Free Cruise Control (Watchers Crew) by Ines Johnson Page B

tried to keep my face passive, but inside my head my thoughts were paddling furiously, like a duck in still waters.  
    The deal Owl and I struck had been that he wouldn’t fuck another girl. We’d said nothing about him watching another girl get fucked.
    He hadn’t touched her. He said he liked to watch. He hadn’t lied. He hadn’t cheated. But still, I felt a sense of betrayal.
    “I don’t know you, Ellie,” I said. “But you look like you don’t have much experience with the world. So I’ll do you a favor and tell you this much: a woman shouldn’t have to share her man. If she shares him with another, then he never was hers to begin with.”
    I cringed at the sound of my mother’s voice coming out of my mouth. The sound of an engine growling halted any further conversation between Ellie and I. Owl pulled up in his car. The growling engine gave the illusion that the dragons on either side of his vehicle were the ones puffing out hot flames from the exhaust.
    Owl hopped out of the driver’s side with his normal cocky grin plastered over his face. He didn’t glance over at Ellie. He came straight for me.  
    “Hey, baby,” he said.
    All I could think of was those dark, intense eyes watching Ellie as she came. Why hadn’t he come over and watched me come instead? What did she have that I didn’t? It had to be that whole innocent thing. I couldn’t compete with that. My innocence had been given away years ago. Suspicion and bitterness were all that was left in its wake.  
    Owl reached for me, but I jerked away from him. I crossed my arms over my chest and turned my head away.
    He frowned, and then he looked over at Ellie. I studied him as he studied her, trying to gage if he lingered on some part of her in particular. Was it the way she dressed? Her breasts? The demure look in her eyes? I could probably mimic that.
    But Owl’s glance was swift. He didn’t linger on any of Ellie’s body parts. He looked her dead in the eye. “Hey, Ellie. Hawk said you needed a ride.”
    He opened the rear passenger door of his car and Ellie climbed in. “Buckle up,” he said to her. “It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
    He shut the door and turned back to me. He leaned against the frame of the car, crossed his arms over his chest, and raised that eyebrow. His body was at ease while mine was coiled with tension.
    His eyes took a slow path from my heels, up my legs. He smiled when he came to my crotch area. It was a secret smile, a possessive smile. He bit his lip when he got to my breasts. Then those calm, cool eyes reached my face. He said nothing. Just like he’d build me up and wait for me to come, he simply waited for my anger and insecurities to explode.
    “Did you fuck her?”
    Owl cocked his head, observing me. “Do you think I fucked her?”  
    Right there, in that moment, I knew he didn’t. But suspicion and jealousy were like a disease inside of me. My own reasoning had never been able to manage the symptoms. I reached for the only thing that had ever been able to temporarily relieve the side effects.
    “I need you to tell me the truth, ” I said. “ I need you to say it.”
    In the past, I’d often caught my boyfriends red-handed. I’d seen Sergio with his hands all over that woman in the club the night I’d met Owl. Sergio had said it wasn’t what I thought it was. If Owl hadn’t have been there, with his hand holding me still, I may have gone back to Sergio because hearing those false words would’ve rung true in my messed up head.
    I didn’t want to leave Owl. I needed him to stay and say the words. To deny any wrongdoing.
    “I wanted to fuck Ellie,” he said.  
    I shut my eyes. Those were not the words I needed to hear. They made the sickness flare. My palms sweat. Hives broke out on my neck. I knew that if I put my hand to my head I’d feel the signs of a fever coming on.
    “But,” he said, “I told you I wouldn’t.”
    I opened my eyes. “She said you watched the others fuck