Pea.

Thinking about her gets me so hard I feel my pulse pounding in my dick. I’m tenting like a thirteen-year-old Boy Scout just reeling her name in my head. Sex has f*cking broken her, but tonight, there was no mistaking she felt whole, even if for a second.

What is it about this girl that’s so different?

She’s “street” without being a hooker.

Smart without being pretentious.

Knows her f*cking literature, but also how to recognize bad-blended coke from miles away, all at the same time.

No. That’s not it. She’s got fight, and she wants to live. She’s actively chasing life, while I let mine slip between my fingers.

She’s life, and I’m death.

Prescott Burlington-Smyth is everything I want to be. A storm moving out of a shit situation at the speed of light, not looking back to spare a glance at the casualties of her actions.

How did her * feel? Good. Like I remember other pussies I’ve driven into feeling. Tight and warm like a fuzzy blanket, a shot of heroin to a shivering junkie. But nothing special. It doesn’t glitter. It doesn’t spew one hundred dollar bills and it won’t bring world peace. It doesn’t feel any different than the last nameless chick I f*cked, all those years ago. And still, she’s the only woman to make me hard. The only f*cking one.

I hate her.

I want her.

I need to forget her.

That stupid Pixies song keeps playing in my head, so long after I turned it off, on repeat as I roll in bed.

We’re chained. We’re chained. We’re chained.

The following day, I arrive at Mrs. H’s Blackhawk mansion. I dread that she’s going to be there, but still comply with her craziness. The minute I walk into her house, I disappear into the bathroom and change into a pair of Speedos. Her favorite pair. She’d bought them for me as an Easter gift. Tends to leave a larger tip when I wear them.

I’ve been thinking all night, and finally came up with a plan.

I’m going to make a fast buck, let Silver Spoon go and take off myself, all while keeping my distance from her.

I’ll save her life, but I’ll keep her out of mine.

I need to get the hell out of here. If that means compromising my dignity, so be it. It’s not like it was worth a damn, anyway. The Aryan Brotherhood is after me. Godfrey has either let them loose or wasn’t powerful enough to keep them off my back. And even if he is capable of keeping my ass afloat, once he hears I screwed Prescott with enough ferocity to move a goddamn mountain, I’m going to sleep with the fishes. And Prescott. . .she’d tell him in a heartbeat. If she goes down, she’ll make damn sure I’m going with her. I have no illusions why she f*cked me. She wanted leverage to get me to help her. Guess what? I f*cked my way straight into her plan.

“Oh, Nate!” Mrs. Hathaway rushes from the second floor down to the foyer, her pale blue babydoll loosely wrapped around her figure. “Tahoe was amazing! I couldn’t stop thinking about how much you would’ve loved it. Wow. Speedos. What’s the occasion? Have you missed me too?”

Hardly.

Literally. I’ve been occupied with trying to get rid of a persistent little blonde that keeps popping into my mind again and again, making me hard as f*ck. In my head, she dangles her ass from side to side with that taunting smile. Pea wanted me to tap that ass and I did. What can I say? It’s common courtesy to give your guests what they want. Only now she consumes half my brain, filling it with filthy thoughts.

The other half is trying to figure out how to fix this mess.

“What would you like me to do today, Mrs. H?” My jaw grinds so hard, my teeth almost turn into sand.

“Me,” she jokes on a wink, before nudging her shoulder into my chest and moving forward to her couch, her thin fingers hugging a coffee mug. “For Christ’s sake, Nate, loosen up. You can start with watering the plants and mulching the flowerbeds. Eddie’s on vacation. Again. I swear that man goes on vacations more than I do,” she says about her landscaper. I’m only too happy to get out of the house. It’s a beautiful day. I can plug my ear buds in and let the lyrics of Morrissey and Robert Smith dissolve into my soul like morphine.

I turn and leave, trying not to hate her for degrading the shit out of me. Out of Eddie. Out of everyone. I bet she was a broke ass waitress before she married Stan. She seems hell bent on taunting people with her money, she’s bound to revenge some f*cked-up trauma from her past.

“Nate, darling!” Her tenor chases me down the wide hall. “Make sure you bend down real low when you clean the graveled path between the flowerbeds. Your ass is lovely when you squat!”

I water the plants with the hose, glancing sideways to the neighboring houses. I wonder which one of them belongs to Prescott’s parents. Why? Why do I give a flying f*ck which of these houses is the Burlington-Smyth’s? So what? So I could crawl into her window and look through the shit in her baby pink room? Sniff her underwear when no one’s watching? Rub one out and spill my baby juice on her Hello Kitty sheets? Or maybe so I could punch her stupid dad in the face five hundred times for handing his daughter over to Godfrey and his crew.

I still haven’t recovered from that story.

Thinking about it and drowning a small plot of purple flowers in the process, I ignore Mrs. Hathaway, who ambushes me from behind. Shit, I don’t want to deal with her crap right now.