Chapter 64
Nia lived in a Tudor home in Woodley Park. There was a white stone bench out front, a matching birdbath, a house like Cinderella’s.
A young woman opened the door. “Who’re you here for?”
I didn’t realize other people lived there. “Nia Anderson.”
Whipping her head back, “Nia! Some girl’s here.”
The young woman felt familiar. I scrutinized her while her head was turned, finally placing her short coils as belonging to the actress in Ryen’s film.
Nia thundered down the steps in striped pajama shorts. I worried I mixed up my days, but she didn’t seem surprised to see me and led me to her room.
“Tristan’ll be here in a minute.”
I said, “Okey dokey,” wishing I hadn’t said, okey dokey.
Her room was sun-drenched, the ceiling vaulted, supported by wood beams. A tree scraped the window by her bed, which was a queen with fluffy white hotel bedding.
She bounced up on her toes to pull the chain of the ceiling fan.
It just shifted the hot air around. Waving her hand, “We’ll be naked anyway. ”
She sat, patting the space beside her. I sat awkwardly.
“So, what are your boundaries?”
“My what?”
She brushed a hair from her face. “Like, anything you won’t do.”
I thought about this. “I don’t have any.”
She looked down the slope of her nose at me. “You don’t have any boundaries, Cat?”
“Nope.” Maybe that was my problem.
“How about you and I touching?”
My cheeks felt inflamed. “That’s fine.”
When her phone buzzed, she left. A news notification pinged: Harvard had rejected the White House’s demands. It was stupid, how monumental this felt. I couldn’t stop the little bubble of hope from rising in me.
I heard Nia and Tristan coming down the hallway when Jay texted. I knew I shouldn’t look.
Have u thought about us at all? I know there’s a lot going on. But just wondering :)
It was like he knew I was about to have a threesome or something.
I was in the middle of texting him back when Tristan appeared in the doorway.
He made immediate eye contact with me. I recalled the way he told me he loved me, my fingers on his lips.
It’d been a while, and I was excited to touch him again, but when I glanced at Jay’s message, I remembered the web I’d woven, how it was about to get more knotted.
“Surprise!” Nia said. “Guess what we’re doing for your birthday.”
“I hope going to World Market,” he joked.
Nia’s arms fell. He said, “I’m kidding.”
“Happy birthday,” I said. “You don’t look a day over twelve.”
Tristan glared at me. “Thanks. I’ve always wanted to look like a child.”
“Are you cool with this?” Nia asked. “If you actually want to go to World Market…”
Tucking the curtain of her bob behind her ear, he said, “Fuck World Market.”
She giggled, flicking her tongue over his lips. It was all very hot, but also, why the fuck was I here if they were just going to make out like high schoolers?
He stepped back, unbuttoning his jeans. His penis flopped out in despair like someone throwing themselves from a fourth-floor window. I laughed.
“What?” He frowned.
“Your penis looks like it wants to die.”
Smiling, he flexed it. It was pointing at me now. Come here, it said. I crawled over and took him into my mouth. He groaned, losing his balance against Nia’s dresser. Nia joined me, our eyes meeting like kittens sharing a milk bowl.
Tristan crouched and pushed our heads together. “Kiss,” he ordered.
Nia’s lips pressed into mine. She tasted tart with a hint of something sweet, green tea with a sticky dollop of honey. I hadn’t kissed a girl since elementary school, and those kisses were in service of one day kissing boys. How stupid of us to think girls weren’t just as fun.
Tristan stroked himself, back against the dresser.
A dim sadness passed through me at the sight of us mindlessly reenacting scripted roles.
But then Tristan scooped me off the ground, growling, and tossed me on the bed like a rag doll.
Nia flew through the air a second later, laughing, landing beside me.
I was dizzy with delight. She rolled over and straddled me, pulling my panties down. “Look at your little bush!”
I covered myself. Tristan climbed onto the bed, brushing his lips on my collarbone reassuringly.
“It’s not a bad thing.” Nia wiggled out of her panties. Of course she was hairless.
She pushed my legs open like she was late for work. Her tongue slipped inside me, searching my folds in slow circles. My back lifted off the bed, reaching toward a place I couldn’t get to fast enough.
I’d forgotten about Tristan when he bent down and kissed me while Nia was licking me clean, her little ass in the air.
When I saw that he was fingering her from behind, I wanted to cry out.
He drew his finger from her pussy and shoved it in my mouth.
In a low, mean voice he told me to eat his girlfriend.
I knew then there was never going to be anything better than a man sticking his dirty fingers in your mouth and barking at you to swallow his girlfriend, that things could only decline from here, that maybe it didn’t actually matter that I was never going to have a Roth IRA because what the fuck even was that?
One day I’d be dead, okay, fine, but for one impossible second I’d rise from the grave and recall the taste of her on his fingers.
Tristan caught my eyes. I tripped back into reality, ravaged by guilt.
I could sense he felt it too, our wild abandon coming back to maul us.
It was our ugly secret that aroused us more than anything, wasn’t it?
That Nia only knew the half of it, but we knew it whole?
We were those people screwing in public, hoping to get caught, courting trouble with a pink strap-on.
Wait, no: Nia was wearing a pink strap-on.
She rubbed my inner thigh. “Can I?”
I forgot what I was feeling bad about and bent over. Apparently Tristan had also forgotten and flopped beneath me so I could suck him off while Nia took me from behind.
He came loudly, his knee jerking up, hitting me in the face.
Reaching down, he scooped the come off his stomach and offered his finger to me, then to Nia, before slipping it into his own mouth.
Maybe I was being sentimental—I was in the middle of coming, after all—but it was one of the most romantic gestures I’d ever witnessed.
The three of us were strewn on Nia’s bed like days-old confetti.
The waning sunlight struck a deep orange color through the tree branches, casting strange patterns on our skin.
She pet my hair like we were at a sleepover.
I could sense the door closing on the moment.
I tried to linger in bed, feigning exhaustion.
But Nia tossed the covers off, bending down to pick up her underwear, and Tristan yawned, reaching over me for his watch. I had never felt emptier.
Someone’s phone rang. Nia answered. “Oh, hey! He’s right here. Cat’s actually here too.”
I sat up like I’d been pushed.
Nia held the phone out to Tristan. I saw it was his. “It’s Jay. He wants to say happy birthday.”
Tristan rasped, “Tell him I’ll call him back.”
She looked confused but did it. I excused myself and staggered down the hot hallway to the bathroom.
What had I thought would happen? Nia and Tristan would realize they couldn’t live without me, would fight to figure out a way for this to work?
That the three of them would come around if I just kept pushing, muscling through the pain I was causing others and myself?
I wanted to laugh at how I’d thought this would get them out of my system when I had never wanted that. I’d been wrong about it all. This was too hard. There was already enough wrong in the world to court more complications. Everyone tried to tell me. They didn’t have to tell me anymore.
Collapsing over the toilet, I dry heaved, trying to keep quiet. Nothing came up.
When I returned, Nia and Tristan were dressed nicely for dinner, a show, for something that didn’t include me. My clothes were folded on the bed. I was just a block on Tristan’s birthday schedule.
I stumbled stepping into my shorts. Nia asked if I was okay. I told her I was late for work even though my shift wasn’t for another three hours. I avoided Tristan’s eyes as I hurried out the door.
In the hallway, Ryen was turning out of the actress’s bedroom, buttoning up his shirt. I backed into the railing in surprise but caught myself. He gave me a curt nod, but his expression was brute, as if daring me to confront him. I didn’t. He jogged down the steps and out the door.