Chapter 19 #2
The vibration of it against my skin. The warmth of his breath. The want and desperation in it
The knife stops.
I stand there. Mustard half-spread. Staring at the refrigerator like it has answers.
I was minding my business. I was making a sandwich.
I put the knife down. Pick it up. Put it down again.
This is unacceptable.
I was a formerly functional adult.
Now, I cannot complete basic food preparation without a sensory flashback ambush.
This feels like a workplace violation—except the workplace is my kitchen and the violator is a man two hundred miles away who probably doesn’t even know I’m thinking about him.
I finish the sandwich. Eat it standing. Eat it dry, and swallow hard.
It will pass.
Saturday afternoon. Office. Valentine's Day.
I'm three paragraphs into editing a client proposal when the laundromat downstairs hits maximum spin.
The vibration travels up through the concrete floor. Through the office chair. Into my thighs.
I become suddenly, profoundly aware of my body in a way that is entirely inappropriate for eleven in the morning.
This is not my fault.
The fault belongs, in equal and non-negotiable parts, to Whirlpool Industrial and one West Prescott, NHL captain, currently two hundred miles away, who apparently decided that spending Valentine's Day apart wasn't enough suffering and supplemented it with a delivery.
Two live Maine lobsters arrived at seven this morning.
They are currently occupying my kitchen sink like extremely expensive, mildly judgmental roommates. Proper ones. Claws intact. Bands tight. Cold and real and flown in from Boston at an hour that implies logistics teams and money and intention.
Not Caribbean imposters with missing parts.
Actual, arrogant, ocean-born creatures.
The note had been brief. Infuriatingly brief.
CORRECTION.
That was it. One word. As if he hadn't just overnighted half the Atlantic to my kitchen because I complained once—once—about clawless substitutes on a tropical island three weeks ago.
He remembered.
Of course he remembered.
I'd sent him cufflinks.
Ox & Bull Trading Co. Midline. Tasteful brushed silver with a subtle knot detail. The kind of gift that says I was thinking of you without saying anything that could be used against me later. Appropriate. Considerate.
Completely, catastrophically wrong.
Because he sent me two living creatures and a single word that somehow contained an entire conversation we hadn't finished having.
I sent him accessories. Respectable. Tasteful.
I should have sent something dirty.
Like—my underwear—eww. Scratch that.
There are categories of gifts you can send a man you’re not dating, but entirely lusting after, that still say I see you. A card. Something funny. Something that acknowledged what happened between us in the Caribbean without me having to actually acknowledge it.
Instead I went full business-casual Valentine's cuff links while he sends Maine lobsters with an entire memory attached.
The washing machines hit spin cycle.
How many machines are running right now? At full weekend capacity? All twenty washers once? With ten dryers? The particular thunder of industrial spin that makes the entire building hum like it's trying to achieve lift-off.
My phone buzzes.
A text from West.
Something innocuous—a photo of his kitchen upper cabinet, captioned: found the mugs.
The washing machines keep going. My chair vibrates harder.
I make a sound I will never describe to another human being and nearly drop my pencil.
I close my eyes and focus on the buzz traveling up through the seat, between my—
I snap my laptop shut. Stand. Grab my coat. Walk downstairs with the rigid posture of a woman maintaining her dignity under active siege.
I will not be that grown woman losing a battle to Whirlpool on Valentine's Day because a hockey player sent her shellfish and then texted her a photograph of mugs.
Away from the building-sized vibrator.
This is his fault.
Entirely. Completely. Medically his fault.
The lobsters are still alive.
Which means I'll have to boil water later.
Which means I'll have to think about cracking shells.
Which means I will absolutely not think about his hands doing it instead.
This is sabotage.
Luxury, deliberate, perfectly timed sabotage.
And he is two hundred miles away, completely innocent, probably not even thinking about me.
The mugs photograph suggests otherwise.
I delete that thought immediately.
Afew nights later. Lying on my bed. Voice call, his breathing low and easy on the other end of the line while he tells me about a conversation with his agent—something about a book he’s picked up.
I'm listening. I am genuinely, actively listening.
My hand has drifted to my own collarbone without permission.
Tracing the ridge of it. Slow circles. The same path his mouth took when he kissed me there in the dark.
I notice what I'm doing. Stop. Pull my hand away.
Weston Prescott opened a dam.
Opened it and walked away, and now I'm ambushed by my own body at the most inconvenient moments. Aftershocks. Tremors.
This is on him.
I’m going to say that to his face.
I am absolutely not saying that.
Aweek of back-and-forth and the texts have shifted.
Longer. More specific.
He tells me about a conversation with his mother that sits heavy under its brevity and I can read between every line.
I offer one piece of unsolicited advice—gently, carefully, because I know him well enough now to know that unsolicited advice is a landmine for a man who's spent his life building his own maps—and I wait for him to ignore it.
He doesn’t.
Interesting.
It tips late one night.
I'm in bed. Lights off. Phone glowing in the dark.
WEST: What are you wearing?
He's joking. He's definitely joking. Right?
ME: My most devastating ensemble. Boston Bruins shirt, circa 2014. Slight ink situation on the front.
WEST: The ink stain earns it.
ME: That's what I keep telling people.
WEST: I've been thinking about you.
WEST: Specifically about what you looked like on your knees in the casita.
The ink stain becomes irrelevant.
The build takes two days.
I tease. Retreat, Tease harder—a rhythm I'm discovering I have a natural talent for, which is both thrilling and mildly concerning.
He responds with something that makes my face go hot.
I send something back that makes him go quiet for three full minutes.
Three minutes. I count.
WEST: You can't just say that.
ME: I just did.
WEST: Jane.
ME: West.
WEST: Zoom. Tonight. Eight.
ME: Why?
WEST: Because I want to see your face when you say that.
Oh. OH.
This is fine.
I'm fine. I've done things with this man. Extensive things. Detailed things. I have no reason to be nervous about a Zoom call.
None whatsoever.
Grace will be at a study group. She announces this during dinner with the complete obliviousness of someone facilitating a situation she has no idea exists.
"Back by eleven probably," she says, grabbing her bag.
"Great. Good. Study hard."
She pauses at the door. Squints at me. "You're being weird."
"I'm always weird."
"Weirder than baseline."
"Go learn things, Grace."
She leaves. I sit in the apartment. Pick up my phone. Put it down. Pick it back up.
He started this. This is a completely proportionate response.
I go to my room. Close the door.
I could wear the Bruins shirt.
I do not wear the Bruins shirt.
I dig through my drawer until I find the push-up bra—the good one, dark gray, underwired, the one the bridesmaids and I shopped for when Project Honeypot was in place.
I put it on. Tighten the straps and voilà! Instant deep valley-cleavage.
Then the gray zip-up hoodie—soft, slightly oversized, the zipper drawn to a point that is technically decent and absolutely not innocent.
A light, easy skirt—completely impractical for February in Boston, but the apartment's warm enough and I'm not planning to go outside.
Hair down. Nothing else.
I look at myself in the mirror.
Confident? Thirty percent. Terrified? Sixty percent. Horny? One HUNDRED percent. The math doesn’t add up, but it doesn’t matter, my brain is committed to kinky chaos and is not taking questions.
I sit on the bed. Position the laptop. Angle the screen. Check the light. Check again.
8:00.
I press call.
He answers on the second ring. Jacket on, slightly distracted—the version of West that exists in his own space when I'm not on his screen. Low light behind him. Expensive furniture. The well-furnished backdrop of a man who owns his world entirely.
Then he sees me. The distraction disappears like smoke.
“Hey.” The single syllable drops an octave. Whatever he was thinking about before dissolves.
"Hey." I tuck one leg under me, shift slightly. The zipper gap moves. Not much.
Enough.
"Bad time?"
"No."
He's very still.
His eyes are doing that thing—the one where he's choosing where to look and the choice is costing him something.
Deliberate eye contact. Aggressive, conscious eye contact.
The eye contact of a man who is aware that his gaze wants to go somewhere else and is refusing to let it.
Oh, this is DELICIOUS.
I ask him about how much snow they’re getting. He answers nonchalantly.
I ask a follow-up and pretend to yawn… like I’m having a completely normal conversation.
Internally, I’m beside myself.
"Hold on—"
I reach behind my laptop, to the shelf just above it.
My water glass.
The stretch is real. The angle is not accidental.
A small sound escapes me—the soft grunt of effort— like I’m doing something far more athletic than reaching for water.
My chest pushes forward.
The angle improves.
One one-thousand. Two one-thousand.
I settle back into frame. Take a sip. Unbothered.
He can’t tell how hot I’m feeling now.
"What did you just do." His voice has dropped half a register.
"Got my water."
"Jane."
"Hydration is important."
The silence that follows has actual weight. Physical density. I can feel it through the screen.
"You did that on purpose."
All innocence. "The water was right there."
"I need a second."