Page 103 of Smut Lovers
? O N E ?
Don’t You Want Me, Baby?
Georgie
G eorgie understands the severity of her predicament before Evan even steps foot out of his truck.
He comes in like a bat out of hell, swerving recklessly, his tires flinging dirt across her dewberry bushes that line the long, winding path. Never mind, it took her all summer to complete the project—a year of saving before that.
Heavy rock music scrapes at the edges of her nerves. It picks at her brain, prods the dark corners of her mind with flashes of hot, sticky nights hidden in their spare room tucked away in the closet, hoping and praying he wouldn’t wake up to find her missing from their bed.
Her heart is beating so hard she can feel it in her fingertips.
It hadn’t even been five minutes since she hung up the phone in the kitchen.
Five minutes.
That’s the only warning she got in three months.
The only reason Georgie knew he’d been on his way back was because his mama had called her. Beatrice wouldn’t interfere; she was too afraid of her own husband for that, but she would do what she could when she could. Beatrice had suggested she stay with a girlfriend, just in case he got in early.
Georgie shoulda listened.
Evan’s door slams, and maybe it’s her imagination, but the ground vibrates with the sound. Georgie rushes to the trailer’s door before Evan can even reach the steps. She doesn’t wanna know what will happen if he finds out she’s changed the locks.
Her boss, Mr. McKinney, did it for her just last week.
She stands in the doorway, trying to plaster a smile across her face.
She should be happy, shouldn’t she? He’d expect that.
Mosquitoes zip by her, dive-bombing for the open door. It’s already August, but Florida still hasn’ changed much since summer ‘cept for the nights. Nights like tonight, when it’s a little cooler than normal. She hopes it will hide the sweat collecting on her brow.
“Well, looky here.” He shouts, a duffle bag slung over his shoulder, his hat backwards on his head. He’s cut his hair since she last seen him, but that makes sense. He wouldn’ wanna be working with the mop he usually keeps, ‘specially up in the Carolinas.
At least, that’s where she thinks he’s been.
He steps into her, going in for a one-armed squeeze, pulling her into himself so she has no choice but to catch herself on him.
His lips graze the top of her head. “Damn woman, smells fuckin’ good in here.”
Her shoulders relax a margin.
If Georgie can get him fed and get him nice and full, then maybe he’ll wind up on the couch, tuckered out and snorin’ for the rest of the night.
She can work with that, can’t she?
Before she can cross the threshold of her own house, though, he’s droppin’ his bag, turning to face her, his hands on her hips.
The lump in her throat is blocking all her air. She can’t breathe, not with him so close to her, not with his hands on her like this.
“Your mama said you were gettin’ in tomorrow.” She doesn’t mean for it to sound like an accusation, but his narrowing eyes tell her it may have come across that way.
She’s lucky, though. He rolls his eyes with a sigh, shaking his head; throws his keys into the bowl next to them.
Georgie hurries through the door, closing it and swallowing hard at the way the silence fills the small space.
Somehow it bounces off the couch, rattlin’ in the walls of her tiny trailer.
His shoes are next.
Georgie watches, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, chewing and grinding, as he slips one shoe and then the next off his feet. Clay dirt collects on the floor.
The clean floor.
The floor that hasn’t seen this much dirt in weeks, months even, at least not for any extended period of time.
Georgie tries not to stare down at it.
Tries not to let him see the quiet distress it causes her as she makes her way to the kitchen. “You hungry?”
“That’s more like it!” Evan smiles, his tone mockin’, “Damn, girl, you wouldn’t even know I haven’ been home for months.”
She laughs, rummaging through the cabinets to pull out a bowl for him.
“Make me one of them quesadillas too, will yah?”
Georgie tightens, “Course, hon.”
“Been cravin’ one of them for weeks now,” he says, plopping himself in the seat at the end of the small table. He pushes a stack of TV Guides to the side, the glossy cover catching in the light as he thumbs through it, calm, cool and collected.
As if he never left.
Georgie doesn’ know what she talks about; she just knows she keeps talking. She talks about work, the new Dewberry bushes, and his mother’s newest pet pug. He talks too; she’s sure he does, because he's Evan—but she can’t keep one word in her head long enough to process it.
They all go in one ear and out the other, spilling off her shoulder like a tiny little waterfall.
He eats the entire plate as she watches, willing him to choke.
She hopes he can’t see it on her face.
When he’s done, he stands, practically throwing the plate in the sink before he’s sniffing ‘round her pot, ‘round the tiny bowl she has set for the dog outside.
It’s not her dog, but she wants it to be.
She hasn’t seen the poor thing yet, not really, but she’s seen it peeking from the woods, running through the trees. Not to mention the dirt beds under the porch. The missing trinkets from the yard.
Her old husky used to do that, digging herself into the dirt on hot days and burying anything she could get in her mouth.
Evan just sniffs at it all, pulls back, and asks, “You got some of the rest for me?”
She hands him the bowl she’d already prepared for herself and grits her teeth in a smile, “Ready and waiting.”
“I knew you would.” He smiles at her, winks, and she sees the flash of the man who she’d dreamed ‘bout all through high school.
Georgie makes her way to the sink as he settles himself again.
She’d rather be anywhere but here, she thinks, even if it means washing the same dishes he so carelessly slops into the kitchen sink five times.
Even if it means killing him.
She’d thought about it before—hell, planned it all out from beginning to end, the hemlock sitting in the freezer, tucked away so she wouldn’t mix it up with anything else—but the only thing she hadn’t accounted for was him coming home a day early.
Whatever. He’d been gone for 3 months already, so why the hell did he have to choose today of all days to come back home?
Probably just to keep her on her toes, to rip the feelings of safety, warmth, and autonomy right from under her old worn-out Keds.
He had.
Much as she hated to admit it, he had ripped the rug straight from under her, smiling his big ol’ pretty boy smile that used to make her panties drop. There was a time she’d have thrown herself at him the moment he walked through the door, but now?
Now she knew the kind of man that hid under his glittering blue eyes. She knew the rot and decay that spread through his veins. What’s that saying?
God laughs when we make plans.
Well, someone is certainly laughing, and it isn’t Georgie. She was too busy grasping at straws.
It’s fine.
She’s fine.
Everything is going to be just fine.
But internally, she scoffs at herself.
As if. She needs to get real, fast because even she doesn’t believe the loop of platitudes she was trying so desperately to hold on to.
She tries to give them room to breathe, a fighting chance to settle in her mind and on her face, but he’s speaking to her again.
She’s missing what he’s saying. She can tell by the way he kicks his legs out from under the table, how he cocks his head to the side.
It’s in the way he’s folding his arms across his chest. She sees it in the window, a vaguely stretched mirror that takes up half the wall.
Her stomach drops into her toes, a thick, heavy block of ice, as she turns around to face him, smile plastered on, “What was that, hon?”
“God, you don’t listen worth shit, do you?”
Her eye twitches.
If she had the strength, she would shove his chair back and let his feet fly up. With any luck, he’ll hit his head on the floor like he’d done to her the night before he left. See how he likes it.
Instead, she smiles, kicking up the wattage to arcade levels and letting all the thoughts leave her mind like pulling the drain from a clogged sink.
“You know me,” she waves her hand around in the air before tucking it back into the hand towel, wringing them in the guise of drying them, “head always in the clouds.”
“Yeah,” His disgust is palpable; it lingers in the air, throbbing between them much like his dick after a fight. It sickens her. If she can cut it off before she kills him, she will. “It’s a fucking wonder this house is still standing.”
She can’t do it.
She can’t do one more night like this.
She can’t fake another welcome home or smile any longer. She certainly can’t let him touch her. Just the thought of it makes her skin feel like it’s melting off. She feels the weight of her smile cracking at the edges of her cheeks.
Her heart feels like it’s going to beat out of her chest, straight through her ribs.
Even her clavicles hurt. The blood rushes to her skin, to the surface, like all her pent-up emotions: fear, disgust, embarrassment…
heartache. It’s been dull until now; she’s had time to mourn, but it all rises back up.
It’s there, just swimming under the surface.
Washing her in it, crashing against her forehead like waves on the shore.
Georgie knows herself well enough. She’s had time to remember how to think for herself, about herself, and she knows that if she doesn’t do something before it’s time for them to go to bed, she’ll throw up all over him.
Where will that leave them?
She doesn’t want to find out. The real marvel is how she’d managed to let herself fall into this same fucking trap.