Page 67 of Harbor Me

Me alone in the office, face streaked with tears and the wet evidence of what we just did starting to run down the inside of my thigh.

I pull my underwear and my jeans back up. My hands are too unsteady to do it fast, so I’m forced to take my time. I wipe my face with the back of my wrist before I sit down at the desk and pull open the top drawer, staring at the denial letter and my contract.

I stare at them until I start seeing double.

The letter I fought as hard as I could and didn't win. The contract I signed to come here and try, quietly and without telling him, to make some part of it right.

Through the wall I hear the sander starting up. He’s gone back to work like it’s any other night, while I’m sitting here with his handprints on my hips and his sperm cooling between my thighs.

The sound goes on. Steady and unbothered. A man fully focused on his craft and nothing else. Something quietly shuts down inside me as I understand at last what he told me last week Sunday. The thing my body kept refusing to hear.

He’s done with me.

Chapter 17

Aiden

The yard's black when Diesel and I come down the hill. No trucks in the lot, no lights across the harbor. Thank God. I don’t want to face Vanessa after what happened yesterday.

There's a parts order on the counter that needs a check stapled to it before it can go out. The checkbook lives in the office. Over a week now I've stayed out of that room. Last night I bent her over a filing cabinet in it instead. I lost control. I won’t let it happen again. Avoiding her entirely is the only surefire way to keep my hands off her.

Diesel stops at the office door. He looks at the desk sadly, looks at me accusingly, then turns around and pads over to the spot he’s claimed in the hallway, avoiding crossing the threshold at all. A fourteen-year-old dog is smarter than me.

I flip the light on.

There's a stack of paper on the desk that wasn't there when I left last night.

Two inches of it, squared to the edge of the blotter, a black binder clip holding it together. The top page is typed on the insurance company's letterhead. I can read the subject line from the doorway. RE: Cole Marine Services. The date under it is from the spring after the storm. This is internal communication from the insurance company. She must have copied and kept it, now she wants me to read it so she can be granted absolution.

It won’t change anything. The underlying fact remains that she deceived me for weeks and I can never trust her.

Sticking out along the edges are colored tabs, labels handwritten on them. It’s all her writing. I can pick it out of a line-up from a distance. I fight the urge to step closer and see what they say. It’s over. I’m not relitigating this for myself. I have better things to do with my time.

Sometime between the file cabinet and sunrise she drove back out here, let herself in, put together her defense, left it where she knew I’d see it, and left again.

"I'm not reading it," I tell the empty room.

She already said what's in it. A week ago Sunday, standing right where I'm standing, with tears on her face and her sentences all lined up like she'd rehearsed them in the mirror. She fought it. She lost. Now here's two inches of proof, because she's hoping I’ll trust paper more than her word.

I’d trust anything more than her word, which is exactly why it’s not worth my time wading through all that.

The checkbook comes out of the bottom drawer. My knuckles pass six inches from the clip and never touch it. I'm not looking at it. I'm not touching it. Not even to throw it out. It can sit there and yellow with age for all I care.

I'm reaching for the light switch when the filing cabinet catches my eye.

The backs of my knees go hot. Of all the places for it to start. It travels from my knees up to my thighs, a deep dragging ache climbing in behind my balls until my cock is thickening against my zipper in a cold office in the dark, because last night I had her bent over that cabinet, and my body has decided that's the only thing worth remembering about this room.

Not finding the letter. Not firing her. Just the metal rattling, and the way she pushed back into me like she'd die if I stopped. Lust engulfs me so hard and fast that my hand closes on the doorframe for support. I want her back against that cabinet, turned around this time, eyes where I can see them, legs locked around me, fixing what she ruined.

No.

I step out and pull the door shut firmly. There's a Grady-White on the lift with a clogged fuel filter, and fuel filters don't care what I want.

Marcus rolls in at first light. He goes to the office before coming into the workshop with two coffees. He takes one look at my face, and sets mine down on the bench, continuing to study me.

"Rough night?" he says anyway.

"The engine kit’s in receiving. Pick it up and get to work."