[Alabama Summer 01.0] Where I Belong

by J. Daniels

  I park out front at Angie’s apartment complex and take the stairs quickly to her floor.

  I want to tell Nolan that he’ll be spending time with Mia on Saturday night. I know he’ll look forward to it as much as I am once I break the news to him.

  I knock on the door, hearing his gruff voice singing aloud somewhere in the apartment. The door opens and Angie stands there, looking less than pleased to see me.

  “Great. Now I’ll never get him to go to sleep.” She steps aside and motions for me to walk in. “He’s been fighting me for the past hour and my nerves are shot.”

  I can hear Nolan’s voice coming from down the hallway where the bedrooms are. He sounds very animated, but that’s pretty standard for him.

  “I’ll put him to bed. I want to talk to him anyway.”

  She closes the front door and moves past me toward the couch. “Don’t keep him up with another story. I’ve already read to him four times, and if he doesn’t get to bed soon, he’ll be cranky as hell in the morning.” She begins flipping through a magazine, seemingly done with lecturing me, which is a good thing because I’m fucking done listening to it.

  If anyone needs parenting advice between the two of us, it sure as hell isn’t me.

  I walk down the hallway and stop at Nolan’s door, leaning against the doorframe.

  He is trying to balance his stuffed dragon on the end of his bed, holding his sword in his free hand. I watch with a smile as he gets his favorite sleeping buddy to stand up on the wooden footboard before he strikes it down with a mighty swing.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed, buddy?”

  His eyes light up and he scrambles off the bed, running toward me. I scoop him up and plant kisses all over his face.

  “Daddy! You’wre hewre!”

  “Shhh,” I say against his hair, carrying him over to the bed. He crawls under the covers and I lie on my side next to him, tucking him in. “Mommy said you were supposed to go to bed a while ago.”

  He tugs at the buttons on my uniform. “I’m not tiewerd,” his voice breaks into a yawn, and I try to hide my laugh. “Can you wead me a storwy?” He looks completely exhausted, and I know I’ll never get more than a few pages into it before he passes out. He continues playing with the buttons on my shirt, his sleepy eyes falling closed every couple seconds.

  “Not tonight.” I lean off the bed and grab his stuffed dragon, handing it to him. He pulls it tightly against him, popping one ear of the dragon into his mouth like he always does. He falls asleep that way every night, and wakes up if the dragon falls off the bed in the middle of the night and he no longer has it in his grasp. I run my finger down his nose and he focuses on my face, repeating the gesture.

  “Guess who’s going to hang out with us on Saturday night?”

  His mouth unlatches from the ear. “Who?”

  I smile. “Princess Mia.”

  His dimpled grin lights his whole face up, and he immediately gets to his knees. “Pwincess Mia! Yayyayayayayay!” He bounces on the bed and I hush him again, tucking him back in. “I wike Pwincess Mia, Daddy,” he says in a softer voice before tucking the dragon’s ear back into his mouth.

  I bend down and kiss him on his forehead. “Me too, buddy.”

  He closes his eyes and begins humming against his dragon.

  I settle down on my side, watching his body relax completely and hearing the low sound he is making get softer and softer. When I know he is asleep, I sneak out of his room, leaving the door cracked open.

  Angie is still on the couch looking at her magazine, but throws it onto the coffee table when I enter the room.

  “You know, stopping over here during the week and putting him to bed only confuses him.”

  I’m walking toward the front door but stop and turn after her statement. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She stands, hitting me with her most irritated expression.

  I brace myself for whatever bullshit argument she is about to start. It would be nice to go one time seeing Angie and not have it out with her, but she seems determined to bitch me out about something every chance she gets.

  “He’s going to start expecting it. He already wants us to be a family, and when you come over here and put him to bed, it’s just going to make him think that we are one.” She steps closer to me, dropping her gaze to her feet. I know this tactic. She does it when she wants me to feel bad about something. It never works and I’m surprised she keeps using it. She looks up at me with only her eyes, keeping her head down. “He’ll probably wake up and wonder if you’re still here, and then when you’re not, it’ll just upset him.”

  “You’re wasting your time trying to make me feel guilty. If I wanna come over here and say goodnight to my son on nights that technically aren’t mine, I’ll do it. He knows that the three of us aren’t a family. He has me and he has you, but he’ll never have us together.”

  Her head snaps up, the wounded façade disappearing. “God, you’re such an asshole. What the fuck was I thinking hooking up with you in the first place?”

  I continue my walk toward the door. “Neither one of us was thinking,” I counter. Because I wasn’t thinking that night.

  If I had been sober, I wouldn’t have slept with Angie. After talking with her for a minute, I would’ve seen what type of person she was. A self-centered, conniving brat. She seems to get joy out of my misery, and I wouldn’t have lasted more than a minute in her presence if I wasn’t drunk.

  I grab the door handle and look behind me where she has fallen back onto the couch, pouting like a kid who has just been reprimanded.

  “I’d never take it back.”

  Her eyes meet mine briefly, before she drops them to the floor, nodding to convey her understanding of what I mean.

  I hate Angie, but I love the gift she gave me. Nolan makes me a better man. It pains me to imagine not having him, and I’ll always feel indebted to her for not going through with the abortion.

  “I’ll pick him up after work on Friday,” I say.

  She acknowledges me with another nod, but her gaze never leaves the spot on the floor she is boring a hole into.

  I close her apartment door behind me and make my way out to my truck.

  It’ll always be like this with Angie. Even giving her what she wants, us, won’t change the person she truly is. She’s a bitch by nature, and I’m tied to her for the rest of my life. But I don’t care how she treats me. She can spew all her poison at me and I’ll fucking take it. She gave me my son.

  And he’s the only thing that matters.

  “WHAT’S WRONG WITH what I’m wearing?” I direct toward my best friend who is currently rummaging through my clothes.

  For my date, no, friendly hang out with Ben and Nolan, I pick a pair of skinny jeans and a white tank top. I think this is very appropriate for going to a medieval dinner show as friends, but Tessa has other ideas.

  Articles of clothing are getting hurled into the air as she stays hidden in the closet I’m occupying for the summer. I step behind her and start grabbing clothes out of the air.

  “Do you mind? You’re going to be ironing all these after you pick them up.” I chuck the handful of clothes I’ve managed to catch onto my bed.

  Tessa emerges from the closet with my teeny tiny jean skirt and a tube top. “Strip. You package yourself up in this hot little number, and I guarantee my brother will be unwrapping you with his teeth later on tonight.”

  My best friend has a one track mind. A very dirty one track mind.

  I snatch the hot little number that I am definitely not wearing out of her hands. “This is not a date, so there won’t be any unwrapping going on.” I toss the outfit onto the bed and continue brushing my hair in front of the mirror. “I told you, we’re hanging out as friends. There’s no need for me to be wearing anything revealing.”

  She plops down on the bed, sighing dramatically, because this is Tessa we’re talking about. “Who the hell goes from a night of unbelievable, nine
inch, pussy humming sex to hanging out as friends? Did you both hit a large rock when you jumped off those cliffs last weekend? Is your brain currently swelling and causing you to act like a complete idiot?”

  I pin half of my hair up before I turn and look at her. “I’m just now getting used to the idea of not hating Ben for the rest of my life. Do you have any idea how dead set I was on that game plan? I was close to having a voodoo doll made of him.”

  “And now you two have bumped uglies, and you’re just going to pretend that you didn’t.”

  I grunt my frustration and shoot her a stern nook. “No one’s pretending anything. He asked me to give him a chance and I’m giving it to him. As friends. It would be really shitty of me not to.” I turn back around and continue messing with my hair.

  There’s no way I could ever pretend that Ben and I didn’t share that one night together. If it was possible to forget, I would’ve forgotten about it already. Lord knows I don’t want to be reliving it every night alone in my bed. That memory is sticking around permanently. And what a memory.

  “I don’t see why you can’t give him a chance while he’s between your legs. You’d at least get some relief if he was fucking you into the friend zone.”

  “Pwincess Mia!” Nolan’s husky voice comes echoing down the hallway.

  “Hold on one second!” I snap my head around toward a grinning Tessa. “I really hope your nephew didn’t hear that,” I scold her, but she merely shrugs her shoulders in response.

  I grab my phone and stick it into my pocket, stepping in front of the mirror one last time.

  My hair is definitely not behaving, doing this weird curl thing at the bottom that I am so not digging. And of course, the more I mess with it, the worse it gets. I grumble my irritation under my breath.

  “Mmm mmm,” Tessa teases. “Just friends, my ass.”

  I ignore her and apply some lip gloss. “What’s up with you and Luke? Are you two serious?”

  She rolls over onto her back, moaning playfully. “Luke is fun. Really fun. Tie me up and own my body fun.”

  I should be shocked by that description, but I’m not. Tessa is into anything involving men. Especially when it involves fun stuff.

  “But not serious fun?”

  “I don’t know. I like him and he likes me. I don’t need anything more than that.”

  We meet each other’s eyes in the mirror.

  She wants to tell me more, I can tell, but decides against it and gives me a sly smile instead. “How many condoms will you be taking with you tonight?”

  “You are ridiculous.” I flip her off over my shoulder, walking down the hallway and into the living room.

  Nolan is swinging his sword in the air behind the sofa, slaying invisible enemies, but my eyes don’t linger on him. They can’t. Not when he is in the room.

  All my focus is magnetically pulled in the direction of Ben, who is leaning against the counter. He straightens when he sees me, melting me with his smile that beams like a thousand watt bulb.

  If I was wearing heels right now, I definitely would’ve stumbled.

  “Hey,” he says, twirling his keys on his finger. It’s so casual, like any normal greeting between friends, but his greeting makes my spine tingle and my toes curl.

  God, how does he do that? How does he turn a simple hey into so much more than that? I feel that hey settle between my legs and root itself there permanently.

  “Hey,” I reply, trying to sound as sure and steady with this whole friendship thing as he does. However, my hey comes out broken and weak, giving away my anxiety. Although, even if I wouldn’t have spoken, I’m sure my body language would be displaying my nervousness for all to see. I am completely rigid, and the conversation with Tessa that just transpired moments ago, is playing on loop in my mind.

  Pussy humming sex.

  Fucking into the friend zone.

  Condoms.

  Oh, God, do not get wet right now.

  I drop my eyes to Nolan, needing a distraction.

  “Pwincess Mia!” He runs over to me and I bend down, bringing myself down to his level. My worries and desires are left above me as I focus in on his cuteness. “Daddy said we’re going to a surpwise.” He reaches out and runs his finger down my nose, and I do the same to him. His tiny face scrunches up afterwards.

  “We are. But I have to ask you a question before we go.” His eyes get even larger, grayish blue just like his father’s, as he waits for me. “Have you ever been to a real castle, Sir Nolan?” He shakes his head and his mouth drops open. “Would you like to go to one right now?”

  I’ve never seen anyone go from one emotion to another so quickly. If I blinked, I probably would’ve missed it.

  He begins jumping up and down, almost knocking me onto my ass in the process. “A weal castle! Daddy! Pwincess Mia said we can go to a weal castle!”

  Ben laughs as I stand up. “You ready to go, buddy?” He picks a squirming Nolan up and smiles sweetly at me. “Are you ready, Princess Mia?”

  Am I? For friendship with a man that I can’t stop thinking about? Pussy humming sex. Shit. I force a nod and swallow down my fear.

  “Lead the way, noble knights.”

  Nolan’s excitement was infectious, and it grew as the evening played out.

  When we pulled up in front of the castle, he couldn’t get out of the truck fast enough and practically sprinted toward it. When he got his picture taken with the King, he couldn’t take his eyes off him, even when Ben and I told him to look at us so we could take pictures of him with our phones. He stared at him with eyeballs the size of dinner plates, his mouth forming a tiny O. It was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. And when the actual show started and Nolan got to see the knights in action, jousting and sword fighting right in front of him, I don’t think he blinked even once.

  And then there was Ben.

  I kept catching glances from him the entire night, meeting his eyes every few minutes when I couldn’t keep myself from looking at him. I’m sure my struggle was obvious, considering he caught me each and every time I gave into my temptation. But the look he shot back at me wasn’t the one I was used to. It wasn’t the look he gave me when I knew he was thinking about doing things to my body. I was familiar with that look. The greedy shift in his eyes, the tightness in his jaw, the way his nostrils flared like he was a caged Pit bull. But I didn’t get that look tonight.

  Instead of the raw thirst I had seen in his eyes on more than one occasion, I saw tenderness. A friendly affection. He regarded me sweetly, but there was nothing behind it. No underlying hunger.

  And God, I wanted to be devoured by him.

  “He is completely passed out.” I observe, walking next to Ben and focusing on Nolan’s exhausted face. I reach up and brush his wild brown hair off his forehead, smiling at his sleepy state. “I don’t even think an actual dragon could wake him up right now.”

  Ben opens up the back door of his truck, laughing softly at the sight of Nolan’s face as he peels him off his shoulder. “I figured he’d crash hard after all of this.” He buckles Nolan into his car seat, closing the door and grabbing the passenger door handle. “I may have withheld his nap from him today in hopes of getting to talk to you alone on the drive back. My son likes to monopolize the conversation, as you witnessed on the way here.”

  I smile, climbing up into the truck after my door is opened for me.

  Nolan talked nonstop on the drive to the dinner show, and every time Ben tried to talk to me about something other than dragons or knights, Nolan would adorably cut in and change the subject.

  I’d be lying if I said I’m not grateful for Nolan’s missed nap.

  I settle into my seat and buckle up. “I can’t say I blame him. Dragons and knights are way more exciting than what Tessa and I did today.”

  He closes my door and gets in on the driver’s side, starting up the truck and pulling away from the castle.

  I inhale, taking in Ben’s scent that has completely filled the space b
etween us. He smells like pure Ben. No cologne, just him. Like a man that knows exactly how to please a woman.

  Shit. Don’t go there.

  “How’s your mom doing? Tessa mentioned a few months back that she was really sick. Is it breast cancer?”

  I cross one leg over the other, angling my body toward him.

  His one hand stays firmly planted on the wheel while his other relaxes on the console between us. I’m glued to his fingers, the fingers that I moronically doubted that night. I didn’t think there was a chance in hell he’d get me off the way he did. And now that I know what those fingers are capable of, I’m fascinated by them. I actually can’t stop looking at them.

  The length, the thickness, the fucking tips of them that played me like a record. I want him to turn his hand up so I can straddle his fingers and ride out my pent up orgasm right now, but that’s not going to happen.

  He clears his throat, gaining my attention, and I’m quickly reminded of the question he hit me with before I wandered off into finger fucking la-la land.

  I paint on my most convincing I-wasn’t-just-fantasizing-about-what-you-could-do-to-me face and answer. “Yeah. She’s doing great right now. The treatments aren’t making her nearly as sick as they did in the beginning. It was awful when she first started them.”

  He glances over at me and gives me a sympathetic smile.

  “She wouldn’t eat anything and she didn’t have the strength to get out of bed. I couldn’t leave her side for more than a few minutes at a time because she was constantly getting sick.”

  “But she’s doing better now? Does she still have it?” he asks, turning onto the main highway that leads to Ruxton.

  I nod once. “Yeah, she still has it, but I guess the treatments are working because she’s doing so much better than she was. I think she’s gotten most of her strength back.” I lean my head back against the seat rest, shifting my eyes from Ben’s profile to the road in front of us. “I just, I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to her. She’s the only family I have left besides my aunt.”

  The hand that I had longed to mount reaches over and grabs mine. He squeezes it gently, comforting me. “Nothing’s going to happen to her. And she’s not the only family that you have. Tessa would kick your ass if she heard you say that.”