Walk on the Wilder Side by Serena Bell

13

Rachel

I’m really pissed. “That not that girl stuff is a load of hooey,” I tell him.

My anger is an army revved up for warfare. I can still see Werner’s apologetic face and hear him telling me I’m the girl you bring home to your parents. The girl you marry. And all the things I couldn’t say to Werner, they’re lined up like soldiers, ready to march out for battle.

“I’m not the girl who anything,” I say. “I’m Rachel. I’m this girl—this woman, actually. I like sex, and I think I would probably enjoy getting fucked in a truck, with the right guy.”

I note that I just said fucked and the world doesn’t seem to have ended. Actually, I feel pretty good.

“And FYI, the ‘right guy’ would not be the kind of guy who would tell me I wasn’t that kind of girl.”

Brody winces. “Hey,” he says. “I’m sorry. That was a dumbass thing to say.”

Oh.

A real apology.

Haven’t heard one of those in a long time. Do people even do them anymore?

“Thank you.”

We’re both quiet for a moment. He’s still watching me silently, attentively. Like he heard me. Sees me. As if what I just said makes as much sense in his head as it does in mine. Which may or may not be the case given that I haven’t told him yet why those words—“you’re not that girl”—made me insta-lose my cool.

“I mean, I get it,” I tell him. “You’ve spent your whole life thinking of me as Connor’s little sister.”

He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it.

“I’m not. I’m not anyone’s little anything.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “You’re not. And Rachel?”

“Yeah?”

“To me, you never have been. And I’m sorry if I made you feel like I thought that.”

I’m not sure if it’s the apology, his sincerity, or the warmth in his eyes that makes me able to take my first long, deep breath since I started yelling at him, but I do. And then another. The vise around my chest loosens, which is almost worse, because what’s left is my hurt feelings.

And the truth.

“I’m not mad at you.”

Then I tell him the story.

The whole thing. Not just the version I’ve told my friends, where I lose my job and then catch my boyfriend cheating, and bummer, as a side effect, no apartment! Not that version, an adult Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. But the whole thing.

I start before work, before the donut. I tell Brody how I woke up that morning and started cleaning the apartment. How I put the roast in the slow cooker. And then Werner came downstairs and offered to make me breakfast, which turned out to be cold cereal with milk. Also, he was already looking at his phone while he was talking to me.

“That dick,” Brody growls.

I tell him about the part where my boss said I was perfect and let me go anyway, because—I know now—being perfect was never a guarantee of employment or, more to the point, happiness.

The skirt on the floor.

The strength of my denial, how I stared at that skirt and thought up a hundred excuses for it.

I tell Brody about seeing Werner from behind.

Okay, I don’t dwell on that, because I don’t want him to have nightmares or anything.

I get to the part about the Other Woman. Her ridiculous lace-up teddy and her totally unjustified tears. I don’t dwell on that, either, because she doesn’t deserve my time or energy.

(Also, it occurs to me as I’m telling the story that I don’t own any lingerie other than bras and panties, but I don’t mention this.)

Brody doesn’t say anything. He just listens and makes sympathetic noises. But his hands?

They’re clenched into fists on his thighs.

His perfect, tree-trunk, thighs.

I worry he might break a tooth, the way his jaw is locked tight.

His eyes never leave mine, which is a lot of Brody all at once. I can feel the intensity of his gaze like warm honey trickling down inside me. Licking around my inner thighs and into the melting place between my legs.

It’s hard to maintain my outrage at Werner in the face of all that Brody, but I manage.

I tell him that Werner said I was the perfect woman.

“If I’m so perfect,” I ask Brody, “why did he pick someone else to stick his dick into?”

Brody makes a sound like he’s been punched in the stomach.

“Which means I can’t be that perfect, doesn’t it? Not really.”

“Rachel.”

I’m shaking my head.

“I’m the girl he wanted to marry. The girl he wanted his parents to meet. But not the girl he wanted to spend a Friday morning messing around with. Not the girl he wanted to have fun with. Not the sexy girl. Not the girl he would choose, if he could choose. Not the girl he’d be with, his whole self. Not that girl.”

My voice cracks.

Brody reaches out and cups my face, brushing his thumb over my cheek.

I realize he’s wiping away a tear.

“That guy,” he says steadily. “Is a total fucking idiot.”

Brody drivesme home after that.

“Hey, Rachel?” he says, when we’re parked in my driveway. “Can I ask you a question?”

I nod.

“I had an idea. But I don’t know if it’ll work.”

“Shoot.”

“This thing we’re doing, the partnership, with you selling on the boat. Do you think we could do it with other things, too? Like, I don’t know, the book store? Or people who make jewelry or crafts? They could bring their stuff on board, and you could host, like you do?”

“I think it’s brilliant.”

Brody’s smile starts with his dimple, then the corner of his mouth, then escalates into something even more dangerous than his kisses.

“I’ve been thinking about going into town, asking some of the businesses to partner with me. Like, maybe tomorrow? Any interest in coming with?”

Brody’s super cute when he’s like this. Excited and a little shy. Eager to please. Like a kid who isn’t used to getting things right.

It’s a different side of him from the broody badass, and I totally dig it.

“I’d love that,” I tell him, and get another smile.

And another kiss, long and slow and sweet.

It turns dark and needy almost instantly. He cups my head and pulls back. “Rachel,” he growls. “Did you do that on purpose? On the boat? Make me think about you with the ben wa balls inside you?”

I smile.

“You are not a good girl,” he grits out.

“No,” I agree, deeply pleased that he knows it.

“I’m going to spend a lot of time thinking about that between today and tomorrow,” he says.

Then he kisses me again. Fiercely. And it’s so good.

I float up to the house.