Small Change

by Roan Parrish

  I don’t do this. This isn’t what I do. I don’t moon over guys. I don’t pine. I don’t wonder what they’re doing. I never have. I mean, sure, I’ve had crushes. Usually, though, I just show up and if someone’s appealing, I go for it. It’s always been just sex, except for my monumentally stupid time with Richard.

  But now I’m sitting here on the ground like an idiot because the man I’ve fantasized about, dreamed of, and jerked off to is finally standing in front of me and I do not have a clue what to say.

  He leans toward me, quizzical. “Daniel?” He sounds shocked.

  “Hi,” I say.

  We’re staring at each other. It’s really dark, so he mostly looks like shoulders and hair. He’s wearing jeans and a dark T-shirt with a tear in the neck that’s stretched tight over his muscular frame. He reaches down a hand, but rather than help me up, he pats the dog on the head.

  “I guess she got you back, huh?” Rex says.

  “What? Oh.” I laugh, looking at the dog. “Yeah, I guess she has.”

  Now he reaches one huge hand down to me, his biceps stretching that poor T-shirt even more. His hand is warm, just like I remember it. He pulls me easily to my feet, so easily that he has to grab me by the shoulders to keep me from slamming into him. In this position, I can’t help but think of the last time he held me like this. Up against his kitchen wall, seconds before he kissed me.

  He drops his hands and looks down.

  “What are you doing here?” He doesn’t sound very pleased.

  “Well, I got that job,” I say.

  “Congratulations.” He’s looking at the dog, not me.

  “Oh, yeah, thanks.” I look down too. “Oh shit.” My book is lying in the dirt. It must’ve fallen out of my pocket when I fell. I scoop it up and brush it off, but the cover is torn and there’s mud ground into the last twenty pages or so. “Shoot.”

  “I hope you know how it ends,” Rex says, looking at the muddied book.

  “Yeah, I’ve read it before,” I say, but I feel like I’ve injured a friend. I’ve had this copy for ten years, read its corners round. I put it in my back pocket and try to shake it off. I’m not usually sentimental about shit like this. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t have the heart to check whether my iPod survived the fall; I just stuff my earphones in my hip pocket alongside it.

  “Uh, so... Marilyn?” I say, nodding to the dog. “She seems okay, huh? And she grew a lot, didn’t she?”

  “She’s fine,” Rex says, smiling fondly. “She’s a good dog.”

  “I didn’t know you were going to keep her. I hope—I mean, I hope you didn’t feel obligated or anything.”

  “Nah, I haven’t had a dog in a while. It was time. We get along pretty good. Well, I mean. We get along pretty well.”

  “Why Marilyn?”

  “Like Marilyn Monroe—she just, um—you know, she was a little banged up, so I figured she could use a star’s name. Especially one who took some hits and kept getting back up. Marilyn just needed some taking care of.” He seems a little embarrassed as he explains.

  “Right, of course, movies. I like it,” I tell him, smiling, but actually I’m thinking, Didn’t Marilyn Monroe kill herself?

  “I had a dog called Brando for a little while when I was a kid. My mom named him. Said it was because he was ugly, so the name would balance him out. I just figured it couldn’t hurt.”

  “Look,” I say, “I wanted to thank you. That night... I was a mess. I’m not usually like that, I want you to know. So, thank you for helping me. And—” I laugh nervously. “Also, I want to apologize. I... was kind of all over you and I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable or anything. I mean, it was so cool of you to let me stay and then I just kind of jumped on you and—anyway. So, I’m sorry.”

  I force myself to look up, plastering what I hope is an unconcerned expression on my face: an it-was-casual, no-problem, I’m-not-mortified expression. But the second I look into his eyes, I feel it slide off my face. He looks stern, serious. Like I’ve disappointed him in some way. Or I’m about to.

  But beneath the stern expression is heat. It’s dark and, okay, I can’t see him that well, but I can feel his eyes drinking me in, sliding over my face and my body like he owns them. Me. Like there’s not a force in the world that could stop him from taking whatever he wants from me. And I’ll be damned if I wouldn’t let him.

  When he speaks, though, his voice is calm, controlled, giving away nothing.

  “I kissed you, Daniel. Don’t you remember?”

  “Hell yeah,” I say softly. My eyes are glued to his mouth.

  “I think maybe you want me to kiss you again.” He takes a step toward me. Ninety-eight percent of me is desperate for exactly that. But the other two percent is all of a sudden terrified. Terrified in a way I’ve never been before when it’s come to guys or sex. Terrified because it feels like this may be the most important decision I ever make. More important than deciding to go to college when all my teachers thought I was trouble. More important than sticking my hand down Corey Appleton’s pants in seventh grade, proving to myself that I was gay and I would fuck up anyone who gave me shit about it. More important than applying to grad school or taking this job. I can feel it in my gut.

  I feel myself nodding, but I can’t feel anything else. I can’t smell the trees anymore, can’t hear the irritating chirrup of cicadas that’s been buzzing at my nerves all week. He’s taken up all my senses. Every nerve in my body is tuned to his frequency, every bit of my attention focused on the man in front of me.

  He takes another step forward, pushing me backward with his huge body. But instead of falling, one step puts my back up against a tree. Rex’s chest is right against mine. With every breath he takes, his chest expands, pushing me against the rough bark behind me. He is heat and power and the air between us is electric.

  As if in slow motion, he raises his hand. He places it at my neck, stroking my skin gently with his thumb, then in one powerful movement, he puts pressure on my jaw, tilting my head back and my mouth open and then his mouth is on mine and I’m dissolving into his kiss.

  I moan when he deepens the kiss. He tastes like nighttime, something dark and fathomless and necessary. Then he pulls back. I blink quickly, trying to figure out what made him stop. He’s looking at me, his mouth only a breath away from mine.

  “Lie down, Marilyn,” he commands, and I hear a yawn and the comfortable snuffle of a well-trained dog getting comfortable. He never breaks eye contact.

  “Daniel,” he says in that same voice, and I nod. Nod at whatever he’s asking because whatever he wants I want it too.

  He kisses me deep and hard and I pull his hips toward mine to fit us more tightly together. He moves to my neck, his stubble scraping sweetly across my throat as he kisses my neck slowly and bites the muscle there. I pull in a breath and moan, pushing my hips into his. Every scrape of his teeth sends a pulse to my groin. I’ve gotten hard so fast I’m overwhelmed, like all the blood drained from my head and rushed to my erection.

  His mouth is soft and powerful, and I slide a hand into his hair to guide his lips back to mine. I push up on my tiptoes to get better access. Our kiss is like a conversation: getting to know each other, tilting to find each other, exploring.

  I nip at Rex’s full lower lip and he growls, frustrated, and grabs my ass in his hands, pulling me against him and lifting me off the ground to hold me against the tree with no effort at all. I wrap my thighs around his hips and he thrusts against me.

  I’ve never been with someone so built, and his strength is driving me crazy. It’s like I could do anything to him without hurting him and he could do anything to me, which makes my mind spiral to a thousand places at once.

  He pushes harder against me, spreading my legs with his body until he can grind against me. He’s holding my whole weight like it’s nothing and as he rocks into me he brings our cocks into perfect alignment.

  “Fuck,” I breathe, stiffening with the effort o
f not coming right away. It’s been too long. He eases off a little, still kissing me, and lowers me to the ground.

  “I want to feel you. Can I?” he asks, and he slides one warm palm down the back of my pants, cupping the muscle, running a thick finger between my cheeks. I shiver against him and nod again, going for his pants. He stops my hands and, for a second, I think it’s going to be a repeat of what happened in his cabin all over again. But he just looks at me intently and says, “Tell me I can touch you.”

  “You can touch me—shit!” The second the words leave my mouth, he pushes my pants and underwear down and grabs my ass with both hands.

  “Your book,” he says.

  “Huh?”

  “Your book’s getting all messed up again,” he says, and I look down to where my copy of The Secret History is once again on the ground. Note to self: try not to step on your iPod.

  “’S fine,” I say, reaching for him again.

  He spreads me apart and kisses me with a hunger that makes me tremble as I fumble with his pants. When I finally drag his jeans and boxer briefs down, his erection springs out, hard and thick against his belly. He pushes me back against the tree and thrusts against me and, as our cocks meet skin to skin for the first time, we both moan. He’s all hardness and heat and he bites his lip and looks into my eyes as he rocks against me.

  “C’mere,” Rex says, and he lifts me again, pulling me against his body, my back against the trunk of the tree. As he holds me steady, I thrust against him and shudder with pleasure. He groans and runs possessive hands over my lower back and hips. He spreads the globes of my ass and runs a thick finger down the crevice between them, circling my opening and making me shiver and clench up. He brings his finger up to my mouth and I suck on it. Then there’s wetness at my opening, wringing tiny shudders from me. He leans in to kiss me hard, sucks on my lower lip, and strokes me open. I cry out into Rex’s mouth as his finger slides inside.

  ✕ ✕ ✕

  Can a scrappy professor, an intense carpenter, and a stray dog make a go of it in their cabin in the woods? READ THE FULL BOOK NOW!

  Acknowledgments

  My first thank you goes to everyone who read In the Middle of Somewhere and told me how much you wanted to read Ginger’s story. I hope you’re as happy about how it turned out as Ginger is!

  Thank you to my wonderful beta readers who gave me such useful feedback on Small Change.

  I couldn’t have written this at all without the brilliant brains of Anni and Jenny, who dug deep into multiple drafts and commiserated with me about the horrors of patriarchy and the possibility of romance despite it. My dearest thanks for not just putting up with my angst about this book, but empathizing with it and helping me turn it into something positive.

  Thank you to Natasha Snow for her beautiful work on this cover. And to Julia Ganis, whose strong editorial eye made my first foray into self-publishing a joy.

  I’m so grateful to the folks who answered my many questions about the vagaries of self-publishing and shared their experiences with the process.

  Thank you to my agent, Courtney Miller-Callihan, who encouraged me in this project from the beginning.

  Finally, a huge thanks to all my amazing readers. Because of you, I’m excited to keep writing this series; I hope you’ll keep reading it!

  ABOUT ROAN PARRISH

  Roan Parrish lives in Philadelphia where she is gradually attempting to write love stories in every genre.

  When not writing, she can usually be found cutting her friends’ hair, meandering through whatever city she’s in while listening to torch songs and melodic death metal, or cooking overly elaborate meals. She loves bonfires, winter beaches, minor chord harmonies, and self-tattooing. One time she may or may not have baked a six-layer chocolate cake and then thrown it out the window in a fit of pique.

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  The Middle of Somewhere Series:

  In the Middle of Somewhere

  Out of Nowhere

  Where We Left Off