Clay stays silent, and I’m grateful. I don’t want to talk about it, but I feel the tears spring up despite how many years it’s been and how I barely remember what she looked like.

I swallow. “She slept with Iron that night.”

Clay’s head shifts just a hair, but she still doesn’t say anything.

“Turns out she was just looking for a way in the door,” I murmur, dropping my eyes and remembering that slice of pain like it was yesterday. Her attention was an instant addiction, and for a just a little while I felt like I wanted to die. She wanted someone else. She wasn’t thinking of me every second like I was of her. “He never found out.”

It isn’t uncommon for things like that to happen. Thinking back now, I remember how girls would move from one bed to another in my house, using Trace to get to Dallas or using Army to get to Macon. Sanoa Bay is a small community. There aren’t many women at least one of your buddies or brothers hasn’t slept with. It never struck me as anything other than normal. Until I was the idiot who got played.

“How old were you?” Clay asked.

My eyes strain, aching. I close them. “Fifteen.”

Tears spill out, and I turn my head into my pillow to cover my face. Why am I crying? My body shakes, and I don’t know if I’m laughing at how ridiculous I am or trying to hide a sob.

I tilt my face to her again. “Why do people think sex doesn’t mean anything to us?” I ask, but don’t wait for an answer. “I was alone, and it felt good to have someone, but sex wasn’t all I wanted. I’d had nothing of my own, and maybe she was an escape for me that afternoon, but in hours it went from feeling like I finally had something to look forward to, to feeling like nothing. Used. Degraded. Trash. Like it meant everything to me and nothing to her.”

Even my own family. Not one of my brothers gives a shit about who I sleep with, because they think pregnancy is the only way I can be hurt. They don’t ask about girlfriends. They don’t think this is anything more than fun.

But Clay dives in, pressing her body flush with mine as she lays a hand on my cheek. “Stop crying,” she whispers, pressing her forehead to mine. “Please stop.”

I go to grab hold of her, slip my hand around her waist, but I hold back. I already told her too much.

But the tears keep coming, no matter how I try to hold my breath to stifle the crying.

“All right, I’m gonna shave her head,” she says. “Where can I find her?”

I break into a laugh through the sobs, wiping my eyes. But when I look at her, she’s lifted her head off the pillow, and while I can’t make out her whole expression, she’s not joking.

“Seriously,” she says, pushing me onto my back and climbing on top of me. “You’re under my protection now and I get shit done. Want her fired? Arrested? Her car repossessed?”

I smile, no more tears stinging as I slip my hands under her shirt—my T-shirt—and caress the fucking amazing skin on her smooth stomach.

“Porta-potty shit dumped on her lawn, maybe?” she goes on. “I know a guy.”

I snort, almost able to see her waggling her eyebrows with mischief. She wears my black “Headlines don’t sell papes. Newsies sell papes.” theater T-shirt, the sleeves cut off and the sides cut out. I pull my hands out from under and slip them under the arms, her bare breasts so easily accessible.

It takes no time at all for my body to stir.

“Tell me about your first time,” I tease, breathless, as her nipples turn rock hard under my fingers.

I’m not sure if the locker room, the shower, or the hotel constitutes our first time, but I damn-well know it was me.

She pulls my black top hat, a relic from the discard pile when we sorted old costumes last year for donations, from my bedpost and fits it on top of her head. Underwear, T-shirt, freshly fucked hair falling down her body…God, she’s hot.

She drags her fingertips down my body, playing. “Well, I always thought it would be a huge endeavor,” she sighs. “I’d know exactly when it was going to happen. I’d be in total control, planning out every detail.” And she lists on her fingers, “The location. The music. Protection. Looking my best. I’d do everything I could to make it perfect.”

I can imagine she even had an outfit picked out. Clay’s a micro-manager.

“But the perfect moment found me, instead.” Her voice softens, serious. “And I couldn’t stop it.”

I scale my hands underneath her arms, and we meet, her coming down and me rising up until her arms are wrapped around me and we crash to the bed. The hat tumbles off her head.

“She was better than I’d dreamed,” she tells me against my cheek. “Nothing could tear me away from her.”

Nothing. How hard it would’ve been to stop if she’d asked me to in the hotel room. I would’ve, but it would’ve been painful. There was no music. We weren’t alone. We didn’t plan it, and we were both disheveled. Nothing went according to her idea of perfection, because you realize everything you end up wanting is the last thing you expected.

But it was perfect. God, it was good.

“I’d dreamed of her a lot before we did it,” she says. “Sometimes I’d lock my door at night and take off my clothes.”

A jolt hits me down low. While she was busy hating me, she was fantasizing about me, too.

She settles her head on my shoulder, her lips tickling my neck. “I wanted to feel my sheets on my skin like I would if I were in bed with her.”

Like now. My brothers’ laughter carries up the stairs, and I wish I was alone in the house with her, because I’m tired of worrying about being interrupted or caught.

But I can already feel her growing heavy on me, her speech getting sleepy, and we have school tomorrow.

“Did you dream about me holding you like this?” I ask her.

She nods. “Except in the dream, you’re the boss, and I’m your assistant and we’re going to New York on a business trip for the weekend. It was kind of hot for you to abuse your authority on me in bed when I simply bring you papers to sign to your room that night, but then…”

“Yes?”

She holds her breath for a moment and then sighs heavily. “I was in a turtleneck on the plane.”

I raise my eyebrows.

“A black one,” she spits out. “Me. In a black turtleneck. And you made me style my hair in a ponytail like Ariana Grande, and you know I don’t look good with my hair pulled away from my face. It was awful.”

I laugh, holding her close and shaking. I feel her smile on my neck.

Threading my fingers through her hair, I pull her lips up to mine. “I like ponytails,” I tell her, layering our lips. “I need a good handle on you.”

She shivers, and we kiss, going in for more and more. Visions of wrapping her hair around my fist, her on her hands and knees… My stomach swims.

“How about I dream of you tonight, instead?” I ask her. “I’ll be thinking about that dance for the rest of my life.”

She nods once, sounding pleased with herself. “Good.”

I don’t think my brothers ever got lap dances they didn’t pay for. I’m loving my sex life lately.

Gently, I slide out from underneath her. “I’ll be back, okay?” I leave a kiss on her cheekbone. “Get some sleep.”