I keep dreaming about that night, with Cassie on her knees at my feet, her small body between my legs and that sinful mouth offering to suck me off. I groan and roll over. I’ve been sleeping on her floor for the past few weeks. Cassie comes to work smiling, does her job—which I can’t stand—then goes home with Beth. I follow shortly after.

I can’t get her to move to my apartment or quit. I don’t want to pressure her because of her relationship with the asshole, but I’m going to lose it soon. I need her. I need to feel her naked body pressed against mine. I want to feel the heat from her inner thighs as she straddles my face and I slide my tongue deep inside her. I want to drink her in, and hold her hips down as she rocks against my face.

I need her. I don’t know how else to say it. It’s not about fucking or getting off. This is about me and Cassie and our two bodies tangled together into one.

I rub my eyes with the back of my hand and pad out of the tiny room. Beth sleeps in the other closet of a bedroom, leaving the combined living room and kitchen area open at night. There’s no TV, just an old couch that smells like cats and mildew. There’s a print on the wall, stuck there with tape. It’s a riverbank in Paris, the yellow lights glowing softly along the Seine. I’ve been there. This image is a romanticized version of it, the trees dripping with rich autumn golds.

“That painting makes her so happy. You’d think she won the lotto the day she brought it home.” Beth is there, standing behind me in thick oversized socks that go halfway up her calves and a long t-shirt that drowns her. It must have been white at one point, but now it’s dingy gray like her socks. The cast on her wrist is covered in glittering pink Duct Tape. She would never have bought it—Beth doesn’t spend a dime unless it’s absolutely vital—so I bought her four rolls. I think she’s taped everything. Her door is pink, her chair is pink, and the old coffee table they found on the side of the highway is also covered with pink tape. I’ve never seen someone so grateful for something in my life.

My last name affords me everything I want, whenever I want it. I've never had to save and always have more than I could use. Fuck, I have more than I could spend in my lifetime. The concept of being excited about tape eludes me. I wish I could find that much happiness in something so simple.

“She never talks about it.” I tip my head toward the painting and follow her to the cockeyed kitchenette table.

Beth grabs the milk and two cups, pouring one for me without asking. “To you.”

“Why not?”

“She figures you’ve been there and doesn’t want to sound like a peasant.” She grins and hands me the glass.

“Do I sound like that?”

“I don’t think so," she says, shaking her head. "You’ve been sleeping on the floor for weeks without trying to get in that girl’s pants. You know what that means.” She puts the glass to her lips and chugs the rest of the white liquid.

“No clue.”

Slamming the glass on the table, she smiles and sighs like milk is liquid sex. “You’re either gay, hard up—since you're a Ferro, I ruled that option out—or the L-bomb is floating around in your head.”

“I already told her I love her. She wasn’t interested.”

Beth’s face scrunches making her mousy features pointier. “You said what?”

I tap my fingers on the side of the glass, feeling the cold condensation under my fingertips. “I professed my undying love, and she said she loved me, too.”

“And you’re sleeping on the floor?”

“Correct.”

She studies me for a moment, the corner of her mouth pulling up into a crooked grin. “God! You mean it, don’t you?”

I don’t reply.

“She’s been through a lot of shit. She doesn’t talk about it, but I know she’s not dead inside.” Beth pulls her feet up onto the chair and wraps her arms around her ankles. She watches me, her dark eyes studying my face, then dropping to my hands on the glass. “So, you’re just going to sleep on the floor forever?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“No, and I’m not going to either.”

“Why not?”

“Because of the way we met, okay. I was all about fucking, and she wasn’t interested. I charmed her every day and tried to get into her pants every night. It was a game. I don’t want her to think I’m playing around. I’m not. I’m worried I lost her, that Mark showed up and, although Cassie stayed with me, he stole what remained of her." I glance up at Beth. "If you tell her any of this, I’ll deny it.”

She frowns and exhales slowly. Her gaze cuts to the side and then at my glass of milk. “Fine, I won’t say anything. Are you going to drink that?” I push the glass toward her. Beth lifts it and guzzles.

“I’ve never seen someone like milk that much who wasn’t, you know, five.”

She leans forward and presses her palms to the table. “Ooh! You know what’s even better? Chocolate milk! I’m getting me some of that tomorrow.”

“I wish I had your zeal.”

“No one matches my passion for dairy products.”

The corner of my mouth lifts slightly. “Or tape.”

She lifts a finger, pauses, and nods. “Glitter tape. If it were invisible tape, it wouldn’t matter so much. You'd have more gusto about something you truly want but have to earn.”

“You didn’t earn the tape.”

She smiles at me softly. “Yeah, but I know what it's worth and that it was something I’d never have. You made that possible, Jonny boy.” She ruffles my hair as she walks back to her bedroom. She stops in the doorway and looks back at me. “She’s lucky to have you.”

“That’s the first time anyone said that.”

“It won’t be the last.”