She isn’t moving away. Why isn’t she trying to get away?
I leave her eyes, trailing my own down her neck, down her chest, her chilled nipples pressing against her bra, and down her stomach, feeling and seeing it shake in the inch between us, betraying the stone in her expression.
I shift my eyes back up to hers, a quiet laugh escaping my chest. She’s scared of me. She’s actually scared of me.
But why?
“Get off,” she spits out.
I just laugh again, lowering my face to hers a little more. “Scared I’ll like the position we’re in and make a move?” I tease. “Or are you scared you want me to make a move?”
She digs in her eyebrows, fucking quiet for once.
“Come on, it’s just like being with a man, Clay,” I mock, unable to hide my enjoyment as I lower my voice to a whisper. “You just open your legs.”
I let my gaze fall to her lips, the wheels in my head starting to turn.
She’s making no move to leave. I’m not holding her down.
“You just open your legs,” I say again.
We lie in the field, in full view of anyone who decides to come by, but she doesn’t seem worried about that.
It’s pouring rain. We’re alone.
Just the two of us.
And for a moment, I feel my heart stop. I’m just joking, but what if she does let her legs fall open? What will I do?
An invisible cord pulls at my hips, urging me to close the distance between us, but I won’t. Even if the world falls off its axis and turns upside down, I’ll never want her.
“You make me want to puke,” she says quietly. “Dirty dyke.”
“I bet your daddy likes it dirty,” I retort. “In his fuckpad in Miami?”
Her face falls just a hair but enough, and I know I’ve touched a nerve. She’s probably wondering how the hell I know about that? And does anyone else know?
I go on. “When he’s not here trying to take away my family’s land and kick the rest of Sanoa Bay off its ancestral home, that is,” I explain. “I bet Callum Ames likes it dirty, too. When his family’s not busy bragging about its long history of shipping every Seminole out of Florida.”
I reach into my pocket, pulling out the copper key with the triangular head that opens a door at Fox Hill. I hold it between us, because while it represents a prime example of how those “with” victimize those “without” and how there are still men in this world who see women as something to be used, I’m not above using it to my advantage either.
“When your men are not all busy, patting each other on the back for making St. Carmen clean and white,” I continue. “When they’re hidden away in places, far from where their frilly, frigid wives and girlfriends who drink white wine and like, decorate and shit...”
She stares at the key, a ton of questions probably racing through her mind, but her pride won’t let her give in to ask me.
“Things you’ll never have to know about,” I tell her, “because you and your mother are dumb and boring and you can’t understand the world beyond your own low level of perception.” I stare down at her. “Everyone likes it dirty, Clay. Everyone likes it, period.” I get in her face, and I feel my breath bounce off her lips. “Especially Callum Ames.”
Her expression is unreadable, unchanging, but her chest moves up and down harder but not faster. Like she’s feeling things but not angry.
“He’s going to cheat on you,” I point out. “Because women like you are displayed. A statue will never be good for anything else.”
Water pools in her eyes, the blue looking like jewels, and I falter.
What the hell am I doing? This is the kind of shit she would say. I’m sinking to her level. This kind of behavior makes my world smaller, and I’m never cruel.
I catch sight of her wrists, still by her head, on the grass. The tattoo I saw the other day peeks out between her fingers.
An inch. That’s what it looks like. Five lines, two of them smaller, looking like the quarter inch marks on a ruler. She hides the tattoo well enough that most people won’t notice it, but not so well that she never sees it. It’s important only to her.
What does it mean?
But then, she closes her fist, hiding it again.
I meet her eyes. What few tears she might’ve had there are now gone, and so is my fight. I don’t give a shit what’s underneath her layers. We all have problems and don’t treat people like dogs, and I’m not giving Clay Collins the power to change me. I won’t let her make me cruel.
Maybe I was an asshole just now, but she’ll always be one.
I climb to my feet, grabbing my stick off the ground and wipe the water off my face. Without a word, I head off the field.
Heading past the bleachers, I pull out my key ring again, unlocking the women’s locker room door. Staying late and coming in on weekends and vacations to sew costumes and build sets has its perks.
I stalk through the room, open another door, and step into the school hallway, my shoes squeaking against the terracotta tile. I pass the courtyard, rain hitting the palms and flower beds and splashing off the stone benches. I veer left toward the theater and just then, I hear the locker room door swing open again, down the hall right behind me.
Jesus Christ. She hasn’t had enough, I guess.
Diving into the theater, I climb up on the stage and head behind the curtain, down to the dressing rooms. I pull open the wardrobe in the hallway, seeing discontinued sets of school sweats and T-shirts sitting folded on the shelves. The theater director keeps the never-been-used, out-of-date overstock here for rehearsals when someone gets covered in fake blood, rain, or whatever else the production calls for.
Clay’s footfalls hit the steps, and I grab my sizes and turn, leaving the cabinet open as I brush past her.
“What’s the key for?” she asks.
I head back up to the stage, ignoring her, and pull off my shorts and tank top. Clothes drop to the table next to me, and I hear her start to strip her wet stuff.
“You wouldn’t have shown me it if it wasn’t important,” she continues.
“Your dress is ready,” I say, ignoring her question. “Unless you want me to fuck it up in all the ways your mother will hate. But it’ll cost you.”
She arches an eyebrow, tossing her wet leggings.
Will I really redesign her dress? If she pays, sure. I kind of like the idea of her wearing something I made, because she wouldn’t if she didn’t like it. Plus, she’ll remember me every time she sees pictures of herself in it. For the next fifty years.
“What was that key?” she asks again, pulling on some dark gray sweats, matching mine. Marymount runs down the left leg in big yellow letters.
I don’t answer her.
I pick up my sweats and lift my leg to put them on, but she lashes out and pushes me. I chuckle, stumbling back and drop the pants.
Darting out my hands, I shove her back. She stumbles but rights herself, squaring her shoulders.
I swipe my pants off the ground, not backing down. Clay doesn’t lay her hands on me unless we’re on the field. She might use the opportunity from time to time to be rough at practice, and the fact that she’s upped her game off the field means she’s desperate to get under my skin.