Whatever was going on, I felt I could barely breathe as I walked up cautiously beside him.
“Henry? Henry, what’s wrong?” There was a time and a place for my attitude, and this wasn’t it.
“I didn’t think it would be like this, you know?” His head popped up, showing me the streaks of tears that had streamed down his face. The mere sight of him in so much pain had me aching.
“Henry, what are you talking about? What happened?” I pleaded.
He pushed to his feet, and downed his glass that smelled clearly of whiskey. “I told you to be careful!” His voice lifted into the woods behind his house, “you didn’t listen and look what happened!”
My hands trembled as I reached cautiously for his shoulder, only to have him shake me off with several thundering steps forward.
I remained silent and still, giving him all the time he could need. I was just grateful he’d moved away from his gun.
“Why’d you have to go and do this?” He sobbed, the sound of his cracking voice breaking my heart in two. I wanted so much to ease his pain from whatever it was, but I couldn’t until he let me in.
The sun sunk lower on the horizon, nearly dipping into obscurity as Henry continued to quietly sob several feet away from me. I didn’t dare move or speak; It was the most true emotion I’d seen out of him in a decade. I didn’t want to press too hard, and I didn’t want to crack him any further.
“It was Teddy.” His quiet admission had me hissing inward in shock.
“What do you mean?” I whispered as he turned his grief-stricken face back toward me.
“When I got home I heard him cryin’ out there in the woods. It was… it was unlike anything I’d ever heard out of him before. I came running but it was already too late. Something bit a chunk out of him and left him for dead.” His hands trembled at his sides, and I flew toward him and wrapped him up in my arms the best I could. His flowing tears soon soaked through the shoulder of my shirt.
“He was in pain, Marissa.” I hadn’t heard him call me that since high school, and the sound of it on his tongue pained me even more. “He was squirming and crying, and so I grabbed my pistol and…”
I finished what he could not. “You took his pain away so he could rest.”
That was all it took for him to unleash in wracking sobs that tore at my insides. In a way, I supposed Teddy was all Henry had; That cute, little fox was the only thing he had really let in ever since Olivia had died. While I was horrified at the loss, I couldn’t even imagine the height of Henry’s pain.
“It’ll be okay.” I rubbed circles into his back and let him sob until his tears finally dried.
He lifted his head and pulled himself from my grip but still looked as if he carried the heavy weight of guilt. “I…” His green eyes seemed to quiver, “I haven’t cried this much since Olivia…”
“It’s okay,” I whisper. I don’t want him to think that allowing himself to feel is some terrible thing. “Is your shed unlocked? Why don’t I get a shovel so we can bury Teddy?”
“Yeah… yeah, it’s unlocked.”
I walked away, leaving Henry to resume his spot on the stump that had long since been his feeding spot for the curious fox. Nearly every afternoon he’d taken to that perch and tossed tidbits of his leftovers to Teddy while he told him all about his day.
I supposed in some ways the fox was better for him than a cat.
With the shovel in hand I returned to Henry and we decided on a spot just a bit away from the stump itself. Macabre or not, it would make for a nice memorial spot. I slammed the shovel into the ground with a push of my shoe but Henry nudged me out of the way and took over.
With his strength and upset fueling his dig the hole was ready in no time and he turned back to me with a look of absolute loss in his eyes. “Would you get one of the towels from in the house? To wrap him in?”
“Of course.”
Maybe some would have thought we were mad, but Teddy had been a huge part of Henry’s life, and a small part of mine for a long time. I fetched the towel and hung back as Henry went back into the woods and returned minutes later with Teddy swaddled up in the terry cloth. I let him do the rest and merely stood witness as he settled his wild pet into the shallow grave and began covering him with soil.
Quietly I sighed, and as my eyes lowered I caught sight of a single yellow flower by my feet. It was wild, and I wasn’t certain what it was, but it just felt right as I plucked it and tossed it in with a wash of sand from Henry’s shovel.
In minutes, our friend was gone forever.
6
It had been a really long time since I’d had dinner with Henry, and an even longer time since I’d been inside his house. It was kind of a place I actively chose to avoid because I knew what enough time with him in private would lead to.
After what had just happened with Teddy though, I don’t dare to leave him alone.
We’d long since cleaned ourselves up, and after Henry had put his pistol away we stood in the middle of his kitchen trying to come up with something to cook from what little options he had.
“Sorry, you know I don’t cook much,” he’d grumbled, before we finally settled for just ordering a pizza.
There was something sweet about sitting across from Henry, munching happily away on a slice of pepperoni in his dining room. Luckily, we’d been able to patch up some sweet tea from some remnants in his cabinets, and found a bit of red pepper flakes in the pantry.
Part of me worried this sort of thing would never happen again.
Long after we’d finished eating the mood was just too somber and dark. I felt I had to do something to try and lift not only Henry’s spirits, but mine too, and with a sudden jump out of my chair I knew I had it. I also seemed to startle him with my sudden movement.
“Does your neighbor still have that big trampoline out back?” I asked excitedly.
“Yeah…”
“Think we can sneak onto it without him noticing?”
Henry’s lips curled into the first smile since I’d arrived that night. “I’m pretty sure he’s gone for the week on some fishing trip.”
I jutted my hand out in offering and waited for him to snatch it up. “Well come on, we don’t have all night.”
His hand felt warm and somehow perfect holding mine, like it was made to hold it. It was a thought I tried to ignore as we raced out the back door and across the humid yard. A squeal of excitement fell from my lips as Henry bolted ahead and still tugged me along with a firm grip on my hand. Under weeping tree boughs and through tall swaths of grass he ran until finally, with heavy breath we reached the trampoline in his neighbor’s yard.
It was one of those huge ones that I’d always envied others for as a child, and this one didn’t even have the tall safety nets on the side. Something about the extra air of danger excited me as I pulled myself up and tumbled into the center, laughing at Henry’s side.
I couldn’t help but ask, “You know I’ll probably hurt myself on this, right?”
He snorted as he got up and started jumping, jostling me around like I was on a cruise ship in the middle of a hurricane. “You do know the point of these is to jump on them, right?”
Maybe. I could think up a few other uses for them.
Peels of laughter filled the air as Henry grasped my hands and yanked me up to my feet, forcing me to join in with his festivities. There was something magical about that moment, as we jumped in opposition to one another with my wild blonde hair flying every which way and Henry’s bright eyes backdropped with sweeping magnolias.
In that moment, he actually looked happy.
All good things must come to an end though, and with our timing creeping bit by bit off from one another, Henry’s feet hit the trampoline just in time to send me sailing through the air. Arms flailing around me I shrieked and was powerless to do a thing as I careened off from the trampoline and saw the ground hurtling toward me. I hit the grass hard, the wind knocked right out of me before I began wiggling each limb j
ust to be sure I hadn’t broken any. Luckily, they all moved as they should, even if most of me did ache from the fall.
Henry’s light green eyes quickly hovered over me. “Are you okay?”
Only because I was certain we wouldn’t be needing a trip to the ER, I laughed. “I told you I was going to hurt myself.”
His head shook before he yanked me back to my feet. “Up you go.”
I flung upward too fast, and found myself slammed square against Henry’s chest. The warmth of his hands lingered on me, leaving me acutely aware of the space in which our quiet breath mixed. All around us the crickets’ songs had lifted, and close as we stood, the features of Henry’s face began to fade in the settling darkness.
In a snap judgment I pulled away and heaved myself back onto the trampoline. On my back I laid with my eyes turned toward the unveiling stars. They seemed to blink back at me, with some sort of decoded message I could never decipher. At my side the trampoline dipped as Henry crawled over and settled down beside me with the same upward outlook.
The silence that hung between us wasn’t cold or unnerving, but somehow comfortable. It almost felt like Henry was truly there with me; Like he was actually opening up. I feared though, that my hopes were just projecting what I wanted and it wasn’t really happening at all.
I felt him shift again at my side, and though I didn’t turn my head, I could see in my peripheral he was looking at me.
“You know,” he began quietly, “the color of your eyes always reminded me of wildflowers.”
I didn’t know what to say. Somehow what he’d said was simultaneously the sweetest and oddest thing anyone had ever said to me, and so I just stayed quiet as he shifted up onto his elbows and drifted closer. The stars above were soon blotted out by the tilt of his head, and I had only the briefest glimpse of his eyes before he was kissing me with an intense fervor.
Part of me wanted to tell him no, to push him away and just enjoy the warmth of his company at my side, but, I couldn’t. His lips were too sweet and the drift of his fingers into the thick of my hair left me breathless. Down over me the length of his body settled, consuming me in the heat of his frame.
Sanity be damned, I wanted him. I needed him.
The moment my lips parted to him it was as if a floodgate had opened. His teeth raked at my lower lip, dragging out the quiet sighs of my increasing desire. He knew I was a goner, and the drag of his calloused palms across the bare flesh of my abs proved it.
I gave way to him, allowing the curl of his fingers to pull at the hem of my shirt, lifting it straight over my head. All the while his lips crashed over mine, drowning me in the taste of cloves and sweet tea.
Beneath my back his hand dipped into the press of the trampoline toward the clasp at the back of my bra. Up into him I arched, short of breath and wanting more than anything to rid us both of the clothes that separated us.
He took advantage, and with the clasp loosened and the lacy garment torn free, his lips slid across the tender flesh of my breast. Anticipatory gasps of breath hissed in between my teeth as the slip of his tongue awoke my stiffened nipples. Shivers of impulsive desire rippled across my skin, wiping out any thoughts of anything but having all him all over me… and within me.
Hastily I grasped at the hem of his shirt, my futile tugs giving way the moment he shimmied free of the shirt and tossed it clear into the grass. It seemed he cared as much as I did about distractions as my palms slid down the bare of his chest, leaving me to feel every rope of perfected muscle that lay beneath his tanned skin.
Across my neck I felt the shudder of his breath before he rolled hastily away, leaving me breathless and confused in the wake of my loss.
“Pants. Off,” he grunted, as the trampoline shook beneath me from his own anxious shoves of his jeans. In seconds he was bare, leaving me to hurriedly catch up as I kicked my shorts and the thin layer of cotton beneath, free. That left nothing, save for the hunger in our eyes to get between us.
Back against my lips Henry’s crashed, his kiss ravenous as if he’d never tasted me before. Whatever was going on - whatever had made him so desirous of me - left me without the strength to ignore my own desperate need.
I couldn’t wait. I needed him now.
“Henry,” my soft whisper lifted his hazy gaze. “I want you. Now.”
His eyes widened then, ever so slightly but he obliged as he slipped between my parting legs. There was a burning within me, from deep in my core that fed on the idea of him being so intimately close to me.
Still, he paused as he nipped at my neck and sent my back arching in search of what my hips couldn’t find. Down I reached, my fingers curling around the length of his stiff erection. I felt him tremble then, atop me from that smallest touch and knew he was as needy as I was.
I tightened my grip, my fingers sliding at an agonizingly slow pace up and down his length. Already he was damp at his very tip, and that was enough of sign for me. I aimed his rod down, and with a lift of my hips controlled the shuddering sensation of him filling me entirely.
My breath left me, shoved out in a cascading dance as he slipped slowly in and out of my already wet core. Into his ear I groaned as my arms latched around his neck, pulling him further into and atop me in my own desirous needs.
Again his lips were all over me, lavishing me with covetous, passionate kisses that fell from the corner of my mouth down to the tender skin at the base of my neck.
There was nothing though that I could focus on save for the growing heat building inside me. In a gradual rise the speed in which he thrust into me accelerated, and there were no walls to hold in the wisps of my rising moans.
Into his back my nails dug, and around him my legs snaked, urging him to push harder, to increase the intensity in which his member left my legs quaking with an impending crash I could never delay.
For so long I had tried to deny him, and I’d forgotten just how bright he could set my flame.
My body seized beneath the weight of him, caught in my crescendo of pleasure that had my moans drowning out the sound of his ragged breath. “Henry, I’m going to-”
I cried out into the crash of his lips as wave after wave of my intense release left every inch of my body quivering beneath him. I swore I could take no more - the feeling of him still deep within as my core clenched around him left me dizzied, but still he didn’t stop.
He clung to me for support, his head dropped beside mine with every pull of his ragged breath. I wanted to help in some way, but I was pinned, and so I lifted my head and grasped at the tender base of his earlobe and tugged upon it with the subtle graze of my teeth.
It was just the push he needed as the cadence of his breath changed and the forward slam of his hips grew lengthier. Then suddenly, with a groaning cry and a collapse of his limbs atop me I felt the warmth of his release deep within.
For a long while we laid there just like that, our skin slick with a sheen of sweat and our breath slowing minute after lengthy minute. I was almost afraid for the moment to end; To find Henry retreating back into himself.
All I found instead was him rolling off of me with another heaving breath.
“That was…” He seemed to not know how to describe it, and I was just grateful he didn’t bring up the word gator.
“Intense?” I posed.
“Yeah, intense.”
Which it was, and somewhere deep within I hoped that meant good things were ahead for him, and just maybe, for us. Yet, sometimes I was far too afraid to hope too deep.
At the moment though, I had to shatter the illusion with a call to nature.
“Hey, I’ll um, be right back, okay?”
He barely responded with a lazy lift of his hand. I couldn’t blame him; I was exhausted and I hadn’t even done the work.
Very carefully I jumped off of the trampoline and dragged my clothes with me back into his house. It didn’t take me long to make my way to the bathroom to wash up and put my clothes back on, but on my way back out something
in the living room caught my curious eye.
There was a photo album, pretty plain on its exterior but it was one I knew I had never seen before. I shouldn’t have snooped, it wasn’t really my place to do so, but I couldn’t help it. Closer I snuck as if Henry would come around the corner any time. I began flipping through, finding it to be an old family photo album with corners worn from time.
The first few pages highlighted Henry when was very little, and with each further flip he grew older with birthday cakes and bright smiles at his parent’s side. Oddly though, a handful of the clear windowed frames were devoid of photos, and I couldn’t find Olivia at all. I flipped faster through, and it was like moving forward through the ages. Henry through elementary school, his middle school graduation… Every single space in which one would have expected to see his sister she was wasn’t there.
Further and further I flipped, closer and closer to the age I knew Olivia had died; To the year she’d drowned at Lake Carson. The difference in Henry’s smiles was like seeing a light switch off. His sister was no longer there.
She was simply gone.
7
Henry was oddly quiet the next morning. To be fair we may have slept together a handful of times before, but never had we done that and woken up beside one another. The last time we ever would have slept in the same space overnight would have been at one of Olivia’s sleepovers years prior.
The thought sobers me and gets me off of the trampoline in a hurry.
“You alright?” Henry grumbled, his head popping up off the bouncy surface with marks threaded across his skin from where his face had been plastered into it. Apparently, he slept quite well.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s just…” I fumbled around for my phone, and finally finding it I grimaced. It was dead, so I really had no idea what time it was. However, the sun was already proving it would be another scorching hot day. “My phone’s dead, I’m sure Elizabeth’s probably wondering where I’ve been. I should go.”
“Alright, see ya.”
Hard Wired: A First Love Second Chance Romance Page 4