Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 93224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
She meant it as a warning. Maybe even as a plea. But all I can think is—yes, please.
I lift the phone, thumb hovering over the text. For a second, I imagine what will happen if I reply, and what will happen if I don’t. If I don’t, nothing changes. I go to class, graduate with honors, get a job, a starter husband, a dog. I host Friendsgivings with Kayleigh and Mary Kate. My life unspools like a Target ad: tidy, neat, acceptable, and most of all, boring.
If I reply, I don’t know what happens. That’s the part that makes my mouth go dry. The part that makes me want to tear my own skin off, just to feel something new.
I flip the phone between my palms. My fingertips are hot, my thighs pressed tight under the covers, every nerve in my body tuned to a different frequency. It’s almost like I’m hovering outside myself, watching this girl—this good, sweet, wholesome Midwestern girl—turn herself inside out for a man she barely knows.
I wonder, not for the first time, if I’m a little bit broken.
I type:
I’ll be at the cafe.
Delete. Re-type:
See you then.
No, too eager. Delete.
2 PM is perfect.
Delete. I can’t do this.
I drop the phone onto the pillow next to my face, exhale like I’ve been punched. The silence is so thick it roars. Simone shifts in her sleep, lets out a sleepy murmur, and I wonder what she’s dreaming about. Probably not this. Probably not me.
I turn the phone face down, but it’s no use. The message is tattooed on the back of my eyelids.
Meet me tomorrow at Riverside Café, 2 PM. -T
I want to ask him if there’s something special about the Riverside Cafe. If he takes all the women he dates there. Or if it’s a place that he enjoys for its food and ambience.
But I can’t.
Instead, I let my hand drift down, grazing the curve of my stomach, the waistband of my pajama shorts. I remember the way Thomas kissed me in the dark, the way he told me to “impale yourself, sweetheart,” like it was the only law that mattered. I remember the feel of him, impossibly hard, impossibly real, the raw, animal urge to give in completely.
My fingers slip lower, and I press against myself, slow and tentative at first. I’m already wet, already aching, the memory of him enough to make me gasp. The dorm room fades away. The world shrinks to the heat between my legs, and the promise of what comes next.
I work my clit slowly, thinking of Thomas’s hands, the rough scrape of his stubble against my skin, the bright-hot bloom of pain that turned sweet in a heartbeat. I picture him waiting at the café, watching the door, his eyes alive with secrets. I imagine walking in, sitting across from him, daring him to say my name out loud. My body is electric, every muscle taut and wanting. I rub faster, breath coming in shallow bursts, and when I come, it’s so sudden and sharp that I have to bite my pillow to keep from moaning.
Afterward, I lie there, limp and wild-eyed, sweat beading on my forehead. The room is too quiet. The world is too slow.
I wipe my hand on the hem of my T-shirt, reach for the phone, and type without even thinking:
I’ll be there.
Send.
The screen glows back at me, the message hanging in the air like a dare.
I turn off the lamp, slip further under the covers, and stare into the darkness. The silence now is less a roar and more a soft, insistent buzz. I close my eyes, and all I see is the letter T, burning white-hot in the black.
Somewhere across campus, or maybe across the river, Thomas is probably asleep, or maybe not. Maybe he’s lying awake, too, thinking of me. The thought makes my heart race, and I force myself to exhale, feeling the ache and the want and the fear and the hope, all at once.
I am alive, and it’s unbearable.
But I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
The next morning, the sun will rise, the world will look the same, but I won’t be.
And for the first time, that feels like victory.
8
COFFEE CONFESSIONS
Thomas
The Riverside Café sits like a slice of Vienna on the edge of the campus, squeezed between a vape shop and a frozen yogurt franchise that changes flavors with the moon. It’s the sort of place that confuses itself for a European bistro: brick walls, steepled windows with permanent condensation, mismatched chairs from three decades of fire sales. The air is sharp with burnt espresso and nutmeg, and every table is a stage for someone’s minor drama.
I take the corner table facing the door. Old habit. A man who’s been in boardrooms as long as I have knows never to put his back to the room, even in a place overrun by undergrads and soft-spined humanities professors. The daylight outside is a sheet of glare, but the lamps here are gold and forgiving, brushing everything with a haze that’s almost erotic.