Page 94 of Mourner for Hire
I don’t want mediocre love, and I don’t want to love someone with the bare minimum. I want the kind of love that wakes me up in the middle of the night because I can’t stop thinking about her.I want the kind of love that makes me a little reckless, a little crazy. I want to love someone who leaves a mark without me giving her permission.
I pour their margaritas, and as I add the garnish, I realize there’s one moment playing on a loop in my mind while my thoughts spiral.
The way she ran into me—always in a hurry. The way she didn’t even look at me twice. The way she nailed my personality in a very specific and annoying way. The sound of her laugh. The taste of her lips. Her tongue sliding along mine. The way she gripped my hair and ran her nails down my chest. The feel of her ass in my hands. The way the memory of her kiss lives rent-free in my mind.
Vada.
One kiss. One year ago.
Fuck…
I’ve tried to be a good boy and keep my distance, but I need to see her. And not just in my damn head.
THIRTY-TWO
VADA
“My vagina hurts,”I admit, shifting in the driver’s seat as Morgan and I drive to the Edwin Monroe Cemetery just outside of Portland.
“What do you mean?” she asks, adjusting her mourning veil in the visor mirror.
“My vagina. I feel like someone took a bat to it repeatedly. Horseback riding is not sexy,” I answer, still shifting in my leather seat.
“Wasn’t that days ago?”
“The trauma lingers.” I wince. “Also, you didn’t need to wear a veil. A simple black dress would have been just fine.”
“Oh, no, honey. I only get to do this with you every so often, so I’ve been planning this outfit since you told me it could be possible for me to attend.” She laughs out.
“Well, thank you for pulling it together with such short notice.”
I knew I would be able to drag Morgan to this hire easily, but she doesn’t do well with the spontaneity of my job, so I didn’t tell her details; I simply asked for her to have her funeral outfit ready. She was so excited. It’s awful, I know, but my job is bountiful in stories she can tell at all her law office holiday parties.She’s a paralegal for the most expensive—I mean successful—attorney in the Portland area.
She doesn’t really believe in marriage anymore, prefers her men meek and gentle, and enjoys watching videos of people falling down on the internet. She gets off a bit on pain and is the biggest fan of my very unconventional and taboo job.
“Of course I wouldn’t miss this!” Again, very excited to attend a funeral—I realize the darkness that sits in her soul, and I love her for it. “Also, that’s your groin, Vada. You need to use anatomically correct terms?—”
“—Oh my God. Would you stop? You knew exactly what I meant. My groin hurts. My labia feels bruised. I’m walking more bow-legged than my ex from college. And I didn’t even have good sex to endure such a dramatic injury.”
She hocks out a laugh and flips the visor back up. “Still…”
“My vagina hurts residually. How about that? The pain is reverberating up my vagina wall, slamming through my cervix, and shaking up my ovaries. All of it. All of my lady bits hurt. The entire region.”
Now she’s laughing. “Did you brace for impact?”
“I tried. But I rode on the back, so I didn’t have stirrups, and let’s be honest, the Thigh Master is not even enough to get these suckers in shape for a one-and-a-half-ton piece of muscle trotting in the sand.” I slap my thighs to emphasize the words, making myself shift in my seat again.
“One, your thighs are great. And two, he didn’t give you your own horse?”
“No. I think he was trying to be romantic, so I let him.”
“Why?”
A quick sigh of exhaustion blows past my lips. “Because I want to feel wanted a little bit. I like feeling pursued. And he’s nice and cute and… soft.”
Her face twists.
“Like in a good way,” I explain. “Like sensitive. Gentle. Soft.”
