Chapter Eleven #2
Nicholas backs up against a wall. He doesn’t do it softly, either.
I yank his hair and he spins, falling backward onto the couch.
It’s a move he shouldn’t have made, because I lock my arms and legs around him with an iron grip and he’s now a turtle on his back.
I expend a burst of precious energy launching him off the couch, facedown on the floor, and revel in my moment of triumph before he starts fighting back.
“Get off!” He rolls us, but I’m scrappy and I’ve been storing up my energy all day with bonbons and Real Housewives. He’s stressed. His mother has called his office fifty times. I’ve got an edge on him.
I’m straddling him now and I’ve got my hands on his throat. “Give me my phone!”
He throws my phone at the armchair across the room. I consider diving for it but my elbow still hurts from where he squished me against the wall, so I pull his shirt up over his face like a fifth-grade bully and pinch his nipples. Nicholas shouts.
Eyes obscured, he fights for use of his arms and smacks his own glasses askew when I yank his shirt back down. “Lie still!” I command. “I deserve to win this.”
“You deserve tapeworms.” His face is red and he’s struggling more than he’d like to admit. I feel a rush of power to know that I’m actually a decent foe here.
“You bumped me into the wall on purpose.”
“I did not, you little goblin.” I bounce up and down, which makes him wince. “You’re not a goblin, actually. You’re a changeling. You’ve taken over the body of that nice girl I met.”
“Her name was Naomi, wasn’t it?” I say, tilting my head. “Too bad for her.”
“Yes. Too bad for us both.”
“You’ll never see her again.” I shift for better purchase on his squirming lap, and a jolt of surprise electrifies me when I discover he’s hard.
All the air punches from my lungs as I burst out laughing. “Oh my god, why?”
His cheekbones burn. “Your top is low and you’re writhing all over me. What do you expect?”
I expect him to be single-minded in his quest to end me, is what I expect.
I’m amazed by man’s ability to think about vengeance and penis contact at the same time.
What I’ve been regarding as a savage WrestleMania showdown has been more like foreplay for Nicholas. I should have known. Men are trash.
The harder I laugh, the more I unintentionally rub on him, and the further into darkness his eyes slip. He’s incredibly turned on and absolutely furious about it. At this moment, I have more control over his body than he does. The delicious power trip goes straight to my head.
His hands shoot out and catch me in the ribs.
I have approximately one second to wonder if he’s going to kiss me or kill me when he draws a wild card and starts tickling me.
My hands are still around his throat, but when he tickles all my weak spots it’s like pressing an eject button.
I flop over onto my side, flailing uncontrollably.
“Ahh, stop!” I gasp. “I’m very ticklish!”
“Are you? I couldn’t tell.” He’s getting back at me for making him horny and embarrassed.
I kick his shin and wriggle away, making a break for my phone. He seizes my ankle and pulls me back, but the smooth motion of gliding across the floor against my will is like an amusement park ride and instead of irritating me it just makes me laugh.
The laugh dies when Nicholas pins me. His hair’s hanging down on either side of my face, breath fanning over my lips. He holds very still, just watching, closer than he’s been to me in ages. My body remembers him and shivers.
His eyes are so black, I think I can see hell in them.
For someone whose gaze has the power to compress souls into diamonds and diamonds into dust, I know he’d taste like spun sugar if I licked across his tongue.
He’s the poster boy for high-fructose corn syrup and I want to take a bite out of him.
Peel off his shiny wrapper. Count how many of my teeth marks I find beneath.
The air is mountaintop-thin. “You’re a demon,” I tell him.
“And you’ve been a ghost,” he breathes. I need the upper hand here, but I’m smaller than Nicholas. I use one of the only weapons at my disposal: surprise.
I reach between his legs and give him a firm, not unpleasant squeeze.
His eyes widen, and the involuntary reaction of pupil dilation is mesmerizing.
In the time it takes him to blink, a galaxy of colors dances across his irises: jade and brown and every flavor of blue, from summer rain to the midnight flash of moonlight on ocean waves.
I’ve got him on his back before he can register what’s happened. “This is your downfall, right here,” I say tauntingly. I squeeze my thighs on either side of him and he bites his lip. “You’re supposed to be pissed off, not turned on.”
“I can be both. You’re not the boss of me.”
“I could get used to this Nicholas,” I say, toying with him.
“You’re actually present.” Unlike the way he was the last few times we slept together, barely looking at me.
He hates how excited he is right now and can’t figure out which emotion he wants to let lead the charge.
For logical, practical Nicholas who must keep his head in every situation, lust is terrifying.
“I’m always present,” he bites out. “You’re the one who’s never present.”
I ignore him, stroking his cheek. The atmosphere quivers, stretched so tight I could tap thin air and hear the resounding thump of a bass drum.
“You feel alive,” I say. I lay my palm over his pounding heart. “Yes, very alive, like a real human man. I wouldn’t have known it, since you never touch me. Have you forgotten how?”
He cups a palm around the back of my neck and simply rests it there, reminding me he could change the score at any moment if he wished it.
“Tell me you’re sorry and I’ll let you find out.”
“Sorry for what?”
“Your half.” His chest rises and falls deeply.
I recognize all the signs, but it’s as if they’re from another life, they’ve been lying dormant for so long.
I keep finding myself wondering, When’s the last time I saw this Nicholas?
because I’m forgetting that this Nicholas is new to me.
He’s uncharted territory. I want to explore the parts that are a surprise and punish him for the reincarnated parts he’s trying to bring with him from his old life with the old Naomi. They don’t belong here.
“My half,” I repeat, sitting up straighter.
I feel him beneath me and it’s been so long; anything we’ve done in the last few months doesn’t count.
The last time we had sex, the space between us was dead air, unbroken by any emotion whatsoever—not love, not attraction, not tension.
Right now, two out of three ain’t bad. My body wants to trickle into liquid and spill forth all over him, but I venture to say, “Half of what?”
“Of what went wrong.”
I swallow. It feels like someone’s scratched my throat with talons. “We were never right to begin with.”
He arches a brow. “No?”
“No. Changeling Naomi is the same person as First Date Naomi, just with all the shiny new penny rubbed off. We got too used to the best version of each other, so neither of us ever got to relax and show our normal selves. We’ve been hiding.”
He stares up at me from the floor. He’s slack-jawed but his muscles are strung tight. When he finally speaks, what he says catches me off-guard. “Who texted your phone?”
Before I can answer, he gently places a hand over my mouth.
His skin is warm and smells like my conditioner.
It’s been a long time since he’s slipped his fingers through my hair long enough for the scent to wear off on him.
It’s been a lifetime since we’ve smelled or tasted like each other. Been hungry for each other.
“Tell me, please?” His voice is velvety and compelling. Dangerous. “Be honest and you can have whatever you want.”
He lets his hand fall from my mouth. I’m reeling. I think he might be laying a trap. Either that or I’m paranoid after laying so many traps of my own. Traps are all I see now.
“No one texted me. Who would? The only ones who text me are you and Brandy, and Brandy’s busy with orientation at her new job.”
“Can I see your phone, then?”
I bristle. “No. It’s private.”
“Even from me? I’d let you see mine.”
I don’t believe that for a minute. “So? I wouldn’t ask to see yours. Your phone is none of my business.”
“I am your business.” He sits up, bringing our faces closer together. I slide off his lap immediately and insert a healthy amount of room between us. “Or I’m supposed to be.”
“You don’t trust me,” I say.
“You don’t trust me, either.”
We watch each other. We’ve been watching each other so long, whenever I shift my glance I see a faint shadow of his silhouette thrown over every surface, like one of those black-and-white optical image tricks that you continue to see imprinted on blank spaces even after looking away.
The sky has grown dark without our awareness.
Through the living room window I can see a dash of stars, so much brighter here than anywhere else in the world.
We’re in our own bubble out here in the country.
This house is a place outside of time. It’s so easy to spin around each other and lose track of hours, days, weeks. How long have we been here? It’s got to be years.
I strain to remember how I wound up sharing intimate space with this other human being.
I think I remember a zing in my bloodstream, a click of magnets.
Laughter. Hope. The beginnings are so sparkly, so effortless.
You can imagine the other person to be whoever you want.
In all the gaps of your knowledge about them, you can paint in whatever qualities you like as placeholders.
You can paint the other person into a dream impossible for them to live up to.
We met at a charity triathlon and struck up a conversation when he stumbled and I helped steady him. We met while volunteering at a homeless shelter. We met at a bank, depositing millions of dollars into our respective accounts. Braiding lanyards with at-risk youths.
He’s right, I don’t trust him.
He’s kneeling at the other end of the rope bridge, hacking away at my lifeline with his knife. It’s going to collapse before I can safely passage over. His eyes gleam as he watches me panic. He can’t wait to see me fall.
Nicholas rises to his feet and checks the window, surprise flitting across his face when he sees that it’s already dark outside. I think he’s realizing we’re in a place outside of time, too. He shrugs back into his coat.
“Are you going out?” I ask, shadowing him.
“There’s a freeze warning tonight. With as heavy as it’s been raining, I should get ahead of this and go salt Mom and Dad’s driveway now.”
Suppressing the urge to roll my eyes is like trying to hold in a sneeze.
How could I have forgotten this particular habit of the golden son?
Anytime there’s a freeze warning out and there’s been precipitation, Nicholas goes over to his parents’ house and salts the driveway.
When it snows, he shovels their driveway.
They could easily hire someone for this task, but darling Nicky takes up the mantle because he’s Such A Good Son and craves their approval like it’s cocaine.
“We should do our driveway, too,” I say. By we, I mean him. It’s freaking cold out there and I’m in my daytime PJs.
“Our driveway won’t get as bad as theirs, since it’s not paved.” He slides his gloves on and flexes his fingers, admiring the quality of leather. “I’ve got snow tires and four-wheel drive.”
“I’ve got . . .” My monster car flashes in my mind’s eye. I’m afraid to have another go at it, but my only other transportation is an ancient bicycle Leon left behind. “What if I want to go somewhere?”
He knows I’m fishing for him to say something wrong, or that maybe I’m hoping he’ll pass my impossible tests and say something right. Fire your shot and find out, Nicholas. “There’s a bag of salt in the shed.”
I follow him to the door. It feels like he’s always leaving right when I want him to stay.
When I need him here and he leaves, I lose something every time, over and over.
He takes it from me when he goes. Always going.
He’s never going to belong to me. He’s never going to want to stay with me.
I’m never going to be enough. Even when we’re not together and I’m away doing something else, it bothers me when that rigid sense of duty to his parents snaps its fingers and off he goes running.
It’s easier if I decide I don’t want him around, because then at least he can’t disappoint me.
“Nicholas,” I say when he steps off the porch. Each blade of grass is an iceberg in miniature, crunching under his new work boots. I’m going to be the most honest I’ve ever been with either of us, out loud. Right now.
“I love you eighteen percent.”
It’s not a great number, but it’s been worse. Those glasses and the messy hair are unfairly handsome on him and he’s been more open with me. And more brutal. He killed a baby tree out of spite.
He stops in his tracks. Turns. “What did you just say?”
“That’s the percentage.” I clear my throat. “Eighteen.”
He’s so still, I think a strong wind might knock him over. “There’s no such thing as loving someone eighteen percent.”
“Yes, there is. I’ve done the math.”
“You can’t measure love.” His voice sharpens on the last word before twisting. There’s mockery running all through it now. “But if we’re going to play the numbers game, then I guess I would have to say that I tolerate you eighteen percent, Naomi.”
“So you don’t love me, then.”
“I didn’t say that.”
He didn’t not say it. I cross my arms and wait for him to say something else. “Well?”
But he doesn’t reply. His expression is so stormy that my pulse skips, and he leaves without another word.
I go inside, a little wobbly after our conversation.
I’m wobbly all the time now, but it’s a step up from my fugue of before, half seeing and half listening to my surroundings.
I pick up my phone, my heart a jackhammer in my chest. But it’s not a rejection for one of my applications. It’s a text from my mom, which is rare.
I notice we haven’t received our wedding invitation yet. Have you forgotten our address?
I compose a reply: I haven’t mailed them out. We’re not settled on a photo to include.
Gnawing on my cheek, I backspace all of it and type: They’re ready to go. We’ll send them out soon.
I backspace again. Then I delete the text without responding.