Ominous, Part 1 by K.V. Rose

5

Eden

I stackwhite towels up on the counter, the steady whir of treadmills and ellipticals playing beneath Higher by Creed, a constant on the gym owner, Scott’s, playlist. He said I could make my own, connect it to the wireless speakers in the gym, but I don’t think the patrons would appreciate my taste in music. Sometimes, I don’t even appreciate it. It just depresses me.

A collection of thousands of songs, most about drugs, suicide, psychopaths, alongside a few more socially acceptable ones mixed with Russian and Greek hip-hop, it’s not something I show off often. A secret tucked into my pocket most days.

When I’m done with the towels, my hands are dry and I reach for the lotion in my backpack, on the floor behind the counter and the old, unreliable computer we use to let people scan in with their key cards.

The scent of coconut and pineapple reaches my nose as I slather the contents of the small bottle of yellow lotion on my hands, and I think of Eli. It’s been several hours he’s had my number now, and he hasn’t texted me. My cheeks flush, even though no one can see me.

“Have a good night, Eden!” A woman’s cheerful voice reaches me where I’m crouched down on the thin carpet of the check-in area, and I drop my lotion in the side compartment of my checkered bag and straighten so fast my head spins.

But I catch sight of Carol as the door chimes with her exit. She’s a regular for our evening Pilates class, and I offer her a smile. “’Night, Carol.” Her wrinkled face stretches into a grin of her own and she pushes out the door, water bottle and her own fluffy, pink towel clutched in her hand, a bob of white hair disappearing into the darkening night of the plaza Fit4Everis located at.

I wiggle the mouse on the old computer, glancing at the red-lighted scanner facing the glass doors. Tracking my eyes back to the screen, over the data, I see we’ve got seven people in here right now, a drop from the fourteen who had been in just minutes ago for Pilates.

Looking over my shoulder, I spot the rows of cardio machines, where most people currently trudge along with phones or paperbacks in hand. Behind them are the weight machines, then free weights, with mirrors lining the entire L-shaped corner, men with beer bellies but impressive biceps doing curls and staring in the mirror.

One of the guys, in a white muscle tank and short shorts, sees me watching and grins. It doesn’t feel the same as Carol’s smile, but I return it all the same. His name is Fred or Frank or something and he often lets his eyes linger a little longer than I feel comfortable with. He comes in a few times during my shifts for different types of workouts and to bake in the tanning beds. I swear he just spends his entire life here.

I shift my gaze from him and find the cut-out door frame that, if you take a left, leads to the tanning beds in the back, none of them currently in use. To the right are change rooms, no showers, and right at my back is the group activity room, with an actual door which is now cracked open. It’s like a dance room, with mirrors making up one wall, and currently, I see Patty, the Italian Pilates teacher, stretching, her mass of dark, curly hair draped over her knee as she does.

A chime for the door Carol just walked out of sounds and I turn back around, plastering on my customer-service smile.

Immediately, it falters at the figure gliding through the door, and the sweat I’d staved off for two hours now due to the impressive A/C blowing through this place returns with a vengeance.

Eli. Fucking. Addison.

Before I can think the better of it, I look down at my loose, black tank top, Not Famous Yet printed across the front—I cut the sides so it shows off my ribcage—and my black, ripped yoga pants, my favorite gym attire, a gift from Mom when I first started here and had only a few pairs of loose, ratty joggers in the way of gym clothes. I never worked out to be seen before, but here, it’s my entire job.

I’ve got green Vans on my feet, black socks pulled up high, and my hair still in braids. I look more or less the same as I did at school I guess, minus the uniform and the boots, but if I had known Eli would show up at my work…

“What the hell?”I hiss each word with vicious annoyance.

Eli’s mouth curves upward as he approaches the counter, scanning the place quickly, almost dismissively. I try to view it through his eyes. Pale yellow walls, thin, beige carpet. It’s nothing impressive, a dollar store next door, trash blowing in the parking lot, a grocery store with gum stuck to the tiles every time I go in to grab a protein bar for dinner.

I look beyond Eli, now leaning against the counter on his elbows, and see his blacked-out Infiniti, out of place among the Chevys and Fords dotting the lot. Sebastian is picking me up since I needed Mom to drive me straight here so I wouldn’t be late, so my Sentra is nowhere in sight.

“Excuse me?” Eli replies, tilting his head as he gazes down at me. Even leaning on his elbows, he’s still taller than I am.

Regardless, there’s an entire counter separating us, and I’m grateful for it.

I grip the edge of it to keep myself steady, noting Eli’s damp hair, wavier than usual. The black choker around his neck over his black T-shirt, Trafalgar Dragons printed on the front which must be some inside wrestling joke I don’t get because our mascot is a dragonfly. Gray joggers, I can’t see his shoes from here, but I imagine the white Chucks he was wearing Monday night in the library.

I take a breath, and beyond the scent of the gym—bleach, sweat, and laundry detergent from the stacked white towels a foot from me at the end of the counter—I can smell him. Clean, soap, the beach. It’s better than the lotion I used, which is now making my fingers slippery against the counter as they clam up.

“What, exactly, are you doing here?” Why did you never text me?

In the background, I hear the clank of weights. A grunt, probably unnecessary, and the hum of the Pilates teacher softly drifting from the cracked door of the dance room. I try to hold onto the familiar, Eli’s presence completely throwing me off.

He grins, showing white teeth. “Am I not allowed in?” Why would I text you when I could just stalk you?

I shake my head, feeling warmth spread down my chest. “You don’t have a membership here.”

Eli eyes the scanner at his elbow as if he’s profoundly interested in becoming intimately acquainted with it. “Not yet,” he agrees, slowly dragging his gaze back to me, curving a single brow in an expression that’s almost innocent. “But maybe in a second, if you’re offering.”

“I’m not.” I glance at the camera above the glass door, aimed at the counter. For my sake, not for the company’s, Scott told me. To keep records of customers, not employees. I can’t murder Eli right here and now, so I’m not sure that’s really true. Folding my arms over my chest like some sort of protection from his charm, I hold his eyes for long seconds. He’s still smiling, but his irises look darker, and I don’t know what he’s thinking, but he has to know coming to my work after our conversation in the hallway about my schedule on Tuesday, is over the top.

“Oh?” he finally asks, a single word, quiet like he always is, yet it somehow rings louder, above anything else happening in this gym right now, and there is a lot of noise here. It’s one thing I don’t like about it. Too many sensations make it hard for me to focus.

But hooked into Eli’s attention, like a fish at the end of a line, it all fades away, my heart thumping wildly in my chest. I think of the pills in my bag, wishing I could down one to still my pulse. To gain outward control over my nerves.

“You don’t need a gym membership.” Surely, he has one in his house? It seems like a rich kid requirement, at least based on the clientele here.

Eli rakes his fingers through his damp hair, tousling it forward so the dark strands hang in his eyes, but I can still see them very clearly when he straightens, tapping his fingers against the counter. “I don’t need a lot of things, Eden.”

Something that could be butterflies erupt in my stomach, and I’m not sure why. It wasn’t as if those words were a compliment.

“But there are quite a few things I want.”

The butterflies swirl around, a tornado of mixed emotions in my gut. My throat feels dry, and I think of the water bottle, half empty, on the counter behind me, but I don’t reach for it. “You want to be a member of this gym?” I hitch a thumb over my shoulder and Eli follows the movement with his eyes. Another clang, the speeding up of a treadmill as someone starts to jog.

This place isn’t half-bad, and it’s affordable. But I’ve seen F. M. Fink’s Hall at Trafalgar. Eli probably has access to the gym there anytime he wants it, being a wrestler.

His biceps flex as he keeps drumming his fingers on the counter, looking back at me. “Sure. Can I get a discount? Since I know you?”

“You don’t know me.” But I want you to. The thought is unavoidable.

In his eyes, I swear I see the same thing reflected, just more aggressive. But I will.

“What about since I helped you ace the quiz Tuesday morning?”

I don’t even blink. It’s true, he did, but… I don’t trust you.

He concedes when I don’t respond, shrugging. “Sign me up.” He pulls his wallet from the pocket of his sweats without looking away from me, thumbing free a black card and pushing it forward on the lip of the counter, so it’s half-hanging over the edge, ready to drop beside the keyboard of the company computer.

I reach for it instinctively, my customer service training kicking in. The card is heavier than a normal credit card, and I almost say something about it, but instead I just glance at his name etched in raised silver.

Eli Adonis Addison.

My heart thumps faster.

Adonis.

A mortal, lover of Aphrodite.

In the sliding drawer beneath the counter, I fumble for the paperwork he has to complete—name, age, sign a waiver, a contract for the money to be taken from his bank account every month—keeping the card clenched tight in my other hand and pushing Greek mythology from my mind.

I slide the paperwork his way, pluck up a pen without a cap from the wire cupholder beside the computer and give it to him, then open up the software I have to use to manually put in his card info.

“There’s a one-time, fifty-dollar application fee, but you won’t be charged the first thirty dollars until the end of the month—”

“The first thirty?” He says nothing about the application fee. If he had, just one thing, I could have waived it. He might be the first person I haven’t waived it for in the month I’ve been working here. Scott will be happy.

I glance at Eli’s grip on the pen, which always looks strange to me.

He’s left-handed.

Imagining holding a pen that way, I could never replicate the small, tidy loop of his handwriting.

“Yes. It’s thirty dollars a month, you can cancel with a two-month notice—”

“I want to pay ahead.”

I’m typing in the numbers of his credit card, laid against the cash register below the computer stand. I finish the numbers, then look up at him. “What?”

“I want to pay ahead.” He repeats the words slower, causing me to blush harder, the heat uncomfortable in my cheeks, like a sunburn.

“Okay.” It’s not unheard of, but I think I’ve done it twice, both for people who lived near this gym and were unlikely to move anytime soon. I guess Eli could live in this tiny pocket of Raleigh’s outskirts, but it’s not close to Trafalgar. Twenty-minute drive, maybe eighteen if he’s behind the wheel. “For how long?”

He goes back to filling out the form. “Are you staying here until graduation?”

Probably through the summer. I’m going to Bloor. I’m definitely going to Bloor. But I don’t see how it’ll be possible to move before term starts next fall, and part of me is terrified to leave my family. What if something happens again? What if I lose my mind and no one is there to find it?

But I want something bigger.

I want to be someone bigger.

The gravity of Eli’s question, beneath the noise of my own quiet ambition, suddenly sinks into my bones.

“You should sign a contract for a gym membership because you like the gym, not because you like an employee.”

He doesn’t even look up. “Fuck it, I’ll pay through August. I assume I’ll be in college then, although who’s to know?” He drops the pen, like a mic drop, then pushes the paper toward me, letting it curl over the edge.

I keep my eyes on the computer screen as I mentally do the math in my head. Eleven months at thirty dollars. “You’re sure?” I ask without looking at him.

“Hit me.”

I don’t mean to, but I smile at those words and I’m not even sure why. Then I charge his card, for the application fee and the pleasure of seeing me for the next year.

When I’m done, his receipt in his pocket, card back in his wallet, gripped loosely in his hand, I expect him to leave. I’m positive he had wrestling practice today, and I imagine it’s pretty brutal. He’s in impressive shape, and with the veins straining beneath his hands, even more prominent than usual, he has to be tired, right?

But he doesn’t leave. Instead, he says, “When are you off?” at the same time Fred or Frank rounds the counter, his back to the door as he spins to face us both and Eli pivots, one arm still on the counter. I glance at the computer screen and see his check-in.

Fred. His name is Fred.

“You all good, Eden?” he asks, a blender cup in his massive hand, sweat dripping down his sun-lined face. He spares a single glare in Eli’s direction.

“Great,” I say, plastering on my customer-service smile.

Fred returns it, the glare gone as he focuses on my face. “I’ll be back later for the beds.” He jerks his chin, indicating the tanning booths in the back of the gym.

I nod, keeping my smile. The door chimes, Fred shoots one more glare to Eli, then walks out, and we both see the way his shirt is dampened down his spine from sweat.

“He loves me,” Eli mutters under his breath. “Anyway, what time do you get off?”

I glance at the time on the computer. It’s six now. “Two hours.”

“Great.” He pushes off the counter, walks by the computer, swipes a towel from the stack I folded, and saunters toward the weights, leaving me staring after him.

Near close,I head to the back of the gym with a towel and spray bottle in hand to clean up the tanning beds. I refuse to look at Eli, still here and by the weights, in conversation with a woman I know is training for a physique competition. I roll my eyes at his charm but lift my chin and breathe a little easier when I disappear down the hall to the tanning beds.

It’s quiet back here, the three rooms vacant, and I duck into the first two for a couple of minutes max, swiping at the glass over the bulbs, discarding sticker wrappers of different shapes people can put on their skin for the tan to go around it, like a strange, reverse tattoo. One is the outline of a Playboy bunny, and I smile a little as I toss it into the trash. If I had a sticker with innuendo, it’d probably be whips and chains or hands around a throat or something, at least based on my porn preferences.

My face grows hot, and I shake my head, rolling my eyes at myself.

I head to the last room, not bothering to flick on the lights because there’s enough to see by from the hallway. It smells like every stereotypical beach scent ever bottled in here, and the bed is still warm when I wipe my cloth over it, bending down so I can reach the far side. My shirt rises up, exposing my low back, cool air drifting along my skin. I can see the gleam of some kind of oil in a tiny spot at the top curve of the bed, and I’m irrationally annoyed I have to scrub at it harder after I spray the bottle to get it cleaned off. Oils aren’t supposed to be used in these beds.

My mind drifts to homework and calling Sebastian to pick me up and hoping he’s sober when he answers, to what I’m going to eat for dinner.

Then just as the oil gives way on the glass and I’m almost done, I feel something graze my lower back.

I jump, banging my head on the top lid of the tanning bed, stars popping in my eyes. I spin around, holding out the spray bottle and pulling the trigger when I see a looming figure. I hear a puff of diluted chemicals and water spritz into the air at the same time I open my mouth to scream but it comes out as a strangled shriek.

The bottle is pulled from my hand, dropped to the floor, then there’s a thud and the door is slammed closed, the light from the hall gone, extinguishing me in darkness.

I back up, but the bed hits my back, and all I’ve got fisted in my hand is the cleaning towel.

My heart stutters inside my chest. I’m drawing in a deep breath, ready to scream again, terror ice in my veins, when a familiar voice breaks through the darkness.

“What the hell was in that?”

My chest heaves, skin tingling, when the door is pushed open, the person inside with me grunts as they’re thwacked with it, and my eyes dart from them, to Eli, looming in the doorway, light spilling into the room.

“I think you blinded me,” Fred grunts, his meaty hand slapped over his eye.

“I think you deserve it.” Eli’s voice is cold as he takes in the dropped spray bottle, me clutching the gym towel, and Fred, who was the last person to use this bed. I know, because I set the timers, but that was half an hour ago.

I’m still catching my breath, but relief swims through me at the sight of Eli, especially when he flicks on the light switch.

When it illuminates the space, I turn my head and find Fred glaring at Eli, one of the former’s eyes red and swollen. “What are you even doing back here, dude?”

Eli smiles, but there’s nothing nice about it. “I think you should leave.”

I find words, finally, and ask, “Why were you in here?” looking in Fred’s direction.

He swallows, his thick neck rolling as he looks at me. “I thought I left something,” he mutters, glancing around the room. There’s a small trash can with the backings of stickers in it, a stack of towels on a ledge screwed into the wall, and a little fan, plugged in but off. Nothing else. “I guess not.” He glares at Eli but looks apologetic when he turns to me again. “Sorry, Eden. Didn’t mean to scare you,” he mutters. He shuffles toward the door, and Eli turns only enough to let him walk by, but he doesn’t move from the doorway.

Fred is thick, but Eli is taller, and when he passes by, Eli says, so quietly I barely hear him, “Don’t follow her again.”

Fred stiffens, his hands curled into fists, T-shirt pulled tight over his wide shoulders. But he doesn’t say a word as he leaves the room, disappearing down the hall, leaving me alone with Eli.

Eli swoops down to pick up the spray bottle, and carefully hands it to me. I take it without touching his skin, my movements jittery.

He stares down at me, and for a second, I’m reminded of bully romance novels. Is he going to, like, slam me against the wall?

But instead… he backs up.

“You have fast reflexes,” he says quietly, sounding almost proud of me.

I’m looking everywhere but at him, my fingers clammy around the plastic bottle, but I hear a smile in his words.

I wait for him to admonish me for that sneak attack Fred pulled, but he doesn’t. Instead, all he says is, “Do you want a ride home?”

“My brother can pick me up.” I clench my fingers in the gym towel, still looking down. Did Fred touch me on purpose? It was probably an accident, right? What if Eli hadn’t come back here?

Eli huffs the softest laugh. Then he says, “I’ll wait ‘til you’re done. Meet me at the front. Preferably without that bottle.” He walks out before I can argue, and with the lingering feel of Fred’s fingers on my low back, I don’t even want to.

* * *

“You’re takingme straight home, right?”

He’s standing at the driver’s side door of his car, my bag in his hand, hanging by his side. He insisted on carrying it out, just like he insisted on opening the passenger door for me.

But I’m still standing outside his car, and I keep one hand on the top of the door, the scent of leather and coconut strong enough to feel like a physical warmth in my chest.

In the lights of the parking lot, I see him roll his eyes. “I did Monday night, didn’t I?”

True enough. I glance at the bandage on my middle finger. It’s easier than looking at Eli without a shirt on. It’s around his shoulders, like a towel, and his body is covered in sweat, which makes me feel a little less alone with the sheen of it on my forehead, even though only one of us was working out. He only slipped his shirt off—one handed, curving his back, in that hot way boys do—after we’d walked out into the night. I clear my throat before I speak again. “But Monday night, I didn’t know you knew my entire schedule, and where I worked. I also didn’t know you were planning on stopping by my place of work, spending over three hundred dollars on a membership so you’d have an excuse to stalk me harder and get me alone in your car again, instead of just… I don’t know, texting me?”

He bites his lip, his cheeks lifting with a half-smile. “Stalk you harder, huh?” His tone is suggestive, and I feel every inch of the suggestion in my core. He glances at the gym. “Looks like you’ve got a few stalkers.”

My stomach flips with the reminder. Fucking Fred.

Resting his forearm on the roof of the car, Eli looks toward the grocery store of the strip mall. “You upset I didn’t text you?”

I don’t give that question an answer. I’m afraid it’s painfully obvious and I feel kind of stupid for making it so. I mean, he showed up here instead. “How did you know where I work?”

“People talk.”

I stare at his side profile but I refuse to give that non-response a retort.

“Tell me you don’t like it.” His voice is low, like it was in the hallway Tuesday morning when he asked, “What do you think?”

“Like what?” I want him to say it. Stalking. At the very least, I want to hear what he calls it.

He still doesn’t look at me, but he runs his tongue over his top lip, and I wonder if he can taste his own sweat. “Feeling wanted.”

I blink in the night, warm air too hot on my skin.My stomach tightens, butterflies and tornado gone, something like humiliation there instead. “I don’t need you to feel wanted.”

He turns his head toward me, expression blank. “You missed the point, didn’t you?”

“What’s the point? That you want me?” I cross my arms over my chest. “Is your stalking supposed to make me feel special? I can promise you Fred’s doesn’t.”

He looks amused with my retort. “Good thing I’m not Fred.”

Before I can say anything to that, behind him, I think I see a shadow over the door of the gym.

I startle, dropping my arms, widening my eyes.

Slowly, he turns to face the door too, noticing my attention is off of him. I blink. It’s gone. There’s no shadow, just the yellow light above the door of the gym, lights on inside.

Nothing is there.

My face heats as Eli looks toward me again, tilting his head, like he’s waiting for an explanation of what I was so spooked by.

I don’t have one.

“I’m going to take you straight home,” he promises after a moment, then ducks down into his car.

It’s only after we’re both buckled in and he’s pushing his arms through his shirt, all of the muscles along his body flexing with the movement, that I see the bruises.

Along his chest, just above his abs.

They’re not terrible, faded really, but something about them makes me squirm in my seat. Even still, I don’t ask.

Probably wrestling.

The easiest explanation is often the simplest, I repeat it in my head, a phrase from Reece about conspiracy theories Sebastian believes in. Vaccines have trackers, man. I don’t think Seb really believes it, but when he’s high, his logic is fucked.

Pushing my brother from mind, I brush my thumb over the rubber bracelets on my wrist and think about telling the story of those three letters beneath them to someone.

Sometimes the explanation is not simple at all.

After a quick drivewith only music between us, Eli pulls onto the dirt driveway, every car here but Sebastian’s, he says, “Who drives the Mazda?”

I shouldn’t be surprised he memorized all of my family’s vehicles, but it still jars me, and maybe not in the way it should. There is something odd about his behavior. It is borderline stalking. But his observation is truly impressive.

“My brother.”

“Older?” Eli’s hand is on the shifter, and as usual, I can’t look away from it as he stares out the windshield. The same usual light is on in the living room, and down at the far end of the trailer, I see the flickering of Mom and Reece’s TV through their closed blinds.

“Yes. Twenty-one.”

Maybe he hears something in the way I say it, or maybe it’s because I haven’t reached for the door handle yet, but I feel him looking at me when he asks, “Are you two close?”

The answer is automatic. “Yes.” We’re as close as two people like us can be, I think. I’m closer to Sebastian than I am to anyone else in my life except for Mom. Amanda always felt like… a placeholder.

Eli makes a noise like a hum, and I wonder if he’s going to ask more about my brother, but instead he changes topics completely. “Do you work tomorrow?”

I feel his eyes on me as I shake my head. “No.”

“I have a thing,” he says.

I rest my head against his seat as I turn to face him. “Okay?”

“A pre-season tournament. Wrestling. It’s at Trafalgar.”

I roll my eyes. “You should probably get some rest.”

“Do you not like taking hints or do you just enjoy me cutting myself open for you?” He smiles with the question, but there’s still an edge to the morbid words.

“I enjoy honesty.” Even as I say it, butterflies tumble in my stomach.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and I get the distinct feeling I’m going to regret those words. “Honesty?” His eyes flick over my body, and I press my thighs together, hugging my bag to my chest, feeling the fabric on my ribcage where the slits of my shirt are, grateful he can’t see much of me. “You want me to be honest?”

“This sounds like a trap.”

“Answer the question.”

“It’s better than lying.”

“Not for everyone.” He furrows his brow, staring at me. “But for people like us, it’s a relief, isn’t it?”

People like us. I don’t know what that means, and I don’t want to ask. It feels too much like he knows things he shouldn’t.

He lets it go, like he didn’t expect an answer. “Honestly.” He smirks as he says the word, and I want to get out of the car, but I don’t dare move, like I’m under scrutiny while he gives me what I asked for. “You fascinate me. I should’ve spoken to you on the first day of class, but you did not look like a girl who wanted to be spoken to.” He’s not wrong. “And honestly,” that word again, “I want you to come to my wrestling tournament because it would make it far less boring, and maybe you’d watch me win all fucking day and you’d be equally as fascinated with me as I am with you. Or, at least, closer.”

Closer.

My mouth goes dry. I don’t say anything about his spiel. I just clear my throat and ask, “Isn’t your family going to be there?”

I don’t want to meet his family. I don’t want to meet anyone’s family, but especially not his. He might be okay with the trailer we’re parked in front of right now. The fact I won’t be going off to Harvard or Yale or Brown—Bloor is decent and affordable, but it certainly isn’t Ivy League—but I don’t think his parents would feel the same and besides, we’re not even friends, are we? Meeting his parents would just be unnecessary and awkward and what if they saw my scars and what if…

“My dad is away for work.” He genuinely doesn’t seem to care, but I can’t help poking at it.

“Does he usually miss your matches?”

He smiles, and I don’t know why, but he answers, “No.”

But you didn’t mention your mom. Maybe too much honesty for tonight, so I don’t press. “This is a lame date.” I’m surprised at my own gall.

He laughs. It sounds real, and I feel proud I made him do it. His white teeth flash and he sighs, resting his head back against his seat as he looks up at the headliner. “I don’t know why you’re being like this. We both know I’m going to kiss you soon.”

My mouth drops open. I’m grateful he isn’t looking at me as heat flushes up my neck, into my cheeks. I squeeze my bag tighter as my pulse drums too fast inside my chest. “You’re absolutely not.” Even as I say the words, my eyes drop to his mouth. His lips are just so full, it really, really isn’t fair.

They curve upward, and I stare at the column of his throat, the vein along his neck, his Adam’s apple, the stark ridge of his clavicle, and—

“I am, Eden.” He whispers the words, but still doesn’t look at me, and somehow, it makes this all the more… intense. Slowly though, he turns his head to stare right at me. “Please come tomorrow. It’s only for the best of the best.” He laughs a little, like he knows how arrogant those words sound. “I mean, really, you should be honored I’m inviting you.”

“Shut up.” I roll my eyes at his teasing, shaking my head. “I don’t know.” A different response than my original. I’ve never been to a wrestling match, but if I don’t go, I’ll… what? Spend all day in my room, studying and reading and hoping Sebastian wakes up before noon so maybe we can get lunch together? Text Amanda just so I don’t feel like a complete loser?

A lapse of quiet. Then, “I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.” He says it like law. Like it’s simple. Settled.

I don’t want to give in so easily. “I’ll have to see if I can—”

“You can. But find out if you want to.” He glances at his phone in the center console before he opens his door. “I’ll text you tonight. Don’t ghost me.”

* * *

I hearSebastian heaving in the bathroom that separates our rooms. Staring at the ceiling fan on high overhead, covers pulled up to my chin, arms framing my head, bent at the elbow on my pillow, I think about going to check on him.

Sirens wail outside, probably down the street, but my entire family is in here and it’s such a common occurrence, I don’t much care.

As the toilet flushes, though, I can’t help but think… maybe we need help too.

I hear water running in the sink.

A second later, rushing footsteps, the bathroom fan flips on, the house shakes as Sebastian sinks to his knees, more heaving, and the sound of something emptying into the toilet.

Check on him. You’re not going to sleep anyway.

It’s true. I’m not. A few minutes ago, reading the newly discovered Brothers Poem by Sappho on my phone, it was after two in the morning.

No texts from Eli.

I don’t have his number, and while I found his profiles on social media, they’re locked up tight. I deleted all my accounts after I was suspended at Shoreside, so I couldn’t request to see more.

It doesn’t matter.

I think about grabbing my phone again. Amanda texted me earlier tonight, asking about my weekend plans, but I haven’t responded. Right now, though, I need a distraction and—

Sebastian flushes the toilet again. What the fuck is he even doing?

I sigh, throwing off my covers, the soundtrack of sirens still wailing in the distance, beneath the hum of my overhead fan and the bathroom one.

I unlock my door, tiptoe into the dark hall. There are blinds directly in front of me, covering the window here. I step close, pushing down one with my index finger, staring out at Castle Lane, looking for the source of the sirens.

I see nothing but darkness.

Letting the blind pop back into place, I turn toward the bathroom door, an orange glow beneath the crack at the bottom.

Softly, I rap my knuckles against it. “Seb?” I whisper, not wanting our parents to wake. “Are you okay?”

There’s nothing. Just the steady purr of the fan.

I close my eyes, pressing my temple to the door. What are you doing with your life?

But then I hear footsteps. I open my eyes, step back.

The door is jerked open, and the scent of marijuana and alcohol drifting from his body is dizzying. He stares out at me with bloodshot eyes, flipping the fan off, but leaving the dim light on. He sniffs, runs the back of his hand over his nose, then drops it to his hip. His wrists are so bony. “What’s up?”

I wrap my arms around myself, taking another retreat back. “I just wanted to see if you’re good.”

He blinks, his light blue eyes going to the floor as he rests his forearm against the door jamb, hanging his head. “Great,” he lies, his voice crackly.

I swallow the lump in my throat. The protests, too. In the quiet, the sirens are louder. “Wonder what’s going on,” I mutter, dropping my gaze, searching for something to say. I can never quite get this right with him.

There’s a pause. A silence. Then, “What do you mean?”

Shifting from foot to foot, the thin carpet creaking beneath me, I say, “The police. Or ambulance, or whatever. I wonder what’s going on.” It’s not unusual. Not for this trailer park, and not for our old apartment. It’s just conversation. Just meaningless words because I can’t find the correct ones.

Just like I never told him about his friend, all those years ago in our apartment. Supposedly, he knows, but now I’m older, I’m not so sure. Another lie I let my mind believe. That he knew and didn’t care. That it wasn’t a big deal.

I feel Seb staring at me. Perplexed, I lift my gaze to his.

He’s frowning, his light brows knitted together, hair hanging in his eyes.

For a second, I’m confused. Then I stand up straighter, my body very, very cold. I swallow, hard, tilting my head. “You don’t… you don’t hear them?”

“You should get some sleep, huh?” Seb’s words are too soft. Full of pity.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I don’t trust myself, in my own skin. “Yeah,” I say, forcing myself to speak. “Yeah, goodnight.” Then I dart into my room, closing and locking the door behind me, although I’m not sure it’s a good idea. Sometimes, I don’t know if I should be alone with myself.

But I still hear them. The sirens are real. Unable to let it go, I wait until Sebastian’s door is closed. Then, my pulse pounding too loud in my ears, I tiptoe back into the hall.

They’re louder, here. The sirens.

With a shaky finger, I pull down the blind again, holding my breath.

At first, I see nothing but darkness. Nothing but night.

My stomach sinks, then I sweep my gaze to the right, further down Castle Lane.

Blue lights. Right there. Cop cars parked at the end of the street, in front of the last trailer, which on my last walk I saw was empty. Probably squatters.

But the cops, the lights… they’re real, aren’t they?

I release the blind, turning to stare at Seb’s door. No light slips through the crack underneath it.

I scurry back into my room, slowly closing and locking my door, not feeling any better than I did before.

I dive into bed, yanking the covers over my head. A distraction. I need a distraction.

I try to breathe evenly.

I imagine Eli. Dark green eyes, circled with black.

I clutch the faded silver of my sheets tighter, pressing my knees together, curling them up to my chest so I’m in a ball. Heat rises in my blood, and I think about him without his shirt on. His clavicle, his olive skin, dark hair, Adonis.

I’m chewing the inside of my cheek, stretching one leg out and angling onto my back again, my hand drifting from my sheets to my stomach, just under my sleep shirt, when my phone buzzes underneath my pillow.

My heart pumps hard.

I blink open my eyes as I reach for my phone, holding it over my head and dimming down the brightness, squinting against the screen.

An unknown, local number.

I widen my thighs, bringing one foot to the inside of my knee as I read his text.

Him: I’ll be there at eight.

Two emotions war within me, strange thoughts and I don’t know which one to cling to. Irritation he didn’t offer an excuse or an apology for waiting until this late to text me, and a dizzying sort of awe he didn’t.

I consider not texting him back as I save his number into my phone.

But before I have to make a decision, he’s typing again.

I smile, waiting, holding the phone over my head under the sheets.

Him: Then I’ll take you on a real date.

I roll my eyes, and another text comes through, my phone pulsing in my hand as it does.

Him: Bring your checkered bag. Put some clothes in it for a sleepover. Tell your parents you aren’t coming home.

Another laugh bubbles through my fingers, but even so, even thinking of all of this as a joke, I decide to indulge him. Talking to Eli is better than worrying over my brother. Over myself.

Me: And where, exactly, should I tell my parents I’ll be?

His response is immediate and imagining him lying on his back like I am, one arm slung over his brow in his mansion-esque room, a fan tousling his hair, no shirt on, those bruises on his abs… it makes me feel feverish.

Him: Ah, you are awake.

My cheeks ache with my smile.

Him: You tell them you’re safe with me.

Him: It’s a lie, of course.

Him: Because when I get you alone, I’m going to eat you alive.

My pulse is flying, and I have to swipe my covers down over my head, letting the cool air rush over me, my unbraided hair fanned out on my pillow.

Him: JK.

It takes me a minute to regulate my breath, and I push one hand under the covers, my fingers coming to the waistband of my oversized sleep shorts. My core is hot, and my fingers are cold. The sensation causes me to shiver, and I text him back with one hand, feeling far braver with miles between us, our only connection this phone.

Me: You’re not kidding.

Don’t be kidding.

Him: I’m not kidding.

I shift my hand lower, goosebumps rising along my skin. I don’t know what to say. So many things in my head, Eli’s skin, his voice, his nearness, how clean his car is, how he smells so good. The gym membership, the sweat slick on his body, even being so close to him in the stupid tanning room, where he followed Fred, to check on… me.

Him: What are you doing, Eden?

The fact he typed out my name makes me want him more. I glide my fingers over my pubic bone, chewing the inside of my cheek, and my face flushes hot when I answer him.

Me: What do you think?

I dip my middle finger over the short hair between my thighs, but I don’t go lower as I wait, holding my breath, my heart pumping so fast it hurts in my chest.

Him: You’re wrapped up safe and sound in your bed, because you’re a good girl, huh?

My heart skips a beat, and I imagine him whispering those words in my ear, his fingers drifting along my skin. Me: Is that what you think?

Him: Stay the night with me and let me find out.

Me: I don’t know you. You could be dangerous. My face grows hot as I send off the text, knowing I’m playing with fire. An act, an act, an act. What happens when he wants to cash in on all this foreplay?

Him: I think you’d like that.

I bite my bottom lip, thinking of the scars on my wrist. Me: I’m an angel.

His replies come fast. Him: A beautiful one.

I feel a little dizzy. Me: A really, really good one.

Him: Yeah. I bet you are.

Him: But would you ever be bad? For me?

Him: Who am I kidding. Of course you would, just because I asked.

I imagine his smirk in my head. I touch myself, feeling how wet I am, my stomach muscles jumping with the relief of my finger circling my swollen clit, everything slippery and hot.

Him: Answer me. You’re not asleep.

There’s something in his demand, in the accuracy of his accusation, it makes me want to please him. I feel like putty, eager to give in, so different from the ways I know I’d shy away if he was here. I push my finger lower, parting my lips, then lower still, into me. My walls tighten around myself. The rough feel of the Band-Aid inside of me only heightens the pleasure.

It takes me a long time to type out the message as my breath hitches while I finger myself, but he doesn’t interrupt my typing, and I know he sees it.

Me: I’m not asleep.

Him: You’re coming to watch me tomorrow.

Lust numbs my mind as I clench around my finger, then drag it out of my tight hole, up the slickness of my pussy, circling my clit again, biting my lip.

You can give in. He isn’t actually here. You don’t have to go.

Me: I’m coming to watch you tomorrow.

Please him.

Him: I like when you listen.

Does he know what I’m doing? He can’t. The only touch he’s given me is when I slammed my finger in his door. But there’s been so much in his eyes, and his nearness.

Slow down, slow down, slow down. I could stop texting him now. I could give this up. But this is safe. I’m safe here.

Me: I like when I listen too.

Words I shouldn’t say, I’m digging myself into a hole.

I gasp, arching my neck, so close, my core muscles tightening, and all I’m doing is texting with him, and he doesn’t even know. He doesn’t know.

Him: To me.

Me: To you.

It feels like a mistake, even as I give in. I just don’t care. I need one more text. Something filthy. I need… I need…

Him: I want you to listen to me all day tomorrow, do you understand?

This is stupid. This is a hormone-laden mistake. A decision born from the brink of an orgasm. I keep circling myself, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth, wanting him here. His hands all over me. His body pressing mine into the mattress, uncaring I don’t like it, I don’t want it, and feeling skin on mine makes me feel sick and…

Me: I understand, Eli.

Him: Fuck.

Yeah. Fuck.

I’m so close. I suck in a breath, my chest swelling, my stomach tightening. I sit halfway up, using my core muscles, pushing my middle finger inside of me, using my thumb to get me there, closer, closer.

Give me something else. Something more.

Me: Yeah…

Him: I’m going to be all over you.

Me: Please.

Him: But I want you to beg me before I am.

And there it is.

I’m coming undone without his physical presence, his words enough to unravel me. In this moment, as my eyes are forced closed and I circle my fingers tight around my phone, I’d definitely beg him to touch me, even if I might hate when it actually happened. The orgasm crests, and I can feel myself tighten around my finger, my body lurching up off the mattress.

Spots pop in front of my eyes, thoughts of Eli in every brain cell, consuming me as I come, and when I finally drift back down, breathing hard, my wrist cramping, my phone still in my free hand, my other wet, I don’t feel any regret.

I slide my fingers up my belly, resting my palm over my chest and feeling the nerve-wracking thunder of my own pulse as I blink open heavy eyes, staring at his newest text.

I didn’t even feel the vibration in my hand, thanks to the one ripping through my body.

Him: Don’t fall asleep without telling me goodnight.

I smile at the words, no less hot now than when I was coming. In the morning, maybe I’ll be mortified with his demands. Maybe I won’t go to the tournament or see him at all. Maybe I’ll pretend this didn’t happen.

But tonight…

Me: Goodnight, Eli.

My eyes are heavy, finally drifting closed, but I force them open when he sends another text.

Him: Good girl. Goodnight, Eden. I’ll see you in the morning.

We’ll see.