“Can’t hold back when you’re riding me like that, Tales,” I warn her. “I’m gonna come, Tales.”

“Me, too,” she pants. “Oh, God, again.”

My cock twitches, and I grunt as the force of my orgasm sends aftershocks through her. “Fuck. Oh, yeah, fuck!”

I slowly bring her down onto me. She lies there, head to chest, bodies moist with sweat, and panting like we just ran a 5K.

“Best I ever had, Tales.” If I had a gold star to give her I would.

“You, too,” she pants.

After a few minutes, she tries to sit up, but I hold her down.

“No.”

“No?”

“No, just stay right like that,” I don’t want her to leave.

“Okay.”

***

I wake up to pain and an empty bed. She wore my ass out, and I liked it. She gave me the pill Mom left on my nightstand after round two. Either she was too exhausted to deal with me or she knew I was in pain before I did. Either way, I had Tallia Annabelle Priest for two rounds, the second even better than the first. And right now, I am waiting for round three. Maybe the boys will take Mom and Madison out on the boat again.

I grab my phone and shoot her a text.

Good morning, sweet cheeks. When can you come back in here? I miss your ass already.

Then I put a flower emoji and hit send.

I hear a phone sound off, sit up, and look across the bed. Her phone is on my nightstand.

I laugh because I now have even more confirmation that I indeed fucked her brains out last night.

I get up and decide to take a shower, secretly hoping she comes in to get her phone and decides to join me.

After the disappointing shower, I walk out into the great room where Mom is sitting on the couch.

“No, I don’t want to discuss it. The kids know, Dale. I won’t pretend anymore, okay?” I hear him yelling and want to tear his head off, but Mom is being so strong. “Well, I’m pretty sure our son and Tally have something going on.” His voice is loud again; however, I can’t hear a damn thing he’s saying. “Really, Dale? Is that all you care about, you self-centered, self-indulgent, prick? You know what? Screw you. You go right ahead and live whatever way you want. I’ll continue taking care of the two people who matter the most to me.” I hear him cut her off. “I’m done lying for you. You made your bed; now lie in it.” She hangs up, then pulls her knees up and hugs them as she cries softly into them.

“Mom?” She jumps at my voice and looks up, startled. “You okay?”

“Sorry you had to hear that.”

“No, I’m sorry you’re going through this.” I sit next to her on her right and wrap my arm around her, hugging her. “Fuck him. He never believed in me, anyway. I will take care of all of us, you understand?”

“I’m your mom; it’s my job to take care of—”

“You take care of you. I’ve got the rest. Things are changing. I’ve got us now.”

We sit for a while, and as much as I want to tear Dad’s head the fuck off for doing this to her, I want more to become the man she raised. And she didn’t raise a fucking piece of shit. She raised me.

“Morning,” Madison says as she walks out and looks around.

“I’m gonna have breakfast delivered.” I grab the phone from my pocket and dial the staff number. “Morning, sunshine,” I greet over the phone. “How about breakfast for seven? Starving—”

“Six,” Madison whispers.

“Yes, seven.” I look at Mads, wondering how the hell she graduated when she can’t add for shit.

“Tally left this morning, so six,” she says, rubbing her eyes.

“Ha, ha. Very—”

“She did,” Mom whispers. “She didn’t tell you?”

“Six,” I say with more of a bite than intended. “Yes, I’m sure.”

I hang up and try to take slow breaths, count some fucking stars, look off into the distance, anything that will calm me down, but I am pissed.

“Are you pissed?” Madison looks a bit shocked.

I shake my head. “Just think it’s odd she didn’t say goodbye.”

Mads yawns. “She didn’t want to wake you.”

“She left her phone,” I say, knowing it comes off pissy.

“You also know how she hates to feel like a charity case.”

“Why the hell would she feel like a charity case? And is she that fucking stupid that she’d travel without a fucking phone? She’s a fucking girl, by herself, no phone and—”

“She grabbed one of those pre-pays on the way. Chill out.”

Chill out? Are you fucking kidding me? Chill out?

This is what devastation feels like; this is how Tally makes me feel and how I feel for her. This is how you’re supposed to feel, and those other women meant nothing.

How am I going to be better than my dad and get Tally to understand?

Fuck, she better not have used me. Would Tally do that shit? Why the fuck would I question it, she’s not here now. She didn’t even say goodbye for fuck sake.

“I need a pill.” I need the shit in my head to go away.

“You need to eat something first,” my mother scolds.

“Right. Fine. And when is my doctor’s appointment? ’Cause I also need to get back to work. I have a tour to prepare for.”

A week after I returned was the first time I heard from Memphis. He told me he was on his way home, and we needed to chat. I told him we didn’t, and he needed to shine. I threw my phone away the next day and got a new one. No, I couldn’t afford it, but it wasn’t an indulgence, either; it was a necessity.

Necessities should also be categorized. Although I needed new ballet slippers because mine were so terribly worn that my feet ached, I needed a thirty dollar pre-pay more. The soul’s health was much more important than the feet’s. Feet don’t take as long to heal.

A week after his first call, he showed up at the old apartment. He was angry, so angry at me, and I tried so hard to make him understand that I left for him. I wanted him to focus on his career, but he didn’t buy it and demanded an explanation. When I wouldn’t give him that, he wanted, he took something else—my lips.

I have decided lips are even more intimate than a vagina. His kiss was impossible to pull away from, so I didn’t. He did, and then he told me when I came to my eff’ing senses to call him, because he hadn’t changed his fucking number.

I smiled and hugged him. “Soar, Memphis,” I whispered, then turned and walked into the apartment, leaving him in the hall.

He banged on the door for a good ten minutes, and I fell to my knees and cried.

Crying is soul cleansing. Well, ugly crying like I did is soul and sinus cleansing, though not something anyone should ever do in front of another human being they love or want to return your love.

A week later, he called my new number from Madison’s phone.

“Tell me what the fuck I did. You owe me that much.”

My response: “I owe you even more than I can ever give you, Memphis. Forget about me. Move on knowing I will always have a little girl crush on the boy next door. Soar, Memphis.”

Apparently, that made him angry. He tried to call back several times, and he left messages, a lot of them. Each one made me cry, each breaking my spirit, and each making me realize that Karma really is a bitch.

A day later, I am walking around the corner to my apartment, and he is leaning against the brick wall.

I force sunshine. I smile. I dig down deep and do what I was raised to do: be polite, be kind, and be a good girl.

“My hand is healing.” He pushes off the wall. “I can use it now.”

“I knew it would. That’s a God-given talent you have.” I smile, though the threat of tears is burning my chest and moving up my throat.

“You aren’t talking to Madison anymore, either?” he says, as his eyes rake my body from head to toe.

I swallow down my tears and give him more sunshine. “Just been busy.”