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. To cling to someone who could deliver her fantasies of a different life, regardless of how false they were.

Jaylin could give that to her. For a price.

"It's almost time." It had been a long day, and his voice was threaded from wear. There was something starved in Olivia that drove him to the point of exhaustion every time. Or maybe it was the fear, the thrill that they'd be caught. They found an exhilarating danger in one another—a break from the dull and mundane. And more importantly, a kind of vendetta that was sweet and bitter on the tongue, like chocolate.

Of course, on the rare occasion, he would hear Tisper’s voice in his head, warning him: One day, Tyler’s going to find out. Jaylin wasn’t sure whether he dreaded that day, or anticipated it with every fiber of his eager, burning soul.

“I should go soon,” he said to the shadows on the ceiling.

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 Black. She was a mess, wrapped in the body of a siren. A glutton for punishment, a zealot for bad decisions. But when she spoke, it was with the voice of an angel. A total symphony to the ears.

She was a beautiful woman regardless, and Jaylin thought, maybe in another life, he could love her. But in this one, he couldn’t even bring himself to kiss her on the lips. Each time he came close, he could not shake the thought of whose lips had been there before his.

It was a shame Olivia Black was the way that she was. Broken, like everyone else in this place. Broken like him.

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 eager 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 louder than any words could have.

Olivia had always been so difficult. So easily wounded.

"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.

Jaylin was 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. For today. Jaylin couldn’t help but kick the feeling that Tisper was right. Tyler was going to find out one day. On that day, Jaylin hoped for lilies on his grave, not roses. He hated the way roses smelled. Not that it'd matter to a dead man.

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 look. "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’d crossed a line last week, showing up at her place to watch her from the shadows of that ugly ass Camaro.

Beating the shit out of it wasn’t a threat, exactly. Not even a message, really. More of a…memo.

"He shouldn't be hanging around here," Jaylin said. "It was about time someone let him know. 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.” He raised his poorly muscled arms to the air and frowned. "Do you know how badly my muscles 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. Once upon a time, he and Matt had been the same size. But over the years, Matt grew wide and tall and somewhat buff from living on his dad’s farm, while Jaylin damn near stayed the same. "Damn," he grumbled as if he had never noticed before.

"Just embrace it already,” Tisper commented, sweeping the broom bristles over his feet. “You'd be surprised how well small guys bode in the dating world."

Jaylin sighed and let his eyes fall shut. Five-foot-seven. Five-foot-seven, and several summers measured on a beat-up door frame, praying for a single centimeter more. Jaylin was envious of Tisper for her build, and the way she stretched tall and thin like taffy.

He thought of saying so before remembering that Tisper probably envied him for his short stature. That if she could trade sizes with him, she would in a heartbeat. Then he swallowed his words and winced at the sharp edges as they went down.

"So…" 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."

She stalked off to the counter and readied a pan of water to boil. A thump of childlike excitement lunged in Jaylin’s 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 analyzed her posture—her tense expression. She was afraid.

"Yeah," he replied, "of course." He gestured to the pot of boiling water. “As long as that’s for me.”

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 the thought 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. And tell her he did, in a voice as small as he felt, “I can’t take what he took from me. I have to take something.”

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.