Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
I nod, once. “Only if you’re comfortable. If not, I can manage. But it’s easier if you do. And you’re the only person I trust.”
She doesn’t look away. For a long time, she just breathes, lips pressed together, cheeks pink. Then she says: “You can’t get a nurse?”
I shrug.
“I could, but most home health aides are about seventy years old and geriatric. Call me prejudiced, but I don’t want an elderly man or woman with wrinkled, gnarled fingers touching my balls. It’s too witchy and freaks me out.”
Mary Kate pauses.
“I see,” she says quietly. “I can do it. I’d be happy to.”
There’s no uncertainty, no drama. She says it like she’s volunteering to take out the trash, or wash the car. I want to laugh, or scream, or reach across the gulf and kiss her again, but I do none of those things.
Instead, I lay out the terms: “It helps for me to get a massage every night, at the same time. It’s just a medical thing, and I can show you the technique.” My own voice sounds far away, like I’m reciting lines from a play I never auditioned for.
Mary Kate nods, her hair falling forward, obscuring her face. “Tonight then?”
I pause.
“I’ll give you some time to think it over. How about tomorrow night, if you’re comfortable?” I repeat, and this time I can’t hide the tremor in my voice.
She looks up at me, lips shiny, eyes enormous. “Yes of course. I’m happy to help,” she repeats softly. “You’ve done a lot for me, Kent, from paying my tuition to covering my bills. I want to help.” She glances away, then back, and the flush creeps from her cheeks to the hollow of her throat. “You’ve always taken care of me.”
The words land heavier than I expect. I want to say something kind, something fatherly, but the only thing I can muster is: “Thank you.”
She stands, stretches her arms overhead, and I can’t help but follow the line of her body, the way her shirt rides up to bare an inch of skin at her waist, the faint shadow of her hip bones. I’m hard again, aching in a way that’s both new and utterly familiar.
“What time should I come by tomorrow?” she asks, voice steady, even as her hands tremble.
“After dinner,” I say. “Eight-thirty, in my home office. I’ve set up a massage table there. If you want to eat earlier, that’s fine.”
She nods, and with one last look, she pads from the room, her footsteps silent on the thick rug.
I sit there, alone, and listen to the blood thudding in my ears. I stare at the place where she stood, the ghost of her perfume still hanging in the air. I stare blankly at the wall, and wonder if there’s any limit to the things I’d let her do to me. The guidebook lies open on the table, its pages fluttering in the draft.
I think of Rome, of fountains and wish coins, of the lies we tell ourselves to get through the night.
And I think of Mary Kate, and the hot, silent ache she leaves behind in my groin … because now, the wheels are in motion and there’s no turning back.
4
IS THIS REALLY LEGIT?
MARY KATE
The inside of Groundswell Coffee is always five degrees warmer than my memories of it. I step in, and the storm door thumps shut behind me, the glass rattling in its frame. Outside, it’s the color of wet cement, a sky so low you could reach up and wring it out. Inside, every surface sweats with condensation: windows blurred to a watercolor of tail lights and trudging boots, even the sugar caddies on the tables beaded with damp. The place smells like scorched coffee and something faintly medicinal—maybe the wood polish, maybe the aftershave of the wiry barista with the knuckle tattoos.
I spot Kayleigh in a back corner, wedged into a pair of mismatched chairs that look like they were salvaged from the curb. She’s all legs and elbows, the tips of her blonde hair darkening where the drizzle got through her hood. She’s pulled it into a bun so haphazard that it looks intentional. She clocks me the instant I enter, raising her mug in a mock salute, a damp ring already spreading under it on the table. I push past a couple of grad students fighting over a MacBook charger, weaving through the forest of knees and duffels, and drop into the chair across from her.
“Hey, stranger,” Kayleigh says, eyes crinkling. Her cheeks are flushed, eyeliner perfect. “I was beginning to think you got excommunicated from the land of the living.”
I fumble with my scarf, peeling it off in sticky coils, and smile as best I can. “Sorry. My phone’s been on some kind of weird battery death spiral. Plus, the apartment is…” I glance away, because the apartment is not a happy topic right now. “Let’s just say I went by to get something, and Stella was there with her boyfriend. In the nude.”