Page 27 of When He Calls

I let her sniff for maybe five seconds before I redirected. He smiled. The smile did something to his jaw, tightened the line of it, and I looked away because looking at a stranger's jaw while your dog sniffs his boots is a level of public behavior I'm not fucking equipped for, especially in October, especially on a street where Ellis's skeleton is four blocks away and my threat map is running at capacity.

But the eyes. Brown with honey flecks in them.

Brantley suggested this coffee shop. Last night, end of the call, casual. The outdoor table by the window is the best seat. I walked past Groundwork on the evening route, Bean tugging me forward the way she does when she smells food, and I stopped. I stood on the sidewalk. The outdoor table was occupied by a man with a book and a coffee. I thought about going in. Ordering something. Sitting at the other outdoor table. Then I thought about the fact that sitting at a coffee shop in October means being outside, in the open, where the decorations are, and my legs decided for me.

We kept walking, because I'm a coward with a dog.

But Bean stopped at his chair. Bean chose him out of the whole sidewalk…

The only thing that moves my mind from ruminating on the man is my call with Brantley and our signature goodbye.

"Same time tomorrow?"

"Every night, Milo."

The call ends. 1:22 a.m. One hour and twenty-one minutes. My hand is wet. My stomach is wet. My shirt is ruined. My breathing is still coming down. Bean has resettled on the couch above me, her tail against my neck.

I can’t fucking believe we just mutually masterbated over the phone…

What the fuck?

What in the flying fuck did I just do?

Did I fuck everything up?

Holy shit. My… person thing and I just did that.

I stare at the cum on my hand and my clothes in awe.

But fuck was that hot.

We can’t go back now… this has changed into something I wasn’t anticipating.

And yet…

It doesn’t bother me. It’s weird that it doesn’t bother me, but I think that’s because I’ve been wanting this all along. That closeness. The connection with no strings. Just having someone to hold me and allow me to come undone.

Brantley is the safest person to do that.

He doesn’t want more from me. He just allows me to exist as I am at that moment.

Despite myself, and more importantly, despite Noor’s warnings… I do find that little fantasy of us being a something growing in the back of my mind. I know it can’t be, so phone sex it is.

Definitely wouldn’t mind doing that again.

I stand up and head to my room to change. I wash my hands, then open the medicine cabinet.

The trazodone is there. Orange bottle, white label, the name of a psychiatrist I haven't seen in eight months. I shake one out. Fifty milligrams. Small, white, round. I fill a glass of water. I take the pill.

He told me to sleep. He told me to take the pill. He's right. My body needs sleep the way my body needed what happened on the phone, completely, and desperately.

I go to bed. Bean jumps up, circles, presses against my shins. The trazodone starts in my limbs first, the heaviness settling into my arms, my legs, the muscles in my neck releasing one by one. The ceiling blurs. He's still in my head, the low register, come for me, the words that undid every boundary I thought I had.

The pill pulls me under. The sleep is heavy, dreamless, the kind of unconscious that doesn't leave room for fear or memory or the sound of my own name in someone else's mouth.

I don't hear anything for the rest of the night.

Chapter Ten: Brantley