Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

“Not this late. We have a big yard and he has free access. He wants a midnight snack, though. Are you going to freak out if I let you go?”

My nails, I realized, were digging in his forearm. “Sorry.” I released him, and he untangled himself with a smile that looked almost affectionate before he disappeared into the kitchen, followed by the beast. I heard puttering, cupboards opening and closing, and soft, patient murmurs. I caught myself smiling at the sound, and wasn’t sure why. What did I care if Eli had a dog, or quail, or a raft of otters? When he returned, wiping freshly washed hands on his jeans, I immediately asked, “Where is your bedroom?”

“Not so fast.” I cocked my head, and he smiled. “I want a story. Before we go upstairs.”

Ah, yes. Our currency. “An ugly one that proves how terrible a person I am?”

“Doesn’t matter. As long as it’s true.” He paused. “As long as it’s just for me.”

“They all are.” I’d told him things I’d never admitted out loud to another soul. It was the same for him, I knew without having to ask. And I had the perfect story. “When I was eleven, Tisha and Nyota—her younger sister—started pestering their parents to get a puppy. It involved PowerPoints, Post-its left all around the house. They even got character letters from their teachers. Tisha liked cats better, but if they were going to get a pet, an alliance was necessary, and Nyota was younger. Less willing to compromise, you know? Anyway, they ended up adopting Elvis, a Chihuahua mix. He was . . . loud, and small. He pretended I didn’t exist, and I returned the favor.” I swallowed. “I was maniacally jealous of that dog. Because he got to stay with Tisha and her family every second of every day. He was fed, taken care of, doted on. While I had to go back home and deal with . . .” My unpredictable mother, my little brother, who was getting more and more aggressive, the empty kitchen and the stench of mold. The certainty that if that was my life, I had to have done something to deserve it. “I had to deal with a lot. So I looked at Elvis and was so resentful and thought, ‘Why not me?’ over and over, until it felt like—like a cancer, metastasizing in every interaction I had with Tisha. It took me a long time to wean myself off the habit. Maybe I never fully succeeded.”

I waited for my cheeks to burn and for the shame to pour over me, like it always did. But it was difficult to blame myself when Eli offered no recrimination or disgust. He just accepted it openly, this story that I’d carried in my marrow for over a decade, like it was as natural a part of me as my lips or my arm.

So I said, “Your turn.”

He nodded. Took a deep breath. “Last Friday I was out of town. I got drunk off vodka with some colleagues, went back to the hotel, and pulled up your contact. I typed a long, long text describing every single thing I’ve imagined doing to you. I left out nothing. And it wasn’t a list, Rue. It was filthy, and indefensible, and exceptionally detailed. A fucking instruction manual. I have the faintest memory of writing it, and thankfully I fell asleep before I hit send, because when my alarm went off the following morning, it was there in the text box.”

At first I felt shortchanged, and almost called him out for cheating—this wasn’t our kind of story, cruel and bare and flustering. But that wasn’t for me to decide, was it? Maybe for Eli, confessing to his loss of control was all those things.

“Do you want to know the last thing I’d written?” he asked.

I nodded, heart pounding in anticipation.

“How badly I wanted to fuck you into compliance.” He shook his head, exhaling a rueful laugh, and gestured with his chin toward the staircase. “Still wanna do this?”

I didn’t bother answering, but started the climb upstairs. When I turned to check if he was following, I caught his eyes glued to my ass. His smile was unrepentant, as though looking at my body was a sacrosanct right he planned to take advantage of as long as it was granted.

His bedroom was what I’d have expected from an adult man who hadn’t planned on visitors: simply furnished, mostly neat, with an unmade king bed and the occasional item of clothing draped across a piece of furniture. The windows were street facing, and he brushed past me to pull the curtains. When he turned, I’d already toed off my shoes and taken off my shirt.

“Stop,” he ordered.

I glanced down at my shorts. “Want me to leave these on?”

“Nah.” He came closer. “Let me do it.”

“Hardly efficient.” Nor sexy. I was wearing my grocery-shopping clothes.

“Come on, Rue. You have to know I’m going to treat tonight like the second chance I never thought I’d get.” Every catch of the zipper was loud in the quiet room. His large hands opened the front like he was unwrapping a present. Then, eyes fixed to me, he slid his hand inside.

The tip of his index finger tapped against the cotton of my panties. Brushed softly. “Nice.”

Wet, he meant. I’d felt the dampness between my thighs, and now he knew it, too. “You can’t be surprised.”

“I don’t need to be surprised to enjoy it.” My shorts came off. “You don’t really need me to say it, do you? That your body is the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen?”

I cocked my head, observing him observe me, greedy and acquisitive. His eyes lingered on my breasts, belly, hips, thighs, all too something to be anywhere near perfect. But I loved my body, even in its flaws. I loved the things it could do on the ice and off, the pleasure it was capable of, the way it looked in the dresses I enjoyed buying. I loved that it had kept going through my first eighteen years, despite the adversities it had faced. And I loved that Eli liked it as much as I did. “I’m glad you think so. Feel free to use it as you like.”