I SEE CHEATERS! So Yeah, My Fiancé's Wedding Went Up In Flames! novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: In the Mirror

Cal lived in a narrow rowhouse in South Philly, on a block where every stoop had a flowerpot and every flowerpot had a cigarette butt in it.

He parked his truck half on the curb, came around and opened my door before I'd found the handle.

Neither of us had said much on the drive. He'd kept his hand on my knee the whole way, over the red dress, and he'd only taken it off to shift.

At the top of his steps, he stopped with his key in the lock.

"I didn't clean," he said.

"I don't care."

"There's a fire company calendar in the kitchen. It's three years old. I just like October."

"Cal."

"I'm nervous," he said. "I'm telling you so you know it's not just you."

I laughed. It came out shaky.

He opened the door.

His living room was a couch, a TV, a weight bench and about four hundred paperbacks stacked against the wall.

There was a fire helmet on the radiator, and a plant by the window that was somehow alive.

He turned on one lamp and stood there in his white shirt with his sleeves pushed up, looking at me.

"You want a drink?" he said. "Water? I've got beer. I've got, like, one lemon."

"Can I tell you something first?"

"Anything."

I put my bag down on the weight bench.

"After," I said, "I'm going to go look in a mirror."

He waited.

"I can see my own head in a mirror. I never have anything. I've looked my whole life." I took a breath. "Tonight there'll be one. It'll go to you. And I'm going to want to look at it."

Cal didn't say anything for a second.

Then he crossed the room in three steps, took my face in both hands, bandage and all, and kissed me.

It was slower, and it went deeper, and it didn't stop.

When he pulled back, his forehead stayed against mine.

"Bathroom's at the top of the stairs," he said. "Mirror's big. I'll leave the light on."

I took his hand and walked him up the stairs myself.

His bedroom was a bed with a navy blanket kicked half off, one lamp on the nightstand, and an air conditioner rattling in the window like it was about to give up.

I didn't let myself stop to look around.

I walked him backward by his shirt until the backs of his knees hit the mattress.

Then I started on the buttons.

He stood still and let me, his hands at his sides, watching my face.

"You're going to undo every one," he said. "And I'm going to let you."

"Good."

My fingers were not as steady as I wanted them to be.

I got his shirt open and pushed it off his shoulders.

His chest was broad and warm under my palms.

I put my mouth on the burn scar on his left forearm, right above the bandage.

He made a sound, low in his chest.

"You like that."

"I like all of it." He lifted my chin. "I like you taking what you want."

I turned around and lifted my hair off my neck.

"Unzip me."

He didn't rush it.

The zipper came down slow.

Then his mouth was on the back of my neck, open and hot, and his hands slid the dress off my shoulders.

It fell around my feet.

I stood in his lamplight in my red bra and red underwear and nothing else.

Cal turned me to face him.

"Look at you."

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