Page 31 of The Back Forty
But itisa big deal. The pitch. The opportunity. And her. Dani’s the one person I trust to pull this off. The only one I’d want by my side.
But I’ll do it on my own if she wants to stay.
I head upstairs, shower quickly, still beating myself up because I feel like I ruined her vacation and made her upset. Then I throw on some light grey sweats and a clean shirt. My chest is tight with frustration, and I can’t shake the feeling like I screwed up.
Dani and me? We don't do the silent treatment. We're always open about what's going on.
I'll just go check on her and make sure she’s alright.
I cross the hallway and pause at her door. It’s cracked just barely, a sliver of light from the window cutting across the floor.
I shouldn’t disturb her. I should just let her sleep off whatever hangover I'm sure she'll be nursing in the morning with a cup of coffee. But I push forward anyway because I know I won't be able to sleep unless I know that she’s okay and we’re good.
I nudge the door open with my foot, just enough to peer inside. The room is quiet, the air still, the walls lit only by the silver glow of the moon spilling through the cracked window.
As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see her and realize she's lying back in the bed on top of the blankets. Her eyes are closed, and I can barely make out her profile, the shape of her jaw, the fall of her hair—And then her eyes snap open and she sits up rapidly.
“What the fuck!?” she shouts, clearly terrified.
I freeze in place. “Sorry—shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare—" Something flies across the room directly towards my head. I duck and it slams into the wall next to me landing on the ground with a heavy thud.
“What the hell? Dani, are you okay?” I ask, taking another step into the room, hands half-raised like I’m approaching a skittish animal.
“No, no, no. Oh god, this isn’t happening,” she groans, face tilted to the ceiling.
"What's happening?" I shout again taking another step until I'm practically at the foot of her bed. I look down to see what almost hit me resting a few steps away from my bare feet.
Pink. Rounded with a curve. Silicone.
Fuck me she just threw a vibrator at my head.
My brain short-circuits for a full three seconds as I stand there like the world’s dumbest man.
“Jesus,” I mutter under my breath, stumbling back a step. “Shit, I wasn’t—I just wanted to make sure you were alright. You seemed upset in the truck.”
She buries her face in her hands, her voice muffled. “I didn’t know who you were at first! Why would you do that? Why would you just open the door!”
“I knocked!” I lie. “Sort of. The door was open, and you were quiet, and I thought maybe you were asleep already—shit, Dani, I wasn’t trying to—I didn’t see anything.”
“Yes, you did,” she says, mumbling into her hands.
I lift both hands, eyes pointedly avoiding the floor. “Okay, yes, I saw...it. But hey, no judgment. Seriously. It’s… normal. Totally. Healthy even. I get off all the time. You know, not using a vibrator of course, but masturbation is a completely normal thing.”
She glares at me through her fingers. “Please just shut up. I’m not your teenage son and we’re not having the sex talk right now.”
I clamp my mouth shut and nod like I’ve just taken an oath of silence. I scrub a hand over the back of my neck, trying not to look at the damn thing lying on the floor like some kind of neon-pink landmine. But I do. Of course I do. Because when you're that close to something that was just inside of Dani, you can't look away.
She was using that. Here. In this bed. In my house. With me right down the hallway. I can’t stop picturing it now, her fingers wrapped around that slick toy, her thighs spread wide on top ofmy sheets, her breath stuttering as she brought herself to the edge and then—
I groan. Quietly. Internally. I should not be starting to get hard over something that I was never supposed to see. But I am. My dick is already thickening in my boxers, reacting like this is foreplay instead of a total violation of her privacy.
She's going to leave. She's going to run back to her sister's house because I’m making her uncomfortable. And that makes me feel worse because I don’t want her to leave. I like having her here.
I need to fix this. Now.
She yanks the fleece blanket that was next to her high around her chest like a lifeline, avoiding my eyes as I force myself to look anywhere else.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, voice hoarse. “You seemed upset earlier, and I was just coming in to check on you. Fuck, Dani, I didn’t mean to walk in on… that.”
