Page 40 of Wells

"I am the best, and you know it."

The humor cracks before I can hold onto it. My throat tightens, and I look away. The barge on the river moves slowly, cutting through the current. The beads overhead sway in the breeze.

"Cera." His voice is softer now. "Guilt does not attach to a stranger. It attaches to a person. That means Midnight is not nothing to you, even if you want him to be."

I close my eyes. The drums roll closer, then fade.

"I don't want him to be a person. But at the same time, I really enjoy our time together. I know that's so fucked up. I seriously have something wrong with me."

"No, you don't. It's natural. Y'all spend a lot of time 'together'," he says with air quotes

"I need him to stay what he is. A transaction, a screen I can close when I am done."

Locke waits, and when he speaks again, his voice is careful. "Okay. Let me ask you something."

I look at him. His face is steady now, the teasing gone.

"If Midnight walked in here right now and told you he spent last night with another woman, would you be angry?"

My chest tightens. I open my mouth to answer and stop.

"You can't be," Locke continues. "Because he pays you. You perform for him."

He's right, as usual. He's a crass ass, but he has a way of spelling things out that I can't organize in my head.

"For all you know," Locke says, "he could have a wife. A girlfriend. A whole life you are not part of because you are not supposed to be part of it. That is the whole point, for both of you. He pays for your time, you stay exclusive to him on camera, and the rest of your life is yours."

"You're right," I agree. The thought of him with someone else does pull at my heart a little for some ridiculous reason. I don't tell Locke that, though, because he would rip me to shreds for it. I know how pathetic it would sound.

"So there is nothing to feel guilty about," he repeats.

"Exactly."

Locke shifts on the blanket. He’s being careful in a way that means he is about to name something I have been trying not to see.

"You do this thing, Cera. You give everything to someone and then wait for them to leave the second you let yourself need them. You did it with Cas. You are doing it with Midnight. You’re probably already setting yourself up to do it with Wells."

"Huh?"

"The whole guilt thing, you taking something good and making it dirty."

My head snaps up. "That is not what this is. I slept with my boss, bent over a desk, in the wee hours of the morning. It was dirty."

"You think you need Midnight, just like you thought you needed Shitbird. You don't need either of them. They get the privilege of having you. Don’t forget that, Cera.

"I know I don't need Midnight. I don't even know him. Sue me that I finger myself for the guy three nights a week, and somewhere in there, I started feeling something for him past the arrangement," I snap. I immediately wish I hadn't been so defensive.

"Don't give any of these men power over you. Guilt, expectations, dependency. That's you giving up your agency. Stop it."

The words hit hard. I look away, holding still, trying to parse the raw truth he just threw at me. I'm not sure why he's choosing this moment to hold the mirror up, but it is a lot to digest.

"I know I can be hard on you, Cera Beara. I just hate to see you getting hurt. This all started so good. I was happy you saw something you wanted and took it, so candidly, without shame. Let's get back to that. Wells. Hot grumpy boss. I like that space."

I smile despite myself. "He is hot. I’m not going to lie.”

"So are you going to tell me how it happened, or do I have to pull it out of you?" His grin is pure trouble. "You left me at ‘bent over a desk,’ and my brain is going haywire."

"There's truly not much to tell. It was quick, it was awkward afterward, and it’s never happening again."