Downtown Devil: Book 2 in series (Sins in the City) (22 page)

“Suck me,” he said to Mica, kneeling before him, stripping the condom.

Mica shivered.
Anything you want. Any fucking thing.
He moved
to his elbows and knees with muscles quaking, took Vaughn deep. He tasted of latex and lube, smelled of the same.

“Kiss me,” Vaughn said to Clare, even as his fingers tangled in Mica’s dreads.

Mica felt the bed dipping as she moved, probably could have watched if he tried, but he wanted only to get lost in the deed. In the heat and heft of Vaughn in his mouth, in the smells of three bodies, the sounds of them.

Whatever happens after this,
Mica thought,
I’ll die satisfied.
The memory of tonight would carry him through the rest of his lonely, nomadic life.

—

Clare lay awake long after she came, the Christmas lights turning her eyelids dark pink and a pleasant chill settling over her bare skin as her body cooled. She’d found her release against Vaughn’s mouth and Mica’s fingertips, but in its wake it was the memory of their two bodies joined together that stuck with her. This had been their night, no matter what her hands or mouth or pussy had brought to the party. And that was fine. That was as it should be, she felt. There was something larger at work here than the adventures of one lucky, wanton woman, and she’d been only too pleased to have found herself a place in its periphery, like she was paying them back, perhaps, for those nights when she’d been the center of the action.

To her left, Mica was snoring softly. To her right, Vaughn was awake—he was too silent, too still to be asleep, and she could feel the energy coming off him. She turned over and whispered, “Hi.”

His eyes were open, gaze on the ceiling. “Hi, yourself.” He sounded calm but seemed distant.

“That was intense,” she offered, needing to know if he regretted what happened.

“Yeah, it was.”

“I hope it wasn’t too far.”

He shook his head. “That was probably inevitable. He’s wanted it for ages. I’ve wanted it, whether I let myself admit it or not.”

“As long as you’re feeling okay about it.”

He met her eyes. “I am. I’m fine. Just full of thoughts.”

“I’ll bet.” And all at once, Clare knew she wouldn’t be here when the men awoke. She’d slip out as the sun was rising, knowing that what had happened . . . She’d facilitated, but that hadn’t been about her. She’d been a catalyst and an audience, a supporting player, yet not a true part of what had gone down. How could she be? She’d known them less than a month, whereas the things that had happened had been more than a decade in the making. The sooner she left them to find their way in this new reality, the better.

Shame, though.
This bed felt so good, these two now-familiar bodies so warm. But just as Vaughn had slipped away when he’d been the obvious third, now it was her turn.

Things had changed, tonight. If and when Clare ever came between these men again, she’d find herself in bed with two different people. If tonight was the last time, she had no regrets. She’d come here looking for a fling, stayed for an unexpected adventure, and now she might be parting as the change agent of a friendship forever altered. There was a richness to that evolution, a kind of closure. She could live with these dwindling hours as her final time inside these four walls.

Though that didn’t mean she wouldn’t mourn the experience when that door shut at her back come sunrise.

There was no dream vacation that didn’t come packaged with the inevitable hangover of everyday life, after all.

T
o Clare’s mild surprise, she did indeed sneak out that morning and not look back.

She left the men in Mica’s bed, walked home in a cool mist with her mascara smudged and her hair amok, her steps light and a rising satisfaction buoying her body.

And by the time she got home, she knew what that sensation was. She’d left with the upper hand. She’d left Mica without saying good-bye after blowing
his
mind, orchestrating
his
great sexual mind fuck.

The student has become the teacher,
she thought smugly as she stepped into her own shower. And if they were going to see each other again, well, he’d just have to come after her. She was too pleased with herself to care much about orgasms anymore.

Though of course that resolve proved rickety at best—it came toppling down not a week later, right alongside Clare’s comfortable concept of reality.

It happened at ten past eight on Wednesday morning, just as Clare and her fellow cube dwellers were settling in at their workstations, donning their headsets and blowing on their coffees, getting
ready for the day. An e-mail came through from the general manager, the subject line appearing in a little alert bubble at the corner of her screen, the message marked with a red check to mean it was important.
All-staff meeting at 8:30 in the big conference room.

That couldn’t be good. The last time a meeting had been called at such short notice, they’d been informed one of the managers had been killed in a car accident. Clare felt her stomach sour but drank her coffee all the same. It was from the machine in the break room, nothing to write home about. She’d be pleased to replace it with an Americano from the café when lunch rolled around. Maybe even one made by Mica’s talented hands, if he was working.

But she didn’t take lunch that day. No one did. By nine fifteen all sixty of the day-shifters were staggering around the call-center floor, shell-shocked. And jobless.

“The Philippines,” Clare heard someone mutter bitterly to a colleague. That’s where their jobs were being sent. The entire office was closing, all the customer service functions outsourced halfway across the globe. Their parent retailer had always prided itself on keeping all the jobs Stateside, but apparently that idealism had crumbled alongside the last year’s profits.

“Can you believe it?” Clare’s cubemate asked. With a strange and unexpected pang, she realized she’d never smell his stinky tuna sandwiches anymore, nor roll her eyes at his
Dr. Who
ringtone. That pang was about all she felt, though—she was more numb than anything. She told him no, she couldn’t believe it. It was wholly true. Even as she crowded into the elevator with coworkers all clutching boxes and bags of their personal items, she didn’t quite believe it. They’d been ordered to leave by ten, and the good-byes in the lobby were awkward. Some teary, some angry, but most sounded like Clare’s—empty and disbelieving.

I hated that job.

But, fuck, I need the money.

She walked home hugging a Bankers Box holding her mug, her potted cactus, her spare compact and travel hairbrush, a framed photo of her mom in her night-school cap and gown, and a selfie of Clare and her dad with the entrance to Heinz Field in the background, both of them in gold-and-black beanies. All the things she’d brought in to work, to make an anonymous, shared cube feel a little more like hers.

As she passed by the coffee shop, she paused. The sky was pure white, overcast but bright, turning the plate glass into mirrors. She couldn’t tell if Mica was inside, but even if he was, she didn’t want to see him like this. The news hadn’t sunk in yet, and the last thing she wished was for reality to strike the second he asked what the box was all about and for her to burst into tears in the face of his unearthly hotness.

Back home, Bree was long gone, off at her temp gig, and the apartment felt cavernous and cold. Clare stoically put her mug in the cupboard, her cactus on the kitchen windowsill, her photos on her dresser. Then she sat on her bed, imagined telling her mother she was unemployed, and promptly began to cry, feeling like the biggest loser in the world.

I was supposed to quit that job.
Like a bad boyfriend, she’d planned to dump it and move on to better things. Nowhere in that fantasy had she ever imagined
she’d
be the one to get dumped.

The crying went on for a good hour, cycling from despair to panic to exhaustion and finally back to the blankness the news had originally left her feeling. She flicked her pickled contacts into the toilet, put on her glasses, and sat down at the kitchen table with a pad and pen.

Fix Life

1. Find new job.

2. Find models for remaining portraits.

She frowned at the list. The company was giving everyone four weeks’ severance pay . . . Theoretically, she could dedicate the first two to working on her show. Theoretically, she could spare all four—she’d be without insurance come the first of the month, but she had enough savings for rent and food and utilities through half of August, probably, and she could defer her student loans temporarily, with no penalty. After that, unemployment could help, until she found a new job. For the next month, she could see what it felt like, being a full-time photographer. She’d fantasized about that for so long. It might be only the illusion of a dream come true, only a tease, a taste . . .

“Take it,” she said aloud. Take the chance, and take today’s blow as a sign. She’d pour herself into the show, and when the four weeks were coming to a close she’d start looking for art jobs. For the next four weeks, she could spend her days pounding the pavement, loitering in the parks, searching far and wide for models and then shooting them. Nothing less than a dream come true.

She crossed off item one, drew a big star beside item two, traced it three times over.

Though she still felt like shit, behind the euphoria. Vulnerable and shaken and anxious. There was only one thing for it.

She filled the day with errands, checking the prices of produce before putting them in her basket for a change, overfilling the Laundromat machines to save a couple of bucks’ worth of quarters, paying her phone bill and checking to see if there were any cheaper plans
available. All such mundane activities, only now shot through with an acute awareness that she better be smart these coming weeks. She filled the day until six o’clock rolled around, and then she made the call.

Mica’s phone rang four times before he answered. “Hey.”

“Hey, stranger,” she replied. “How are you?”
How’s your friendship? Did we ruin it forever or are you two fucking like bunnies every second you’re home? Enough about you; let’s talk about me.

“Can’t complain,” he said. “You?” She heard hissing in the background—an espresso machine.

“I could complain, but I won’t,” she said. “Sounds like you’re at work.”

“What’s to complain about?”

“I got laid off today.”

“Oh shit, that sucks.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. My Americano days are over for now—it’s all Folger’s in my near future.”

“Damn, that’s shitty.”

She’d been hoping for more in his voice, somehow. He sounded genuine enough, so she wasn’t sure what that missing thing might be, only that its absence stung. “Yeah. Anyway, not the best day ever. When are you off work?”
Ask me over.
If ever she’d wanted the distraction of that man, now was it.

“Closing at seven, out of here by, like, seven thirty.”

“Nice.”

“You probably just want to crash early tonight, huh? Wouldn’t blame you.”

“I dunno.”
Ask me over. Ask to
come
over.
“I don’t think I’m ready to turn in
quite
yet. My head’s too full of junk to—”

“Listen, I have to go. Orders are starting to pile up.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.”
Now tell me to come over.

“Sorry about your job. That fucking sucks. Good to hear your voice, though. See you around?”

“Uh, yeah. Probably.” The second he told her to, yeah, he’d be seeing her as quick as her legs could carry—

“Great. Later.”

And that was that—line blank, three bloops telling her he’d ended the call. “Later,” she muttered, unheard.
Fair-weather fuckbuddy,
she couldn’t help but think as she stared at the phone’s screen, and a touch bitterly.

And that left little to do aside from fold her laundry and try not to start crying again. She couldn’t even cry all over Bree; she’d texted her an hour earlier but gotten no reply. Her friend was probably out on a date with her guy of the moment.

“Just you and me, then,” she told her laundry bag, and upended it onto the bed.

At the buzz of her phone, she dropped the pants she’d been folding. She snatched the rattling device off the bedside table, chanting a prayer in her head—
Be Mica, be Mica, be Mica
.

Damn. Local number, but not one she recognized. A similarly disgruntled former coworker, looking to commiserate? Looking for a reference?

“Hello?”

“Clare? It’s Vaughn.”

“Oh. Hello.” She moved to sit on the edge of the bed, feeling little aside from wrung out. “Fancy hearing your voice outside that apartment.” Or those sheets. She tried to smooth her own voice of its thick, postsobbing edges and pull herself together. “What’s up? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. I’m just calling to see if you’re still looking for people. For models, I mean—for your show.”

“Oh. I’m desperate for them.” And never had she needed the demands of her show worse than she would in the coming days. In that instant she felt a little better, reminded that the day’s shitty bombshell might reveal like a wish granted, once the dust settled. “Do you know someone?”

“I think so. There’s a new woman working dispatch at my company. Half-Korean, half-Pakistani, I think she said. I told her about what you’re doing and she laughed—in a good way. She said if she had a nickel for every time somebody asked her what she was, she’d be retired by now.”

“You think she’d be up for it?”

“Sounds like it. She’s pretty, too. Maybe forty, really striking. I got her number, told her you might call if you still needed people.”

“Do I ever. That’s awesome, thank you so much.”

“No problem.” A pause, then, “So I’ll text you her number, if that works. Her name’s Zariya.”

“That’s great. I owe you.”

“Hey, no skin off my ass.” Another pause. “Well, I’ll let you go, I guess.”

“Yeah, you, too—thanks again. Maybe I’ll see you again soon.” Maybe. If Mica did indeed ask her over, she wasn’t sure she’d even go. She’d resolved to focus on her show; perhaps her next resolution ought to be to finally outgrow that man.

“Yeah, maybe,” Vaughn echoed.

“Take care.”

“Clare?”

“Yeah?”

“You all right? You sound a little . . . I dunno.”

She sighed mightily.

“Clare?”

“Sorry.” Already she felt fresh tears rising, though more from frustration than despair now. “Ugh, God. No, I’m not all that all right. I got laid off this morning. My entire office did. They’re sending all our jobs to the Philippines.”

“Oh Jesus, I’m sorry. That sucks. Any severance?”

“Four weeks’.”

“That’s something.”

“Yeah, and more than I would have expected, to be honest. I mean, I don’t even know why I’m all that upset. I’ve been dreaming about quitting pretty much since I started there.”

“Still, when it’s not on your terms . . .”

“Yeah, exactly. But I’ll be okay. I’ve got some savings, plus the severance. Anyhow, I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t sound all that fine.”

“Really, I am. It was just a shock. Not how I’d envisioned kicking off my weekend.” Or, indeed, her thirties—as an unemployed call-center drone. “Thanks again for the number, though. Working on my show’s just about the only thing that’s got me feeling cheerful just now.”

“No problem. Well, take care, I guess. If you drown your sorrows, drink two pints of water and take four ibuprofen before you go to bed.”

She smiled at that. “Is that your professional advice?”

“That’s my advice as a guy who’s never been especially good at drinking. Anyhow, enjoy your night. As much as you can.”

“I’ll try. Bye, Vaughn. Thanks again.”

“Anytime.”

She ended the call and stared at her screen a long while, well after it had gone black. She felt funny in her middle, like nerves. Like she was fifteen and had just survived a phone call with a boy she liked.

Well, I do like Vaughn.
Hell, he was her lover as much as Mica was. She didn’t have a crush on him exactly, but she was hot for him, and she respected him. They were also precarious, in another way, each knowing a very intimate secret about the other. That was it, she decided—the crux of this anxious feeling. They shared a scandal, one they both hoped to keep to themselves. They shared a lover as well, and neither could quite call Mica theirs.

She jumped when his text buzzed in her hand. There they were—the name and digits of his coworker. She highly doubted Mica would’ve replied so promptly if asked, or indeed remembered at all.