BECAUSE YOUR SOUL NEEDS TO
NICK
Ever since lunch, Tallulah took her frustrations out on me.
That ‘good girl’ fucked me. Repeatedly. Daily. The most I got out of foreplay was a ‘ten minutes, be naked when I get there’ text message.
Andrew threw a shitfit in their meeting room, and Tallulah hopped on a bus to Everett to drag me into the showers.
One of the interns made a backhanded comment, Tallulah rode me on my bedroom floor, angrily talking to me about it while I gasped underneath her.
Her computer refreshed, she lost her edits, and Tallulah showed me a style of sex spooning I’d never experienced before—I honestly thought I’d black out during it.
The sex itself was amazing. Better than my fantasies.
It was what happened afterwards that bothered me.
Beaming with the afterglow, Tallulah left me in whatever speechless state I was in. Some days I’d be slumped on the floor, and she’d head out to take Rat on a walk with a simple ‘thanks!’
Thanks?
Thanks?!
No aftercare, no cuddling, nothing. The door shut behind her—the end.
Tallulah was using me for sex.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t like it.
I was nothing more than a cat sitter with conveniently good dick.
And a cat chauffeur. Rat trotted across the parking lot in her purple harness, tail flickering. She glanced over her shoulder at me and meowed.
“We’re only going for a couple of minutes,” I told her.
“Meow.”
“We’re not staying longer than that.”
“Meow.”
I’d been stern about Rat not visiting the library, but Tomasini dictated so much of my schedule, and Tallulah’s internship hoarded her time. When Tallulah texted me to ask again, I caved. I wanted to spend time with her, I had to take what I could.
At the windows, I could see Tallulah inside, sitting at the table, surrounded by kids. Ugh, kids. If anything happened to the kitten, even a paper cut…Tallulah would be a fucking mess. I couldn’t handle that.
I scooped Rat off the ground, holding her to my neck. She purred, rubbing against me.
“Your mama’s driving me crazy,” I admitted.
Rat purred harder.
“You’re probably on her side,” I muttered. “Telling her to do this shit to me.” I escaped behind a column, leaning against it. I would go inside, just not yet. Instead, I pulled out my phone and made the call I’d been planning for tomorrow.
“Hey, Nick!”
“Hey, Montoya.” I scratched Rat behind her ears. “Tallulah’s going to win this contest thing for her internship. I want to do something special for her.”
“What’re you thinking?”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “There’s like this expensive Nordic spa, my teammates said they have an exfoliation package or something—”
“Uh, Tallulah won’t like that.”
“Dammit, that’s what I thought.” I groaned. “This is where you come in. Give me a million-dollar idea.”
“I don’t know. Books?”
“That’s not big enough.”
“Uhhh…I’d have to think about it.”
“That’s okay. There’s still time.” I checked my phone. “You didn’t send me the figure skater stuff.”
In exchange for Montoya’s help with Tallulah, I offered my consultation services to help him with a girl. I waited for Montoya to respond, but an awkward silence settled over the line. Weird enough, it felt like I’d pressed down on a bruise.
“She’s back with her boyfriend,” he mumbled.
I scoffed. “What does a boyfriend even mean? She’s a sophomore in college, that’s not a real relationship…” My words trailed off.
That was such an automatic thing to say, an argument I’ve stated a million times before. College relationships ended, they didn’t matter, That was what I used to think anyway. Now, the words couldn’t materialize.
What if I was dating Tallulah and someone said shit like that to me? What if someone talked about my relationship like that? Both questions filled me with a biting anger at someone underestimating my feelings for Tallulah, at the longevity of our connection.
But that was my situation.
What if I convinced Montoya to take the back seat and he regretted it like I did?
“I—I don’t know,” I realized. “Holy shit—I don’t know.”
“Yeah,” he mumbled.
I struggled to explain, to talk about the similarities that Montoya and I shared. He wasn’t alone. I knew the pain he was going through, but the words didn’t materialize, I didn’t know what to say.
“When are you telling Fridge?” Montoya asked quietly.
“I can’t do that without her permission and she doesn’t even—” I sighed. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“Nick?” a soft voice asked.
Tallulah stood by the doors. I straightened up instantly, ears burning. Did I say something incriminating? No. No, she couldn’t have heard me, not with that puzzled smile on her face. I said a hurried goodbye to Montoya. “Hey.”
Her smile widened. “You came.”
“Of course I did.”
Her smile was breathtaking, heartbreakingly gorgeous as she crossed the distance between us, reaching to take Rat who instinctively moved for her too, meowing happily.
I pulled away, taking a step back. My gaze shot to the kids through the window. A wave of…something flickered through me. Nervousness? I wasn’t sure.
“Maybe today’s not the day to do this,” I said.
“The kids are excited to see her—”
“Yeah, and when kids are excited they kick, and bite, and put magnifying glasses over ants, and—”
“Nothing’s going to happen. They know they have to be gentle.” Tallulah touched my arm. My heart thumped at the contact, yet I didn’t budge from my post. Her smile softened. “Don’t you trust me?”
It was a teasing, light remark, but the answer was automatic. “Yes.”
“Then…?”
Reluctantly, I followed her into the library, my hand cupping the kitten’s head. Rat poked out between my fingers, meowing at the crowd of kids gazing up at her in awestruck silence.
“You’re overprotective,” Tallulah teased, taking Rat away from me.
“I don’t care about the cat,” I muttered, craning my neck to watch her place Rat in the middle of the circle. “I just know if anything happens to it, you’ll freak out.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I’m sure you think it is.”
The kids took turns reading to Rat while she bounded inside the circle, smacking shoelaces and rubbing up against knees. She was covered in tiny hands petting her and didn’t seem to mind.
Tallulah pulled me to a chair next to hers. “See? It’s fine.”
I grunted. “Mm.”
“The kids have been asking about you. They think it's pretty cool that a hockey player wants to read with them.”
I frowned, confused. “The kids don’t like me. One of them told me hockey players should be locked in basements.”
“They’re used to adults coming in for a single volunteer session. They expect people to leave, they’re prickly with outsiders.” Tallulah shrugged, her voice quiet. “They were hazing you. It happened to me too, they called me ‘the mouse’ for three weeks.”
“Because you’re quiet?”
“Mm-hmm. They only just stopped screaming ‘where’s the cheese?!’ at me.”
I snorted.
“The kids want to know what your favorite book is,” she explained. “I panicked and said you’d announce it when you got here.”
My lips curved for a grin and I wiggled my eyebrows. “Green Eggs and Ham.”
“They’re curious. I’m sure they’d pick up whatever you recommend.”
“Tallulah, I haven’t read a book since, like, third grade.”
“What?” she whispered.
“Are you surprised? I don’t need to read anything.”
“You don’t read because you need to,” she admonished me. “You read because your soul needs to!”
“Okay. Uh-huh. Nerd.”
It was quiet between us and Tallulah put her chin in her hand, watching me. “If you don’t like reading then what do you like? I’ve been trying to figure out what we’re going to do for your bucket list date.”
Pleasure simmered under my skin. We were both wondering how to make a special day for each other. How cute was that?
I shrugged, pleased. “Go to one of my hockey games.”
“Pick something besides hockey.”
“I like hiking?”
Tallulah’s mouth twisted. “Picnic hiking or the real thing? In the woods?”
I couldn’t believe that look on her face. “You don’t like the woods?”
“I’m an indoor person. A book, a fireplace, a fuzzy blanket—”
“How do you not enjoy the outdoors?”
“I like the land. As an abstract, beautiful concept to fear. Like sharks or tornadoes. I respect them, admire them. I don’t want to spend time with them.”
I knew Tallulah was mostly kidding, still teasing from earlier, but I didn’t want our date to be spent with her miserable, carrying a forty-pound backpack. “Forget I said anything.”
“No, I’m sorry, I’m being facetious—”
“There you go, using big words—”
“I’m teasing,” she promised. “Hiking, huh?”
“It’s fine. Doesn’t matter.”
“Come on, tell me.”
Those eyes. Those soft brown eyes you could fall into it. My resolve didn’t keep, it cracked. The words tumbled out. “My mom’s a hiker.”
Tallulah nodded, encouraging me, and I hesitated for a few seconds before taking out my phone. I swiped through the photos of my mom, me, and my brothers, dirty after a two-day hike, all of us grinning at the camera.
“That’s Sugarloaf,” I explained.
“Sugarloaf?”
“It’s a peak in Brazil. P?o de Acúcar,” I tried, wincing.
“My Portuguese is shitty. My mom’s thrilled about that,” I chuckled.
“She’s Brazilian. Ever since the divorce, my mom and I go to Brazil pretty regularly, but I can’t ask for more than ‘where’s the bathroom.
’ We travel a lot beyond Brazil too. She and I have a goal to hike the US national parks. We’ve hit five so far.”
“That’s so cool,” she whispered.
“I thought you hate the outdoors?”
“Fear and respect it. It goes hand in hand.”
I chuckled, showing more photos of the hikes my mom and I took around the Grand Canyon.
“You’re Japanese too, right?” Tallulah asked. “So your dad’s…?”
“He’d say Japanese-American, but yeah.”
“Where have you hiked in Japan?”
My lips twitched for a smile. “I’ve never been to Japan.”
“What?”
“My dad’s an All-American, screaming at his TV set for football Sundays, field engineer.
His idea of traveling is going to the sports bar with his drinking buddies,” I explained.
“My mom asked him once if we wanted to do, like, a family trip to Japan and he was like ‘what do I have in Japan?’” I shrugged. “I’ve never been.”
I was a fifth-generation Japanese-American, my grandparents and my great-grandparents had never set foot in Japan.
Growing up, I didn’t have anything in my home pointing to who I was on either side, Brazilian, and especially Japanese.
One time, a teacher sent me home with a picture book about Tokyo when I asked to borrow it and my dad went livid, ripping up the book and reported my teacher to the principal.
“I don’t have family in Japan,” I said slowly. “I’m from Maryland, Japan doesn’t mean anything to me. But…I don’t know.” I shrugged, uncertain. “I always thought it’d be cool to go. Maybe. I don’t know.”
Tallulah watched me, contemplative. “One of my great-grandmothers, Anna, was this famous doctor. She wrote a lot of books on tuberculosis, ran a hospital in North Carolina for ten years. They invited us to this museum exhibit about her. I’ll be honest, going to North Carolina didn’t change who I am or anything, but…
I don’t know how to describe it. It was so cool to see all of these things she’d affected in their community, and then in my own family.
I couldn’t believe how much of an impact she had.
My cursive looks like hers, we still have some of her recipes, and reading her published journals, I could see so much of my grandparents.
It wasn’t earth-shattering, but it made me appreciate these little things about myself more.
Because they’re her.” She lifted a shoulder.
“Maybe you’ll find that connection, maybe not. Would be fun to try.”
The personal details she shared made my heart stutter because this was another intimate conversation between us, another moment of Tallulah opening up to me.
I wanted to match her enthusiasm. The truth was I couldn’t, not really.
This was one-sided intimacy. I had nothing to connect with, no foundation to discuss.
“I don’t think I could go alone,” I admitted. “My brothers don’t give a shit about it and my mom wouldn’t go, it’d remind her too much of my dad.”
Tallulah’s voice softened. “Are your parents…?”
“Still married? No. Some wishes do come true.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. They should’ve divorced earlier.”
I could see the questions written on her face.
Questions I didn’t want to answer. My back story wasn’t nearly as interesting as Tallulah’s.
And I didn’t get to see her enough, I didn’t want to spend time talking about something as boring as my parents’ marriage that should’ve never happened in the first place.
I didn’t want to talk about this, and I didn’t want Tallulah to think I was a cold person either with what I said.
“I don’t want you to think that I—” I fumbled for a joke to smooth things over.
“I spent half of winter break ice fishing with my dad. I froze my nuts off to hang out with him—that’s love.
I love my dad. It’s just—I—” My explanation splintered and I watched Rat flip over, belly up for the kids to pet her stomach.
Tallulah squeezed my hand. “Okay. You convinced me.”
I frowned. “Convinced you?”
“We’ll go on a hike. For your bucket list date.”
I tried another joke. “That sounds dangerous. I don’t know if I could trust you not to leave me behind.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not your professional, survival, eating squirrels in the woods kind of hike. We’ll have a picnic.”
“Picnic?”
“We’ll hike to a secret meadow or something. Like in romance novels.”
“Wow. We’ll magically find a secret, nearby meadow that all of Toronto doesn’t know about. Should be super easy.”
“I’m serious.”
“Can I change my bucket list? Cross off everything else, and just write that you have to come to one of my games?”
Tallulah huffed. “That’s not a date.”
“Could be.”
“Hockey’s like your work.”
“Then it’s ‘bring a hot girl to work day.’ Check that off for me.”
“No, we’re doing the hiking thing.” Her eyes flickered to mine, and she bit back a smile. “Maybe…maybe, I asked Andrew if I could go to the Ottawa game.”
I perked up. “Are you serious? You asked? What’d he say?”
“He said I’ve been working hard, so…”
“So…?”
“So…he said have fun.”
There was that goofy, dopey smile on my face again.
Tallulah was going to come to one of my games for me.
I dipped down for a kiss, elated. Tallulah gasped in my mouth and pulled away, blushing hard. I didn’t understand why until the crowd was full of groans and kids going ‘ewww!’
I didn’t care. I was too happy.