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I quickly swipe at my lips, hopeful another woman’s lipstick and spit isn’t on my face when I go back to Savannah. “Sure, Wilder,” she calls after me. “Go back in and be all cutesy with her for the next couple of months. Maybe I’ll find her here at the bar on February fifteenth. I’ll be the one that comforts her because a douchebag broke up with her after she thought she could tame the beast. Until then, go fuck yourself, asshole.”
I turn to look at her one last time, and my eye catches her middle finger in the air and the scowl of sheer fury on her face. Before the door shuts, she turns and stomps down the alley, muttering to herself about dickheads and how we’re all alike. I blow out a sigh that she isn’t following me into the bar, and I put a smile on my face for Savannah.
December 21 - Wilder
“You let her kiss you?” Gus asks, taking a swig of beer. “Did your fake girlfriend find out?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “But I was worried Savannah would come out the door. And I didn’t just let 2017 kiss me. I froze up for a bit and then pushed her away.”
Gus laughs and doubles over against the bar, and I blow out the cigarette smoke I’ve been holding in my lungs. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to breathe the last couple of weeks. What the fuck is wrong with me? I have to concentrate on things that were always second nature. Things like driving, shaving, swallowing, and even breathing regularly when I think about her too long.
“Do you like this girl?” Gus asks, wiping spittle off his mouth where it landed when he almost spit out his beer at my dilemma.
“Who? If you mean 2017, no. I haven’t thought about her in years except to remember her year number as my first cuffing contract.”
“What about 2023?”
I shrug and take another drag of my cigarette, focusing on a short inhale before exhaling normally. I watch the smoke swirl between us, and Gus waves it off. He likes a cigar now and then, but he barely tolerates my smoking.
My mind whirls, and it’s like my brain won’t work. I understood each word’s meaning as he asked the question. I simply can’t cobble an answer together in my head, and I can’t place 2023 and Savannah as the same person. Am I starting to think of her as more than a year?
He sighs like he knows me too well. “Wilder, do you like Savannah?”
“Define ‘like.’”
“Have you lost your ever-loving mind over this girl?”
Have I? I certainly feel crazy at times. I haven’t thought about biting her tits or coming on her face like I’m a nasty high school boy with a female respect problem in a few weeks. In fact, I spend a lot of my mental down time thinking of ways to make her happy outside of the bedroom. I usually come up with things like doing her dishes or watering the plants for her instead of thinking of dirty underwear to buy for her like I have in cuffs past.
“Are you asking if I think she’s a good person?”
“Not what I’m asking, genius,” Gus says, nodding at the bartender to bring another round of beer for us. “I’m asking if you’re thinking of breaking a contract for the first time ever.”
“Never,” I grumble. “Even if I wanted to, she’s set on getting out of this after we’re done.”
“Are you absolutely sure about that?”
I nod and stub out my cigarette a little harder than necessary. “She’s made it clear where I rank in her life. It isn’t the top. I’ve explained this.”
He stares at me with a wry smile, taking a sip of his drink and never blinking. “What? Why are you staring at me like that?”
“You’re just different lately.”
“Different how? I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
He laughs and looks behind me, probably looking for a woman to take home and fuck. I don’t even turn around and join him. There’s nobody here that I would want more than what I have waiting for me at the apartment.
“There’s a hot woman with huge tits standing right behind you and staring at your shoulders like she wants to wrap her legs around them while you plow her.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’m totally serious. Oh, she’s licking her finger and swirling it around her nipple. Are you going to turn around and look?”
“No,” I deadpan.
“I really think you should turn around and look.”
“I’m not turning around just so you can laugh at me. There’s no hot woman there.”
