by Piper Lennox
“Ah.” Viola nods knowingly. “He’s a scrub.”
All of us crack up again, loud enough to make the men glance at us through the glass, confused. It just makes us laugh that much harder.
“Hey. How you feeling?”
I text Juliet late Sunday evening, when I go all day without hearing from her. We’ve had a few conversations since last weekend, but nothing spectacular. Still, I catch myself scrolling through the thread from start to finish every day. I catch myself missing her, even if I shouldn’t.
My phone pings. “You don’t want to know.”
“I asked, didn’t I? Text me your address. I’ll bring ice cream.”
Either she’s warming up to me or just plain starving, because she sends the address of her loft without hesitation.
I shower, get dressed in my usual off-the-clock clothes of basketball shorts and a wife beater, and grab a ride-share. When I jokingly text Juliet, “What are you craving?” she types back, “I’d murder somebody for mint chocolate chip.”
When I arrive, the tray of ice cream balanced in one hand and the other poised to knock, the door swings open. The woman standing in front of me definitely isn’t Juliet.
“Shit,” I breathe, stepping back. “Sorry.”
“Scared you, huh?” She waves me inside before sliding past. “I’m Mara. You must be Cohen.”
Ah. The roommate. “That’s me. Nice to meet you.”
She looks me over as we shake. “A broke Fairfield,” she comments, leaning on the doorframe with her arms crossed. “Well, you got their good genes, at least.”
“Oh. Um...thanks?”
“I’d still rather have the money.”
I’m about to respond, though I have no idea how, when Juliet calls, “Ignore her. Mara—don’t be mean.”
“I’m not,” she calls back, halfway singing it. She looks back at me, swinging her keys on her finger as she starts down the stairs. “Take care of her. She’s been a bitch all night.”
Again, I have no answer prepared. “Nice meeting you,” I shout lamely, but she’s already out of sight past the landing.
“Wow,” I laugh, shutting the door behind me and taking a look around. The loft is new, converted from an old bottling plant; brick walls, industrial details, and concrete floors. It’s obvious two women live here, albeit very different ones: I can instantly tell which objects—polished, pastel, and neatly filed away—belong to Juliet. The collection of jazz records strewn on an overturned wine crate, bowl of tangled costume jewelry, and four different leather jackets balled up on the sofa: Mara. “Do you and your roommate get along?”
“You wouldn’t know it half the time, but yes.” Juliet appears from behind a partition, brushing her hair into a ponytail. Something about it looks different, but I can’t quite figure out what. “She was just teasing.”
“Ah.” I hand her the ice cream. “So you haven’t been a bitch all night.”
“No, I have.” She sighs and peels back the lid, licking it while she rummages through a drawer and comes up with two spoons.
We sit on her sofa and eat our ice cream slowly, catching up. She tells me about her family dinner; I tell her about Levi cancelling ours, an increasingly common occurrence.
“Workaholic, huh?”
“And a control freak, a killjoy....” I offer her a bite of my ice cream, but she shakes her head. “He used to be really fun. Always joking around and coming up with cool shit to do. Then the business took off, and he just...changed.”
Juliet smirks into her container, hunting for more chocolate chips.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just wouldn’t call that ‘changing.’”
“What would you call it?”
“Growing up.” She tilts her head back against the couch and shuts her eyes. “Everyone has to do it, sometime.”
Now that she’s not looking, I can take in the view without fear of getting screamed at. She’s wearing sweats and a tank top, nothing special, but I’d be lying if I said it still doesn’t do something to me. Tank tops showcase a popular asset, after all. And sweats have one very important trait: they’re easy to remove.
I take a breath. Fantasizing about Juliet hasn’t gotten any better this week. In fact, it’s gotten worse every single night since the birthday party. If she knew half the shit that’s run through my head about her before I fall asleep, she’d find a way to stab me with her spoon.
“Growing up is overrated.” With a yawn, I prop my feet on the ottoman. That’s what it’s there for, isn’t it? But a quick sip of air from Juliet tells me that, no: this ottoman is strictly a coffee table. I plunk my feet back to the floor and slip off my shoes. “People take life too seriously, if you ask me.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re talking about me?”
I set my empty ice cream on the tray in the center of the ottoman. “I’m not. At least, not you, specifically. ‘People’ means pretty much everyone.”
She’s looking at my arms. Technically, watching them flex. I pretend to stretch, just to give her a show.
This time, she tears her eyes away.
“Your hair’s pink.”
“Huh?”
“There’s color in it, now.” I nod at the top of her head. “I knew something was different.”
“Oh, yeah.” Her fingers comb through her ponytail. “Mara’s obsessed with these twins who run a makeup tutorial thing, on YouTube? They just did one about dying hair, so she…sort of tested some on me. It’s a vegan dye, so it’s safe. And I already washed most of it out.” Little by little, her eyes drift up to mine. “I’m surprised you noticed.”
I notice every single thing about you.
“Took me a minute, I’ll admit. It’s really subtle. But nice.” I lick a sticky spot off my thumb. “Surprised you let her do it. Pink hair doesn’t seem like it’d gel with your idea of ‘living like a grown-up.’”
Annoyance flickers across her face, but then she pauses, considers this, and nods.
“So. A murderous need for mint chocolate chip ice cream. Any other symptoms hitting this week?”
“I just wanted mint chocolate chip. That’s not a symptom.”
“Food cravings,” I counter, “definitely count as a symptom. Come on, what else?”
She scoots farther into the corner of the couch. “Why do you care?”
“I want to keep up with everything. I had a hand in this situation, but you’re the one going through all the unpleasant parts. It’d be pretty shitty of me not to ask how you’re feeling, at least. Maybe I can help.” I motion to her ice cream. “Like delivering food, so you don’t decapitate your roommate in a fit of rage.”
Her smile is reluctant, but there. “I was exhausted, the first few days. But I think that’s getting better.”
“Okay—good, good. See, now I can offer to....” I snap my fingers and point at her. “Drive you home from work in the van, if you’re ever feeling too run down. Tell me more.”
“Morning sickness. Which is, by the way, a complete misnomer. I get sick whenever my body decides it should happen.” She gives me a look like she’s challenging me: I’m not a doctor, so how could I possibly help with this problem?
I think a minute. “When I was a kid, and I’d get sick—”
“At the nudist farm?”
“Yes, at the nudist farm.” I tickle her ankle on the cushion between us; she lets out a sharp, happy scream and pulls her leg away. “Anyway, my neighbor Beatrix would brew me ginger tea, get me to drink it, like, scalding hot, and then give me a cold glass of flat Coke. So I’ll bring you tea and cola. Next.”
Juliet’s smile pinches. Her blush returns, deepening to bright red.
“Ah.” I lower my voice. “Something embarrassing, then.”
“Shut up. It is not.”
“It’s all over your face. You’re mortified.” I make a big show of leaning closer, lying down across most of the couch; she’s still tucked into the smallest portion possible. “Hemorrhoids?
”
The foot I tickled shoots back out, pushing on my chest until I sit up again. “Cohen!”
I laugh. “What, that’s a symptom!”
“How would you know?”
I get quiet, feeling my own face grow warm. “I’ve...kind of been reading up on pregnancy and babies, all that.”
Her foot slips down my chest, landing on my thigh. I stare at the chipped blue nail polish on her toes.
“You have?”
I shrug. “I’m not an expert or anything yet. It just seemed like a good idea to get at least a basic knowledge of what you’ll be going through.” My joking reflex kicks back into gear: like I said, automatic. “Well, if it’s not hemorrhoids, then it’s extreme horniness. Because those are the only two I know of that would make you turn the color of a fire truck.”
Slowly, she pulls her foot off my lap.
“Shit,” I exhale, pushing my hands through my hair. She’s withdrawn back into the corner completely. “I’m sorry, I was just kidding. I didn’t really think that’d be the thing.”
“It’s not.” She bites off the words.
The sound of her spoon scraping the empty carton magnifies the tension, stretched between us like twine. I curse again. It’s a lifelong problem of mine, not knowing when a joke will go too far.
And now I’ve got a new problem: knowing Juliet wants to be touched, maybe even needs it, and having a head filled with filthy daydreams about doing just that...but also knowing I’m the last person she’d want doing it.
Maybe.
“You know,” I say after a long, deep silence, “I could help with that, too.”
The scraping gets louder. Her eyes don’t waver from the bottom of the carton.
I lean back into the space between us, propping my elbow on the cushion, head in my hand, and look up at her. “It wouldn’t have to mean anything, if you didn’t want it to. All business.”
“Right,” she snorts.
“I’m serious.” I reach out and lower the container. She lets me take it from her; I set it on the tray beside mine. “You said you’re not interested in dating me. Obviously, I’m still holding out hope that will change—but I promise, I won’t pressure you. We’ll keep things compartmentalized. Sex will be sex, nothing more. Whenever and whatever you want. And the dating thing...I’ll shut up about it, leave the ball in your court.”
She wraps her arms around her knees, hugging them to her chest. “That doesn’t seem fair to you. I use you for sex, knowing you want more, and send you on your way?”
“Despite what you might think, I am a grown man, Juliet: I can control my feelings. I like you, but I’m not going to fall for someone who isn’t interested.”
“It sounds like a can of worms.” Her fingernails pick at the armrest. “And I’d feel guilty, using you like that.”
“Using me?” I laugh and push up on my arm, intentionally getting too close. She doesn’t stop me. “I’d get something out of this too, you know: even if you don’t warm up to me as boyfriend material, I still get to have a ton of crazy, dirty, hot-as-hell sex with a beautiful woman.”
I’ve embarrassed her again, but in a good way.
She pulls her legs against herself even harder, trying to hide how much she wants this.
I pull myself up to kneel beside her, one hand extending to touch her face, guiding her eyes to mine. The other glides up and down her legs until, right when I kiss her, she puts them down.
“Whatever you need,” I tell her again, trailing my mouth from hers to her neck, kissing that spot behind her ear like I did so many weeks ago. “Just tell me. I’ll make it happen.”
“Cohen,” she manages, moving her hands to push me back. One firm brush of my hand between her legs makes her stop, even when she whispers, “We shouldn’t do this.”
“Anything,” I go on, as my hand rubs harder, setting a rhythm. I lift my head and stare into her eyes. Showing her that, for once, I couldn’t be more serious. “I don’t care if you need to a come a hundred times to feel satisfied. I’ll find a hundred ways to do it.”
Her chest rises and falls like a hummingbird’s. “Cohen,” she says again. Only this time it’s a gasp, barely audible as she grabs my head and kisses me back.
12
Cohen could finish me off with nothing more than this: the friction of his hand through my sweatpants and his heavy-lidded stare, the storm of his breath against my ear. The weight of his mouth on mine, fervent and hungry, sweet and cool.
“I’m too close,” I warn him, voice high, and push his hand away so I can access his shorts. They pull down easily. The sight of his erection sends a surge through my nervous system.
I’ve never felt like this in my life. Hormones must be a far more powerful force than I thought: I remember every word I’ve ever heard associated with them, raging and uncontrollable and imbalanced, and decide they’re painfully accurate. Desire rages through me like a wildfire through the mountains. I feel completely out of control, when he pulls off my pants and I grip his hips, trying to guide him into me instantly. And I lose all sense of balance when he kisses me, gripping my wrists in his hands, until I calm down.
“I knew you wanted this,” he smirks. I can’t see the smile; I just feel it against mine. “Here, lie on your side.” He gets behind me, almost like we’re spooning, and finds my sex with his fingertips. They’re freezing. I can’t believe how much I love it.
I feel him at my opening. My hunger spins into starvation. Whether I wanted to or not, I’ve dreamed of exactly this too many times to be patient.
“Cohen,” I beg, grinding my hips back against him for more. He laughs, right in my ear.
“All at once, or slow?”
His voice is gasoline on the fire.
“All at once.”
“Whatever you want,” he says again.
I melt. Any doubt I had left evaporates as Cohen drives into me. My back arches, pushing my ass against him, pulling him into me over and over. My hand reaches back and winds into his hair. I guide his mouth to the skin below my hairline, sensitive and rarely touched.
It’s unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Pure, fiery, carnal. Every stroke builds an electric current in my core that I know will only release as an explosion. Somehow I know, when Cohen makes me come, it will never, ever be small or subtle.
His hand glides from my hip to my stomach. As it nears my sex, I moan his name in a plea. I need him to touch me. I could easily do it myself and reach the peak in the same amount of time, maybe less—but I need him to get me there, and only him. The explosion building inside me demands it.
“Tell me something,” he growls, drawing my earlobe between his teeth. “Have you touched yourself, thinking about me?”
Hormones must also serve as a potent truth serum, because I instantly answer, “Yes.”
The laugh he unleashes across my neck will be stuck in my head forever.
The second I touch her, she screams my name.
I decide to let loose with the dirty talk. She’s too caught up in the feeling to be embarrassed. “Your clit is so swollen, Juliet...you must have really needed this.”
Her entire body shudders. Holy shit.
“I’m close again…God, I’m so close.” One of her legs tangles with mine, giving her leverage to thrust back against me. I don’t tell her I’m teetering at the edge, myself. Tonight’s about her.
My fingers move in a steady circle, timed with my hips. The feeling of her ass pressing backwards, her body responding to mine...the sight of her breasts bouncing in that skintight tank top—
I decide to really pour it on. “Let me feel your pussy tremble on my cock, baby.” I pick up my pace when she tightens. “Tell me I’m making you come.”
“You’re making me come,” she whispers, eyes squeezing shut. If the blood wasn’t rushing somewhere else, she’d probably be red-faced again.
I kiss her ear and drive even deeper, angling myself to hit just the right spot. My hand works in double-tim
e. “You don’t have to be quiet, you know. Go ahead. No one’s here but us.”
She takes a breath, half a cry, and says it again. “You’re making me come.”
“Louder, baby.”
“You’re making me come,” she whimpers, voice rising on the final word, sending it through the entire loft as her body stiffens against mine. I feel her sex clamp my cock like a vice, quaking while her fingers pull at my hair and her breath tumbles over itself.
“Juliet,” I warn, too late; I’ve already released into her, my vision blanking and collapsing into color when it hits.
Her muscles unwind, and she goes still. The only sound in the loft is our breathing, out of rhythm and rasping.
“Told you I could help.”
“You did,” she confesses, shivering into me.
I wait until she’s half-asleep before I get up, step back into my shorts, and slip my arms underneath her. She opens her eyes as I carry her past the partition. There’s another partition after that one, with an unmade bed and mountain of wrinkled laundry on one side, and a neat-as-a-pin room on the other. No contest as to which is Juliet’s.
“Did you....” She rubs her eyes as I set her down and tug the comforter out from underneath her. “Did you finish inside me?”
“Figured it was okay,” I chuckle, “seeing as I’ve already knocked you up.”
She makes a face at herself, laughing into the blanket as I pull it around her chin. “Oh. Right.” When I brush the hair back from her forehead, she reaches for my wrist and squints at it. “You have a tattoo?”
“Yeah. You didn’t notice?” I perch myself on the edge of the bed and undo my watch, then show her. Her fingertips are like silk against the ink, as though she’s afraid it’ll rub off under her touch. “It’s a barn swallow.”
“What’s it for?”
I study it myself. It’s several years old by now; the image, along with its meaning, are something I don’t give much active thought. Just background noise, carried with me daily.
