Bad Neighbor

by Molly O'Keefe

  And like he knew—and fuck, he probably did—he let go of my throat and my clit and he grabbed onto my hips and he wrecked me. He pounded into me so hard the couch I was holding on to moved across the floor.

  I screamed, over and over again and he didn’t stop. I wanted to touch my clit so I could come but I couldn’t let go of the couch in fear I would fall over. The tension inside of me coiled higher and hotter and sweat ran off my body and my throat was dry and raspy from my cries.

  I had no clue what I was saying, but I knew I was begging him. I was begging him with everything in me.

  “Fuck, come here,” he said and he wrapped his arms around me and together we pivoted and he put us down on the bed. I was on my stomach, he laid down against my back, still inside of me.

  Finally, I put my hands between my legs, touching my clit the way I liked, the way I needed, and within seconds I exploded, grinding myself between him and the mattress, squeezing him until he pushed down into me, fucking me as hard as I was fucking him.

  “Jesus, God, yes!” he cried out, his mouth open against my shoulder. “Fuck. Charlotte. Oh, fuck, you’re so good, baby. You fuck me so good.”

  I wasn’t just replete, I was ruined. I couldn’t move and didn’t want to. Ever.

  Something had changed between us tonight.

  And it was everything.

  The next day after the fight, we were both a little awkward around each other, not making a whole lot of eye contact, like we’d gotten drunk last night and revealed too much, but each of us wasn’t sure what we’d revealed.

  But it wasn’t enough to make me leave him, and he must have felt the same way because he sure as hell wasn’t letting me leave.

  We moved to the couch in the afternoon to watch a movie. Jesse wasn’t as beaten up as he’d been the last time, but he was moving real slow. And I was taking care of him like it was my job. Like it was the only thing I wanted to do.

  And a little bit—it was. A lot it was. I wanted to lock the doors and watch shitty movies, order Chinese food and put ointment on his scrapes.

  “You don’t have to do this for me,” he said as I rubbed more cream into the scrapes along his chin and forehead.

  “I like doing it,” I said. “Unless…you want me to stop?”

  “No! I just…no one’s ever done this.”

  No one had ever taken care of him, and that’s why he didn’t know how to take care of himself. Just like no one ever expected more from me, so I never expected more.

  I kissed his lips and we curled up on the couch and we held the world at bay for as long as we could.

  But there was a life outside the door and it was calling.

  “I just need to check some emails,” I said, when the first of the Fast and The Furious movies ended. I glanced down at his face when he didn’t answer and realized he’d fallen asleep with his head in my lap. I stroked his head for a moment, the rough bristle of his hair. The hard curve of his skull.

  When Abby and I were teenagers, she’d always had a boyfriend on the couch with her in the back TV room of our house. Some football player or marching band member, sprawled out on our sectional with her hands in his hair, and I’d sat on the other side of the sectional, because Mom wouldn’t let Abby be alone with a boy on the couch and chaperoning was my job.

  So, I sat there with a pillow in my lap, over my belly, watching them out of the corner of my eye, wanting what she had so badly I ached.

  “I’ll be right back,” I whispered and kissed his ear before sliding out from under his head. I ran to my apartment, checked my emails. Answered a few questions.

  Saw my message to my sister on Facebook. She still hadn’t answered, but I read it again, feeling more powerfully than yesterday that I was falling into something with Jesse. Something real.

  It was embarrassing to read those words, but they were also undeniable.

  I was falling in love. Or, if not love, an infatuation so complete it was like love. I didn’t know the difference.

  I didn’t delete the message, I left it there, like a kind of statement. I could be both. I could be me, the me right now. And the me that was Abby’s sister. I left the Facebook message right next to the picture of my sister and me.

  And then I headed back to Jesse’s apartment.

  I opened my door only to find a man standing outside of Jesse’s. He was tall and big, wearing a good suit. A suit far too good for this place. A suit that belonged in my old life and maybe my future life, but not this life.

  His blond hair was pushed away from his face, revealing thick lobes of cauliflower ears.

  “Can I help you?” I asked and he turned toward me with a smile. He was older, but very handsome. Tall and built. His nose had the distinctive curve of having been broken. One or a dozen times.

  “I’m looking for Jesse Herrera.”

  “Can I ask what it’s about?”

  He smiled at me and nodded slowly. “It’s good when the guys have a strong woman at their back. You’re his girlfriend?”

  I almost said neighbor, but swallowed it back. Because that would be ridiculous. Instead I nodded. I was. I was Jesse’s girlfriend.

  He pulled a card out of the pocket of his fancy suit. “I run an MMA gym in the city. And I’d like to talk to Jesse about training there.”

  “You’re a coach?” I asked.

  “I am. I’m a coach and we have some management staff. Some sponsors. We’re full-service.”

  I glanced down at the card in my hand.

  “You have a website,” I said, feeling like I might hug the guy.

  “We do. It’s on the card with the phone number. We’d love to talk to Jesse.”

  “He’d love to talk to you, too,” I said. But if I knew Jesse at all, which I liked to think I did, this kind of surprise interview would not go well. “Can he call you?”

  “Any time!” the man said, holding his hands out wide. “I put my cell phone on there too, on the back of the card. He can call that number or the gym. He can call anytime. I haven’t been this excited about a fighter since I first opened my gym.”

  We shook hands and I watched the big man leave, skirting the edge of the pool with its beer bottles and dead leaves.

  Maybe… I thought, a bubble of glee rising up in my throat. Maybe this place wasn’t for either of us anymore.

  Maybe we’d get out of here together.

  I opened Jesse’s door and walked in just as he was walking out of his bedroom, wearing his sweatpants low on his hips and no shirt. For a moment, I stopped, struck dumb in a way. Or still, maybe. Like so much of the noise in my head just—not only quieted, but went away. Vanished.

  “Everything okay?” he asked, his sleepy eyes waking up.

  “You’re beautiful,” I said.

  “You’re just saying that because you want in my pants.”

  “I do. But…you’re beautiful.”

  “You’re beautiful too, baby,” he whispered, coming to stand right up next to me, his stomach touching mine. His bare foot resting against mine. He put his hands on my hips and pulled me in even closer. I could feel him inhale. I put my hand over his heart and felt it beating into my palm. “I’ve never known anyone like you.”

  “Come on,” I said, kissing his cheek. “Some nerdy girl in high school who let you cheat off her math test?”

  “That was you?”

  “She was me.”

  “Impossible. I would have seen you. I would have known you. No matter where or how—I would know you, Charlotte. You’re mine.”

  “Does that make you mine?”

  He kissed me and I tasted the answer.

  Mine.

  “Hey,” I said, breaking the kiss. “There was a guy outside your door looking for you.” I handed him the card. “He said he runs a gym in the city—”

  “Jesus. Casper Gaines?” He glanced up at me, a smile spreading across his face. A smile that made my heart lift.

  “He didn’t say, he just said he wanted to talk to you
about training. He said he hasn’t been so excited about a fighter since he opened his gym.”

  “Ho. Ly. Shit,” he breathed. “Where’s my phone? I need to look up this website.”

  His phone was sitting next to mine on the coffee table. Both of them were dead.

  “Shit,” he muttered, plugging his into his charger. “It’s going to take a few minutes to charge.”

  “Come over to my apartment,” I said. “You can use Izzy.”

  “Izzy?” He shook his head at me, still smiling, still clearly buzzing from having this card in his life. This Casper Gaines.

  “Don’t make fun of me. Izzy is an important part of my life.” I tossed a coy look over my shoulder as we walked out of his place.

  “Whatever, weirdo.”

  I unlocked my door and went in first, aware all the time of that Facebook message to my sister sitting open on my desktop.

  “Let me get the browser open,” I said, sitting down and immediately clicking the Facebook window shut. The picture of my sister and me was still on the desktop, but I left it. It was time to tell him about my sister anyway. We could look at his gym and then I’d maybe… explain everything to him. My sister. The sociopath ex-boyfriend. All of it. No more secrets.

  I grinned and pulled up the website.

  “Here,” I said and got out from behind Izzy so he could sit and look at the website. “You want any coffee or anything?” I asked as he sat down, his face glued to the slick dynamic website on the screen.

  He was silent, eyes tracking the flashing photographs on the header.

  “Right,” I said with a smile and turned toward my kitchen to make some coffee.

  This day…this day was going to be the best day.

  Jesse

  I had not spent any time putting names or faces or words to what I wanted. But looking at this website and knowing what I knew about Casper Gaines, I could only think… this.

  This is what I wanted.

  I wanted the gym. Gaines. I wanted his fucking sponsors. The management shit. I wanted all of it.

  Charlotte put a cup of coffee on the desk at my elbow and I mumbled thanks to her. She kissed my head and said something about a shower. I clicked over onto the section about the athletes they trained.

  Jesus, I thought with a smile. One of my old high school wrestling teammates was working out there. Every minute this place seemed better and better.

  Charlotte’s computer dinged and a Facebook messenger window popped up. I glanced down, because that was human fucking nature, wasn’t it? I wouldn’t have read it, but it was so short, I couldn’t really help it.

  Glad you’re in love, sis. I’m fucking pregnant.

  Shit. Ohhhh… fucking shit.

  All that joy in my body died. Fell into my stomach like lead. I felt sick.

  I’d put this off, I’d put it off and I pretended she wasn’t who I knew she was.

  Beneath the edge of the gym website I could see the bright-colored edge of a picture on her desktop, and I knew part of the picture had to be her, because of the white-blonde curls along the side.

  This was it. This was how we ended.

  I clicked out of the website, which left only the Facebook message and a picture on the screen.

  A picture of Charlotte and someone who could only be her sister. They were twins.

  They looked enough alike that they had to be twins, but Charlotte was soft where her sister was hard. Sharp, even. She didn’t have Charlotte’s hair. Or her smile. She had more teeth, straight hair but the exact same blonde.

  Their eyes were the same—blue as blue could get.

  They were wearing boas and fake princess crowns. Charlotte was holding up a cosmo, her eyes closed as her sister hugged her around the neck.

  Charlotte’s sister was a fucking knockout. Like model beautiful. And I saw all at once how Charlotte had acquired all her insecurities, how a life compared to this twin of hers would make her feel like she constantly came up short.

  And I could also see why my brother was looking for this woman. She was exactly his type.

  And she was fucking pregnant.

  And Charlotte loved me?

  God, I wanted to cling to that. I wanted to make the truth of those words into some kind of coat I could wear to keep out the cold of my life. I heard the shower go off in her bathroom and I wanted to go to her there and tell her I loved her too. As much as I knew how to. As much as I was able.

  I wanted to tell her how grateful I was.

  Too much. Too fucking much. I backed away from the desk. Got to my feet. All of this… Jesus. I couldn’t keep the shitstorm raining down on me clear at the moment. Fuck. One thing at a time.

  If my brother knew this girl was pregnant, there’d be no holding him back, and since Charlotte was the only person who knew where her sister was—I had to keep Charlotte as far away from my brother as possible.

  Which meant she needed to move out.

  For a second I allowed myself to imagine both of us moving out. Into some better place in the city. She could make her amazing books, I could fight legitimately.

  I imagined telling her who my brother was and how she would hug me and tell me his sins were not mine.

  But telling her would not solve the problem of my brother looking for her sister.

  We could leave the city, I thought.

  But that didn’t solve my brother either.

  Nothing solved my brother. The problem of who I was and whose blood was in my veins—it was unsolvable.

  I was who I was. A son in the family I was born into. Carrying the debts of my father and the crimes of my brother.

  Because I could run—just like Charlotte’s sister—but my brother always found me.

  The way he broke into my apartment like he had that right—that was my life to him. A thing he could always be a part of, and I could not outrun that.

  Charlotte and me were a dream. Just… just a fucking dream. And it was time to wake up.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Charlotte

  I put on the lotion Abby gave me for Christmas. It made me smell like a stripper but I still loved it, and then I wrapped myself up in my sugar skull robe that I loved probably too much.

  This was my version of combat clothes. Of a suit of armor. I needed to tell Jesse about my sister, and I wore the things I loved so I could do it and feel strong. My hair was heavy down my back, as ever my grounding force. Still wet, the curls all stretched out so my hair reached past my shoulder blades.

  When I opened the bathroom door, the fog from the hot shower came out with me and when I turned into the living room I saw Jesse on his feet behind the computer.

  “So?” I asked, excited for him to be excited about that gym. “What do you think?”

  He jerked his chin forward at my computer. “Who is the girl? In the picture?”

  Okay. We’ll… just get right into it. “You…want to sit down?”

  “No. I want you to tell me who this girl is?”

  He was being hard and cold, and I told myself he was just angry because I’d been keeping a secret. My stomach turned sour and I forced my hands to my sides.

  “My sister,” I said. “My twin.”

  “Twins.” He laughed, sharp and harsh, like he couldn’t believe it.

  “We don’t look a whole lot alike now—”

  “She’s fucking hot.”

  It stung. I mean… it really stung. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been hearing that or feeling that the majority of my life, but from him, it took me out at the knees.

  I wanted to shake it off as some kind of graceless moment on his part, a reaction to a startling part of my life, but it wasn’t easy. For a few seconds I was speechless.

  “Where is she?” he asked, tilting his head as he looked at that picture. Like she was something he was considering. I wanted to run over there and hit the power button on my monitor so he couldn’t see it.

  “I don’ t know,” I said. “She… she left town. It was rea
lly sudden. It’s actually why I’m here. I had to give her some money.”

  “You gave her money so she could leave town and you could move into Shady Oaks?”

  “It was kind of an emergency,” I said.

  “It was kind of fucking stupid.”

  He stepped out from behind my computer and I felt myself shrinking. Shrinking like I always did. Shrinking because it was easier to be invisible than it was to be visible and judged.

  And it seemed like after all this time—Jesse was judging me.

  Fuck, I thought. Fuck this. And I put my chin up.

  For a second he paused at the edge of my desk, staring at me, and I waited for him to apologize, because he was a little feral, sure, but this wasn’t him.

  “What…? Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “You need to leave.”

  “It’s…this is my apartment.”

  “No. You need to leave Shady Oaks. Like now. Do you have money?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Do you have the money to get a new place?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then do it.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to go to that gym,” he said, in his voice. The voice I recognized. “Check it out.”

  “You want me to come with?” I asked, thinking of what Casper said about strong women at the backs of these fighters.

  “What the fuck are you going to do at a gym?” he scoffed, his eyes raking my body, and blood poured into my cheeks.

  “Support you, asshole,” I spat. “What is happening to you?”

  “Everything,” he said, holding his arms out, all those muscles that I’d traced with my fingers and my tongue standing out in beautiful relief. “Everything is happening to me. I’m leaving this shithole behind.”

  My eyebrows skyrocketed. “Are you…am I part of this shithole?” I asked.

  “Not if you leave.”

  I gasped. I literally gasped.

  “Baby,” he said, stepping forward like he was going to touch me, and I shoved his hand away. “Come on. What did you think was going to happen, here? Really?”