Shameless(74)

Maybe we’ve been through too much traumatic shit together for this to be anything less than a serious relationship.

I sigh, wondering how the hell I ended up in this position.

The woman giggles again as I pull her nipple taut between the steel forceps. With a breathy little moan, she asks, “Is this going to hurt?”

“Yes.” Usually, I try to talk people off the ledge and focus on the positives, but tonight, I don’t give a f*ck. It’s late, I’m tired, and I’d rather be in bed with Katherine than piercing some sorority girl, who looks like she’s one bad decision away from offering me a blow job. Between working here, Kat's gig at the diner and all the shit we have to do on the farm, I've barely seen her this week.

And it’s been a strange week.

After that chat with my parents where my mother dumped that shit about Dani all over Katherine, she’s pulled back. It’s subtle. Sometimes she looks like she wants to say something but doesn’t. Or when she would usually reach for me or crawl into my lap, she doesn’t. Almost like she’s preparing herself for the worst case scenario.

Maybe that’s the smart thing to do.

On top of that, I’ve been working all week, so we haven’t had any one-on-one time since our f*ckathon last weekend. And I walk around half-hard all the time from random X-rated thoughts of her.

I go through the motions and pierce the chick in my chair. When we’re done, I thank her and head to the front register where hopefully being around the other guys will dissuade her from making any unwelcome offers.

Except that’s wishful thinking because just before she’s about to walk out the door, she grabs a pen, takes my hand and starts writing on my palm.

What the…

She gives me a little wink and tells me to call her. I look down and see the name Shana and her phone number.

“Dude, she wrote in a permanent marker!” one of the guys yells, laughing.

I head to the bathroom to wash it off, except it doesn’t.

Mark, one of the owners, passes me on my way out. “If you don’t want that number, feel free to post it on the f*ck wall.”

I turn my head to see where he’s pointing in the break room. And sure enough, there’s a wall of phone numbers.

“Think of it as the penny jar at the gas station,” he says with a wide grin.

“The penny jar?”

“Yeah, you have a penny you don’t want right now, but maybe one of the other guys needs a penny. So write her description and phone number on one of those notecards and post it on the f*ck wall. Never know when you’re going to need one of those girls yourself.”

Jesus Christ. He’s a f*cking pig.

I should be grateful he gave me a job. Because I need it. Badly. But the dick bought a copy of that f*cking photo of me and Dani and is planning to use it to advertise the shop. It was really nice of Rudy to mention that goddamn photograph when Mark called my old job for a reference.

I wait until Mark walks off to ignore him and head back to my station. The whole night, this bothers me. It bothers me that I feel the need to talk to Katherine about what I do. It bothers me that despite our limbo status, doing my job felt like cheating because I had to touch another woman. And it bothers me that these *s treat girls like some kind of communal property.

When I get home, it’s after two in the morning. We usually turn off all of the lights at night, but the light over the stove is on, and beneath it is a sandwich and a note. Hope you had a good day at work. Figured you didn’t eat. xo, Kat.

This girl. I smile.

She’s right. I haven’t eaten.

I crack open the door to Izzy’s bedroom and see her sleeping before I check in on Kat, who fell asleep reading her Kindle.

After I devour my food and take a quick shower, I collapse on the couch in the office and turn on the TV. I want to sleep with Kat, but I’m in a bad mood, so I settle for sleeping on the shitty couch. I decide to tell her what happened tonight because she should know this is part of what I do. It’s not like I’m hiding anything from her.

Once I make that decision, I start to relax and doze off, but then a warm body slides over me and a sweet voice whispers in my ear. “Wanna snuggle?”

I clear my throat. “If snuggling is code for f*cking, then yes.”

She laughs. God, that laugh. It instantly erases my foul mood.

I wrap my arms around her. “I’m kidding. We don’t have to have sex. But yes, I want to snuggle.” Especially after the distance that’s grown between us these last few days.

Her thighs come to rest on either side of my stomach, and she nuzzles against my neck. “We could call it a snuggle f*ck.” She giggles. “Where snuggling turns into sex. That’s probably the best kind of cuddling.”

My cock couldn’t agree more. Especially when she presses herself against it.

“I missed you tonight,” she whispers. “I miss you every night.”

My hands still. Everything from work comes rushing back to me, and suddenly I need to tell her what happened before we get naked.

“What’s wrong?” She swallows. She’s quiet a long moment before she says, “You don’t have to tell me you missed me too. That was probably a stupid thing to say.”

I sit up but keep her on my lap. Her hair is wild around her shoulders, and it pains me that she thinks I didn’t miss her.