Page 204 of Swallow Your Sorries

She sits up on her elbows. “I’m not having this conversation with you again. You don’t know my mother.”

“You’re right. I only know what you’ve told me.”

She quiets at that as she presses her lips closed and rolls off of me to dig in her drawer for a pair of sad, saggy panties. There are none. I threw them off the balcony once I slipped into the room.

She grunts in annoyance and I pull the tips of her hair, forcing her to fall onto my lap, before wrapping my arms around her and watching bewitched as her breasts squeeze together from the motion. “Just think about it. Stay with me,” I say, kissing her collarbone. “In the penthouse. In my bed. In my arms.”

“I…”

“We’ll search for the car together and once we find it, I can finally bedonewith this game too. Because I’m tired too. I’m so fucking tired of pretending that I still hate you.”

“You don’t?” It comes out so softly. So hopeful.

“I don’t. I just want to float in our bubble while we can. Stay with me. Not just over the break, but until graduation. You say you have to live in the real world. You say my privilege keeps me covered, sheltered in another. So let me lend you some of that privilege. Just enough for you to pretend with me. Forget the deli. Forget the money. Just concentrate on your dance career, on helping me to find my mother’s killer, on me. Let me be your net. That’s the terms of the new contract. You can’t leave me prematurely, Elle. I won’t let you.”

“Gant—”

“Be good, and it won’t have to be so hard,” I say before kissing her. “Be a good girl for me.”

Elle

We can go to his penthouse and pretend…

Forget about the deli.

Forget about the money.

Focus on your dancing.

Let me be your net.

I’ve never had a net.

It seems too good to be true because it is. It’s all temporary.

But why is that a bad thing? Heartbreak or not? Even if I could be with Gant forever, there’s a chance of him shattering my heart.

But this shattering is inevitable.

But what if I guarded my heart the entire time? What if I can manage to keep an emotional distance between us even if I give in to a physical one? What if I can just view this as transactional?

I could avoid the bullying.

I could have orgasms without crossing any boundary I decide to put down…or lift up. It’d be up to me.

I could get scouted with Gant’s help.

I could have Gant…for now.

But you’re forgetting one thing,my nasty little inner voice coos. You played your final card already with Beaussip. Once that all blows up in Gant’s face, it’ll blow up in yours too.

Fuck.

Something tells me Beaussip doesn’t do ‘takebacks’.

But Rin said Beaussip did things at her own convenience. She could drop the article today, next week, or the night of the play simply because it’s one of the biggest nights of the semester, and she wants attention.

Had I played my hand too quickly?

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