“Yes,” I whimper. I’m so close, my movements becoming wild as she grabs my hip with one hand and impales me over and over. Orgasm builds but lingers just out of reach—and then she grabs my hair.
“You should see yourself. All flushed and glassy-eyed. Rutting with me in a stairwell. You look so fucking hot. So shameless. The only thing better would be fucking you on stage. Can you imagine? All of Vertical Smile’s fans seeing you get nasty?”
Her words tip me over the edge, and I shudder through the climax as she thrusts into me and rubs my clit. I’m deaf to my own noises, but her other hand covers my mouth and I bite down.
“Fuck, Bex.” She thrusts into me again, shaking against me. Her head falls, her forehead landing between my shoulder blades as we catch our breath.
“Did you come?” I don’t want to ask, don’t want to sound needy or insecure, but curiosity gets the better of me.
“The biting pushed me over the edge.”
“Fuck, that’s hot.”
We laugh and fix our clothes, then run up the stairs to my floor. As I turn the key in the lock, she presses against me, nibbling at the back of my neck. A fresh wave of lust rolls through me, along with tenderness for this amazing woman who gets me, inside and out.
I shove the door open and we practically fall through it.
“Upstairs?” I start toward the staircase to the loft as she kicks the door closed behind us.
She grabs my hand and spins me around. “Here.”
Her hands frame my face and she presses her lips to mine. I can smell myself on her fingers, and the realization sends a rush of wetness between my legs. Her tongue slides into my mouth, slow and sweet. I clutch her jacket in both hands and sway against her. The kiss goes on and on, our bodies pressing together, our mouths mapping new connections, until we pull away, breathless.
“Bex.” She groans my name and opens her eyes. “I don’t want to lose this.”
“You won’t.” I reach for her hand and squeeze it. “I’m here; I’m all in.”
“When you were in California, I thought it was over. I thought I fucked everything up.”
The bleakness in her face crushes me. I kiss her again, but she eases away.
“You’re still planning to go, after the wedding.”
It’s a statement, not a question.
“Well, the lady I’m subletting this place from is going to want it back. But I want to stay for awhile. When I was in Cali, I told Mom I needed to spend time working on my relationship with Dad.”
“And your relationship with me?” She traces my lips with her fingers, and I shudder.
“I didn’t know if you wanted one. I hoped. But the Thorns…”
She nods and glances away. “I do. It’s complicated. I want to be with you, but I’m scared of what I’ll have to give up.”
“And I don’t want you to have to give up anything for me. If I could just give you whatever you need, I would.”
“I know.” She shudders. “I missed you like crazy last week.”
“I missed you too.” I kiss her gently, nipping at her bottom lip. “Let’s go to bed. We don’t have to figure everything out tonight.”
I lead her to the loft, and I let her undress me, loving the way her breath catches when she lets my hair down and the way it quickens when she frees my breasts from my bra.
When she tugs me down on the bed and kisses me, I let myself fall under the spell of her whispered dirty talk, sprinkled with endearments, and she brings me to the edge of orgasm over and over before she finally, with shaking hands, makes me fly.
Twenty-One
Nat
* * *
I leave Bex in bed with my kisses on her face and a reddening bite mark on the side of her neck.
“I’m sorry. I have to go.” I pull away before things get too heated to turn back. The conversation I’m about to have with my bandmates is too important to show up late and smelling like sex.
“Mmmmm, stay.” She reaches blindly for my hand. “You smell like my soap and that turns me on.”
“I can’t. I’ll call you later, okay? We can have dinner at my place.”
She sits up in bed, blonde hair in tangles around her face—fucking gorgeous. “You mean it?”
Something vulnerable in her voice makes me pause to study her expression—uncertain and a little scared.
I close my eyes and swallow before nodding. “Yeah. It’ll be fun. Like a date night in. Nice and quiet, just the two of us.”
Oh yeah, and the specter of my job hanging over our relationship like the blade of a guillotine.
The brightness of her smile takes my breath away, and I lean down for one more kiss, taking the taste of her with me as I leave.
I take the F train out to Brooklyn, too conscious of the fact that even what I’m about to do might not save my job if I keep seeing Bex, and that the cost of taking Lyfts back and forth constantly adds up. Even though she usually pays.
And that thought sticks in my craw. I let her pay, and I don’t put up a fight because I know she doesn’t care about money, but I still feel that twinge of awkwardness every time—like I’m taking advantage of her wealth. I’ve been desperate enough to panhandle and hitchhike, but letting my girlfriend pay my Lyft fare still seems like a bridge too far.
As I’m walking up to Jacks and Ritchie’s apartment, a wave of nausea hits me, and I sit down on the stairs. Am I really doing this? Am I about to ruin everything?
And that’s where Teri finds me. She’s whistling as she comes up the stairs, but she stops when she sees me.
“Hey,” she says.
I look up from my pity-party for one on the stairs. “Hey yourself.”
She cocks her head to the side like a labrador, then reaches out a hand. “Come on. You called a band meeting. We all know where this is going. We got you.”
My hand is shaking as I take hers and she hauls me to my feet and pulls me into a hug.
“It’s gonna be okay, babe,” she whispers. “I promise.”
I nod into her shoulder, holding her tightly and trying not to cry.
Jacks opens the door, red-eyed already. He’s bare-chested, wearing nothing but boxer shorts and his socks. He takes one look at my face and shakes his head.
“You were right,” he calls over his shoulder to Ritchie, then turns around and walks to the sofa, gesturing for us to follow.
“Are you stoned? Now?” Teri hisses. Jacks shrugs, and then Ritchie appears in the bathroom doorway, frowning.
“Why do you care if he is? He’s not hurting anyone.” He glances over Teri’s shoulder at me and crosses his arms. “I didn’t want to believe it, but you’re quitting, aren’t you?”
My stomach drops. No small talk then. Not that Ritchie has ever been the king of small talk.
“It’s not over,” I begin. “I only need a break. Astrid gave me two weeks to figure my shit out—and all I’ve figured out is two weeks isn’t enough time. I’m sorry, but I need my job.”
“Yeah, and how long of a break are we talking about?” Jacks glares at me from the couch. “None of us getting any gig income while you find yourself?”
“I don’t know. I think—I think I need to look for another job. I don’t know how, I’ve only ever worked at the Thorns. But I’ll find something.”
Ritchie crosses the room to sit with Jacks. “Meanwhile, you’re still fucking Barbie.”
I close my eyes as my faces flushes hot. I can’t deny it. “It’s complicated.”
“I don’t see how.” Ritchie’s voice rises. “Your job is so important to you that you’re going to give us up. But not her? Not someone you didn’t even know a few months ago? We’re family.”
“Goddamn it, Ritchie, I need a break!” I shout. “I’ve been falling apart for months. You three, your jobs don’t give a fuck what you do in your own time. Mine does. And until I can find something—I need a fucking break.”
I try to hold back the tears, but I’m shaking, and they fall anyway
. Teri wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Maybe you should go, Natty. Let me handle them.”
“We don’t need to be ‘handled,’” Jacks says, proving the statement a lie by putting his hand on Ritchie’s thigh to keep him from standing up. Jacks is quick to anger and quick to forgive, but Ritchie’s is a brewing storm, still cranking up, and it’s Jacks’s hand that steadies him.
They stare at each other for a long moment, then Ritchie sighs. “Nat, we love you. But we can’t wait forever. You need a break? Fine. But we’re going to audition new singers. We can’t afford to lose our regular gig at Bridgeview.”
My throat gets impossibly tighter until I choke out a sob, but I nod. “I understand. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fuck everything up.”
“My offer stands, about the part time work at the tattoo shop,” Teri says. “Let me know.”
“Thanks.” Even as I say it, we both know I won’t come work for her.
Ritchie stands and walks over to me, pulling me into an embrace. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
“I’m sorry I yelled back.” I clutch at his shoulders. “I really am going to try to find something else. I promise.”
“Don’t take too long, okay?” He squeezes me once more and then lets go. “The Smile won’t be the same without you.”
I nod, faking a cheerfulness I don’t feel. “You’ll hardly have time to miss me, I promise.”
Nat
* * *
I want tonight to be special for Bex. I’m not magic in the kitchen like X was, but he did teach me to cook. I dig out X’s old recipe box and park myself on the couch, flipping through the cards. I pause over his cherry pork chop recipe, mouth watering at the memory of the last time he made it for me. Have I ever seen Bex eat pork? I can’t remember. I keep flipping, considering and dismissing lasagna, rack of lamb, pot roast. Too basic, too fancy, too humble. But every recipe has memories attached to it, and I want to make them all, relive them all.
What would X cook, if he wanted to impress a man?
The thought stops me still.
X didn’t date much when I was a teenager. He’d lost his partner in the nineties and always said it was too soon. But over the last five years of his life, he was close to a guy named Mike who lived out on Long Island. I haven’t seen Mike since X’s funeral, a thought that eats at me. Mike had been as good as family at one point. I’ve long since turned off the landline that X always insisted on keeping, but next to the spot on the wall where it used to hang, X’s yellowed list of phone numbers remains.
Without thinking twice, I pick up my phone and dial the number next to the initials MT.
“Mike Trujillo.”
“Hi, Mike. It’s Natalie Marshall.”
“Natalie?”
“Xavier’s niece.”
“Of course—is everything okay, sweetheart?” And just like that, with one simple endearment, a wave of grief washes over me.
“I was thinking about him. Looking at his recipes. I miss him.”
“Hold on a minute.”
I hear his voice, muffled as he asks someone for some privacy, then he returns to the line.
“I miss him too. I always thought we’d have more time.”
“I realized I haven’t seen you since the funeral. I haven’t called to see how you were doing, and I’m so sorry. I know you lost him too.”
“You were calling to check on me?”
“Kind of?” I sit down at the kitchen table with his recipe box. “I was going through his recipes, and the next thing I know, I was calling you. It felt like the thing to do. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, honey. I’m just—I’m so surprised you called. How are you doing?”
“Honestly, I’m a fucking mess.”
His shocked laugh comes across the line and makes me smile. “Uh oh. Sounds like a personal problem.”
“Yeah.” I grin. “Or three or four of them.”
“Advice from an old man who’s been around the block a few times: never schedule two dates on the same day. Even X couldn’t charm his way out of that.”
I laugh. “That dog.”
“He made it up to me.”
“If you could have him back for one night, what would you do?”
“Not suitable for your young ears.”
“I’m twenty-nine. I’ve probably not only heard it but done it a time or two.”
“Whoa!” he shouts, “Too much! I’m an old man.” And I laugh.
“Okay, what would he cook?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Fried catfish, macaroni and cheese, and brussels sprouts roasted with chestnuts and bacon.”
“Really? Catfish?”
“You have his fish fry batter recipe in that box?”
“I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.”
“She’ll dig it.”
“I’m not—”
His laugh cuts me off, and I remember how he and X never seemed to stop laughing with each other. His gentle teasing is affectionate, not needling.
“Thanks, Mike.”
“For serious, though, Natalie—is everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Then don’t be a stranger, okay? It was sweet of you to check up on me.”
After a few more moments of small talk, I reluctantly say goodbye. My chest still aches with grief, but the guilt I felt when I first thought of Mike has been replaced by something else, something warm and bright.
Now I just need to find some catfish.
Twenty-Two
Nat
* * *
My phone ringing at three o’clock in the morning is not a normal occurrence. Even bonafide punk rockers need their beauty sleep. Only five people have ever had breakthrough privileges in my Do Not Disturb settings. One is dead. One is snoring next to me. And the other three were giving me time to figure out my shit as of three hours ago when Bex and I slipped into a sated sleep.
I sit up and grab the phone.
“Hello?”
“Nat? I need you.”
There’s none of that familiar nervous twitchiness to Ritchie’s voice, only a shakiness and a deep fatigue.
“Where are you?”
“ER at Mt. Sinai Brooklyn. Jacks is— I can’t—” He breaks off with a muffled sob. “Just come.”
I’ve got the Lyft app open before I’m even dressed.
“Nat?” Bex sits up in bed. “What’s happening?”
“Go back to sleep.” I lean in to kiss her forehead. “If I’m not back by the time you need to go, lock up with my keys and I’ll get them from you tomorrow.”
“But—”
“I have to go. I’m sorry, I really don’t know anything to tell you even, but Ritchie needs me.”
The ride to the hospital is the longest five-mile Lyft of my fucking life. When the driver pulls up to the ER, I’ve got my phone out and I’m calling Ritchie.
“Thank you!” I shout to the driver as I sprint for the doors. “Where are you?” I demand as Ritchie answers.
“I’ll come get you.”
A few minutes later he appears, disheveled, covered in blood, his face a stone horror.
“Jacks?” My lips form the name but I’m not sure any sound comes out as Ritchie’s arms fold around me and he breaks down into tears. “Ritchie? Is Jacks okay?”
He shudders and holds me tighter. Between sobs, he manages, “He’s alive.”
Thank god.
I tell myself that’s enough for now. I wrap my arms around his waist and hold him through the tears until he slumps against me on a hiccupping sigh.
“Let’s go get some coffee,” I say, squeezing him gently.
Ensconced at a corner table in the hospital cafeteria, I wrap my hands around the cup, letting the heat from the coffee sting my hands through the paper. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Ritchie shudders again. “He’s been cutting. But not like—not serious.”
I nod. Jacks has been cutting—off and on—as long as I’ve known him.
I don’t know all of Jacks’s story. I know he came from money. I know he was also brilliant and started his freshman year Princeton when he was only sixteen years old. And I know his family threw him out and cut him off when he fell in love with Ritchie.
Having been thrown out by my own family for being queer, the only thing worse than the idea of never seeing them again is the idea of seeing them again. What can I say? Family is fucked.
“Did she call him? Does she want to reconcile?” I squeeze Ritchie’s hand, and he shakes his head.
“Nah. That fucking cunt showed up at the bar with her friends.”
“No.” A cold shiver runs through me, imagining my own mother ambushing me like that. I don’t want to think what I’d say. What I’d do. Matricide is a stretch, but…
“Yes, she did. And she got drunk as fuck while he was having a mental breakdown in the store room. He came out and tried to ignore her, but she started causing a scene and his boss sent him home. Cause it was his fault, yeah?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, he came home—a fucking mess—and he locked himself in the bathroom and this time, he sliced open his wrists—the long way.”
“Ritchie—my god.”
“There I am, banging on the door, begging him to open it, and he’s bleeding out on the floor. I could—I could smell it.”
“Jesus.” I squeeze his hand tighter. “How did you get him out?”
“I fucking unscrewed the doorknob. Thank you, by the way, for the electric screwdriver you put in my Christmas stocking. It probably saved his life.”
“You’re welcome. Can I see him?”
Ritchie shakes his head. “They’ve admitted him and they’re transferring him to the psych ward. Seventy-two hours, because he’s a ‘danger to himself or others.’ Like Jacks would hurt anyone else on purpose?”
“He’s hurt himself. Over and over again.”
Ritchie growls in frustration. “If his mom hadn’t shocked the hell out of him by showing up at his work—”
Off Limits Page 14
