“I can’t just leave, Aeron. I have things—”
“We all have things.” He pads over, tips my chin up with a firm thumb, and peers down, his features unreadable. I hate it. “Would you rather stay here alone?”
“Would you leave me…?”
His tone drops. “Don’t fuck with me, sweetheart.” Then he releases my chin and stalks over to the window, where he graces the smudged NYC skyline with his attention.
Begrudgingly, I yank my dress over my head, and shake off more photos before standing to step into my underwear.
“Maybe I ought to leave you,” he says without looking back. “If you put your mind to it, you and your cameras and your pretty trigger finger would probably find that cocksucker before any Fed, huh?”
“Flatterer.”
“Then again, maybe we shouldn’t risk sacrificing your gorgeous ass on that particular altar.”
“Because that’s the only part of me you’re bothered about,” I mutter to myself.
“I heard that.” He turns, cocking an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be fucking off to pack a suitcase?”
I shuffle forward to grab my boots, their zips clinking softly. “Hump me and dump me. Fine.”
“If I was any less of an asshole, you wouldn’t be here.”
We both know he’s right. It’s excruciating.
Aeron catches my arm. Pulls me in for a surprisingly chaste kiss, the kind that leaves my lips lonely and my tongue trying to taste a ghost.
Then I limp down the hall and past an unsettled Ethan, who gawps like I just jumped from a burning building before reeling himself in, mortified.
“Don’t ask,” I tell him.
He nods. Tuts. “You know, I have that on a t-shirt.”
SEVEN YEARS AGO
Aeron
Aged 25
Loft Apartment, NYC
Tuija clatters through the front door on yet another new pair of tasteless designer heels. Tiny twin geishas encased in Perspex trot toward me, their grotesque cartoon faces only mirroring the gaping maw up top.
I’ve been on the couch for the past hour, beer in one hand and chips in the other; I tricked some sad little college sweetheart into stripping for me on a webcam, and I’ve been watching it on loop on my big screen TV. It’s the best kind of mental exercise. She has nothing on me but a fake name and photo, and wouldn’t tell me much, but I’ve analyzed her bedroom so much already that I could drop in on her later if I wanted.
God, what a picture her face would be. Must restrain myself.
Tuij plants herself in front of me, huffing in disapproval with her hands on her hips.
“I’ve warned you about using that key,” I say, peering around her to get a good look at Miss Michigan State’s bare ass.
“How can I pretend to be your girlfriend if I have to wait for you to answer the damn door? We’re meant to be committed.” She snorts. “To each other.”
I stuff a handful of chips in my mouth. “Gwen Stefani wants her cast-offs back.”
“Oh, fuck you.” She tosses something in a clear plastic bag, and it lands amid the chips with a crunch. “Harvey sent you a gift.”
I pick the bag up and blink at it a couple times. It holds a small test tube containing Ash’s cheek swab. “I asked him to test this.” I proffer it back. “Tell him I need it ASAP.”
“Yeah. No can do.” She tosses her deep red hair theatrically over her shoulder.
“What? Why?”
She glances behind at the TV screen, where my slutty co-ed is now shyly fingering one of her nipples. My voice comes over the speaker; oh, that’s good. You like that, huh?
“You disgust me,” Tuija says with a scowl. “Seriously, Hitler, you need to get laid.”
“Who says I’m not getting laid?”
“All the po—is this live?”