by Amelia Wilde
“It was the film festival here in town. You and your date were being interviewed.”
He looks amused. “Oh, I remember that.” He laughs and shakes his head. At some memory, I guess. “A friend introduced me to Sarah Morgan before she hit the big time and I agreed to go with her.”
“Sounds fun,” I say, sounding less than enthused.
“Do you know her? She’s a crazy bitch. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough that night.”
“Oh. I thought maybe you two had been a thing.”
He shakes his head, his eyebrows almost raising to his hairline. “Not likely. I like my women low-drama and she’s about as far away from that as you can get.”
I simply nod. I’m sure I’ve probably played my cards and made it obvious that the idea bothers me, but if Cole picks up on it he gives me a free pass because he doesn’t say anything about it.
Underneath the table I toe off one of my high heels and then the other because the leather digging into my skin is beginning to feel like either a new form of BDSM or prisoner-of-war torture.
One of my shoes drops noisily to the floor below and Cole leans back to look under the table.
“Sorry. I can’t wear these any longer. They’re killing me.”
He chuckles. “I don’t understand how you women wear those things. I mean, I’m grateful, but your feet must sting like a bitch in them.”
“Just a little.” I grimace. I bend one of my legs so that I can reach my foot and begin massaging a sore spot.
“Here, let me.” Cole gestures for me to stretch my legs across to the other side of the booth. I’m not sure what to think. But since my feet are screaming for some relief I don’t think long about it. I lean against the bench seat and stretch my legs across and into Cole’s lap. His hands delve beneath the table and take one of my feet gently into his palms.
He begins massaging my foot and oh, my God, I think I could orgasm right here in this booth, it feels so good.
I let a small, satisfied moan escape and close my eyes for a moment.
Cole chuckles. “The look on your face right now reminds me of when you come.”
My eyes snap open. “Excuse me?”
His thumb presses into a divine spot in my arch and my eyes drift closed for a second. He lets a low chuckle escape again.
“I said the expression on your face when you moaned reminded me of when you come.”
It’s safe to say that listening to Cole talk about me coming is a turn-on based on the way my nipples stiffen and I grow wet between the legs.
“H-how would you know?”
That lopsided smirk he has, the one that could probably talk me into doing almost anything with him—and for all I know did that one night we were together—forms on his face and he just grins at me without answering.
“You’re making that up.” I huff and cross my arms over my chest.
He simply shrugs. “Okay.” He sets down the foot he’s working on and exchanges it for the other one.
“Okay?” I say with as much attitude as I can jam into those four little words.
“Okay, if you say so.” He presses his fingers deep into the balls of my foot and damn it, my eyes close again.
He chuckles.
“Seriously, Cole. Tell me.”
“Uh-uh-uh. You’d better be nice to me or I don’t have to tell you anything. Remember our deal?”
“That reminds me. You didn’t tell me anything the last time we were together and I was nice to you all day. You owe me.”
“Hmm. That’s right, but you’re not being nice right now so I think that negates any previous interactions.”
I clench my teeth and suck the skin from my cheeks between them just so I have something to bite down on. In my best sing-song voice I continue. “Cole, will you please tell me what you’re talking about and whether you’re making that up?” I give him a saccharine smile.
“I suppose that will do.”
And then he doesn’t say anything.
“Well?”
“You are so easy to rile up, you know that?” He chuckles.
I release another huff of frustration. “Would. You. Please. Just. Tell. Me?” I grit out.
“All right. All right.” He locks stares with me and doesn’t as much as blink when he says, “You came on my hand.”
“I did not.” I don’t know why I’m arguing because it’s not like I actually know what happened most of that night.
“You did.” He has a smug smile on his face. “Would you like me to tell you about it?”
Pride makes me want to pretend that I don’t care what he has to say, but curiosity and the need to know exactly what we did together win out. “Please,” I say in a small voice.
He leans over the table a bit and lowers his voice to speak. “Well, after we got back to my place and you were all over me you told me how turned on you were and how wet I made you.” Heat rushes into my cheeks and I stiffen and try to pull my feet away from him.
His forehead creases for a second and he pulls them back into his lap and then switches feet again.
“Then I told you that I wanted proof and so first I took your shoes off. Then I slowly peeled your pants down your legs and you stepped out of them. You stood there in your lace underwear looking like every man’s wet dream come to life and I couldn’t resist. I pushed my hand past the waistband of your underwear, over your mound and between the swollen lips of your pussy. You were soaked and it was such a fucking turn-on that I’m surprised I didn’t come in my pants right then and there. I finger-fucked you until you came on my hand. I haven’t been able to get the expression on your face out of my head since it happened. So much so that I’ve jacked off to that image in my mind almost every day.”
He shifts in his seat and… is that? It is.
He’s hard as a rock underneath my feet and I know he knows that I know.
Way to make it sound like a Friends episode, Whit.
His gaze locks with mine and he stops massaging my feet for a second. We sit there like two statues for a moment and I can’t resist. I gently push my foot down to get a better feel for what lies beneath the denim. His long, hard erection under my foot leaves me wanting more. I shift my foot up and down the length of him and his eyes drift closed while he sucks in a breath.
He opens his eyes and pins me with a stare, his eyes full of lust and promises. Promises I really want him to follow through on.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
The voice beside me startles me and I just about jump from my seat. I move to pull my legs away from Cole’s lap, but he grabs a hold of my ankle and stops me.
“Do you want anything?” Cole asks, probably because I’m still sitting here like a mute. He seems like he’s trying to hold back a laugh, but nothing about this situation is funny.
I realize that his waist is under the table so the bartender can’t see, but still. I’m not Cole’s girlfriend, I’m not his anything and the idea of someone else knowing what’s going on is mortifying.
“I’m probably not staying, so I’m good, thanks.”
She glances between the two of us several times before she gives us each a small smile and backs away. She’s not exactly bitchy to me, but she’s not all that friendly either.
“I should probably go.” I pull my feet away from Cole and this time he lets me.
“No, wait.” He places his hand over the top of where mine rests on the table. “Why are you rushing off?” For some reason, he seems genuinely perplexed by this, though I can’t imagine why.
“This”—I motion with my free hand between the two of us—“cannot happen. What just happened was out of hand.”
He tilts his head to the side and grins. “Don’t you mean, out of foot?”
I roll my eyes and scoot to the edge of the booth. “I’m serious. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Cole shrugs. “No complaints here.”
“And that kiss the other day. That can’t happen again eit
her. Anything between us isn’t going to go anywhere, so there’s—”
“And why is that again?”
I can’t say what I’m thinking, which is that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get past the underlying resentment I feel for the man who’s been pivotal in my life veering off course. Though that resentment seems to be taking a back seat lately.
“Because you’re you. And I’m me.” Cole is a ladies’ man and I’ve been disappointed enough by the men in my life to know to stay well clear of a guy like him.
He removes his hand from over the top of mine as if my skin is on fire. “Right. Whatever the hell that means.”
“Can we just concentrate on what we have to do for Tahlia and Chase and forget all that ever happened?”
“Do you want to forget what happened that night with us, too?”
“First I need to know what happened so that I can try to forget. And you’re not being very helpful in that regard.”
“We have a deal.”
“That’s right we do. Part of that deal was that we’d keep our hands off each other and—”
“True, but we never said anything about feet.”
“I’m serious, Cole.”
He raises his hands up in a placating gesture. “Okay. Tell me what it is you want from me.”
Such a loaded question and he knows it, based on the grin on his face.
I cross my arms over my chest and cock a hip. Cole’s gaze darts down to my cleavage and I immediately uncross my arms. “I want you to pick me up tomorrow at eleven so that we can go check out the last few of the locations. Can you do that?”
“Consider it done,” he says and does an exaggerated bow.
“Stop bowing. I’m not royalty.”
He scoffs and shakes his head before running a hand through his hair. “To the right guy, you are.” Without another word, he pivots on his heel and heads deeper into the pub, leaving me stunned and speechless.
19
I’m cuddled on a chair in the living room writing in my journal. Sparky glares at me from the floor, yelping every so often. Eventually, I can’t stand it.
“Fine, come up here, you little monkey.” I place my notebook down open face on the side table and lean forward. I pick up the little fur ball, placing him in my lap. In return, he uses my chest as a prop for his front paws and licks my cheek in thanks.
“Ew, Sparky. Gross.” I use my shirt sleeve to wipe his doggie saliva off my cheek. He doesn’t seem to get the hint because he just stands there panting happily. I pick him up and turn him around, placing him across my lap. When I scratch behind his ears he tilts his head back and closes his eyes.
I roll mine in response, realizing that I’m slowly becoming the slave to this master. When I stop and pick up my book again he lets out a little whine and lowers his head to rest on my leg. I can’t help but think how cute he looks. Then I remind myself of that pair of shoes of mine that he ate last week.
A little while later my grandparents join me. I look up to see my grandpa shuffle into the room. I’ve noticed that he holds onto the furniture sometimes as he navigates his way through the house, almost as if he uses it for balance. I’ve questioned them both on it, but they insist it’s nothing—just all part of getting older.
“I see you two are becoming fast friends,” my grandma says.
I glance down at Sparky for a second. “He kind of forces you to. He won’t quit until you give him what he wants.”
“Reminds me of someone else I know,” my grandpa says before taking a seat in one of the chairs.
My grandma sits and looks over at him. “She was a stubborn child, wasn’t she?”
They both laugh and I can tell that they’re both remembering something from when I was younger.
“I wasn’t that bad.”
My grandma tilts her head. “Sweetheart, you’ve always known what you want and haven’t been afraid to go after it.”
There’s not much I can argue against there so I shrug. When both of your birth parents abandon you, you learn quickly that the only person you can ever truly rely on is yourself.
“I’m going to grab a drink. Anyone else want anything?” I ask.
“Can you grab Sparky a treat? I usually give him one a little before lunch,” my grandma says.
“Sure thing. Where are they?” I ask and set aside my journal.
“In the drawer beside the cutlery.”
“Okay.” I lift Sparky up and rise from the chair.
“If you keep pampering that dog so much, Edna, he’s never going to want to leave,” my grandpa says.
I laugh as I make my way into the kitchen and then yank open the drawer we affectionately always referred to as the junk drawer when I was growing up. Since I don’t see the treats immediately I rifle through and end up pulling out a few notepads, some Scotch tape, and various pens. An envelope catches my eye and I pull it out. There’s a Hillside Retirement Residence logo on the corner.
I know I shouldn’t snoop, but I’m curious and I know that if I ask my grandparents what this is about I won’t get a straight answer. So instead of doing the right thing and respecting my grandparents’ privacy, I pull the papers out to examine them.
It’s an application for the retirement residence and my grandmother has filled it out. The bottom required her to sign and date it and I realize that she filled this out the day before I called and asked if it would be okay for me to move back in with them for a while.
Guilt, hot and fast, pours into my veins, heating me from the inside out. Neither my grandma nor my grandpa has mentioned moving to a retirement community to me. But of course they didn’t. They’ve always put me first regardless of how it would inconvenience their own lives. Case in point—raising a child they never should have had to be responsible for.
I debate whether I should mention anything to them, but quickly decide against it. They’ll only put me off and say it’s not a big deal, they’re happy to have me, blah, blah. But in reality, I’ve prevented them from moving on to the next phase of their life because I haven’t been able to move on to the next phase of my own life.
Nails click on the floor and I look behind me to see Sparky strut into the kitchen. He must sense something is amiss because he walks over to me and nudges my leg with his head and sits down beside it.
“Are you having trouble finding them?” my grandma calls out from the living room.
“Just found them!” I try to keep my voice light and easy, all things I’m not feeling as I shove the papers back into the envelope. I move a couple other things around and finally spot a small bag of treats and pull one out.
Sparky trails me by only a few inches as I walk back to the living room.
“Here you go.” I hand the treat out to my grandma.
“Oh, you can give it to him, sweetheart. You seem to be his favorite anyway.”
Melancholy invades my chest. My grandma is always so sweet and she never fails to put me first. I need to do right by them both and find a job so that I can stand on my own two feet again and allow them to live their golden years the way they want. They’re the only two people I’ve ever allowed myself to rely on in my life and it’s time for me to prove that I really do only need myself.
Me getting that job at the news is even more important now, but if that doesn’t happen I’m going to have to take the first thing I can find. I owe it to the two of them and to myself.
20
“You don’t seem like your usual self. Everything okay?” Cole asks from the driver’s seat of his Jeep.
We’re headed to our second destination of the day. The first venue was a total bust. The pictures online that Tahlia sent me made it look special enough, so I understand why she chose it, but it was worn, dated, and in need of updating. In no way was it fit for the union of the two most prominent families in the city.
“Just a lot on my mind, that’s all.” I continue to stare out at the gray autumn day.
“I’m here if you need to v
ent.”
I glance over and ours eyes lock for a second before safety dictates he look back at the street in front of us. “I’m sure you have better things to do than listen to me complain.”
He reaches over and squeezes my leg, just over the top of my knee. It’s not a sexual thing at all, but any time Cole touches me I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to let him explore my body further.
“I don’t know if you noticed, but all I have is time right now.” He motions to the line of traffic out the front window. “We’re both running around for a wedding that isn’t ours and we’re trapped. Vent away.”
A small, sad smile forms on my face. “I found out that my grandparents planned to move to a retirement community right before I returned home.”
“Okay…” He shifts a bit in his seat. “Why does that upset you?”
I let my head fall back against the headrest and stare up at the roof. “Before I returned home I was working at the local paper in Sacramento. I’d been there since I finished college, but I was fired, laid off… it’s complicated. Anyway, I tried to find another job in town, but it was a bust. When my finances ran out I had to move back in with my grandparents here in the city.”
“Why does it sound like there’s something more to you losing your job than just an ordinary downsizing?” he asks.
This is going to go from a venting session to a full-blown therapy session if I’m not careful. “I made the colossal mistake of sleeping with my boss.” I cover my face in shame.
The oppressive weight of silence in the car threatens to suffocate me. I can’t bring myself to look over at Cole.
“And?”
I sense no judgment in his voice and so I let my hands fall to my lap and peek over at him. “We fooled around for a while and I thought we were dating, but apparently he was dating a few people. Basically, his new treat of the week was uncomfortable with me being around and so he let me go.” My description, as distasteful as it sounds, is being generous as to the character of my former boss. But Cole doesn’t need to hear all the dirty details.
Cole presses on the brake and the car comes to a complete stop. A moment later his large hand covers mine and squeezes.