After Hours (InterMix)

chapter Fourteen


We pulled up to Kelly’s house just as the last of the dusk light drained from the sky. I slammed my door and waved to my Tempo, parked along the curb. “Hi, car.”

Leading me up to the front steps, Kelly said, “I changed your oil and rotated your tires.”

I tried my best to sound exasperated. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Course I didn’t.” He grabbed his mail and unlocked the door, flipping on the lights as he stepped inside. “That’s what makes me so dreamy.”

“Well, thank you. I may just add a bottle of Scotch to that twelve-pack.”

Kelly shut the door behind us, then came close. Real close. I stared up into his eyes and swallowed. I’d hoped I might see that look, but I hadn’t expected it until the burger-grilling portion of the evening was done.

“Yes?”

“Just looking at you.”

There was a tiny glimmer of helpless, post-sex Kelly in his expression, tender and rare. It melted me far faster than any dirty threats he might have on tap.

“C’mere.” He grabbed my wrist and led me to the couch, then gently pulled me onto his lap. We were kissing before I even got settled—deep, sexy kisses that made his tongue feel as base as his cock. He let me hear him, every ragged, needy breath, every grunt and groan as his hips shifted between my thighs. By the time he pulled away, I was already wet.

“I’m surprised you’re letting me do this,” he murmured, stroking my hair and watching his fingers. “The way you’ve been on the ward, I figured all this fun was over.” His gaze moved to my eyes.

“You sort of presented it all as a one-time deal. I was just sticking to our unspoken agreement.”

“I don’t remember saying that.”

“I thought it was implied.”

“And I thought we had fun, and kinda hoped we’d do it again. But if you’re strictly a cold-hearted, strings-free sort of feminist, maybe you better get off my lap.”

I smiled. “I could be persuaded to make it a two-time deal. In light of your being such a gentleman about my car troubles.”

He grinned, attention dropping to my mouth. “I guess I better get busy persuading, then.” A soft kiss, then deeper. Then a growl. “Jesus, you smell like a cherry paczki.”

That’d be my Chapstick, but who was I to break his little Polish heart?

As we kissed, my arousal crested from nerves to eagerness, then dropped low, leaving me hungry. Hungry for another taste of helpless Kelly, of that proof that I knew his body, if not his secrets. I bit his lip, then wriggled back on his lap until I made it to my feet. He watched, expectant.

I smiled down at him, a strange sensation in itself. “Stand up and I’ll prove myself a very grateful woman.”

Kelly didn’t need a second invitation. He got to his feet, and I stroked my palms over his shoulders, down his chest and abs to his hips, then dropped to my knees. I heard him blow out a reedy breath, a hiss of dark anticipation. His fingertips grazed my temples, smoothed my curls behind my ears.

I freed his button, my knuckle tracing his erection as I lowered the zipper. Kelly did the rest, easing his jeans and waistband to his hips and fisting the base of his cock. I put my hand over his.

The first time I’d done this, I’d been so intimidated. Now I felt just the opposite—powerful. Capable and eager. I wanted to own his pleasure the way he could own my body with his. Without a trace of misgiving, I let him slip past my lips.

Tension ran through him, a wave of powerlessness clenching his muscles before his groan signaled the return of mean Kelly. I took him deeper, triggering a harsh gasp.

“Good. That’s good.”

Once I found my rhythm, he let his cock go and began softly pumping his hips. Kelly became the world—his smell and the taste of his skin, the faint pulse I felt in my grip, the pained sounds of his breathing. So familiar now, the feel of him; that smooth head, thick shaft, the sweet ache in my jaw.

He gathered my hair in both hands. “F*ck. Nothing in the world looks as perfect as this. I could watch you suck me for hours.” Nasty words, but his voice was strained and soft.

With my mouth I told him, I love this. Let me serve you. For once, I trusted a man would give as good as he got, even after he’d enjoyed his payoff.

I trusted Kelly, and that scared me a little. Skepticism and distrust had been the walls keeping my heart safe, keeping falling for him a convenient impossibility. If I trusted him, was attracted to him, respected him and felt respected in return . . . F*ck, what else did a woman need? But I couldn’t stand to want a man that much, to have it this close—in my f*cking mouth—but know it might all be a tease, a sample of something I couldn’t have, not for real. The idea was too much, so I emptied my head and got lost in the act. In the simplest language, spoken without a single word between our two bodies.

After a couple minutes, he stilled my head. “Enough.”

I eased him from my mouth, looking up with curiosity. He tugged at my arm. “C’mere.”

He helped me to my feet, peeled my shirt up and away a moment later. Big fingers fumbled with my fly, and as he slowly pushed my pants and underwear down my legs, he trailed kisses from my neck to my breasts, my belly and hip. He stood and I kicked my jeans aside, and I let him lead me to the couch, straddling his lap once more. I know this couch already, I thought, the fabric soft under my knees. I know this home and this body. I nearly know the man they belong to.

“We need—”

“Yeah.” He shifted to wrestle his wallet from his jeans. Seconds later he had the condom in place.

Kelly held his cock steady and I took him slowly and deeply, wincing through a brief pang. But the next time he eased inside, the friction was nearly gone, and by the third we were gliding. I found an angle I liked and looped my arms around his neck so my breasts stroked his chest.

He held my waist, following the motions, but not dictating for a change. His hands drifted up my back and shoulders, and he held my hair in that soft, reverent gesture. It seemed laughable I’d ever found it gruff and possessive, when all I felt now was cradled.

“Goddamn. You’re beautiful.”

I didn’t say a word, afraid to scare this person away. One in a hundred glances, this was the man I saw in Kelly’s eyes, and he never stayed long. I kept my mouth shut and let him deep inside, welcomed him with the motions of my hips.

“Just like that. Don’t stop.” His eyes shut, lids fluttering. My hair fell free and he squeezed my shoulders, massaged them, stroked his thumbs along my throat.

“Kelly.”

“Don’t stop. Please.”

“I won’t.” I said it so quietly, I wondered if he even heard.

“Lemme feel you. Come for me.”

Any part of what I was doing that was for show, I cast aside. I held his shoulders and scooted back, making the friction more explicit. Only a few selfish strokes and I was getting close. His skin against mine, his moans warming my ear. This wasn’t the man I’d agreed to submit to, in the previous life better known as last week. But I liked him all the more for his neediness. I loved being needed, after all.

He cupped my breasts, making me feel tiny against his broad palms. These same big hands that kept me safe at work and fixed my car. These hands that pleasured his cock when I wasn’t here to do the job. They couldn’t give him what I could. Weren’t as warm or wet as my body, just as my fingers were but a sad facsimile of what I craved from Kelly.

“You feel so good,” I mumbled into his shoulder.

“So do you. You’re so tight. Make me feel so f*cking big.”

“Kelly.” My face was hot, head foggy. My hips were sore but my * was begging—begging for more, for relief. I held the back of Kelly’s head and clawed his arm, skin slick under my nails. I used his cock just as I had that morning in his bed, pushing toward the edge in a barrage of shameless, sloppy thrusts. Then he was kissing me, swallowing my moans and grunts, coaxing them from my mouth with his tongue. I came so hard it frightened me—so intense I was bucking, pleasure like hot, flashing sparks. When I escaped his kiss and opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was red—two beading scrapes along his biceps, my fingertips sticky.

“Oh my God. I’m sorry.” Even our most equitable and tender sex drew blood.

“Shhh.” He showed me his priorities, urging me to keep f*cking him. “Don’t stop. Make me come. Please.”

I went back to how I’d been before I got greedy, but he pushed at my thighs.

“No, like you were. When you were using me.”

My * could barely take the friction now, my hips aching, but I gave him what he wanted.

“Talk to me,” he said. “Tell me how I feel.”

I held back the first word that came to mind—wonderful. “Big,” I said. Big, strong body beneath me, big and hard and excited inside me. And f*cking wonderful.

He shifted between my thighs. “What else?”

I huddled closer to speak just below his ear. “You feel good, Kel. I love when you’re excited. And needy. I love the way you lose control, right before you come.”

“Good,” he breathed. “Good. I’ll show you that. Just keep f*cking me.” The hands holding my waist slid down to my butt, kneading for a moment before he gave me a slap.

I gasped, naive enough to have thought I was in control here. Even seated he was thrusting, mirroring my motions at first, then losing the pace. In seconds flat it felt as though our bodies were fighting, a frantic flurry of driving flesh and grinding bones, nails digging and palms smacking, sending all my fond affection scrambling for higher ground.

“F*ck. Talk to me. Say my name.” Smack.

“I wanna see you come, Kelly. I wanna watch your face when you lose it.”

“You feel so f*cking good.” He closed his palms over my waist, pushing me back so the angle was even sharper. His bossiness gave me a dark thrill. All at once, I actually missed the way he’d been that first night, here on this couch. There was still room for that, with the gentler impulses shunted aside.

I leaned back to smile at him. “I would’ve sucked you off, if you’d let me. Without asking for anything in return.”

His eyes shut. “Yeah. You love sucking my cock.”

I leaned in to drag my lips along his jaw. “Yeah, I do.”

“Maybe I’ll let you have that,” he muttered, still driving my hips. “Maybe I’ll just give you what you want. Nice big mouthful. That what you’d like?”

I drew my tongue along his jugular. “That’s exactly what I like, Kelly. Pleasing you.”

I didn’t know who the f*ck this woman was, speaking these words. Some me I’d never met. Some me who spoke the truth even as it undermined my self-image. Felt f*cking good, letting her steer. I felt loose and naked, utterly liberated with all that rigid self-possession cast aside. His hands told my body what to do and I surrendered to their orders, so much nicer than resisting.

His steady moans began to crescendo, sweaty palms slipping as his motions grew sloppy. “F*ck. I’m so close. On your knees.”

He nearly toppled me to the floor, but I caught myself. He was on his feet, fist in my hair, the other stripping the condom. “Open up.”

Two pumps and he was there, slick crown pushing past my lips, warm release basting my tongue.

“Yeah.” He said it again, and a third time, his grip on my hair loosening as his voice trailed to a low moan.

I licked his head clean and swallowed, working hard to suppress a supremely cocky grin. I admired his flushed, spent body as he sank back onto the couch with a delirious huff.

He curled a finger between us. “C’mere.”

I complied on sore hips, straddling his thighs. Stroking his sweat-damp hair, I smirked. “Whatever happened to you being Mr. Control, and me just keeping my pretty mouth shut?”

“Guess I like what comes out of your mouth, as much as I care about what might go in.”

I smacked his arm and he laughed.

“I dunno,” he said, shrugging. “I like the way you f*ck. You’re even more fun when I let you do stuff.”

“Well, well.”

“I like how you’re all . . . grabby. Physical. Like we’re scrapping, sometimes. But not always,” Kelly murmured, starting to kiss my neck. I cupped his head, welcoming the contact.

“Does it distract you, when we’re on the ward?” I asked. “Our messing around?”

“I’m extremely good at compartmentalizing my life.”

Figured. “Lucky you. I have work my ass off, trying not to think about sex every time we’re in the same room, in case I f*ck somebody’s meds up.”

A smug hmmm warmed my throat. “Do you now? What a terrible influence I am.”

Kelly urged me from his lap and onto my back on the cushions then got braced above, framing my ribs with his forearms, hands cupping my shoulders. He smiled, an easy, swoonifying grin I’d never seen before.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He dropped his mouth to mine, the kiss brief. When he pulled away his smile had gone, but his eyes were placid, nearly warm, like the ice had finally thawed. “You hungry? I lured you over here for dinner but we rushed straight to dessert.”

“Yeah, I’m hungry.”

“You’ve f*cked all the ambition out of me. Okay if we go out instead?”

“Sure.” Inwardly, I was embarrassed by how much the idea pleased me. It felt like a date, far more than being invited over for sex and hamburgers had. As dumb as it was, I wanted to be seen out someplace with Kelly. He might kiss me, with witnesses, and make it known that I was Kelly Robak’s woman. And shocking as it should have been, I wanted to let him. Even if the illusion only lasted a night.

We tidied ourselves and dressed, then climbed back into his truck. He drove us past Lola’s for a change, pulling up to the curb a couple blocks farther along the main drag, in front of a casual Italian place. Kelly held the door then led me past the bar to one of the booths against the back wall. I wanted wine, but I wasn’t sure if I was driving home or not, so when the waitress came by I stuck with a light beer.

I ran a quick analysis, trying to read too much into the booth. Was it for privacy? Or intimacy? So Kelly could keep me all to himself, tucked possessively in his orbit? I don’t know why I bothered trying to guess. Maybe he just hated somebody at the bar.

We perused the menus. The sex had made me so hungry, everything looked amazing. “What are you getting?”

“There’s a chicken parm special.”

“Ooh, that sounds good.” I looked up to find him smirking. “What?”

“We can’t order the same thing. That’s what old people do, and the sort of couples I can’t stand.”

“Like there’s anybody you can stand. Plus we’re not a couple, anyhow, so that doesn’t apply to us.” I said it a little too fast, probably giving away the fact that I felt something about the topic. What, I didn’t even know. But even having the concept of coupledom on the table instantly made me feel all overheated and irritable, fuse primed.

Kelly sipped his beer, gaze pointed at my face the entire time.

“What?” I asked. “We’re not a couple. How do I even know you’re not banging like, six other women from Larkhaven?” Or at least a couple from Lola’s. Kelly wasn’t Prince Charming, but he was employed and interesting, with a hell of a body and a nice face, if you liked ’em mean. He could surely get laid more readily than most any other guy in this city.

He smirked. “I know we’re not a couple. I just think it’s cute, how adamant you are about it.”

I narrowed my eyes, faking over-the-top suspicion. “How many other women from Larkhaven are you banging, by the way?”

“You’re the only girl I’m banging from anyplace, right now. I’ll be thirty-nine in a few weeks, and you work the same marathon shifts as me—I’m too f*cking exhausted to juggle more than one woman at a time. Let the twentysomethings deal with that hassle.”

“Twentysomethings like me?”

He made a face like he’d forgotten exactly how young I was. “I suppose.”

“You know I’m banging like, half the orderlies from the Warbler building.”

He mimed a smarmy, silent laugh and took a drink.

It felt acutely as though there was more on the table than just our beers and elbows.

So we were both seeing only each other, and now we both knew it. That put us perhaps one serious conversation away from Kelly becoming my boyfriend, but I didn’t even know how I felt about that anymore.

I’d never had a boyfriend who’d fixed my car, or defended my honor, or f*cked my living daylights out. Did I want one, if it meant admitting I needed those things?

When the waitress approached, Kelly warned, “I’m getting you the chicken.”

“Sure.”

I drank deeply, and watched as he ordered manicotti for himself, adding that, “The lady will have the chicken parm.” I actually felt sort of flattered by the old-school treatment. He didn’t seem like such a threat to my feminism anymore, and his be-my-bed-slave thing struck me as a special-occasion deal, not his baseline sexual MO. I knew things about him, things girlfriends knew—what he liked to have said to him in bed, what brand of beer was his, how his voice sounded right when he woke up.

But no amount of intimate insider information changed the fact that he oozed lone wolf. He’d told me pretty straight; he didn’t think he was cut out for marriage.

Not that I was picking out dresses, by any means.

F*ck, I hated that I was even thinking about any of this shit. It had all my Mom-nerves buzzing.

And I hated that I could already pinpoint the exact flavor of heartbroken I’d feel if I did hear about him seeing some other woman, even though he had every right.

Worst of all, I’d known I’d wind up feeling all this crap before I even agreed to sleep with him, yet here I was, being the sort of woman that annoyed me so much. Like I didn’t know full well that the people who grate on us the worst are always the clearest reflections of our own weaknesses.

What I did know for sure, though, was that if the are-we-a-thing? conversation was going to get broached, Kelly would have to be the one to broach it. I could tell from the chaos in my head just pondering it, I wasn’t ready to lead those negotiations.

Kelly folded his arms atop the table. The blood from where I’d scratched him had dried to two dark smears, fresh battle wounds to add to the tableau.

I eyed his fingers, trying to imagine what it’d be like if Kelly were my boyfriend, and I could just reach out and hold his hand. What if that wedding band, the one that unintentionally told women, back off, he’s taken . . . What if he were taken, and that ring’s inaccurate message was on my side?

Suddenly Kelly reached between us, tapping my wrist with his finger. “Did I freak you out or something?”

“Pardon? When?”

“I dunno. You’re all glazed over.”

“It must be the beer. Or the sex,” I added quietly, eager to steer us back to an arena we knew how to grapple in.

“You got defensive, after I was teasing you about couples shit.”

I shivered, suddenly naked again. And in public. “Since when do you waste your time trying to interpret emotional-chick nonsense?”

“See? It’s making you all squirrely. But I’m just saying, if that freaked you out, don’t worry. I’m not looking to threaten to your precious feminist autonomy.”

Wait, what? “You’re thinking too hard about this, Kel.”

“Fine. Just didn’t want to wreck what we got, if that kind of talk weirds you out. I like this arrangement we’ve got going. I don’t want to scare it away, either. Forget I even uttered the c-word.”

Oh lovely. At least that settled the uncertainty of whether or not that discussion was imminent. I knew where we stood, now—absolutely no place special, but as a consolation, the sex was off the wall.

I squinted at Kelly. Sometimes I felt I knew him. Other times, like now, it hit home that we’d only met a few weeks ago.

“What?”

“I know like, nothing about you.”

“Sure you do. You know way more than most people.”

I cocked my head.

“You’ve seen me naked,” he pointed out. “Been inside my house. Heard a little about my upbringing, and you know where I’m from. You know I wish I had a dog.”

“Yeah, I guess.” And in truth, I knew something very personal about him, something rough and heinous and intense, but I hadn’t heard it from Kelly, so it shouldn’t count. “But other stuff. Silly stuff.”

“Like?”

Like stuff girls know about their boyfriends. “I dunno. Your middle name?”

“Paul.”

“Are you a Republican?”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Independent.”

“Do you . . . Can you dance?”

“I can waltz.”

I goggled at him and he shrugged. “I went to a Polish Catholic middle school.”

“Oh my God—can you polka?”

“If a wedding demands it and I’ve had enough vodka, sure.”

“Huh.” I propped my chin on my hand. My angst disappeared, so engrossed was I in trying to picture Kelly dancing.

Our food arrived and we chatted as we ate, and I let myself get caught up in the more superficial details of Kelly Robak. His birthday was July twentieth. He hated sushi. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d finished a book, but we’d both read and liked everything by Oliver Sacks, unsurprisingly. If he’d gone to college, he imagined he would’ve studied history.

“What part of history?” I asked, wadding my napkin.

Kelly drained his glass. “American, I guess. The Civil War seems pretty interesting, plus all the industrial stuff. Railroads and shipbuilding. Subway construction.”

If this were my boyfriend, I’d have allowed my wheels to start turning with ideas for birthday presents.

“Better get back,” he said, standing. “It’s a school night, after all.”

I tucked my debit card inside the check presenter and went to use the ladies’ room, but when I got back, I discovered without much surprise that Kelly had paid in cash. He handed me my card.

“Not fair. I wanted to pay. You fixed my car.”

“Tough shit.”

I shook my head, following him to the exit.

As we climbed into his truck he asked, “You heading home tonight, or in the morning?”

I bit my lip, buckling my seatbelt. “I dunno. What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to stay the night so we can have sex again.”

“You don’t play games, Kelly. I’ll give you that.”

“You’ll give me all kinds of things,” he said, turning onto the street. “Just you wait and I’ll tell you what they are.”

I rolled my eyes, but inside I smiled.

By the time we pulled up to his house, I’d succumbed to a long series of yawns. The beer or the heap of pasta or the twelve-hour shift had done me in.

As Kelly locked the door behind us I said, “Don’t be offended if I fall asleep in the middle of the sex.”

“I’ll wake you up when it’s your turn to come,” Kelly said, but then he yawned, too. “Or we can give it a miss, just this once.”

Which meant what? If there was no sex imminent, did that mean I should head home, or were going to like . . . cuddle?

“You need something to sleep in?” he asked, answering my unspoken question and filling me to the brim with a weird, giddy energy, like I was suddenly made of kittens.

“Just a tee shirt is fine.” Oh crap, I was sleeping over and we weren’t banging, and I’d be wearing his shirt. That sounded suspiciously boyfriend-girfriendish. And I liked it.

“Want a nightcap?” he asked, rounding the counter.

“No, thanks. Do you have any tea?”

Kelly poked around a cupboard. “I’ve got something for colds. Lemon eucalyptus,” he read off a box.

“As long as it’s not caffeinated, I’ll have that.”

He filled his kettle and I took a seat on a stool, watching as he poured himself a generous shot of bourbon.

Kelly put a tea bag in a mug and leaned his elbows the other side of the counter. “Any updates about your sister and her situation?”

“No, not really. She’s annoyed with me, so that probably means they’re united for the moment. But I’m not worried for her safety or anything.”

“That’s what I was getting at.”

“He’s never laid a hand on her,” I added, then realized it was a lie—he’d shaken her, if not hit her. I decided not to open that can of worms with Kelly, lest he head over there this minute to demand reparations. I didn’t want reparations. I wanted to fall asleep next to Kelly and forget all that. “Not that I’m defending him.”

“Hasn’t laid a hand on her yet.”

“No. Not yet.” Another lie. Plus I hated saying that, admitting to myself it could one day happen. Again. He’d shoved me, after all—completely sober, as far as I could tell. I’d provoked him, but that was no excuse. And no one provoked like Amber. It was practically her craft. He could do the same to her. Or Jack.

Kelly filled my mug when the water boiled and slid it across the countertop, taking a seat on the stool at the end, so we sat kitty-corner.

“It sucks that you had to grow up with that,” I added quietly. “All that stuff with your stepdad.”

He shrugged. “Not like it’s an exclusive club.”

“No, I guess not.” I bobbed my tea bag.

“What about you?” Kelly asked. “Your mom ever get physical with you? Or any boyfriends of hers or anybody?”

Lee Paleckas’s face popped into my head. Poor kid, getting terrorized in – and outside his own brain. I’d gotten off easier than him, and a lot of girls who’d grown up in that kind of disarray couldn’t say the same.

I shook my head. “My mom hated confrontation. If anything she needed to be pushier with us. With Amber, anyhow. And she hardly ever brought men around. She didn’t like for guys to see her as a mom. Made her feel old, I think.”

“Maybe it was for the best. Doesn’t do kids much good to meet every boyfriend or girlfriend their single parent takes up with.”

“No, probably not.” I blew on my tea, thinking. “Were you ever mad at your mom, after you found out about your biological dad? I’m assuming she never told you about him.”

Kelly spun his glass around on the counter. “No, she didn’t. For some reason, on my birthdays, I’d think, maybe this is when she’ll sit me down and tell me. When I turned fifteen, sixteen, eighteen—maybe this’ll be the birthday that makes her think I’m old enough to hear it. But she never did. Looking back now, she must’ve figured I didn’t need another reason to reject my stepdad. Like if I’d found out he wasn’t my real father, things would get even nastier between us. And when he died, when I was in my early thirties, I wondered if maybe she’d finally tell me then, but nope. Never did.”

“Huh.”

“Maybe she’s saving it up for some deathbed confession. Better pretend to be surprised so I don’t wreck her moment.” He shot me a dry smile, warm despite the sarcasm, then stared down into his whiskey.

“Maybe . . .” I held in the thought, not wanting to seem too nosy. But these heart-to-hearts with Kelly were rare, and I wanted to go deeper. Know him better, for as long he kept that window cracked. “I’m not sure how loyal she could expect you to feel about some guy who’d never even met you. And . . . you know. Did whatever he did. To get sent away.” My voice had gone odd, way too casual—condemningly so. Might as well spill it. “I know,” I added quietly.

“Know?”

“What he did. That he beat your mom up bad enough to get sent to prison.”

Kelly’s head jerked up and those eyes bore into mine, sharp and cold. “How the f*ck d’you know that?”

His tone knocked me off balance, the change as sudden and ringing as a slap. My heart thud-thud-thudded so hard I imagined it must be echoing ripples through my tea.

“I looked it up. Online.” Christ, it sounded even lamer than it had felt when I’d been snooping.

His back straightened with the jolt of a cocked rifle, and even seated he looked eight feet tall. “If I wanted you to know I’d have f*cking told you.”

“I . . . I’m sorry. I just wanted to understand. I was curious, after we talked.”

“Well, congratulations. Hope you enjoyed that little bedtime story.” He wasn’t just annoyed—he was pissed. And a pissed-off Kelly Robak was a terrifying creature to stare in the face.

I didn’t know what to say, but I suspected if I cried he’d probably get even more annoyed, so I bit my tongue and focused on the pain until the emotional surge subsided.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, at a loss for anything better.

“I’m sure you are.” He took a deep breath, nostrils flaring, but he seemed to calm.

We were quiet a long moment. I fiddled with the tea bag’s string. “It must have made it hard. When you were working at the prison.”

His eyes narrowed. “I cried myself to sleep every night.”

Threatened by the cruelty in his tone, I felt my hackles rise. “Wow. Glib, much?”

“What do you want me to say? Want me to lay down on a couch and weep about what shit luck I had in the daddy lottery?”

“No. I just . . . I dunno. I just know now, and I wanted you to know I knew. In case you wanted to talk about it or anything.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“Maybe I want to talk about it.”

“I’m even less qualified to wear a white coat than you are, sweetheart. Got no interest in being your therapist. ’Specially if this session’s gonna be about me getting my shit beat out in utero.”

I sighed, stymied by how callous he was being, how thoroughly he was rejecting my attempts to empathize. He could hoist that wall up quick as any resident I’d met on the ward.

“At least it wasn’t on purpose,” I offered. “I mean, at least he didn’t know.” Beating up your girlfriend was heinous, but even the sort of a*shole who’d do that would’ve suffered, to find out he could’ve made her miscarry his baby. “It’s a pretty dismal silver lining, but—”

“He f*cking knew,” Kelly said.

The blood drained from my head and fingers, leaving me cold. My hands fled the counter of their own accord, hiding in my lap.

“You really thought that was some accident? F*cking kicked in the stomach?”

“That article—”

“That wasn’t your plain old everyday beating,” Kelly said, wearing an ugly, joyless smirk. “How f*cking naive are you? That was just a DIY abortion that didn’t take.”

My numb face flushed hot, stinging like frostbite. “Jesus, Kel.”

I mustered the balls to touch his arm, but he yanked it back. He wanted no part of this bonding session, and I felt hollow and scared, wishing to God I hadn’t brought it up.

“Don’t you pet me like some stray.” The stool squeaked as he shoved to standing, wobbled twice and settled.

I’d frozen, unsure how to be around this version of Kelly. I’d never seen him upset before. I hadn’t known him capable of this kind of emotion, or known he nursed any wound raw enough to trigger so harsh a recoil. It struck me with a rattling blow that I didn’t know what he was capable of, full stop. I didn’t want to find out. I wanted to go home, and he wanted the same.

“I’ll get your keys.” Cold as ice.

I nodded stiffly and he disappeared down the hallway. He returned in seconds, tossing my keys on the counter where they slid to a stop beside my untouched tea. I gathered them and hopped to the floor, grabbed my bag. He followed me to the front door, leaning in the frame, backlit by the kitchen lights. I stalled on the top step, feeling like there ought to be some kind of farewell. Something official to punctuate the end of this experiment in delusion.

At least we were even. He’d meddled in my life, threatening Marco. I’d meddled in his, snooping into the most personal shadows of his past, places I should’ve waited to be invited into. We were done, for sure, but at least I could tell myself we were parting as equals. We’d f*cked up equally bad.

The only difference was, I’d forgiven him.

“Guess this is over, then.” His voice sounded stark in the night air.

“We were never a thing, Kelly.”

His brows drew together, more annoyed than hurt. “I always figured we must have been something, if we f*cked all those times. But I get it. Loud and clear.”

I felt myself receding, pulling away out of shame. Of course he was right. But I hadn’t let myself count whatever we’d been, because I’d never had the security of knowing he was mine, alone, for keeps. Worse than that, I’d denigrated the sex for the same reason. Written off the most formative intimate experiences I’d ever had as some sordid fling just because it wasn’t going to lead to boyfriend-girlfriendhood or some stupid nonsense?

Or because deep down, I wouldn’t admit I could care for someone like Kelly, because of who he was . . . or who I’d thought he was, at first. My sister’s type. My mother’s type. Not mine, not levelheaded, practical me, the one who made the good decisions.

What good decisions? I had to wonder. Baiting Marco? Violating Kelly’s privacy? Continually thinking my sister’s issues were mine to fix?

God, I could be such a deluded bitch.

I took a deep breath and ordered my shoulders to unbunch. “Okay, yes. We were something. And it was fun.”

“A day at the water park is fun,” Kelly said, still visibly pissed.

“It was really nice, okay? It was great, and it was the best sex I’ve ever had.” And in brief moments, it had been the closest I’d felt to a man, and the most safe, the most . . . cherished, in a way, despite the fact that he’d ostensibly been degrading me, at least to start.

But brief moments of true intimacy weren’t bricks enough to build any kind of lasting foundation. Not one strong enough to weather this current shitstorm.

“I didn’t think you’d care this much,” I told him. “I thought it was all a game to you.”

“You’re good at making assumptions about people,” Kelly said. “You might want to quit that if you decide to become a shrink.” And with that, he shut the door on me.

I stared at the brass number.

“Bye, Kelly.”

When I reached my car, I glanced back at his house. There he was, silhouetted in the living room window, watching. Well, he could just keep on watching, maybe regretting how he’d handled that conversation as my taillights turned the corner, never to brighten this block again.

But I was wrong. The second my engine started, he disappeared. He’d only been waiting to make sure I wasn’t carjacked or something, a taste of that hyper-protectiveness that drove me to simultaneous sighs of exasperation and swoon. I shook my head, disgusted that I’d jumped to the most self-flattering and unlikely diagnosis.

So, no. I probably wouldn’t make that great a shrink.