Page 127 of Dark Surrender

I bark a laugh and poke the side of Cell’s hip with my bare toe. “Am I the only one here thinking Cell needs to get laid?” Really laid. All the way laid. She puts the “t” in thirsty.

She swats at my foot. “We’ve already been over this. I don’t do sex.”

“But you love men,” Kali points out, and I nod in agreement.

“The look of men. Yes,” Cell explains, turning onto her side and propping a hand under her head. “The idea of men. Absolutely. The reality of them? Ew. No.” She shivers in revulsion. “Dirty socks on the floor? No thanks.” Her nose scrunches. “Can’t find the ketchup in the fridge when it’s right in front of their face?” She gags, shaking her head. “Nope. No way.”

Keeping a straight face, even though it’s difficult, I hum. “Those are oddly specific.”

“Very,” Kali agrees with a low, amused chuckle and reaches into her pizza box for another slice. Just like the first time, we each have our own.

Cell pokes my calf. “What can I say? I spend a lot of time doomscrolling through the women’s sphere.”

“What does that even mean?” What is a woman’s sphere? Women’s sphere?

“Women talk about their relationships and lives…”

Ah.

“And you live vicariously through them?” Kali asks as she swallows a bite of pizza and cracks open a fresh water bottle.

“I guess. It’s not like most of the women I surround myself with have good experience with men, beyond you.” Cell stares pointedly at Kali. “Even then… some of it was bad. Lies. Cheating. Stalking.” She wrinkles her nose as if she just smelled a skunk. “Ew. No thanks.”

As someone who has next to no real experience with men outside of setting them up for death, which doesn’t count, I’m with Cell. Ew. No thanks.

Crying myself to sleep every night over a man I fell for in such a short time is tragic enough. This is my one-and-done in life. I have no desire to go through it again. Losing someone. Trying to date. Not to mention the thirty-year-old virgin thing I’d have to explain. Nobody would get it. Not like… him.

And if it’s not him…

It’s no one.

Smashing my lips together, I try not to think about it.

Any of it.

Not when he kissed me goodbye, right before we left for the resort. He swatted my ass and wished me good luck.

Ugh. No. Not going there.

Unfortunately, my stupid brain doesn’t care that a silly, hot, chubby Jack Black is doing silly, hot things on the flat screen, in a jungle with a big, beefy man. My nose does that awful burning thing when I try my damnedest not to cry.

To rein this in, I ball my hands on my lap and push those feelings down. Deep down. Deep. Deep. Deep. Marianna trench deep.

No more crying.

I can’t do it.

This is supposed to be girls’ night. They started twice a week since we returned with Tarek and Fog from Texas. We trade off. One time here, the next at Kali’s. Sometimes Cell joins, sometimes she doesn’t. Till even came by once.

This is my life.

It’s new, and I’m adjusting. Heartbroken but still alive and working through shit. I’m always working through something, it seems.

Kali and Cell read my melancholy, but they don’t say anything as Cell sits up and smashes up against me. Their hips hug either side of mine, and their heads rest on each of my shoulders.

Their quiet strength means everything. I just wish I could express how much.

I pat their laps in silent appreciation, and it doesn’t take long for the emotional ball to loosen in my gut as Bethany, a.k.a. Jack Black, talks about his penis and we all crack up.