Page 13 of Use Me Up

His hand migrates to squeeze the curve of my ass. “You look great.” And then he swats me there and gives me a little shove at the bed.

I stumble forward and shoot him a look over my shoulder.

He just smirks. Jerk.

I climb into the bed and he comes after me, and he asks for my phone, and he gets his too.

He arranges us, checking us in the phone to see how it looks. He sits behind me and I rest against his chest, and he holds out the phone to take selfies of us.

He takes a lot of them, using both of our phones, from all sorts of angles. He wants pictures of us kissing, lips on lips. And then he wants pictures of him kissing my cheek, my neck, my temple. Of me kissing his jaw, his cheekbone, his clavicle.

We get interrupted by the quiche being done, and I go out to get them out of the oven, but he makes me come back for more pictures.

Eventually, I tell him the quiche are getting cold, and he relents.

We sit at the breakfast bar eating the lukewarm mini-quiche while he scrolls through both of our phones.

“This one,” he says. “Make this your profile picture.”

“My profile picture?” I say. “We fuck one time and you’re my profile?”

“Yes,” he says. “This needs to feel intense and very fast. It should make people feel uncomfortable. That’s the point.”

“Okay,” I say. “Well, should I change my relationship status on Facebook?”

He lifts his head and gives me an odd look. “You have a Facebook? You’re younger than me.”

“Well, it’s good to keep in touch with people I met through my parents, I guess,” I say. “I won’t bother.”

“Definitely do it,” he says. “I think I signed up for Facebook at one point.” He flips through his apps. “Oh, look. There it is.” He opens it. He scrolls around a minute and then I get a notification. Ellis Cirillo wants you to confirm your relationship. That was fast. I click on the button to confirm it.

I dutifully change my Facebook profile picture to the one he has said should be my new profile picture. Then I go to do the same on Instagram, and when I do, I see that he’s posted one of the pictures of us on his Instagram and tagged me. He wrote a caption, and it makes my stomach twist. It just says, Pop.

I look up at him and my hands feel cold and my inner core feels hot. “Change that.”

He doesn’t look up. “What?”

“I don’t want that word on there. I don’t want you to announce… I don’t want to be your conquest. It makes me look like I’m just this thing you’re using for you own amusement.”

“That’s the idea,” he says. He’s still not looking at me. “If you want out, Hannah, say the word.”

“My brother will lose his mind,” I say.

“I know.” He sounds very pleased at the prospect.

I get up from the stool where I’m perched. “What do you have against Andrew, anyway?”

He looks up at me in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?”

“I mean, I know you’re desperately in love with Calliope or whatever, and she picked him, not you, but you ran off and left her, so, I don’t get that.”

He goes back to his phone and doesn’t say anything at all. He scrolls through the pictures and holds one up. “What do you think of this one for my profile?” He’s looking lazily at the camera with hooded eyes while my lips are pressed into his chin. My eyes are closed. I look devoted. He looks like he’s pleased to be getting away with something.

My nostrils flare. “Is it because of the thing that happened before you left? The time you and Calliope were both in heat?”

His jaw twitches.

“With my brother,” I say.