Page 97 of What We Bury

There’s my bad girl. I know what she wants.

I refill the salt shaker at table six as I consider the fantasy he painted for me. When I imagine people watching me, it’s not forty strangers in a sex club, it’s them. All five of the Hangmen watching, wanting, needing.

God, to be surrounded by them, to know with the absolute certainty that none of them would look away. That every one of them wouldtake turns. That every one of them would have me, would put their hands on me, their mouths, their bodies, and I would be the person they all want at the same time, and the wanting would be mine—not theirs, not given to me as a favor, not taken from me as a price.

Mine.

The salt shaker spills over.

“Honey, you’re flooding it,” Rosa calls out.

I jolt. The lady at table seven is smiling. I apologize and clean it up with shaking hands before walking back to the counter. I brace my palms against the edge of it like the diner might tilt, sucking in deep breaths as I try to get myself under control.

In an alley behind a diner, a man twice my size put his hand under my skirt because I asked him to. He made me come. Knowing he wanted me didn’t make me smaller or unsafe, no. It made me feel powerful, wanted, desired.

I want to be wanted by all five of them.

I want to be the person they orbit. The person they need.

I want to be in a room with all of them and have it be on my terms—when, how, which one, all of them, none of them.

For far too long, my life hasn’t been mine. But the brief moments I’ve spent with them have shown me what it can be . . . if I’m brave enough.

TWENTY-SIX

ELI

The club looks different when it’s empty.

During operating hours, Unholy Desires is a curated dream—soft lamplight in amber and rose, velvet booths arranged at angles that make every conversation feel private. The long mahogany bar stretches the full length of a wall, its surface polished to a mirror finish. It’s the kind of room where the obscenely wealthy come to be seen by each other, while the performers move between them like rumors—dancers and escorts and the silk-draped specialists this clientele pays a fortune for, fabric whispering against skin.

Lilith, the woman behind Unholy Desires, understands her clientele. The crystal in the chandeliers is real, the leather chairs are hand-stitched, the back rooms are paneled in dark walnut, oil-rubbed to the depth of a piano lid.

At seven-thirty on a Tuesday morning, chandeliers dimmed to a low gold and the floor emptied, it’s just a beautiful box that smells like beeswax and the ghost of last night.

The others are already at the bar. Knox against the wall, arms folded. Holden sprawled across a high-backed stool, oneankle hooked on the rung—he looks like he hasn’t slept since the Salinas call turned into eight hours of paperwork and one very dead accountant. Micah is restocking the fridges, getting a jump on prep for his shift tonight.

He doesn’t look at me when I walk in.

Good.

It’s been eight days since I walked into Sage’s bedroom and found his hand between her thighs, her face flushed, her mouth shaped around his name. Long enough that the image should have faded. It hasn’t. Every night since, I run the same math and get the same answer: stay back. Hold the line. Keep the wall where it is.

People think distance is the easy choice. It isn’t. Distance is a thing you build by hand, every morning, against everything in you that wants to close it. I’ve spent a week and a bit building it. I’m good at building it. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been reliably good at.

And it’s working. The wall is doing its job. Sage is safe from the worst of me, Micah has what he needs, and I get to keep being the man who holds it all together instead of the one who pulls it down. Everybody wins.

The stone in my chest disagrees. It always does. I’ve learned to ignore it.

“You look like shit,” Holden says as I drop onto the stool beside him.

“Thanks.”

“You sleeping?”

“Some.” A lie. I can’t close my eyes without seeing the two of them together, limbs tangled, arms outstretched, voices taunting me.Stay.

I don’t want to be that guy. The one who pines. But every time I remind myself they’re not mine, that I should want nothing, the wanting gets worse.