade slowly to confusion.
“I can’t do this,” I force out around the lump that’s lodged itself in my throat.
She opens her mouth. Closes it. The flush in her cheeks transforms, pink to tomato red. Fuck fuck fuck.
“I’m sorry, Jasmine. I?—”
“Well, well, well.” The voice behind me is high-pitched and smug.
Above me, Jasmine’s face drains of all color.
I peer over my shoulder and find a tiny young woman.
It’s obvious she’s Jasmine’s sister, both in appearance and in the shit-eating I’m never going to let you live this down grin on her face that can only be produced by a person who has caught their sibling with their literal pants down.
“Looks like pussy is back on the menu, boys,” the little sister says with a forced growl.
“Is that supposed to be Lord of the Rings?” I ask. Despite the awkward moment, I can’t help but chuckle.
She points a finger gun my way. “ The Two Towers .”
I nod my approval. “Nice.”
She steps into the kitchen, her hand lifted for a high five.
“ Stop .” Jasmine uses a tone that is pure older sister and sends a shiver down my spine.
“Jade, get out ,” she screeches. She turns her wrath on me next. “And you .” She pokes my chest. “Get your clothes and go .” Then, despite having exiled both of us from this kitchen, Jasmine pulls up her pants and runs from the room. A few moments later, a door slams.
I wince. “I’m Nick.” Now that I’m not about to have a mouthful of pussy, this floor is actually really uncomfortable. I stand, grab the tea towel folded neatly over the oven door handle, and hold it in front of the engorged parts.
“Jade.” She waves. “Where are your clothes?” she asks, clearly unconcerned about finding a nearly naked man in her kitchen.
“In the wash.”
“Ahhh.” She crosses the kitchen, giving me a wide berth, which makes me feel better about her survival instincts. “I’ll flip those for you and then…” She turns in the laundry room doorway. “I think you better make like a fucking tree, dude.”
Fuckkkkkkkk.
By the time I get home, my clothes are stiff and chafing. They were practically sopping when I yanked them from the dryer. I considered going to find Jasmine, to apologize, to explain, but when Jade saw me waffling at the door, she shook her head.
“She’s probably too embarrassed to be capable of speech right now. Give her some time.”
It felt wrong, but I did.
I slip through the back door, successfully fighting the urge to check in on the bar; it sounds like things are quiet, even for a weeknight. After peeling the wet clothes off, I drop them in a pile on the bathroom floor. Though I have a washer and dryer here in the apartment, I forgo laundry for now and immediately get in the shower. I don’t bother waiting for the water to warm up. It’s already warmer than my core body temperature. The one benefit of waiting for public transportation in wet clothes is that it completely and totally killed any lingering effect Jasmine’s pussy and my proximity to it had on my body’s ability to pop and maintain a boner.
Once my balls have thawed, I force myself out of the hot shower. I dig out my warmest fleece sweatshirt and a pair of flannel pj pants Mom buys all of us—in matching sets—for Christmas every year. My teeth are still chattering when I get into bed with my laptop. I have one thousand things to do before I drive to Muskoka on Friday. Bar prep things so Rocco and Bernie won’t be left floundering in an emergency. Business proposal things, the only way I can convince my dad to help me. He probably thinks I don’t even know what a business proposal is. Though, without Jasmine, there might not be a point in pitching this scheme anyway.
And there definitely won’t be a Jasmine there. Because I have to tell her. I can’t put it off anymore. I don’t care how much I like her. Once I tell her, she’ll go off to find the real Nick, not this generic version.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” I say to the furniture in my bachelor apartment. I flick off the bedside lamp; with the light pollution from the city around me, there’s not much need for it anyway. The hum from downstairs, conversation punctuated by laughter, the bass from music that doesn’t invite dancing but makes you feel good, has become so normal it can lull me to sleep almost as easily as my sound machine and the three milligrams of melatonin in the bottle sitting on my bedside table.
I roll toward it, arm outstretched, ready to take my dose even though it’s early. Early for me at least. All the things I need to do can be done tomorrow, the first of which will be talking to Jasmine.
Next to the bottle of melatonin, my phone lights up and beeps. My stomach sinks, and I consider ignoring it. But that little red notification bubble glares at me, shouting the existence of One New Email, and I am nothing if not a millennial, helpless when confronted with the tyrannical reign of my smartphone.
The glare of the blue light is so harsh that at first I’m sure I’m misreading the name of the sender. I blink and rub at my eyes, but when I open them again, it hasn’t changed: Dad.
I don’t want to deal with whatever he has to say and normally wouldn’t. But the subject line catches my attention before I can put the phone down:
Re: Your visit this weekend.
Fuck. I jab angrily at the screen. Fine. This better be good.
He starts it with Nicholas, and I almost throw my phone. Taking a deep breath, I start again.
Nicholas,
I hope you and your partner will consider bringing your ice skates.
Who writes an email like this? To their son? At this point, I have to assume the man I believe to be my father is AI.
The lake has frozen over and your mother is looking forward to a family hockey game. Does your partner skate? I’m sorry, I don’t believe you shared her name.
Regards,
Your Father
I flop back on the bed and laugh even though there’s nothing funny about this email. Except for the regards , I guess. Normally, I’d take a screen shot and send it to the family group chat. Miranda would ignore it, Mom would respond with something like Oh, Nicky, and Alex would call me ungrateful. Dad would see it and say nothing, but he’d fume. Claire and Charlie would think it’s funny.
Tonight, though, the urge to stir up shit feels empty. At this point, my father probably expects it and despite the total awkwardness of this email it does kind of feel like he might be…trying?
We haven’t had a family hockey game since I was a teenager, but Dad would always pick me to be on his team. It was the one time I could see myself in him. When he gets his skates on, he’s surprisingly chirpy for a sixty-year-old asshole. And if he’s trying, maybe I should too? Try to make him happy, to impress him. To show him, finally show him, that even if I didn’t follow the path he wanted, I can be successful. To show him that I still need him.
I sigh and pick up my phone, open my chat with Jasmine.
Me: Do you skate?
I’ll apologize, and I’ll tell her. After this weekend.