Be Angry

The door clicked shut behind Will.

Emily stood in the middle of the living room, arms at her sides, fists clenched without realizing.

The silence was thick. Deeper than before.

She could still smell them in the room. Beer, sweat, that faint trace of cologne Will always overused. Frank’s aftershave. Jamal’s sharp cedar scent. She’d kissed each of them on the cheek like some tired matriarch seeing off her boys. But it hadn’t felt ceremonial.

It had felt necessary.

She turned without a word and walked to the stairs.

Jason was up there. Had been for over an hour now, slumped in bed, still dressed, snoring like a goddamn bear. She’d gone up to check when they hit the final hand—he hadn’t even stirred when she shut the door.

He wouldn’t remember a thing in the morning.

Too drunk. Too smug. Too far gone in his own ego to grasp what he’d actually done tonight. What he’d risked. What he’d put on the table.

Me.

Not as a joke.

Not as a dare.

But as a thing to wager.

Emily’s fingers tightened on the banister as she reached the landing. She didn’t look in on him. Didn’t care to.

She was pissed at the others too. Frank, for not stopping him. Jamal, for not calling it out. Even Will, for playing along.

But none of them had put her up like an extra chip. Only Jason had done that. With her handwriting in his hand and a laugh in his voice like it didn’t matter.

She entered the bathroom and shut the door behind her.

The tile was cold. She didn’t turn on the fan. Just pulled her tank over her head, tugged off her shorts, peeled down her underwear. Her skin was flushed—not from embarrassment, but from fury. From heat that hadn’t left since the kiss, since Will’s voice cracked on “I’m saying no.”

She turned on the water. Hot. As hot as she could stand. Steam curled around the edges of the glass before she even stepped in.

Under the spray, she let the heat burn the surface of it out of her.

Not the rage—that stayed—but the raw, vibrating edge that had started to creep toward something else. Something worse. Something needy.

Will’s words kept echoing.

"It was a dick move. I shouldn't have done it. That I did makes me an asshole. And this thing is, like, everything I've dreamed about since that night."

She'd expected sleaze. Worship, maybe. But not shame. Not honesty.

He was eight years younger than her.

Probably had never had a real girlfriend. Probably didn’t know what it was like to be looked at every day like you were just the background of someone else’s life. To be kissed on the forehead out of habit instead of desire.

And yet—he’d seen her. Two months ago. Before she’d lost the last of the baby weight. Before she’d found her new shape. Before she felt remotely like herself.

And he’d still thought she was worth stealing a picture of.

Still touched himself to that image.

Still came to this house every month, knowing he’d never have her—and dreaming anyway.

It was disgusting.

It was flattering.

It was human.

And it hit harder than anything Jason had said to her in weeks.

Emily stepped out of the shower dripping, water sliding down her thighs, her belly, between the curve of her breasts. She didn’t reach for a towel. She stood in front of the mirror, her breath fogging up the glass.

The droplets clung to her shoulders, her hips, her stomach—softer than it once was, but strong.

She tilted her chin slightly. Met her own eyes.

And wondered—

How would Will see her right now?