Finding Peace

by Emilia Finn

  “Hey, what’s your number?”

  “My… my phone number?” she stammers, stunned by the rapid topic change.

  “Yeah,” I nod, fingering her hair with one hand and reaching into my pocket with the other. “I wanna call you sometime.”

  She watches me for a long minute, probably wondering if I’m going to sell it to the media, but eventually she nods and rattles off her numbers.

  I type them straight into my cell, hitting call and smiling when I hear her phone ring from her back pocket. I just made her ass vibrate. Good deal.

  “Now you have my number too.”

  “I guess I do.”

  “Use it.”

  “I might.”

  “You definitely will,” I tell her, intending to text her as soon as she’s out of my sight. I’ll open up communications, then I’ll force her to keep replying.

  She might not be the right fit for me, in that I’m not the right fit for her, but I’m selfish enough to try and keep her, for a little while at least.

  Fourteen

  Tina

  Making Plans

  Aiden with the bitable jaw Kincaid: Whatcha doing right now?

  I smile down at my phone; at the contact name I have him saved under, and at the straight to the point message. No pleasantries with this man. No time for a sweet nothings. I kind of like it this way. Less bullshit to wade through.

  With a sassy smile, I reply. Me: I’m sitting in my sexy nurse’s outfit, reading smut.

  A: Seriously? His reply arrives not thirty seconds later and I laugh at his eagerness.

  M: No,*sigh*, my nurse’s outfit is lost somewhere, sorry. I could swear I saw it the other day though.

  A: Damn. So what are you really doing?

  M: I’m working.

  A: Where’s Smalls?

  I look over at Evie, smiling as she draws in her coloring book.

  M: She’s working too.

  A: I love her work ethic. Always on the grind.

  M: Yeah, she’s a gem. I need her to ask for a pay rise though. Keep up with inflation and all that.

  A: Makes sense, he replies quickly, and I know he’s doing his half grin thing.

  M: What are you doing right now?

  A: Sitting in my new nurse’s outfit, reading smut.

  I laugh out loud at his stupid reply. He’s sneaky funny. M: I’m not even a little bit surprised.

  A: What can I say? The cotton feels good on my skin.

  On a laugh, I sit my phone down. He makes me feel good just by talking to him.

  “Mommy.” Evie’s voice draws my eyes away from the image I’m editing on my computer screen.

  I photographed a wedding a week ago, and I’m getting ready to send the package off. I’ve been working on it, hoping to be done soon. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

  “Yeah baby?”

  “Can I have a milkshake?”

  “No Evie.” I look at the time in the bottom right corner of my screen. “It’s almost dinner time.”

  “I don’t like dinner.”

  “You don’t even know what I’m making.” I frown at her. She’s a doll, really. She’s sweet and kind and thoughtful. She gives the sweetest hugs, and her giggles warm my heart.

  But dinnertime… is the bane of my damn existence.

  Unless it’s pizza – and not just regular pizza, but pizza served from a Kincaid hand – she doesn’t want to eat. Every damn night we have the same conversation.

  “Mommy is finishing work now, baby. Then we’re going to make dinner.”

  “But--”

  “And you’re going to eat it.”

  “But I’m not hungry--”

  “But you just asked for a milkshake. So I think you are hungry, you just like messing with me,” I trail off, quietly at the end.

  This is an argument we have daily. I’ve learned talking it through is like beating my head against the wall. Instead I just cook the damn food, then literally bash my head against the wall while we argue over spoon sizes.

  M: What’s for dinner at your house?

  I finish tweaking the last image, shoot off the email to my client letting them know they can come in to view and collect, and sighing in relief for the incoming cash flow, I shut my computer down and stand. My back cracks and a groan drags up my throat. I was sitting for too long.

  “Let’s go, baby.”

  “I don’t want dinner, Mama. I not hungry.”

  “Move your butt, Evelyn. Go wash your hands.”

  My phone tings and I smile before even looking at the screen.

  A: Dunno. Maybe I’ll sponge off Kitkat. Or Sissy. What are you having?

  M: The souls of tiny children that refuse to eat and would rather live on sunshine and leprechaun shit.

  A: Is that vegan?

  M: I’m not sure… but if I had to guess… I’d rather a steak. Damn I could do with a steak. Too bad it’s so expensive.

  I end up making spaghetti bolognaise; fairly cheap and easy to make, and although it’s messy as hell, Evie usually argues less on spaghetti night.

  We bathe together, soaking the bathroom floor, and although I inwardly groan at the cleanup, I feel content, because I’ve survived another day of feeding her and making her tummy adorably round.

  Aiden kept texting through the evening, just easy topics, nothing heavy, nothing about our upcoming date, nothing about Princess Peach or the ogre. Just easy stuff.

  My day. His day. Evie’s day.

  He told me how he worked with Jack a lot that morning, and how Kit’s taking the week off.

  They all tend to take the week off post fight, because they’re sore. She’s fine, but she’s got the typical after fight pains. Bruised arms and legs.

  My belly flutters when I get out of the tub with Evie and I find another text.

  A: Text me when Evie goes to sleep.

  About ninety minutes after I finish mopping up our bathroom and I load the dishwasher with our spaghetti mess, I tiptoe past Evie’s room, entering mine and I sit on the edge of my bed.

  I’m torn.

  He told me to text him, but I feel like this is a whole other level of intimacy. To text him late evening, when I’m alone, with no Evie as a buffer.

  I look down at my bare legs, my gray camisole top and black checkered boxer shorts being the only thing I’m wearing.

  My hair is hanging loose and my skin feels hypersensitive, the strands tickling my back and shoulders.

  My phone vibrates and my shoulders jerk, as though the vibration is as loud as a gunshot in the night.

  Aiden: Did you forget me?

  Oh god.

  Me: No.

  Oh my god, what am I going to do?

  A: Smalls asleep?

  Ahhhhh.

  M: Yes.

  A: You busy?

  Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  M: No.

  I let out a squeak when my phone vibrates again, though this time it’s ringing, not just a simple text that I could ignore.

  Since finding out who Aiden is, and how high profile the family and gym actually is, I kind of googled him, and I found some nice sweaty pictures of training camps and fight days.

  I may or may not have saved his picture to his contact, and his angry fight face flashing at me, with his bitable jaw, the sexy as hell combination has me freezing, unable to decide if I want to combust or vomit.

  The phone rings out, my indecision paralyzing me as Aiden’s super long name flashes on the screen.

  A: Answer your phone, Peaches. Don’t make me come over there to make sure you’re both okay.

  Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

  His image flashes again, startling me even though I knew it was coming, and it’s as though his image has come to life, giving me the beady eye and demanding I do as I’m told.

  Folding my legs, then unfolding and refolding on the other side, my hands shake as I stare at the screen.

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

&nbs
p; Resolved with my fate, knowing he would probably be knocking on my front door in five minutes if I don’t, then taking a moment to wonder if I should ignore the call and hope he turns up in five minutes, I finally hit the green icon before it rings out.

  “Hello?” God, I sound like a nervous virgin at a frat party. And he knows it.

  I hear a soft chuckle from his end, the deep rumble of it sending more tingles through my stomach. “Hey,” he replies, simply, lazily, and I immediately get a mental image of him sitting in his home, reclining on a comfy chair or perhaps against the head board in his bedroom.

  I didn’t get a chance to look around his home before, so I have no idea what his recliner might look like, or his bed. But I’m imagining dark; dark leathers, dark timbers, dark fabrics, just dark.

  “You tried to ghost on me?”

  “Yes,” I admit and he chuckles again, not at all offended.

  “But you still answered anyway?”

  “Because you told me I had to,” I tell him, his only answer a deep, thoughtful grunt.

  I look around my bedroom, feeling as though I was in a glass room and there are people everywhere watching me. I feel exposed, vulnerable, even though the curtains are closed and there’s no one around.

  I scoot up my bed, lifting my feet, sitting on my pillows, then I shove my legs under the covers.

  If I’m going to talk to Aiden Kincaid late at night, basically in my underwear, I need some kind of cover, some defense, because I feel like his voice is undressing me even though he’s not said a thing wrong.

  “Um…” I hold the phone to my ear with my left hand, and I flick my thumb and middle finger nails with my right. “So--”

  “This doesn’t have to be awkward, Peaches,” he chuckles again, low and dark and my right arm reflexively comes over my chest; I swear he can see me right now.

  “It feels awkward,” I admit out loud, though inside I can admit that it’s not awkward in a bad way, just in an I almost dry humped you in your living room kind of way.

  “I missed seeing you guys the last few days,” he says and my heart throbs in my chest. I so desperately want to ask “you did?” but that would be needy and weird.

  Instead I sigh, because that’s less weird. “We kind of missed you too. Evie asked about you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, but she’s asked about you since she met you. This isn’t new.”

  “But at least you know who I am now.”

  “This is true. It feels less weird I guess.”

  “Progress,” he chuckles, the sound tugging at my own smile as my right arm lowers to rest in my lap.

  I scoot a little lower in my bed as I feel myself relax into his voice. It’s as though he’s whispering into my ear and if I close my eyes, I could almost pretend that his mouth is right there, the words blowing across my skin, his stubble tickling my cheek.

  “So, we haven’t had a moment to… debrief,” he says on a murmur.

  “Debrief?”

  “I’d like to discuss the way your peach ass felt in my hands the other day.”

  His matter of fact sentence has my heart stuttering and my throat closing. “Jesus, Aiden!”

  “What?”

  “You can’t just come out and say it like that.”

  “Why not? It happened--”

  “You just… can’t. I can’t talk about it.”

  “Peaches,” he grumbles softly, the vibration in his voice travelling straight through my body and hitting my toes. I have to work not to groan out loud. “You’re shy?

  “I’m not shy,” I argue. “I just can’t discuss--”

  “You can’t talk about it?”

  “Well. I mean…” I hate the stammer in my voice; I can feel my face burn up and my stomach roll with excitement and dread at the same time. “I can talk about it with the girls--”

  “Hence the banging you brainless comment.”

  Oh god. So humiliating. “Yeah. That.”

  “But you can’t cut out the middle man, or, in our case, the girls, and tell it to me straight?”

  “Not calmly over the phone, ya know? I can say this stuff, when we’re… I mean, if, we. Ugh. You know what I mean. I can talk, in the moment, but not like in regular conversation. Jesus, you’ve got me blushing like an idiot.”

  “You’re blushing for me, Peaches?”

  I groan. “Can we hang up now?” So I can spend some time with my battery operated boyfriend and ease some of the ache that Aiden Kincaid continues to fuel but not douse.

  “No. We can’t hang up yet.”

  “Please?”

  “Peaches,” he says softly in that rough voice of his, as though he’s taunting me and enjoying it. “Do you really want that?”

  Damn him for asking that. Because I’m happy to omit some truths, but I can’t lie straight out to people I care about.

  And I care about him. I care about what he thinks.

  “No, I don’t want that.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that, babe. So tell me--”

  Oh god. “What?”

  “Wanna play a game?”

  “That sounds like something I’ve already lost,” I laugh, and I hear his own small chuckle. I’d like to see him face to face right now. I want to see his grin for real.

  “It’s okay, Peaches, you’re all the way over there. I’m all the way over here. Even if you lose… well, it’s not like I’m there with you.”

  God, but I wish he was.

  “Alright. A game. Shoot.”

  “Let’s play ‘would you rather,’” he suggests, surprising another laugh out of me. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay. Hold on. Lemme google some questions.”

  “Okay.” I giggle again, feeling like a teenager talking to her crush. I’m an idiot.

  “Alright, Peaches, here we go. Are you ready?”

  I gulp. This is going to be bad. I know it is. “Okay.”

  “Okay. Would you rather have sex with someone who never showers? Or someone who never brushes their teeth?”

  “That’s disgusting!” I cry out, remembering at the last second that Evie is asleep and I need to be quiet.

  “Yeah,” he chuckles. “It’s gross. Don’t worry, Peaches, this isn’t one of those weird warnings about me. I do both. Regularly,” he promises with a soft laugh, and despite the craziness and the topic and the gross images floating through my mind, I giggle like I haven’t done in a long, long time.

  “Um, okay. Ahh, I truly don’t know the answer to that.”

  He chuckles. “Yeah, me neither. Both are gross. Okay, next one. Would you rather your boyfriend laugh uncontrollably when he saw you naked? Or cry uncontrollably?”

  “Where the hell are you getting these questions?” I demand on another laugh. He’s crazy. “And neither. I would definitely rather neither.”

  “It’s something that just popped up on Google,” he admits with a smile in his voice. “I think I found the weirdest questions on the whole internet. I actually skipped a couple because they were bad.”

  “Worse than what you already asked?”

  “Definitely,” he chuckles softly and I literally fan my face with my hand. He’s killing me. “Alright, we’ll move on. Would you rather have sex with your celebrity crush once, or have sex with your real-life crush every day for the rest of your life?”

  Holy shit.

  What if I told him he was both to me? He’s a Kincaid, which puts him in celebrity status. And he’s real-life to me too. That’s kind of win-win to me.

  “Ah, I think I’d pick the second one,” I admit softly and he grunts again.

  “Okay. Would you rather date someone who refuses to cuddle you? Or someone who refuses to go down on you?”

  Shit. I want both. Definitely both.

  I want my man to spank me and throw me down on the bed. I definitely want him to be rough and eat me out and fuck me until I’m sore. But then I want
him to hold me, to hold my hand, I want him to remember the brand of tampon I use, or the toppings I prefer on my pizza. I especially want one who’ll cuddle me.

  I want the best of both kinds.

  “Umm--”

  “What do you say, Peaches?”

  “I’m not sure I can answer this one.”

  He chuckles at my discomfort. He knows he’s messing with me. “Too much?”

  “Why are these all about sex?”

  “I wrote that into my search engine when I looked. Guess I got sex on my mind,” he admits, sending those tingles racing through my body again.

  I’m going to need him to hang up soon; I have a date with my grown up toy stash.

  I can feel myself throbbing in my panties, and my eye’s dragging to my bedside drawers over and over again. I’ve spent a lot of special one on one time with those things in the last year or so.

  Or even better, I wonder if I can use my toys quietly. I could keep him on the line and just let him talk to me.

  He doesn’t have to know. He’d never find out.

  No. I couldn’t.

  “What are you thinking, Peaches?”

  Oh god. I definitely can’t tell him. “Nothing.”

  “Nothin’? Nothin’ at all?”

  Just about you banging me brainless. “Nope. What are you thinking about?”

  Please give me something. Take the agony out of my hands. Either hang up, or tell me you want to fuck me. Don’t make me say it first.

  “Ah, well, I’m still thinking about your ass, of course.”

  Oh god. My throat has gone dry. “Yeah?”

  “Mmhm,” he grunts, moving around, the sound of rustling audible through the phone. Sheets? He’s in bed? “I’m almost always thinking ‘bout your ass, Peaches.”

  Lawd, I think I’m about to combust.

  “Tell me somethin’,” he says, his words getting more clipped the longer we talk. “Where do you draw the line?”

  “Which line?”

  “Well, you said you can talk about sex during sex. You can’t talk about it clinically, like a book report though. So where’s the line?”

  “Well, I mean, I can--”

  “Like, does a man have to be in the same room, even in you, before you’ll talk?”

  Oh my god.

  “Or perhaps a phone call is enough, and it’s just the getting off part that you need?”