The Arrangement Anthology (51 page)

As the sensations build within me, I climb higher and higher. Needing release, I scream as I buck into him too many times to count, and
I finally shatter. Gasping, I cry out and he pushes into me once, hard. Breathless, I lean there, unable to move, and listen to him moan. His fingers are clutching my hips and I feel more stated than I have ever felt in my life. I can barely breathe, and I notice how wet we are, but I don’t think he came. I glance back at him and ask.

There’s a sultry smile on his face.
Sean leans forward and kisses me. “Not yet, baby. That was you.” It takes a moment for it to sink in—I came and he’s soaked? I did that? Before embarrassment hits me in the head like a frying pan, Sean says, “And it was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. I want to take you over to the bed and lick you until you come in my mouth. Oh my God, Avery. Do you have any idea how sexy you are? It’s like you’re a goddess sent here to torment me.”

Sean pulls away and then turns me toward him. He strips the rest of my clothes before carrying me over to the bed.
He sets me down and fans my hair around my head before asking, “Ready for more, Miss Smith?”

I grin,
I can’t help it. I want more. “Always.”

Sean and I part ways in the early hours of the morning. As he packs up his things, it hits me hard. I manage to smile and say good-bye without crying. I keep thinking that Sean will offer something more, but he doesn’t. His blue eyes avoid mine, like he’s sorry this didn’t work out.

I wish I could stay, I wish I could say yes, but I can’t.

“So this is it, then?” I’m standing next to the door with my bag over my shoulder as I strangle the handle on my suitcase. I swear to God, it’s going to crack in my fist. I hate this, but I chose it. Things are over and I’m the one who ended them. I smile at him, like I’m fine with it, even though I’d rather shove glass shards into my eyeballs.

“I guess so.” Sean stops packing and struts over to the door. The black dress shirt he’s wearing is open
, revealing his beautiful chest. My eyes wander to his abs and linger too long. “My eyes are up here, Smitty.” I glance up to find him smiling at me. Sean closes the distance between us and takes me in his arms. He kisses my cheek and releases me.

I don’t know what to say to fill the silence. I don’t know how to fix this. It seems wrong to leave him, but I have to. There’s no compromise, no alternative. Things just weren’t meant to be, which seems like a pansy-ass thing to say
, until it happens to you.

My mind is reeling, trying to figure out something else, but there isn’t anything else. Sean came into town
and now it’s over. I manage, “Call me next time you’re in New York.”

He nods once and reaches for the doorknob. As he pulls it open, Sean says, “I will. Take care of yourself, Avery.” Our eyes lock and the pit of my stomach drops. I want to lean into him, I want his arms to wrap around me and hold me tight—but none of those things happen.

“Right back at you, Motorcycle Man.” My voice picks up a quiver and I know that I can’t linger without busting a hole in my tear ducts. They feel swollen under my face, like I’ll flood the whole damn island if I don’t get out of there. I step through the door and walk down the hallway without looking back.

It’s the last time I’ll see Sean Ferro. I’m certain of it.

__

By the time Gabe drops me at the dorm it’s nearly seven in the morning. It’s Sunday, which means Amber is probably sound asleep. I walk down the quiet halls feeling like there’s an a
nvil on my chest. Sean isn’t the guy for me. He doesn’t want what I want. We’re too incompatible, so why am I upset? It’s better that I found out now. It has to be, right?

Gabe told me to get some rest and that he’d be back for me later this afternoon. I can’t even image faking my way through being with Henry.
The whole situation is too much. I slip into my room and trip over something in the darkness. My emotions are so frayed that I can’t stop the rush of expletives that are cascading from my mouth.

Amber yells at me and flicks on the light
next to her bed. “Holy shit, Avery. Could you be any louder?” I glance at her. Amber is sitting up with a sheet clutched against her naked chest with too much boob poking out for me to look at her.

I glance down to see what I tripped on—shoes. I stare at them for a moment and then look up wide-eyed. “No, no, no. Tell me you didn’t—”

“I was lonely and he was—” Amber’s shoulders rise until they swallow her neck and she gives me a sheepish look.

A male voice finishes her sentence. “Utterly
fuckable. Yeah, I am.” Naked Guy walks past me in his birthday suit, which makes my eye twitch. “Hey roomie, nice dress.”

“He can’t stay
here.” My brain is melting. I feel it boil over and leak out of my ears. I don’t have the patience for this. I don’t. In the calmest voice I can muster, I manage, “Amber, so help me God, he needs to leave right now or I’ll—”

Naked Guy
slips into bed next to Amber and grins at me. “Take a chill pill, little lady. I was just showing my friend Amber a good time. I’d be happy to let you take a ride on Giant when we’re done. Yeah, I named him Giant, because there’s no point to calling him Little, right, Amber?”

Amber has a goofy smile on her face. I feel like I’m her mother, not her roommate, which rubs me wrong. My left eye twitches as I stare at her, waiting for her to toss
him out, but she doesn’t.

“Of course,” I mutter and shake my head. I
disappear into our tiny bathroom and change as fast as I can.

It’s the
buttcrack of dawn and I’m so not dealing with them right now. I slip on a pair of sneakers and glance at the purple coat Sean bought me. I grab it and dart out the door. As I head down the hallway, I ram straight into Mel.

We smack toge
ther before I realize it’s her. “I’m sorry… Oh, hey. Late night?”

Mel nods after shaking off the irritation of being bumped. It’s like Mel can’t fathom someone not seeing her. Right then I wasn’t seeing anyone because I had
Naked Guy burned into the back of my eyelids. Gross.

“Yeah, just getting back. Where are you headed?”

“Out of here. Naked Guy is back and I don’t want to witness the bumping of uglies. There’s enough ugly in my room already. I’m going to grab breakfast and sit at the dock or something until my client later today.”

Mel nods slowly, like she’s waiting for me to elaborate, but I don’t. She folds her arms over her pretty dress and cocks her head to the side. “You want to talk about it?”

“No. It’s a job, Mel. In fact, I’m signing on with Black for more contracts when I see her later.”

Mel’s golden eyes narrow like she knows that I
’m not telling her something. “Yeah, and what about Ferro?”

“He left town, so it’s not like he’ll be booking me again.” My voice catches in the back of my throat. “Asking for more clients is a good thing, right? I mean
, that way I can set aside some money before finals come. I was hoping not to work much the last few weeks of school.”

Mel nods. “Maybe—but Avery, do me a favor and take it slow. You don’t need to fuck Manhattan to get over him.”

“Sean asked me to stay with him,” I don’t look at her as I say it. Instead, I twist the hem of my coat sleeve. I didn’t plan on telling anyone that, but the words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. I feel like I’ve been through an emotional shredder and from the way Mel is looking at me, it must be visible on my face. “He offered to pay me so I could stop working for Black.”

One of Mel’s dark brows
rises as her mouth opens. For a moment, she’s speechless, which is super-weird. “What? What are you talking about?”

“He said he loves me, and offered to make me his mistress.”

Mel blinks at me. “What’d you say?”

“I said no, that it wasn’t my dream to be someone’s mistress. I want more, and he doesn’t—so Sean walked away.” My voice is too soft, too steady. I blink away the stinging that’s been building behind my eyes and smile at her. “I know you hated him, but he meant something to me. I just need to make sure I have no extra time so I can’t think about him. I’ll fill up my weekends with work and focus on school. It’ll be all right.”

“Honey, I don’t know if you should—”

I start
to walk past her with a plastic smile on my face. It feels so wrong, so utterly out of place. “I’m fine, Mel. I’ll see you tonight. We can have pancakes for dinner. I know you’ve been dying to go to IHOP for a while.”

Mel says she’ll talk to me later, but she has that concerned look on her face—the kind people give when they know you’re in over your head. I head down to my car and turn the engine over. I love that it starts on the first try. I love that the window
s close and the seatbelt works. I stop thinking about these things because they lead my thoughts back to Sean.

Captree is a little park down by Robert Moses beach. There are docks and that’s where I go after stopping at a deli to grab an egg on a roll and a cup of coffee. I walk to the end of a pier, past some people waiting to board a fishing boat, sit down, and dangle my legs over the edge. It’s not as cold today.

The wind whips my hai
r into my mouth as I bite down. I spit out the bite of sandwich and the hair and continue to claw at my tongue. I think I swallowed some hair, which skeeves me out.

“Hey
, stranger,” he says. I glance over my shoulder and see Marty standing behind me with his hands in the pockets of his corduroy barn coat. His hair is blown every which way, and his cheeks are rosy, like he’s been down here for a while.

“What are you doing here?” I never figured out what to say to
Marty after he told me that he had feelings for me. Besides, how do you forgive someone for lying like that?

You forgave Mel
, my inner voice reminds me.

“I’m going out on a flounder boat for the day. Thought I’d do something manly for a change.” He gives me a crooked smile.

My eyes don’t meet his for long. I can’t look at him without regret pooling into my mouth like vomit. I miss him, I know I do, but I don’t know how to get past what he did. Do I just pretend it never happened? Do I act like Marty’s just a friend, even when I know he wants more? Everything seems so hard and I wish to God that it wasn’t. I want my Marty back, but that guy doesn’t exist. This one does—the guy in the thick coat with the chapped cheeks.

“You know how to fish?”

“Not really,” Marty steps closer and sits next to me. “How hard can it be?”

“You know you have to touch worms and shove
hooks through their wriggling bodies, right?”

“Yup, I brought gloves.” He pulls out a pair of yellow plastic dishwashing gloves, which makes me laugh.

“You can’t use those!”

Marty gives me a sideways look that says he’s teasing, trying to make me smile like he used to. It’s weird how much a person can communicate with a single look. “I planned on wearing a yellow rain coat and matching boots, but I thought the other
wharf guys would make fun of me.”

“
Ya think?”

“Yeah, but what’s life without a little color?”

“You can drop the gay thing, Marty.”

“What gay thing? A guy can’t like yellow?” He bumps his shoulder into mine and I bump him back. I take a few bites of my sandwich before he says, “Are we good?”

I nod slowly. “Yeah, we’re good, or close enough. Gooder, maybe.”

The tension in Marty’s shoulders lessens. I rip off a piece of my roll and hand it to him. Marty pops it into his mouth. “Would you like to come with me? I’m pretty sure the boat isn’t full.”

“Can’t. I have to work this afternoon.”

“Oh.” Marty goes silent. It’s like I took an ax to the
conversation and killed it.

“Want to come to dinner wi
th me and Mel later? We’re IHOP-ing it.”

“Yeah, soun
ds great. I’ll have worked up a manly appetite by then, and will have a serious craving for some crepes.” I laugh again and hand him another piece of my roll. Marty pops it into his mouth and says, “Don’t hang out here by yourself for too long.”

“Because of the bodies in the marsh? Marty that was a long time ago. No one is going to kill me.”

“No, because I don’t want the ghosts of the dead hookers to show up and give you tips.”

I
smack his shoulder hard and Marty fakes falling to the side. I grab his arm and pull him back before he really falls off the dock. I punch his arm lightly. It had been a teasing gesture between us once. I wonder if we’ll ever have that back. The corner of my mouth tips up and I shake my head, laughing lightly. “Asshole.”

“I told you I’m not gay. You can call me
dick
, now.” He says it proudly, like
I’m a dick
should be plastered on his tee shirt.

“Go catch your boat, dick. They’re going to leave without you.” I shake my head as Marty jumps up. He looks down the dock
to where his boat is boarding. A large scruffy man hollers last call.