when she was being loved down, silky red hair on expensive white sheets, those cool eyes liquid silver, molten with desire behind heavy lids. Her alabaster skin flushed with pleasure, those lush, wide lips of hers bruised and swollen from insistent kisses.
A sight I’d never witness, judging by the unending well of disdain she held for the dirty gardener giving her lip at the flower shop. There weren’t many people I flat-out didn’t like—I got along with everybody and, other than my siblings, avoided conflict unless it was over a thing I had passion for. Lila Parker was my exact opposite. Where I was unruffled, Lila shook her tail feathers like a peacock. Where I’d rather have a beer together than argue, she seemed to argue as her primary mode of communication. And yet, here I sat, wondering over her, curious as to the fire that had forged her and the person who’d lit it.
But it was just as well. I didn’t need her priss in my life, and she didn’t need my filthy. Not for more than a night.
Though what a night that would be, I thought with a smile before burying the notion like a flower bulb in winter, not thinking how it might bloom come spring.
4
Tally-ho
LILA
Ivy gaped at me, hand still on the doorknob of her apartment.
The silence stretched, and when I realized she wasn’t going to respond, I asked, “So, can I come in?”
She blinked and stepped out of the way. “Of course.”
The plastic bodega bag, brimming with toiletries and stamped with a handful of Thank Yous, rustled against my dirty pants leg as I passed.
Ivy frowned. “Is that … dirt?”
“I fell in the flower bed at Longbourne,” I answered matter-of-factly, plunking my bag on the couch. “Can I borrow some pajamas?”
Ivy closed the door and waddled in. “Yeah, sure—as soon as you tell me what happened.”
“I told you—”
“I caught Brock fucking Natasha Felix, can I stay with you, is not an explanation. Now, sit. On the coffee table, please. I can’t vacuum anymore without needing a three-hour nap,” she said, hand on her burgeoning belly.
I did as she’d requested, sitting straight-backed, crossing one leg over the other, and clasping my hands on my knee. “What do you want to know?”
Ivy sank into the couch next to my bodega bag, her face softening, eyes wide. “Are you okay?”
“As okay as I can be. It did a lot for my ego when he tripped and fell trying to catch me with pants around his ankles just as the elevator doors closed. I hope he broke something. Can a dick break?”
“Penile fracture is a thing, though I don’t think he’d get it from falling.”
“Shame,” I lamented on a sigh.
Ivy’s lip slipped between her teeth, her eyes on me like I was a lost puppy.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m fine. I mean it.”
“Lila, you’ve lived with him for two years, shared your life with him, your achievements. We’ve all been waiting for him to propose. You’re allowed to be not-fine.”
A flash of emotion shot through my ribs, gone as soon as I felt it, scared off by sheer force of will. “I know,” I answered gently. “I’m fucking furious and embarrassed and …” I took a breath, unsteady, then steady again. “I am upset, I’ll admit that. But I’d rather think about all the ways Brock lost out. I’d rather recount all the things I just won by him nailing a Femme in my hallway.”
“Like what?”
“Like I get to come stay with my sister and help with her baby, if I can crash for a little while.”
“As long as you need,” she said softly, reaching for my hand.
I smiled, squeezing it. “I get to take all that money I’ve saved and buy my own place, one where I don’t have to deal with Brock’s Sunday work calls or piles of sweaty gym clothes in the entry. I don’t have to share a shower with a guy who has more hair products than me or clips his beard in the sink without rinsing it out. I don’t have to cook for a vegetarian anymore. I’m going to eat all the meat straight off the bone with meat juice all over my face and imagine him gagging.”
She laughed.
“It’s true,” I admitted, my voice losing its edge. “I thought … I thought this was it. I feel like a fool, Ivy. I trusted him. I accepted what he showed me as truth. Me.”