Choose Me

by Donya Lynne

  To hell with Phil’s whoring-around-town comment.

  If this really is my last summer fling, Greyson’s the man I want to have it with.

  I can’t accept that I’ll never see him again. That I’ll never have sex with him again. That I’ll never be able to explore this new side to my sexuality. The side still blossoming to life inside me like a budding flower. My inner nympho has awakened. Greyson has opened me to a whole new world I never knew existed, and I already want to go a second round with him, even though we’ve barely finished round one.

  He clears his throat in that way that lets me know he’s about to speak, and I lift my head and look at him expectantly. Is he going to say good-bye, or is he feeling the same way I am? Does he want this—whatever this is—to continue?

  He turns to me. “Would you like to have dinner with me sometime next week?” His hopeful gaze drops to my mouth, lingers for a moment, and then returns to my eyes as he smiles warmly. “I feel like I at least owe you dinner after . . . well . . . that.” He tips his head in the direction of the pharmacy.

  My inner nympho pumps her fist, and I smile as victory wraps its black-and-white checkered flag around me.

  If tonight is any indication, this is going to be one hell of a hot summer.

  “I’d like that, Greyson. Dinner sounds perfect.”

  The manhunt is over.

  Let my summer fling begin.

  Chapter 8

  Greyson

  Last night feels like a dream. A blurry, liberating, erotic dream.

  Did I really have sex with a woman in a Walgreens bathroom? More importantly, did she actually enjoy it?

  I scrub my palms over my stubbly cheeks then lift my head, greeting my morning wood. It’s woodier than usual this morning, but after what happened last night, a raging hard-on upon waking up isn’t totally unexpected.

  I groan and drop my head back onto my pillow. I’m wearing what I’m sure is the biggest, cheesiest grin I’ve ever worn the morning after sex. Why? Because, for once, my dick didn’t scare away the woman I was with. In fact, she enjoyed it. All eleven thick and hefty inches of it.

  And because she enjoyed it, I enjoyed it even more.

  I’ve never had sex like that. Wild and barbaric. Like I was a caveman consumed by my need to fornicate after seeing a naked cavewoman for the first time and getting my first hard-on.

  Which brings me to another revelation. With Katherine, I might be able to have sex in ways other men take for granted. Woman on top. Cowboy. Hard, deep, rough, soft, dirty.

  Missionary.

  Now there’s a position most men definitely take for granted, but one I can’t say I’ve ever actually enjoyed. It’s hard to enjoy sex when you’re worried about hurting your partner.

  But Katherine didn’t cry or act like she was in pain last night. She loved every second of what I gave her. I can still feel how her body shuddered as she climaxed. How her legs trembled. How her pussy clamped down on my dick and sent me to the moon. Jesus, I’ve never felt that before. I’ve never experienced a woman’s orgasm like that.

  Sex with Katherine made me see what I’ve been missing my whole life, and I’m in awe that I’ve finally found my way to this moment.

  I chuckle at myself and run my palm down my face. I still don’t know Katherine’s last name. I was so stunned by what happened that I let the evening end without asking her for it. An oversight I’ll be correcting the next time I see her.

  I don’t know when that will be, because the coming week is pretty busy. Between finishing the remodel on my house and the meeting with Robert Clayton, my schedule is packed. But I’ll make room on my calendar to see her even if it means taking an afternoon off.

  As I stare up at the ceiling, thoughts of Katherine flood my mind, and I close my eyes, enjoying the memories from last night: The way she looked in that incredible yellow dress. How her eyes sparkled when she turned around and saw me standing behind her at the bar. How her hand sent warmth through my body the moment she placed it on my arm. The two of us dancing, then leaving, and finally kissing in the parking garage elevator. How she tasted like alcohol and peppermint. And everything that came after, leading up to both of us facing that mirror in the bathroom, our gazes locked in our reflection as I fucked her from behind, and how she cried out for more.

  More! No woman has ever demanded I give her more, more, MORE! With my dick, most women want less, less, LESS!

  Throwing back the covers, I pull myself out of bed. My dick pokes out in front of me like a water dowsing rod, and like any good dowsing rod, it leads me straight to the bathroom.

  If I’m going to get any sort of workout in this morning, I’m going to have to do something about this. Not that I wouldn’t rather masturbate to fantasies of Katherine for the next hour, but masturbation does not a six pack make, no matter how hard my abdomen contracts when I come.

  After pounding my meat and taking a cold shower to deflate my overly stimulated johnson enough to put on a pair of gym shorts, I stuff in my earbuds, crank up my classic rock playlist, and then head to my home gym in the basement.

  An hour later, my body is shredded. My grey tank top sticks to my back and stomach, dark with perspiration. It’s an effort just to lift my half-gallon water bottle to my lips to drain the last of my water.

  Slinging a white gym towel around my neck and wiping one end over my sweat-soaked face, I shut off the light and head out. I need to pack in some breakfast before I head to the office so I can prep for tomorrow night’s meeting.

  I’m listening to Aerosmith sing about dreaming on when I stroll around the corner to find Ed gingerly leading a woman from his bedroom, as if he hadn’t wanted me to hear him.

  I stop.

  He freezes like the fox who’s been caught red-handed raiding the henhouse.

  His eyes snap to mine, and I know I must look like a dumbstruck fool, gawking and blinking as if I just saw a ghost. Because this is Ed. Still-married-to-Anabel Ed. I-hate-all-things-infidelity Ed.

  From his disheveled hair and the woman’s disheveled dress, it’s obvious he’s become I’m-now-an-adulterer Ed.

  Yes, Anabel’s been cheating on him and told him she wants a divorce, but that doesn’t change the fact that, technically, he is still married.

  I slowly pluck out my earbuds as the woman peeks out from behind him, eyes red, makeup blotchy, cheeks flushed.

  She smiles weakly and lifts her hand in a tiny finger wave. “Good morning.”

  I recognize her. She’s Katherine’s friend, Jess.

  I glance from her to Ed. Twice. Then I clear my throat and uncomfortably shuffle my feet. I’m being rude. “Good morning.”

  Ed slides his hand around hers and brushes his palm over his mess of hair. If he thinks he can hide what they’ve been doing in the bedroom I’m letting him borrow while he recovers from Anabel’s cheating ways, he needs to think again. He’s not fooling anyone. And it looks like he’s recovering just fine.

  Scowling, I start for the stairs.

  “Grey, hey . . .” Ed takes a step forward as I pass.

  I hold up my hand. “No, Ed. Just . . .” I heave out an exasperated breath. This is Ed’s life, not mine. I’m not his father and have no place lecturing him. “What you do is your business.”

  “But—”

  “I’m going to take a shower.” Taking the steps of the winding staircase two at a time, I vacate the basement as fast as I can then hoof it up to the master bath.

  As I lather soap over my head and shoulders, I try not to dwell on what I just witnessed and how it pulls up reminders of my parents. Of how my mother’s affair tore our family apart, destroyed my father, and left soul-deep scars on me, to the point that no matter how badly I want to be in a committed relationship, I doubt I’ll ever be able to get married. I’m not even sure if it was one affair or multiple affairs my mom had. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. I spent the night at either Ed’s or Mike’s house almost every night until Mom shipped me of
f to live with my grandparents.

  As I got older, I wanted nothing of her explanations, whether directly or indirectly, through my brother, Brent, or my sister, Olivia.

  When I was a kid, my father was my hero. I spent hours following him around his garage, helping him fix up old cars, watching and learning as he rebuilt engines and applied coats of paint on some of his rebuilds that would have made Picasso envious.

  My old man was a genius with cars, especially old muscle cars. Camaros, Corvettes, Mustangs. One of his favorite restorations was a 1967 Pontiac GTO. Most people would have painted a cherry car like that candy apple red, but not my dad. He put a coat of midnight blue paint on that sexy beast that sparkled like the Milky Way when the light hit it just right.

  The day he revved its purring engine and backed it out of the garage for his client to see the first time, that GTO became the most stunning thing on four wheels Denver had ever seen. You can still see it around town every so often, but I don’t remember who owns it.

  Shortly after my dad rebuilt the GTO, when I was eleven, everything changed. Street Elite Autobody, a custom car builder and designer, opened a few miles from my dad’s shop. Within two years, my dad’s business folded. Just that quickly, everything my father had worked so hard for was ripped away.

  We had to sell our house, move into a smaller one, and every day became a battle to overcome the fallout.

  Dad grew depressed, and for a few months, he struggled just to get out of bed. Eventually, he took a job as a mechanic for a local car dealership, but I could feel my hero slipping away. The man I’d always looked up to and worshipped—the man I wanted to be like when I grew up—was fading bit by bit every day he went to work.

  He hated that job, not because he didn’t enjoy working on cars, but because once you’ve owned your own business and been your own boss it’s hard to work for someone else, following their rules, their orders, doing menial work rather than work that stimulates your mind.

  My mom got a job as a barista at Starbucks to help pay the bills, so my brother, sister, and I became latchkey kids, fending for ourselves after school and sometimes on the weekends.

  As the months passed, my parents started arguing. I hated hearing them fight, which they did mostly late at night after we kids had gone to bed.

  That’s how I learned of my mother’s affair. I was fourteen. It was late, and I couldn’t sleep. I overheard one of their arguments. Well, bits and pieces of it. But I heard enough to know that she’d been seeing another man, and had been for a while. She said it was all my dad’s fault, whatever that meant. She was upset and crying, and I remember my father getting really angry and accusing her of wanting to get back at him. I have no idea for what, because after that, they began speaking in hushed, angry tones, and I couldn’t make out anything more.

  I didn’t tell my mom what I’d heard, but I couldn’t look at her the same way after that. After a while, I couldn’t look at her at all. I grew angry and rebellious, lashing out at her, acting out in school.

  I hated her for what she’d done.

  A year later, though, my hatred grew horns.

  It’s still hard for me to think about that horrible day.

  My dad had just finished restoring a ’69 Dodge Challenger that had been sitting in the garage for years. A leftover from when he owned his business. After mom’s infidelity, that old muscle car became an obsession. He worked on it every night and every weekend. If he wasn’t at his job, eating, or sleeping, he was working on that car.

  Then on Fourth of July weekend, he snaked a hose from the exhaust pipe through the small gap at the top of the barely opened passenger window, climbed behind the steering wheel, shut himself inside, and started the engine. The radio was tuned to Denver’s classic rock station. Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” was playing when we found his body.

  I can’t ignore the irony that it was a car that killed my father. The very thing he loved most was the very thing that took his life. Maybe that’s how he wanted it. I’ll never know. He didn’t leave a note. At least none that I ever saw or heard about. Maybe he left one for my mom, but she never mentioned it.

  My father’s death became my final unraveling. It became total rebellion. I began fighting every day at school, lashing out as my bottled-up anger toward my mom sought an outlet. That’s why I was shipped off to live with my grandparents, because my mother had no idea what to do with me. There was nothing she could do, because she was the source of my outrage.

  Thankfully, my grandparents took me to see a therapist and helped me channel my angry energy into sports. But even though playing sports and falling in love with the outdoors was eventually what saved me, I never recovered from blaming my mother for my father’s death.

  It was her fault Dad killed himself. Her infidelity. Her deceit. Her weakness and lack of compassion for all my father had lost. That’s what did him in.

  I’ve only seen her twice in the last eighteen years. Once at my high school graduation, and once when I graduated college. I didn’t talk to her either time, and I’ve never returned a single phone call. She finally stopped calling me, but I still receive birthday and Christmas cards from her. I throw them in the garbage without reading them. I want nothing to do with my mom after how she crushed my father and changed all our lives.

  Brent and Olivia think I’m being too hard on her, but they’ve learned not to push me on this. It’s the only way I’ll allow them to remain part of my life. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have a mother anymore. I lost her the day Dad died. Hell, I lost her the moment I heard her admit to having an affair.

  Maybe that’s why I’m so angry about Ed sleeping with Jess. Sure, Anabel’s cheating on him, but that doesn’t give him a free pass to sleep around while he’s still married to her.

  What he needs is professional help, not a bedmate. He needs to talk to someone about the pain cutting into his heart so that it doesn’t coagulate and fester inside him like a cancer. If he continues down this road, it will lead to nothing but trouble.

  I rinse the soap from my body and shut off the shower.

  Dad’s been gone over twenty years, and while I didn’t follow in his footsteps and start my own autobody and custom design shop, I do have a passion for fixing up old cars. It’s how I paid my way through college and covered my bills before Rugged took off. It’s also why I still own the ’77 Camaro I drove in high school and just bought a ’69 Ford Mustang Shelby that’s sitting in the garage waiting for me to restore her.

  Working on cars is my hobby. An expensive hobby, but one I can afford now that the company has found success. One that allows me to still feel connected to my father. I talk to him while I’m working on my cars. I can no longer hear his voice, but I can imagine what he would say if he were there.

  But that’s a conversation for another time. Right now, I’ve got to get going or I’ll never be ready for Robert Clayton tomorrow night.

  Changing into a well-worn pair of jeans, hiking shoes, and a navy pullover, I head down to the kitchen to feed my beast of a belly, which has been back-talking me since before I finished my workout.

  Ed is sitting at the kitchen counter, wearing a pair of sweats and a wrinkled T-shirt. The orange Wheaties box is next to him on the counter, and he’s blandly sloshing his spoon around in his cereal bowl. Guilt practically oozes out of him.

  I hesitate then march past. “Did you have fun last night?” I yank open the door on the stainless-steel fridge and pull out a carton of eggs, turkey bacon, spinach, and a container of sliced mushrooms.

  “Lay off, Greyson.”

  Ed doesn’t call me Greyson unless he’s irritated with me. Well, that shit works both ways.

  I slam the refrigerator door and toss everything on the counter, drilling a hole through him with my gaze. “Look, just because Anabel is fucking around on you doesn’t mean you should be doing the same to her. Show her you can be better than she is.” I spin and open one of the cabinets, searching for my mixing bowl. “Christ
, Ed, you’re still married. You haven’t even filed for divorce, yet.”

  He drops his spoon in his cereal bowl, making milk slosh out. “Don’t you think I know that? But what do you want me to do? I can’t go back and undo last night. I had too much to drink. She came home with me. I fucked her. I liked it. She liked it. I’m not as perfect as you are. So sue me!”

  “I’m not perfect.” The omelet pan clangs as I drop it on the stove. “And I don’t want to hear about it.”

  “Hey, you’re the one riding my ass, so you’re going to hear about it. There’s nothing I can do to change last night, Greyson! What’s done is done!” He buries his face in his half-eaten bowl of cereal.

  I stare at him. He looks so lost, so confused.

  What’s happening to him isn’t his fault. Not completely. He’s more a victim of his circumstances and of Anabel’s screwing around than anything of his own making. It’s going to take time for him to sort out his emotions. Maybe bringing Jess home was simply part of the sorting-out process.

  Sighing, I force myself to calm down by remembering that what Ed’s going through isn’t the same as what I went through with my parents or what my dad went through with my mom.

  “Look, I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean to blow up at you. I know you’re going through hell right now.”

  Ed looks up, and his eyes are red. I want to believe he’s just hungover, but I know that’s only part of it. He’s been crying, but hell will freeze over before he admits that and before I let on that I know the truth.

  “Did you at least have a good time?” I say gently. “Did she treat you right?”

  Ed’s mouth bends into a weak smile. “Yeah, it was nice. She was sweet. I like her.”