7
hannah
I wake up in bed with Ellis again, second morning in a row. He’s got his back to me this time.
I almost left last night, I really did.
He was gone, and the house was big and empty, and I walked around, looking at how he really hasn’t decorated the place, as if he’s just squatting here, and I know he got this house because he wants to prove some kind of point or make some kind of statement or maybe just hurt other people the way he perceives they hurt him.
I know I’m caught up in something that is going to blow up in my face.
So, I really should leave.
But I don’t.
I think about going home and how Andrew and my mom will be checking the CCTV footage of my parking space at my apartment. They’ll send little texts about how relieved they are that I’ve come to my senses. I can’t even handle that.
So, I think, I’ll just stay here tonight, and it’ll be different in the morning. I can go home and they won’t necessarily think they’ve won, not if I stay the night. Anyway, I’ll be able to think better in the morning.
I’ll be able to figure out a good exit strategy.
I should be thinking of that now.
Since he’s asleep, probably the best thing to do is just get dressed, go to my car, and get out of here.
He’s very pretty while he’s sleeping, so I stare at him for longer than I should. And then, when I get up, I’m looking at him still, and I bump into the bedside table, and I jostle the lamp sitting there. It doesn’t fall or anything, but it makes a noise, and he startles awake.
“Sorry,” I say. “Um, go back to sleep.”
He sits up, and he’s got another cute little red mark on the side of his face, like yesterday. I find it adorable, even considering everything. “Morning,” he says.
“Morning,” I say. I look down at his shirt, which is all I’m wearing.
He pushes the covers aside and gets out of bed and goes into the bathroom, where he pees with the door open, again, which makes me kind of livid, partly because I have to pee, and partly because he’s so casually intimate with me, because waking up with him and listening to him urinate makes me feel like there’s some closeness growing here, and I know that’s not true.
“We should talk,” he calls out, and then he flushes.
“Let me get dressed,” I say, picking up my bag from where I left it and going into the bathroom. I pointedly close and lock it.
He calls through the door. “You don’t have to do that. I’ve seen you naked, you know.”
I ignore him.
I take my time in there. I have a comb in my bag, and I run it under the water, and I tame my hair, and I even brush my teeth. It’s a good fifteen minutes before I leave the bathroom, and when I do, he’s not even in the bedroom.
I sling my bag over my shoulder, put on my shoes, and go downstairs.
He’s in a hoodie and his boxers, leaning against the wall near the stairs, gazing at his phone, muttering something under his breath that sounds like, “fucking bitch,” I think.
I stop on the steps, a little annoyed.
He looks up at me. “Not you. You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
“Sorry,” I say. “It’s a little too much for me. You were… licking me and talking to her on the phone and then you went to see her, and… did you have sex with her?” Why am I asking him?
“No, but I went down on her,” he says, shoving his phone into the front pocket of his hoodie.
“And we got in a thing and called each other names and last night, I was like, ‘I’m done with her. I’m leaving.
This is insane. Let her get knocked up and be a rich housewife and why do I care?
’ But then, this morning, she sends me this shit. ”
I just blink at him. I know he wants me to ask. I’m not going to. I breathe.
He shuts his eyes and leans back against the wall. He very carefully presses the back of his head into the wall, releases, and then presses it again.
Fine. “What shit?”
He opens his eyes. “Just, like, texts.” He pulls his phone out and he scrolls, and I look, and it’s a lot of words. “I shouldn’t let you read them.”
I wait.
He’s just scrolling, looking dejected.
Annoyed, I try to take the phone from him.
He lets me.
I look down and I read what I can see. …
think about that time when you and I were out in the woods on the compound and you promised me that you would never leave me, and I wonder why I keep pushing you away.
Andrew slept at his mother’s last night.
We fought and fought and he was crying again, and I just don’t even understand why I’m like this, why I make everyone who cares about me hate me.
Do you have your phone on do not disturb or something?
Text me back, dammit.
For fuck’s sake, if I find out that you’re fucking Hannah right now, I will never forgive you
He yanks the phone back from me.
I could see that the texts went on for a while after that.
“She just…” He squares his shoulders. “It’s confusing. She says she doesn’t want anything to do with me, and then it’s three pages of her being all, ‘Console me, Ellis,’ and I’m in love with her, and she never gives me a chance to—” He shoves the phone away. “This is why I left, do you get that?”
I shake my head. “I don’t. I don’t get anything about either of you. Or my stupid brother.”
He nods. “Fair.” He runs a hand over his face. “So, you’re leaving.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Thanks for popping my cherry or whatever. Obviously, no one else was going to.” I push past him on the stairs.
He catches me by the arm. “Hey, don’t say things like that about yourself. You’re, you know, great.” He leans in and kisses me on the forehead. “I’m sorry, Hannah. You deserve better.” He lets go of me.
I stand there, feeling stupidly weak-kneed. A surge of emotion for him goes through me, and I feel an echo of him inside me, all the way inside me, and it drags a noise out of my lips, a noise like the way I sound when he’s fucking me.
He meets my gaze, and his expression goes possessive.
I swallow.
He gets his phone back out. He scrolls and shows me the screen.
It’s Callie’s Instagram, a picture of a brunch place. Meeting the girls here at 10:00, says the caption. Warm ups at the bar. It’s been a hell of a weekend.
“She’s baiting me,” he says. “Andrew, too, of course. It’s, like, ‘I’m here, drinking mimosas at eight in the morning. Somebody save me from myself. Or somebody come drown yourself with me.’” He scratches the back of his neck. “I’m obviously going.” A pause. “Come with me.”
I shake my head.
He leans closer. “You know, maybe I actually want it over with her, and I just don’t know how to do it. Maybe I went to your apartment the other night because that’s what I wanted. Maybe if you’re there today, it’ll help.”
“I was there last night when she called you, Ellis,” I say. I had my pussy in your face. You were licking it. I don’t think I’m any kind of distraction from her, at all.
“Well, we take one car,” he says. “And that’ll keep me from abandoning you.”
I scoff. “No, it won’t.”
He hesitates. And then he nods. “You’re right. You should go home. This is not your train wreck. You should get back to your life.”
Yeah, it’s a Sunday, and I have nothing to do, actually.
I would have spent the day trying to read, but I haven’t been able to read anything lately, actually.
Since I started reading slush manuscripts, somehow, reading has been translated in my head into a chore, not fun.
I still try. I buy books and I download them and I get everything ready, and then I read two paragraphs and check my phone, scroll through TikTok for a half hour, read two more paragraphs, pick up my phone again, and then—
Anyway, I don’t have a life.
I sigh. “Fine, look, I’ll come, but we each take our own car. I’m not getting stranded there.”
“We’ll take your car,” he says. “So, you can leave if you need to, and I’ll get an Uber if things go sideways.”
“Which they’re going to,” I say, sure of it.
So, that’s how I end up sitting at a high-top table at The Mill at 8:45 AM on Sunday, the brunch menu in front of me while Ellis glares at Calliope’s back, and she sits at the bar and pretends not to see us.
“Coffee,” Ellis tells the waiter, looking at Calliope, “and breakfast martinis. They’re good here. You want one, Hannah.”
The waiter smiles at me, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, fine,” I agree. “Coffee and a martini.” I never drink this early on a Sunday. I really don’t drink much at all.
“Coming right up,” says the waiter and disappears, still smiling.
I look at the menu.
“There’s a buffet,” says Ellis, gesturing.
I look at where he’s gesturing, and I see the long stretch of a sideboard where a buffet should be set up, but the drop-in wells are all empty and the lights are off.
“It starts at 10:00,” he says.
Great. So, sit here, drink a lot, and then we get food to soak it up later? I have a very bad feeling about all of this. But then, why am I even here? I certainly do not have a good feeling about anything to do with Ellis Cirillo.
Ellis is still looking at Callie’s back.
She throws a glance over her shoulder, locks her gaze with him, and then meets my gaze.
I don’t know what to do. I feel my whole body freeze.
She turns back to the bar.
Ellis gets up.
“Are you going over there to talk to her?” I say in a quiet voice.
He glances at me, and then back at her, and then he sits back down. “No.”
I wonder if I should try to change the subject, make small talk, get his mind off whatever the hell we’re doing here.
Except I can’t think of anything, and I don’t even really know what we are doing here, I have to admit.
He can’t resist her, and I’m along for the ride because I have nothing better to do with myself?
I’m pathetic and boring and this is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in my entire life.
Also, he’s awful, but I feel for him. And I like him, even though he doesn’t deserve it.
“I presented as an omega when I was fifteen,” he says to me. He’s still looking at Calliope. “I don’t know if you know how that happens for male omegas?”