I grab myself and push at her entrance while I grab her ass . . . but nothing happens.
I reach back between my own legs and grip my cock in my hand and shrink back.
Shrink is the right word . . . Why am I not hard?
Is this some sick joke the universe is playing on me?
I move my hand up and back down again, taking another look at Dakota’s sexy body. The way her curly hair is a wild frame around the work of art that is her beautiful face, her full lips. I take in the way her breasts rest on her chest, small nipples still hard.
What the hell is wrong with me? She’s so sexy, so ready, and I’m soft?
I keep touching myself, praying that I can get hard. This has never happened to me before.
Why, oh why, is this happening now?
“What’s wrong?” Dakota asks, catching on to my unease.
I shake my head and curse at my traitorous body. “Nothing, I’m just . . . I’m having difficulties.”
I hate to admit it and the embarrassment I feel right now is like nothing I’ve ever felt before, but I’m not really in a position to lie. This problem is literally impossible to hide.
Yep, I’ve never been this embarrassed. Not even when my mom caught us having sex in my room when she was supposed to be at work all day. Not even when Josh Slackey pulled my pants down in front of the entire fifth-grade class.
Not even when I fell in the shower while masturbating and Nora ran in to help me.
And that last one was definitely up there on the embarrassment level.
“Difficulties?” Dakota questions.
She lifts herself up and I want to crawl into a hole. A dark, dark hole where no one can find me.
“Um, yeah” is all I can think to say.
“You can’t get hard?” she guesses, and I really, really want to disappear.
I lift my hands up and stay on my knees.
“I was, just a moment ago. I don’t know why—”
Dakota raises her hand into the air. “I don’t get it. How can you not?”
Her eyes move to my cock, soft and hanging, and I feel about two inches tall.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me.” I move my hand quickly and run it through my hair, some part of me hoping she’ll follow its arc and stop looking down there. “Maybe we can try something else?”
Dakota nods. But she doesn’t look anything like she did a few moments ago. Her eyes no longer look like a wild animal ready to devour me. She looks confused and embarrassed, and I hope she doesn’t think this has anything to do with her or how she looks.
She’s so beautiful, so sexy, and any man would be stupid not to think so. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me right now, but I do know it’s not her fault.
“No . . . let’s try this,” she says, and shifts, then lowers her body so her mouth is level with my cock.
She takes me in her mouth and I try to focus only on its warmth, the way her tongue feels tracing the head of my cock. The way I want this, really, really want this.
Still, nothing happens.
She stops after a few seconds and pulls back. Her face is stone as she looks at me, then away quickly.
“I’m so sorry,” I explain. “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me, but this is in no way your fault or anything to do with how I feel about you.”
Dakota looks away, and I can feel her shutting down inside.
“I can . . .” I don’t know how to word what I’m trying to say. “I can finish you, you know, with my mouth?” I offer.
She whips her head around, and the look she shoots me is one with a sharp end. She’s clearly not into that idea at all.
“I really am sorry,” I say again.
“Just stop talking. Please.” She stands up and gathers her clothing.
I know better than to follow her when she walks down the hallway and into the bathroom.
When the door slams, I think I can feel it reverberate through me, but I stay put.
I feel like an asshole and I am at a huge loss about how to fix this. I have no clue how to handle something like this, and I know Dakota enough to know that when she’s shut down, she’s shut down. That’s it. I’ve embarrassed her and I didn’t mean to. I would never, ever mean to.
I grab my pants from the floor and pull them on.
I can’t believe after all this time thinking and fantasizing about her, I couldn’t even get hard when it came time.
I look down at my uncooperative dick. “Way to go.”
I try to think . . . Think, Landon!
I glare at the cats in hats on the wall lining the hallway, hoping they can help. The odd pictures offer no advice. Go figure.
I stand outside the bathroom door and try to think of something to say, some way to apologize that will make her understand how sorry I am for making her feel like she isn’t enough for me.
She’s more than enough, she’s everything I’ve ever wanted.
She’s the only person I’ve ever been with.
She was my first love, my only love.
“Dakota.” I use my knuckles to tap on the door.
She’s silent. Seconds later, she turns the sink on and I wait.
Time seems to move incredibly slow when you’ve made a fool of yourself and someone else all in one quick motion. I knock again and she doesn’t answer. The water is still running and it’s been at least three minutes. I knock again.
She doesn’t answer.
“Dakota, are you okay?” I say against the bathroom door.
The running water is the only noise I hear when I press my ear to the door.
Is she okay? Why is the water still running?
On instinct, I turn the knob and open the door.
“I’m sorry . . .” I begin again, but when I look around the small bathroom, it’s empty.
The window is open.
The curtains are blowing in the wind.
And I curse at my building for having a fire escape.
chapter
Twenty-five
IT’S BEEN LESS THAN TEN minutes since Dakota left my house and I’m more and more ashamed by the minute. I hate that this happened to me, to her.
I can’t imagine how my inadequacy made her feel.
Well, I can sort of imagine, given that she climbed down my fire escape and obviously preferred just getting the heck away from me. I wish she would have talked to me, even yelled at me, instead of sneaking out my bathroom window. I feel like shit about it.
I imagine that she may feel even worse.
Her words ring through my ears:
“I don’t get it. How can you not?”
“I don’t get it. How can you not?”
I felt so much worse in that moment and now those words won’t stop looping through my mind.
I
don’t
get
it.
How
can
you
not?
???
I sit on the couch and bury my face in my hands. Dakota is probably not going to want to talk to me for a while, maybe never again. The thought of that makes my head spin. I can’t imagine her being completely out of my life. The notion is so strange. Too strange. I’ve known her half of my life, and even when we broke up, I still knew she was out there, not hating me. Her having bad feelings toward me for the rest of our lives just wouldn’t be right. It would be like messing with the universe.
A knock on my door pulls me from my thoughts and I jump up.
It must be Dakota—back to hear my apology . . . or possibly even offer her own?
As I rush to the door, another knock sounds and I yank it open.
Only it’s not Dakota. It’s Nora, with some groceries.
“Can you grab something, please?” she asks, struggling with the bags, and I grab as many as I can, careful not to accidentally make her drop them as I help.
When I glance inside them, there’s lots of green stuff
. I can’t tell what any of it is, except that it’s green and looks kind of fluffy. The heaviest of the three bags makes a clinking sound when I put it on the counter, and when I peek inside, I find three bottles of wine.
“Sorry,” she says as she puts the other bag on the kitchen counter. “I was either going to lose an arm or the wine. And after today, I’d rather lose an arm.”
She begins to pull stuff out like she lives here and I watch her silently navigate my kitchen and place her food inside my fridge. She pulls out the bottles of wine, one by one, and puts them in the freezer.
I thought that, unlike liquor, wine froze, but I don’t want to ask her and look like an idiot.
“Are you waiting for Tessa or something?” I ask, unsure how to start a conversation with her, or if I should.
Things feel distant between us since Dakota yelled at her for being around me.
Nora nods. “Yep. She’s having a rough night, too, a twenty-top just walked in and they put them in her section even though she’s still new.” She rolls her eyes. “I got bitched out for bitching out the hostess.”
“Seems fair?” I shrug, smiling so she knows I’m joking.
She smiles. “Touché.”
I watch as she opens a drawer and pulls out the cutting board. She doesn’t do anything with it, she just leaves it sitting next to the microwave while she empties the last bag.
I lean awkwardly against the counter and think of an exit plan before I become a burden.
“Oh my God,” Nora says, touching her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “I’m sorry. Are you busy or having company? I just barged in here and started unloading groceries and didn’t think to ask if I’m in the way.”
She’s not in the way, now.
I’m so, so, so glad she didn’t come ten minutes earlier.
“No, not at all. I’m just going to study and go to bed. You’ll have the kitchen to yourself,” I tell her.
She blows a loose strand of dark hair out of her face and it falls right back down in front of her eyes. She’s still wearing her work uniform. The same one Tessa wears: black pants, white button-up shirt, and that bright green tie.
Nora’s shirt is tighter than Tessa’s, or so it seems.
“Thank you. I just really needed to not go home to my apartment tonight. I had such a shitty shift, and frankly, I can’t handle any of those bitches right now,” she huffs.
Her eyes meet mine and she covers her mouth. “No offense.”
“None taken,” I tell her, meaning it.
I don’t ever want to be in the middle of Dakota and Nora’s friendship, or lack of friendship, or roommateship, or whatever. I would rather be in Madam Undersecretary Professor Umbridge’s office staring at cat pictures while she tortures me.
Both Dakota and Nora are raging fires, and I’d rather not become a pile of ash by being too close to their flames.
“I’m going to make some food if you want to eat? I just grabbed a bunch of stuff and I’m going to see what I can whip up,” Nora offers.
This is the most we’ve spoken in a while and I’m sort of glad she’s speaking to me again. I figured we would both avoid each other and make things awkward, but this is a much better alternative.
“I’m not really hungry,” I say, even though I am. “I just ate,” I lie.
I’m pretty sure Nora got stuff to make her and Tessa dinner, not Tessa’s dorky roommate, and I don’t want to lurk around longer than I’m wanted. Nothing is worse than the feeling of questioning whether you’re wanted or not. It’s even worse than knowing you aren’t, because at least then you know for sure. There’s no desperate hope lingering that maybe your company is wanted.
“Okay. I’m going to leave the extras out for Tessa if you change your mind,” Nora says, her eyes on my chest. I should have put a shirt on because now all I can think about is the first time she touched me.
And the second.
And when she kissed me.
And the way her lips tasted like candy and I wanted more.
I need to think about something else. Anything else.
Cakes. Big fluffy cakes with piles of purple ice cream and intricate little flowers.
Not the icing that was smeared on her shirt. Cakes and cooking and nonsexy things, like her cooking.
I do enjoy Nora’s food. She’s a hell of a cook.
Thinking about her cooking reminds me of cakes, which reminds me of Ellen’s birthday tomorrow. I still have no idea what to get her. I was going to ask Dakota for help, but that’s obviously not in the cards now.
“Are you good at getting people gifts?” I blurt out.
Nora turns to me, her brows furrowed, and she cocks her head. “Huh?”
I cringe at my own awkwardness. “Like for birthdays and stuff.”
“Sort of. I mean, I haven’t bought anyone a gift in a while, but I can try to help. Who’s it for? Dakota? Maybe you can get her something dance-related, or a new yoga mat or something.”
I didn’t even know Dakota was into yoga. It’s a strange thought that Nora knows things about her that I don’t.
“It’s not for Dakota. It’s for this girl I know.”
Yikes, that sounded weird. Maybe I should explain it’s for this seventeen-year-old girl, so not really someone . . . no, wait, that sounds worse. And would it be even worse still if I now backtracked and explained that it was for a neighbor, like I was expecting Nora to care, like I was somehow hitting on Nora or something?
Ugh, I don’t understand these things.
“Okay?” Nora looks puzzled, but doesn’t comment on my obvious discomfort. “What types of things does she like?”
Nora continues to put the food away and I wonder if I should be helping her. I honestly have no idea where this stuff goes or how she’s going to make a meal out of a can of almonds and a bag of brussels sprouts.
I have haunting memories of being made to eat brussels sprouts as a kid.
I wonder if Nora makes them taste better, somehow.
“I’m not sure. I know she studies a lot and she doesn’t like flowers.”
“Smart girl. I hate flowers, too. At first, they’re so beautiful, but soon enough you’re forced to watch them wither and waste away and you just end up having to throw them out, and they’re messy. A complete waste of time. Like relationships.”
Her voice is so flat that I can’t tell if she’s joking or not.
I try to defend love, even though I’m clearly not in a place to do so. “Not all relationships are like that.”
Nora pulls the plastic bag off of some broccoli and I watch her eyes look everywhere except at me.
“So how long have you known her? What else do you know about her?”
“Nothing really.” I shrug my shoulders.
Nora takes the bunch of broccoli over to the sink and turns on the water.
“Nothing else?” she questions. “Then why are you getting her a gift? Are you close friends?”
I get the feeling she’s trying not to be too nosy, but I’m bringing all this up quite awkwardly. And since she’s given me an entrée to explain, I say, “She works downstairs at the corner store. I wouldn’t say we’re friends really, but her birthday is tomorrow and I don’t think anyone even cares.”
Nora turns around from her spot at the sink, the broccoli in her hands dripping water on my floor, and says, “Wait. What?”
I shrug, uncertain of what her tone means. “Yeah. It’s terrible. She’s turning eighteen and all she does is work down there. And study. She’s always studying.”
Nora holds up her hand, wet broccoli and all. “You’re doing something for the girl downstairs? The one that always wears the headbands?”
I nod. Her eyes find mine and rest there. She tucks her bottom lip between her teeth and I have to look away from her stare. Her thick eyebrows are bunched together again and her cheeks are glowing. She’s wearing more makeup than she usually does, but it looks nice.
She reminds me of the women in tho
se videos Tessa always watches on YouTube. She always says she’s going to try to re-create the way they put on makeup, but when all is said and done, the products usually end up in the trash and her eyes are puffy from tears, not covered in color.
“You’re something else, Landon Gibson,” Nora says, and my cheeks flush.
I turn a little, pretending that I’m thirsty, and open the fridge to grab a Gatorade.
I don’t say anything else. I don’t know what to say and I know that if I stand here any longer I’m going to make a fool of myself somehow. I’ve already done that enough for one day and I don’t want to scare Nora away from the apartment. Tessa needs as many friends around her as possible, and Nora seems to be a good one.
“I’m going to finish my paper.”
The one that’s already completed.
“If you need anything, I’ll be in my room,” I tell her, shoving my hands into the pockets of my sweats.
Nora nods and turns back to the sink to rewash her broccoli.
When I get to my room, I close the door and lean my back against it.
The wood is cold against my bare skin and I’m exhausted. Today freaking sucked, and I’m so glad it’s over.
I don’t bother opening a textbook to even pretend like I’m studying. I don’t even bother turning on my light. I just lie down on my bed and close my eyes. I move around for a while, willing sleep to come to me, but my mind is still reeling from Dakota.
And now from Nora. She’s in my kitchen, and I have to keep my distance from her, even though I’m not sure that I want to.
chapter
Twenty-six
AFTER A FEW MINUTES OF silence, music begins to play from the kitchen.
I know the song. I sit up, not ready to get out of bed, but impressed that Nora knows Kevin Garrett, too. This is one of my favorites.
Ironically, the lyrics speak to me more now than ever before. I hear the humming of Nora’s voice in my kitchen and imagine her moving her body to the slow beat, singing the words, gliding effortlessly around my kitchen.
I lie back on the bed again, this time with my back against the metal headboard. This bed took hours to put together yet still creaks when I move. The day I got it, Tessa and I spent the entire afternoon at IKEA—and it was absolute hell. The store was crowded and way too big. As we tried to follow the map, Tessa kept going on about a red ladle in some book she was reading about a murderous stalker guy who, for some weird reason, she was in love with. She literally told me that Beck (the main woman, aka his prey) “doesn’t deserve him.” I rolled my eyes and told her she needs to get out more, but when I googled the book, a lot of people seemed to have the same reaction. It’s fascinating the way a narrator can have you questioning what you think you know about the world.