26. Nicolette
Nicolette
O kay, so I wasn’t leaving town just yet. I told myself it was because of the new information Dr. Moore’s friend had given me but I knew that was a lie.
It was for him. Part of me was ashamed that I was deviating from my decision to leave Godot for a man.
But the bigger part of me didn’t care. Last night, Riot brought something to life inside me that I’d never felt before.
The feelings I had for my producer back then were strong, but they felt dark.
Dirty. Dangerous. The feelings Riot inspired felt like airy sunshine and safety.
He made me feel desirable, cared for. Important.
Plus, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been out on a date, and the teenager inside me was giddy.
That morning, I’d gotten the call that my car was finally ready to be picked up. Just as I pulled the front door open to head into town, I nearly jumped out of my skin when Chelsea appeared on the other side of it.
“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.”I pressed against my heart, slamming in my chest.
“Sorry,”she said, eyeing me over curiously.“I would have texted, but I wanted to check on you and didn’t want you to tell me not to come.”
The sincerity in her eyes brought back yesterday’s earlier events.
I hadn’t forgotten about what happened at the carnival.
But what progressed with Riot made it feel a lot less important.
Still, I was touched Chelsea was here, on my doorstep, making sure I was alright.
She was such a good friend, I tried to not to let my mind wander to how much I wasn’t.
I smiled at her and the“Thanks, I’m doing okay,”was perched on my lips. But as I studied Chelsea’s features, my words fell silent. There was something loaded behind her expression. A deeper sadness that went beyond sympathy for her friend.
“What happened yesterday at the carnival...” She took a shaky breath. “It was super shitty. Jeremy Blackwell said he’s launching a full investigation.”She rushed the words out. I really didn’t relish the thought of Jeremy spending time investigating my sex tape.
“Chelsea, I appreciate that, but really, I’m surprisingly okay—”
“Nicolette.”She said my name with such emotion I pulled up short.
Her eyes were shrink-wrapped in unshed tears.
She looked away and swallowed. When she turned back to look at me, the heartbreak I saw there made my throat tighten.
“What happened to you yesterday... what someone chose to do to you... it wasn’t right. And it isn’t your fault.”
Her words were sentiments I’d already accepted, but it was validating to hear it out loud. Still, the emotion came off her in disproportionate waves. My breath hitched, realizing it wasn’t sympathy at all.
It was empathy .
I wrapped my arms around her shoulders. She sniffled once. We stood there for a silent minute. When I pulled back, a single tear streamed down her face. I pushed a lock of hair behind her ear.
“I have to grab my car at Riot’s shop. Could you give me a ride? Then maybe we can grab coffee? If you have time?”
Chelsea gave me a watery smile.“I’d really like that.”
Chelsea stayed close to me whenI breezed into the auto shop. When the door chimed, Riot looked up from the desk. His eyes lit up briefly and my butterflies went wild.
“Hey.”He stood, pushed his hands in his pockets and approached me with a knowing smirk. Maybe it was simply the lack of beard, but Riot looked lighter today. His blue eyes sparkled brighter and there was a levity to him I hadn’t seen before .
“Hey,”I repeated. We faced one another, a wave of comfort passing between us. Chelsea coughed and shuffled behind me.“Riot, do you remember my friend Chelsea?”I opened my body up to let her into the conversation. He gave a gentlemanly nod with a sheepish smile.
“Thanks for helping out yesterday, at the vendor booth,”he said appreciatively.
“No problem,”she said but her words were clipped, nervous.
She was afraid of him. He shrank away to grab my keys off the wall and my heart ached. He rifled through paperwork and I pulled my credit card out. Handing my keys over, he waved the card away dismissively.
“It’s taken care of,”he said with a confidence that made my neck flush with heat.
“You didn’t have to do that,”I said flatly but my appreciative smile gave away all the ways I planned to thank him later. He shrugged and winked and I had to take a deep breath to keep myself from throwing my body at him.“Well, thank you.”
The shop was simmering with a quiet tension when a phony sex moan suddenly cut through our silence. Stifled boyish laughter followed and Riot’s body went rigid. A small gasp escaped from Chelsea behind me.
“Tell me you want it...”someone mocked from yesterday’s video.
My face burned but my attention was on Riot. The vein in his throat grew thick with fury as his fists clenched. He couldn’t afford to get in trouble. Especially not over me.
He moved to whirl around, oozing danger but I grabbed his upper bicep to stop him.
His lips parted to protest, but I slid my other hand slowly up his chest. I sliced my narrowed eyes to the work bays where the boys were standing, slightly slack-jawed.
My wandering hand wrapped around the back of Riot’s neck.
I glared daggers at each one of them before pulling Riot’s face down to mine and kissing him so hard I think my bones turned to jelly.
It was meant to show off. To show them I didn’t give a fuck about whether they mocked me.
To give them something better to blabber about.
But as I melted into his body, I began to forget myself.
Riot was stiff at first, caught off guard by my public display of affection. But when his lips parted, and I swept my tongue lightly over his top lip, all the coiled tension in his body relaxed. His strong, calloused hand gripped my waist, almost for stability.
An impressed catcall pierced the air from somewhere behind us. When I felt his smile against my lips, I took a thick swallow and reluctantly pulled away. His sheepish eyes were hooded but shining with something I couldn’t quite place.
“I’ll see you at home?”I rasped. He bit the corner of a swollen lip and nodded once.
I threw one more deadly glare in the direction of the workers standing speechless, awkward in the work bays before turning toward the door. I didn’t spare Chelsea a glance quite yet, a little nervous about how she’d respond to my affection toward Riot.
But she wholly surprised me when she turned to face the shop and yelled,“Hope you got a good look yesterday, boys.‘Cause those were the perkiest tits you’ll ever see again for the rest of your life!”When I pushed the door open, I caught her throwing a middle finger at the men.
As I spilled into the daytime, my heart bloomed, realizing I had more people in my corner than I’d had in a long time.
The Coal Country Caffeine Stop was the best coffee shop in town.
And not just because it was the only coffee shop in town.
It was genuinely a great cup, which I was thankful for after spending a month drinking the swill Riot called coffee.
Plus, they had makings for Irish coffee if you knew who to ask.
Chelsea twisted her fingers at our little table when I approached with two more steaming cups of Irish coffee.
“You gonna tell me what’s on your mind? Or just sit there pulling your fingernails off?”I raised an eyebrow in her direction.
“That video. At the carnival...”she drifted off, darting her eyes all over my face like I was a puzzle she couldn’t put together.“How are you okay?”Her question caught me off guard.
“What do you mean?”
She shook her head as if trying to rattle the sense loose.“I...”she cut herself off by taking a big swig of the hot liquid.
She gazed up at me, resolute.
“It was the night of senior prom. I was dating that guy from Charleston?”I didn’t remember, but I nodded like I did.
“We hadn’t been dating long, but I really liked him and.
.. well, he said he always wanted to remember our first time together.
”Her jaw worked up and down, afraid to continue and I felt my heart sinking. “I... I let him film us.”
My mouth twisted into a frown. Chelsea’s cheeks grew impossibly red. I reached over and put a palm over one of her hands.
“It was a great night. I mean senior prom, you know?”I didn’t; I hadn’t gone after all.
I was already knee-deep in pencil skirts and blazers at that time.
“Anyway... we broke up during the summer, after he slept with Lanie Mitchell. When I went to college, I forgot all about him.”She took a breath.
“Until someone sent me a link on skinflix.me.”Her eyes flashed knowingly in my direction.
“I don’t know if he sold it to them or if he sent it to someone who put it up there.
..”Her curly brown hair shook across her face.
“But I was devastated. It was awful; it was shared all around campus, and I had guys coming up to me asking when my next video would get released.”She offered a humorless laugh.
“Jesus, Chels. I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”
She shrugged.“My parents didn’t have the money for a lawyer but this woman, Sadie, reached out to me and said she’d file a court order to get it removed, pro bono, if I wanted.
It still took a while, but she got through to the hosting service and turns out they don’t like when their content is revenge porn so they erased it pretty quickly.
” She chewed on her lip, eyes glistening as she stared into her coffee.
“She offered to‘sue the shit-stained pants off the guy’but I told her I wanted to forget all about him.”
I gave her hand a quick pulse.“I’m glad someone was there for you. And I’m really sorry I wasn’t.”