“I’m not dating her,” he emphasizes.
“Does she know that? Because she seems to be very comfortable for only knowing you two days.” She’s wearing his shirt and sitting half-naked on my bar stool. I want to kick her out. I want to get Rose to kick her out because she’ll do a hell of a lot better job than me.
I am being irrational. And rude and so, so hypocritical. I need to get out of here.
“She’s not moving in, Lily. She spent the night, that’s it.”
“Twice!” I shout. “And she’s eating breakfast with you. You made her breakfast.” He usually makes me breakfast. Not random girls.
“And not everyone acts like a scared little mouse after sex,” he says cruelly. My face twists in hurt, and he grimaces. “Wait, I didn’t mean…”
“Just stop,” I say, holding up my hand. The elevator dings and the doors slide open, but his fingers still wrap around my wrist, so I don’t leave just yet.
His voice lowers, the doors shutting. “You’re a permanent fixture in my life. You’re not going anywhere.” Why does he have to say it like that? Like I’m some chandelier hanging out while he slips a ring on another woman’s finger.
I shove him off now. “I know we’re not together, okay?”
“Lil—”
“She’s going to ruin everything!” It hurts to see him with her, playing house. That’s our routine. I smack the button hard. Get me out of here.
“At least tell me where you’re going.”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
I scoot into the elevator, and he sticks a hand on the frame, the doors refusing to close me in.
“I mean, I don’t know. I’m not going to a club. I’m meeting up with someone spontaneously. Probably at a motel or his place.”
“What?” His chest collapses and lines crease his forehead. “Since when do you do that?”
“Since yesterday.”
His jaw clenches in reproach. “Are you taking the car?”
The elevator buzzes angrily since he has the doors propped open for so long. I push his arm off and he takes a step back. “No,” I tell him. “It’s all yours. I plan on drinking.”
“Lily,” he says. “Don’t do this.”
The elevator doors begin to close.
“Lily!” He tries to stick his hand in, but they shut before he can. “Dammit,” I hear him curse, leaving me with one last view of him inhaling a sharp breath. I should revel in the fact that I’m scaring him as much as he’s scaring me, but I can’t.
{7}
I took the car. Maybe Lo's pleads bled into my brain, subconsciously affecting me. Or maybe I just really didn't want to drink. Whatever the case, my BMW sits outside of a dingy apartment complex. Smoke wafts in a guy’s bedroom, filling my lungs whole. He kisses with rough, wet lips, his mouth sucking my neck. I want to be intoxicated by the moment. I wait for it to carry me away. He’s decent looking, in his late twenties, I suppose. Not fit, not toned. But he has cute eyes and dimpled cheeks.
The seventies shag carpet, dirt-orange walls and lava lamp distract me. As my knees dig into his hard mattress, I stare off, my mind drifting, his hands not doing their job and my head not staying in the game.
I think about Lo. I think about the past. I think about him with Cassie and why it hurts so much. And then a memory floats right into me.
Lo tossed me a blanket in his father’s den, and I wrapped myself in the fuzzy fabric while he loaded the third season of Battlestar Galactica into the DVD player.
“Do you think we can finish the series before Monday?” I asked.
“Yeah, you can crash here if it takes that long. We have to find out what happens to Starbuck.”
I was fourteen, and my parents still thought I cherished Lo like one would a cootie-ridden boy next door. I was far from that place, but I let them believe so anyway.
And then his father stopped by, standing in the crevice of the doorway with a crystal glass of whiskey in hand. The mood shifted. The air sucked dry, and I could practically hear our hearts beating in panicked unison.
“I need to talk to you.” Jonathan Hale kept it short, running his tongue over his teeth.
Lo, fourteen and gangly, stood with tight eyes. “What?”
His father glanced at me, his cutting gaze shriveling my body into the enormous leather couch. “Out here.” He clamped a hand on Lo’s shoulder, guiding him into the darkness.
Their tense voices reached my ears. “You’re failing ninth grade algebra.”