I pulled away from the door and turned to Charlene who was examining me.
“You give him that bite mark?” she asked quietly.
“Um… yes,” I answered.
“The bruise on his cheekbone?” she went on.
“Things got outta hand,” I whispered.
“How out of hand?” she whispered back.
“He pissed me off. I attacked him. Got a bite and punch in. He defended himself. Things got heated in a different way. He gave me an orgasm after introducing me to bewilderingly good head and rough, hard sex, during which he carried me partway across a room still inside me and shortly after, I returned the favor. With the orgasm, I mean, I didn’t carry him across a room.”
Her eyes went huge and she muttered, “Holy crap.”
I would use different words but I still agreed with an, “Unh-hunh.”
Her face changed, her eyes going warm and worried before she said quietly, “I know it’s him, Sylvie.”
Unlike Knight, I’d told Charlene his name.
She kept talking. “Knew it was him yesterday when he came over and introduced himself. I played it cool though I have no clue how since I was,” she leaned in and hissed, “freaking out. Are you okay?”
I nodded and moved further into the kitchen, murmuring, “I’m cool.”
“Sylvie –”
I turned to her. “He has to matter for it to matter and, babe, he quit mattering a long time ago.”
This was the conclusion I’d come to the night before. I was off my game because I was letting him get to me, like he meant something when he didn’t, not anymore.
So I had to let that go and when I did that, I would get a partner who knew what he was doing. I would work with him to make Knight’s troubles go away. In the meantime, I could jump a hot guy whenever I felt like it.
This was not a bad deal.
The rest was done and had been a long time.
I just had to get over the shock of it and I’d done that over bourbon and pool with a bunch of g*y guys and drag queens which was the best way to go about that. Or one of them.
“Sylvie, when you told me –” Charlene started.
I stepped close to her. “When I told you it was my birthday. That was our day. That was the day. And I was drunk. Being over it doesn’t mean being over it. Shit like that,” I shrugged, “you never get over. But you can deal. I’m gonna deal. He lives in Arizona, has kids and a life down there and he’s a f**king great lay. You know me. I don’t get involved but I do have fun. So I won’t get involved but I will have fun.”
“The guys you pick up, honey, they aren’t Tucker Creed.”
I shrugged again. “They aren’t anyone. Neither is he. A memory come back to life, who’ll eventually become another memory. Might as well make it a good one this time.”
She bit her lip looking doubtful before she let it go to whisper, “Be careful.”
I grinned. “Careful’s my middle name.”
She rolled her eyes at my blatant lie then shook her head and, doing so, caught sight of the microwave.
“Crap!” she snapped. “Right!” she called loudly to the house at large. “Car! School! We gotta go!”
She moved into the dining room where Theo was chewing on something, diapered ass to the floor. I moved there, straight to Leslie who was sitting on a booster seat at the dining room table, coloring. Creed and Adam appeared in the kitchen as we were heading out.
We got the kids in the car and I was still being a goof with Leslie when I heard Creed ask Charlene, “Sylvie got a set of keys to your house?”