All Rhodes Lead Here

by Mariana Zapata

People cried over endings, but sometimes you had to cry over new beginnings. I wouldn’t forget what I’d left. But I was going to be excited—at least as much as I could be—about this start and however it would end.

Because you had to remember the shitty parts of life to appreciate the good.

No one ever told you how hard it was to make friends as an adult. But it was hard. Real hard.

Me? Mad? Hahahahahahahaha I would set his Rolls-Royce on fire if I had the chance and sleep just fine.

“Telling your car to fuck itself didn’t make it turn on?”

What it was about a man in uniform, I had no idea, but I was pretty sure my mouth watered there for a second.

I’d just cry myself to sleep at night. No biggie.

Sometimes, maybe even more often than just sometimes, you were better off alone. Sometimes you had to learn to be your own best friend. To put yourself first.

He was the DILF to end all DILFs.

“I think you are, but I’m sure Reiner Kulti used to think he had room to improve.”

“Angel… that’s not a hawk. It’s a golden eagle.”

I watched his thighs and butt the whole time. I wasn’t proud of myself.

I looked at him over my shoulder. His jaw was tight again. The lines across his forehead were back too. “You look beautiful,” Mr. Rhodes said in that careful, somber voice a heartbeat later. “He’s an idiot for looking at anyone else.”

“Who says I don’t like you?”

And suddenly, my little heart swelled. Rhodes’s best friend and his wife wanted to have a child but couldn’t, and he’d agreed, but insisted on being a part of the baby’s life. He’d wanted to be a dad too. Did he think he’d never have kids on his own? With someone else? It was… it was beautiful.

“We don’t get to choose who the people we love become or are, but you do get to pick if you want to stick around. If we want them to know that too, that they’re worth sticking around for.

“I’m scared of animals that carry diseases, heights, and disappointing people. I’m not scared of dying.”

“You’re a menace to society, but I’m off the clock,” he said. “Show me what you got.”

“He sounds like a fucking moron.”

“I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re going to be okay, angel.”

It was like he’d gotten back and decided… something.

You could have heard someone fart from all the way in the employee bathroom after that. He’d called me sweetheart.

Who was this man and how could I buy him?

“I know how I want you to feel, but I’m not rushing you. I know how I feel. I haven’t changed my mind about anything, especially not you. I only want you to be sure of what you want.”

So just because I don’t know what your mouth tastes like yet doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to.

He might as well have pinned me down and licked down my body, because I’d never heard anything more erotic or amazing in my life.

Decent people understood that there were reasons for everything and that there were two sides to every story.