Better Than Your Ex Read online

  I got rid of the ones with kids. The ones that were bitter in their profiles. You know the ones. They had more to say about how they were tired of women wasting their time and being this or that than they did about themselves. Those men never showed up with anything of value. I got rid of the men that were too short.

  I forced myself to smile about what was left and responded to their messages. Deleted the ones that thought they could talk to me for days and days without setting up a date. Blocked the ones that got aggressive or whiny when I didn’t answer their messages in under five minutes.

  I went on dates. And thought about Cahir every second. Compared Cahir to them. I couldn’t help myself.

  Cahir was funnier. In a dry kind of way. In a way that didn’t throw anyone but him under the bus. It was exhausting to watch men laugh at their own misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and prejudice. To have to explain why I was leaving before we had our first course.

  Cahir was more attentive. His eyes and attention stayed on me. They didn’t track the other women in the restaurant. They didn’t focus on some point beyond me. They weren’t on his phone.

  Cahir had class. And style. Even when he wore the things I didn’t pick out for him. He didn’t need to make a production of checking the time to make sure I saw his watch. He didn’t need to push his jacket behind him like he was a matador with a cape to make sure I saw the lining. Or smooth his tie so I noticed its quality.

  Cahir didn’t need to brag about his wealth. It was hard won but it wasn’t the core of who he was. I didn’t need to see his American Express or the keys to his car. I didn’t need to hear about all the things he had or did. He just saw to me, made sure that I knew I could have whatever I wanted. Made sure I knew that I didn’t have to ask, there was no budget.

  “Get what you want, Cash.”

  “Touch your wallet and die, Cash.”

  “Why are you spending your money when you could spend mine, Cash?”

  Cahir made me comfortable. I knew I didn’t have to pretend. I could be myself. And I didn’t have to give more than I was ready to. My presence was enough. My personality as it was impressed him. Every word that came out of my mouth was fascinating. He could and would talk to me, just talk, all night. And he heard me. He wasn’t just waiting for me to be quiet so he could say the thing he thought was so clever.

  Cahir wanted to know me. He didn’t want to figure out what he needed to say to get in my pants.

  Cahir had a raw but easy sexuality that draped casually over his shoulders and colored everything he did. It promised me pleasure but didn’t press for it. He was not more or less of a man if I didn’t take off my clothes for him. It would not make or break his self esteem. But if I did decide to take off my clothes…

  Cahir was smarter. And he wasn’t an asshole about it. He knew that he knew a lot. And he recognized that the more he learned the more he realized he didn’t know. He probed for information, to expand his thinking and understanding. And he shared what he knew in a way that made you interested in what he had to say. He never wanted to make you feel dumb or less than.

  The list went on. On and on. No matter how I looked at it-He was just better. And I thought I could live with that. I didn’t expect to find him and then another man as great as him immediately. I knew it would take time. I knew I would be discouraged and disappointed.

  And then I saw him.

  There was a chance that I would have liked the man I was having dinner with. I couldn’t remember his name, but there was a chance that I would have. There was a chance that he would make me laugh. He had once. There was a chance that he would have said something fascinating. There was a chance that I could order my own cocktail and actually like it. There was a chance that the next time we went out for dinner I wouldn’t have to gently tell him that the dinner he ordered me didn’t suit my tastes.

  But that chance was gone. Evaporated like rain drops in the sun the moment Cahir sent over the perfect drink for me, made sure I got the perfect dinner. Dressed in a suit I picked out for him. One that used to live in my closet. One that I’d taken off him moments after he put it on. That was the first time he fucked me in my closet. The first time I realized that I was borderline obsessed with the way he touched me.

  Faced with the reality of him, his physical presence in my space while I sat across from someone else, I was forced to admit there would never be anyone quite like him. And it pissed me off.

  How dare he? After what he’d done? How dare he take away the sting of it with this longing for him?

  My hands shook through dinner until I decided that there was only one thing to do. I had to wipe that smug little smile off his face.

  Chapter Seven

  Cassidy

  I smiled when I drove to his house. Maybe I should have felt bad about that, about the anticipation that moved through me. Fuck that. I didn’t have room for guilt or trepidation. For the first time in a long time I was going to have some fun. My kind of fun.

  I checked my lipstick in my rearview mirror. Put on another coat. I fluffed up my hair until it was the way he liked, the way that always made him reach for me, grab me, throw me against something before his hands came around my waist and I went flying up a wall and fell down onto his-

  My heels were loud on the concrete as I walked through his parking garage, away from my car, safe in the parking spot he got for me. The one he still paid for. I used the key fob he hadn’t taken away. The key on the rose quartz keychain I still treasured. Still set in my window every full moon. The keychain that held his keys and mine.

  And felt my anger ratchet up a few notches when I saw that there were two wine glasses on his counter and a bottle of wine- a Sauterne and cognac blend that I found for him- on ice. Open and waiting.

  He was on the couch. Back to me. Eyes on the view maybe. Or on the candles that burned all over his apartment. Everywhere but near his bed. There was no light there.

  He’d taken off his jacket and tie. They were laid over the back of his couch. Tossed there. The way he’d tossed them that day on the Lonely Third when he told me to touch myself and tell him how it would be.

  I went hot. So hot my vision blurred. I slammed the door behind me.

  He didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. There was just a “hello, Cash,” because he expected me and wanted me to know it. Wanted me to know the candles and the wine weren’t for anyone else.

  I kicked off my heels and put my purse in the place that I always put my purse. It only made my body hotter, made the pounding in my head louder, that that place was still available. That there was a place for my shoes.

  “You’re a piece of shit,” I said.

  And he laughed. Just a little. Low and quiet and slow. Like he wanted to savor my words. “Am I?”

  “Worse than shit, you asshole.”

  “Come sit down. Tell me my sins.”

  Fuck him and his voice. “You don’t tell me what to do.”

  “You’ve made that clear.”

  “And yet there you were tonight.”

  “It’s not like you told me where you were having dinner.”

  “As if that matters!”

  “No. Of course it doesn’t.”

  “Don’t placate me like I’m some kind of child.”

  He hadn’t turned to face me. He didn’t have to. I knew he could see my reflection in that wall of windows. Even if he couldn’t he knew me well enough-

  “The drink? Dinner? What kind of fucking point were you trying to prove? Were you trying to humiliate my date?”

  “I wouldn’t be able to do that if he was what you wanted, made sure you had what you wanted. Did he do that, Cash?”

  I would throw the bottle of wine at him. I would rip his throat out. Then he wouldn’t be able to send his voice to wrap around me, to constrict me like a fucking snake. “You don’t get to ask me what he’s like.”

  “Good thing I was there to see it,” he said. I could hear his grin. “Answered all of my questions
.”

  “Asshole.”

  He shrugged. “I know.”

  I would break his collar bone. I would dislocate his shoulders. Both of them. At once. I didn’t know how but I was a fast learner. Intuitive. It wouldn’t take me long to figure it out. Or I would call Junie. She would know.

  “You don’t get to do this to me,” I said. “You don’t get to show up and co-opt my night. You don’t get to insert yourself into my life. We are over.”

  “Okay.”

  “Over! And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.”

  “Noted.”

  “And it’s your fault. It’s all your fault. Did I use you? Did I drag your feelings out of you and try to use them against you? Use them as a way to manipulate you? Did I use sex-Did I use one of the best things we had to make you-You absolute piece of shit.”

  “Huh.” His voice was softer. Gentler. Genuine. “That’s what it was? I should have seen that.”

  I was ready to fly at him. To peel the skin off his face when I heard him whisper.

  “Idiot. Fucking idiot.”

  I knew the words weren’t for me. I had to dive deep to find my anger again. I had to force my fingers to grasp it.

  “You have the nerve, the audacity, the balls to-”

  “Take your clothes off, Cash.”

  I stopped. Everything in me came to a crashing halt. From my brain to my feet. And they stopped so fast I almost tripped over myself. I almost fell down. I caught myself. And heat once again suffused my body.

  “What?” I hated how small I sounded.

  “Take your clothes off.”

  “Listen to me, you piece of shit. If you think I came over here to just-”

  “Isn’t it? Isn’t that why you came over here with your hot head and wetter pussy?”

  Something in me buckled. Another thing crumbled when he stood. When he didn’t turn to me. He just slid those big hands into his pockets.

  “I listened. And I heard you.” His voice hardened. “I heard you, Cash. And you know what happens when I hear you.”

  I heard you, he always said every time I fussed at him. I heard you, so I’ll fix it.

  “Take your clothes off.”

  I reached for the zipper of my dress.

  Chapter Eight

  Cassidy

  I was closer to the door than he was to me. I knew that was on purpose. I knew he stood with the couch between us and his eyes on my reflection in his windows on purpose. So I would know that I was the reason I was naked. I would know I chose everything that happened to me next. He didn’t force it. He didn’t apply any pressure. I just wanted it. Wanted it enough to let him watch. Wanted it enough not to make excuses or to lay my actions at his feet.

  That was why he hadn’t offered me the wine when I came in. That was why I hadn’t poured my own glass.

  The wine was for after.

  I didn’t question myself. What for? Did it matter if he was right? That maybe I’d driven over in the hopes that we would cross one of the lines I drew in the sand? Did it matter that he told me to take off my clothes and I couldn’t hold back the craving for him? Did anything matter except how clearly I could remember how his hands felt on me? That I wanted it again? That I was naked and he came around the couch to me?

  There was a flush on his cheeks. One that said control was hard for him, that he was too invested and incapable of pulling back. That he might hurt me the first time and wouldn’t think to apologize for it until after the third time.

  Thank God.

  His eyes didn’t leave mine. That was what made him different. That I stood naked in his home. Naked and ready. And nothing mattered more than the connection between us, nothing mattered more than building a bubble that only we existed in.

  I couldn’t push the air out of me fast enough. I couldn’t take in enough. I-

  He kissed me. His hands gripped my face to stop them from shaking. He tasted the same. Smelled the same.

  Home. I was home.

  He pressed close and I remembered how decadent it was to press my naked body against his clothes one. How silk-cotton blends felt against my nipples and his hard, clothed thighs felt pressed against mine. I moaned into the silence.

  Hands fisted in my hair. Sharp pain when he lifted me. Pain that made me wrap my arms and legs around him and press closer. Moan again.

  He stumbled to his bed and I wasn’t afraid. The kiss was mine then. And I wanted it to set him on fire. I wanted it to torture him. I wanted it to make him crawl out of his own skin.

  I bounced when he threw me onto the bed. I laughed when he ripped the buttons of his shirt. I gasped and sighed when he pushed my legs apart and his tongue- Insistent. Had it always been that way? No. Usually it was soft first. Coaxing me to the first orgasm. Never rushed. Never grasping the way it was in that moment.

  It was like he dragged me to that first orgasm and shoved me into it. Shoved me and then held me inside it. I tried to get away from him. I wasn’t supposed to feel so much so fast. He’d never done that to me before. He was supposed to be gentler. He was supposed to-

  He slapped my thigh, pulled and twisted one of my nipples, ran his teeth over my clit all at once. And it was me that wanted to crawl out of my own skin. I tried. I scratched both of us. I writhed. I screamed and begged for a mercy that I knew wasn’t coming. I arched and twisted. There was no relief. Just another orgasm. And another.

  My throat was too raw to say his name but I tried when he pushed inside of me. The garbled sound that came out of me didn’t sound like his name. But he understood. He kissed me and whispered “Cash” into my ear. Into the candlelight that reached out to us.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and tried to bind him to me. If he was close, he would be still. I tried. He laughed and showed me what close felt like. Torture. A different kind. A new kind that made me ask him what he wanted from me.

  “Everything.” He sounded like the devil.

  And I opened for him like a flower in spring. Like a fool. I gave him back all the places that I lied and said weren’t his. Consequences and the morning after be damned.

  He was worth it.

  Maybe he was still mine.

  I pulled the condom off and lapped up the taste of him. Sucked it off him until there nothing left but his warmth and his strangled moans. The condom he pressed into my palm when I held out my hand.

  I watched him when I rode him. Laid a hand over his heart and used its beating as a guide. There he was. Like I’d left him but better because he didn’t close his eyes the way he used to. He didn’t bite his lip or try to hold anything back. He gave and gave until I felt an imbalance between us and rose and fell until my thighs burned to make us equals again.

  I collapsed onto his chest seconds after he arched and gasped into what I gave him. I thought we would rest. But the condom was gone. Thrown to the ground. I laughed at the mess it made. At the trust he gave me. Smiled when he opened another and sighed when he was inside me again.

  Fast that time. Whipped hips and the slap of skin. Scratches on his back and a hand around my throat. Tighter, tighter, until my eyes opened and focused on his. All that violence. The lack of control and yet when we came together it was quiet. Soft sighs and softer hands. His weight, hot and familiar, settled over me. I was safe.

  He kissed me. “You want some wine? Let me get you some wine.”

  Chapter Nine

  Cassidy

  I was ready to regret it. And I was ready to do it again. Every dirty filthy moment. I floated in the place between sleep and awareness and compared Cahir to Kevin.

  I stopped fucking Kevin when I found out about his wife. When I dreamed about his son and his daughter. It was a line I could have crossed. The human mind is capable of justifying anything if you give it enough time and incentive. But I didn’t. Because it explained everything. The film on my skin after I fucked him. Like a coating of gasoline over my purest things. The inability to meet his eyes. I consented; there was always a f
eeling of shame. Of otherness. Wrongness. I avoided his eyes and convince myself that he did the same. That he felt some shame. I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t wrong. We were just different. Odd.

  I steeled myself for it to be that way with Cahir. I softened my thighs. Ready to part them when he reached for me. Only his hand never came. I left space between my lips. The better to welcome his kiss. But that never came either. I relaxed my body. Eased deeper into the mattress that he paid too much for but that I loved more than anything else he owned. To make it easier for him. To make it better for me-that first moment I felt his weight on mine.

  But he wasn’t there. I felt it. And as I drifted closer to reality, I smelled it. Eggs and bacon. I heard the toaster jump. The music we reserved for making breakfast meals together.

  I smelled him. Felt him. Not the way I wanted. Not the way I dreaded.

  He pushed me.

  Hard.

  “You’re not asleep. Get the fuck up.” He shoved the covers off me.

  I didn’t pretend. I sat straight up in bed. “This is a quality mattress. I deserve a-”

  “-breakfast that isn’t going to be fucking served to you in bed. You have clothes in the closet. Get up.”

  “Clothes?”

  “I went to your apartment.”

  “What did you bring?” I sprang out of bed.

  “Shut up.”

  I ran to his closet. He went back to the kitchen.

  “Fuck.” It was perfect. Exactly what I would have chosen. Easy and carefree. Heels high though so everyone knew that I was relaxed but not to be fucked with. And nothing matched. Not a single thing.