Page 21 of Don't Fall
“You could always try dating?—”
“Don’t.”
“Fine. You could try getting laid,” he says, and my face heats a little because before Liam died, we’d been on a dry spell for almost a year and a half.
And up until recently, I couldn’t even jerk off without thinking about him.
But lately, my fantasies have shifted. I’ve watched porn and been able to rub one out to other people. And sometimes when I dream, my anonymous partner has dark hair, and a backward baseball cap, and familiar tattoos that peek out of his T-shirt, and…
No.
Fuck.
I am not going there right now.
“I don’t want to talk about this with you.”
He smirks and takes a long sip of his beer, finishing the bottle before setting it down next to the abandoned chicken and dumplings. A sad waste of a good meal, but I have more, thankfully.
“Just give it some thought,” he says. “There are apps now. Good apps. And the town might be small, but you have options. You’re young and good-looking.”
I don’t want to entertain this anymore. I don’t have it in me to go on dates, and I also don’t know how to get it through Easton’s head that I’m not willing to put myself out there again.
I have one defense and one defense only to get him to move on from this.
“So. How’s that IT guy you hate?”
His eyes widen. “Oh my god, you will never fucking believe what he said. All I did was spill a little coffee on my keyboard, and he told North he was going to put me over his knee and fucking spank me!”
“That is it. That is fucking…it!” I know I’m only talking to myself, but god fucking damn it, there is trash spread out all over the lawn.
And it’s all North’s fault.
I swear to god he is some kind of witch and told his damned crows to tear apart the bag sticking out of the top of the can to make me suffer. And all because what? I ate some of his spaghetti?
Turning around, I storm inside and throw a pot into the sink, filling it with water. It nearly spills over, so I tip out half and then bang it down on the stove and start the flame on high. My head is a foggy mess of stress, anger, and a few other emotions I can’t quite name, but it doesn’t matter.
I’m putting a stop to this right now.
“Gonna fucking show him,” I mutter as I throw a few handfuls of salt in the water. Turning to the fridge, I wrench it open and stare inside. I have heavy cream and some of that powdered Parmesan stuff in the shaker bottle, which probably isn’t the cheese that was used, but so fucking what.
It’ll do.
Cheese is cheese, right?
I slam it down on the counter and glower at the not-boiling water.
“I’ll make his fucking spaghetti and then make him clean my yard up because I am not doing it anymore!”
I’m well aware that yelling at myself in my own kitchen is probably a bad sign, but I can’t take it anymore. My heart is racing, my adrenaline firing through all four of my limbs, and my face is red-hot.
I probably look like a tomato, but I don’t care. I can’t control my frustration any longer.
Why does he have to live behind me? Why does he have to torment me every chance he gets?
Why did he have to see me naked and laugh like I was the most pathetic thing he’d ever seen. I know I’m not some fit, gorgeous guy. I’m soft around the edges—too thin because I forget to eat, I have scars on my body from theIncident, and an outie belly button, which really seems to freak some guys out. I don’t have perfectly coiled blond curls like Easton does, and they only behave on leap days.
I’m awkward, and that oozes out of my every pore.
