Raymond: You’re really not coming?
Angel: Really.
Raymond: Wow son. Thanks for leaving a dude high and dry over here
Angel: Wtf are we going for anyway? I don’t know these people. Why do they want us to be present for their engagement party?
Raymond: I know them both, dumbfuck. Caleb is David’s ex
Angel: Yeah. The one whose nose you broke that one time?
Raymond: That was mad long ago
Angel: Lmao. Two years is mad long?
Raymond: Two and a half.
Angel: Uh-huh.
Raymond: Anyways . . . and Oli is . . . . . Idk some kinda friend when David is in the right mood for it. Also Tonya’s new woman, Meredith, is Caleb’s sister
Angel: You forgot that one of Chris’s new men is Caleb’s half brother. What does that make Chris to Caleb?
Raymond: Idk . . . what does that make him to Tonya?
Angel: Brother-in-law? This is complicated.
Raymond: Who gives a fuck. The point is them getting engaged is a big deal round these parts because our whole crew is all intertwined with their whole crew. According to David, we’re “basically family”
Angel: “According to David.” Whipped af.
Raymond: You the one watching Stephanie get dressed like a fucking creeper
I glanced up from my phone to see what Stephanie was doing. Applying a third layer of something on her already flawless skin, and holding up the bottle to her phone’s camera where it was propped against her mirror. I hadn’t realized she was doing another “get ready with me” recording thing. She put them on Instagram a lot, and I watched them because she was beautiful and the big smile she flashed at the end could bring me to my knees.
Angel: How am I creepy? She puts the videos on Instagram.
Raymond: Yuh . . . for people who want to use the products she uses, cockhead. Not for thirsty cable techs. And now you upgraded to being in her house while staring at her like a pervert
Angel: No, I’m not. I’m talking to some jackass who’s about to be surrounded by corny rich people at an engagement party by his damn self.
Raymond: W/e, I’ll get high before we go.
Angel: You’re a bad friend.
Raymond: And you’re a dry ass bucket of thirst
I shoved my phone into my pocket and slumped lower on the couch. Stephanie’s furniture consisted of hand-me-downs, but they were comfortable as fuck. I thought about taking a nap while she made herself all shiny, but wound up watching her again.
In the time it had taken me to bitch at Raymond, she’d finished with her face and eyes and was now applying deep-red lipstick. My gaze caught on her mouth, plush and wide, and kissable. When she finished and gave her hair a flip, grinning at her phone, I was still watching.
“Okay, so—” Stephanie broke off when she caught my expression. One of her brows arched up. “Don’t be looking at me like that, fresco.”
“Like what?”
“You know what.” She stood up and brushed bronze-colored powder from her silky robe. “I’m going to get dressed. Are you really wearing jeans and a Yankees T-shirt? You look—” She traced my shoulders and biceps, pursed her lips, and then sighed. “Well, you don’t look suited for a fancy engagement party, anyway.”
“That’s good. Because I’m not going.”
I regretted saying it as soon as Stephanie’s face fell. Her brows drew together, and genuine disappointment dampened her shine.
“You said you’d go.”
“Changed my mind.”
“But you said you’d go with me.” She put her hands on her hips, hurt quickly turning into irritation. “What the fuck, Sharky?”
She always called me Sharky when she was mad. It was an old-ass nickname, one I’d outgrown years ago along with my Jaws obsession, and had finally gotten almost everyone to stop calling me. Except her when she was mad. Or Ray when he wanted to be annoying.
“Listen—”
“No, you listen, pendejo. I’m going to be the only one there without a date—”
I looked at her incredulously. “You serious? All of our friends will be there. It’s not like you’re some shrinking violet withering in a fucking corner alone.”
“Our friends will be there with their significant others.” We stared at each other, me stubbornly silent, and her getting steadily more pissed off, before she waved a hand at me with a suck of her teeth. “Vete p’al carajo—”
She stalked into her room, every step punctuated with a “puñeta” or “coño,” but kept the door open. I followed her, freezing in the doorway when I found her in underwear and a bra. The robe was in a puddle at her feet.
“Sorry—”
“You always do this,” she said, picking up where we’d left off and jabbing a finger in my face as if she weren’t wearing a bra that only covered half of her breasts. I kept my eyes on her face, intently focusing on how her makeup leveled up her already-stunning beauty, instead of how obsessed I tended to be with her nipples. “You say you’ll go somewhere with me, out in public, and then you back out at the last minute. What am I, some embarrassment?”
“What? That’s fucking ridiculous.”
“Oh really?” She put her hands on her hips again, looking like a pissed-off Victoria’s Secret model who was about to shove her foot up my ass. “Even before we started fucking, you acted like you couldn’t go anywhere alone with me.”
“Bullshit,” I said, pronouncing each syllable clearly. My voice rose, matching hers, both of us trying to out-mean each other. Business as usual as soon as we’d included sex into the friendship equation. “Made-up bullshit.”
“Like the time we were supposed to go to a Knicks game, because my uncle gave me tickets, and you told me to take Chris?”
“I don’t like the Knicks.”
Her jaw clenched. “Or the time I asked you to drive me to Manhattan in that storm, and I had to beg you to actually go into the store with me.”
“It was a sex store.”
“And? Are you afraid of dildos? You’re a bigger dick than any of them, sooo . . .”
Why did she have to be funny even while telling me off? It was awful—I wanted to laugh at an insult aimed at myself. Instead, I crossed my arms over my chest and glared back.
“I wasn’t comfortable going into a sex shop with you,” I said stubbornly. “And you know why.”
“Oh please. Like you were going to give away the fact that you were attracted to me? As if I didn’t already know?” Stephanie scoffed and rolled her eyes at me so extravagantly, she needed to win a medal in ocular Olympics. “Besides, you wound up watching me fuck myself with that new vibrator the same night, so . . .”
“Yeah, nena. Show me how you use it . . .”
Stephanie met my gaze dead-on, sweat dampened and breathing hard as she stopped fucking herself and let the slicked vibrator remain inside of her. Her lip curled up into a challenging smirk.
“Then show me your dick.”
My heart skipped a beat. I palmed myself, squeezing it through denim. She didn’t move an inch until I fumbled with my jeans and revealed my hard-on to her in all of its throbbing glory. Her eyes fell half-shut and her lips parted as if she wanted it in her mouth, and I nearly lost my mind.
“Touch it,” she whispered. “It’s only fair.”
My eyes immediately flicked to the side table that contained her stash. She had really good shit, and that vibrator had been our first step to her helping me explore the world of sex toys. We’d spent that entire afternoon and evening flirtatiously teasing each other about trying out some of her stuff until it had gone from teasing to tense, and in the middle of the night something had changed.
After I’d asked why she had such a big collection, she’d mentioned some of them had been gifts from girls she’d fooled around with, but admitted she’d bought most because she loved trying out new things. And because I’d been deliriously turned on by that point, I’d asked her which things.
Cue the object of my desire since high school explaining how hard she could make herself come. I’d stared at her in a silent plea to show me what she was describing. She’d done it without needing me to speak, because she was never afraid of making mistakes or reading a situation wrong the way I was.
I’d already wanted her more than anything, but us getting ourselves off while staring at each other had sealed the deal. There’d been no going back from there. Later, she’d randomly send me a picture of a new toy she’d procured, or I’d send her a Snap of a Fleshlight or prostate massager that I wanted, and we’d hook up to fool around, watching and not usually touching.
Things had changed when we’d started touching. The playfulness had intensified, and by the time we were regularly having sex, it seemed to be all we ever did. Text about fucking, fuck when we saw each other, and then . . . the tension had filled all the spaces around the fucking until there was nothing else but sex and anger. Anger about there only being sex, about me not wanting to tell anyone about the sex, about me never asking her to go anywhere but my bedroom . . . And me never explaining that I was in fucking love with her—had been since high school. The problem was that I knew she wasn’t in love with me, and I wasn’t down for the level of self-destruction that went along with us pseudo-dating. Which was why we’d stopped sleeping together.
Mostly stopped.
Now, we tried to act like friends. Friends who talked about our mutual interests, our days, the job at the cable company that my entire family assumed I hated even though I loved it, and her frustration over busting her ass as a paralegal without getting a raise in two years. But none of those conversations stopped us from eye-fucking each other while we had them. Or us casually touching each other, finger grazes leaving behind the residue of lust.
“Did you die just now while standing here?” she demanded.
“Unfortunately no, so I still have to hear these dumbass accusations.”
“You dramatic asshole. Just forget it, Angel. I should have known better, anyway.”
She turned away, dark hair falling over her shoulder to cover her back like a silky curtain, and walked over to her vanity. It was messy with jewelry and makeup, notes written on the mirror in pink lipstick, but it was controlled chaos. Usually, anyway. Now, she seemed irritated by the clutter and shoved things around with jerky movements.
I came up behind her and put my hands on her bared shoulders. “Nena.” When she ignored me in favor of hyper-focusing on her bottles of perfume, I squeezed. “Nena, look at me.”
Stephanie looked into the mirror, remoteness casting her expression in indifference even though I could see through that mask. When she didn’t protest, I eased closer, pressing my chest to her back. Her fingers balled into fists, and she closed her eyes when I gathered her hair to slide it over her shoulder. She was so soft, just like I’d always known she would be, way back in ninth grade when I’d begun hanging out with her and the guys on the regular.
Even then, I’d been infatuated. Obsessed. I’d been quiet around her at first, but had done anything she’d wanted before she’d thought to ask. Grabbed her a seat in the crowded cafeteria, carried her backpack, bought her loosies at the store because I’d looked older, helped her with her Spanish homework because it was all we’d spoken at home for years whereas she and her brother weren’t as fluent. Braided her hair while she read our English homework aloud, because she was better at analyzing texts.
And I’d hated her parents for leaving her and Vic all alone. Loved Vic like he was my own brother because it had hurt her to know everyone else loathed him. Hid him in my fucking apartment the night of the shooting, away from both the cops and the shooter. That was when he’d gone from scary-tough-guy Vic to scared-kid Victor who’d agreed to be sent off to Chicago to avoid ending up like his dead best friend.
I would never forget how hard she’d cried at the airport. Not because she would miss him, but because she’d been so relieved. And how she’d told me she loved me for being there when no one else was, for buying the ticket because all her money went to tuition and rent. That moment was etched into my brain even though it wasn’t the kind of love I’d wanted from her, but still.
Still.
“Angel.”
I blinked away the memories and refocused on her, seeing her half-shut eyes and parted lips, and realizing I’d been caressing her arm with my face pressed into her hair.
“Stephanie.” Her name sounded thick in my mouth, padded by a decade’s worth of longing. “I’m sorry I always let you down these days. You know I hate being that guy.”
She tilted her head back against me, observing, quiet, giving nothing away. “Then apologize.”
“I’m so—”
“Without words.”
My heart nearly beat out of my chest, slamming into her back, and my dick chubbed up almost instantly. “I thought we weren’t fucking around anymore.”
“We’re not fucking around,” she said softly. “You’re apologizing, and then I’m going to the party by myself.”
My hands slid along her arms, trailing down to settle on her waist. I didn’t break eye contact, and didn’t move farther, until she turned to face me and pulled me against her. Unspoken permission to touch her body. I leaned in, desperate as always to kiss her, but wasn’t surprised when she turned away.
“I’m not redoing my face.”
“Harsh,” I said, kissing the side of her neck instead. “Considering this is my last chance to kiss you.”
“That was your choice.”
She wasn’t wrong. We’d pushed and pulled each other for the past year, her initiating, then me, her putting a stop to things when it got too intense, then me calling for a finale when my feelings had escalated into jealousy and spiraled out of control. Me eyeballing Raymond for dancing with her on a cruise ship had been a serious red flag that things were getting out of control. I’d dragged her off and fucked her mean and hard until she’d come on my dick, as if that had meant I had any ownership over her. God, I was an idiot. Everything was mortifying in retrospect.
“I want your mouth,” I said against her throat. “Come on, nena.”
“No.” Her voice was losing its cool unaffected factor the wetter my kisses became, openmouthed along her neck, then over her clavicle. “You can kiss something else.”
My dick thickened fully, throbbing in my jeans, as she pressed her hands to the top of my head and pushed me down. I gave no resistance, sinking to my knees, and stared up at her as she watched me. I didn’t look away when I hooked my fingers on the sides of her skimpy underwear, dragging my fingers along her thighs as I knelt.
When she was standing in front of me with nothing more than her bra, I grabbed her hips and guided her back against the vanity. She took the hint, sitting on the edge, and spread her thighs open with her heels propped against the lower drawers.
I dragged my teeth over my lower lip, while rubbing the inside of her thighs. I wanted to kiss every part of her, from her mouth to her breasts, over her soft stomach, then down to her pussy. Try to make her feel, with my touch, how much I cared about her, even though I always said the wrong thing. Let her know that I wanted her to be with me if she ever decided being with one person was her thing.
But she didn’t want all that right now. She wanted an apology, which meant she wanted me to give her an orgasm—something I was actually good at.
I leaned in to kiss the hood of her sex, pressed her lips apart with my thumbs, then kissed her clit. A breath whooshed out above me, and her fingers went into my too-long hair, right before I went full steam ahead from worshipful to flat-out nasty—how she liked it. I tongued her pussy the way I would have done her mouth, until my saliva was everywhere and her clit was swollen.
There was a clink of her bracelets as she ran her fingers through my hair, tugging and clawing through the strands. When she yanked harder, her breath gusting audibly, I began tracing I’m sorry against her clit with my tongue. Then I traced I love you. By the time I got to the last letter, she was writhing.
“Angel.” Her voice went high, and she ground against my face. Her thighs tried to clench together, but I held them apart. “Baby . . .”
I loved it when she called me that, so I thanked her with three fingers in her hole as I made out with her clit, alternating between sucking and licking. I could taste her instead of my own spit now, and I finger-fucked her relentlessly until she went from gripping my hair to leaning back against the mirror with her legs spread wide open.
“I’m gonna come,” she panted. “Oh fuck, I’m gonna come so hard.”
I lodged my fingers inside of her, crooking them while sucking on her clit.
“Angel—”
She broke off with a loud cry, her hips jolting as she came all over my fingers, giving me even more to lick up. The trifecta of her filthy mouth, her taste, and the feel of her juice all over my hand was enough for my body to rebel against me. My dick was trying to burst out of my jeans, pulsing in a way that meant wet spots, but I didn’t touch myself. I’d wait until I was home, and whack it all by my lonesome.
Stephanie whimpered when I slid my fingers out of her and sat back, her eyes squeezed shut. She’d melted against the vanity, legs slack and hanging down as she held herself up with taut arms. She didn’t open her eyes until she regained control of her breathing, and until her trembling lips stiffened back into forced indifference.
“How’s my face?”
I smirked. “Still on point. I figured you use that extra-strength stuff to prepare for such unexpected emergencies.”
A laugh burst out of her, she tried to quell it, and then laughed harder. I joined her, wiping my arm across my mouth and wondering how I’d survive the walk home with her taste in my mouth and her smell all over me.
“You’re so dumb,” she said, sliding off the dresser.
“Yeah, but am I forgiven?”
Stephanie shrugged, smile fading. “Yes. I was mostly joking about all that. I don’t know.”
She hadn’t been, but she was better at being cold with me when we weren’t touching. She always gravitated to affection after we fucked. Something I knew wasn’t typical with other people she messed with. A fact that had briefly deluded me into thinking she wanted to be monogamous. Which, she’d made quite clear, she did not. Ever. With anyone.
“Do you ever wonder why we can’t get along like normal? Like David and Ray?”
“Or Chris, and his guys? Or Tonya and Mere?” she asked slowly.
“Yeah, but all of them got together during this same hot-ass month. I can count them as our relationship goals after the summer—” I broke off as her eyes widened. Because I was out here telling her I wanted what they all had. With her. “Uh, yeah, let me let you get ready.”
“Okay . . .” Stephanie grabbed her robe and put it on, looking away. “I’ll see you, Angel.”
“Yeah. See you.”
After a quick pit stop in her bathroom, I booked it down the stairs of her three-story walk-up like the end of my aborted sentence was chasing me.