“You know, partners. What is your number?”
I went completely still for a split second. Then I exploded. “Are you freaking kidding me? How can you ask me that?”
I couldn’t see his face clearly in the dark room so I sat up and leaned over to the dresser and turned on the lamp.
“Ow, fuck,” he said, covering his eyes.
“Get over it. Answer the question—how could you ask me that, after what I went through today?”
“I’m just curious. You can ask me.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I don’t want to ask you. I don’t give a shit. It has nothing to do with me. Whatever you did before me is your business, not mine.”
Going up on his elbow, he said, “Come on. You’re not even like a little bit curious?”
“Of course I’m curious. But again, it’s none of my business.” Why was that so hard to grasp? I didn’t want to know. It would be like a slippery slope into comparisons and jealousies. I had no desire to do that to myself. I put my back against the wall, wanting to be sitting up. The anxiety crawled up my neck like a spider.
“I don’t mind telling you my number.”
“Well, great, but I don’t want to hear it! And I’m not telling you regardless. The truth is, you know it’s more than one. You know it’s more than two. And anything more than that for a girl is getting into questionable territory according to the world we live in. What if it was ten? Twenty? Forty? What would you say?”
“Forty is a lot of guys to be fucking, that’s what I would say.” He looked appalled.
“See, that’s my point. Everyone has this number that they decide is too much, and what if I say a number and it’s past your magical line in the sand? Then what? I have to watch the respect drain away from your face?”
“It’s not forty, is it?” He looked like he actually might be sick. His face was white and he was swallowing hard.
“No. It’s not.” Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what it was. I didn’t stop and finger count. Each one had been taken for what they were and who they were, not a sum total of sexual parts. If I had to quick guess, I would say six or seven. “But it’s not two. I can’t re-virginize myself, Riley. I don’t even want to.”
“Is it less than ten?” he asked.
That was it. I got out of bed and pulled my T-shirt back on.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m leaving.” I was already tapping a text to Robin asking her to pick me up.
“You can’t leave. Where the hell are you going to go?” He jumped out of bed and tried to head me off.
I darted around him and grabbed my purse off the dresser. When he touched my elbow, I shook him off, his hot grip feeling violating. “Leave me alone.”
“Jess. Come on. Stay. Please.”
In the living room, I whirled around to face him. “You aren’t any better than my parents! You are judging me the same way they are, and that really freaking hurts!”
“I just get jealous, I’m sorry, I can’t help it.” He put his hands onto the top of his head, staring at a spot on the wall behind me.
I wasn’t going to be swayed by how amazing he looked in his boxer briefs, that damn demon tattoo moving as he moved his arms, the skull screaming down his side.
Anger and hurt coursed through me and I was breathing hard, my chest heaving. So I did the one thing I knew would hurt him as much as he had just hurt me. I held out my thumb and said, “Bill.” Then the index finger. “Tyler.” Another. “Adam.” I flipped backward through my college years and held up another finger. “Carter.” My pinky went out. “Dude whose name I don’t remember because I got super drunk at my first party at college.” Second hand thumb. “John.” Last one. “Matthew. He was my first at church camp. Yes, church camp. We were counselors. There, feel better now?”
“Not really,” he said, his jaw working and his nostrils flaring.
“I didn’t think so.” I was so angry I was fuming. “But now you know.”
He clearly felt the same way because without warning he picked up the lamp and threw it across the room. It hit the wall and shattered in an explosion of ceramic and glass.
I shrieked. “Riley!”
Tyler came rushing out of his bedroom. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Ask your brother,” I snapped.
“Dude, what the hell?” Tyler asked him, then looked at me. Pulling me back from the broken glass Tyler asked, “You okay?”
I nodded.
“Get your goddamn hands off her,” Riley said, taking a step toward Tyler, hands clenching into fists.
“Whoa.” Tyler looked at his brother in shock. “Take it down a notch, Riley.”
“I’m going outside,” I said, striding through the kitchen and shoving the back door open and plunking myself on the top of the picnic table, my feet on the bench. I checked my phone. Robin had answered.
There was a pack of cigarettes lying on the table and I picked it up and took one out. Cramming it in my mouth, I grabbed the lighter and flicked it on. I sucked hard, and immediately I got a bit lightheaded. Blowing it out, I took a shuddering breath and tried to calm down, the blood vessels in my head feeling like they were constricting in response to tension and nicotine.
The back door opened and Tyler came out. He looked at the cigarette and shook his head. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” I took another drag. It tasted like total ass, and the cloud rising in front of my face was hazy and stung my eyes, but I was feeling defiant. “What is he doing in there? He didn’t wake the boys up, did he?”
“Of course they woke up. Riley said he tripped on the lamp cord and they went back to bed. Now he’s cleaning up the mess and swearing up a blue streak. Then if I had to take a guess, he’ll go in the basement and lift weights for an hour, then he’ll start drinking.” Tyler sat down next to me. “What the hell happened?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, staring at the burning end of the cigarette. Amazing how quickly the paper could burn, without me even doing anything to it. “I called Robin to pick me up. She’ll be here any second.”
I half expected Tyler to try to talk me out of it, to suggest that I go into the house and work things out with Riley, but he didn’t.
“That’s probably the best thing for tonight. When Riley’s temper explodes, it’s better to give him space. He is like our father in that way.”
“I don’t think Riley wants to be compared to your father.”
“No, I’m sure he doesn’t. Doesn’t make it any less true. But the difference is, Riley doesn’t mean to hurt anyone. He just says things, and he doesn’t always think through how it will be taken, you know what I’m saying?”
So this was Tyler trying to tell me to go easy on his brother. “Just because he doesn’t mean to doesn’t make it hurt any less,” I said, handing Tyler the cigarette. I didn’t want it.
He took it from me and put it to his mouth. “True. But I have to tell you, Jess, Riley doesn’t let girls get close to him. He’s put himself out there for you.”
I looked at my feet, still bare from getting into bed with Riley. I needed to redo my pedicure. The paint was chipped. “I know. I’ve put myself out there, too. And Riley used that against me.”
The back door flew open, and Riley stood there, looking enraged. “We need to talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Get in the goddamn house,” he said.
Like that was going to make me comply? I bristled. “Screw you.”
“Not tonight.”
That was so out of line, I grabbed the pack of cigarettes and threw it at him.
He caught it in his left hand.
I should have whipped the glass ashtray at his head instead. It would have been a lot more satisfying to knock him unconscious.
