I was going to keep going.
I parked out in front of Rae’s. It was noon or something—I hadn’t checked my phone all morning, but it felt like noon. I opened the gate on her fence, walked into her yard. Her fence, her fence wasn’t like a life. A fence like that, it could use fixing. Hell, it could use being torn down and built back up wholly new.
I knocked on the door. Waited.
No answer.
I knocked again.
Waited.
It must have been five minutes later when the door opened a crack. Her body language made it clear—we were going to be having a conversation with me still outside. I wasn’t coming in. Her hair was an uncombed mess, she didn’t have on any makeup, and she was wearing pajama pants with ice cream cones on them and a baggy t-shirt for an animal rescue place in Illinois. How was she still so beautiful?
“I don’t want to hear it,” she said.
I just looked at her, just let her keep talking.
“I’m not signing up for another relationship with another guy who just treats me badly.”
“That’s fair,” I said. “I’m not going to—”
“No, I mean it, I don’t want to hear it. Maybe it was a mistake, opening up to you. Thinking I could trust you. And yeah, I messed up. You had a right to be upset. But I can’t handle you just shutting me out like that. I can’t handle angry. I can’t handle it if you’re just like every other man I’ve ever met, I guess. We coulda talked about it, maybe, but I don’t want to talk about it anymore. We’re both better off just going separate ways.”
I hung my head. Words weren’t going to work for me. They’ve never worked well for me.
“See you later, Luke,” she said. Then, gently, she closed the door with me still standing on her stoop, my head down in shame.
Maybe I’d lost her. I hoped I hadn’t. Maybe I had.
But I could show her I cared, even if I couldn’t say it right.
So I left. I walked back out through that gate, took a look at her busted-up fence, and I got an idea. Got in my truck and drove away.
An hour later, I was back with tools and wood. It was a quiet enough street, there wasn’t much traffic, so I backed my truck up against the curb and blocked half the street. Got out, took a length of nylon rope and tied a rewoven eight on one end, looped it around the trailer hitch on my truck. The other end I lashed to her fence.
Got in the truck, put it in first, and crawled forward. Once I’d worked the slack out of the line, the engine put up just the slightest bit of fuss before it ripped the whole front of her fence right out of the yard. That felt good.
I got out of the truck to unhitch the rope, and Rae was out in the yard, shouting.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
I opened the tailgate, so she could see the pickets stacked up inside. She walked closer, curious, though she kept her distance from me still.
“I’m building you a new fence,” I said.
While I was talking, I untied the rope, coiled it, stored it back in the tool box. The next step, logically, would be to start demolishing the fence I’d ripped out, but I knew better than to start swinging a sledge around Rae just then. Instead, I started pulling out the pickets and rails, sorting things on the edge of her lawn.
“I thought it’d be nice for Muffin to be able to be outside again, spend time in the yard without running away. Maybe run around with King, if you’d have him. King would miss the hell out of Muffin if they couldn’t hang out.”
She stared me down for a good long moment, but then, like breathing out, her anger left her body. She relaxed. She was still distant, but she wasn’t furious. I had a chance.
“I’m sorry,” I said. Took a breath.
She nodded. She wanted me to keep talking.
I guess it was going to take words after all.
“I was scared,” I said. “I saw you looking into my past, and it scared me.”
“I’m sorry too,” she said. I didn’t need her to say more. Because she said it like she meant it. “I’m scared too.”
“I’m scared as hell,” I said. “All the time. But you know what would make me happy?”
“What?”
“I’d be awfully happy if you and I could be scared together.”
Whatever was left of her resistance fled from her body and I could see the tears welling up behind her eyes.
“We could try that,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“One thing I don’t get,” I said to Juan, the florist, “is why every flower shop in town closes at 5pm. You’re the only place open later, and you close at six.”
It was autumn, and outside the shop, leaves floated on the afternoon winds. It was also about five minutes to five, and this guy was doing me a favor by staying open.
“When you think about my average customer, who are you thinking about?” he asked. He was an elderly fellow, as thin as a nail with steel-gray hair. An old, faded anchor was tattooed on his forearm. Navy man, I assumed.
“Businessman, on his way home from work. Grabbing flowers for his wife.”
He shook his head. “That’s what people think, but that’s not it. Businessmen grab a bundle of roses from a street vendor or the grocery store. My average customer is the housewife. Doing the kind of work that no one ever notices, the work of keeping her place beautiful. Which means more than roses. It means lavender and daffodils and lilies. It means all the flowers people don’t think about.”
“Alright,” I said.
“So what’s the occasion? I don’t see you in here much anymore, but I remember you used to come in twice a week at least.” He paused, weighed his words. “Your wife was a good woman. Glad to see you back in here.”
I nodded, but his comments didn’t hurt. I was still in Carhartts and had leather gloves sticking out of the pockets of my jacket. I’d told Morris I had to get back to Kansas City early. He’d grumbled a little—the place we were building was about 3/4 done and we all wanted to get it finished and inspected and the family moved in before the cold came in. But Heartland Habitat could work without me, however much everyone there grumped and moaned that they couldn’t. They’d get on without me for half a day.
“A date,” I said. “Going on a date.”
“That’s good,” Juan said, brightening. “Everything in its time. First date? Second date?”
“Probably the thirtieth,” I said. “It’s been three months or something.”
“Something casual, then.”
“Something casual.”
“She’s found a good man, if she’s found someone who puts as much thought into the thirtieth date as the first one.”
“I hope so.”
She met me at my place, and I presented her with the flowers, and only then did I think it through, realize we weren’t ending up at her place, so the flowers I’d bought for her were really for me.
She realized it quicker than I did, because when I handed her the bouquet she laughed, happy. Then I laughed too.
She took the flowers and came in, Muffin alongside her without a leash. Rae was familiar with the place, already, and she found two vases, cut the stems on the flowers and put them in water on the table.
The letters weren’t there, not anymore. They were in my room, in a neat stack in the same drawer where I kept those wedding photos. They were safe, and close by if I needed them, but resting quietly just out of sight—right where they needed to be.
“How much time do we have?” Rae asked. She stepped up close to me, put her arm around my waist. I pulled her in tight against me, and her hand ran up along my back, her nails digging into my skin.
“Our reservation isn’t for another hour and a half,” I said.
“Whatever will we do until then?”
I grinned.
Rae was inexhaustible.
We crept up the stairs, hand in hand, trying to escape before King and Muffin noticed we’d gone. We failed, of course, and had to get the bedroom door s
hut before the terrier and the bloodhound came in after us.
Only in bed, Rae liked being told what to do. It had taken a little getting used to—Emily had always been too wild for something like that, and Maggie liked being in charge, even when she had me act like I was. But Rae made it clear right off that it excited her when I took control, that she was comfortable saying no if I tried something she didn’t like, and that she wanted me to dominate her.
“Strip,” I said.
She did.
Her fingers went to the buttons on her shirt, her fingers that had brought me so much pleasure. Her nails had french tips, white against her white shirt, then a moment later, white against her white skin.
“Your skirt,” I said. She slipped out of it, leaving her in her sweet cotton panties.
“Lean back against the wall,” I said.
She did. I stripped down nude, watching her hand touch herself outside her underwear while I took off my clothes. By the time I took off my briefs, I was fully erect. She saw me and her eyes went dark and hungry. I stepped up against her, pressed myself against her, and let my cock rub up against the front of her for just a moment.
“Do you want my mouth on you?” I said.
I was getting better at dirty talk. I hadn’t mastered it yet, not like she had, but I was getting the idea.
“Yes,” she said.
I knelt down in front of her, my mouth poised right in front of her pussy. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she sighed.
I pressed my middle finger up against her pussy, then two fingers against her bare skin next to her panties, pulling her lips apart.
“Well if you’re not sure,” I said.
“You’d better start fucking me with your mouth and fingers, Luke Cawley, or we’ll be late for dinner.”
I grabbed her panties on the sides, at her hips, then pulled them down fast. She smelled amazing. I licked the length of her pussy, lingering as I ran my tongue up past her clit.
“How do you taste so good?” I asked.
“Put your fingers in me,” she said.
I did. She moaned, right off, and I curved my fingers toward her front and started sliding them in and out.
“Deeper,” she said.
I went in to my knuckles.
“Deeper,” she said.
I pulled my fingers out and stood up. I took off her bra, and she was naked in front of me, her face showing a mixture of happiness and lust.
“Lean over the bed,” I said. “I’ve got a better idea of how to get deeper in you.”
She did, her full ass presented to me, her swollen pussy lips showing. I stroked my cock, looking at her.
“What are you going to do to me?” she moaned, looking back over her shoulder.
“To start,” I said, walking up to her, “I’m going to rub my dick up against your ass.” I did it, as I said it.
“Then I’m going to get a condom, put it on, and I’m going to fuck you while you brace yourself against the bed. I’m going to slide my dick all the way into you, and I’m going to hold you by the hips while I do with you as I like.”
“Do it,” she said, letting out a shuddering breath.
I found a condom on the bedside table, and lube. Lube is another thing Rae had brought into my life—she knew herself, and she told me what she needed. I was glad to oblige.
I put lube on my fingers, then slid them into her. Three fingers this time, which she likes but not for long. Three fingers into her wet pussy, then I pulled out and put my cock in.
She gasped, and I gasped with her.
It wasn’t a good position, not for the long haul, but sometimes you have sex in certain positions just because of the idea of it. Because she liked me leaning down over her back, breathing in her ear while I was inside her from behind. I put my fingers in her mouth, and she sucked on them furiously. I matched my rhythm to the speed at which she sucked on my fingers, and soon I was fucking her with everything I had.
“Get on the bed,” I told her, then I stepped back away from her.
She climbed onto the bed, got on her back. I lifted her legs, curled her up into a ball, then slammed back into her.
“Fast and hard,” she said.
So I went fast and hard, holding tight onto her shoulders as I thrust into her. Soon, she was moaning hard, and I was moaning with her.
She uncurled, let her legs wrap up against me. I got a spare pillow and put it under her ass, raising her up to just the right level for me to go deeper into her. I went at it, fast and hard, and she got her fingers on herself. I held her down by the shoulders while she rubbed on her clit and I thrust into her.
“Slower,” she panted. “Harder.”
I moved to hard thrusts at slower intervals, and she rubbed herself faster, started breathing quickly through her mouth. Shallow breaths. Shallow breaths.
I was panting, myself. That girl could give me a workout.
“I want you to come inside me,” she said. “Just fuck me. However you want me, just fuck me.”
I leaned over to kiss her, and she kissed me back. As I picked up my pace again she started bucking underneath me, her moans reaching a crescendo and her orgasm wracking her body. As her pussy tightened around me, hot and slick, I finally let myself go, giving her everything I had, while my own orgasm built up. I clenched her shoulders, tight, and kissed her hard as I came.
“I can feel you,” she said, halfway too breathless to speak. “Even through the condom, I can feel you.”
I pulled out and we spooned for a minute, each catching our breath.
“You hungry?” she finally asked.
“Hell yes.”
By the time we made it the restaurant, we managed to stop staring at each other all googly-eyed and happy, and when we were seated we might have even looked respectable. I had my flannel tucked in, after all. And Rae was in that skirt. It was knee-length, which has got to count as respectable.
She leaned across the table, her eyes alight with mischief as she told me about a new client.
“I guess they don’t understand what it is I do,” she said. “They said they wanted a manual for this thing, it’s a blender, I guess, that you control with your phone.”
“A blender you control with your phone?”
“Yeah, I don’t really get the point of it. The world’s first Smart Blender, that’s their tagline. But the thing is, I can’t write them technical documentation if I don’t understand it myself, and no one there will explain it properly. They’ve just let me log into their transcripts on the building process, expect me to somehow just figure out how it works.”
“I’m still hung up on a blender you control with your phone,” I said.
“You tell the app on your phone what you’ve put into it, and it spins at just the right speed. Has sensors that lets it stop blending at just the right time.”
“Why don’t you just look at it and stop it when it’s blended?”
“Don’t ask me, I’m not the market for this thing.”
I couldn’t get over it.
“Maybe,” Rae said, “maybe it’ll be the next GPS. When I got my license, you just used a map. Seemed good enough. Didn’t even know what I was missing. The idea of letting your phone tell you where you were going, that just seemed stupid. But now I barely remember how I lived without it.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “But still.”
“I kind of asked the same thing, when they hired me. But I had to ask it real carefully, because it doesn’t really matter to me what they’re making, not really. The good I do for the world, I do for the shelter. You know that. This stuff just keeps Muffin in dog food, you know? So I asked them, real carefully, and they told me that basically, these things come out all the time. You never know what’s the next thing you can’t live without.”
“I could live without any of it,” I said.
“I’d rather not, though,” Rae said.
That might have been a difference between us. Didn’t matter. I
t was minor. I learned long enough ago that something like that, something that doesn’t matter, you just let it go past you.
“So they expect you to do all this work but you can’t do it because they haven’t told you what to do?”
“Basically.”
“That happens to me sometimes,” I said. “They say ‘build me a shed.’ And I’ll ask what kind of shed. ‘A shed,’ they’ll say. Then they’re off at work all day, and I’m just standing around with my tools thinking ‘what the hell do you want me to build?’“
“Right, because if you build them a greenhouse and they wanted a place to hang up bicycles, they’re going to be pissed.”
“And pissed clients, hard to get them to pay.”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Damn, that’s annoying.” I smiled and she smiled and then I reached across the table to cup her face and gently ran my thumb over that dimple high up on her cheek. It was one of my favorite things about her face. For a moment time stopped, and I watched her drop her eyes and blush. Then she pulled my hand away, kissed my palm, and picked up her glass.
“Cheers to employment, anyhow,” she grinned. We clinked our beers together. “How’s it going for you, down at the church?”
“Well, my brother, at least he knows what he wants. We’re redoing the whole office section of the church. He said the drop ceiling looked awful and he’s tearing out the fluorescents. Said God’s house shouldn’t look like God works a 9 to 5 He hates.”
Rae started laughing at that.
The waiter came, took our orders. I got lasagna. I always got lasagna at Italian places. Pasta and meatballs, that’s something I could cook at home pretty much as well as they could. But lasagna, that’s something else. Even Emily, who could cook a mean lasagna, had said she’d liked it when other people made her lasagna. It’s a lot of work.
“So we’re still doing some demolition and planning, but it’s going well. I might subcontract out some of it to my dad—he’s licensed for a couple of the things I’m not.”
“Keep it in the family?”
“It’s kind of a big thing that Mike came to me instead of Dad, actually. That I’m hiring Dad instead of the other way around. I mean yeah, Mike’s doing me a favor, and I can use the work. But Mike isn’t the kind of guy to just throw me a bone. He hired me because he trusts me.”
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