Page 42 of Fly Boy
Jealousy awakens, peeking one eye open before yawning, stretching, and standing tall. They aren’t together, yet the way they gaze into each other’s eyes—sultry and heated—makes my shoulders tense. Or maybe I’m reading into it because as soon as he twirls her away, that gleam I thought I saw is gone.
There is something innately beautiful about the dance. Their movements exact, mirroring each other, telling a story that I don’t fully understand. I shift forward on the sofa, the remote dropping to the floor as I click on a different video. It takes a while to load, and I reach for my beer, downing as much as I can, trying to drown out the small voice telling me I should stop.
It feels strangely wrong, watching her without her knowing. Because unlike at the rink, when I walked inside and found her head-banging like a rockstar, she’d eventually know I was there. Now, she has no clue.
But the video starts, and I can’t bring myself to click off it. This time, the duo is dressed in red. The music is faster, the spins are faster, their legs move faster, too. They’re a whirlwind of color, flying around the rink, the strobe lights flickering off the ice.
A bang pounds on my front door, and I almost lose my phone, my fingers fumbling with the device like I’ve been caught looking at porn. But that was so much better than porn.
The knock sounds again, thundering against the wood impatiently. Shoving my phone back into my pocket, I make my way to the door, unlock it, and throw it open, ready to yell at whoever’s on the other side with the audacity to hammer on it like that, only to stop short.
“Phillipa.”
Her brown hair is stuck to her face, her hands clutching at the top of her jacket, tugging either side together. The rain lashes around her, droplets running down her cheeks, coating her eyelashes, her nose, her lips.
“What the fuck was that?” she growls, and I can only stare at her, dumbfounded. “Back at the arena. What was that, Wyatt?”
I’ve tried not to overthink what I almost did back at the practice rink. I can’t. Not when every fucking night I’ve dreamt about the breathy gasps she made in the pool or the way her body felt against mine. Not when the only way I can sleep is to wrap my hand around my cock and let the fantasy play out until we’re both naked and sweaty, and the high of my orgasm is laced with guilt over what I cannot stop doing.
If I think about what I desperately wanted to do today, with her outside my home, soaking wet, with a look of defiance that makes my cock twitch, it will be game over. To make matters worse, I’m shirtless, and her gaze lowers to my bare chest, her nostrils flaring as she takes me in, and I can feel her stare on my skin like it’s her hands instead.
“Why are you here?” I demand, completely taken off guard. I’m being rude, stuck in my doorway, looking on in bewilderment.
She shivers, a full body shake, before she crosses her arms over her chest, a scowl forming on her face. “To talk.”
“But how?”
Her teeth clatter together, and she lifts her shoulders, huddling closer in on herself. “I had a car drive me.”
“Here?”
“Yes, here,” she snaps, licking water from her lips. “But instead of keeping me out here in the pouring rain, could you let me inside?”
The man Sadie raised me to be finally makes an appearance, and I stand back, gesturing inside. She walks past, her sneakers squelching before she toes them off and shrugs off her jacket. Her socks are see-through, the bright yellow of her polished toes shining through them. Even with her coat, her top is saturated, too, the outline of her bra visible under the darkened fabric.
“Let me get you something to dry off with,” I mutter, heading to the small mudroom next to my kitchen. Discomfort coats my skin as I pull out a fresh towel, one out of four that I own. I’ve told Bowie before I’m practical. I don’t need tons of stuff, but having Phillipa, who probably has a million towels with different thread counts, creates an uncomfortable awareness of just how empty my home is.
There’s nothing wrong with being practical.
I walk back into the hall and pass the towel to her, only to keep hold of it when she tries to take it from me.
“How are you here?” I ask again, maintaining eye contact. Her gaze is piercing as she unwaveringly stares back, keeping us locked together, and I can feel it…the spark I’ve been trying to tame, to no avail. But it won’t overpower me. I won’t let it. “And don’t say car. I mean, how do you know where I live?”
Snatching it from my grasp, she gives me a reprieve from her siren’s song, and quickly runs it over her face and her arms. “I looked up your personnel file.”
“Well, isn’t that a data privacy violation?” I deadpan, running a hand through my hair.
She huffs, her jaw hard as she snarls, “How else was I meant to get you to talk to me?”
“About what?”
I swear I can hear her growl because, of course, I know why she’s here and what she wants to talk about. And now she’s given me no option. There’s no co-pilot. There’s no door—unless I want to lock myself in my bathroom and hope she eventually leaves. She’s forcing me to talk.
Phillipa runs the towel over her chest, her hands covering her tits, and it’s too much. My body feels like it’s on fire, and I’m half-dressed. I turn and storm into the kitchen, needing to get away from her.
“You’re infuriating,” she hisses, the sound of her wet feet following me, mixing with mine on the hardwood floor.
“And you’re a brat for digging through your father’sconfidentialrecords just to seek me out,” I snap back.
