HABIT, page 13
I don’t bother calling Morgan, instead marching to her dorm, taking the stairs two at a time and hoping I figured the room number right based on the names scribbled on the mailbox downstairs. The Triple-B sign on the door decorated with their names confirms things for me, and I knock before I chicken out.
Several seconds pass and I question whether she’s even here. I wouldn’t blame her for leaving. I basically stood her up. Their room is silent, but to be sure, I knock again and press my ear to the door. I’m about to lean my weight into it when it’s yanked open and I stumble into Morgan’s body. She wraps her arms around me and cushions my fall by stumbling several steps backward until she’s leaning on her desk.
“Wow, look who has a sudden sense of urgency.” She pushes me away and folds her arms. Her pursed lips are a pretty clear hint that she’s pissed.
I sigh and hang my head, knowing I don’t have a good excuse.
“I’m sorry. I had some complicated shit to work out.” I don’t want to tell her my dad doesn’t approve of her, and I’m not in the mood to talk about Toby either, so I leave it at that and hope it’s enough
Her head tilted to the side, she studies me for a beat, probably trying to decide if I’m worth the hassle. I’m not sure I am. She put on her Welles sweatshirt and is wearing black leggings with socks bunched up at the ankles with bright red sneakers. Her hair is split in two with curled ponytails resting on either shoulder. And while her lips are glossed with a soft pink color, she’s not wearing much makeup besides that. Or perhaps I don’t know what to look for when it comes to that kind of stuff. Whatever it is, she looks . . . well, fucking hot like she always does, only somehow more. My eyes give me away as they flit down her body.
“Are we going to get food?” Her question feels out of left field, and I’m caught staring at her hips as I laugh and blink my way back to meet her gaze.
“I mean, do you want food?” I shake my head and shrug, a bit of relief seeping into my lungs, allowing me a full breath.
“Yeah, I want food. I’m hungry, and I want real food,” she demands.
“Like what, pork chops? Potatoes? Dinner salad?”
She grabs a notebook at her side and throws it at my chest. I deflect it to the floor but grab my chest as if she’s speared me.
“Don’t be dramatic. Get me a burger,” she says, grabbing a small bag from her desk that she shoves her phone and keys into, then crosses over her chest and shoulders. I gawk at her as she marches to her door, which is still open from where I barreled through it. She spins around when she enters the hall and gives me the same look my mom does when I’m on her last nerve. Somehow, it’s a lot cuter on Morgan’s face.
She snaps at me.
“Burger.”
I shake my head and follow her lead.
“Yeah, all right. Okay,” I say, exiting her room and waiting in the hall for her to lock the door.
“What are you driving?” she asks the moment her keys leave the lock.
I twist my lips and feel my pocket, glad my family’s truck keys are still in there. I carried them around our apartment after practice while I paced, debating what the hell I was going to do. I pull them out and jingle them.
“Ford, lifted. Glad you wore something you can climb in.”
She walks up to me and stops so our shoulders touch, putting on a bit of a haughty attitude. I think she’s playing now, though. Either way, I like it. She looks down at the thin space between us then back into my eyes, twisting her lips.
“I can climb into a truck wearing pretty much anything,” she says, her brow set at a challenging slant.
I poke my tongue in my cheek.
“Huh,” I say, my immediate thoughts of her in, well, just about anything and stepping up a two-foot lift.
“I’m hungry. Let’s go.” She turns and heads to the stairs, and I follow a few steps behind, wondering how I got so lucky for her to forgive me for putting her off. Of course, she doesn’t exactly know that part, and I don’t want to tell her. Besides, what does any of this matter if the system is set up to favor guys like Toby anyhow?
We get to the parking lot and I press unlock on the key fob, flashing the truck lights.
“Nice rig,” Morgan says, giving me a sideways glance.
A crooked smile etches into my mouth. I get the hint that she’s the kind of girl who likes big trucks. My dad would like that if he simply stopped to get to know her.
I hover at the front bumper while she opens her door and steps up on the running board, lifting herself easily. Our eyes meet through the windshield. She smirks as she tugs her door closed, probably knowing I was waiting around, hoping she needed my help so I could watch the view from behind. I’m so basic.
I hop in the driver’s side, buckle up, and crank the engine before glancing to my side. She looks so good in that seat, nothing like a Boston socialite, but more like a college girl heading off to Texas.
“You know this area better than me. Where’s good?” I ask.
She pulls one of her legs up, tucking it under her as she sits sideways and looks at me. Her cold shoulder is warming to me again. I’m glad.
“Biff’s, which I know sounds so stereotypical, and believe me—it is. But it is also amazing. Like, uh-mazing.” She’s talking with her hands, using them to mime the shape of the burger, and it makes me chuckle.
“What?”
I shake my head and shift into reverse, then check my mirrors.
“You surprise me, that’s all. Here you are, Miss Louis Vuitton, and you love trucks and burgers.” I press the gas and roll us back.
“You should see me haul ass in a Jeep up a steep mountain trail.” She clicks her tongue and shifts back to face forward, proud of her brag.
“I’d like to see that, actually. Very much,” I say through light laughter.
Morgan directs me as we navigate our way further out of town, away from the city, until we come upon a legitimate burger joint off the side of the main highway. I pull us into Biff’s and park at a small intercom box to give our order. It crackles as the guy working speaks through it, asking us what we would like.
I glance to Morgan and suck in my lips.
“No clue. You’re the one who demanded burgers,” I say.
She unbuckles her seat belt and leans over the center console, placing a hand on the seat between my legs as she stretches across my body. “I got this,” she says, her sexy confidence working its way into my veins.
“Two number sevens with extra cheese and hot pickles. Oh, and make the drinks cherry coke with the real stuff.” She turns her head enough to meet my eyes, then flits her gaze down to my crotch before pulling her lips into a tight smile and easing back into her seat.
I’m hypnotized. She could have ordered live octopus with ketchup, and I’d accept it. I slip my credit card into the crusty, ancient machine attached to the call box, not sure if I’m spending twenty bucks or a hundred. I don’t really care.
“The pickles are a test,” she says as I tuck my card back into my wallet, then shove the wallet into the back pocket of my jeans.
“A pickle test,” I reiterate, making sure I heard that right.
“Yup.” Morgan slides down in her seat and props her feet up on the dash. My dad would hate that. I don’t care.
“Biff’s hot pickles are like . . .” She swirls her hand in front of her face with thought. “They’re like truth serum. You know a person’s soul based on how they handle them.”
My brow shoots up and I shift, leaning against my door.
“They sound serious. What if I’m allergic to pickles?”
“Hmmm, I don’t know, James. I think that’s an automatic disqualification,” she teases.
“Pity. I mean, I might be. Sure would hate to risk death.” I challenge her stare with my own, our features trapped in a seductive dare. She glances up and to the side after a few seconds, then shakes her head.
“That is a pity. I guess I’ll have to finish my dinner, then have you take me home.” Her hands move to the bottom of her sweatshirt and she works it up her body, revealing a white skin-tight tank top that scoops low and displays her breasts like the fucking goddess fruits they are.
“Let’s see, two sevens and cherries?” The voice behind me rattles me awake and I turn and take the bag of food from a kid who I guess is a newly minted fifteen. Fucker must like fruit too because his eyes are locked on Morgan’s chest from the moment he stepped up to my truck window.
“Thanks. We’re good,” I say once our order is in my lap and the drinks in the truck cupholders. I flit the young lad away with my hand and press the button to raise the window before he can gawk a second more.
Morgan’s laugh rasps in her chest as her head falls back and her full lips grin from ear to ear. She won this round. And even though I fucking hate pickles, I sure as shit will love these. I dig through the box until I find the small bag. I slip out a spear and lean my head back, dropping the pickle down my throat almost without a single chew.
“Oh . . . James, no . . .” Morgan’s hands are on my arm, attempting to pull my hand from my face as she blurts out a panicked warning. I don’t understand it until three seconds into my pickle consumption when my esophagus literally lights on fire.
“Oh, my God!” I gasp, my voice gone from the burn. I swear my insides are burning up, shriveling, and turning to dust. I don’t know what the hell those things are, but they are evil. Evil!
“Here, drink,” Morgan says, clasping one of the large drinks between her hands and hoisting the straw toward my mouth. I suck in as much cherry coke as I can in one swoop, trying to drown this awful sensation that truly may actually kill me.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, shaking the drink and encouraging me to drink more.
My eyes are watering, and I’m not sure if it’s from suffocating from the fire or because the burn hurts so bad. I gulp down more soda, the carbonation not really helping but the syrup doing the trick. After nearly five minutes of breathing fire, scraping my tongue on napkins, and drinking thirty ounces of cherry Coke, I’m able to use my vocal cords again.
“How’s my soul?” I cough out.
Morgan blinks, then levels me with a long blank stare, clearly confused and probably feeling guilty.
“You said you could read a person’s soul based on how they handle those evil little fuckers.” I reach into the food bag and pull out a handful of fries. I hold them up for her to approve, sort of a safety check that I’m not going to hurt myself ingesting these.
“They’re safe,” she says, her mouth a regretful, pouty smile.
I stare intently at the fries for a beat, as if second-guessing her word, then pop them in my mouth and grin through chewing.
“You passed, by the way,” Morgan says, pulling a napkin from the bag and leaning toward me to dab my chin. I cross my eyes to see what she’s clearing from my face but stop when the thought that I coughed up pickle on myself enters my mind. How embarrassing.
“I passed, huh?” I say, digging back into the bag for my burger.
“Uh huh,” she says, unwrapping hers and pulling the bun from the top before proceeding to layer the inside of her burger with the fire pickles of death. She replaces the bun then takes an enormous bite, giving me a triumphant stare while she chews methodically.
“Trucks. Burgers. And fire-retardant taste buds,” I say.
Morgan laughs and holds a napkin over her mouth. I smirk at her while I continue eating my burger. I’ve never really stared at a person through an entire meal before, but that’s what Morgan and I do. No radio playing. No outside chatter interrupting our quiet. Only the occasional crunch of fries and lettuce and freaky pickles until we’re both left pushing our straws in and out of our drink lids.
I lift a leg up against the seat back and rest my empty cup on my kneecap while my eyes memorize every inch of her face. Her cheeks flush under my scrutiny, and her head falls to the side, resting against the seat back.
“What’s on your mind?” I ask, hoping she’s thinking about how amazing this simple moment is.
“Your soul’s perfect, James Fuentes. Fucking perfect.”
The center of my chest dents. I swear it does. Something inside me cracks open with her words, and I’m rendered speechless. I bite my tongue, smiling from the flattery. As much as I want to stay here in this patchwork parking lot with carloads of families coming and going around us to celebrate Little League games or birthdays or the simple joy of a Wednesday night, I also want to take her somewhere away from it all. Somewhere we can be alone. Maybe I take her where I wanted to in the first place.
“How long can I keep you out?” I ask.
“I’ve got a press release to write for two old ladies at my internship tomorrow at nine a.m. I’m clear until then.” Her mouth curves up on the side closest to the window, the glimmer of light from outside highlighting the perfect shape of her lips.
“I can work with that,” I say, gathering our trash and lowering the window enough to toss it into the trash receptacle.
Morgan shifts in her seat and buckles her safety belt while I pull us back out onto the highway and head toward Southside. She keeps her sweatshirt rolled up in her lap, which makes me downright gleeful because I’m certain she is not wearing a bra. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I swear her nipples are hard.
It’s a thirty-minute drive to where we’re going, and I spend the time trying to unravel the mystery that is Morgan Bentley. I find out that she likes trucks because her half-brother drives one and he used to take her to the shore to camp and go fishing whenever she felt her parents were ignoring her. She also shares how her half-brother came to be discovered, and the countless affairs her father has had. She almost gets nostalgic when she talks about spending holidays at the country house when her grandparents were still alive. And I feel a pang of jealousy that she has those memories because my grandpa died way too soon.
We’re close to our destination when I decide to let down my walls enough to actually show her some of my soul, if you can call it that. It’s definitely the stuff that forms me, and something deep inside tells me it will make her feel less alone to hear how much we’re alike.
“My parents almost divorced last year,” I say, and hearing it out loud rather than whispered by one of my parents in a dark kitchen when they think I’m not listening is somehow liberating.
“But they seem so perfect. How?” Morgan asks.
I think about my parents, the many memories of our close family as I grew up and the way they are now.
“They do seem perfect. And maybe they are, really. Perfect doesn’t mean a straight line. It’s about where you are in the end, the destination and resilience of the journey,” I say.
The cab of the truck hums with the sound of the heater and nothing else, so I glance to my right to check Morgan’s reaction. Her mouth hints at a smile, almost the way the Mona Lisa seems to hide a secret. It’s a little unsettling, and I’m not sure why. I think because I’m afraid she sees someone better than I really am right now. I almost want to challenge her to find all my faults. I’m too greedy to give up the warmth of her admiration though, so I keep my mouth shut and simply bask in it for a few more minutes until I reach our destination.
We pull into the parking garage at the perfect time, and I round the turns quickly, dashing to the top floor and parking on the south end that overlooks the busy train yard below. The cargo cranes glow in the distance as they lift heavy containers, plucking them from the tracks to stack on the cargo ship like a giant game of Jenga.
“Incredible,” Morgan says, releasing her seat belt and scooting forward to rest her arms on the dash, a fist holding her chin in place as she stares. I think she’s kind of incredible, but I keep that thought to myself—for now—content to watch her enjoy a piece of my youth.
“My grandpa used to bring me out here when I was little. He’d pack us a picnic and we’d take the T to the southernmost stop, then ride the elevator up here and just watch them work. He marveled at the industry of it, and I think a part of him always wanted me to grow up to be an engineer or something. You know, some job that got to play with giant toys like that.” I let out a fading laugh at the memory and unlatch my seat belt to lean forward, hugging the steering wheel to take it all in.
“This is how it works. I mean, yeah, consumerism and stuff, but also life. Those containers are probably hauling shoes and clothes overseas, and then they come back with microchips and car parts,” she says, and I hold in my snicker as long as I can because her wonder at it all is so sincere.
“Probably more like grain powders and maybe a crap ton of Nike Airs,” I share.
“I like my version better,” she fires back.
I laugh quietly to myself, glancing to check that she’s still staring ahead at the shipyard.
“I do, too.” I give in.
She rolls her head to the side, resting her cheek on the backs of her hands and staring at me with the same knowing smile as before.
“Why’d you want to bring me here?” she finally asks.
I sit back, twisting to rest my back on my door. There are so many answers I want to respond, and every single one of them is the truth. I wanted to share something important to me and see how she reacted. A part of me was homesick, and I didn’t want to come here alone. This place was always where I went when I needed to think, and after hearing about Toby and Brown, my head is a bit tangled.
Ultimately, though, I give her the most honest reason of all.
“I knew you’d be beautiful in this light,” I say.
Her faint smile stretches slowly, the shift so subtle that I would have missed it if I weren’t staring at her mouth the entire time. Morgan Bentley is the only girl I’ve met whose insides perfectly match the image. She’s a bit of a vixen, but sweet and thoughtful, and unabashedly tender when you get to know her. She feels more than most realize, and she wears her heart on her sleeve. Her heart is coated in this self-made armor that is flimsy at the seams, and I think she’s desperate to tear it away but so afraid of the attacks she may face if she does. She’s hungry to be vulnerable but hell-bent on being strong. And she’s the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen—TikTok and beyond.
