by Ella Fields
“Admit what?”
She settled deeper into me, her arm tightening around my waist. “That you liked it. You’ve obviously watched enough of it.”
My fingers drifted from her back to her hair, playing with the soft strands. “An episode or two.” I didn’t admit that it was after I first discovered the comics in this very room. “No need to watch any more to grasp the sheer clumsiness and stupidity of that character.”
Renee gasped, eyes flying open. “She’s not stupid.” I crooked my neck to raise an eyebrow at her. “Okay,” she conceded. “Sometimes, she’s totally clumsy. But when it matters, she transforms into this awesome crime fighting warrior. And the gloves …” Another fluttery sigh. “Don’t even get me started on the gloves.” I smirked, and she poked my cheek. “What?”
“You. Your fangirling gets me hard.”
Her laughter was followed by, “Really?”
“Really, so unless we’re going to do something about that, hush.”
She reached over, pulling the rainbow unicorn closer to her back before getting settled again. “Thank you for my unicorn.”
“You’re welcome, Mouse.”
Silence filled the room, my eyes closing as I turned into her and held her to my chest.
“I wonder what future that lady would have laid out for me,” she whispered, sleep saturating her voice.
I huffed, trying to conjure a memory of the old crone to assist in deflating my hard-on. “One that was made up and full of shit.”
Renee hummed, her breathing slowing as she gave into sleep.
The weeks rolled on, and the whispers about us and our sudden relationship eventually stopped, but we didn’t. Renee became a permanent part of my life, and it was time to let our parents know.
After school, I waited for her to finish rehearsal to catch a ride home.
“When are your parents buying you a car?”
“In exactly five months and twenty-three days.”
Renee laughed, turning out of the parking lot. “For your seventeenth?”
“You’re so sweet, remembering my birthday.”
She rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses. “Like I could forget. Not with our yapping mothers and your super awesome sixteenth.”
“Will you bring some knitting needles to my seventeenth?”
A snort. “If you want.”
I reached over, my hand squeezing her thigh and inching higher as she drove through the quiet suburban streets that separated Trellara from Gray Springs. “I most fucking definitely want.”
“I’m not so great at knitting.”
“Sure, you aren’t.” I found the lace trim of her panties, and she jerked the wheel.
“Callum,” she growled.
“Pull over.”
“No.” She removed my hand, and I sagged back in the leather seat.
“Fine. What’s the plan, then, Mouse?”
Despite the nickname coming about during the time I’d tormented her, Renee never seemed to object to it. In fact, I thought she’d taken a liking to it. Especially when whispered hotly into her ear.
She scowled. “I thought you’d have one.”
I snickered. “I was just going to kiss you stupid in front of everyone.”
Her lips puckered, but then she smiled that sly smile of hers. “I don’t hate that idea.”
Renee wasn’t all sweet; she was pretty venom wrapped in a sugary bow. Deceptive yet honest at the same time. Underneath, her layers multiplied in ways she didn’t often let show on the outside.
“Let’s do it, then. Maybe they’ll even let us have sleepovers.”
Renee laughed as she turned into the long drive of my house, dirt kicking up as she sped past the looming trees toward the fountain in the center, curving the car around it before shifting into park with brute force.
“Hang on a minute,” she said, grabbing my arm as I went to jump out.
“What?”
Her teeth slipped over her lip as she glanced at the house, then back at me. “You’re not mad that we’re giving them what they wanted?”
“Not if it’s what I want too,” I replied. It didn’t appease her, and so I tucked my fingers beneath her chin and whispered, “Mouse, I was fourteen, full of mistrust and raging new hormones. I want this, you and me, regardless of what they want.”
Leaning in, she pressed her lips to mine. “Okay.”
I jumped out, jogging around the Rover to help Renee down, and she gave me a tiny smile. She never refused the help even though we both knew she was more than capable. She seemed to like having doors held open for her, her dinner paid for—anything—so long as it was me doing those things for her.
“Your bow’s crooked.” I pinched her ass before opening the doors for her to walk in.
She stopped at the mirror in the entry, tilting her head to see where it sat above her low ponytail, then scowled at me when she realized it was perfect.
I shrugged, chuckling as she flipped me off.
Our mothers were here, as we’d expected being Tuesday afternoon. They spent Tuesdays together at the mall, followed by refreshments at either one of our homes until it was time to head home for dinner.
“Hi, Mom,” Renee said, stepping out onto the cavernous patio that overlooked our sprawling pool and the lawn beyond it.
“Darling!” Valery set her martini glass down, all bright smiles as she engulfed Renee into a hug, air kissing her cheeks before turning to me to do the same. “What a nice surprise.”
“Sit, you two.” My own mother gestured to the white wicker lounge chairs opposite theirs. “I’ll have Wanda fetch you some iced tea.”
“I’m fine,” I said at the same time as Renee, who took a seat next to me, keeping a small gap between our bodies.
I closed it as my mother put the little bell down on the glass table next to her martini. Her and Valery looked from us to each other, sharing tight smiles.
“Well, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company this fine afternoon?” Valery asked, sipping primly on her martini.
My mother reclined back in her round wicker chair, her red painted nails tapping at the arm.
“Um, well,” Renee started.
Like a Band-Aid. I linked my hand with Renee’s shaking one and clipped out, “We’re together.”
Their laughter made both of us startle, and a flock of birds took flight from the willow tree behind the pool. Valery smacked her thigh, my mother swiping a finger beneath her eyes.
Renee was staring at them with the same puzzled expression I likely wore. “What’s so funny?” she asked them.
“Oh, Lord.” My mother wept, waving a hand in front of her face.
“You owe me a grand,” Valery said between wheezes.
We waited, our palms growing clammy, until they stopped laughing.
“Care to tell us what is so amusing?” I asked.
“Hmm?” Valery grinned. “Oh, right. No, we already knew.”
I looked at my mom, who nodded and took a hearty sip of her martini. “You knew?”
They both bellowed out another laugh. “Excuse us, we’ve had a few more than we usually do,” Valery said with a wave toward the empty martini glasses on the table, almost sending them to the patio. “But yes, we already knew.”
“How?” Renee asked, straightening and glaring at the two half-sloshed women.
“Call it mother’s intuition,” my mother said. “We knew you’d end up together eventually.”
Renee snapped, “No. You merely wished we would.”
“Yes, we did. But only because we just knew it’d probably happen. And oh, my goodness.” Valery smiled, her eyes warming as she glanced back and forth between the two of us. “Just look at you two.”
My mother nodded, an exaggerated sigh leaving her. “As perfect as we imagined.”
When they high-fived each other, I stood, taking Renee with me to the French doors.
“By the way, leaving your tie in Renee’s car wasn’t the brightest of id
eas.”
We stopped on the threshold, and I shot over my shoulder, “That could’ve been anyone’s.”
“Right,” Valery drawled. “Because my daughter lets just anyone climb into her car after school. Mouths are made for more than kissing, my dear.” She smiled, and I saw where Renee got it, that carefully veiled venom. “They do a lot of talking, too.”
We left them to their tittering, heading upstairs to my room where I shut the door with a quiet slew of curses.
Renee doubled over by the window, laughter howling out of her in waves that hit me square in the chest. “God, they’re unbelievable.”
My annoyance fading instantly, I flicked the lock and walked over to her with laughter of my own. “Now you can understand why I was so nervous a few years ago, right?”
She wrapped her arms around my neck. Her lips dragged up my throat, stopping near my ear. “Do I make you nervous?” My cock jerked, my hands clenching her hips.
“You make me many things, but nervous is not one of them.” I kissed the tip of her nose. “Did you know that when you laugh, a real laugh, anyone who’s around you stops and stares?”
“Hmm, really?” Her teeth and tongue wrapped around my earlobe, my eyes almost rolling to the back of my head. “That’s nice, but I want to know about these things.”
“Not here,” I managed to croak as she untucked my school shirt and grazed her nails over the curve of my back.
“Why not?”
“Fuck it,” I said, all but shoving her toward the bed where I climbed on top of her.
“Callum?” My mom knocked on the door. “If you need …” She stopped, her laughter filtering through the wood. My head dropped with a groan to Renee’s neck. “Anything. Be sure to let us know.”
“Oh, my God,” Renee rasped, smothering her laughter with my shoulder.
“That’s why,” I grumbled.
Seventeen years old
“Why do they call them dreams?” Renee asked. “The word seems so, I don’t know, untouchable. Like the concept is simply daring us to try to reach for them.”
“I think the better word would be goals.”
“Why?”
Blinking lazily, I watched as tiny globs of fading light swayed on the ceiling. “Because goals are achievable, if you try hard enough. And if you fail to achieve them, you get up, and you try again.”
“Is that what football is to you? A goal?”
“Yes. Not just a dream. A goal.”
“A very achievable goal, I might add.” Renee’s smile was evident in her voice. She fell quiet for a moment, then asked, “What about it makes you want it so much?”
I smiled, her head lifting from where it rested on my stomach when I sighed. “It’s … thrilling. Win or lose, every game is an accomplishment. You’re constantly moving forward, even if you walk off the field feeling like you’ve failed. You’ve achieved something.”
Renee looked up at me, her brows puckering. “What have you achieved if you’ve failed?”
“You gain more knowledge.”
Her smile was temptation in and of itself, a weapon, her bow-shaped lips lined in red. “And with knowledge, more power to achieve next time.”
I stroked my finger over the small bridge of her nose. “Wise little Mouse.” She fascinated me constantly without ever having to do or say a thing. Even after all this time, I needed to know her. Every sacred, hidden part that dwelled inside her. “If you could be one thing in this world that is unobtainable, what would it be?”
She pondered my question for a minute. “Well, what I’d choose to be isn’t of this world. Or any other, really.”
“Humor me.”
“A mermaid,” she said without hesitation, dreamy eyes on the ceiling.
“A mermaid?” I couldn’t hide the incredulity in my tone and remembered when we were fourteen, sitting outside the game room as we listened to our mothers discuss her mermaid hair.
“A mermaid,” she confirmed.
“Care to explain?”
“Well, if you’re going to swim with sharks, better to do it as the loveliest, most cunning creature of the sea.”
“There’re plenty enough sharks right here in the real world.”
She huffed. “Exactly. You can never really escape them. You simply need to best them.”
My dick was about to burst through my school slacks and poke her in the cheek with how hard it was. I tugged her over me, laying my lips on hers.
Renee met me press for press, her tongue just as eager to join mine. I flipped her to her back, and then she was pushing me away. “Wait, you didn’t give me your answer.”
I frowned, my breathing getting heavy. “I wouldn’t be anything that wouldn’t give me the ability to do this. I’m a simple guy.”
“Uh-huh.” She snorted lightly. “A simple guy with expensive taste and an attitude that can go from sweet to indifferent in half a heartbeat.”
“Wrong.”
“Oh?”
“You forgot to add the part about my steely determination … to get between these luscious thighs.” My head dipped, grazing her earlobe with my teeth. “An achievable, torturous goal.”
“A fox,” Renee breathed.
Unbuttoning her blouse, my mouth climbed down her chin to her neck, feeling her pulse thrum against my tongue. “Hmm?”
“You’d be a fox.”
I chuckled. “Never cross the fox.”
Her laughter was music that my mouth stole.
My phone ringing from my backpack interrupted us. I groaned, realizing I couldn’t ignore it when it didn’t shut up.
“Who is it?” Renee asked, buttoning her blouse and tugging her knee-high socks back into place as I stared at the screen. “Tell them they’re rude, then put it on silent.”
“Mike,” I said. “Team meeting in twenty.”
“What?”
“The game schedule has changed, and Coach wants to fill us in before we play tomorrow night.”
Renee got up from the bed, running her fingers through her blood red locks as she walked over to the mirror in my walk-in closet. “Want me to come back later?”
“Nah, you’re coming with me.”
“Boring, no thank you,” she sang. “I’ll just watch you in all your glory tomorrow night.”
Tilting my chin down, she pried my lips apart with hers and sank her teeth into my bottom lip, tugging it with her as she stepped back. “I’ve got a history assignment due. Text me later.”
I watched her go, then adjusted my hard-on, knowing the next hour would be the most painful of my life if I didn’t rub one out before I left.
So I did.
I tucked my water bottle away, eyes scanning the dimly lit parking lot full of students.
They soon found what they sought in the far corner, standing alone yet looking like she was the most important person here. Shoulders back, red lipstick on, and wearing a green jersey I’d had made for her over summer break. She’d put her own stamp on it, of course, transforming it into a jumper-looking dress with satin edges and my numbers glittering in gold over her chest. Sheer black thigh-highs sat below the emerald green jersey, and black heeled boots finished off the ensemble.
“You’re one lucky bastard, Welsh,” Pat muttered as I walked past him.
I tossed him a glare that said he’d eat the gravel I was walking on if he didn’t look away.
He smirked, but thankfully did as I wanted and hollered at one of the guys behind me.
“Mini Mouse,” I said, grabbing the back of her head and kissing her forehead. “You’re very distracting.” She was all I could see while I played, even if I wasn’t looking at where she sat in the stands.
“As are you. You didn’t skip showering?” I pulled back, noticing her pout after she’d inhaled a deep breath. “You know I like you sweaty.”
A laugh rumbled out of me, and I opened her car, tossing my gear into the back. “Let’s go. We can both get sweaty back at my place.”
The stre
ets were quiet. I wouldn’t have been surprised if half the town was back at school watching the game. We’d played one of our best rivals, barely scraping out on top with two minutes to spare.
“I don’t understand how you can have the same two teams play each other more than once,” Renee said, her fingers curling around mine as I turned down my drive. The house was dark, only one light glowing through a window downstairs and two lanterns on either side of the doors on the porch.
“Again? We went over this like a month ago.”
She grumbled, getting out of the car before I could help her. “You know I have a shit memory sometimes.”
We moved inside, the wind gathering speed and sending leaves scattering around the porch.
“You don’t need to know everything about football,” I told her as we made our way upstairs to my room. “I don’t give a shit if you hate it. I don’t like to sew, but I still …”
“Still what?” Laughter filled her eyes as she dropped her purse, and I moved her back to the bed.
I fell over her on the mattress. “I’m still very interested in you.”
Her eyes shut briefly, then she looked over at the window where the branches were tapping relentlessly with every sweep of wind.
“Did you know that when you’re in a mood, you always look for windows to stare out of?”
She turned those beautiful, large eyes back to me. “I do?”
I nodded, then asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to act,” she admitted.
“I know.”
“I can’t tell my mom.”
“Why not?” My finger, twirling a strand of her hair around it, dropped.
“Because … I don’t think she wants me to have the kind of career where I’m helping the stars rather than being one myself.” She stared up at me, those long red strands of hair like ribbons on my pillows.
I brushed some hair away from her lips, leaning over her on my forearm. “You could be wrong about that.”
“Do you really think so?” She raised a brow.
Mulling over how Valery might take it, I conceded, “Okay, maybe not. But she’s very supportive of your design skills.”
“She is,” she agreed. “But she thinks I should minor in design. Major in drama and theatre arts.”