Prescription for Ruin

Chapter three

I met Dan at a coffee place called Foundry on Sixth. Somewhere public, somewhere I can be ordinary for an hour.

He's already there when I arrive. Of course he is.

He looks good. I notice it and feel a little guilty, he didn’t look this good when I ended things with him.
He opens his arms and I let him hug me because refusing requires explaining, and he smells like cedar and laundry detergent and feels solid in a way that is completely different. Softer and warmer, feels more like standing by a fire and i loved that feeling

"You look tired," he says.

"That's twice in twelve hours."

"Long shift?"

"They're all long shifts." I wrap my hands around my cup. "Why are you here, for work?"

"A conference actually. Up at the Hilton."

"I fly out Sunday." He says

"That's four days."

"Three and a half." He looks at me with the direct, steady patience I remember. "I wasn't going to reach out. I had a whole argument with myself about it."

"Who won?"

"Still deciding." He drinks his coffee. "Are you seeing anyone?"

"No," I say. The word comes out clean and practiced.

"I'm not either," he says. "If that matters."

"Does it?"

"I don't know yet."

We laugh at that .

———————————————-

The next hour is unexpectedly easy, there are stretched silences. One moment we almost touch hands but gently, like it’s easy because most of our history is good and the rough parts have softened with time.

He makes me laugh. Real laughs. He asks about my patients and listens. Something about the simplicity of sitting across from someone who is just glad to see me does something to me. Outside on the pavement he holds the door and there's a moment.

"Can I call you?" he asks. "While I'm here?"

I should say no.

"Sure," I say.

He walks one way. I walk the other.

Half a block later my phone rings. Leo. I watch the screen for two full rings, then press it to my ear.

"Where did you go?" His voice is perfectly warm.

"I had somewhere to be."

"Who were you with?"

"A friend."

A pause with texture.

"Come over tonight."

"Leo, I literally just left your apartment."

"I know." His voice drops .

"I want you again."

Three words. Direct and simple and they land in my body like heat. Because that is the thing about Leo, he never performs. He states it, precisely, with the same calm he uses for everything else, and somehow that calm makes it worse.

"I have a shift tomorrow at six," I say.

"I know your schedule." A pause. "I'll have you home by four."

"That doesn’t make me feel better."

"Alice." My name in his mouth.

"Come over."

I close my eyes and think about Dan’s cedar and laundry detergent, and the choices in front of me

"Fine," I say.

I hear the satisfaction in his silence.

I hang up and stand on the street corner and my phone buzzes again immediately. It’s Marisol.

We need to talk. Not on the phone. Before tonight's shift.

The three-dot bubble.

It's about Leo.

The cold feeling that settles in my stomach has nothing to do with the weather.

I put my phone away and keep walking and I think: is something coming.

————————————-

And I go to Leo’s apartment anyway, like I’m determined to ruin things for myself.

He opens the door before I knock and he pulls me inside by the front of my jacket and kisses me against the closed door with an urgency that is different from his usual patience.

"I thought about you all afternoon," he says, against my mouth.

"You thought about me this morning ?."

"I thought about you all afternoon as well." He says with his hands already working my jacket off my shoulders. "Is that a problem?"

"Ask me in an hour." I say

He literally picks me up, hands at my thighs, and I wrap my legs around him and he carries me to the bedroom. He makes you feel like the only thing in the world he's thought about all day and he might mean it and you'll never know for certain and somehow that uncertainty is the thing that keeps you coming back.

The first time is slow, thorough, and patient. He takes off my clothes completely, then his, and lays me out on the sheets. His mouth starts at my throat and works down every sensitive line of my body until he’s between my thighs once more. This time he uses his fingers and tongue together two fingers curling inside while his tongue lashes my c**t in quick and relentless flicks. He didn't let me come until I was begging with broken words into the pillow and when I finally shattered, it’s loud enough that I pressed my own hand over my mouth. He kisses his way back up my body while I’m still trembling, then slides inside me in one smooth glide and f***s me with that same patient rhythm deep thrusts that make me feel stretched and claimed and utterly his. I come again like that, face buried in his neck, nails in his shoulders, whispering his name like a confession.

The second time is different and faster, less controlled. He flips me onto my stomach, pulls my hips up, and enters me from behind in one hard thrust that punches the air out of my lungs. His hands grip my hips hard enough the pace turns punishing, short deep snaps that hit exactly where I need it until the headboard thumps against the wall. I arch my back, push back to meet him, and he growls low in his throat, the first animal sound I’ve heard from him tonight. One hand slides around to rub frantic circles over my c**t while the other grabs my hair, tugging my head back that I feel exposed and owned. We come almost together ,clenching so hard he curses under his breath, “Fuck.”

Then seconds later with a rough groan the feeling of him spilling deep inside me.

——————————————

Afterward I lie with my head on his chest and listen to his heart slow back down.

"Stay tonight," he says.

"I have to meet Marisol before my shift."

A pause. "What does Marisol want?"

"She didn't say." I lift my head and look at him. "Does it matter?" I ask

He looks at me and something moves behind his eye "No," he says. "I suppose not."

I watch his face for another moment. He looks back at me, with an unreadable expression.

I don't ask him anything. Should I ask?

——————

In the morning I slip out at five and walk to my car in the cold and the dark and I think about Marisol's text the whole drive home.

It's about Leo.

Three words.

The worry that comes isn’t a surprise. It’s recognition.