For You(28)
Author: Mimi Strong

“Is this good?”

I whimpered in response.

He kept going, and kissing, and moving his body against me along with his fingers, until I gasped.

My eyes flew open and I was staring up at his face as I came, my head and my shoulders lifting up from the table and curling into him.

He slowed his hand and pulsed gently, pressing against me as I shuddered.

Again, he kissed me, only this time my senses felt different. I was aware of the hard table under my back, and the wet sounds of us kissing. I could hear him breathing, heavily, as he rocked into me, his hardness against my inner thigh.

Knocking.

I giggled, embarrassed, and he made a reassuring noise as he kissed my chin and gently bit the edge of my jaw.

Knocking.

“Someone’s at your door,” he murmured.

Chapter Thirteen

The tapping at the door was insistent.

I whispered to Sawyer, “Just ignore them.”

“Do you have a peephole?”

“I don’t know. I just moved in here.”

He pulled back and fastened the top button of his jeans, grimacing, then picked up his shirt from the floor. Stepping carefully, so quiet, he moved through the galley kitchen and to the door.

I whispered, “Can you see anyone?”

He pulled his shirt back on over his head as he walked back to me from the door. His voice low, but not whispering, he said, “There was a woman, Indian, not very tall. Older than us. Probably that boy’s mother, right?”

“Or his aunt. He lives with his mother and aunt, I think. No men.”

He shrugged. “Blood is thicker than water. If it’s family, you just don’t know if she’s coming to apologize on his behalf, or tear you a new one.”

Shit.

I was in trouble.

With the damn neighbor.

The moment had changed, so I pulled the band of my bra back up and composed myself, then reached for my own shirt.

He continued, “She looked like the Mama Bear type. Like you don’t want to come between her and her cubs.” He winced and adjusted his crotch area.

“Is she still there?”

“No, I saw her walk away.” He looked sheepish. “I hope I didn’t create more problems for you by talking to that kid.”

“You did a shade more than talk to him. Didn’t you lay him out on the sidewalk?”

“That was his buddy. I barely touched your neighbor’s kid. He threw himself back into the front door when he saw me about to reach for him.” He shook his head and looked down at his socked feet. “Good thing he did. I would have knocked his head into the other ones like bowling pins.”

“That’s not funny.”

He grinned. “Sure it is. You ever go five-pin bowling?”

I pulled my shirt on, not sure what I was feeling. My emotions were all over the place, and I felt all this aggression suddenly, like I wanted to pick up something and throw it at Sawyer. How dare he touch me and make me helpless, then act like it was no big deal? How dare he joke about beating up some little punk kids?

He mimed throwing a bowling ball and made the hand-explosion gesture.

I snarled, “That’s not f**king funny. I live in the same building as those people.”

He looked at me sideways. Without humor, he said, “And that’s exactly why you need to establish rules. Don’t let people push you around, and they won’t.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re way bigger than that kid you flung to the ground.”

He took a step back, shaking his head, both hands held up between us. “Easy now. What is happening here?”

I combed my fingers through my tangled hair and looked away. “I don’t know.”

There was a long silence.

I scratched my cheek, the sound of my skin under my fingernails audible in the tension-filled space.

“Aubrey—”

“Hand me my pants?”

He moved forward clumsily and scooped them off the ground to hand to me.

I turned my back to him and wriggled back into them.

He said, “We should talk about what just happened.”

“Let’s not and say we did.”

“Why are you making me out to be the bad guy here, when all I did is care about you? That kid needed to be put in his place, so that’s what I did. If his mother gives you a hard time, call me and I’ll deal with her, too.”

He smiled to show me it was a joke, but I wasn’t in any mood to laugh. My name wasn’t on the lease for the apartment. I had no rights there, at all, and had been told, in no uncertain terms, that if I made any trouble at all, I’d be out on my ass. No warnings.

Bruce and my grandparents probably wouldn’t allow us to be homeless again, but that apartment was my independence, my dignity.

Sawyer’s first instinct with the old beggar we saw earlier that night had been to turn him away. He didn’t know what it was like to have nothing. To stand in line for food at a food bank and leave with canned meat that smelled like garbage. To pour a box of macaroni into the boiling water only to discover bugs floating to the surface, but scoop them out quietly and not tell anyone, because otherwise you’d go to bed hungry.

Something told me Sawyer wouldn’t understand, and maybe I didn’t want him to. Maybe I wanted him to think I was an angry, crazy bitch, and he’d better stay away.

So I didn’t say anything.

After a few minutes, he stretched his arms over his head, blinked, and said, “It’s getting late, and something tells me I’m not welcome to stay for breakfast.”

“I’m really tired.”

He gave me a hurt look that seared my soul. Just go, I thought. Just go back to your artsy music friends and your carefree life and leave me here with nothing but bills, dirty dishes, and an angry neighbor.

As I tried to make my face stone, he put on his shoes. I came over to the doorway, aching to open my mouth and sing out my heart, but I was already stone.

He kissed my cheek goodbye and left. No promise to call. He didn’t even have my number.

I closed the door slowly, so it wouldn’t make a sound, then I watched him through the peephole in the door. Halfway down the hallway he stopped and turned around, like he was going to come back.

He stared at my door like he could see me, and my hand moved to the handle. We both paused, breathing in time for a second, then he turned again and continued to walk away.

The apartment felt emptier than usual that night. Bell and I didn’t have much stuff—just what we’d packed into the car before heading for the border—but after Sawyer left, the white walls were large and scolding. You don’t belong here, the walls said.

The tap in the kitchen dripped on the dirty dishes with a rhythmic chant. You’re only temporary.