When I peek my head in, the room is dim, and I find her lying on the bed with her back to the door, so I push it open further. My eyes roam over her form on the bed, and she doesn’t even look pregnant from where I’m standing. For the first time, I notice how shapely she’s gotten. It’s only around her hips. Her ass is rounder than it was and the curve of her hips is more defined now.
My eyes remain glued to her back as I get closer to her. The fading light from the window makes the edges of her legs and shoulders glow orange. From this angle, I can’t help but think of walking into the room back at the condo to find Megan on the bed, taking a nap, safe and sound.
I almost want to go lie with her.
But then she turns over and sits up, setting those cool gray eyes on me, and I falter in my steps at the sleep still on Alana’s face. Now she really looks more like Megan, but those unbothered gray eyes of hers let me know it’s still Alana, and I hate her for it.
I don’t say anything, and neither does she as I approach the bed to set the tray down in front of her. If she’s not going to say anything, I won’t either. I still have too much to think through with this resolution I’ve come to, and I don’t want to layer it on too soon.
When I’m at the door, she speaks with her mouth full of food.
“The hero dies at the end of this,” she states.
I stop in my tracks; do I stay and run the risk of her sitting back and talking all the shit she wants, or should I just go? I’m not up for one of her famously cruel conversations at the moment. But if I’m feeling stir crazy and wanting someone to talk to, then I know she has to be.
So I turn around and lean on the door frame. This conversation could easily turn into shit, and if it starts going that way, I’ll try as hard as I can to steer away from it.
“Was it a good book?” I ask her, trying not to go into personal territory like yesterday.
She shrugs, squeezing lime onto one of her tacos. “It kept me entertained for a while,” she says nonchalantly, her focus on the taco she’s about to bite into. “This is so fucking good; there should have been more,” she mumbles to herself.
“Before yesterday, I didn’t take you for someone who reads,” I admit, and she looks at me with her eyebrows scrunched.
“You regularly make assumptions about people you don’t know?” she asks me.
“Based on everything I know about you, I never would have thought reading was something you’d enjoy,” I say, shrugging.
She looks at me curiously now. “Like what?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you know about me?” she asks. “You mentioned you knew things about me yesterday. I wanna know.”
This feels like a setup for her to degrade me, but I’ll take the bait.
“Aside from your time in the system, I know you have a couple of I.D’s in a few different states, there are a few misdemeanor charges on your record, I know you’re married, and I know you worked at a strip club.”
She laughs.
“You think your Uncle George would be caught at a strip club?”
“Yes, actually,” I answer. “He’s not the most wholesome human being.”
She stares at me a moment before she nods in agreement.
“But he has some standards apparently,” she says after she swallows. “Not like there’s anything wrong with strip clubs. But I worked at a gentleman's club.”
“Is there a difference?” I ask her.
My question makes her stop guiding another taco into her mouth, and she looks at me, smirking.
“Haven’t been to many strip clubs, huh?” she mocks.
“Is that something I’m supposed to have done?”
She shakes her head. “ I didn’t expect you to have done much of anything like that at all. You’re too much of a tight ass. How does it make you feel, thousands of men checking out Megan’s naked body?”
I absolutely hate the thought of it. It actually burns me up inside, especially when I think about the fact that Uncle George has leered at her at some point. Knowing the kind of shitty man he is, I wonder how many other shitty men she’s dealt with.