The Match Faker

19. Jasmine

19

JASMINE

T hree hours later and despite last call, the sidewalk outside Moonbar is still packed. I try the door, but it’s locked, unsurprisingly. Do I knock? Nick led me in through the back when he brought me here. Unfortunately, this requires me to walk down the back alley, which is terrifying at almost three a.m. Dumpsters line one side, in between back doors to the various businesses on the block. The wall of the adjacent building is covered in tags and street art. There’s one light on above the back door to Moonbar; the rest of the way is dark, a lighthouse in a sea of trash and dark corners. My only option is to run toward that halo of light as fast as my high-heeled boots will let me. I skid on gravel and salt and I grab the back door, jerking on it as hard as I can. Also locked.

Fuck.

The hair on the back of my neck prickles and I can’t help but look over my shoulder, like Ghostface has been hiding in the shadows for a moment just like this. I try again, as if that’s ever worked in the history of locked doors. It does not. I knock again. Maybe Nick’s already upstairs, in bed. Maybe he’s not even alone. A sound echoes down the alley, an unidentifiable noise that the closed captioning on my TV would describe as [loud scraping], and a chill runs up my spine.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I try the door one more time, jerking it back and forth, growling through the exertion, taking out my frustration on the metal handle and rusty hinges. Because I am the idiot who thought coming down a dark alley at night was a good idea, the idiot who couldn’t let her literal perfect match woo her into a stable, loving relationship because I was too upset about this bar. I am the idiot who is outside, in the cold, in the middle of the night, desperate to find out why the hell all the work I did impressing his family, while being bullied by a child and an octogenarian, was worth nothing.

On my final pull, the door gives with an echoing screech, and I stumble back as it swings violently and slams against the wall.

Nick stands there, backlit by the hallway light. He wears his glasses, but any delight I might have from seeing him in them is overshadowed by the scowl on his face.

“We’re fucking closed,” he shouts. His voice echoes down the alley and along my skin, leaving goose bumps in its wake.

I shiver, not from the cold, but out of fear. He’s never yelled like that before. Regardless of whether he knows it’s me, I look away to get myself under control. I don’t want him to see me cry. Ever since I was a kid, listening to my dad yell at my mom, all it takes is one well-directed shout from a man to have me in tears.

“Jasmine?” he asks, his tone laced with confusion. “What…”

“What happened to the loan?” I ask, erecting the barriers I need to get through this conversation.

He deflates, leans against the doorjamb and pinches his nose beneath the bridge of his glasses. “Jazz.”

“Don’t call me that.” Now that I can’t use the door as my emotional punching bag, I’ll have to use Nick. “You said your dad agreed to the loan. The whole reason I went to Muskoka with you was so you could get that loan to save your bar, and now the bar is closing.”

“Jazz,” he says. “Jasmine.” He holds out his hands like he’s trying to calm a wild animal. “Will you come in? It’s cold and—” He looks left and right. “You’re standing in a fucking alley. Why didn’t you just text me?” Standing to one side, he holds the door open.

Holding my breath, I brush past him, but I stop just beyond the threshold, unsure if I should go upstairs or into the bar.

“I didn’t text because I didn’t think you’d answer,” I say quietly.

The door slams shut, and Nick stands directly behind me. Not touching, but just barely. He sighs, puts his hand on my waist, moving me gently to the side so he can pass in the narrow hallway.

“You can wait upstairs if you want. I’ve got to finish closing,” he says over his shoulder as he pushes through the swinging door.

I linger here, butterflies migrating to the spots on either side of my ribcage where he touched me. It’s because of those butterflies I don’t go upstairs. I don’t need to be in such close proximity to a bed right now.

I follow him into the low-lit bar. “You can talk and close.”

The floors have already been swept and mopped clean, garbage emptied, and tabletops wiped down. Instead of closing, he leans against the bar, his arms braced on its edge, head down.

When he looks up, his face is gaunt. “Was that him? The guy you left with?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, fisting my hands. “What happened to the loan?”

“ Of course it matters ,” he roars, his face flushed and chest heaving.

“Don’t yell at me,” I yell back, for once feeling brave rather than reduced to tears.

He turns his back to me, his hands in his hair. When he faces me again, he’s calmer, controlled. “I’m sorry.”

I cross my arms, a useless protection. “He wanted to do karaoke. That’s why he wanted our first date to be here in the first place. I didn’t want…”

Nausea churns in my stomach. I’m not sure how to even finish that sentence. I didn’t want to tell him the truth, another lie. I’m not sure anymore.

“I didn’t know how to explain everything to him,” I say simply. “I’m sorry.”

Under the overhead lights, the bar is cast in strange shadows. The graffiti wall looks harsh instead of cool, the mirror behind the bar revealing its cracks and water damage. Nick is strangest of all. His eyes a little wild, not a smart-ass smirk or grin in sight.

“I didn’t take it,” he says. “The loan.”

“ What? ” I will not cry, even though I want to. He was close, so close to his dream. “Why not?”

He lowers his head, gives it a shake. Sniffs, like maybe he’s also doing his best not to cry. “I couldn’t take his money, Jasmine. Not like that. Not when it wasn’t…”

Real.

He pulls a bottle down from the shelf and pours himself a finger’s worth of amber liquid. Staring into the glass, he gives it a swirl then tips it back and swallows half of it. “I talked to Bernie and Rocco. We thought about pooling our money, going in together, but…”

“It’s still not enough?”

He nods, gaze averted, but devastated. So, I go to him, take the glass from his hand, bring it to my lips.

“I’d have poured you some,” he says, focus fixed on my mouth as I drink. “But it’s not cab sauv.”

The whiskey is smoky, spicy, a bit harsh.

“I can handle it.” I hand him back the empty glass, relish the alcohol’s burn.

His gaze is warm, as warm as the whiskey and his hand on my hip. He leans in close, his lips shine. I want to make him shine with more than just whiskey.

“I should go,” I whisper. He closes his eyes, drops his forehead to mine. His erection presses into my stomach, hot and insistent. “Down boy.” Even to my own ears, I’m not believable.

A smile spreads across his face, wolfish. So very Nick.

“Stay,” he says. “A little longer.”

“I…” Can’t think of a reason not to. Actually, I can think of many reasons not to. They’re just not very convincing. “I really should go,” I say, a last-ditch effort. The words tremble in my throat.

Nick leans close, and I can already taste him, the whiskey on his lips. “So, he took you out for dinner?”

“Yes.” I close my eyes in a fruitless attempt to hide my arousal and the shame that comes with it that I can’t disentangle.

His fingers drift down my front, tugging at the buttons on my coat. “You wear this for him?” he asks, the faintest mocking in his voice.

Nick opens my coat, his fingers linger where the hem of my sweaterdress meets the thigh-high boots, long enough only to feel the brush of his skin on mine, then he pushes the coat off my shoulders.

“Nick, what the fuck —” I hiss at him, bending to grab my coat from the sticky, dirty bar floor.

He beats me to it. “I already mopped,” he mutters, folding the heavy fabric over his arm and draping it over the bar. Despite still being fully clothed, I’m suddenly vulnerable. I grab his forearms, a crutch, a buffer, but he turns me in his arms to face the long mirror against the back wall of the bar.

The floor behind the bar is spotless as well, the counters and cupboards wiped. The garbage changed. The air smells faintly of whatever lemon-scented cleaner he uses and him. Each bottle has been returned to its place, the taps cleaned and plugged, the ice drained. It’s as clean as a dive bar can get.

In the mirror, we’re distorted, made worse by the low light. Because it’s Saturday night on King Street West, the shouts and laughter of people still outside despite the cold and the late hour drift in from outside, but behind the bar is our own little haven.

The mirror is set higher on the wall than the one we stood in front of at his childhood home, cutting off my view of us below my waist, but I don’t need to see what he does next. His hands return to my thighs, fingers curling into the dress, nails scraping gently. “You wore this?” he asks, his voice husky. “For him?”

Again, I can’t look. I lean my head back against his shoulder, keep my eyes shut. “Yes.” Then, quickly, “No.” I meet his gaze in the reflection. “I wore it for me.”

It’s far more daring than my usual style, but I felt—feel—good in it. Sexy. And I don’t feel bad about wanting to feel that way, either.

“Yeah,” he says, more an exhale than a sound. His chin bobs against my shoulder as he nods. “Yeah, you did.” He drags his thumb against my lower lip and it’s easy, it’s nothing to open my mouth, taste him, answer him with the drag of my teeth against his skin. He hisses when I bite too hard, pressing his cock against my ass.

Slowly, he pulls the hem of my sweaterdress up, higher and higher. He watches with me, over my shoulder, stopping only when the white of my panties is visible.

“And what about this?” he pets me there, through cotton already soaked with my arousal. I lean into him, spread my legs as he settles against the bar counter behind us.

“What about it?”

He brushes his lips against the shell of my ear, scarcely breathing the words when he says, “You were bare last time.” He slips his finger beneath the fabric, rubs gently across my still-bare skin. “Did you keep it that way for him, too?”

My chest shudders with each breath. I’m desperate for more, his touch, the barest pressure, relief. Even if I don’t deserve it, not after what I did to him. “No.”

I ache between my legs, my nipples throb, the anticipation of pleasure almost painful.

“For who then?” he asks. “Me?” Still his fingertips skirt the edges of my panties, my slit.

I reach for him behind me, my hand tangling in his hair. “ Me .”

He takes his hand away, pulls my hem of my dress back down in one swift motion. I cry out, biting off the sound with my fist in my teeth. In the reflection his face is hard, but his eyes shine.

I stumble away from him, grip the counter while I try to catch my breath. “First of all,” I say, in my best impression of unphased. “It’s for whom, not for who .”

Even his answering laugh, husky and low, turns me on; the sound moves through me like an electrical current. I hate him.

I hate him.

I wish that were true.

He’s still pressed close to me. Despite his egregious orgasm denial, part of me wants to push him away and walk out, my head held high. Most of me would rather turn in the circle of his arms, pull the sweaterdress over my head, and let him live out his next fantasy all over me.

“Second.” I take a deep breath to collect myself. “I’m sorry. For coming here tonight with him. And for what happened between us.” His face softens at my words, but that only makes me feel worse. I press my thumbnail into the wood counter, stare at the crescent shape as I say, my voice cracking, “It’s my fault you won’t be able to buy your bar.”

“Whoa.” Nick cups my face, his fingers gentle on my cheeks. “Whoa. What? Jasmine, no.”

Mortifying tears fill my eyes. “If I hadn’t left,” I say, doing my best not to let emotion bleed into my voice but failing, “you’d still be able to take the loan.”

He shakes his head, like he can’t believe what he heard. “Why do you think that?”

“You’re obviously pissed at me.” I’m embarrassed to even say it, more so by the fact that it only makes me want to cry harder. I never should have come here. “And I understand why. I’ve been…” I shake my head. “A jerk.”

His eyes go wide, shocked. “Baby, no.” He kisses me, his lips spreading mine open, like if tries hard enough he’ll be able to kiss those words right out of my mouth. His stubble is a familiar tickle and scratch, and I moan from the reminder of it, leaning into the abrasion. I want his kisses to have their desired effect, to feel magically absolved of my guilt, but that’s not what happens, no matter how hard I kiss him back.

If anything, they make me more guilty. I push him away again. “I have to go.”

A perfectly nice man dropped me off at home earlier tonight. He was understanding when I told him I’d felt overwhelmed by the crowd, when I lied that I’d love to sing karaoke with him one day, in front of a smaller crowd.

Seemingly reading my mind, Nick scowls. He refills his glass with more whiskey.

He does not offer me any.

“Is he waiting for you?” he asks.

“What are you going to do then?” I ask, ignoring him and his flashy argument bait. “If the bar’s closing, what will you do?”

He sighs, setting his glass down to run his hands through his hair, suddenly nervous. “I don’t know. Maybe go back to school?”

While I know it’s unfair, my immediate reaction is anger. “You’re just going to give up then?”

He’s worked hard for the last decade and now he’s going to do the thing his father always wanted him to, anyway.

“It’s not giving up, Jasmine,” he says quietly. “It’s growing up. That’s what you’d call it, right?”

I flush, not embarrassed because I think security and stability are important qualities for partners to have, but because my words so clearly hurt him. No matter the terrible things we’ve said to each other, I don’t want to hurt Nick. And I don’t think he’s ever really wanted to hurt me, either.

“Besides, that’s what you did, isn’t it?” he says. “Gave up.”

Okay. Scratch that. I do kind of want to hurt him. I reach for Nick’s bottle of whiskey and pour myself a glass, and take far too large of a mouthful, wincing through the burn.

“What,” I ask slowly to avoid any slurring while the alcohol warms my blood, “am I supposed to have given up on?”

“Us.”

“There was no us , Nick. It was made up. We were made up.”

He cups my jaw, his thumb brushing my cheekbone, tender, almost pitying. “We were. Until we weren’t.”

I turn my face to break his hold, but my skin tingles and glows where he touched me, something I’m not sure I can blame on the alcohol.

“I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree,” I say primly. I will not let him get to me. I came here to find out why he didn’t have the loan, and now I know. In fact, I don’t need to be here at all. Not anymore.

Turning, I reach for my coat where he’s laid it over the bar top.

“Is that what you’d call it?” he asks my back. “A disagreement? Cuz I’d call it trusting a computer over your own heart.”

I turn on my heel before I can force myself to calm the fuck down. “You don’t know what I feel for you.” I jab him with my index finger, lean into the scant inches between us.

He wraps his hand around my accusing finger, squeezing, his skin warm. “There’s no way I was the only one who felt that way, Jazz.”

Outside on the sidewalk, the bar’s last call leftovers have dispersed, leaving only the sound of passing traffic. It’s late. Way too late. I should go home.

The first thing I told Jade when she turned nineteen and was legally allowed to drink was that nothing good ever happens after two a.m.

I really need to start taking my own advice.

“You were,” I say. “The only one.” But I can’t take my eyes off his lips.

“Prove it,” he says, like I conjured him, like he really can read minds, like he’s the genie inside my magic lamp ready to grant my every wish.

I grip the fabric of his T-shirt in my hands and pull his mouth to mine. “Fine,” I growl against his lips. “I will.”

Glasses and bottles clink as I push him against the counter. The erection that has not abated since we started this conversation presses into my hip. He grips my ass cheeks in his hands, rough, pulling me into him more, until he’s almost bent backward over the bar counter.

He tastes warm, like the whiskey, his moan is rough, satisfied as I fist his hair and pull his lower lip between my teeth. When we pull apart, he stares at me, his eyes intense, the curve of his lips teasing, as always.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “What was that supposed to prove, Jasmine?”

I don’t have an answer for him, but this entire evening was doomed from the start and it’s all his fault. Any chance I could have had with the other Nick was ruined because of this one, and my guilt. So, I’ll fuck him, get it out of my system, then we can both move on.

Nick can call it whatever he wants, giving up, computer-generated love. I don’t care. I call it making the smart choice, because what was the point of all this in the first place if I don’t give my perfect match a real chance.

“Are you going to fuck me?” I ask. “Or talk all night?”

Gripping the hem of my sweaterdress in my fists, I channel the woman I was in his pool room and pull it over my head in one motion. I’m naked beneath other than my panties, and my skin pebbles and pinks from the cold, the exposure, and a little bit from the audacity. I never truly feel like myself with him, but in the best way possible. Not because I’m hiding, because I’m revealing parts I didn’t even know about.

No longer can I make snide remarks about him making a joke of everything. Nick’s face transforms from sarcastic to serious. If there’s one thing Nick doesn’t joke about, it’s fucking me.

“Do me a favor?” He looks away, wipes his hand across his mouth, like he can already taste me on his tongue. “Take your hair down?”

I pause, only because of all the things he could have said, I hadn’t anticipated that. But I do as he asks, pulling out the bobby pins and clear elastic bands until my hair unfurls from the bun wrapped on my head and falls around my shoulders.

He sighs. Shakes his head. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

His words, the gravity in his voice, pin me to this spot. They reveal more than my nakedness ever could and I cover myself with my arms.

All my life I’ve heard that. I’ve known I was beautiful since I was old enough to pass for “old enough.” But the words have always been said in the context of what they do for someone else. I’m beautiful and that made a man happy, made him look good to his peers, made me deserving of his time.

To Nick, I’m beautiful. Like art is beautiful. Beautiful like one exquisite line of poetry. Beautiful like it’s his honor to behold.

He reaches for me, pulls me by my wrist into him. His body is warm, his T-shirt soft, the jeans a bit rough against my bare thighs. “Don’t hide, beautiful girl,” he says softly into my hair.

“Sorry,” I say, a reflex, and he tips my chin up, a quiet tsk on his lips for the unwarranted apology. His other hand travels down my body, skirting the side of my breast, my hip, running along the top of my thigh-high boots, the combination of the suede and his warmth laying a trail of shivers on my skin. His fingers glide up the inside of my thigh and finally he touches me like I need. He pushes his hand down the front of my panties, stretching the fabric, glides the pads of his fingers along my lips, and inside me.

I press my face into his shoulder, my mouth open.

“You can bite, baby.”

As he pumps his fingers inside me, rubs the heel of his hand against my clit, I do. More another reflex than a conscious choice. He sighs, grunts, as I bite, grip his waist beneath his T-shirt as I spread my legs further apart so he can fit more inside me, as I stretch for him, my body pliant. He takes his hand away a moment later and I cry out again. I can’t take another denial, but instead of teasing me he holds me by my hips as he gets on his knees, his back against the cupboards along the floor of the bar, his mouth at my pussy.

“Hold on to the counter,” he says, the gentlest command.

“Keep your glasses on,” I say back, and I do, and he does.

I grip the counter. We watch each other as he closes the inches of space between us, his stubble the sweetest roughness on my inner thighs. His glasses tilt as he pushes his mouth deeper between my legs, his tongue stroking. I force myself to keep my eyes open. I don’t want to miss a moment of him like this, on his knees for me, flushed with arousal, his own version of beautiful. But I break my promise in the next moment when he pushes three fingers inside me once again, and I cry out, rocking against his hand and his face, coming, shuddering, held up only by my grip on the counter and his hand on my thigh.

He stands slowly as I catch my breath, not ready to open my eyes yet. He takes hold of me again, places a wet kiss on my shoulder. “Can I take you upstairs?”

I nod, my eyes squeezed shut.

“Can you keep your boots on?”

I laugh, seeing him finally. His glasses are perhaps permanently bent, his hair a mess, his lips shining in a way I’ve grown too accustomed to.

“Yes.” I kiss him. Because I can and because I want to taste myself on him and because if I don’t, I might hate myself for the rest of my life.

He places my coat over my shoulders and carries my dress and purse over his arm, gently herding me toward the back door and up the stairs. The cold in the stairwell, the transition to a new location, pull me from the sex haze I was in moments earlier. I shiver, the wetness between my legs no longer slick and warm. The intimacy and vulnerability between us crumbles away, leaving only a strange sense of embarrassment. Who did I think I was to undress in Nick’s bar, as if this was an audition for a low-budget Coyote Ugly remake. Maybe I can blame the whiskey.

“I’m sorry,” I say, turning to face him as his apartment door shuts behind us.

“You’re good, Jazz.” He tucks my hair behind my ear. “Do you still want to do this?” he asks into my hair. “We don’t have to keep going, if you don’t want to.” After a pause, one where he breathes so deeply his chest expands against mine, he says, “What do you want, Jasmine?” The question far heavier than just a discussion of sex.

I step out of his reach. I can’t think with his fingers skimming the curve of my breasts and his exhales against my neck. He’s left the lights off, other than the weak lamp from the hood fan above the oven. I walk around his apartment, trailing my palms along the minimal, mix-matched furniture, the few wood accents he—or his father—made.

What I want is for him to do whatever he wants to me, but it’s moments like these, the ones I want the most, that are the hardest to let myself have. There are so many lies, omissions, and half-truths, and not enough time between us to make it possible for me to trust myself.

He follows me at a distance around the apartment. When I stop at the edge of the bed, he stops, too. Nick’s T-shirt looks soft, worn, well-loved. I ache to feel it between my fingertips because I know it will be just as it looks. It will smell like him, too. The dim light casts us both in shadows, his skin turning silver and blue, but his eyes are kind.

His eyes are always kind.

“I want…” I say, spreading my hand across his comforter. He’s changed the sheets from the ones we slept under and that makes me sad even if I applaud the hygiene.

I want a way for Nick to be my perfect match. If I was perfectly honest with myself, with him, that’s what I would say, but since I can’t be that I might as well settle for what I want in this very moment.

“I want you.”

I drop the coat from my shoulders, sit on the edge of his bed, lean back on my hands. I spread my legs. If this is our last night together, the least I can do is be real, and the real me wants to get absolutely railed by Nick Scott.

He pulls his T-shirt over his head, unbuttons his jeans, closes the space between us to brush the back of his fingers across my cheekbone, follow my hairline from my temple around the shell of my ear.

He gets on his knees between my legs, slides his hands up my boots. His eyes follow the path his hands take, and when he ghosts his lips across mine, arousal and want burn in my core.

“Nick,” I whisper. He moans his response, and I let myself fall back on the bed as he crawls over me. Together we push his jeans off his legs, he toes off his socks between kisses. His fingers find me again, wet, wanting. I push down the elastic waist of his boxers, his cock hard silk and soft, the flared head dripping pre-come.

He takes the underwear off and starts to roll away, toward the cabinet where he keeps his condoms and lube. I stop him, squeezing his forearm before he can leave the cradle of my spread legs. “I’ve never had sex without a condom before.”

He searches my face. “Do you want to?”

I nod, my heart pounding from the proposal I’ve sent out into the universe. “Have you?”

“Yes. Does that change your decision?”

I kiss him. Gentle, lingering, then pull him back to me. “Not at all.”

I still trust him with my body.

He rubs the head of his cock up and down my pussy, making himself wetter and wetter until the sound of our mutual slickness is an erotic rhythm between us. His cock bumps my clit over and over, until every pass pulls a moan from me, and I seek the contact with my hips. He slips into me that way, with my hips raised, my fingers spreading my lips wide to expose my clit to him.

We stop. Pleasure radiates through my body, from where my pussy sucks the head of his cock into me, up my hips, deep in the pit of my stomach. Pleasure reaches my toes, fills my throat.

Then he moves.

Nick is slow at first, though he doesn’t need to be. I am so slick he could slide right out of me. He stares at where he disappears inside me, his eyes huge in his face. I’m jealous. I want to see it, too.

“What do you see?” I ask, my voice strangled from the words trying to fit around the pleasure inside me.

He meets my eyes for a moment before looking back, his glasses still a bit askew on his face. “You’re wet. Glistening.”

He thrusts into me again and I arch my back. I wish there was a way to take more of him inside me, all of him. I want to be stretched to the point of pain, go beyond full to overflowing.

“Your pussy is so pink and plump.” His lips pop around the words. “And then, around here.” He glides his fingers up and down my lips stretched around him. “You’re pinker, darker.” He bites his lip, like it takes every ounce of self-control not to pull out of me and lick my cunt.

“Like this.” He skims his fingers across my nipples, then takes one nipple in his mouth as if to prove his point. I shudder, twist beneath him, fist his pillow, frustrated. His mouth feels good but it’s not enough, not what I want.

“Can you come again?” he asks.

I nod quickly. “Please,” I beg.

His thrusts come faster, harder. His fingers find my swollen clit. I spread myself further for him, guide his hand in the rhythm I need. I’ve never been this shameless for my own pleasure before. But it’s not my fault. It’s his. He lets me be this way, he makes me this way. He is unapologetic and he makes me think I can be that way, too.

I reach around his hips, grip his ass in my hands, angry with him, hating him. I leave handprints on his skin, nail marks down his back. I pull his head to mine by his hair. Kiss him with too much tongue and teeth, growl into his mouth. The pleasure builds until every part of me is swollen, until I’m choking on it. The bed shakes. He holds me in place, pinning me by my shoulder, his thumb playing a furious rhythm against my clit, the ridge of his cock dragging inside me. Pleasure pulls me apart, piece by piece, rips at my skin, seizing muscle. Frustrated tears fill my eyes, roll down my temples, because I want to come, so bad.

But if I do, when I do, this will be over.

“Hey,” he says, his voice a whisper. “Hey.”

His thrusts slow, his grip on my body loosens. He wipes the tears from my skin with his thumb, disentangles my fingers from his hair. Nick kisses me, his body almost still inside mine, tonguing me in the same gentle way he pets between my legs.

“I’ve got you, baby,” he promises. “I’ve always got you.”

With a rush of warmth under my skin, I come, like the gentle rasp of his voice is the last detail my body needed to fall over the edge. He pulls a sound, somewhere between a cry and a moan, from my lips as he fucks me through my orgasm. My clit and pussy pulse against and around him, but he doesn’t stop his slow, steady thrusts until I shudder and goose bumps rise against my skin.

I gasp. “Stop.”

He pulls out and the absence of him is almost as pleasure-painful as being filled by him, but I don’t have time to complain because in the next moment he flips me onto my stomach, pulls my hips up, and spreads my legs. He pushes back into me, fucking with sharp, snapping thrusts of his hips, then stilling, groaning. His cock pulses inside me and the thought of his come filling me up sends something like aftershocks through me until I’m moaning with him.

Nick rests on his forearms over me, careful not to crush me completely in the bed, though that sounds nice. I don’t feel capable of much more than this facedown starfish on Nick’s bed. He kisses my shoulder, my hair, as his cock slowly softens inside me.

“I’m going to clean you up,” he says, and I nod. Facedown starfish can’t talk anyway.

He slips from me again and crawls down my body. I feel him behind me, kneeling between my spread legs and ass cheeks. He can probably see everything .

Who am I kidding? There’s no “probably” about it. He can see everything. But I can’t bring myself to care or feel ashamed, or embarrassed. Every time Nick puts his hands on me, it’s with reverence, worship.

His hands are gentle as he palms my cheeks and kneads the muscles of my lower back. The bed shifts as he moves, but instead of getting off the bed like I expect, he settles lower between my legs.

“What are you doing?” I ask into the comforter. “I don’t think I can take any more fucking.”

“No fucking.” His breath is warm on my cool, wet skin. Gently, like he’s pulling apart the petals of a rose, he spreads my tenderest skin. “I’m just going to clean you up.”

His nose bumps gently against my ass, then he laps at my pussy.

I squirm. Apparently, I’m fine if Nick looks directly into my asshole but my discomfort draws the line at him sucking his come out of me.

But then his chin bumps my clit, his tongue a soft brush against my skin, his beard a velvety rasp on my thighs. His kisses are sucking and wet, around my hole and inside of me. He grunts, the sound affirming his pleasure and mine. I wish I could see us. I open my eyes, my cheek pressed against his bedspread, the room dark except for the electric glow from the windows and the kitchen, and watch, out of body, my fist grip his pillow.

He thrusts his tongue inside me, his nose and chin bumping against me. I come in a wave rolling slowly down my back, his name a whispering gasp on my lips. I come around his tongue as he laps the last of his come from inside me, shuddering against him and biting my knuckles. When he finally pulls away, steadying me or maybe himself with a warm hand on my lower back, I bury my face in the linens.

Finally, Nick leaves the bed, returning with a warm cloth and some water. He lets me lie there as he pulls back covers and sheets, rearranging me so he can finally pour me into bed and slide in behind me.

Nick was right.

There was no way he was the only one to feel this way.

But as he pulls me against him, kissing the back of my head in such a casual way, I’m not sure I can admit that.

I’m a coward. I was a coward when I asked him to pretend to be my boyfriend, for not choosing this Nick in the first place. I’m a coward because I won’t take a risk, even when it’s not really a risk at all.

After long minutes of silence, Nick shifts, hugging me closer to him. “Do me a favor?”

“Okay,” I say, my voice hoarse.

“If you’re going to leave,” he says, his tone matter of fact. “Don’t come back here.”

My heart crumbles, like ash. A pain so searing I can’t speak, not yet.

“I think it would be easier that way. For both of us.”

I can’t respond, but he doesn’t need one. He goes quiet and eventually his breaths slow, lengthen as he falls asleep, and I watch the sun rise across the wall.

Around noon, Jade slams open my bedroom door and thunders across my floor before I have time to turn over in bed.

“Leave me alone, troll,” I whine as she snuggles beside me. In response, she pulls one of my pillows away from me, pounding it into submission for her own comfort.

“You’re late for work,” she says in a creepily chipper voice.

“I called in sick.”

I left Nick’s apartment early yesterday morning, after sleeping almost not at all. I’d walked out onto the sidewalk on wobbly legs, my heart lodged in my throat. It wasn’t until I was on our front doorstep that I was brave enough to pull out my phone, open my text chat, and typed the words I should have typed long ago:

Me: I’m sorry. I can’t see you again.

I haven’t been able to look at my phone since.

“But you’re not sick.” Jade places the back of her hand against my forehead for confirmation.

“Haven’t been sleeping well,” I mumble, rolling deeper into my pillows. “Maybe I’m coming down with something.”

Mostly I just don’t want to go to work today. I can’t muster up the energy and make myself, which is really messed up because if there’s one thing I’ve always been able to do, it’s walk into a job I hate with my head held high. The idea of having to do Ana?s’s bidding, of looking Mitchell in the eye, makes me want to simultaneously scream and throw up.

Jade huffs and rolls me over with the kind of strength a little sister shouldn’t have over her big sister. “You’re real dumb for such a smart woman, you know that?”

“Hey.” I reach for her forearm to apply a pinch to the tender triceps area, but she bats my hand away and I give up. I don’t even have the energy for retribution. “That’s rude.” I pout.

Jade sits up, cross-legged. Her hair is a mess, sticking up at odd ends and flyaways clinging to unseen static. She bounces on her butt just to hear the mattress springs creak, and even though she’s much older and there’s only one of her, I’m suddenly transported right back to Nick’s parents’ house. His bed filled with niblings and the joy he gets from them.

“What’s wrong?” Jade stops her butt wiggling when she notices the tears that have started to leak from my eyes.

“Nothing.” I sniffle and wipe at my cheeks. “Nick is an excellent uncle,” I say, my throat waterlogged. “That’s all.”

Because Jade is Jade, she doesn’t bat an eye at my non sequitur statement. She cups my cheeks, looking into my eyes like a mother looks at her newborn baby. “Sure, he is, honey,” she says, her voice kind and sweet just like her. “And that’s exactly why you’re such a dumb bitch.”

“Wh— Excuse me ?” I sit up to hit her with my pillow. “Language,” I say primly even though swearing has never been prohibited. “Plus, still rude.”

She cackles, lying on her side, hugging the pillow I smacked her with. “Rude. But true.”

“I am not dumb .”

“Yes, you are.”

“Am not.” I cross my arms and lift my chin, not really that offended but unwilling to admit it.

“You’ve never cared that a guy is a good uncle before, Jasmine,” she says dryly.

“So?” I flatten and straighten the bedspread around us. “It’s a good quality to have.”

“One worth crying over?” She grips my forearms in her hands, suddenly serious.

“Don’t.” I pull away. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Make you happy?”

“It’s not that simple,” I almost yell.

“Except it is that simple,” she does yell. “You like him. He likes you. Yet here you sit, crying into your pillow and calling in sad to work. What’s the problem?”

“He’s not my perfect match!” I yell back.

Jade’s face falls. She wraps her arms around me in a tight hug, squeezing hard, and not releasing me even when the hug is clearly over. She rests her chin on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Jasmine,” she says quietly in my ear, “that our parents’ problems made you feel like you had to be perfect to be loved.”

She squeezes again before climbing off the bed. “You don’t have to hold yourself to such a high standard. It’s an impossible standard, really.” She looks at the floor instead of me. Probably because she knows I’ve already started to cry and don’t want her to see. “I feel responsible. You’re the best big sister and I know that part of that is because you’ve done everything in your power to ensure life is perfect for me.” Now she meets my eyes. She’s crying, too. “I should have told you a long time ago that I don’t need you to sacrifice everything for me. You’re allowed to put yourself, your needs, first.”

Moments ago, I wanted to be alone. Now, as Jade turns to leave, I’ve never felt lonelier.

“What if I make the wrong choice?” I ask. She turns back to me. “What if I fuck it up? Or I hurt him more than I already have? Or he hurts me more than he already has?”

She frowns like that’s the most absurd thing she’s ever heard. “That could happen.” She shrugs. “And I don’t know what will happen. But I know you won’t be alone.”

I tumble off the bed in my hurry to get to her, squeezing her tight to me, her short, spiky hair prickling my chin, the smell of sleep—a concentrated eau de Jade—still clinging. “I love you,” I mumble.

“Love you.”

Jade leaves me for the bathroom, the whine of the pipes battling for sound supremacy with her off-key rendition of a Tragically Hip song that immediately takes me back to Moonbar, to Nick and his T-shirts.

I hurt him by choosing another Nick, leaving, and even if he doesn’t blame me for it, I’ve contributed to the loss of his bar. His dream.

He was selfish when he decided not to tell me who he was, but so was I. In the end, all of this is my fault. My pride, my need for perceived perfection in the eyes of people I don’t actually like, brought us here. If I’d just accepted the out Butch and Ana?s offered me, if I didn’t need to save face in front of a guy that I didn’t really love, I never would have joined Core Cupid. And yet, I can’t make myself completely regret it, any of it.

All of those stupid, prideful decisions brought me to Nick—the other Nick, the one I wasn’t supposed to meet.

Those decisions hurt him, his heart and his dreams, but if I hadn’t made them, I wouldn’t be able to trust myself now, to know all of it was the right decision.

Core Cupid might have a near perfect algorithm, but it didn’t have my perfect match.

Moonbar did.

And I won’t let him give up his dream.