The Brooklyn Book Boyfriends

by Kayley Loring

  That revelation punches me right in the ovaries. “Three, huh?”

  “I just want to be a better dad than mine was, and I’m afraid I’ll screw things up with the first one.”

  I can’t help but laugh at that. “So—what? The firstborn is just a screwed-up guinea pig? That’s not fair. Although I am slightly more awesome than my brother is, so you have a point.”

  “Are you saying you think three is too many?”

  I find myself swallowing hard and shifting around in my chair and doing some sort of gynecological math in my head… Nope. Numbers and years aren’t making sense to me right now. “I mean. I’d be happy with one. I’d be fine with screwing things up with one kid.”

  He nods once. “Yeah. You’ll be good at that.”

  “Screwing up a kid?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We will, I mean.” He twists his lips to the side. “Too much? Too soon?”

  He leans across the table and kisses me until I’ve forgotten what the hell he just said.

  What did anyone just say?

  What are words again?

  This man has snuck up on me faster than a coconut full of Caribbean rum cocktail. I am giddy and holding on to this wonderful feeling before the vomit and regret kicks in. Shit, I’m probably going to snore again tonight.

  My next question stumbles out of my mouth like a drunk girl from an Uber: “Why did you and Tamara break up?”

  He blinks, surprised, and it takes him a second to respond to that one. “She moved to LA, and she didn’t want me to go with her.”

  “Yeah, but…I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to…but why didn’t she want you to go with her? You’re great.”

  “I don’t know why exactly. She said she wanted to start a new chapter in her life, and she didn’t think she could do it with me.”

  “You really loved her.”

  “I don’t really want to talk about her with you. Not now, anyway. This is the good part. I don’t want to think about the bad stuff when I’m with you.”

  He lifts my hand and presses it to his lips. Of all his kisses, this might be the one that does me in because I can actually see his face while he’s kissing me and he really means it. He means this kiss. I mean something to him, and he means something to me, and the only thing I want to dropkick is my brain because it can barely stay awake and I’m not ready to sleep. I’m not ready for this feeling or this night or this vacation to be over.

  I’m not sure if I’m really ready for Keaton yet, but I am definitely here for the good part.

  19

  Keaton

  We didn’t exactly close the bar down last night, but we did return to the cottage to talk on the veranda until after midnight and then fall asleep in each other’s arms on top of the covers, fully clothed. One of us snored and one of us was so tired and happy it didn’t even keep him awake. One of us woke up in the middle of the night and shook the bed, pretending to be terrified of something she said she heard in the bathroom, made the other get up to check, and when he did—because he’s a brave-as-balls stud who would do anything to protect a woman he cares about—she ran outside to the doors between the shower and the veranda and started rattling them. The way a ghost demon would rattle doors.

  One of us nearly lost his shit in a badass sexy masculine way, and if the other one ever tells anyone about it, it will be the last obnoxious thing she ever says.

  But I think she scared the irrational fear right out of me.

  And I had to admit it was really fucking funny once I’d calmed down.

  We got back in bed and laughed until we fell asleep again. It was a no-sex night, but I feel closer to her than ever. And now I get to see if she goes one step forward, two steps back. The bathroom door is closed, and I can hear Roxy moving around in there. I reach for my phone on the bedside table, and I’m reminded that it’s February fourteenth. It’s after nine, so when I hear the polite knock at the front door, I get up quickly, knowing it’s probably the flowers I ordered from the concierge right after we got here—and not a ghost demon.

  Sure enough, I’m faced with a massive arrangement of exotic local blooms, so big I can barely see the top of the head of the young man who’s holding it. I take the giant vase from him and tell him to wait so I can put it on the bench inside and grab a tip from my wallet. Then he holds out the other thing that I ordered from the concierge after our first night here—a little gift bag filled with nasal strips and ear plugs. Just a little something for my bedmate so she knows I’m not just giving her a generic awesome flower gift for Valentine’s Day.

  I go out to the veranda to stretch and breathe in the fresh air and then take a seat on the daybed to look at the pictures the dog hotel sent me last night and respond to a few emails. After a couple of minutes, I realize the veranda doors to the shower are slowly swinging open. My first thought is that Roxy is trying to scare the shit out of me again, and my next thought is—nothing. My mind goes blank, because twenty feet away from me, Roxy is standing in the shower completely naked. She is standing with her back to me, running her hands over herself as water streams down her body, and it is the sexiest damn thing I have ever seen. Until she turns to face me.

  She isn’t oiled-up, but she is wet and glistening and stunning, and there aren’t enough flowers in the world to equal this Valentine’s Day gift. Her eyes beckon me to join her, and I somehow manage to stand and walk over to her. I’d call this three steps forward, no steps back. I don’t know how I’m managing to casually stroll toward her as if this isn’t the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I just hope I don’t collapse to the ground before I get to touch her, but I’d die a happy man, nonetheless.

  I stop to remove my clothing and shut the doors behind me, because one of us will be screaming out the other’s name very soon, and I want it to be her. I want her. Jesus, I want to do all the things, for and with and to her.

  “That’s one helluva body you’ve got there, Carter.” I stare down at her neck and her collarbone and her full breasts and pink nipples.

  “I’m growing rather fond of yours too,” she says as her hands reach for my chest.

  “I always knew you would.”

  “I will do whatever you want me to do to it in this shower for the next ten minutes, but then we have to turn off the water because it’s a limited resource, even on an island.”

  Fucking hell, Shower Roxy is just as hot and wonderful as I’d imagined she would be and twice as eco-friendly.

  I grit my teeth as those very confident hands slowly slide down the front of me. “That is a very generous offer.” I grab on to her wrists. “But you can do whatever you want to my body for the rest of my life, as far as I’m concerned.” I place her hands, crossed, behind the small of her back so I can see the gentle slope of her waist to her hips and the way her belly is somehow flat but soft and so inviting. “And for the next ten minutes, I’m going to do what your body wants me to do to it.”

  Her response is something between a sigh and a moan and a grunt, and it’s better and more meaningful than any word in any language.

  I do what any man would do for this woman: I kneel before her, and I will be the only man who does this for the rest of her life.

  I grip her hips and turn her to face the tiled wall so she can hold on to it for support, because she’ll need it. But she does what no woman has ever done for me before—she slowly bends forward at the waist, to hold on to her ankles…and fuuuuuck me, this is the best thing that has ever happened to me or possibly to anyone ever.

  I am the luckiest man alive, but the planet just got lucky too because this shower sex is going to be dirtier and over a lot quicker than I had anticipated. I groan and squeeze her ass and drive my tongue into her, and I fuck her with my tongue, relentlessly, and I don’t let up until after she’s done screaming, “Keaton! Oh God, Keaton!” and crying out like she’s in pain, but she’s not in pain. I am. When she’s gone silent and lim
p, I slowly stand and help her up, turning her to face me again and kissing her until she’s got the fire back in her.

  I press her up against the wall and press myself up against her, and I am the king of the world when she lifts one leg and wraps it around me, and I press my impatient cock up inside her, and my name on her lips becomes a gasp and then exuberant panting with my vigorous thrusts and then back to some breathless hint of my name over and over again.

  Everything is wet and warm and hard and soft and delirious but also completely in focus.

  I keep going for as long as I can, but when I come, it’s intense and blinding.

  When we’ve both caught our breath, she kisses me on the mouth and reaches out to pump shower gel into her hand and she washes me clean. It’s beautiful and humbling and empowering, and it’s all over so quickly, but we’re both so eager to collapse back onto the bed and lie there in each other’s arms.

  We drift in and out of consciousness for hours, exhausted in the way that you are when you’re becoming something new. I am fully aware of how confused and hesitant she is sometimes when we wake up to move our arms and legs around and she looks at me, all heavy-lidded and bleary-eyed. But I can also see her trying to push through whatever fear is left.

  It’s almost noon when we finally get up and decide to head down to the restaurant, and I’m ready to give her the other Valentine’s Day gift I’ve been dying to give her.

  Roxy is alternately shy and her usual sasshole self over lunch. We both comment how we feel like everyone is eyeing us like they heard us sex-screaming earlier. Even if they had, it can’t be anything they haven’t heard before around here, and surely we would have gotten texts from our friends—who have been notably quiet text-wise so far today and are definitely absent from the common areas of the resort.

  “Why do you keep grinning at me?”

  “I have something for you.”

  “Again? That’s not fair. I didn’t get you anything.”

  “Oh, but you gave me something that I will treasure forever.”

  She blushes and covers her face. “All right, all right. What is it?”

  “A nickname.”

  She peeks through her fingers. “It better not have anything to do with what we did this morning.”

  “Everything has something to do with what we did this morning.”

  She tosses half a dinner roll at me. I catch it and return it to the basket.

  “This is just my personal nickname for you—it’s not going to catch on like Franzia or Foxy Roxy. It’s kind of a thinker.”

  “Oh my God, just tell me already.”

  “It’s Ute. It’s short for the Norwegian word Utepils. It means sitting outside on a sunny day, enjoying a beer, but more specifically it’s the first beer you drink outside on a sunny day after a long harsh winter. That’s how I feel about you. How I’ve been feeling about you. Or more like, I’ll always look forward to having that feeling with you. There are these moments, when it’s like once the snow finally melts and there’s just nothing more satisfying than having a nice cold beer outside in the sun. I’ve never felt that with anyone else. I like it.”

  In the long silence that follows, a less confident man would probably expect her to roll her eyes and walk away. But I know better. I know I’m waiting for that ray of sunshine.

  She finally blinks, takes a sip of water, slams the glass back down, and says, “I like it. The nickname. Ute. And I like you.”

  “Good. I like you too.”

  “Fuckin’ A.”

  She takes a big bite of her sandwich, shoves a few fries into her mouth, and then says, “This is hopelessly crazy, you know? Me and you?”

  “I respectfully disagree. I think it was always only a matter of time.”

  “What if it’s just a vacation thing?”

  “What if it isn’t?”

  “What if it doesn’t work out? What if we go back to hating each other when we get back to Brooklyn?”

  “I never really hated you, and that’s kind of the point of dating. To see if it works out.”

  “You hated me.”

  “I had complicated feelings regarding your manner of behavior toward me at first, sure.”

  She gasps dramatically and then leans forward, lowering her voice. “Did you want to hate-fuck me?”

  “Did I? I want to hate-fuck you right now.”

  Our waitress comes by, all smiles. “How is everything? Can I get you anything else?”

  “We’re good, thank you. It’s delicious,” Roxy says.

  “We definitely have everything we need here, thank you.”

  Roxy waits for the waitress to walk away and then lowers her voice again. “Speak for yourself.”

  “You really can’t admit that I’m enough for you? Have you not had your fill of Tads and musicians? Oh by the way, I asked Aimee about your boyfriends.”

  “I know.”

  “Interesting.”

  She wipes her mouth with her napkin, grips the edge of her chair, and narrows her eyes at me. “Are you saying you can’t play an instrument?”

  “Baby, I will become the next drummer for the E Street Band if that’s what it takes to get you to take me seriously, but I don’t believe that’s what you want at this point in your life.”

  She rubs her lips together, and I can tell, even though I can’t see through the table, that she is rubbing her thighs together too. “You done eating?”

  “You want me to take you back to bed?” I take my napkin from my lap and place it on the table. “I’m done.”

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  I leave a tip for the waitress, signal to her to charge everything to the room, and we’re heading out of the restaurant in three seconds.

  “Would you really learn to play the drums for me?” she asks as she takes my hand.

  “I mean. If I learn to play the drums, it would have to be for the benefit of all the ladies. If it makes you dig me more, that’s a bonus.”

  “Would you dig me more if I wear a pearl necklace and a headband?”

  “I don’t think I could possibly dig you any more, but if that’s all you’re wearing, then it wouldn’t hurt.”

  “I think it’s safe to say I’m falling in love with her,” I say to Chase and Matt as we’re walking down to the resort’s nightclub. “Hard.”

  Chase pats me on the back. “How’s she treating you?”

  I exhale slowly as I stare at the ground and shove my hands into my pockets. “Pretty much how you’d expect. And also in the most surprising ways imaginable.”

  “You should try converge-sating with her,” Matt offers.

  “What?”

  “It’s this thing that Bernie’s parents do, and we’ve done it a few times. It’s where you both talk about your shit until you sort of merge with the other person. It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

  “I’m not doing that.”

  “Fair enough.”

  20

  Roxy

  “I’m falling for him. Hard,” I mutter to Aimee and Bernadette. We’re walking twenty paces behind the guys as we make our way down to the nightclub. “It’s insane. It’s so hopelessly crazy.” And I can’t believe I’m having this conversation on Valentine’s Day—the dumbest day of the year.

  Aimee squeezes my arm. “Dude. If there’s a zombie apocalypse, Keaton would totally pay someone to protect you.”

  “He’s such a good guy now. What are you afraid of?” Bernadette asks.

  “It’s not Keaton I’m afraid of, so much as who I’ll be if I’m with him.”

  Bernadette screws up her face. “Mrs. Bridges?”

  “A mess.”

  “Being vulnerable is not the same as being a mess,” Aimee insists.

  “It is the way I do it. Don’t you remember?”

  She shakes her head slowly. Of course she doesn’t remember. Why would she? She’s had a career and a husband and a kid since then.

  “It’s not that I don’t remember the way y
ou were, Rox, it’s that I see who you are now. And I see who Keaton is now. And I can’t even stand the thought of the two of you not really being together anymore.”

  I place my hands on my butterfly-filled belly. “Me neither. It’s all happening so fast.”

  “Is it? Or has it been happening incredibly slowly for years and years?” Bernadette says.

  “That’s kind of what he said.”

  “I wonder if we should tell Chase now,” Aimee whispers.

  As soon as she says it, Chase pats Keaton on the back and turns to walk toward us, looking at me. I stop in my tracks, like oh shit, Dad found out I had sex—hide me!

  “Can I talk to you for a second, Rox?” he asks while pulling his wallet out from his back pocket.

  “I would like to request your wife’s presence.”

  He rolls his eyes. “I’m not mad or anything. I know about you and Keaton—I’m happy for you.”

  “Aww.” Aimee rubs her husband’s shoulder. “See you guys inside.”

  Chase pulls a small faded-yellow card out of his wallet and stares down at it while sliding the wallet back into his pocket. “This is from the Zoltar Speaks machine in Coney Island.” He holds it up and then hands it over to me.

  It says: You may be riding the winds of change. Things may at times seem to be out of touch. Soon they will come down to a better order.

  “Aimee got it that first night we spent together, and she gave it to me when I had fallen for her but I was thinking that we had to pump the brakes while she was working in our offices. And Keaton was…you know the story.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I’ve kept it in my wallet ever since then, to remind myself not to get too caught up in whatever my brain is telling me when it comes to matters of the heart. You’re the last person I ever thought would need this more than I do. And I guess Keaton was the last person I ever thought you’d be riding the winds of change with…but I don’t know anyone who’s changed as much as he has over the years. For the better. There is nothing that guy wouldn’t do for the people he loves, and I’d tell anyone the same about you. So whatever little love-hate, push-pull song and dance you’ve got going on in that head of yours…it’s time to find another rhythm. Know what I mean?”