by Sarina Bowen
She tilts her head. “If you mean make love to me by fucking me and really meaning it, then yes. I love you too. Did I say that?”
“You did.” I reach behind her and unclasp her bra. She let it drops to the floor. She pulls my pants and boxers down and I kick them off. My dick is at full, uhm, staff. Salute. Whatever. It’s bigger and harder than it’s ever been. So I point to it. “Get on this. Now.”
44 FINALLY
Tom’s Dick
Yes! What he said! Come to papa! Last one in is a…
Ahhhhhh. Right…there.
Finally.
45 Pillow Talk
Brynn
Tom has the hotel room for the whole weekend. I don’t understand why, and so I ask him while we’re lying in bed together, me snuggled into him, my hand playing with the hair on his chest. He’s such a man, you know? “Why did you get a hotel when you have your huge cold mansion in East Grand Rapids?”
“That answers it right there.”
“It does?”
“You said huge. Cold. Mansion.”
“I did?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that was rude of me. Even if it’s true. That place has no soul. Except the boathouse. I could live in that boathouse. Or the kitchen.”
I seem to have lost my filter. That’s what happens when you’re sexually satisfied and curled up beside the right guy. You stop worrying about every little thing.
“That place isn’t me,” he says. “Well, it’s not me now. It was me…when I was trying to be perfect.”
“You seem pretty perfect to me.”
“Perfect for you, maybe.” He smiles. I snuggle in a little closer. “I’m going to ask Braht to put it on the market. After I do a little more work on it.”
“Really?”
“Yep. I’m done with that place. It took me nine seasons of Mr. Fixit Quick to realize that you can’t build a home out of luxury tile and premium cabinetry. I’ve been trying to do that for a long time.” He picks up my hand and admires the moonstone, seemingly lost in thought.
“Here’s a question, though.” I should be panicking now, but I’m not. “If you sell your mansion, where will you live?”
“Hmmm.” He rubs his hand down my arm, and I start to tingle all over again. “I was thinking…” Rub-rub. “There’s this delightful Victorian in Eastown with a banister that really needs some attention.”
“Does it?”
“Its floor is slanted and needs some help. And the kitchen needs to be updated.”
“It probably needs to be really updated. It needs to double in size. But I don’t own that place, remember?” Do I? I’m feeling a little lightheaded because I think he just implied that he wanted to move in with me.
Last week that would have sounded scary, but I’m starting to realize it’s not. Relationships are awesome with someone like Tom in your life.
He rubs my stomach, and I feel lazier than a cat in the sun.
“I’m going to buy another place, Brynn. And this one won’t be cold. I know it’s a lot to ask, but maybe I could spend some time at your place while I’m between houses?”
“I like that idea a lot,” I whisper.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah…” I’m trying to focus on what he’s saying and not that, while he’s stroking me, the covers covering his legs are starting to tent.
“I want a cottage on Lake Michigan,” he says.
“Wow, really?”
“Really. Unless you hate that idea. Because wherever I’m going, I’m hoping to take you with me.”
Right now I have to say something to him. Something big and scary. The thing is, though, I want to do things right this time, and that means being honest and vulnerable. Showing my tender belly in the hopes that he’ll rub it.
“I’ll go with you,” I say. “But the thing is, I don’t want you to make a home for me.”
He shifts a little, there’s this pause, and then, “You don’t?” He sounds hurt. But I’m not finished.
“I want you to make a home with me.” I let that sink in. I can feel him relax into the idea.
“You mean like partners?”
“More like a family. You and me.”
He kisses me softly in response.
This is a very exciting idea. Almost as exciting as the tent Tom is pitching beside me. Cottages and tents are my new favorite things. “Ungh. I want you and all of that. And a really big kitchen. I’ve got big plans for my website. I’ve been thinking of doing some videos…since the, uhm, last one went viral.”
“Are you going to cook naked?”
“Only for you. I’ll wear an apron, though.”
“Just an apron?”
“One with a really long tie…”
And then we stop talking because… Well, because we both decide to get lucky. And we get lucky all morning long.
It’s many hours later.
Fine, it’s two days later.
And an hour ago I promised myself I’d get up and go home. Not because I want to. Not because Tom wants me to. But because I have a staff meeting to go to and prep work to do before this week’s classes.
“Hey, Tom.” I am admiring the moonstone in the filtered hotel light. “Now will you tell me about the ring? I’m still curious.” We haven’t talked about our fake engagement at all. We’ve spent the weekend together naked, with no time for something as silly as plans.
Tom rolls over and kisses my shoulder. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I’ll tell you about it someday. We need time.”
“It’s a long story?”
“No. But I’m hoping that you and I become a long story. And if we do, I want you to know the story of the ring, and to know why it means so much to me.”
I slide it off my finger and offer it to him. “Maybe you’d rather take care of it.”
Tom shakes his head. He reaches up and closes my hand around the ring. “You hang on to it. Someday I hope you decide you could marry me for real. But I know better now than to rush the question. We have time.”
I suck in a breath. I’m glad he isn’t asking me to talk about marriage right this second. I have a really good feeling about the two of us, but the ink is barely dry on my divorce papers. “It still stings that I didn’t get marriage right on the first try.”
“Yeah? Well, I proposed to someone I wasn’t in love with. I’d have the same regrets as you do, except she was smart enough to shut me down.”
“She didn’t have to be cruel, though.” I’ll always defend my man.
“Eh. I’m over it,” he insists.
“What a couple of fuckups we are.”
“Not anymore, gorgeous.” He kisses my neck. “We’ve got it right this time.”
I let him worship my neck for a little longer, until he shifts his hips suggestively. I lower my mouth to his ear and whisper hotly, “Tell me about the ring.”
“You’re sneaky,” he chuckles. “But you’ll hear about it when I’m good and ready.”
I put my hand under the sheet and give him a stroke. “Did someone say ready?”
He rolls on top of me, and it’s another hour until I finally leave.
At the door, he pulls me close to him and gives me one of those kisses that makes my toes curl. Literally. And then they cramp up, because in real life that’s what happens. “I have to go,” I say. “But I’ll come back.”
Just as I start to walk down the hallway he calls out “About the ring?”
Holy shit. I stop. I don’t turn around. I just wait.
“It’s the only thing of value in my family. Not monetary value. Sentimental. It came from my great Aunt Maddie who married a ninety-five-year-old millionaire and then ran off with the milkman. It sounds crazy, but it’s true.”
I turn around then, and he takes a few steps closer. Maybe he doesn’t want to shout it. “The milkman gave it to her as a reminder that wherever they were, even if they had nothing else, they had each other…and that was home.
And now you have it. Because wherever you are…”
“You’re home,” I whisper.
“Yeah.”
Now I’m ugly-crying and kissing him all over again. I’ll be a few minutes late to work. The other professors will understand. They’re artists and all artists respect a love story. And that’s what me and Tom are becoming. A real love story.
46 Corn Dogs
Nine months later
Brynn
“Is this where you want me?” Tom asks, leaning in.
“Yes…” I whisper, distracted by my need to fondle the object of my desire. “It’s so… Long. And so hard.”
Tom chuckles. “Honey, I’m glad you like the new countertop, but I’m trying to set up a shoot here.”
“It’s just that I’ve never had a stone countertop before.” And that’s not even my favorite feature of our new kitchen in the Lake Michigan cottage. I have to touch it one more time, so I step over to the sliding door behind me and reveal my very own… Pantry. “Unngh. It’s so big.”
“That’s what all the girls say.”
“I’m talking about the pantry.”
“Me too,” he agrees.
I step inside to admire the shelves full of canisters. This is my fantasy right here—five kinds of artisan flour, four types of sugar, each of them waiting in their own canister and properly labeled. There’s also a giant bin filled with all-purpose flour. I could bake for days and days, and I just might. A girl could get short of breath just looking at it. I actually am hyperventilating a little.
Tom follows me into the pantry to see what’s holding me up. “Honey? Could you take a look at my camera angle? I need your pretty face to get the shot right.”
We are about to shoot the first episode of my new web-based cooking show. With Tom’s help—and his agent, Patricia’s—I got a sweet sponsorship deal.
And? There is no network involved. This is Tom’s coup. He says he’s done giving up creative control of anything. So he started his own production company, and I’m the first production.
“Let’s go, gorgeous.” Tom snaps his fingers. “We have twenty-two minutes until we go live. And you’re ogling the flour bins again.”
“But they are so pretty! Like something Martha would put in one of her magazines.”
“Yeah? I’ll bet Martha wouldn’t have broken-in her kitchen the way you and I did a couple hours ago.”
“Mmh. Stop distracting me. We have a show to make.” Just remembering our previous activities makes my parts tingle. Nobody breaks in a kitchen like Tom. I will never be able to look at a certain barstool again without getting a little hot, bothered, and dizzy.
My hunk rolls his eyes and beckons me toward the computer screen. We look over the three camera angles he’s set up. Everything looks great to me, but he spends a couple of extra minutes reminding me which points along the vast countertop are the most photogenic.
“Hello! Is everybody decent?” It’s Sadie’s voice in the front hall.
“Of course we are!” I call out. Tom raises his eyebrows at me comically, because if she’d shown up earlier, she would’ve gotten an eyeful.
“What are you cooking?” she asks, coming into the kitchen with Kate and Amy toddling after her.
“Corn dogs from scratch! It’s the perfect beach food.” In fact, corndogs have been sold at Lake Michigan for decades—well before food trucks were cool. “It’s a wrapped thing that you also dip. Two food groups at once.”
“Cool,” Sadie says, although we all know that fried foods are a bridge too far for Sadie. She’s more of a kale girl. Ah, well. You can lead your friends to junk food, but you can’t make them scarf it down. “And don’t worry,” she adds. “The girls and I are going for a walk on the beach when you start shooting. We’ll come back just in time to taste everything.”
“Well, hello there!” Tom says to one of the twins, scooping her up. He cuddles her to his big, strapping chest, and it makes me want to start kissing him all over again.
Focus, Brynn. The countdown timer on the computer says we’re going live in nineteen minutes. I need to change into my dressy apron and practice my non-dorky smile.
Tom sets the toddler back on her feet and points at me. “Set up your fry oil. I’ll light up the space.”
“You already do!” I call back to him. Because it’s true. Admittedly, we’re a little bit gross right now, but when you’re in love like this, it’s pretty much expected. Ash and Sadie keep their eye rolls to a minimum, and I ignore Ash when she gags. Speaking of…
The front door bangs open again. I told Tom not to fix it because the screen door at a beach cottage is supposed to bang. That’s its job. And I don’t have to ask who’s come inside, because I’d know Ash’s hisses anywhere.
“Listen, dickbag,” she says in a threatening voice. “It’s not fifty-fifty if I bring in the buyer.”
“But you won’t, so I don’t know why we’re even discussing it,” Braht counters.
“Hi, friends!” Tom calls out. “We’re in the kitchen!”
Ash and Braht enter the kitchen together. Actually, it sort of looks like they’re competing to see who can enter the kitchen first, but they end up hip-checking each other to get through the door at the same time. “You are a fucking asshole,” she hisses under her breath.
“Language!” Sadie snaps over her shoulder. Her girls will start speaking any day now and she’s worried that they’ll get their vocabulary from Auntie Ash.
“He started it,” my friend says, sounding like a toddler herself.
Braht just beams.
“What’s the problem?” I ask, hoping the answer is a brief one. I have a cooking show to make here.
Ash glowers. Really—she does. It’s the only word that could possibly describe the scary eyes and the frown that my old friend is throwing off. “Someone is trying to renegotiate the standard co-broker agreement.”
“It’s not standard,” Braht argues. “A house of this magnitude requires special attention. The deal is that the sellers’ fee is fifty percent, no matter what. Whomever brings in the buyer gets the other half.”
“Sounds fair to me,” Tom says mildly. Then he winks at me, because he’s enjoying this.
And—fine—so am I. It was Tom’s idea to give his real estate listing to Ash and Braht together. We really couldn’t choose between them, and we thought it might be, I don’t know, some fun fireworks to watch. Ash is hysterical when she’s pissed off and Braht seems to bring that out of her. You’d think the two of them would be grateful for the easy commission—Tom’s house is a stunner, as well as semi-famous.
But Ash and Braht began trying to kill each other about ten seconds after Tom’s ink was dry on the listing agreement. Ash sent Tom and me a bottle of champagne as a thank-you gift. But then Braht sent us a magnum of the same vintage, just to show her up.
They’ve been duking it out ever since.
“Keep it to a dull roar, kids,” Tom says, checking his T1 connection for our broadcast. “Find someplace to stand where you can’t be seen and also can’t reach each other.”
“Here I thought twins were tricky,” Sadie murmurs.
The rest of our prep time is a blur. My fryer oil is reheating and my ingredients are styled.
“Lookin’ good!” Ash cheers from somewhere out of my sight.
I’ve got nervous butterflies in my tummy. Or maybe that’s just the corn dogs I ate while prepping this episode. It’s not because I’m afraid to be on camera. It’s just that I’m so excited. I didn’t know I could have my dream job and my dream guy all at once. Throw in this amazing beach house we’re renovating, and I almost have to pinch myself.
“Going live in sixty seconds,” Tom says with a smile. He looks so relaxed that it relaxes me too. The lights he set up are warm on my face, but not in a bad way. The moonstone glows on my finger, and the pretty little ramekins where I’ve arranged my ingredients sparkle. I tie my apron, the equivalent of a cowboy spinning his guns into his holster.<
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The only worrying thing is the slap I hear from somewhere off set. There’s a Braht laugh and a high-pitched growl.
“Omigod, quiet!” I yell.
“Thirty seconds,” Tom says. “Ignore them. Look at me, honeybunch.”
I do.
He smiles. “Fifteen seconds.”
I practice my non-awkward smile. Sadie gives a thumbs up and escorts her girls out the front door so they can dig in the sand for twenty minutes while we film.
“Eight. You look hot, honey. Relax. Three…two…one…”
I smile into the camera and hold it for a count of three, then turn on the heat under my fry oil. Our intro music is fading out now, even though I can’t hear it. “Hello, from the beaches of Michigan!” I tell Tom. It’s easier to talk to a real person than to try to relate to a camera.
“Thank you for joining me on Brynn’s Bites. If it’s party food and it’s delicious, I’ll cook it up for you! Today we’re going to make corn dogs and also a sesame-carrot slaw, so we can pretend to care about our health.” I gesture at the gorgeous spread of carrots on the countertop. “If you have a thing for corn dogs, I want to hear about it. Email me at this address.” I point like Tom told me to, which is weird because I’m pointing at my boobs. He’ll fill in the graphic later. “And I’ll read some of your comments on next week’s show. Now let’s get cooking!”
This is fun. I can totally do this, I think. I pick up the cute glass mixing bowl and measure in ingredients, telling my viewers how to stir up a quick batter.
“You know, I think a pinch of sugar makes sense. Let me grab that, and I can show you my new pantry! I’m so excited. I had to come down here and fondle the canisters in the middle of the night. This is where I keep my dry ingredients.” I poise my hand on the cut-glass doorknob that Tom chose. “Like dry beans, flours, and baking ingredients such as…”
I whisk the door open.
Several things happen at once. A dust cloud of white bursts from the door. Tom gasps. And a shocking noise vibrates from the rear of the pantry—a deep, primal sound. It’s the sound of someone overtaken by…