by Nora Blake
“I’d love to see some of your work.”
Her smile grew as she looked at me. “Really? Okay. I can show you tonight if you want. I’m still learning, but I’m way better than I was a year ago.”
“Tonight sounds perfect.” I kissed her softly. “I should head home and get ready for work. Just come over to my place when you get off.”
“I will.”
“Are you okay?”
Her eyes held mine a moment before nodding.
We stood and she walked me to my truck. After kissing her again and telling her bye, I headed home to get ready.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sarah
I laid next to Aaron in the back of his truck. We got dinner, came out to the track, and ate while I showed him the pictures I had taken over the past year. I loved sharing my passion with him, and it meant even more to me that he was truly interested. I closed out of Instagram and set my phone down.
I caught him staring at me. “What?” My lips curled.
“Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure this is real. I know that sounds stupid, but it’s true.”
I turned onto my side and propped my head up with my hand as I looked down at him. “It’s not stupid.”
“Nick teases me.”
“Nick is an idiot.”
He let out a small laugh. “Tell me about your life the past eleven years.”
“Like what?” I touched his perfectly trimmed beard. “I love your beard, by the way.”
He took my hand and kissed each finger. “I’m glad and tell me anything. Past boyfriends, friends, anything really.”
I thought for a moment and laid back down beside him, looking at the stars. “That’s a lot of information for one night. What are four things you want to know the most?”
“Definitely past boyfriends.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course that’s what you want to know. I didn’t really date much. I was really awkward when we first moved there. I struggled to make friends, but you knew that because we talked about it. When your calls and texts grew fewer, I was forced to start making friends.”
“I’m sorry about that. I really am.”
“It’s in the past, Aaron. It’s fine. I wasn’t the greatest at keeping touch either. Anyway, I went on a couple of dates, but I was never really interested in any of them until Josh.”
“I hate Josh.”
I nudged his side with my elbow and laughed. “You can’t hate him. You don’t know him.”
“It’s my right as your boyfriend to hate any past guys you liked or dated.”
I felt the same about Melany and had no desire to know about any other girls he was with. “Fair enough.
“So … Josh. Tell me more.”
I scrunched my nose. “He ended up being a jerk. We were friends before we dated, and I actually thought I really liked him. Then I found out he was screwing our entire eleventh grade group of girls. Well, almost all of them.”
“Gross.”
I nodded. “Yeah, thankfully we never got that far, or I would’ve gone to a doctor ASAP to get tested for every STD known to man.”
He laughed. “That’s a good thing.”
“We broke up. I spent all of my time with my best friend, Kait, after that. I’d like for you to meet her. She’s awesome.”
“I’d like that. So, what college did you go to?”
“Colleges,” I corrected. “I kept changing my mind. I went to the college we always planned on going to, University of Wisconsin.”
His eyes filled with regret. “I’m sorry I didn’t follow through with that promise.”
I shrugged. “We made that promise when we were kids. I went in hopes that you’d magically appear there. When you didn’t, and I went for a semester, I dropped out and went online for a while. When I changed majors, I changed colleges. I did that several times.”
“I actually finished a four-year degree in agriculture with the plan to go further and get a masters, but then Melany got pregnant and Mr. Jenks offered me a good job back on the farm. I make a good living, but it was never enough for Melany or her parents.”
“So, you and Melany were together for a long time then?”
“On again and off again. We dated in school, broke up, and dated again after we graduated. There was a time when we did like each other. Very rare moments.” He chuckled. “I was actually done with her for good, but one drunken night at a local bar with the buddies, she walked in and Kallon came nine months later. All we were good at was sex. Other than that, we were toxic.”
“So, you were forced to get married?”
He nodded.
“So, then you guys had Keeton.” I was trying to make sense of everything.
He nodded again. “Correct. Then I refused to have sex ever again.”
I burst into laughter. “What?”
He grinned. “It’s true.”
“Okay, so you lived with Melany for all that time and avoided sex? With like, anyone?”
“Nope. No one.”
“For how long?”
“Keeton is three now, so almost four years.”
My eyes widened. “Wow. So … basically, you and Melany were roommates?”
“Roommates who argued every night. Yes.”
I frowned. “Damn.” I thought for a moment and smiled at him. “No wonder Nick keeps trying to get you laid.”
“He thinks I’ll be happier if I get laid,” he said with a laugh.
I grabbed my phone from beside me and scrolled through my messages until I found the one from Nick he sent earlier. It was a meme with the old lady from the Titanic movie with the caption “It’s been 94 years.” Nick followed it with a message that said, “Since my brother’s had sex.”
I was cracking up as I showed it to Aaron. “He has no filter.”
His cheeks flushed as he laughed. “I’m going to kill him.”
“Don’t kill him. He’s entertaining.” I set my phone down and turned on my side so my whole body was facing him. “So, did anything happy happen at all? It sounds like you’ve been through pure hell.”
“Kallon and Keeton are the only happy things that happened.”
I stared at him for a minute. “Aaron?”
“Hmmm?”
“If things were so bad, why didn’t you reach out to me?”
“I kept trying to make things work for the boys. When I finally gave up and we separated, I fell into depression for a bit. Not because the marriage didn’t work, but because my boys didn’t understand why I left. There’s only so much explaining you can do to toddlers.”
“Yeah, but you could’ve called me. When I saw you got married on Facebook, I decided it was best to leave you alone. I didn’t want to complicate things if my feelings for you got out of hand.”
“I thought about you a lot. I wish I would’ve reached out instead of just stalking you on Facebook.”
I laughed. “I stalked you, too.”
He brushed my cheek with his fingers. “I wish I wouldn’t have wasted so much time. I might’ve gotten divorced a lot quicker.”
I shrugged with one shoulder. "Sometimes we think we know what's best until we look back on it later."
“Very true.”
I sat up and ran my fingers through my hair. "One time, in the eleventh grade, I went to this really big party Kait talked me into. It was a college party. I got so wasted and high and I messaged you, only to find out later that I sent the message to the wrong person. I sent it to my dad." My cheeks flushed, still feeling the amount of embarrassment as I felt then. "The content of that message … Well, let's just say my parents had a long talk with me after that."
He burst out laughing. “And what did the message say?”
"Do I really have to tell you? I looked down at him.
“Definitely.” He folded his arms behind his head.
“Okay, but you have to promise never to mention it again. That memory dies here. I swear having to have that talk with my parents scarred
me for life.” I turned to face him and crossed my legs Indian style. I held my pinkie out to him. “Pinkie promise.”
He took his right arm from under his head long enough to hook his pinkie with mine then put it back.
“It all started because some guy was trying to get me to go into a closet with him, and I told him the only guy I’d ever go in a closet with would be Aaron Brown. He kept thinking I was saying Karen not Aaron because my words were so slurred. Anyway, he finally left, and I pulled out my phone. I typed how I wanted to meet you in a closet somewhere and get naked because other guys were stupid and if I was going to get naked and do the nasty it’d only be with a guy named Aaron Brown and that your name happened to be Aaron Brown because you were Aaron Brown. Then I typed out the lyrics to “Pony” by Ginuwine. But it didn’t stop there …”
Aaron was biting his fist to keep from dying laughing. I chuckled and kept going.
“Then I asked if you liked dirty pictures and that I’d be willing to send you some. Keep in mind, I’ve never sent dirty pictures to anyone in my life. I then gave you the address of where I was and told you to come pick me up because I needed to show you how I really felt about you. I then added hashtag, let’s have sex.” I smiled when he lost it and burst into laughter. “Yeah … so next thing I know, my dad is dragging my ass out of the party since dummy here sent the address. The next day after I was sober, I got talked to, put on birth control, and had to explain my secret hardcore crush on you. Then I had to promise that all those times my parents would let me stay at your house or you’d stay at mine, we didn’t do anything.”
He was laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes. “I so wish I had received that text.”
"I would've rather you had than my dad. I made my parents promise to never bring it up again. But as soon as those fuckers found out you were taking me out on a date, guess what they brought up …"
He laughed again. “This is the best story ever.”
I rolled my eyes and laughed. "Scarred me for life."
“I bet.” He sat up and kissed me.
"What would you have done if you had gotten that message? I gotta know."
“I would have drove like hell to get to you and that closet.”
I cracked up laughing. "I love you, Aaron."
“I love you, too.” He kissed me again and laid back, pulling me down on top of him.
“How much do you love me?” I asked as I looked down at him.
“All the way to the stars, Dirt Queen.”
I grinned before leaning down and kissing him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Aaron
I was getting an early start on my Christmas shopping and showing Nick a picture of a necklace I wanted to buy for Sarah. It was a dainty, white gold necklace in the shape of an open heart. Nick smiled just as Sarah came walking into the living room from the kitchen.
“Whatcha lookin’ at?” she asked, and she plopped herself into my lap.
I quickly hid the phone against my chest. “Christmas shopping. Go away.”
She looked at me oddly. “It’s summer.”
“Don’t lie, bro. He was showing me those dirty pictures you sent him. Naughty, naughty,” Nick teased.
“You told him about the message I almost sent!” Sarah gasped.
“Wait, what?” Nick asked, bursting into laughter.
“No! Nick’s just being stupid!” I cut my eyes at him.
“I’m so confused right now,” Nick said as he looked at me.
I shook my head about to tell him to drop it when Sarah used my moment of not paying attention to her advantage and grabbed the phone from me. She tilted her head to the side as she looked at the picture. After a few seconds of looking, she burst into laughter.
I huffed. “Do you not like it?”
She held the phone in front of me. "Aaron …do you not see it?" she asked through her laughter. "It looks like a ball sack!" She laughed even harder.
Nick died laughing. "Holy shit! It does!"
I groaned and took the phone back. “Both of you suck.”
She grabbed my face in her hands, trying so hard to contain her laughter. "Awww, baby, did you really want to buy me a ball sack necklace?"
"Ball sack," Nick repeated, still rolling.
I looked at the picture of it again and chuckled. “Okay, now I see it.”
“Right?” She kissed my forehead before letting go of my face.
“Someone needs to tell that jewelry company,” Nick said, finally calming down. “Man, that’s fuckin’ hilarious.”
Sarah giggled and rested her back against me. I kissed her neck gently, making her shiver a little. I smiled and kissed her neck again, just below her ear, making goosebumps spread across her arms. I liked this game.
Nick stood and headed toward the door. “I’m gonna head out. Thanks for dinner, guys. I’ll see you later.”
“Night,” Sarah called out.
“Night, Nick.”
He smiled at the both of us. “Night.”
After he left, I looked at Sarah. “What do you wanna do?”
“I keep thinking about that chocolate cake in the kitchen.”
I nudged her side a little. “Go get some.”
She kissed my cheek and went into the kitchen. I followed her in and got a plate and knife out for her. She started cutting a piece out of the middle.
“What the hell are you doing?” I chuckled.
She looked at me through her lashes with the sexiest grin on her face. “I don’t like edges.” She put it on the plate and took a bite.
I smirked. “I knew that.”
She nodded and took another bite.
I sat on a barstool and she hopped on the counter, moving so she was sitting in front me, her bare feet resting in my lap. I wondered if she knew just how much she was turning me on. She had to with the way her left foot was playfully caressing my thigh.
And those cut-off shorts, her smooth tan legs …
I watched her take another bite of her cake, thinking about her lips being around something other than her fork. I ran my hands up the back of her calves. She slid the fork out of her mouth slowly, her eyes on mine. Never in my life had I been turned on by someone eating cake.
“Want some?” she asked with an innocent smile. She had no clue. Not the slightest fucking idea what she was doing to me.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood and placed my hands on the counter on each side of her ass. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing right now?”
Her nose wrinkled. “Huh?” She set the plate down. “Eating cake.”
I shook my head. “No. It’s not normal to eat cake like that.”
She laughed. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“All seductive and sexy. It’s not natural.”
She burst into laughter and grabbed her fork, picking up the last bite. “Like this?” She asked before putting the bite into her mouth, then licking the fork nice and slow.
I took the fork from her. “Now you’re just being mean.”
“Aaron?”
I set the fork down. “What?”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
I laughed and leaned forward, kissing the hell out of her. I moved my hands until they were cupping her ass and slid her forward on the counter until she was pressed against me. Her legs wrapped around my waist and her arms around my neck.
Her hands moved down my sides until they reached the bottom of my shirt and we stopped kissing long enough for her to slide it over my head. She tossed it onto the floor.
Her lips trailed the side of my neck until her mouth was against my ear. “Help me off the counter,” she whispered.
I picked her up and set her bare feet on the floor. I kissed her as her hands found the front of my jeans and she started unbuttoning them. She pulled out of the kiss and pulled my pants, along with my boxers, down to the floor. She dropped to her knees and just as my hands knotted in her hair and she was about to rock my fuckin’ w
orld, I heard the front door open and Nick’s voice.
It was too late to warn him. He was already in the kitchen, mouth wide open. I’m sure my expression matched his.
Sarah quickly stood and hid her face against my chest. There wasn’t anything left to do in this situation but laugh. I lost it.
“Tell me when he’s gone,” Sarah said, still hiding her face.
“Sooo, I forgot my phone. Carry on,” Nick said before bolting for the door.
I kissed the top of her head, still laughing. “Baby, he’s gone.”
“I’m gonna die. I’m going to fucking die in your kitchen.”
“No, don’t do that.” I rubbed her back, laughing softly.
She looked up at me. “I can never see him again.” She frowned and smacked my chest playfully. “Stop laughing! This isn’t funny!”
I threw my hands up, rolling at this point. “I can’t help it!” I took a step back and pulled up my pants. I was gonna have to take an extra long shower tonight. “I’m gonna have to set down some ground rules for him.”
She ran her fingers through hair. Poor thing look mortified. “And ground rules like what? It’s not like he could’ve called. He forgot his damn phone!”
“No, he can knock from now on.”
Sarah leaned against the counter and hid her face in her hands. “He’s never gonna let us live this down. Ever.”
“Probably not.”
She threw her head back and groaned.
“So, pick up where we left off?” I teased.
She glared at me. “Nice try. I want to go hide forever.”
I laughed. “Movie?”
She rubbed the back of her neck as she looked at the clock on the microwave. “Sure. Something bloody and where a lot of people die so I can imagine your brother along with them,” she chuckled. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom. I’ll meet you in the living room.”
I nodded and went into the living room, finding a text from Nick.
Nick: Holy shit, man! I am SO sorry! Please tell me you’re still gonna get some tonight.
Me: LOL from my hand in the shower. But it’s fine, don’t beat yourself up over it. Just forget it. Sarah is mortified and I’d like for this to never be brought up again.