splitting of an atom, building entire civilizations while yanking me out of my element.
But the first words to escape her lips after made me grow cold. “That was something, Mr. Harris.”
Something indeed.
Out of nowhere, my phone rang. My heart raced as I picked it up from the countertop. The moment I saw Lance’s name on the caller ID, my body hit a wall. “It’s Lance,” I whispered while arguing with myself whether or not I should answer it.
“Right,” Blakely said before hopping off of the counter and increasing the space between us. It was like someone snipped the tether between our bodies, leaving me to bleed out. I hated the tremble on her lips and the shrill ringing on my phone. I couldn’t be accountable to Lance. Something within me feared that he would know. He would hear the betrayal in my voice.
The phone stopped ringing, and we stared at one another. There was a dare in her wide stance. Those slender arms crossed at her chest were beating me down with the unspoken words buried deep there.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” I finally whispered.
16
Blakely
Decker left for work at four a.m. I know this because I was wide awake, buzzing with regret and an ache I couldn’t quite place. I heard him when the shower kicked on and the subtle slam of our front door, letting me know just how he felt about our little slip up last night.
It wasn’t a little slip up. It was a major fuck up. A divine gift.
Not five minutes after my crashing orgasm, he was scrambling for his shirt and cursing himself. “We shouldn’t have done that,” he whispered. The rational part of me knew this. I was analyzing the scene from all angles, regret pooling between my thighs like the orgasm he rocked through me.
I wanted to do it again.
“Lance is like my brother, you know?” he said while scrubbing his hands along his face, squeezing his eyes shut like it was too difficult to look at me. The turmoil in his eyes was too much to take in. I’d fleetingly predicted this somewhere between palming his dick and coming on his hand. I knew it would lead to this—we both did.
And yet we didn’t stop. We stole sighs from one another, reveled in the friction of our bodies and the taboo nature of our desire for one another. We kissed like alcoholics, sipping wine from our lips for a brief buzz. It should have felt cheap, but it didn’t. It felt selfish and wrong.
“I know. This was nothing, remember?” I took a baseball bat to those words and slammed them till they broke. How could something so vibrant and beautiful feel so hollow now? His eyes raged, daring the both of us to whisper what we both knew. Feelings like this came in waves, and both of us were drowning. I didn’t say that though.
We disappeared into our respective rooms with lead-filled steps. I could feel the ominous dare hovering over us. Say something. Admit something. Feel something. Want something.
I pitied myself for a little while. Spent hours counting the shadows on my ceiling as cars passed outside. This was what Mama did. She pined after men that didn’t care about her. She kept saying he would be different. Or, this is the one, Blakely. I can feel it.
And for all my talk of not being like her, I realized that I was just running in circles, dragging myself right back to where it all started. I was a woman that compromised her happiness for a man willing to compromise his morals for a warm body. It made me sick, and I told myself enough was enough. I couldn’t do this to myself, if not for Lance, for Mama. I didn’t watch her die a painful death just to become like her. I was smart. I was headstrong. I was deviant and determined.
So I got ready for class with a smile stitched between my cheeks. My steady hands applied soft makeup to my lashes. My heels hugged the arch of my foot as I strutted around the loft, avoiding the kitchen because I couldn’t stomach the idea of breakfast.
And I drove myself to class.
Maximillian met me at my locker, leaning against the cold metal with a notebook in his hand and a boyish grin on his face. “How are you this morning, Blakely?”
I returned his good-natured grin while chewing on the mint gum in my mouth. I was gnashing the rubber treat