“I am. My past…is…”

“Complicated?”

“Very. So where’d you grow up?”

“Outside of Jacksonville.”

“Now where do you live?”

“Does it matter?”

Because we’re never going to meet. That’s what he wasn’t saying. We were never going to meet, so this…small talk didn’t really matter.

“I guess not.”

The silence between us hummed for a second, nothing bad. Just quiet. Just space between two people. It was kind of comforting.

“Why are you going to all this effort to watch Ben?”

“You’re full of questions, aren’t you?”

“I guess so. You have any answers for me?”

“And sassy. I like this.”

I did too. I really did.

“Tell me about Ben.”

“Are you talking to him?”

“No. Not really. Today I did a little bit. He said he has no family.”

Dylan didn’t say anything, and I guess I’d been hoping that he’d tell me Ben was lying.

“Why are you having him watched?” I asked.

“He’s fucked up my life more than once. I feel better knowing where he is and what he’s doing.”

“How did he fuck up your life?”

“I’m not talking about this.”

“But—”

“Layla, we’ve got to have some rules about this thing between us. And one of them is I’m not talking about Ben.”

There was something so naked in his voice. So raw, and I was suddenly sorry to have put it there.

“Okay,” I breathed.

“What are you going to do before you call me again?”

“Go look at naked ladies.”

He laughed, sounding satisfied, and though I had no basis to even consider it—or know—he sounded happy, too. “That’s right, baby. Do that and call me when you’re there.”

“Call you?”

“Yeah.”

“Like while I’m watching?”

“Yes.”

Heat bloomed again in my stomach, between my legs. The idea was unbearably exciting. Unbearably hot.

“What are you going to be doing until then?” I asked.

“Waiting for you.”

The next day I stepped into the arctic chill that was the Flowered Manor office.

“Hey, Kevin, the lawn mower died again.”

“What?” he cried, looking up from the game of solitaire he was playing on his computer. In the three weeks I’d been working here, it was really just about all I ever saw him do. “You’re kidding. This is like the third time this week.”

“Fourth.” And I’d been in here telling him about it every time, too. Kevin didn’t seem to have a whole lot of concern that I wasn’t going to be able to do the work he was paying me for. But I did. I had oceans of concern. “And I’ve done everything I know how to do to keep it running. Can you get someone to take a look at it? It’s in the field.”

“Can you ask Ben to have a look-see?” he asked, unable to make eye contact for very long. As though the solitaire had magnetic powers over his eyeballs.

“Sure,” I sighed and opened the door back, the hot air rushing into the small office.

“Oh, hey, I think there’s a package for you.”

“For me?”

“Well, it’s addressed to Layla. I figure that was you last time. Must be you again.”

The wild thump of my heart was ridiculous.

“Where is it?”

“There.” Kevin waved his hand behind him toward the far end of the counter, where a white box sat tied with a red ribbon.

For some reason just looking at that package made me blush. It looked like a secret. A delicious, dirty secret.

“I’m…it’s…Layla is my middle name.”

“Whatever,” he said, clicking on a Jack of Hearts. “Ask Ben to look at the mower.”

“I will.” Clutching the box to my chest and acting as nonchalant as I could, I raced back to my trailer to open it in private.

I set it down on the table and pulled one end of the red ribbon, until the bow came undone and the box opened a little. Like it took a deep breath. There was the name of a bakery in Asheville embossed in gold on the front. Looked fancy. My fancy scale was skewed to the low side, and so this was the fanciest thing I’d ever seen.

There was a note folded on top.

Call me.

That was all it said.

I lifted the lid to find a large piece of yellow cake with white icing covered in coconut. It was oozing sugary, creamy liquid.

Smiling, I went to grab my phone.

As I had become accustomed, he answered on the first ring.

“You got it?” he asked.

“It’s beautiful. What is it?”

“Tres leches cake.”

“Your favorite thing for breakfast,” I sighed, touched so much that he’d gone to this effort.

“I couldn’t let you settle for that shitty experience. Try it.”

“I will. I just wanted to thank you—”

“Try it while you’re talking to me, Layla.”

I swallowed and blinked. This…this seemed oddly intimate.

A chill raced over my skin, and my nipples were hard. My mouth was salivating. It was a full-body response to this gift. To its implications. I was…utterly charmed.

Delighted.

Turned on.

By cake.

By Dylan.

I smiled and pulled one of my three forks out of the drawer.

The first bite made me moan. “Oh my God,” I sighed. “That’s…that’s amazing.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s so moist. And sweet. Really sweet. It’s kind of carmelly somehow and coconutty.”

“That’s how my mom made it. With the coconut.”

I took another bite, the sweetness gathering in the back of my throat. “Oh, God…Dylan. It’s so good.”

He was breathing hard. I was breathing hard.

I felt the emptiness inside of me. The place in my body where he would go if he were here. I wondered, suddenly, what else he would do if he were here.

“The frosting is whipped cream.” I put some on my finger and sucked it off.

“Do that again,” he said. “That sound.”

“I’m sucking the whipped cream off my finger.”

He groaned a little, in the back of his throat.

“It’s perfect,” I whispered. “It’s so perfect.”

“Take another bite,” he said.

I did. Moaning, because I knew somehow that was really what he wanted to hear.

“No more,” I said.

“What?”

“I want to save it. Stretch it out.”

“You’re the kind of kid who had her Halloween candy until Easter, aren’t you?”

“I didn’t get to trick-or-treat much,” I said, putting the box of cake in the fridge. My body was humming, from the sweetness of the cake.

The sweetness of him.

“But usually, I’m…greedy. I like all my treats at once.” The door closed with a small snick. “You don’t have to do these things, you know.”

“What things?”

“These…nice things.”

“I like to do these nice things.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” I said, smiling a little. Enjoying playing coy. Because I knew how to thank him. I knew what he wanted. I wanted it too.

“Take off your clothes, Layla,” he breathed. “I’ll tell you how you can thank me.”

I went back into my bedroom and did every single thing he told me to do. I didn’t think, not for even a second, of saying no to him.

“You can do it, baby,” he breathed, when I was sobbing that I couldn’t take any more. I had three fingers in my pussy and my clit was on fire. He wouldn’t let me touch it. “I want you to do it.”

He wanted it, so I did too. I wanted it for myself, because it felt so sharp and real. Painful and so good at the same time. And I wanted it for him.

I wanted to please him.

So, inside my tight, aching body I slipped a fourth finger. I was stuffed, so full. Too full. My hand hurt, my arm ached. My body was shaking.

“Dylan,” I whimpered. “Please…”

“Now, you can touch your clit.”

I did. And the world exploded. My world exploded. It was dark and bright at the same time. And I didn’t recognize myself in it. I didn’t recognize my body, as if it had been fundamentally changed by this pleasure.