Page 37 of Burn Bright

I sling my backpack onto the couch. Potted plants sit on the windowsill, and I have a view of the back of another brick building. The sun is beginning to set, and I smile a little, staring out at New York. Even the worst view of the city, my life feels on a better track now.

I have a job. I have a place I can call home for the time being. The lighting is warm and comforting in the apartment. All in all, it’s cozy. Quaint.

“If you need more storage space, I cleared out the coat closet this morning,” Eden says into a sip of coffee while she texts. “It’s all yours.”

“Thanks.” I try to smile a bit bigger, not that she’s looking at me.

She’s focused on her phone.

I glance over at two white doors. One leads to her bedroom, the other to a tiny bathroom that we share. It’s better than taking showers at the gym, which I’d been doing back at Penn.

Relief burrows into me. I have a bed (a couch) and a bathroom and even a closet for my clothes. I don’t have to live out of my duffel bag anymore. I don’t want to soak it in too much. Don’t want to over-celebrate in case it all vanishes in an instant.

Anyway, I can’t get complacent. This isn’t my finish line. It’s a steppingstone in the direction I want to go.

“I know it’s not much,” Eden says.

“It’s great,” I say, genuinely.

She smiles. “So where are you from originally?” she asks, then her cell rings in her hand. “Sorry, I should get this. It’s Austin.” Her boyfriend.

She splinters off to her bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

I’ve been hesitating to bring too much of my stuff into her place, but now that I have the closet, I decide to go grab more of my belongings. Leaving the apartment, I venture into the parking garage and visit Harold—my Honda Civic that’s been my prized possession since I bought it off my old boss at Wendy’s when I was sixteen.

“Harold,” I greet and pat his silver trunk. Pillows, blankets, and my backpack crowd the backseat. Opening the driver’s door, I snatch my phone charger from the middle console and remove an old empty Taco Bell bag from the footwell on the passenger side. From the trunk, I retrieve a small duffel and check the contents.

Clothes. Bra. Underwear. Three gallon-sized plastic baggies containing shampoo and conditioner, toothpaste and a toothbrush, and then my small vibrator in a third.

I sigh. Sleeping in the middle of a living room will be wreaking havoc on any self-love time. I’m not about to be kicked out of the apartment because Eden walked in on me fingering myself. No, thank you. Dry spell, here I come.

Yay.

Not that I have good material in my spank bank these days anyway.

Ben’s chiseled jawline suddenly flashes in my head. The way his fluffy brown hair blew in the wind after he gave me his hat. How his smile crawled up his face when he looked down at me.

I imagine his hands on me again, and flush bathes my cheeks. He’s melted some stone-cold part of me, and I could definitely create some toe-curling sexual fantasies in my head.Especially when I picture his six-foot-five stature lifting me in his arms. I wonder how big his cock would feel just rubbing against my pussy.

“Oh my God,” I groan to myself. “You’re just friends with him.” I zip up my duffel. “Just friends, Harriet.”

Last time I checked, friends don’t fuck each other. They certainly don’t masturbate to images of each other, right? That sounds really hot, though.

I slow my movements, my breathing getting shallow with arousal as I picture his sculpted body up against my smaller frame. As I picture him wrapping his arms so tight around me. I’veneverenjoyed being hugged, but why am I obsessed with the idea of him practically suffocating me?

I imagine his hand descending between my legs. My clit throbs for touch, and I try to snap out of it, slinging my duffel’s strap on my shoulder.

Friends can be attracted to each other, I think, and under certain circumstances, maybe they can entertain those attractions too. But those circumstances haven’t risen for us, and I’m not going to actively create one.

My phone buzzes on my hip clip, and I nearly jump out of my skin like God, Himself, has been eavesdropping inside my carnal mind.

Not that I’m a very religious person, but Mass was one of the few things I remember going to with my dad when I was little.

Shutting the trunk with one hand, I answer the call with my other.

“Harry, are you on the moon? Jupiter? I know you’re smart enough to get into NASA and board a rocket ship to Mars, but I still expect you to keep your location serviceson. How else will I know if you’re sitting in a crater or floating through open spa—shit,Fava get out of that plant, you little toad.”

Hearing my Aunt Helena’s voice sends a lightness through me like I’m stepping on a fluffy cloud. She’s the only person I’ll let call me Harry. And even though I haven’t seen her in person since I was eleven, I can picture Fava (one out of her three hairless cats) digging into a potted fern. My aunt has the biggest green thumb. Plants crowd her small two-hundred-and-fifty-foot studio apartment in San Francisco along with Fava, Pinto, and Lima.