by BB Easton
He chuckled softly through his nose.
WHACK! That time, I got him right between his broad, smooth shoulder blades.
Bastard hadn’t even flinched.
SMACK! Left butt cheek.
Ken tilted his head to the left and right, lazily stretching his neck.
CRACK! I clocked him right in the ribs, holding the spoon like a fucking baseball bat.
Ken doubled over in what I hoped was pain, but I soon realized he was laughing as he held his side.
What the fuck? That tickled?
Dropping the spoon, I reached out with both hands and jammed my fingers into Ken’s ribs, wiggling them mercilessly.
“Ahh!” Ken screamed, swatting at my hands. “Stop! Stop!”
“Is somebody ticklish?” I cooed, avoiding his grasp and diving back in.
“Fuck!” he gasped between chuckles. “Stop it!”
“I thought you were tough. You can’t handle some wittle tickles?”
“Rrrrah!” Ken growled, turning and pinning my arms to my sides. His sparkly blue eyes were alight with something I hadn’t seen in them before. Something resembling…excitement. “Fucking. Stop,” he panted, grinning from ear to ear.
“Okay.” I giggled, holding his stare as he held down my arms.
“Okay?”
“If you say I won.”
“You won?”
“There. See? That wasn’t so hard.” I smirked, turning us so that I was the one against the wall. My arms were still restrained, so I hitched my thigh over Ken’s hip, inviting him to punish me in a much different way.
The words I love you flitted through my mind as Ken fucked me against his bedroom wall with the door wide open on a Sunday afternoon.
Too soon, I told them, letting my head fall back against the Sheetrock.
Way too fucking soon.
April 2003
Amy’s parents were so happy she’d moved back that they threw her a huge engagement party. The venue was a stately old manor house with acres of charming little gardens and pathways and fountains surrounding a lily pad–spotted pond. The house sat empty most of the time unless it was being rented out for a wedding.
Or an over-the-top engagement party.
“They are so fucking cute.” Juliet sighed, gazing across the pond at the happiest couple on earth.
Allen and Amy were dressed in color-coordinated outfits, sitting on the edge of a fountain, holding cutesy little signs for the photographer.
“Dude.” I looked down at the four-year-old in my lap and covered his little ears with my hands.
Juliet rolled her eyes. “Relax. I’m pretty sure the first word he ever heard was me screaming, ‘Fuck,’ as I pushed him out.”
“Um, I was there, and I’m pretty sure I was the one screaming that word.”
Juliet burst out laughing. “Yeah, right before you fainted!”
I shook my head, shell-shocked. “If you had seen what I saw…”
“What did you see, Auntie BB?” Romeo tilted his head back and blinked at me with beautiful almond-shaped eyes, just like his mama’s.
“I, uh…well…”
Juliet snickered as I tried to spin the horrors of witnessing live childbirth at the age of fifteen into something sunshiny and sweet.
“I saw you, little boy. I saw you, even before your mommy.”
And way before your loser daddy.
“What did I look like?”
A slimy, blood-smeared guinea pig.
“You looked like a tiny little angel.”
Satisfied with my answer, Romeo went back to grazing from the mountain of cheese and crackers and fruit and finger sandwiches that we’d swiped from the buffet to keep him occupied.
“You scarred me for life,” I whispered to his mother.
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re gonna have a million babies.”
“Pssh. I’m only having one. That’s it. Unless I have twins.” My stomach flipped. “Oh my God. What if I have twins?”
Of all the inopportune moments to appear, Ken chose that one. He sat on the opposite side of our picnic table and set down two plastic cups—one filled with water and one filled with punch that I hoped was spiked. Sliding the red beverage toward me, he gave me a look that said he’d heard more than he wanted to.
“Relax. I’m not pregnant.” I rolled my eyes and took a sip from my drink.
Damnit. Not spiked.
“Twins run in her family,” Juliet offered.
Ken’s eyebrow lifted fractionally. “Sucks for you.”
“Sucks,” Romeo blurted with a mouthful of Gouda.
“You don’t want twins, Ken?” I asked in my sweetest, most sarcastic tone.
“What I want is a vasectomy, but the doctors around here won’t give me one until I’m at least thirty.”
Choking on my punch, I coughed. “You already tried to get a vasectomy?”
“Fuck yeah,” Ken replied.
“Fuck yeah,” Romeo echoed.
Clamping my hand over his crumb-covered mouth, I gaped at my boyfriend.
“Let me guess; you don’t believe in marriage either,” Juliet sassed.
“I don’t,” Ken said matter-of-factly, his expressionless eyes trained on Juliet. Then, with a shift, they were on me. “But I get it.”
“Oh, you get it?” I took another sip from my drink to hide my defensiveness.
“Sure. People want security.” Ken glanced across the pond at his best friend, who was grinning from ear to ear as he pretended to throw his fiancée into the fountain for the camera.
“When you look at them, you see two people who want security?” I asked with a little too much snark. “I see two people who make each other insanely happy and want to be together forever.”
“What’s sick-urity?” Romeo mumbled into my palm.
“Let’s go to the bathroom, buddy.” Juliet reached for her son while giving me a look that said, Calm your crazy.
Once they were gone, it was just me and my new boyfriend and the elephant in the garden.
Ken doesn’t want to get married or have kids.
I should have stood up, wished him well, and walked away from his love-aversion forever. I should have listened to Maya Angelou when she said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” I should have found myself a nice guy with a full sleeve and an entry-level job who would give me all the weddings and babies I wanted.
But do you know what I did instead? Of course you do.
I looked at Ken’s beautiful, joyless face, straightened my spine, and thought, We’ll see about that, asshole.
When the party was over, I hugged Allen and Amy goodbye, gushed over Amy’s ring one more time, and turned to find Ken standing three feet behind me with his hands in the pockets of his black slacks.
He was giving the happy couple his don’t fucking hug me stance.
When I glanced back at Allen and saw the disappointment on his face, I decided Ken needed to get the fuck over himself.
“Hey, babe. Hold still,” I said, walking around behind him. “I think I saw a little piece of fuzz on your—Allen! Quick!” I grabbed Ken’s arms from behind, restraining him, while Allen tackle-hugged him from the front.
Ken tore his arms out of my grasp effortlessly, but not before Allen got one good, solid second of cuddle time from his BFF.
Allen, Amy, and I laughed hysterically as Ken retreated to the other side of the manor house’s foyer, fists in his pockets and scowl on his face.
“It’s like bull riding.” I cackled, trying to catch my breath. “Next time, we’re going for two seconds.”
Ken walked out the front door while we continued to laugh at his expense, but as he passed me, I swear I saw a ghost of a smile on his face.
I chased after him, wiping tears from my cheeks as I hustled across the poorly lit gravel parking area in my stilettos. I only wore heels to weddings and funerals, and it showed.
“Hey, wait up,” I called, grabbin
g his arm for stability once I finally caught up.
Ken’s bicep tensed in my grasp, but he didn’t pull away. He slowed down so that I wouldn’t bust my ass.
I expected him to be pissy about the forced hugging, but much to my surprise, he wasn’t thinking about that at all.
“I didn’t see Jason here, did you?”
Dread slithered into my veins. “No, I didn’t.”
Ken opened his passenger-side door and held my arm as I climbed in. “Maybe you should call him.”
Yes. Call him. Duh.
I dug my phone out of my purse, picturing Jason’s body in a twisted, bloody heap on the sidewalk below his balcony.
Today’s Sunday. Fuck. We didn’t go over there this weekend. I didn’t even think about it.
I found his number in my Contacts and hit Send.
Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be o—
“Whasss up, girl?” Jason slurred over a cacophony of background noise.
“Hey, J!” I plugged my other ear to hear him better and raised my voice. “We missed you at Allen and Amy’s engagement party. Everything okay?”
“I’m at Pearl Jam!” Jason yelled into the phone.
“Pearl Jam?” I made eye contact with Ken as he pulled out of the parking area. “Those tickets were like two hundred bucks a piece.”
“Two-fifty!” Jason corrected.
I laughed. “Where’s my ticket, asshole?”
But Jason couldn’t hear me. He’d erupted into the chorus from “Jeremy” and was singing his little drunken heart out.
I was just about to hang up when he got back on the line and said, “Hey, B?”
“Yeah?”
“You gonna come over next week?”
Guilt tugged the smile right off my face. “Yeah, man. I’ll be there.”
Jason’s off-key voice howled along with Eddie Vedder’s during the last few bars of the song. The music got significantly louder, like he was holding his phone up to an amplifier or something. I winced and hung up.
“He’s fine,” I said, dropping my phone back into my purse. “He’s at Pearl Jam.”
“That fucker.” Ken chuckled. “He should hire me to be his driver.”
“But you’re my driver.” I batted my eyelashes at him.
“Speaking of”—Ken flashed me a sideways smile—“can you be packed and at my house by eight tomorrow? I want to beat all the spring break traffic.”
I nodded with a grin. “You got it.”
I screeched into Ken’s driveway the next morning at 8:52 with wet hair and no makeup on.
The entire drive down, we sang along to his CD collection—including The All-American Rejects, thank you very much—and we only got lost, like, three times. Every time, it was my fault for not paying attention to the highway signs. And, every time, Ken would simply pull off at the next exit and turn around like it was absolutely no big deal that I’d just caused us to drive fifteen minutes out of the way—again.
By the time we parked in front of Bobby’s adorable little bungalow, I was almost sad we had to get out of the car.
Bobby was a country boy through and through—from the deer heads on his walls to the rebel flag belt buckle on his Wranglers. He greeted us warmly and talked nonstop as he gave us a tour of his new house. Chelsea followed behind, smiling and nodding in her preppy polo shirt and crisp white shorts.
And I’d thought Ken and I were opposites.
“Welp. Y’all wanna go to the beach or what?” Bobby asked, popping the tab on a can of Budweiser. “Better go now, so we don’t hafta walk back in the dark.” Bobby jerked a thumb in my direction and chuckled. “This one’s so tiny; the gators ‘round here might snatch her up.”
Redneck beach adventures always involved beer, duct tape, and improvisation.
After Bobby plopped his aluminum lawn chair into the sand and duct-taped a golf umbrella to the side of it, he pulled another can of Bud out of his rolling cooler and offered it to me.
“Thanks,” I said, reaching for it with one sunscreen-covered palm.
Ken accepted it on my behalf, looking absolutely drool-worthy in his dark sunglasses and simple black board shorts.
I smiled at my own reflection in his eyewear as I spread the lotion down my spindly, freckled arm. I hoped he was watching me because he liked how I looked in my new leopard-print bikini, but when he opened his mouth and said, “You forgot the tops of your feet,” I realized he was simply watching me to make sure my dumb ass hadn’t missed a spot.
Rrrrrrrrip! Bobby tore off another long piece of duct tape and went to work on attaching another large umbrella to a second lawn chair.
In my mind, I’d had visions of Ken and me enjoying a long, romantic, barefoot walk on the beach, hand in hand, as seagulls sang a chorus of Toni Braxton songs.
Instead, the two Eastons grabbed their boogie boards and ran straight into the water, leaving Bobby and me behind to drink lukewarm beer in the hot Florida sun.
I sat down in the chair next to Bobby in resignation, careful not to put an eye out on the umbrella attached to it, and took a long sip from my beer. “So, Chelsea’s a jock, too, huh?”
“Hell yeah.” Bobby spat in the sand. “If it wasn’t for her, I’d fail the fucking Air Force fitness tests every time. That girl gets my ass up every morning an’ makes me go joggin’ with her. Joggin’! Like a couple of damn yuppies.”
I giggled. “Ken runs too. I don’t get it, man. The only way I’m running is if one of those gators you were talking about tries to eat me.”
Bobby laughed as I watched Ken and Chelsea ride the same wave, side by side, all the way to the sand. I was vaguely aware that my mouth had fallen open at the sight of him. Ken stood up and shook the water out of his darkened, wet hair. Then, he laughed at his sister with that Hollywood smile as a second wave knocked her back into the sand. Ken didn’t offer to help her up, and she didn’t ask. She simply got up on her own, and the two Eastons walked back into the ocean with their boards tucked under their arms.
“Is Chelsea weird about touching, too?” I asked Bobby without taking my eyes off the pair in the water.
“What do you mean? Like, ’cause of germs and stuff?”
“No, I think it’s more like a personal-space thing.” I turned and looked at my new friend. “Ken doesn’t touch people unless he has to. He lets me hug him”—and physically abuse him in bed—“but he never initiates human contact with anyone unless he has to. It’s so weird.”
“Now that you mention it, Chelsea is kinda like that. She’s a sweet girl, but she ain’t real cuddly. Most girls, no offense—” Bobby held his non-beer hand up. “But most girls are kinda needy. Ya know?”
I nodded with a chuckle.
Oh, I know.
“But Chelsea’s cool, man. She don’t need nuthin’.” Bobby took a long swig from his can and gazed out at his girlfriend, who was standing waist deep in the ocean, having a conversation with her brother.
Probably about how needy I am.
“That sounds like Ken. He won’t even let me buy him gifts.”
“Welp, I sure hope Chelsea ain’t like that ’cause I’m thinkin’ ’bout givin’ her a real big gift here pretty soon.”
My eyes lit up. “Like a riiiiiing?” I sang.
“Shh,” he scolded, turning his anxious brown eyes on me. “Not so damn loud.”
I grinned and whisper-squealed, “That’s so exciting!” Then, my face fell as I thought about all the similarities between her and her brother.
“What? What is it?”
I faked a smile. “Nothing. It’s just…Ken doesn’t want to get married. He says he doesn’t believe in it.” I rolled my eyes.
“Pssh.” Bobby waved a dismissive hand at me. “All guys say that. Hell, I don’t know if I even believe in it to tell you the truth. Why do I need the government to give me a piece of paper to prove that I love my woman? It ain’t none of their damn business. Next thing you know, they’re gonna be microchippin’ us and tryin�
�� to take our guns.”
I snorted at his backwoods honesty.
Bobby’s rant died down as a wistful smile tugged at his lips. “But my girl wants to do it, and I’m gonna give that woman whatever in the hell she wants.” Bobby tossed back the rest of his beer and crunched the can in his fist. “Let me ask you this…did Kenny boy say he wouldn’t get married?”
“We’ve only been dating, like, two months, so we haven’t really talked about—”
“That don’t matter. When he said he didn’t believe in it, did he say he wouldn’t do it?”
I thought back to our conversation at Allen’s engagement party the day before. “Well…no.”
Bobby popped the tab on a new beer and tipped it in my direction. “Then, there you go.”
“You sure you don’t need me to carry you?” Bobby teased as I limped back to his house in the dark.
“I’m fine,” I insisted, embarrassed that I hadn’t taken Ken’s advice. The tops of my feet were so badly burned; I couldn’t even put my flip-flops back on.
Handing his boogie board and towel to his sister, Ken stopped on the side of the road and knelt before me. There was no I told you so, no gloating about being right. He didn’t even laugh at my pitiful condition.
Ken simply sighed and said, “Get on.”
I smiled and wrapped my arms around his tan shoulders, inhaling the lingering scent of sea on his towel-dried hair. As Ken looped his forearms under my knees and stood to carry me home, Bobby gave me a covert wink.
Do you see this shit? I squealed at him with my mind. Ken is giving me a piggyback ride!
As we strolled back to Bobby’s house along the slow, sleepy streets of Fort Walton Beach, I smiled and pressed a little kiss into Ken’s damp hair.
Fuck a walk on the beach, I thought, squeezing his waist with my legs a little tighter.
We laughed about Chelsea’s wipeout and Bobby’s farmer tan along the way, but only half of my attention was on the conversation. The other half was focused intently on my thighs, right where Ken’s hands were resting. Okay, maybe seventy-five percent. It was enough that I didn’t hear the incessant doodle-oodle-oodle-oos coming from inside the house until Bobby opened the front door.