People are fucking in here. Is this why she didn’t want me in this dive?
I look at Liv. “Classy.”
“At least they’re not on YouTube.”
They can be. I take out my phone, but she presses her hand down on mine, forcing it away. “Stop it,” she mouths.
“Relax,” I whisper. “I’m texting my friends where I am.”
She releases me, leaning into the wall and putting her hand on her hip. I toss out a group text to Callum, Amy, Milo, and Krisjen, telling them where to find me. Hopefully that Aracely chick and her friends aren’t holding them up.
I tip my head toward the condom machine, snapping a selfie as proof I was here, and then pull some change out of my bag. “So, Iron is single?” I ask as I put away my phone. “Or is that girl in the pickup still claiming status?”
She hoods her eyes.
I slide my change into the machine and twist the old lever, the moaning from the stall growing heavier and louder. “You didn’t tell them, did you?” I ask her.
On the one hand, you’d think she’d want to send all the muscle she could after me, or find some way to embarrass my family by broadcasting my behavior; but on the other hand, I understand why she didn’t.
And I’d relied on that when I’d posted the video. Reporting me would only draw more attention to her, and Liv doesn’t play the victim. Ever.
I pull the condom out of the machine and tuck it into my bag. “It wasn’t that bad,” I tell her, continuing to defend myself and I don’t know why. “They didn’t recognize Martelle.”
“They recognized me,” she retorts.
“So why put the video back up?”
“Because fuck you, that’s why.”
I stare at her, despising that I don’t have a comeback.
“Was that what the locker room was all about?” She moves in closer. “You had somebody filming me again?”
We’re both five-seven, but she feels taller somehow. Like she hasn’t been thinking about it in the same way I have.
“Or maybe you came tonight to try to get me into the same position,” she says, “so you could humiliate me some more?”
She thinks it was a ploy. Kissing her in the locker room.
She doesn’t think it was real for me.
“Yeah, it’s that easy with a queer, isn’t it?” she taunts. “You think I’m just going to drop down and thank my lucky stars to fuck anything pretty, any time, any place, right? Because I’m desperate? Because gays are hypersexual, is that it?”
“I don’t know…you seemed pretty into it,” I whisper.
The woman’s whimpers turn to cries, and his panting grows more ragged as we hold each other, our gazes locked.
“Turn me around,” the girl tells him.
We listen as they shift positions and continue, Liv’s lips so still as she watches me.
Her brown eyes hold mine, and I don’t know if she’s two seconds from pulling me into the empty stall or hitting me, but my heart thunders against my chest as the couple kisses and breathes, and I can feel the wet heat on their skin from here.
I stare at her, the world spinning around us, and we almost don’t notice a man entering the room. He pauses briefly as he passes us before making his way for the urinals.
But I don’t look away from her.
He pisses, and I see a smile peek out on her mouth as the steady stream fills the air and it makes me want to laugh too.
Wow.
I take out my phone again. “I need a picture of a water feature.”
But she snatches the phone. “Let’s see the real list.”
I grab for it, but she pulls the phone away, looking at the screen. “Seminole flag,” she reads and looks up at me. “The one at the lighthouse, I presume?”
I clamp my mouth shut.
The couple in the stall comes, and I hear the man at the urinal laugh, banging on the door twice as he zips up.
“Keeping the spark alive in there, Mr. and Mrs. Torres?”
The woman laughs, followed by the man’s voice. “Eat me.”
The guy walks away, washing his hands and smoothing back his hair. “Sounds like your wife beat me to it.”
He passes us, stopping and speaking to Liv. “¿Está todo bien?”
Liv doesn’t look at him, staying focused on me. “You expressed an interest in Macon?” she asks me.
Huh?
And then I remember teasing her about it in the theater.
But without waiting for my answer, she hands me back my phone and says to him, “Take her to my brother, will you?”
He looks at me.
“What?” I blurt out.
But he doesn’t hesitate. Bending over, he sweeps me up and throws me over his shoulder, and I yelp, snatching my hands off his back, because he’s all sweaty and wet.
“Let go of me!” I bellow, lifting up and glaring at Liv.
We’re out the door in less than two seconds, and I flail, kicking and screaming. “Hey!”