The Spare Girl [M/F/F]

Chapter 13

I slammed the door shut and fell against it. My head hit the back of the door. Hissing, I reached up to clutch the back of my head. The apartment was silent. Lightning crackled in the sky outside the living room windows. The glow came through the closed and light curtains. A roll of thunder shook the glass and the floor. My heart had just settled by the time I came into the apartment, but I jumped at the sound of the storm. I jumped as another electric shock shook the room.

My phone rang as the dark sky was lit up by another strike of lightning. I fumbled to answer the next call. I held my phone up to my ear while slipping my backpack off and onto the couch.

“Hello?” I hadn’t even thought about looking at the ID.

“Honey.” It was Mom. For a second I’d wanted it to Melanie, but I don’t know what I would want to talk to her about. The last person I should be talking about what happened at work would be her. I don’t know what she would say, but it would probably be something about why I would fool around with a woman I didn’t know and not her.

She hadn’t always been like that. Somewhere along the way since Saturday night I’d changed her personality inside my head. Or maybe she’d always been this person that wanted nothing more to humiliate me with her free spirit approach to s*x.

I gave a heavy sigh. There was something relieving to think Mom still cared enough to call me, but it was also irritating that she had to call me at this time. I really wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. Right now, I would have liked to lock myself in my room and cry about how sexually frustrated I was. And also how confused I felt.

“Sorry,” I said as I sat down on the couch. “This isn’t a good time.”

“Did you say that last time? I think you did.”

I messed with the fraying fabric on the couch’s arm. “Again, I’m sorry. What is it you wanted to talk about?”

She hummed. “We got tickets to a game near town.”

I raised my brows. “Oh.”

“Oh?” She laughed. “Is a visit going to be a problem for you?”

I looked around the apartment, now realizing how having my parents here might actually be a problem. If I could somehow convince Mel to leave, it might go better. That would set off alarms in Mom, but I don’t think I could function properly if Mel was in the same room with me right now. Having Mom and Dad around would just complicate things.

God. I was so f*****g screwed.

“It’s not a problem.” I stood up and ran a hand over my head. “Work has been busy lately and I don’t know if I can a get day off.”

At least that wasn’t a complete lie.

“We can work around that. You don’t work Saturdays, right?”

My mind wandered to the black card in my pocket. There were other things I needed to worry about than showing up for whatever Amelia was planning for me. Though the thought of meeting Nate again was more tempting than it should have been. He was married for Christ’s sake.

On the tip of my tongue was a lie. For a second I thought about going against on my reasonings and telling Mom that I did have work. And I don’t know where that would have lead me. It wasn’t like I could continue lying to her for the rest of my life. There was a choice I had to make.

I tossed the card onto the opposite cushion.

“Yeah,” I said and then walked to the kitchen. A nice cup of coffee would make me feel better. “I’ll make sure they don’t try to get me to come in. Where do you want to go?”

I already knew they would want to take me out to eat. Something about parents, or at least mine, always thought I needed to be pampered when they came around. Usually I wouldn’t have minded it, but with the bills looming over my head, it was embarrassing to have to rely on them. They didn’t know what position I was in and I wanted to keep it that way. If they did find out, they wouldn’t think twice before they pulled me from school and made me stay at home for the next four years. That definitely was not on my plans for my future. They would no doubt try to ship me off to marry some guy I didn’t know only because they would think it would be the best for me.

“Oh! There’s this great cafe that I’ve been seeing online for the past week!”

Her voice trailed off into a vague description of what cafe she was talking about, trying to rack her brain as to what the name of the place was. I listened to her, sighing inside my head as I tried to find a way to end the conversation.

The front door opened just as I had finished pouring myself a steaming hot cup of coffee. I turned, knowing already that it could only be Mel. What I didn’t expect was to find her smiling. The last time we’d seen each other she’d been angry at for not answering her messages and calls. The last time we talked about she’d gotten off on my voice alone.

My face burned as I watched her strip her black jacket. Her hair and the rest of her were soaked from the rain. My eyes wandered down to her now translucent white t-shirt. The soaked fabric left nothing of her body to be imagined. Her lacy bra poked through and it reminded me of when she’d gone down on me.

She didn’t seem to notice my obvious gawking. Instead of throwing some teasing line at me, she walked past me and took my untouched cup of coffee off the counter.

Before I could say a word, she took a sip and then strode off to her room.

“Julie?”

I swallowed.

“I’ll call you back.”

I hung up and leaned back against the counter. As I tried to sort out what the rude gesture meant, I also tried to rid the thoughts of following her back to her bedroom and giving her a punishment she deserved.