by Tilly Pope
If she were here, she’d tell me everything would be okay. She’d tell me I come from a powerful line of women who were the backbone of their families. She’d tell me that female strength is in my DNA, and that I can get through anything. Whenever she said it, I’d always believed her but now, reciting it to myself, it sounds totally fucking stupid.
I dedicate the cookbook to her, and I’m crying as I send the submission just before midnight. The tears are a mixture of relief, sadness, loss, and rejection. I want someone to celebrate this milestone with me, but I’m all alone.
Thankfully, I wake up the next morning feeling a little less sappy. Robert and Petey take me out to lunch to celebrate sending in the cookbook, and I meet some of my yoga friends after work for cocktails.
Everything goes well until Thursday afternoon when I want to go to the store and discover my car won’t start, and it isn’t the first time. It’s an old 1995 Toyota Camry that can be temperamental at the best of times, and after over an hour of trying to get her to start, I realize it’s time to call an auto repair shop.
Dara McKinley mentioned that his brothers did auto repairs, and he’d give me a discount next time I came in, since the coffeemaker took longer to fix than he planned. I call over there and a nice, deep-voiced guy answers and tells me he’ll send someone right over to look at the car.
I sit back in my seat feeling a little less stressed, since I figure if Dara’s brothers are as good with cars as he is with my coffeemaker, then the car will be fine.
Fifteen minutes later a truck pulls up next to me, and a man steps out. I only see his torso from my vantage point in the driver’s seat, but I swear I’d recognize those pecs and biceps anywhere.
Oh. My. God. It’s Aidan.
He knocks on the roof of my car and when I open the door; I try to paste on an innocent smile for him as I get out. I must fail though, because no sooner do his eyes meet mine, he’s openly staring back at me. His mouth moves like he’s trying to speak, but he doesn’t quite know what to say.
I’m in the same boat, standing there looking at him like I’ve seen a ghost, or in this case, the man who ghosted me.
“Colleen,” he finally spits out.
“Hi, Aidan,” I say, raising my hand for the world’s most awkward wave.
“Is this your car?” he asks, pointing past me to the vehicle I just stepped out of.
I raise an eyebrow, thinking it’s a kinder way of saying “Yeah, duh!”
“What seems to be the problem?” he asks, moving away from me and around to the hood.
“I don’t know. I got in and tried to start her up, but nothing happens. Just an awful screeching sound every time I turn the key,” I explain as I duck my head back into the car and pull the lever to pop the hood.
When I look back up, he’s already lifted the hood and I’m treated to the sight of Aidan’s magnificent ass as he bends over the left side of the car, checking something under there. I move a little closer behind him, but all I can see is his scruffy jawline, his long, tanned neck, and those shoulders. Shoulders that lead to the best pair of arms in the world; his muscles twitching and flexing as he fiddles with something in the engine.
After a few minutes, he stands up and heads toward his work truck in silence. He comes back with a toolbox, which he sets on the ground. I watch him as he goes back to work on the car and there’s a sound of metal clinking on metal, then he gets out from under the hood and comes toward me.
I step out of the way, tripping on a hole in the asphalt and stumbling, but he catches me. One muscular hand comes to the small of my back, and his other to my hip as he draws me back up straight again. A look of searing hot need passes between us, and I wonder if he’s going to kiss me, but he immediately drops his hand and leans inside the car, turning the key in the ignition. The screeching sound starts again, and his shoulders hunch. I imagine his brow furrowing as he tries to figure out what’s wrong.
I can still feel the warmth of his hands on me fifteen minutes later when he finally fixes whatever was wrong with the car. The heat from his fingers has left warm patches on my skin, and though I know I’m exaggerating, I can’t help but wonder if I’ll find the outline of his hands on my body when I go to take a shower.
I feel a tingle between my legs and my mind races with that thought. I imagine Aidan joining me in it, soaping his hands up before rubbing them up and down my body, making me feel both deliciously clean and sinfully dirty at the same time.
I imagine him dropping to his knees, spreading my legs, and burying his head between them.
“Uh, Colleen? Are you okay?” I look up to find he’s been speaking to me for God knows how long.
“Sorry! I was thinking about um… my… uh cookbook!” I lie.
“Right, of course,” he nods, avoiding my eyes as he switches his toolbox from one hand to the other.
“So, is she all fixed?” I ask, nodding toward the car.
“Yup. It was just a loose belt. Easily fixed,” he says, running a hand through his hair. I notice he has little freckles dotting his hairline, and I have the strangest urge to reach up on my tiptoes and kiss them.
I refrain since that would be uncalled for and weird, but the urge to touch him remains. Even with how angry I am at him for how he treated me, I still want him. He’s impossible to resist.
“Do I owe you anything?” I ask, trying to distract myself.
“Nope!” he says, a little more aggressively than necessary.
I raise my eyebrows in surprise, and he explains. “It’s the least I could do. After…you know...”
“After you fucking stood me up?” I say, not caring how bitter it comes out.
“Yeah. Look, I’m really sorry about that,” he says, shoving his hand in his pocket. He looks so uncomfortable. I almost feel bad for him. Almost.
“Whatever, Aidan. If you didn’t want to go out with me, you could have just told me. I’m a big girl. I can handle rejection, but I have a hard time handling guys who string me along and then suddenly ghost me the day before a date. It’s hurtful and disrespectful.”
I glare at him, and when his eyes finally rise to meet mine, I see he’s struggling with something. He doesn’t just look contrite or guilty. He looks…sad? Confused? Angry? I’m not sure. I don’t know him well enough to tell. He didn’t give me the chance to get to know him well enough.
“I didn’t reject you. Or at least, I didn’t mean to,” he says, setting the toolbox down. “Colleen, it’s not what you think. Please, let me explain.”
I cross my arms, both wanting to hear what he has to say, and knowing that whatever excuse he gives me won’t be enough. But because I’m a sucker for a sob story, I say, “Go ahead. Explain.”
7
Aidan
“I had every intention of going on a date with you, Colleen. I mean, you’re beautiful, you’re smart, and you’re a foodie. You’re basically my dream girl.” It sounds lame coming out of my mouth and I worry she’ll think I’m bullshitting her, but when I look up, I see a slight smile flash across her face. Encouraged, I continue.
“I wanted to go on a date with you, but after I texted you, I got caught up in this flashback of hurt and emotions and… well, I wasn’t exactly in the right state of mind.” I feel myself getting riled up just talking about it so I take a deep breath before I continue. Colleen, saint that she is, waits patiently with no discernible emotion on her face.
“I broke up with my ex-girlfriend a few months ago and it was bad. Terrible. She’d cheated on me and one day, I walked in on her and a friend of mine having sex on the couch we’d just bought together a few weeks before.” Colleen winces, and her face melts into a sympathetic expression.
“That’s awful. I’m so sorry, Aidan,” she says, and I can tell she really means it.
“Thanks, yeah, it was. We’d been dating for three years, moved in together, and I thought she was the girl I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Being rejected like that was… well, it kind of f
ucked up my head. A lot,” I say, shaking my head.
She gives me an understanding nod, gesturing for me to continue.
“I’ve always been an introvert, but these last few months I’ve turned into a loner. I go to the shop, the gym, then I go home. I talk as little as I can get away with and spend most of my free time by myself. I haven’t dated anyone. Hell, I haven’t even really talked to a girl until you. I’m…”
“Afraid to let anyone else in? In case they hurt you again?” she fills in like she’s reading my mind.
“Exactly,” I say. She seems to know me so well and we’ve barely spoken. Has Dara’s impersonation of me via text messages been accurate enough that she has a clear picture of me in her mind? I don’t know whether to be happy or angered by that but, either way, I like being understood, especially from a woman as sexy as Colleen.
“I know how you feel because I’m in the same situation. My boyfriend broke up with me when I moved back here last year. It devastated me. We met at chef school and I thought we were destined to be together as well,” Colleen tells me, nervously shoving a lock of hair behind her ear.
A spark of jealousy flies through me at the mention of her ex, but I try to ignore it. I can’t let my emotions get the better of me. I want to listen to her. Whatever she has to say is important, and besides, what right do I have to be jealous, when I’m not even her boyfriend? As of right now, I’m nothing to her, thanks to my own asinine antics.
“My grandma died and left me her house. I grew up visiting her here every summer, and I always wanted to come back. Pythos is my home. But he didn’t understand. He didn’t get how I could choose some podunk desert town over a city like L.A., with all its opportunities,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’ve just thrown myself into my work since we broke up. I got the house set up, got a job at the store, and spend almost all my free time working on my food blog. Oh, and a cookbook contest I’m trying to win and get it published. I thought they’d be enough to make me happy, but they aren’t. They can’t make up for human interaction, or intimacy,” she says, her cheeks flushing at that last word.
I’m feeling heat, too, but not in my cheeks. It’s much lower than that, and I move to adjust my pants.
“Yeah, I hear ya. On one hand, I’m afraid of getting hurt again, on the other, I want to get back to normal, whatever that is. After I felt a connection to you at the grocery store, all those feelings of anger and resentment about my ex resurfaced. So I just figured I wasn’t ready to date again. Especially not with you,” I say.
Colleen frowns, and when I realize the implication of my words, I add, “What I mean is, you deserve someone who’s devoted to you. Someone who focuses all their attention on you and doesn’t have any emotional baggage distracting them.”
She softens, a smile appearing on her lips, but she shakes her head at me. “Aidan, that’s silly. Everyone has emotional baggage. It comes with the territory of being an adult. I would’ve liked you, despite your emotional scars, as long as you accepted mine.”
“Would have?” I ask, hating that she’s using past tense.
“Well, it’s not like you gave me the opportunity to get to know you. You texted me non-stop for a week, then suddenly ghosted me. You didn’t even give me a chance,” she says, with a hint of sadness.
And now comes the part where I have to explain that she hasn’t been texting me, she’s been texting Dara. Awkward. I suck in a deep breath and steel myself. I have to be honest with her. If anything’s going to happen between us, it has to start on a foundation of truth.
“See, the thing is, it wasn’t me who texted you. It was my younger brother, Dara,” I say, but I can’t get any more words out before Colleen’s eyes widen and she yells at me, so loud it makes the birds perched in the nearby tree fly away.
“WHAT!?”
“Hold on!” I hold up my hand in surrender and talk quickly, hardly taking a breath between sentences. “Let me explain. Dara accidentally took my phone the day after I texted you. So when you texted me back, he saw it. He realized I was chickening out of going out with you, so he impersonated me. He planned to tell me on Friday, to convince me to go out with you, but I found my phone before he told me.”
“So, what did you do when you found your phone?” she yells, and I can’t help thinking how fucking sexy she looks when she’s angry.
“Well, I read through the texts, confronted Dara, and he confessed. He said I should still go on the date with you, but I was so pissed off at him, Colleen,” I say, hoping she’ll understand. From the look on her face, I don’t think she does. She probably thinks I’m an idiot. “I know it’s a pathetic excuse, but I’m a very private person. I’m the oldest of my family, and to have Dara meddling in my business is embarrassing. I hope you can understand that. Realizing he could do such a passable impersonation of me via text just felt so intrusive and humiliating.”
“Not as humiliating as getting stood up on a date I’d spent a week looking forward to,” Colleen counters. “My first date in over a year,” she adds, driving the knife in deeper.
“Ouch,” I concede. “I’m really sorry. I’ve been a total asshole, but I want to make it up to you. I like you, Colleen…a lot. And while your impression of me is from texts sent by my brother, everything he said about me is true. I love Anthony Bourdain and the Food Network. I spent all last night reading your blog and made all the recipes Dara said I had, and your chocolate cake is so good, I could eat it every day.”
She laughs, which I take as a good sign. Maybe some of her anger is melting away.
“Please, let me take you out. Let me take you to dinner at Chalupas. We can order the entire menu and enjoy the spicy food and you can spend the whole evening telling me what a jackass I’ve been.”
“Fine,” she says, and I nearly whoop for joy, but then she adds a caveat. “But we aren’t going to Chalupas. I’ve eaten a lot of chilaquiles this week. They’re my go-to comfort food.”
“Patricio’s, then?” I suggest, naming the small Italian place near the high school with the checkered tablecloths and sinfully good arrabbiatta sauce.
“Okay,” she says, opening her car door. “But one wrong move and it’s over. You’ll never be welcome in the meat department again,” she says teasingly.
“I’ll pick you up at seven?”
“I can’t wait,” she says, and drives off with a wave out the window.
I practically skip back to my car and pat myself on the back, then rush home to get cleaned up, even though I still have a few hours before our date.
There’s no way I’m taking my dream girl out in grease-stained jeans. Colleen deserves only the best and from now on, that’s exactly what I’m going to give her.
8
Colleen
Tonight is my tenth date with Aidan. It’s been a little over four weeks since he apologized and took me out for the best dinner ever, which also happened to be the night of our first kiss.
Now, I’m finally confident he isn’t going to run out on me. We’ve gotten to know each other on a deeper level. We talk all the time and share our hopes, our fears, our childhoods, and I’m comfortable around him. He makes me feel like I can be myself.
I’m also a ball of raging lady hormones that’s about to explode any second. So far, we’ve avoided taking things to the bedroom. But he’s built… everywhere. Arms, chest, legs, and… cock. I’ve felt it long and thick, pressing up against me through our clothes more than once while we kissed.
I’ve been dreaming about this. I want to have sex with him. Tonight. Not because I know it’ll be amazing, but because I can’t concentrate anymore. Thoughts of him fucking me make it hard to focus on anything, work, blogging, cooking. Even brushing my teeth gives me the shivers.
Thanks to my wickedly dirty thoughts of Aidan, I’ve burned two loaves of bread this week and nearly put salt in a cake, rather than sugar. The situation needs rectifying, and I have a sneaking suspicion he’ll be more than happy with my solution.
I have it all planned out, too. I’m making chilaquiles. The tortillas are hot and ready; the cheese is grated, and the fresh salsa is ready to go.
I’ve bathed, shaved, powdered all my sexy bits and selected my power outfit. A little black dress I bought at a vintage shop years ago. It hugs my curves in all the right places and dips down just low enough that the red lace bralette I’m wearing is on show.
I’ve also made Mexican chocolate cake and I’m going to whip up some Margaritas. I’m excited, if not a little nervous, but tequila always calms me down. And I want everything to be perfect.
I barely finish pouring the cocktails into salt-rimmed glasses when there’s a knock at the front door. I practically leap into the entryway and have to stop myself from throwing the door open and taking Aidan into my arms. Instead, I let my excitement show in my smile as I take his hand and pull him inside.
“Hey there,” I say, planting a soft kiss on his lips.
“Hey, yourself. You look beautiful, Colleen,” His eyes travel from my face down to my chest then lower, all the way to my freshly painted red toenails.
“Thanks,” I say, beaming, and lead him into the kitchen. “Dinner should be ready in a few minutes. I’m almost finished with the eggs and I have fresh chips and guacamole, too.”
“You are the perfect woman,” he says. I know he’s joking, but I feel a warm tingling between my legs. I’m so excited because I know tonight is the night. If I can hold on until after dinner.
Aidan loves the food! I’m so horny and nervous and growing more so during the meal. And to top it off, the butterflies in my stomach are making it hard for me to focus. I was so excited earlier, but now I’m terrified that the next part of our evening will crash and burn. After all, it’s been over a year since I’ve had sex. Over a year since I was naked in front of a man who wasn’t my gyno. What if I can’t satisfy him? Or, what if Aidan doesn’t like what’s underneath my little black dress?