Black and Blue by Paige Notaro

to look at me fully.
    “I hate you,” she said.
    “I know. Come on, let me give you a ride.”
    I picked her out of the bed and led her to the bathroom. She bugged out at the vast standing shower, but I fought off the urge to drag us both in.
    “Let me know when you’re ready,” I said.
    I dropped off her clothes and dressed myself. I paced out to the sofa but couldn’t relax. I had gotten what I wanted many times over, and yet it still wasn’t enough. She might not really be angry at me, but that didn’t mean she’d want to see me again. Or that she could handle seeing anything but the facade of my life.
    She only gave me a couple minutes to fret before hustling out, hair tied back, looking clean as an angel.
    “I told Jada that I couldn’t meet her by my car. You’re dropping me off right?”
    She had a nervousness to her that would have made me laugh if it didn’t look so sincere. “Yes, ma’am. Consider me your personal Uber driver.”
    “Alright.”
    She threaded an arm around mine and I felt a tingle - a goddamn tingle - at the simple joy of it.
    I got the address from her and we pulled out of my lot. She lived in Grosse Pointe. My instincts about her being rich weren’t wrong.
    “You always lived there?” I asked as we pulled onto the highway.
    “As far as I can remember,” she said.
    “I’ve never even been.”
    “Oh.”
    The radio chattered through our silence for a while. “So what’s a girl from Grosse Pointe need a job for?”
    She raised an eyebrow at me. “We’re not the Ford family. I’ve still got to work to buy things I want.”
    “Clothes?”
    “Sometimes. Mostly gadgets and school books.”
    That didn’t seem high maintenance, at least for a girl from her part of the world. But we had different scales for measuring those things.
    “I’ll admit,” she said after a while,“that my dad is paying for school, but I’m doing my best to get the supplementals. He’s got another girl to put through too.”
    “Oh.” Finally, a point of similarity: we both had younger sisters. Then, I thought of ever being able to send Sarah to a college that could handle her needs. The brief joy soured in my stomach.
    We pulled off the highway and into a shaded suburb with large blocks of land filled by vast and storied houses. The lawns were twice the size of the place I’d grown up.
    “Nice digs,” I said, as we sifted down a road full of them. I’d have to win a UFC championship to approach living here.
    “Thanks. It’s, uh, this one here.”
    I stopped in front of a large brick …colonial? It sounded like the right name. The thing looked out of some old British TV show. I wondered what her old man did to live in a place such as this.
    Gabi unclasped her belt and turned to me. “Thanks for the driving,” she said, still looking on edge.
    “Sure thing. Anything else you wanna thank me for?”
    Her mouth trembled with a smile. “Last night was fun.”
    “We should do it again then. Maybe something before that, as well.”
    Her eyes slid over me, looking for who knew what. She nodded though. “Ok. I’ll call you.”
    She opened the door, but I grabbed her arm and tugged her back for a kiss.
    “Make sure you do,” I said.
    She bounced out and shut the door, but glanced at me one more time. She couldn’t see me through the glass, but I could see her.
    It seemed like it could be for the last time. That bothered me more than I could understand.
     

CHAPTER NINE
    Gabrielle
    No one was around when I came in. I headed straight upstairs and into the shower. The one in Sean’s place had been so inviting, but I hadn't wanted to dilly dally.
    What would we have done if it there was time for it? Fool around some more? I wouldn’t have minded, but the hot steam sopped away my dirty thoughts as much as what was left of him between my legs. I could clearly see what a bad idea it would have been.
    It’d been fun. He was sweet enough, but not as sweet as the guys I went for. He might live