by Sam Mariano
When his hand slips inside the waistband of my pajama pants, I don’t try to stop him. My knees fall apart, anticipating his touch. When his finger pushes inside me, I let my head fall back, closing my eyes. Surrendering my body, without knowing where it will lead. It’s terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.
It’s harder than I expect to stay quiet while he pleasures me, but when I come, his mouth covers mine, muffling the cry I can’t keep in.
Sated, vulnerable, I curl up in his arms afterward. He lets me, embracing me snugly again, but now I can feel a certain bulge that I imagine is probably uncomfortable for him. Squeezing my hand down between our bodies, I rub him through his jeans, enjoying the sounds of his moans for a minute. Then I ease out of his grip, sliding down his body.
He looks down at me. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to,” I tell him quietly, tugging his jeans down until I can get between his legs. A moment later, I’m brushing my hair back over my shoulder and leaning down to take him into my mouth.
Before long, he’s groaning, coming in my mouth. He didn’t warn me, but I don’t mind. I swallow, creeping back up until I’m snuggled up next to him again.
He kisses me on the forehead and holds me tight, resting his chin on top of my head.
“Thank you,” he murmurs.
“Mm hmm,” I murmur back. I wait a few seconds before adding, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I just want to hold you for a little longer.”
I smile, closing my eyes. That’s sweet. “I really like you,” I murmur against his chest.
I feel a little laugh burst out of him, then he says, “Yeah, I really like you, too.”
---
The loathsome blaring of my alarm is the next thing to wake me, and I’m decidedly less pleased about that disturbance.
Jerking awake, I realize I have no recollection of Vince leaving. I look at the spot beside me in bed, but it’s empty. No Vince.
The whole time I’m showering, doing hair, getting dressed, applying make-up, I’m thinking of the night before. I don’t know what it’s going to be like to see him in broad daylight, remembering his fingers inside of me the night before, bringing me to sheet-clutching orgasm in my own bed.
That was unexpected. I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed it didn’t go any further than it did, but I’m still a little baffled that it happened at all. He never explained why he came over, beyond wanting to hold me. I guess it’s a good reason, but I maintain he should give me a way of getting in touch with him instead of breaking in when he wants to see me.
Then I get to school, and this time I’m the one who sees Vince with the Minka Kelly girl. Vince has more of an olive complexion himself, but she’s darker—Mexican? I can’t tell from this angle, but I can tell she’s gorgeous… and grinning at him, lightly smacking him on the arm. He smiles back, ducking his head, and they head into school together.
I can’t get my feet to move. My brain tells me to follow, to approach him, to say hello. She’s probably just a friend, and he won’t be weird, he’ll just introduce me, and that will be that.
But my body isn’t liking the chances, apparently. It stays put, staring at the doors they just walked through. Together.
I don’t see him again until English, and I can feel myself being weird. I’m relieved when he doesn’t get to class until just before the bell, but I find myself wondering why. Could he have the class before with her? Maybe all his early classes are with her, and that’s why they’re so chummy? Do they go on not-dates? Does he show up in her bedroom in the middle of the night when he isn’t in mine?
I torture myself with these thoughts until I’m so stressed out, my stomach actually aches.
I want to ask again if I’m the only girl he’s involved with, but I don’t want to seem insecure and I don’t even know if he would tell the truth. My mother has confronted more than a couple cheating boyfriends in her time, and only one actually admitted to it before being caught outright.
And he isn’t even my damn boyfriend.
Suddenly my feelings about the night before are sorted—I’m definitely more relieved that things didn’t go any further. I don’t even know what I was thinking, wanting someone who isn’t even officially mine.
After class, as if nothing is wrong, Vince gives me a warm smile. “Hey, you.”
“Hey,” I say, but with much less affection.
“How are you this morning?”
“Good.”
He nods, seeming to retreat. I guess I can’t blame him, since I’m being shorter than I want to be, but he hasn’t been stuck inside my head all morning.
Out of the blue I ask, “When do I get to meet your friends?”
His eyebrows rise in surprise. “My friends?”
I go for casual and give him a little shrug. “Yeah. You never talk about your friends. You know who mine are—we haven’t hung out with them yet, but you know who they are.”
Smiling slightly, he says, “I don’t want to hang out with your friends.”
Well, they don’t want to hang out with him either, but I don’t say that. “But you never mention yours.”
“I don’t really have friends here,” he tells me.
“I just… I don’t get to meet your family, I don’t get to meet your friends…”
He slows down, wariness transforming his expression. “What’s going on? Is this about last night?”
I feel so lame, but I can’t help feeling weird about missing out on all the normal stuff, about how little he can actually offer me. “No, it’s just… You won’t even give me your phone number, Vince. You get to do whatever you want, and I get…”
I don’t say ‘nothing,’ but I may as well have. The word hangs, unspoken, in the air between us.
He sighs, looking past me. “I told you that from the start. I told you I didn’t have much to offer,” Vince reminds me.
And I didn’t want to get involved, I want to remind him. I want to revisit how I resisted—but I ultimately gave in, because there’s this sadness in him that I feel like I should tend to.
Finally he asks, “What do you need from me, Mia?”
But I don’t know what to tell him. I need more than he can give, and yet even as that thought emerges, I shove it away. I’m not ready to give up on this. It might be foolish, it will definitely hurt more the longer I hang on, but… I’m just not.
“I don’t know,” I say, looking down at the ground instead of at him.
He sighs, and I’m surprised when he wraps an arm around me, giving me a loose hug right here in the middle of the hallway. “I don’t want to make you sad.”
“You don’t make me sad,” I tell him. “Your circumstances, maybe.”
“Yeah, me too,” he mutters.
“Promise me something,” I tell him, swallowing my doubts. “If you start seeing someone else, you have to tell me. Don’t make a fool out of me because I’m trying to make all these exceptions for you.”
Vince scowls, but I can’t tell why. “I wouldn’t do that, Mia.”
I nod, feeling a little less anxious.
He catches my chin lightly and tilts it up until I’m gazing into his earnest brown eyes. “I’m not interested in anyone but you. That’s not what any of this is about. You know that, don’t you?”
“It’s what I believe,” I say. But that’s not the same thing as knowing.
He frowns a little, brushing his lips across my forehead before pulling away. “We should start walking or we’re gonna be late again.”
I nod, slowly making my way down the hall with him beside me.
---
It’s a long day. I’m worn out from Vince and Lena and my own stupid brain—I’m just depleted. What I want most in the world is to go home and fall into bed, sleeping peacefully for four or five days. What I want least in the world is what actually happens.
“Hey! Hey, are you Mia?”
I slow down at the sound of my name, turning
around to see who’s chasing me.
And it’s Minka Kelly.
I’m able to pretend for zero seconds that I’m pleased to see her. “Yeah.”
“Hi,” she says, grinning at me. God, she’s so pretty.
“Hi,” I reply, not smiling back.
“You’re Vince’s friend, right?”
Hearing her refer to me as Vince’s friend is maybe the only thing that could piss me off more than I already am at the world today. “Yeah. I’m Vince’s friend,” I say flatly.
Her smile dims slightly, then she grimaces a little. “Sorry, he told me you guys were having a rough day.”
My stomach twists up into a knot, and it takes a Herculean effort to remain there instead of turning and literally running away.
“Do you like cupcakes?” she asks.
I stare at her wordlessly.
“Vince thinks we should be friends,” she says, trying again. “Sorry, I know it must be weird to be accosted by a stranger, but he asked me to.”
I don’t know how to feel about that, but my stomach is still knotted. I did ask to meet his friends. Maybe this is his way of trying.
Thrusting her hand in my direction, she says, “I’m Cherie.”
I shake her hand, but warily. “Mia.”
“Right,” she says, smiling again. “Anyway, Vince’s…” She pauses, her eyes rolling up as she appears to think. “Aunt? Cousin? There are so many Morellis to keep track of. Francesca’s his cousin. Anyway, she runs this bakery. I thought I’d buy you a cupcake and introduce you.”
My eyes widen of their own volition. I don’t know if I’m more surprised that this girl has met his family (but I can’t?) or that she wants to introduce me to them. My mouth starts to open to tell her that Vince doesn’t want me to meet his family members, but I don’t know how I can tell her that when it’s clear she has.
“The Oreo cupcake’s my favorite,” she adds, trying to bust down the wall of silence.
I already feel like I hate her, but I can’t deny she’s charming. Her friendliness might be infectious, if not for how deeply and profoundly jealous I am of her.
“Have you met Mateo?” I ask, since it’s all I can think about.
Wrinkling her nose up in displeasure, she says, “Of course. We’re not going to meet him. You don’t want to meet him. But Francesca’s fine.”
My options are either burst into tears, or go get a cupcake.
So I nod, following this goddamn girl to get a cupcake.
---
I don’t know why I let her drive—why I don’t just ask for the address and meet her there. She talks my ear off for twenty minutes, and then finally we pull into a little brick bakery with a green awning.
“Here it is!” she says brightly. She must be so tired of talking to me, carrying the conversation more or less by herself, but you can’t tell it from her cheerful demeanor as she hops out of the car and heads inside.
I try to stop thinking about this girl in Vince’s life, the one he allows access to all the things he tells me I can’t have, because for better or worse, I’m about to meet one of his relatives.
A ring of bells hangs on the door, chiming as Cherie opens it and heads inside. A dark-haired woman, probably in her late twenties, looks up and smiles, obviously recognizing Cherie.
“Oreo cupcake?”
“You know it,” Cherie says, stepping off to the side and giving me an encouraging look as I come up to stand beside her. “This is my friend, Mia. I don’t know what kind she wants, but you can put that on my tab, too.”
The woman scoffs, rolling her eyes as she bends to retrieve a cupcake from the glass display case. “Tab. Right.”
Cherie grins, and I can almost see why Vince is going to leave me for her. She’s goddamn delightful.
Francesca slides a cupcake on a paper plate across for Cherie, then offers me a smile. “And what kind would you like, Cherie’s friend?”
“Actually,” Cherie puts in slyly, “she’s Vince’s friend.”
Francesca gaze snaps to Cherie instead of me. “Vince’s Mia?”
I’m stunned at that, and my jaw inches open. Why does she say that like she… knows of me?
Cherie bobs her head, appearing quite pleased with herself.
“I thought he wasn’t going to introduce her?” Francesca questions, still at Cherie, not at me.
“He’s not—not to everyone else,” she says, her smile dropping. She holds up a hand, as if to slow Francesca down. “And it goes without saying, don’t mention this to anyone. But Vince said she was feeling weird about not being able to meet anyone in his life, and I thought… hey, we’re a part of his life!”
I have no idea how I feel about Vince apparently spilling all our business to other people when he won’t even share it all with me, but I’m still reeling from the fact that his aunt-or-cousin Francesca recognized me as Vince’s by name.
“So, Vince told you about me?” I ask her, trying to get my bearings.
Smiling thinly, she nods. “A bit.”
“And you’re…”
“Francesca,” she says, offering her hand.
I shake her hand with more warmth than I shook Cherie’s. “Vince’s…aunt?”
“Cousin,” she amends. “Mateo’s sister. We’re all cousins.”
“Oh.”
“Mateo doesn’t come around here,” she adds, setting my mind at ease. “He doesn’t care for sweets all that much.”
Clearing her throat, Cherie says, “Actually, that brings me to another point. Vince tells me that Mia is looking for a part-time job. I remembered you saying you wanted to hire someone else to pick up a couple shifts a week. I thought maybe you could help each other out.”
Francesca starts shaking her head even before Cherie finishes. “Mateo combs through all the applications.”
Cherie scowls, then rolls her eyes.
It’s the first time I’ve seen her be less than pleasant. Does anyone like this Mateo person?
Watching me a little more closely than I’m comfortable with, Francesca asks, “How badly do you need a job?”
“Well, pretty badly. But it’s fine—I know Vince doesn’t want me to meet your brother. I don’t even know if he wanted this, and I don’t want to push it. Plus I have very limited availability, only like Mondays and Saturdays, so I’m probably not… It probably isn’t worth the risk.”
“I could hire you under the table, if you’re comfortable with that. No paper trail, no application, nothing he could see. I don’t really need any extra help on Mondays, but I could use someone on Saturdays.”
“Really? Wow, that would be great.”
Francesca smiles. “Good. Can you come by Monday for training?”
“I can, yeah. After school?”
She nods, grabbing a pencil. “What’s your full name?”
“Uh, Mia Mitchell.”
She jots it down on a piece of wax paper. “Mia isn’t short for anything?”
“Nope.”
“And you go to Vince’s school?”
“Yep.”
She jots down something else, then drops the pencil, folding the paper up and putting it in her pocket. “All right. Did you want a cupcake?”
As stressed out as I was when I came in here, I’m actually smiling now. Not only am I going to have a little extra income to make life easier, but Vince actually told someone about me. For all that he tells me I have to be invisible to his family, I’m actually not.
“Oreo, please.”
Chapter Nine
Lena has her party, and I don’t go.
Instead, I go to the movies with Vince. My mom wasn’t pleased, since she wanted me to babysit so she could go to the boyfriend’s house, but she ended up having to take the kids with her since I told her I wouldn’t be home.
Which means we have my house to ourselves after the movie.
Vince waits on the porch next to me as I fish my key out, jingling it in front of him. “These are keys. This is how you�
��re supposed to enter a house.”
He smirks, stepping behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. I shiver as his lips brush the nape of my neck.
No longer a smartass, I get the door open as quickly as I can and stumble inside, turning in his arms so I can look at him. He backs me up against the wall, raising my hands over my head as his lips work their way down my neck again.
God, I love this.
“Door,” I murmur weakly, since it’s still hanging wide open.
Without stopping, he kicks his leg out behind him and it slams shut.
I smile, but then I’m lost to the sensations of his hands skimming their way down my body. “We should go to your bedroom,” he murmurs against me.
I’m still afraid we’re moving way too fast, and I don’t think going to the bedroom is a good way to slow down, but I don’t have sufficient reason to say so. We have been in that bedroom together before, even alone in the bed, and we haven’t actually had sex yet. Surely we can make it a third time.
We should probably discuss sex at some point—at least make sure he has a condom, in the event we decide not to stop one of these times.
Not right now though, I decide, as he hauls me toward my bedroom door.
“I want you, Mia,” he murmurs before leaning in to kiss me again.
Hearing him say that is like its own brand of euphoria. “I want you, too,” I tell him.
It’s true—I just don’t want to want him as much as I do, this quickly.
He steps toward me, backing me up until my legs hit the edge of my bed. Grasping my chin in one hand, he runs a thumb across my lower lip, holding my gaze as he does.
“Kiss me,” he demands.
I don’t hesitate. Lurching forward, I brush my lips against his, my hands finding their way around his back to pull him close. He takes over the kiss, hands roaming, one down to my hip, the other on my back. He catches the zipper on my dress and tugs it down until my back is mostly exposed and the fabric gapes open at my shoulders. His eyes rake over me, taking me in, and I revel in the warmth in his gaze. It’s not just lust; I see more there.
