Bitch

Author's Note:

This story is about a bitch named Thalia Taylor. She thinks people call her that because she's unapologetic, confident, and honest. Only her best friend since childhood, Liam, knows the truth: Thalia Taylor is a fake bitch.

This story contains erotic scenes but they take some time to get to. You can also expect outspoken female characters, questionable decisions, and character growth. It is posted in its entirety.

He was hunting me.

I could sense him nearby. There was no sound; every footstep muffled expertly, barely a whisper against the hard ground. There was nothing to see; the darkness was thick and the fog thicker, so heavy that even my shallow breathing disturbed it. Even still, my eyes darted back and forth, searching for any sign of him.

He was the cat, toying with me, teasing me, stalking me. I had no choice but to huddle in the corner, quiet as the mouse he thought I was, waiting for his inevitable discovery.

It was only a stroke of luck that tipped me off; the slightest stumble just to my left. I reacted instantly, darting out from the alcove I'd tucked myself into. He raised the gun as I flew past him, shooting wildly, the brief flashes of light illuminating the grin on his face.

"Get back here!" he hissed, all too aware of the fact that he might be overheard, but by the time he corrected his feet, I was already diving behind another wall.

Hunting turned to chasing; I had just enough time to reposition myself before he barrelled around the corner.

"Got you," he said gleefully.

Before he could pull the trigger again, I did the only thing I could think of, the only thing that might save me from what felt like an inevitable demise: I grabbed the front of his vest and pulled. The sudden movement threw him off and he stumbled.

"Wha—" he gasped.

The look of surprise on his face was the last thing I saw before I cut him off, pressing his mouth against mine eagerly. I felt him inhale sharply as our lips touched, a single moment of stiff tension jolting through him before he relaxed, just slightly, just enough to brush his fingers against the birthmark on the side of my neck.

It was a good kiss, I had to give myself credit for that. It was heated and earnest and I felt it, every single bit of it shiver through my entire body. It surprised me, almost, the way that kiss jolted through me. With anyone else, I might have melted against his body, wrapped my arms around him and urged him on until I could wrap my legs around him, too.

But that wasn't what I was there for.

I slipped my tongue into his mouth; he groaned softly, just distracted enough to not notice me move my torso away from his. Still kissing him, I raised my gun and pressed it to the target on his chest.

"I'm sorry," I whispered against his lips.

His eyes flew open and he jerked away, but it was too late: I pulled the trigger.

There was a single beat; a clear moment of silence where betrayal filled his eyes and I felt guilty, strangely guilty, almost embarrassed at my deceit.

"Seriously?" he asked, stepping back.

The target on his chest blinked, three sad mechanical notes playing as his gun went dead, and the lights flew on.

"That's game!" someone called.

I looked up at Liam, biting my lip and trying not to smirk.

"Sorry," I said.

His cheeks turned pink and he stepped back.

"Yeah," he said, chuckling awkwardly. "Yeah, no, that was clever. Cunning, really."

"Liam, I—"

"Technically against the rules though," he said. "For the record, laser tag is supposed to be no contact."

"You're right. I'll tell everyone I cheated by kissing you."

"No!" Liam's face went redder still. "You won. Fair and square."

"It was just a kiss," I said.

He shot me that bright smile of his, good-natured and casual. "Good game, Thalia. Really. You got me, but I'll get you back."

I grinned and punched him lightly on the arm. "Don't threaten me with a good time, kid."

"Kid? I'm six months older than you!"

"Oh, six whole months?"

He snickered. "Okay. Five months, three weeks, and four days. Five in a leap year."

He slung his arm around my shoulders as we walked out of the laser tag arena to our friends, half of whom were cheering and half of whom were groaning at the prospect of paying my team's bar tab that night.

"You should hook up with him."

I tore my eyes away and looked at Liam, barely able to hide the disgust on my face.

"Carson?"

"Yeah. He's into you."

I snorted. "I'm not into him."

"Could give him a chance. See what's up."

I twisted the silver-plated rings on my middle finger and studied Carson for a moment. Tall, lithe, and preppy, Carson hardly looked like the type to be sensitive and moody, but I knew he was. I wrinkled my nose and looked back at Liam.

"I'd destroy him."

Liam grinned. "He'd be into that."

"Sure he would," I said sarcastically. "Come on, Liam. You know I don't date people just because."

"I know." The bartender took Liam's cash and started putting pints on the bar in front of us. "I also know you haven't been with anyone in a while, and you're starting to get that look."

"What look?"

"You know the one." His eyes sparkled from behind his glasses as he glanced at me. "The 'If-I-don't-get-laid-soon-I'm-gonna-buy-a-three-pack-of-cucumbers-and—'"

"You are absolutely disgusting." I picked up two of the pint glasses and glared at Liam. "As if I'd use cucumbers for that. I'm a modern woman, Liam. I own at least four different vibrators."

His cheeks turned red, but he laughed as I stuck my tongue out at him and marched back to the table. Setting one of the pints down in my spot, I slid the other across the table to Hannah. She shook her head and passed it down to Carson, who was sitting just to her left.

"No more for me," she said. "I'm a lightweight. Two's the limit. Liam said he'd grab me a Shirley Temple."

She drawled Liam's name, almost reverent in the way she said it, and I snorted.

"Come on. Gotta build that tolerance up."

"You can only do so much when you're as small as I am," she said lightly.

"Well, luckily I've got a fat ass, so more beer for me." I took a huge gulp as Carson laughed.

"You don't have a fat ass," he said. "I think it's perfectly proportionate."

If it weren't for the fact that Liam's words were still ringing in my ears—he's into you, he'd said—I might have brushed the comment off. Instead, I got that gross feeling in the pit of my stomach, that uncomfortable little twinge of disgust mixed with suspicion.

"What are you doing staring at my ass, Carson?" I shot back.

He sputtered for a moment and Hannah rolled her eyes.

"Ignore her," she said. "She wouldn't know a compliment if it bit her on her aforementioned fat ass."

"Ah, fuck you," I said. "I'm fine with my ass the way it is, but that doesn't mean I want people ogling it."

"I leave you alone for five minutes and you're already talking about your ass?" Liam said, sitting down beside me. He passed some of the pints to the others at the table and handed a Shirley Temple to Hannah.

"Didn't mean to offend you," Carson said stiffly.

I waved a hand at him. "It's fine. Just remember I'm a person, okay? I'm not defined by the size of my ass."

"I wasn't trying to—"

"Don't push it," Hannah advised. "Thalia saying 'it's fine' is the best you can hope for. Take it as a win."

"Who invited you again?" I asked Hannah.

"Speaking of wins," Liam said loudly. "A toast to the Blue Team for a kick-ass game of laser tag today. Congrats, guys."

"Damn straight," said Patricia from down the table. "Kicked your asses, for sure."

We raised our glasses and clinked them around. I drank another large gulp after knocking my beer against Hannah's Shirley Temple, simultaneously grateful and irked by Liam's interruption. On the one hand, I knew he was just trying to keep the peace. I knew as well as anyone, except maybe Liam, that Hannah had a huge crush on him. Everyone knew just as well that I found Hannah annoying, including Hannah. Given that Liam was my best friend, she had one of two options: be on my good side, or try to come between Liam and me. She'd very clearly picked option two.

On the other hand, Liam also knew I hated people speaking over me almost as much as I hated people speaking for me. He shot an apologetic look at me after I refused to clink my glass against his, and leaned in after I finished drinking.

"Don't hate me," he whispered, his voice throaty and pleadingly warm.

"Of course I don't hate you," I whispered back. "I absolutely love it when people cut in and decide the conversation's over without letting me make decisions for myself."

"That wasn't what I was doing, and you know it."

I glared at him a moment longer, then sighed. "You're right, you asshole."

"What's all this whispering, then?" Carson asked loudly. "You two seem to be pretty darn close."

"Uh, yeah," I said. "Liam and I have been friends since we were literally in diapers."

"Well, I think I had graduated to Pull-Ups," Liam said.

"Is that really it?" Carson teased. "I dunno, Liam, after all that bragging you did about how good you are at laser tag, only to lose to Thalia, who admittedly had never even played before... I think you may have double-crossed us, my friend."

"Oh, come on," Liam groaned. "I told you, she caught me off guard. Beginner's luck."

Not technically a lie, I decided.

"Well, just goes to show who you'd want around if you were ever in trouble." Carson slid closer to Hannah so he could lean across the table, grinning mischievously at me. "I only got taken out because three people ganged up on me. In a dark alley, I'd be far more capable of protecting you than Liam here would."

"Is that so," I said flatly. "And why, exactly, would I need your protection?"

"You know," Carson said. "In case of, like, robbers or something."

"Mmm," I said, unimpressed. "And you don't think I'm capable of protecting myself?"

Liam winced but didn't say anything.

"I didn't say that," Carson said. "I just mean, you know, if you and I were out together sometime, I'd be able to look out for you."

"Well, there's your first problem," I said. "You and I wouldn't be out together sometime."

Hannah seemed to forget that we didn't like each other and positively cackled. "Good one."

Carson smiled, tension tightening his lips. "Yikes, you don't hold back."

"Sure don't," I said casually.

I expected him to respond to me, maybe even to insult me, but Carson turned his sights on Liam again.

"So buddy, what's the deal, then? How'd you manage to lose to a total beginner?"

I tried not to fight Liam's battles for him. He knew that it annoyed me when he spoke up on my behalf; I knew he was embarrassed when I got fired up on his behalf. After all, we'd been best friends for almost twenty years. We knew those things about each other, and more.

Frankly, I would have been surprised if there was anything I didn't know about Liam. I couldn't remember a time where I hadn't known him. My mom and Liam's mom knew each other from some granola-hippie-mom's group they'd been a part of, and when Mom decided to open her organic-plastic-free-vegan-soap-and-body-products-collective-shop after I was born, Mrs. Northway offered to take me into her home-based daycare.

Other than me and Liam, though, I don't remember any other kids who were at the dayhome. It might have been that there weren't any, or it might have been that we were just best friends from day one.

One of the things I knew very well about Liam was how badly what Carson was saying would hurt him. To most people, it would seem like friendly ribbing, jokes between guys who felt the need to swing their dicks around to prove their worth. To Liam, though, it was a reminder of his dad, and the way his dad had belittled him growing up.

Just thinking of Liam's dad made my heart beat faster as anger welled up in me. Ever since Liam was a little kid, he'd never been quite good enough. Everything he did was mocked by that shitstain of a man; Liam was never good enough, strong enough, manly enough; as if a seven-year-old kid should be concerned with how masculine he is. That in itself was bad enough; what Liam's mom had to deal with was even worse.

I don't remember him specifically telling me that his dad would hit his mom, just that we both knew. He made me promise to keep it a secret, and one of my biggest regrets was not understanding enough to tell anyone. We were too young, really, to understand, but if I'd managed to figure it out, it would've saved Liam and his mom a lot of years of pain. As it stood, he was nearly eleven when his mom finally found the strength to leave his dad.

Liam was the strongest person I knew. Even having something as horrible as that in his past, he was cheerful and kind, if maybe just a little too shy. He was optimistic and hopeful, clumsy and hardworking, and I was lucky to be his best friend.

As his best friend, I knew him well enough to notice when he started getting that slightly-constipated-mostly-anxiety-ridden look on his face while Carson was teasing him. He tried to mask it with his usual charming half-smile, but he clearly wasn't enjoying himself.

"Dude, it's just laser tag," Liam said uncomfortably. "If it's that big a deal, I'll pay your share of the tab."

"That's not what I'm saying," Carson replied. "I'm just saying for such a big talker, you sure didn't live up to the hype."

"Leave him alone," I said. "It's literally just laser tag. It's a kids' game."

"Tell me your secret method, then," Carson said. "How do I beat this guy next time?"

"It's a secret."

"Oh, so there is a secret method!" he exclaimed. "Come on, what do I have to do next time?"

"I very much doubt you'd want to use my method," I said coldly.

His eyes widened and he looked over at Liam. "Damn, dude. Throw the game and you got to cop a feel or...?"

Patricia's mouth dropped open and Hannah made a high-pitched scoffing sound, but Carson ignored both of them.

"Come on, man," Liam said. "I wouldn't do that."

"I might, I mean have you seen Thalia's—"

"Enough." Liam placed his glass on the table firmly. "Don't talk about her like that."

"I'm sitting right here," I said to Carson. "You realize that, right? That I can hear you being a fucking pig about this?"

"Oh, I'm just joking. Lighten up." He rolled his eyes again.

"I kissed him," I said. "Okay? I kissed Liam. It's not a big deal because we're friends and we have been for years. It was just a stupid trick to catch him off-guard. You, on the other hand, are disgusting. Don't talk about my tits, don't talk about my ass, don't talk to me, okay?"

Hannah glanced from me to Liam, then back to me.

"Wait, so you kissed him, like, as a joke? That's so mean."

"Liam's fine with it," I said.

"Yep," he agreed quickly.

Hannah's nose twitched just the slightest bit. "Well, fine. But I think you're overreacting. Like, you're being kind of a bitch to Carson. He was clearly joking."

"If not wanting some guy to talk about how he'd throw a game of laser tag so he could feel me up is bitchy, then I guess I'm just a fucking bitch then," I said sarcastically.

"And kind of a loudmouth," Hannah added helpfully.

I flipped her off, downed the rest of my beer, and stood up. "You all suck. I'm going to sit over there."

"Okay, so I have an idea."

"Oh no."

I elbowed Liam, jostling him just enough that his beer sloshed out of the red Solo cup. He used the sleeve of his sweater to wipe it up.

"Come on. I swear it's a good one this time."

His hair flopped into his eyes as he shook his head again. "You say that, Thalia, but remember the last time you had a 'good' idea?"

"Four words. Never. Have. I. Ever."

"Nope. No way."

"Come on! It'll be fun. Let's get, I dunno, Mike and Patricia and a couple of others and—"

"We've played this before, and you know all of the things that never have you ever done that I have, and if I agree to this I'll be puking in the bushes outside in, like, half an hour."

"Buzzkill," I grumbled.

He laughed and nudged me back, lingering just a second longer than I had so I knew he was just teasing me. "What about Sociables? Keeps us on an even playing field."

Mostly I just wanted to get drunk, so Sociables it was. I gathered as many people as I could, unfortunately including Hannah and Carson, and we settled around Mike's kitchen table.

The rules of Sociables should be simple. Draw a card, perform the action associated with that card, and move on to the next player. In theory, it's easy. With this group, though, it was a gong show. Rule cards were always obscure and difficult to follow, the inexplicable presence of the imaginary little green man was vehemently defended, and the Question Master was a shade too complicated for my alcohol-addled brain.

The first card I drew was a two: give two drinks to another player. I, of course, picked Liam. When it was his turn, he drew an eight: the Buddy card.

"Thalia's my buddy," he said immediately, and drank.

"Bastard," I muttered, and followed suit. Every time Liam drank after that, I had to drink, too.

We were two rounds in when he arrived.

I'd never seen him before. I certainly would remember if I had. He was tall, not lanky but not over-muscled, and he shrugged off a worn leather jacket to reveal arms that were positively covered in tattoos. They snaked along his forearms and under the cuff of a T-shirt that fit him just a little too well, then peeked up over the collar onto his neck. The sides of his head were shaved and his hair was long and styled neatly on top, casually flippant in a perfect way.

"Thalia drinks!" declared Hannah.

"Huh?"

I tore my eyes away from the perfect stranger across the room to see everyone at the table with their thumbs hanging off the edge. Carson was grinning, the Thumb Master card flipped on the table in front of him.

"Finish your drink, Miss Thalia," he teased.

Luckily for me, there were only a few mouthfuls left in my Solo cup. I gulped them down quickly, then slapped my hand on the table.

"I'm done," I said.

Liam burst out laughing and Mike groaned.

"Tapping out already?" he said.

"Lightweight," muttered Hannah.

"Lightweight?" I repeated. "You're drinking Michelob. Is that even 3%?"

She rolled her eyes at me and opened her mouth to respond, but I had already stood up and was pulling myself across the room to the magnetic stranger.

"Hi," I said when I was close enough. "I'm Thalia."

He looked down at me, a sensation I wasn't entirely used to. Some of the men I knew were either my height or slightly taller than me, but most of them were shorter. After a moment, he smiled.

"Markus," he said. "Nice to meet you."

"I like your tattoos."

He smiled, dark eyes sparkling as his eyes flicked down my arm. "I like yours. Your artist did a good job. Are they all animals?"

Without thinking, I extended my arm to him. His fingers were cold as he lifted my forearm closer to him. Boozy thoughts swirled around my head, none quite strong enough to form a statement that sounded anywhere near sophisticated.

"I like animals," I said instead of something sexier.

He chuckled. "Yeah, me too."

I shrugged off the embarrassment. "I haven't seen you around before."

"Me and Markus went to high school together," Carson said, coming up behind me. "How's it going, man? Glad you could make it."

He shook Markus' hand.

"Would've made it sooner if I knew you had such nice friends." Markus' voice was soft but deep, a rolling ball of sex appeal that almost made me blush.