Jaylin lost his virginity at fourteen.
At sixteen, he thought he was in love.
At eighteen, when his father left his mother to die, Jaylin realized there was no such thing.
Now at twenty years old, he laid tangled in the arms of an older woman. She smelled of cheap perfume—a toxic vanilla pong, sold in ninety-seven cent bottles.
Olivia was a mess wrapped in lace lingerie. A beautiful mess, one that stuck to Jaylin’s bare chest as if his heartbeat could sing her librettos of a promising future. It seemed that was all Olivia Black ever wanted from life. A warm embrace.
Jaylin could give that to her. For a price.
“It’s ten. I should get going.” His whisper was worn, his voice drained to hoarseness. There was something starved in her that drove him to the point of exhaustion every time. Or maybe it was the fear, the thrill that they’d be caught.
He felt Olivia’s fingers halt to a stop, and forfeit the circle she’d been tracing on his chest. “Where did the time go?”
That was the thing about Olivia. All her life she’d done nothing but make terrible decisions—nothing but pit herself between a rock and a hard place. And no matter how many times Jaylin tried to help her, she only plunged head-first into a larger pool of irrationality. He could grow angry all he wanted, swear he’d cleanse his life of her toxicity. But the moment Olivia spoke, it felt like no sound in the world could compare. Just like that, he wasn’t angry anymore. She had the voice of an angel.
It was a shame Olivia Black was the way that she was. Broken, like everyone else in this place.
Jaylin began to shift beneath her, and she groaned in a voice that made it all the more difficult to leave, “Stay. One more.”
Jaylin fished her hand out from beneath the blankets. “I have to go.”
Olivia frowned and turned her shapely body over. She curled into herself, her back to Jaylin. “Okay,” she said, her voice small as a mouse—and yet it spoke volumes.
Again with the rejection, Jaylin thought. Olivia had always been so difficult.
“Tyler will be home any minute, alright? We’ve talked about this. Don’t be angry.”
He watched as her body eased with a silent sigh, her small pale shoulders sinking. “Money’s on the nightstand,” was all she said.
Jaylinwas consumed with guilt as he dressed and took the stack of cash from its place. That guilt again, always bending him in its meaty fists. He felt guilty for a lot of reasons after these visits. Guilty for leaving Olivia in the hands of her abusive husband. Guilty for sleeping with a married woman. Guilty for getting paid to. Ultimately, it meant nothing; he added the cash to his collection, and that was that.
Life went on. Debts were paid.
As always, Jaylin was careful to wipe away every print he’d left behind. He swept the pillow free of blond strays, fixed the sheets where he laid and gathered the used condom up to toss in the dumpster outside.
Tyler would be none the wiser, but Jaylin had a premonition in the depths of his gut. Tyler would find out one day. On that day, Jaylin hoped for lilies on his grave. He never understood the fascination with roses; they hurt and they smelled. Not that it’d matter to a dead man.
For now, it was almost pleasing the way he could undo Olivia like Tyler never could. He was no home-wrecker, Jaylin Maxwell. But Tyler Black was the exception. Tyler was the one who wrecked. Homes, lives, people—whatever happened to fall in his line of sight. Tyler was acid, and he made damn sure to erode everything in his way.
That was why it was absolutely, indisputably important that Jaylin steer clear of his path.
_
An hour later, Jaylin laid with his arms out like a scarecrow on dusty kitchen tiles, sweaty and shirtless and too hot to move an inch. Tisper was huffing and puffing as she worked her way around his splayed silhouette with a broom.
“Move your ass, Jay. This place is filthy.”
Jaylin popped an eye open and rolled himself over just once. Her apartment was never filthy. Cleaning was one of Tisper Tatum’s many coping mechanisms.
“Why are you so mad anyway?” he asked. “I did it for you.”
Tisper stopped her sweeping to give him a pointed glare. “You and Matt drive-by bashed the mirror off of Bobby’s Camaro for me?“
Of course he had. Jaylin knew how the mind of a guy like that worked; no meant maybe, and absolutely not meant keep trying. For months, Bobby had been fixated on Tisper and only bad things could come of it.
“He shouldn’t be hanging around here,” Jaylin said. “I thought it would send a message. And also we were drunk.”
“He’s not worth the trouble, Jaylin—”
“He’s friends with Tyler,” said Jaylin. “Anyone who’s friends with Tyler is a heaping bowl of trouble with a shit-flavored cherry on top. I know the guy, Tisper. Not that well, but I know him. I wouldn’t have done something like that if I wasn’t serious. Stop being angry,” he said. “Do you know how badly my arms still hurt from swinging that bat? Eighties movies make it look so easy.”
Tisper snorted and then steeled again in a heartbeat. “Stop manipulating me.”
“It was a really heavy bat.”
“You’re scrawny.”
Jaylin frowned and looked to his arms, the muscles small but budding surely from either of his biceps. “Damn,” he grumbled as if he had never noticed before.
“Oh, enough with that face. You’ve always been a runt, Jay. Just embrace it already. You’d be surprised how well small guys bode in the dating world.”
Jaylin sighed and let his eyes fall shut. Five-foot-five—the typical height of a teenage girl, and not another inch to come. Sometimes Jaylin was envious of Tisper for her build, and the way she stretched tall and thin like taffy.
“Maybe I’m not short,” he mumbled, “maybe you’re just an amazon.”
Jaylin regretted those words the second they left him. He wanted to reach out and grab them from the air, but they were too fast. Too immaterial. Tisper paused for only a moment and went back to her sweeping as if the comment didn’t bother her. Jaylin knew better than to test her insecurities.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sitting up in a hurry. “I didn’t mean it.”
“It’s alright.” Tisper gave a pleasant sigh—or feigned one at least—and took a squat beside him. “How’d it go with Olivia? You were safe, right?”
Jaylin staggered up to his feet and brushed the dust from his elbows. “Yes, Mom. I’m always safe.”
“I’m just concerned.” Tisper tossed her hands to the air. “Sue me.”
Her worry was too much sometimes, but Jaylin loved her for it. Tisper was a mother-bear, sticking her nose around in everyone else’s pot of honey. Not to take it for herself, but just to make sure that everyone had a fair share.
She stalked off to the counter and readied a pan of water to boil. A thump of childlike excitement lunged in his chest at the sight of the little blue box she took from the cupboard. Tisper’s mac and cheese was a meal fit for the gods.
“Hey,” Tisper called over her shoulder, but she didn’t look to Jaylin. The weary waver to her voice told all her secrets. “You’ll stay the night right?”
Jaylin opened his mouth, settling on the word no, but sealed it closed again. His mother could make it through one night without him.
“Yeah,” he replied, “of course.”
Tisper set her broom aside and took a seat on the floor beside him. “Can I ask you something, Jay?”
“Hm?”
“Do you really sleep with Olivia for the money or is it because of Tyler?”
Jaylin didn’t want to answer that question. It meant acknowledging that Tyler black was still something to him. He didn’t want to tell her, because he didn’t want it to be true, but Jaylin did anyway because that was what Jaylin did with all of his secrets: he told Tisper. “Tyler.”
A silence grew between them and Jaylin’s smile shrunk. He looked up to the ceiling, following the distorted bends of shadows with his eyes. Tisper didn’t say a word, she just laid on the floor beside him, arms tied around him like he was her life preserver, and Jaylin thought as much for himself—that without Tisper, he might one day drift off into an endless blue. He knew if that were to happen, he’d never find himself again.
It had always been this way. For as long as Jaylin could remember, one another were all they had.
Never lovers, but always soul mates.
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