Page 16 of Willing Prey

TWELVE

Claire

The night on the couch after Shane deticked me is the start of a pattern.

For the last week, whether he hunts me that day or not, he invites me to watch an episode of Real Estate Wreck every evening, and I accept.

He wasn’t kidding about liking the show; it’s the only thing on his DVR.

Sometimes the episodes are great, and we’re immersed in whatever fresh hell the homeowners are dealing with, but when they’re bland, we talk.

It’s day eleven out of thirty, and tonight’s house isn’t much of a wreck.

If I’m being honest, it’s miles nicer than Sydney’s and my apartment.

I think the “wreck” part is supposed to be the fact that each bedroom is a different shade of green.

It’s hard to summon up much empathy for a couple crying over walls the color of split pea soup, which means tonight is a talking night.

Gretchen’s off, Margot left earlier, and I feel far more relaxed on the couch than I probably should with a man who is essentially my employer.

My left butt cheek vibrates. Cheating Piece of Shit lights up my screen when I tug the phone from my pocket.

As has become the norm, I wish for a way to send his call into the fiery depths but settle for voicemail.

Shane makes an odd snort. At first, I think it’s a sneeze-slash-cough situation, but when I glance to my left, he’s laughing.

We started the episode at opposite ends of the couch, but we’ve slowly migrated to the center.

I didn’t realize he was close enough to see the screen.

“Nice name.”

“He earned it.” I fidget with the hem of my T-shirt. Keith’s contact name feels a bit juvenile now that someone other than me has seen it. It was a satisfying change at the time, though.

“Agreed.” He’s facing the almost-silent television, but a hint of a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.

I peep at him from the corner of my eye, wanting to see the elusive dimple that only appears in the woods.

I’ve been watching to see if it makes an indoor appearance, but so far, no luck.

My need to see it—at this point, I’m wondering if I’m imagining it in some sort of orgasm-induced hallucinations—has given me a new understanding of people who think they see Bigfoot once and become obsessed.

Shane’s dimple is my Sasquatch, and I’m desperate to prove it exists on this side of the tree line.

“Do you two talk a lot?” he asks, then backtracks. “If that’s too personal…”

“No, you’re fine. And no, we don’t. Well, he’s been trying to talk. The one time I answered, he asked if we could be friends .” The laugh I force to prove I don’t care is bitter, which probably sounds like I do care.

Great.

“Do you want to be friends?” There’s a tightness in Shane’s voice that makes me dart a glance at him, but he’s absorbed in watching the couple paint their walls.

My answer is fast and hard, reflexive, like smacking away a dodgeball thrown at my head.

“Never.” The vehemence startles me, makes me feel like I should explain.

“I know it’s not very evolved, but I don’t want him in my life.

It’s fucking bullshit. He was cheating and lying to me for months.

Why would I want him as a friend?” Wrapping my arms around myself, I mutter, “I don’t know how you like your friends, but a qualifier for mine is not fucking me over. ”

A pile of softness lands in my lap, surprising me. Shane pulled the blanket from the back of the couch. “You look cold.”

“Thanks.” I didn’t realize I was, but bundling under the blanket is comforting.

Shane sounds thoughtful. “I don’t really have close friends. Just colleagues.” He rubs a hand across the back of his neck. “I talk to my brother a lot, but that might not count.”

He laughs, but it doesn’t seem any more genuine than mine was. The sound makes my chest twinge.

“I’m your friend.” The moment the sentence comes out, I want to take it back. Weirdly vulnerable, silly but also serious, I don’t know how three words can feel insignificant and important at the same time.

He looks at me, arching an eyebrow. “We’re friends? I don’t think that was in the contract.”

Hold on.

That darned dimple is there and gone. A shooting star I almost missed. Playfulness hangs off his words. It’s contagious, making me want to smile too. Stoic Shane, the man who glowered his way through a Christmas party—when not talking about cat puns—is teasing me.

“I slid an extra page into the existing contract. Considering you’re a lawyer, I thought you’d be better at reading the fine print.” I make a tsk-tsk sound at him, trying and failing to sound stern.

“Well, if it’s in the contract…”

“You’re stuck now.”

Tugging the blanket tighter around myself, I read the preview of Keith’s text: Glad it’s Friday! How was your we… I swipe, deleting it unopened. The tiny jolt of satisfaction I feel confirms that I’m definitely pettier than I like to think I am.

“Since we’re friends, can I ask you a personal question?” Shane’s voice pulls me from my musing.

“You can ask, but I can’t promise I’ll answer until I hear it.” It sounds teasing, but I’m serious.

“How did you get into hunting?”

I was expecting him to ask directly about Keith, our relationship, or maybe the affair. A sex question? I can handle that.

“Keith wanted to liven things up. Keep our sex life interesting. Tried a few things and landed on this.” Stealing another glance at him, I see he’s watching me and force my eyes straight ahead. “It’s fun. Feels dangerous but in a safe way.”

I don’t add, And it lets me get out all my pent-up aggression .

“Makes sense.”

“How’d you get into it?” I’d love a glimpse inside Shane’s head. He asks far more questions than he answers.

A long pause. “Same as anybody, I suppose. Heard about it and thought it sounded interesting.”

Well, that was pointless.

“Is it hard?” Shane’s question catches me unprepared and confused.

“Is what hard?” My mind flings itself into the gutter. His proximity overrides my knowledge that sex is an outdoor-only activity, and I don’t get to initiate it.

Unaware that I’m trying not to imagine myself straddling him right here on this couch, he gestures toward my phone. “Not answering his texts, not taking his calls. After years together, it seems like it would be difficult.”

I don’t know how honest to be.

Fuck it.

“It probably should be, but it isn’t.” Taking a deep breath, I say the rest before I can change my mind.

I feel like I need this, that saying it aloud is more for me than for Shane.

“I might feel sad for a moment, but it passes.” My voice is so soft now I can barely hear myself.

“If I’m being honest, most of the time, it feels really good not to answer. ”

This gets his full attention. “Explain.”

“Things were rough for a while before we divorced—I know why now, but at the time, it was devastating. He ignored me. Stopped touching me. Barely spoke to me. I was worried that he was sick. Or maybe struggling with depression or anxiety but not sure how to ask for support. So I made him doctor’s appointments and tried to get him to go to therapy with or without me.

Every time I’d try to talk about his mood and the relationship, he’d act like I was being overdramatic and imagining it all.

Swore he was just tired. That I was being too needy.

” My laugh is brittle. I don’t like talking, or thinking, about that final year.

“He made me feel like I was delusional for thinking something was wrong, when the whole time, he was cheating. There were hundreds of times he could have admitted it, but he let me flail and suffer instead of putting our relationship out of its misery. It feels good not to take his calls. It feels fair to leave his texts unanswered. He wouldn’t talk to me when I was his wife.

He isn’t entitled to my time now that I’m not.

” It comes out angrier than I mean it to, but Shane makes a confirmatory sound in his throat.

“That makes a lot of sense.” Scratching his jaw, he adds, “I’m sorry. That sounds like a horrific way for a relationship to end.”

“Thanks. Me too.” I think for a moment. “Actually, I take that back. I’m not sorry. It’s good. If it had ended differently, maybe I’d be tempted to forgive him.”

Shane glances at me. “Would you ever get back together with him?”

Considering the rant I just spewed, I’m surprised by the question.

“There was a point where I would have, right after we split. If he’d promised to go to therapy, I probably would have tried to forgive him.

I’m glad he didn’t ask then, because it would have been a mistake. Now that I’m this far out, never.”

“Good.” His response is instantaneous. “I don’t like him.”

The simplicity of the statement makes me laugh. “Not trying to put ideas in your head, but you could fire him. Just a thought.”

“Don’t think I haven’t considered it,” he grumbles. “He never shuts up. Ever.”

A giggle escapes. It feels good to laugh. Even better when I look at Shane, and he’s chuckling too.

· · ·

If the tick is the start of our Real Estate Wreck habit, Shane’s question about Keith is the start of us genuinely talking .

About everything.

We don’t spill it all at once, of course, but story by story, we settle into a comfortability that feels like a real, noncontractual friendship by day sixteen.

We cover a wide range of ground. Relationships.

Exes. Politics. Religion. How when Shane was ten, his father discovered he slept with a night-light and locked him outside in the dark until sunrise.

How my mother is convinced Keith cheated because I don’t want to have children. Nothing is off-limits.

Except the topic of what happens between us when the thirty days are up.

I can’t shake the sensation that this is more.

That this is dating. But if it was dating, wouldn’t he say something?

He would; we’re adults, not high schoolers.

So this must be who Shane is. Surprisingly funny, a complete nerd for anything involving robots, and the kind of thoughtful that makes you think he’s into you when he’s simply a nice person.

This isn’t how I saw this contract playing out.

I never thought I’d dread the end of the arrangement.

I like it here. I like Shane, which is a problem because he sees me as a friend.

A friend he pays to fuck. I have nobody to blame but myself, considering I literally crowned myself his official friend.

I need to keep my emotional distance and not get attached.

But it’s hard when spending time with Shane feels this right.

I have to remind myself that of course it feels good.

I’m off work for the summer, fucking around with a hot guy in the woods and watching trash television.

I’m basically at adult summer camp. It’s great, but it isn’t real.

Even if there are moments where it feels like it might be.

Like when he brings home the obscure brand of frozen yogurt I mentioned loving.

Or leaves a can of bear spray on my dresser with a sticky note that says just in case .

It’s especially hard to remember when he tells me I feel like fucking heaven as he thrusts into me on the lakeshore.

Then I remember how Keith did and said sweet things too, and that meant shit all in the end.

The ultimate proof that this is nothing but a business agreement sits in a folder on my dresser. What’s that saying? If he wanted to, he would. Well, if Shane wanted anything more than this, he’d shred the contract. Or create an addendum, or do something else lawyerly to it.

But he hasn’t, so he doesn’t want more. Doesn’t want me. I try not to let it sting, but it does. Just a little.