LISA

The words UNKNOWN CALLER flashed on my phone. This year, I'd learned to respond to a ring immediately. But since this wasn't either of my brothers, I left it alone.

When I didn't answer, it stopped, then started up again. I pushed it aside.

It was Friday night, a week after I flipped the lights out on Jennie. In a few hours, she'd be here.

My room was immaculate. Bed made, floor clean. No sign of the tornado that would tear through once she walked in.

I hated messes, but when Jennie came, I welcomed the chaos: clothes on the floor, lights on and off, a hundred different noises ripping holes in the air. Perfume seeping into every crack and lingering after she left. Crumbs in the bed from breakfast.

I'd budgeted for hiring her this semester, but I didn't count on the extras. Quarters for all the laundry I'd do so we'd start with clean sheets, groceries to feed her appetite, time spent considering what would fuck with her the most.

I was thinking about her too much.

My phone buzzed again.

Shutting my laptop, I picked up the device. A stiff February breeze whipped through my open window as I finally registered the one person who'd ever call under a protected number.

It was 9 pm here. That would make it 3 am in Rome.

"Yes," I said into the receiver.

"Lisa?" A woman's voice, low and liquid. "You sound the same."

I stiffened. That voice took me back to a warm May sun, a dusty street in Rome, and all my belongings on the curb while I stared at a locked door.

I'd left a note on that door with my American cell, groveling like a dog.

Last summer, I would have killed for this phone call.

"Well, well, well." I unclenched my jaw and stretched out in my desk chair, keeping my voice controlled. "I thought I'd be hearing from you. You left a scarf in my duffel bag last spring. I can mail it back to Italy, but it'll cost you."

"You're so funny. What will it cost me?"

She was touching herself. I could tell from her breathy little voice and the way she suddenly inhaled, like she was surprised, every so often. I saw her naked, at my mercy, and shook off the image.

A gold hoop earring glinted from the corner of my desk. Must be Jennie's. I ran my finger around the rim, pulling my attention away from the past.

"We'll see how nice I'm feeling."

"What about the watch? Please say you kept that. It looks so beautiful on you."

I didn't reply. Most days, I conveniently forgot who'd bought my watch.

"You're back at school, aren't you? I always forgot that you're a student. You have an old soul."

I pulled my window open all the way, letting in a blast of freezing air, so her voice wouldn't wrap around my dick. "You didn't forget. You just didn't care."

"No, I didn't, did I? I was so bad." Her tone was remorseful, but there was no apology — only invitation.

"Why are you calling, Yoona?"

"I went to that bar tonight. You know the one…" She trailed off. "I didn't go since last year. It brought back memories."

Going to the closet, I flipped through the dress shirts, every one like a page from an album. An entire closet of fucking souvenirs.

"Did you find your next project there?" I said.

"What do you mean?"

She didn't understand the expression. But I refused to give her the advantage by switching to Italian.

"Raw material," I said shortly. "Someone new. Disposable. Another American guy ten years younger than you. A man you could groom and discard."

"Ah." She laughed. "There was no one like you. You were a rare jewel. You could have been great, my tiger. You got scared, though, didn't you? You refused to embrace your true nature. We could have gone so far…"

"No, you got scared." I kept my voice soft. "You were counting on an end date. You never would have taken me in if I wasn't going back to the states."

"What a cruel thing to say." She sighed — a sexy sigh, designed to arouse. "I think enough time has passed. There's an ocean between us. Talk with me now for old time's sake."

I opened Jennie's earring, toying with the mechanism. "I'm not interested."

She laughed. "Then why don't you hang up?"

"Because you're going to hang up first."

There was a short pause as her breathing quickened. "Any new little girls in your life?"

That was another thing. I'd humiliated her in every way during sex, and that shit was a lot more hardcore than what I was doing with Jennie. She'd always begged for more — begged me to bend her and crush her to my will. But every so often, she'd slip in a friendly reminder that I was younger. Less experienced in the ways of the world. She barely came up to my chest, but her words never failed to make me feel smaller than her.

"There's a new woman, yeah." I said.

"Does she need it like I do?" she purred. "I can't see you being satisfied with anything less."

My jaw tightened. "I'm satisfied."

"Oh, but you have…needs. Very big appetites. Can she handle you like I could?"

I stood in front of the window, staring out at the snow. Her voice stirred so many fucking memories.

"She's nothing like you," I said calmly. "She's honest. She couldn't manipulate someone if you gave her private lessons in how to do it, you lying bitch."

"Yesss... Keep going…" Her breath came faster. "I could give her private lessons in so many other things... How to please you best... What you need the most… But I know I was nothing to you, just a warm place to cum…"

She wanted me to dig the fuck in and go to town on her. I was giving her exactly what she'd called for.

I sucked in a lungful of wintry air. Thought about a smoke for the first time in months. Pulled myself back from the edge and pictured Jennie.

"Lisa?"

I was tempted to draw out the silence, just to make her squirm.

"Hang up, Yoona. Don't call me again."

"I don't want to hang up." Her insistence was sing-songy, pouty. "I know what you need. You need to say the most angry, humiliating, filthy things to me, like you always did, and make me feel tiny. Just tonight, and I'll make you come so hard in return. Please, oh please…"

Always? She was wrong. Humiliating and filthy, yes. But angry — I'd never gotten angry with her, until ten minutes before I left that apartment for good.

"Did you know I was in love with you?" I asked softly. Only her inhales punctuated the silence. "Bet that just killed your mood."

More silence. Soft breathing. Then a click.

I stretched, popped my neck, and opened the windows all the way. Since coming back from Italy, I'd always needed to keep a window open. I hated feeling contained. Yoona's apartment had been beautiful: minimalist lines, stark black and white, with an architect's eye for structure. I'd been grateful every day to wake up on her exquisitely soft sheets.

But in the end, that apartment had become a beautiful cage.

Someone knocked on my door.

"Yeah?" I turned toward the sound.

"It's Ulloa," a cheery voice shouted. "You want to go out with us?"

I opened the door. James Ulloa, Jennie's friend, stood in the hall in a winter coat, his mop of hair falling over his forehead.

"Jeez." He gestured at the windows. "It's cold as fuck in here."

Five of us crossed the hard-packed snow and icy campus paths. James Parker and James Ulloa led the way. Chase and Rufus were goofing around. I didn't pay attention to the conversation, didn't even listen to where we were headed. My hand clenched Yoona's silk scarf. It had sat in my closet for too long.

"…Hear some decent music," Chase was saying. "Right?"

He glanced at me. I shrugged, and he shook his head. Every so often, I'd catch that expression on his face: What happened to you, man? Who are you? Parker and Ulloa started arguing about which bands were playing around town tonight.

As we passed a dumpster, I pulled the scarf from my coat pocket and pitched it in. The guys stopped, hushed by the black-and-white square floating elegantly onto a pile of trash.

Chase broke the reverent silence. "Ex-girlfriend's shit?"

"Something like that."

He whooped. Parker let out a cheer. Rufus did a slow clap, and Ulloa smiled awkwardly. The show of solidarity was brief, but touching.

When the excitement died down, Ulloa leaned in. "That's not Jennie's, is it?"

"No."

He looked relieved. "You guys still seeing each other?"

I gave a brief nod.

"IDs?" A bouncer held out a meaty hand under the glow of a neon sign. We'd reached the bar without my noticing. Normally, I paid close attention to my surroundings. Living in Rome had taught me that much.

Inside, a band played at one end of the darkened room. I ordered a can of club soda while Parker tried to flirt with the bartender. Ice clinked against glass when she set down his gin and tonic. He made a joke, and she brushed him off like she was swatting a fly.

The clink of ice was a trigger for some, but for me, the twist of a bottle cap was all it took to drag me back to Italy. To waking up alone, unshaven and unshowered, after everything went to hell with Yoona, with the taste of alcohol sour in my mouth.

In the heart of Rome, there'd been an American-style college bar. When my cohort suggested going, I thought they were joking.

We had nine short months in one of the world's greatest cities. I'd come here to get away from my small town. Escape the suffocation that followed me to college. Here, I could breathe. They wanted to waste precious time at the same fucking bar they could find at home?

But I went along to be affable. I did a lot of that back then.

I watched the other guys flirt with local girls. I didn't try to pick anyone up.

For years, I'd pushed down what I wanted with women. The girls I dated were sweet, nice, and I always tried so fucking hard to be a good partner. Attentive. Understanding. They never knew what I fantasized about when we were together, or what I got off to when we were apart.

Someone sat down beside me.

Her hair was dark and tousled, her dress tight and white. She was older, around thirty, pretty and petite.

"I'm hoping we can talk." Her accent was a soft lilt. "I think we have a lot to talk about."

"Do we?" I studied her.

"I'm so very sorry about my English." She fidgeted, nibbling her finger. Suddenly she seemed much younger.

"No, your English is incredible," I hurried to say. "It's way better than my Italian."

I was about to ask her to teach me a few words, flirt that way, keep the conversation going, but she lowered her chin and gave me a long look. That look packed a lecture into a single stare.

Then she tucked her hair behind her ear and her posture shifted into little-girl again.

"It's terrible. I don't know how you can listen to me." She toyed with the neckline of her dress, giving me a flash of teardrop tit. I went from a little turned on to rock-hard in a rush.

The truth slammed into me so fast: I knew what she was asking for, I knew what she wanted.

"Yeah, I guess you have a few things to learn," I said carefully.

"I have so much to learn." She looked up at me through her eyelashes. "But I don't know who could stand to teach me."

"You're a handful, aren't you?" I lowered my voice so it was for her ears alone. "I bet you're a pain in the ass."

She bit her full lower lip. "You have no idea."

Abruptly, I pushed my chair back and left the bar.

For hours, I walked the cobblestone streets of the city I had a hopeless crush on, taking in the polished marble sculptures, the beauty shaped by the elements, the classical perfection enduring rough treatment, terrified of what I wanted. What she offered.

I'd convinced myself I was a bad man, and it took constant vigilance to be good.

For three weeks, I avoided that bar. Until I caved.

Again, I sat with a beer. Again, I watched my friends try to ply their game. The TVs flickered around us.

"You're back."

The girlish voice came from below. I looked down and saw the same woman. Christ Almighty, she was kneeling at my feet, gazing up at me like I was her only hope.

"What do you want?" My voice was harsh. I didn't try to soften it.

She put her hand on my knee. I wanted to throw her against the wall and take her. "Come outside."

I'd learned a few things in Rome since I arrived, and they weren't all art or economics. My pocket had been picked; I'd been conned at the train station. I was less trusting.

"No." I stood, looming over her. Her lips parted, and she scrambled to her feet.

"I want to show you something."

"You want to show me something, you show it to me here."

"But—" She held up her hand.

"Do it."

Her eyes glazed over. The way she looked up at me, Christ, the power flooded my body.

Glancing around the crowded bar, her hesitation so fucking convincing, she slowly, slowly tugged down the collar of her blouse, exposing the smoothness of her neck, and let her head fall back.

"Try," she murmured. "Just a taste."

I took the bait. Just a taste. I wrapped a hand around the back of her neck. I sucked her soft skin into my mouth, hard and harder, until she cried out and dropped a curse I didn't understand.

"Come home with me," she whispered.

"No."

"Why not? Because for the first time in your life, you might get what you want?"

How did she know? It scared me.

"No," I repeated. "Because you don't tell me what to do. Understand?"

Her eyes lit up, then dropped.

"Yes." The little quiver in her lip was perfect. "You tell me what to do. Anything."

The room swam, and I couldn't blame it on two-euro beer.

"Outside." I made my voice cool and sharp. "Now."

That night was the beginning.

Once I moved in with her, I forgot my friends. Didn't call my family for months. I burned every bridge I had and let the flames consume the nice guy I'd pretended to be.

I was insane for her.

I fell in love with a city.

I fell at her feet, even though she was the one kneeling.

Everything I had to give, she wanted. The darkest, most depraved fantasies. Then she begged for more. And in the end, it wasn't enough.

Obsession wasn't pretty. It was an ugly, all-consuming thing. The drive to create a world that only held two people, to escape reality, to blot out the rest of life.

When I came back to the States, I swore my obsessions were in the past. That energy went to working out. Studying. Researching. Counting the weeks until I graduated.

But desire snaked through the cracks, coiling in the corners, climbing the walls.

I needed boundaries so I'd never lose myself in someone else again.

Then I saw Jennie.

Her hair — dark and alive, curling up in the humid party air, showing its kinks.

Her hands — busy with her tight shirt as it rode up her stomach, smoothing her leggings over her round hips, plucking at that low neckline like she was torn about showing such tempting cleavage.

Her body — restless, active, all muscle under the softness. A mass of potential energy, crushed and hidden. A bomb waiting to go off.

She was grinding tamely with her friends, wriggling and laughing when one of them tried to kiss her, putting on a display for everyone else's benefit while acknowledging none of her own desires.

I was projecting. I'd spent too much time alone.

Then she looked at me.

The eye contact held much longer than I expected. She fought to maintain it, her cheeks flushed, her eyes coffee-dark, her excitement broadcasting loud and clear across the room. This was a girl who always tried so hard. This was a girl who put other people first. But she wasn't nice at all underneath.

I wanted to take her home. I wanted to fuck the living daylights out of her, screwing her from behind, running possessive hands over her skin, slapping the sexy squish of her curves while she cursed me out and her whole body reddened with shame and excitement. It didn't occur to me put boundaries on the encounter with money or anything else. It probably would have been a disaster.

When her lizard boyfriend and her "best friend" interrupted us, Kai was a lot happier ignoring the truth. And when Jennie eyed me furtively as I scribbled a message on a napkin, she didn't catch her "friend" running a finger inside her boyfriend's collar, over his skin.

But what I saw were three people who were lying to themselves and each other.

"Hey, Manoban! What's the story with your girl?" Chase yelled over the music.

My eyes pulled away from his beer. Didn't even realize I was staring at it.

"My girl?"

"Jennie."

"Nothing." I shrugged.

He sipped from his bottle. "She's over, like, every other night. That's a lot of nothing."

Rufus snorted and gulped his beer.

"Yeah?" Parker perked up.

"Every Monday and Wednesday," Chase announced. "I hear she comes Fridays, too."

A leggy redhead brushed past me, smelling of men's cologne.

On the last day I saw her, Yoona had come home soaked in another man's scent. A game — I knew that now. I was getting too soft with her, too loving. She didn't want my tenderness, or even my fidelity. She'd brought other women home so she could see her tiger, her exotic pet, unleashed on her willing friends. Like a fool, I'd lived out every fantasy, never thinking of the cost, until I said I wanted only her.

So she fucked another man to provoke me to be harsher. Crueler. Go further with her than I was willing to go.

I couldn't remember what happened during those last ten minutes in her apartment. One of her expensive chairs lay in pieces on the floor, surrounded by a shattered vase. A huge mirror was cracked. I didn't lay a hand on her; I could say that much. I left, desperate to gain control of myself, and came back to find the locks changed on that gorgeous cage.

Too many memories were crowding in. The shitty room I'd rented after Yoona kicked me out. The empty packs of cigarettes piling up in the corner. The sea of booze that never let me forget.

Chase offered me a beer. I shook my head.

"You and Rufus ever leave that back door?" I asked him. "Or do you live out there now?"

The band finished with a crash of cymbals, acknowledged the applause, and got their gear off the stage. A new one took their place, tuning up and calling out to their adoring fans. Girls, half-drunk, surged toward the stage, their necks craned to see.

After Yoona, I'd stumbled the streets of Rome over and over, squinting at the statues under the hot sun, their stone faces flashing in and out of my vision. I'd toured the Coliseum countless times, alone in a summer that felt like a bad dream.

I wanted control. I wanted the distraction of Jennie. Now.

Palming my phone, I turned toward the door.

"So who's this Kim girl?" Parker broke in.

"C'mon, you know who she is." Chase elbowed Parker. "Cheerleader, hair down to her ass, showed up last spring to bake Ulloa cookies."

"Riiiiight." Parker grinned. Ulloa turned his drink around in his hands, uncomfortable. I turned back to face the guys.

"She's not a cheerleader anymore," I said.

"Could've fooled me," Chase snickered. "Shit, I can hear her yelling all the way down the hall. She's not quiet. What're you doing to her in there?"

I straightened up. "That's enough."

The guys grumbled, but the flare died down. Onstage, the new band kicked in. I scanned the crowd, barely registering the lead singer's whiny voice.

Ulloa leaned in. "Thanks for respecting Jennie," he said in an undertone. "I'm glad you're together. Her last boyfriend...I mean, he was the nicest guy in the world, but it seemed like he was more into her than the other way around."

I turned my soda can around in my hands. "Yeah, that never ends well."

Ulloa pointed to the stage. "That's actually him up there. Jongin Kai. You know him?"

I hadn't looked closely. There was Jennie's ex, strutting and peacocking onstage, his lank black hair hanging in his face. He ran a hand through it and gazed around with hooded eyes. Some girl screamed out an indecent proposal.

"I met him once," I said noncommittally.

"Nice, right? But yeah, things never end well when it's one-sided." Ulloa finished off his drink. "I went through that last spring. I was so broken up over my girlfriend leaving, and Jennie was there for me. She tell you that? Man, she listened to me for hours, talked me down from the ledge. I don't know what I would've done without her. Probably dropped out of school."

It was hard to imagine Jennie listening to someone else for hours. The girl needed to talk like she needed air to breathe.

"So you guys grew up together?" My club soda was finished. I'd drunk it without noticing.

His curly hair bounced as he nodded. "Our families live a few blocks apart. Jennie always looked out for me. And her sister. Jisoo?" His voice went reverent in the tones reserved for acts of God. "That woman is unreal."

"That's what I've heard." I folded my hands behind my head.

"Once you meet her, you never forget her. And she's unbelievably nice. She'll do anything for anybody."

"I'm interested in Jennie." And I wasn't ever going to meet her sister.

"Of course," Ulloa said hastily. "I didn't mean it like that. Jisoo is special, that's all."

The band finished their first number to shrieking applause. Jennie's ex caressed the mic, raking the crowd with heavy-lidded eyes.

"Thank you so much," he purred. "We love you guys. Now we're going to take things down a notch with a brand-new song I just wrote. It's called 'Good-Luck Charm.' People come into your life, and I believe they each have a purpose. But some people, once they're there, you hope they never leave. 'Cause they're special, and you can't imagine life without them. This one's for my good-luck charm."

There was a stir in the room. I followed the ripple in the crowd, and on the far side, near the front, I saw Jennie.

My body tensed as she tossed back her dark hair. Chase had exaggerated — it didn't hang down to her ass, it hit a couple inches above her waist, outlined by tight black jeans.

Nearby stood her "friend" Rosé, transfixed by the show. Her other friends clustered around her, whispering. She was clearly aware of the attention on her, trying to act flattered, yet humble. Cool and casual. No big deal — that was Jennie's mantra. But a flush spread down her neck and chest.

She hadn't been putting me on; people knew who she was. Her breakup with the lizard was obviously public knowledge.

I wondered if anyone here had the smallest idea of how big a deal things really were to her. If they could guess the intensity burning beneath her jokes and flip comments. If she'd ever allowed anyone else a glimpse of who she was.

The song was a ballad — maudlin, sentimental. It would have bored me if it involved strangers, but I couldn't stop watching Jennie. On either side, people swayed to the music, waving their phones in the air. Her friends wrapped their arms around each other. Rosé's eyes never left the stage. Jennie's shoulders hunched, stiff.

The lyrics went from sappy to personal and uncomfortable. The good-luck charm was drinking more. Passed out on the floor. Pushing away the people she cared about, on a downward spiral. All when he only wanted the best for her.

I saw Jennie blinking in embarrassment and annoyance. Then, realizing people were looking at her, she pasted on a smile, pretending everything was cool, bobbing her head to the music. But she couldn't keep it together for long.

When the lizard slithered into the last chorus, she hefted her purse and pushed through the crowd to the door. Her friends buzzed, staring after her retreating form, but none of them made a move to follow.

Onstage, the lizard flipped back his hair and gazed soulfully at the crowd. His eyes cut to Jennie hurrying out the door, and, fast as a flickering tongue, a smirk crossed his lips.

I'd been wrong. He wasn't a clingy bastard; he was a sadistic fuck. And in my fist, my empty soda can crumpled like it was his shriveled reptilian heart.

I dropped the can on the bar and checked my watch. Weighing down my wrist with links of platinum, a fucking handcuff binding me to the past. The most expensive thing I'd ever owned.

11:15.

Unclasping the band, I held it out to Ulloa.

"Hey, man. You want a watch?"