Fake Halo

by Piper Lennox

  “It’s not.” He tucks his hands under his arms and stares at the grout instead of me. “But maybe I wish it was.”

  “Cut the bullshit, Durham.” I toss the tissues into the trash and push by him. He’s too fast, blocking the path to the living room with his arms braced on either side of the hall.

  “It’s not bullshit.”

  I blink at him. “You want to date me for real?”

  I don’t mean to sneer it. It pierces my heart to see the hurt flash across his face, sharpening the shadows there—but it also lifts my heart a little higher, knowing I’ve hurt him. He deserves it: the reminder he’s the last person on this earth I’d ever date.

  “Or maybe,” he breathes, lowering his head, “I just don’t want to dip my pen in some other guy’s inkwell.”

  “So you don’t want to be my boyfriend, but I can’t have anyone else as my boyfriend, because you just want to fuck me and know your dick’s got a security deposit on my vagina.”

  He gives a small shrug, eyes locked on mine. “Sounds about right.”

  The top notes of his aftershave are needle-sharp, weaving in and out of the edges of my brain. My body betrays me: even with rage in my blood, the thick smoke of lust finds its way into the current. And it starts winning.

  “You’re wet,” he whispers. “I don’t even have to touch you to know.”

  Don’t look.

  My gaze trips down past his belt.

  “Oh, don’t worry.” Wes laughs and it’s thunder, rattling me down to the bone and back to that beach. “I’m hard as fucking concrete for you.”

  One hand leaves the wall.

  He presses his thumb to my bottom lip and drags it along, so slowly, so lightly I can feel the swirl of his fingerprint. It slips to my chin, his forefinger hooked underneath.

  And by this one small touch alone, he pulls me into him.

  I get her into the music room. Something about the bedroom feels wrong. That’s where couples fuck. And one-night stands. We’re neither.

  I’m not going to date Clara.

  But I’m certainly going to have her more than once.

  The beanbag swishes under our weight as I lay her back, finally kissing her. All through the hallway, I trailed my lips over hers but kept it painfully light. Painful for both of us—when I finally get to deepen the kiss, I do it like a guy fresh out of a prison cell.

  She drinks it up like a flower two seconds from dying in the desert.

  Through her dress, I shove her bra up past her nipples. Rolling each between my thumb and forefinger is bliss.

  Sucking them into my mouth would be nirvana.

  “Sit up,” I tell her, and snap open the hook across her back. Immediately, her breasts are bouncing loose and soft, spilling out when I tug the neckline of her dress down as far as I can without ripping it. Not that I’m ruling anything out.

  Her moan winds down the back of my neck. I lick and suck one nipple until she’s bucking her hips against me, then lick and suck the other until she’s whimpering like I’ve already got my cock buried inside her.

  “Durham, we shouldn’t....”

  “We should. And you know we should. That’s why it sounded like you were reading from a cue card, just now.”

  I lick her all the way up to her chin, then—because I’ve secretly always wanted to—up her jawline until my lips are right against that diamond near her eye. It’s warm. Maybe even hotter than her skin.

  When her eyes open and struggle to focus on mine, I draw back an inch.

  “Are you asking me to stop? Because I will.” My fingers crawl down her stomach. It tenses, more and more the closer I get to the hem of her dress. “But only if you actually say it, Clara. Don’t tell me we shouldn’t. Tell me you don’t want to.”

  “I want to.” Her eyes shut like it kills her to admit it. More likely, it’s because I’ve now shoved her legs apart. My knuckles brush the damp section of her underwear.

  “But,” she swallows, when my fingers hook into the elastic, readying to rip these things off her, “I also want you to stop.”

  My face plants itself in the beanbag over her shoulder as my hands raise in surrender.

  Clara laughs. It’s weak and breathless, but still: I don’t know where she finds the energy for that. Mine’s devoted entirely to quelling the ache in my crotch because it can’t stand not being connected to hers.

  “Is it because of him?” My mouth asks this, not my head. My head is smarter than my mouth. It knows better than to dig around where we don’t belong, asking questions we don’t want the answers to.

  “Who?”

  Slowly, my smile turns on her as she scoots to one side of the beanbag, leaving room for me to sit beside her.

  “Who?” I should make it my new ringtone.

  Take that, Ewan. Throw it in your junk drawer of voices. I’m close to her body, and you’re far from her thoughts.

  It dawns on her, finally, and she shakes her head with a few blinks. “Oh...no. I mean, we still haven’t said it’s exclusive or anything.”

  “Then what’s the issue?”

  “You.”

  My breath flutters the hair sticking out from the sides of her hat. “Ah.”

  Clara’s fingers trace the logo on my RHCP shirt, circling my heart in a vulture spiral. She trails them to my abs and bunches the fabric up in her fists to pull me the slightest bit closer.

  I touch her forehead with mine.

  “But you want to,” I manage.

  “Yes. But maybe I wish I didn’t.”

  “Come on, Hurley. We both know there’s no ‘maybe’ about it.”

  Her tongue runs between her lips like the first stroke of a painting. Slow, purposeful—and officially turning a clean canvas into a dirty one.

  “Don’t call me that, anymore,” she says. One of her hands walks its way up to my neck. She brushes her thumb over my Adam’s apple, something I’ve never had anyone do.

  It’s like her: so weird and right I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve encountered it. That I’ve gone my entire life so far without it.

  “Call me Clara. I liked it when you did that.”

  “Only if you stop calling me Durham.”

  She almost smiles, then nods. We’re in agreement.

  We still don’t sit up or pull away from each other. Her fingers brush my throat and mine dance near her hipbones. We’re barely moving, but we keep breathing faster and harder, the more we touch each other.

  “Play with yourself,” I order. My hands fumble with my belt and zipper until my cock is out, still stone-hard when I grip it and start to pump.

  Okay, so I’m not allowed to put it in her. I’m not allowed to make her come. She wants it, but doesn’t want to want it.

  I can live with that.

  But I’m going to watch her orgasm today. Now. Even if I’m not the one to give it to her.

  Clara hesitates, but her eyes watch me relentlessly. I see her chest flutter. She’s somewhere between drunk on hormones and just plain fascinated.

  “Have you ever watched a guy jerk off?”

  “No.” Gingerly, she gathers her dress in her hands and pulls it past her stomach, then slides her hand into her underwear. Those whimpers at the familiar thrill of her own touch make me dizzy. “Have you ever watched a girl masturbate?”

  “Not you.”

  She rolls her eyes, but it’s cut short when I get my tongue back on her nipples. Her ass writhes down into the beanbag like it’s trying to tunnel all the way to the lobby.

  “Can I watch you finish first?” she asks.

  Another weird, wonderful shock. I’ve never been with a woman who wanted me to finish first. I’ve never wanted to finish first. It’s probably the only unselfish thing about me, and even then not by much: it’s just sexy, and a nice ego boost, getting a girl to orgasm.

  I rearrange myself so I’m a little higher on the beanbag, one arm behind her. She turns and rests her head on my bicep, and I find myself wishing I coul
d be Clara’s pillow every single night.

  “I’ll finish on your stomach.” While my strokes deepen, I press the head of my cock against her navel. It’s pierced, which I knew from the beach. And maybe more than a few Instagram posts of her in a two-piece.

  But in daylight, I can see the shimmering gemstone of her ring, the clean and gleaming surgical steel...and suddenly I want nothing more than to make the whole thing filthy.

  With her free hand, she touches the pre-ejaculate I leave behind. I poked her there as a joke, but the heady sigh she gives proves she didn’t take it as one. She’s loving it.

  “Can you…can you do it there?”

  “You want me to shoot my load in your belly button?” My smile presses against the soft skin behind her ear when she gives a shy, hesitant nod.

  My grip tightens, but my strokes slow.

  “I’m coming, Clara,” I whisper through gritted teeth. Together, we watch my semen spill out into a glistening puddle in her navel.

  The entire time, the hand in her underwear never stops.

  “Fuck...fuck, Wes, I’m coming too.”

  If I hadn’t just orgasmed, the sight of her face when she finishes—and the sound of my name in her mouth like it was invented there—would do me in.

  Clara’s limbs twitch, her entire body stiff until the peak passes. I sink my teeth into her neck and revel in the aftershock it draws.

  “Now imagine that,” I tell her, “times a hundred. A thousand. Actual sex would be explosive.” I run my fingers over the chill bumps down her back. “It’s never sat right with me, the fact we didn’t go that far the night of the masquerade party.”

  “We fell asleep,” she reminds me softly.

  “I know.” I woke up about an hour later and left her there, sleeping on the chaise all by herself. Guilt and worry gnawed at me, keeping me close until I went inside and told the front desk there was a woman alone on the beach. As soon as security helped her stumbling, sleepy form into the lobby, I disappeared upstairs.

  “Well,” she says, after a moment, “it’s probably a good thing we didn’t go all the way. It would have made things too....”

  “Weird? Hard?”

  “Too much.” She shakes her head, the word still not feeling like enough.

  But it is. She’s right. And it doesn’t even matter if she’s talking about today, or just that night on the beach.

  We’re too much for each other, in every possible way. She’s too weird, too quiet, but too witty and in my face at the same time. Too sweet, and just a little too innocent to get ruined by me.

  I’m too crass. Too arrogant, and selfish. Too much of an asshole.

  With the tissues from my desk, I clean her up. But not before I pull my finger across her belly button, drawing a river up the center of her stomach until she shivers again. She drags her pinky through what’s left and does the same, and I know I’m never going to forget that numbingly sexy image as long as I live.

  We couldn’t begin to handle each other.

  But good God...what a beautiful mess we’d leave in our wake.

  Twenty-One

  If Georgia noticed my post, she’s pretending she hasn’t.

  To be fair, she’s pretty distracted packing for her trip with Rylan. Instead of scrolling her phone over the breakfast I had to force her to eat, she’s obsessively combing a list of things to take with her.

  Since I’m not used to eating in silence around her, I tap my fork against my plate and ask, “So when does the other plane leave?”

  At last, she looks up from the list. “Huh? What other plane?”

  “The one Rylan will have to charter just for your luggage.”

  Slowly, she smiles—and almost relaxes. “Right? I never get like this. I don’t know what my deal is.”

  Usually, Georgia is chomping at the bit to hop on a plane the minute a travel date arrives. Her motto is, “If we forget something, we’ll buy it when we get there.” Mine is, “Travel light, but travel prepared.” If it weren’t for me, she’d have forgotten her toothbrush and underwear on four of our last trips.

  But I find this development adorable, because I know exactly what her deal is.

  “You’re nervous.”

  “Me? Come on, now.”

  It is a pretty absurd statement on its face. Georgia almost never gets nervous.

  But she clearly is, now.

  When I just stare and smile, her face lands in her folded arms on the dining table. “I’m so screwed.”

  “Nah. You’re in love.”

  “Don’t,” she laughs, pointing at me. “I’m in deep shit, but not love.”

  Things with Rylan and her have shifted in the last week, I guess in part because of our little talk on her commitment issues. I’ve nudged her towards the trip idea ever since. It’ll be good for her to stop fighting how she really feels, for once. To let someone other than her twin into her daily life.

  My phone buzzes. I finish my coffee before looking at the text, assuming it’s from Ewan. It took a lot of damage control and vague explanations of how I came to “work” for Wes, but I think I finally settled his nerves.

  Wes: Took Bowie to the park early. Your little friend Ewan was nowhere in sight. Guess I scared him. :(

  There it is again: my blood running hot with anger...but rushing through my ears in a dizzying high I can only hope is mindless lust.

  Emphasis on “mindless,” because I’d like to think my brain’s too smart to feel this way about him. It’s got to be some caveman instinct humans have yet to conquer.

  My dreams were a constant replay of Wes finishing into my navel. I’ve spent the hours since dawn trying to make myself think of Ewan doing the same thing, or even just imagining him touching himself, and I can’t.

  When my phone pings again, Georgia glances up from her list with a mischievous smile. “Is that who I think it is?”

  I angle my phone away and let her believe what she wants.

  Wes: PS, made coffee.

  Once Georgia’s done nibbling at breakfast, now elbow-deep in her suitcases on the couch, I text back.

  Clara: So I guess you don’t need me to come over, then.

  Wes: Oh yes I do.

  A multimedia message starts to download.

  The second I see an outline of his dick, I slap the phone down and scrub my face with both hands, all the way over my scalp until I reach my neck. The blush beat me there. It feels like sunburn.

  With another glance my way, Georgia chews her lip. “Are you sure you’ll be okay while I’m gone?”

  I get up and help her roll the last of her tank tops. Several are actually mine, but I decide to let it go. It’s a miracle she’s going on a trip without me, and another miracle she’s going on one with a guy. If she wanted my entire wardrobe, I’d fork it over. “We’re twenty-four. I think we’ll survive a week apart.”

  Her smile’s almost scolding. “I meant with the pulling.” Pausing, she wedges in a hair straightener—also mine—and some books I know she won’t read, despite the best intentions. “Noticed you cleared some space by your ear. When did that happen?”

  When I had to pretend I was friends with Wes damn Durham behind your back...and then prepare to lie to you about it. Again.

  “Just a slip-up,” I assure her. I turn my head back and forth in the meager sunlight. We don’t get much in our apartment, but I know she can see the regrowth is still mostly untouched and growing in nicely.

  “Wear your gloves at night,” she reminds me, sitting on one suitcase while I zip it shut, “and try that tea tree oil stuff I got you. I really think it’ll help. And call me if—”

  “Georgia, chill. I’ll be fine.”

  “I know. You just tend to do it more when you’re by yourself.”

  While I sit on the other suitcase so she can zip it, I tell her it’s not like I’ll just be lying in bed all day bored out of my skull. “I’ve got stuff to do. There’s the lunch with Sasha, some videos I can post from the backlog...maybe
I’ll even Skype Mom.”

  She snorts. “Just bang your head against a wall. Way less painful.” Our mother and technology don’t mix even a little. The woman still uses a landline, only has Wi-Fi and a cell because Georgia and I insisted on it (and paid for both as Christmas presents, so she couldn’t complain), and only watches television during the Olympics and World Cup.

  Another text hits my Inbox. I ignore it, drop it into my purse, and start my makeup while Georgia ransacks the bathroom for any forgotten items.

  “You’re sure you don’t want me to see you off?” I ask, digging through my eye shadow bag until I find a simple gray. It makes me think of “Friday Night In,” which makes me laugh to myself—which makes me realize how much I’ll miss Georgia while she’s gone.

  I push it aside. This is good for her. And great for me. More than once, I’ve told my past therapists it would be nice to get alone time that lasted longer than an hour or two.

  “I’m good. Rylan’s getting me in a cab in, like, five minutes.” Sweating as she hefts one bag off the sofa, she gives a worried look to the other and sighs, “But I could use your help with my luggage.”

  “On it.” I finish my eye shadow, then fill in my brows. Thankfully, those and my lashes haven’t seen too much damage during this “backslide,” as Georgia likes to call them.

  I know she means it as a form of encouragement, crafted to remind me I’m always on the road to recovery—but after nearly two decades of this pattern, I’m starting to see them less as backslides...and more just how I am. And will probably always be.

  Georgia waits patiently while I choose a hat, then watches with exaggerated fascination when I lock the door behind us. “Going somewhere?”

  “Maybe.” Again, I let her assume I’m meeting up with Ewan. My embarrassment is all too convincing.

  We hug goodbye twice when her cab arrives. Both of us get a little misty-eyed, but I remind myself two weeks will pass quickly.

  And that, for the first in our lives, I’ve got two weeks of being on my own.