Scanning the faculty up on the commencement stage, Mia found him on the far right. It looked like the hood on his gown was brown. That must be Cornell’s color for MFA recipients, she ascertained. Picking up her camera, with its long lens, she focused on the stage. Yes, it certainly was Tom — unruly hair poking out from his cap, the sun playing on the planes of his sculptured handsome face, full lips in a half smile listening to something the faculty member next to him was saying in his ear. Damn, he’s handsome. Just looking at him, Mia could feel the familiar tightening between her legs.
“There’s Rob!” Joni interrupted Mia’s reverie.
Mia trained the lens in the direction of Joni’s outstretched pointing arm.
After a few minutes, Mia was able to pull him out of the crowd. Damn, he cleans up nice. Mia still marveled at her handiwork. She realized she was smiling at the sight of him — and not just because he looked adorable — but because of the love she felt deep in her heart for him. It was a brilliant stroke on Tom Sheehan’s part to put these two broken souls together and have them work through their pain by utilizing their talent collaboratively to create works greater than each of them would have been able to produce individually. And on top of this inspired partnership, they had formed a deep, respectful love and friendship.
Mia pulled the camera strap over her head and handed her camera to Joni. After a few minutes, Joni exclaimed, “There he is. He looks so handsome.”
An hour later, it was all done and Rob was bee-lining toward them. Joni was in his arms before he even reached them, locked in a passionate kiss, his cap and tassel somehow now on her head, as Mia stood by capturing the moment through her lens.
“So Silver, how do you feel about moving off campus and sharing an apartment with me in the fall?”
Mia screeched, “Are you serious? You’ve decided to stay here then?”
“Someone needs to watch over you two troublemakers.” Rob beamed at Mia and Joni.
“I couldn’t agree more.” Tom’s pronouncement took them all by surprise.
Nice stealth attack, thought Mia.
“Congratulations, Ryan.” Tom actually hugged Rob, clapping him on the back.
Mia stood smiling at Tom, standing there in his robe with its brown hood, cap on head sporting both a black tassel indicating a graduate degree and a red and white Cornell tassel. Devastatingly handsome were the two words running through Mia’s head at the sight of him. Add his intellect on top of that and Tom Sheehan was dangerous and devastatingly handsome. A seriously fuckable combination.
Tom casually slung an arm over Mia’s shoulder and gave her a squeeze, “I know I’ll sleep better at night knowing you’re watching out over this one.”
Mia looked up at Tom, knowing the shocked look on her face was saying, “Ummm, what the fuck?”
“Mind if I steal her for a quick sec?” And without waiting for an answer, he steered Mia away from Rob and Joni.
“Hello? What is going on? Are we coming out?” Mia laughed.
Tom pulled her tighter into his side, “Yeah, why not? I’m not your professor anymore, grades have been turned in and with commencement complete, I’m not even on staff here anymore.”
“So, what does that mean?” They stopped walking and Mia turned to him, searching his face.
“It means you have a new boyfriend, Jailbait.”
She could feel the smile take over her face. He was so damn disarming. “Boyfriend?” Her tone incredulous.
He nodded, sex smile beaming at her, “That is if you’ll have me.”
“I’d like to have you … ”
He had both hands on her shoulders now, holding her at arm’s length. “ … And you will. What day of the week does your birthday fall on?”
“Ummm, I think it’s on a Thursday this year.”
“Take the day off from your summer job and take the next day off, too.”
She could feel a bead of sweat running down her cleavage and wondered if it was from the noon sun directly overhead or the hotter than Miami look he was laser focusing on her. “Why? Do we have plans?” she challenged.
“We do,” his smile was now blinding, “we’re going to spend your birthday fucking like wild animals and the next day you are not going to be able to walk.”
Mia pulled her hair up off of her neck which was now drenched in sweat, wishing she’d remembered to bring a hair tie. She cocked her head to the side, slow devil smile taking up residence, “Promises, promises.”
Tom tossed his head back in laughter and pulled Mia to him in an engulfing hug. “You are so damn good for me.”
“You think?”
“Mmm-hmm, I do.” And on a crowded football field, surrounded by graduates, fellow staff, students and families, Tom took Mia’s face in both of his hands. Staring into her eyes, it felt like he was asking her permission to make their bold announcement. She nodded her head slightly and he did the same in acknowledgement. His kiss was soft at first, fingers threaded through her long curls. He pulled away and looked at her smiling, “You good?” She nodded again, returning his smile and this time their kiss was deep, passionate, ghost exorcising. They were all alone, together, on a crowded football field. As he drew her to him with his arm around her waist, Mia could feel how hard he was through his robe and her hands, which were resting on his biceps, went around his neck.
Feeling Tom placing his cap on her head, Mia began to laugh. She loved that she was wearing the cap he wore when he received his MFA. He beamed at her reaction and kissed her again, smiling down at her.
“Ready to go face the music?” His right eyebrow raised slightly.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” Mia had a look of horror on her face.
Tom placed his arm around her shoulder again as they made their way toward where they had left Rob and Joni. This time Mia reciprocated by placing her arm around Tom’s waist. Although a little afraid of Rob’s reaction to their pairing, Mia felt good. Her heart felt good. Tom made her feel alive again. He was exciting. He was fun. He was interesting. He was sexy. He was handsome. He was real. He wasn’t just a memory. And it was good to feel alive again. It was good to feel wanted.
Rob was not smiling, but Joni looked rather amused. “Surprise!” Mia announced, hoping to break the tension.
“How long has this been going on?” His eyes were trained on Tom.
“Well, nothing’s really been going on.” Mia tried to diffuse the tension resulting from Rob’s intensity.
Tom stepped in. “It’s been mostly a discussion up until now. But now with the school year officially over … ,” his voice trailed off.
“Mind if I steal her a sec?” Rob mirrored Tom’s words from earlier.
As Mia walked off with Rob, she turned to Tom and Joni with a “rut-roh” look on her face and wide, expressive eyes.
When they were out of earshot, Rob stopped walking and looked at Mia. “You know what a player he is, Mia. This does not end well for you. That chapter’s already been written.”
“Rob, I have no illusions that this is anything but a fun time with a really hot, smart older man. I know his track record. I know he can’t keep his dick in his pants. I know I’m not going to be the one to change him. I know men like him don’t change. I know all that.”
“Then why are you setting yourself up to be hurt?” Rob searched Mia’s eyes.
“I like him. I enjoy spending time with him. I’m incredibly attracted to him. He makes me feel good.” Mia listed her reasons, “And he makes you-know-who go away. I need him to go away, Rob. I need loving him so much to be a memory, not my reality.” Mia could feel the sting of tears at just the mention of Schooner.
Rob wrapped Mia up in his arms, swaying with her. Pushing her hair behind her ear he whispered. “I want you to be happy, Silver. You deserve abundant happiness. If he hurts you, I will fuck up his pretty face.”
Mia pulled her face away, smiling. “I’ll give you the razor blade.”
“Deal,” they laughed.
&
nbsp; “I love you, Rob Ryan. You made what I thought was going to be a shitty year a really good year. Thank you.”
“You did the same and more for me, Silver.” They started to walk back. “And I will fuck up his face if he messes with my best friend.”
As they walked back toward Tom and Joni, Mia realized, on the last day of her sophomore year, that in the year that had passed since that devastating last day of her freshman year, she had successfully written a new chapter with a new cast of characters. And although she loved them, there was still a piece of her that yearned to turn the pages back to a previous chapter and feel his lips in her hair and hear him call her “Baby Girl.”
Chapter Sixteen
It was 11:45 P.M. on the night of July 11th when the phone rang. Mia sprung across the living room of her grandparent’s apartment. “Hello.”
“Jailbait.”
Giggling, “You don’t get to call me that for too much longer.”
“No, I don’t. I just got off of the train. I’m in Grand Central. I’m going to catch a cab down to you.”
“Ok, I’ll see you in a few. It’s apartment 22D.” Mia hung up and danced around the apartment.
She hadn’t seen Tom in over a month. He’d been in LA working on a pilot for a show about a Los Angeles law firm. With her grandparents off on back-to-back river cruises through Europe, she had taken over their apartment for the summer, with the promise of keeping Grandma’s plants alive and her cat fed and loved. The sweeping three-bedroom apartment was located off of Union Square on 16th Street and Fifth Avenue with a southern wall of windows prominently displaying the World Trade Centers.
The call came from the doorman in the lobby that Mia’s visitor had arrived and she told him to send him up. The building’s doormen had known Mia since she was a toddler and looked out for her whenever she stayed at her grandmother’s.
Upon hearing the knock, Mia whispered “Showtime” and opened the door to Tom’s sexy smile and tousled hair. He was holding a bouquet of blood red roses surrounded by baby’s breath.
“C’mere you,” was all she needed to hear and she was in his arms. They backed up into the apartment, lips-locked. When their kiss ended, he held her face in his free hand, smiling at her. “Mmm, Happy Birthday, Baby. I have missed you.”
“I somehow doubt that.” Mia laughed, “Surrounded by all those Malibu Barbies.”
“Mostly I saw the inside of a writer’s room and a lot of very fake looking plastic surgery.” It was then that the view outside the window caught his eye. “Oh my God, that is gorgeous.” They walked over to the center of the windows to look at the Twin Towers all lit up at night. “What an incredible view.”
Mia laughed. “I used to try and count all the floors when I was little.”
Tom turned to her. “You are not little anymore,” he thought for a second, “but I’m not going to stop calling you Jailbait.”
“I’m glad. I kinda like it.” She led him into the kitchen to put the roses in a vase which she handed back to him. Then she started rooting around in the refrigerator.
“What are you looking for?”
Mia poked her head out and with a devil grin announced, “Provisions. We may never pass this way again … ”
A few minutes later she was set with fruit, cheeses, nuts, cups, utensils and a pitcher of water. “Follow me,” she called over her shoulder as she led him through the spacious apartment to the guest room where she always stayed. She put the provisions on a night table next to the bed and then took the vase from Tom and placed it at the center of the dresser directly across from the bed.
Mia then plopped herself down at the center of the queen sized bed and reached out a hand to Tom. He took her hand and joined her on the bed.
Lying down with her head on a pillow, Tom followed suit, facing her. Mia reached out and smoothed his hair, fingering the individual irreverent locks.
I’m so toast, Mia thought. This man is sex on a stick. “I’m not going to lie to you, I’m scared, Tom. You’re going to break my heart, aren’t you?”
“Well, it’s not my intent,” his dark eyes flashing sincerity.
“But it is your M.O.” She continued to play with his hair.
“I can’t argue with you. But what I’ve done in the past doesn’t minimize what I feel for you. What I have felt for you for a long, long time, Mia.” He reached for her hand and pulled it from his hair to his lips, kissing the inside of her wrist.
“I don’t have all that much experience and I’m afraid I’m going to be in over my head.” And then there were the words she didn’t say, and the myriad of emotions and thoughts flooding every cell in her body. Doing this tonight would be some kind of emotional end to Schooner — she knew that, and seeing the Twin Towers outside the window over Tom’s shoulder brought back the dream she and Schooner shared of a special night up in Windows on the World, on the 106th floor. They had talked about celebrating her 18th birthday there and a wave of melancholy swept over her. Would it ever go away? Would she ever truly stop loving him? And she asked herself the question for which she did not have an answer — why do I still love him?
“Oddly enough, I feel like I am over my head with you.” He was still holding her wrist, his lips pressed softly against the sensitive skin. The seductive sensation brought her back to the present.
Mia laughed, “No, you don’t.”
“I do, seriously. I care about you, I worry about you, I think about you. I see things and I want to share them with you. I want to hear about your day everyday and I want you to know about mine. I want to know what you’re seeing and how you’d photograph it or write about it. I see things in LA and in my head I can just hear you making a snarky comment and I laugh out loud with no one there — or sometimes it’s worse because someone is there and they have no idea of what I am laughing about and I can’t tell them — they just wouldn’t get it. I write a great line and I think, Mia’s going to love this.”
Mia was laughing at Tom’s monologue.
“It’s true. You laugh, but it’s true. It is. The point of this, Mia, is you are with me in my head and my heart all the time. You have gotten under my skin because you are so real and you’re real with me and I love that. I need that. I need you. I do.” He was looking at her earnestly and shaking his head. “I need you and I want you and I have waited for tonight for what seems like an eternity. And everything about what I’ve just said is so unlike me. And I really kind of like it. And I feel like I’m eighteen again and I just want to be your boyfriend. And you’re smiling at me. What’s that smile about?”
Tom had just managed to pull Mia out of her melancholy and dissuade all her fears. He was so damn disarming. “I think I have a huge crush on my boyfriend.”
“I know I’ve got a huge crush on my girlfriend,” and then in a whisper, “Please don’t be afraid.”
“I think you should kiss me,” she whispered back.
With his lips against hers, “I think I should ravage you.”
“Yeah, that too.”
In an unhurried dance, clothes slowly came off, piece by piece, until they were lying facing one another, both naked. Slim and muscular with a runner’s body, Mia lightly ran her fingers from his shoulder down his biceps across his hairless chest. His skin was silken, baby soft and she rubbed it reverently.
“You feel so good.” He watched her explore and become confident as she touched him, stopping every so often to find his lips. As she pulled away from his lips, she smiled, her hand dropping to his erection. She let her fingernails graze lightly from the back of his balls forward, up the shaft of his cock, to the soft head, which was already moist. She rubbed her thumb over the moistness and slowly brought her thumb to her mouth where she licked her finger clean, a smile on her face, her eyes trained on his.
“My new girlfriend is really hot.” Tom’s smile had a most amused tilt to it.
“Well, don’t tell her, but I’m about to suck your cock.”
“Oh really?”
“It’s my birthday and I’m going to blow out your candle.” Mia moved down between Tom’s legs and took his thick and formidable cock in her hands. “Hello,” she spoke directly to the one-eyed monster, “I’ve wanted to meet you for quite a while, but your owner wouldn’t let us become acquainted. Not very nice of him. But you know what? Now you’re mine and we are going to have so much fun together.” And with that Mia’s tongue slowly licked up the length of him as he throbbed to her touch. With the tip of her tongue, she rimmed the circumference of his cock’s tip and used the tip of her tongue to lick the slit clean. She peered up at Tom and smiled, then used her teeth to lightly nibble the head of his cock.
“You exquisite tease,” he laughed.
“Mmm-hmm,” she agreed, smiling at him. And within a moment, he was down her throat and she took him as deep as should could take him, sucking him in past her lips with a tight suction. Hearing his sharp intake of breath, she moved her hands under him, an ass cheek in either hand, which she kneaded as she worked his cock in her mouth.
“Damn, you are good,” he moaned, “I am the luckiest freaking man alive.” After a few minutes, he reached down and pulled Mia up to him. “I don’t want to come in your mouth, not this time.”
“No?”
“No,” he smiled, “I have waited so long to be inside of you, Jailbait and I am done waiting.” He pushed her wild mane out of her face and kissed her. “Are you on anything?”
Mia nodded, “Yes, I started the pill last month.”
Tom reached between her legs, “Finally get to feel you without jeans on. Let’s see if you’re as wet as you always brag to me you are.” He swiped two fingers between her pussy lips, stroking from back to front and settling on her clit, which made her gasp. With a self-satisfied smile, he moved his fingers back and inserted two into her, his eyes never leaving hers. “You didn’t exaggerate, Jailbait. You get extraordinarily wet for me. That is hot. So fucking hot.”
Mia returned the self-satisfied smile. “Told you.”
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