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)
I lean forward and rest my hand over hers. Her fingers are soft, cool, not trembling anymore. I press my thumb to the backs of her knuckles, a promise without words.
“It’ll take time to dissect who and what my daughter is, and I understand if you want to keep your distance. But this isn’t about Stella. This is about me and you. If you want to try again,” I say in a fierce tone, “we do it right this time. No more secrets, no more sneaking around. Everything on the table.”
Andie nods, but doesn’t answer right away. She bites her lower lip, weighing something. “We go slow,” she finally says. “We have to. There’s too much to untangle.”
I smile, small and genuine. “We’ll go as slow as you want.”
She laughs, the first real laugh I’ve heard all night. “Don’t be impatient because the tortoise wins the race.”
We let that hang. The radio in the kitchen kicks over to a gospel station, a woman’s voice wailing softly in the background. The neon outside the window flickers, struggling to stay lit.
Dawn fills the diner with a blue glow. Our coffee is cold, but I don’t care. Andie’s hand is in mine, and she’s smiling at me. I could sit like this for the rest of my life.
We don’t get up to leave. Not for a long time.
Andie traces another circle in the sugar. This time, it’s a spiral. A beginning, not an end.
20
THE DIRTY VIDEO COMES BACK TO HAUNT ME
Andie
The elevator doors sigh open onto Thomas’s magnificent penthouse, and I step into the hush, my shoes sinking deep into the runner, the air already thick with whatever perfume they mist through the HVAC. It’s too early for true darkness, but the city is already a collage of neon and blue. In the windows, Minneapolis looks like it’s been dipped in wine and wrung out to dry—streetlights leaking through a high shelf of cloud, the river all purple and bruised beneath. The kind of night that wants to be dramatic but ends up just tired.
I step into the massive apartment and don’t bother calling his name. For three weeks now, the ritual is always the same: I let myself in, toss my bag on the bench in the vestibule, and immediately hear his voice from somewhere deeper inside. Usually the library. Sometimes the den, if he’s working late. Once, he was singing—real, actual singing, off-key and under his breath, crooning an eighties song while he puttered around. I still think about it when I can’t sleep.
Tonight, there’s nothing. No football on mute, no clink of a glass, not even the low tick of jazz from his playlist. The only sound is my own heartbeat, and the faint hum of city energy coming up through the floor.
It’s only as I round the corner into the living room that I see him. Thomas. Standing dead center in the rug’s pattern, as if he’s been pinned there by some forensic team, arms at his sides, feet planted perfectly parallel. He’s in jeans—dark, straight fit—and a storm-grey cashmere sweater that’s so luxurious that the rib at the collar is still sharp. He could be a billionaire or a hitman or a statue commemorating a famous, beloved traitor. The effect is ruined only by the phone in his right hand, held low, screen lit, thumb braced over the back.
I stop. My voice, when I try it, comes out too small. “Hey.”
He doesn’t answer. He just stares at me, jaw locked, eyes a blue so pale they could cut glass. The silence between us is so pure that I can hear the pop of electricity in the light fixtures overhead.
“Thomas?” I take another step, then freeze. I’m maybe five feet from him, but it might as well be the far side of the city. “You okay?”
He lifts the phone, as if testing its weight, then flips the screen so it faces me. The gesture is slow and almost elegant, like a magician unveiling a card. There’s no warning—no hint of what’s coming—until the first second of audio blares into the quiet.
It’s my voice. On the phone, I’m panting, voice high and almost deranged, breath hitching between words. I hear the slap of skin, the wetness of it, the urgent, half-choked little “fuck” I never admit to using in real life. Then, Thomas’s voice: low, feral, not at all the voice I know from waking hours. “You’re so fucking tight, baby. Thank you for gifting me your pussy cherry.”
On the screen, the image jerks, refocuses. My body, lush and wild, legs open obscenely wide, Thomas’s dick sinking slowly into my tight pussy, stretching me, his hips flush against my thighs. The angle is from the side, yet everything is revealed. As he pulls back, the camera picks up a glistening smear of red, streaking his cock and then vanishing as he sinks deep into me again. We both cry out, me a breathless scream of joy, him the deep groan of satisfaction.