Crazy Sexy Notion

by Sarah Darlington

  I’d broken every single one of my rules during sex with Mickey.

  First rule: no names. I always made men call me by my alter-ego name ‘Bliss Love.’ It was just easier that way. Less personal. I typically called them ‘baby’ in return, my go-to pet name. But, unable to stop myself, I’d called Mickey by his first name no less than fifteen times while fucking him. It was if I couldn’t stop myself from screaming his name on repeat. How embarrassing?

  Second rule: no foreplay. Unless a guy specifically was paying for it, I found it easier to just skip that part. I’d let Mickey go down on me. I’d subjected myself to that vulnerability. And I’d enjoyed every second of it.

  Third rule: always use a condom. I was on birth control, of course, but I didn’t let just any fool come inside me. What’s worse? It hadn’t even registered with me to make Mickey wear a condom. Hell, I’d wanted him bare inside me.

  Fourth rule: no kissing. This was the worst of my offenses. I lived by this rule. No kissing was the easiest way to separate emotion from my job. But the moment Mickey began touching me, took off my underwear, and began kissing me in such an intimate way, I dropped every single wall for him. All the animosity I felt from when were little—I let it go. My trust issues with men—dropped. My anger toward the entire Lawson family tree—not even an issue. Because there was anger there toward Mickey’s entire family. Well, his mom’s side. Toward his cousin Jack, the one who’d taken my virginity, specifically, and his uncle Cody. I forgot it all in that moment. All that mattered was that I was with Mickey—my old friend. My best friend, actually. My protector. My savior. Lost in the way it felt being with him, I’d kissed him and broken my unbreakable rule.

  The kiss had been everything, too. It was the soft, sweet, innocent kiss that should have been my first kiss long ago. It was tender and unrushed and something every girl dreams about coming from a man like Mickey. He’d kissed me—kind of like I meant the world to him. I’d never meant the world to anyone before. Although, that might have been a figment if my imagination because then the sex ended and he instantly got all weird. Now nearly thirteen days had passed, and he wasn’t speaking to me.

  At this point I was doing my best to avoid him. It was just too awkward whenever we accidentally bumped into each other. Like right this second. In his kitchen. Oh God.

  He had a candy red apple in his hand. He froze mid-bite the moment I walked into the kitchen. His eyes landed on my eyes. I’d learned his home-day schedule. It was super predictable. He was always home around the same times. In the kitchen, showering, in his office, or watching TV—all at about the same times. Then there were the days he had away games—when that happened it might be four or even seven days before I saw him again.

  I’d printed the Sea Dogs’ game schedule off at the library. I had it hidden under my bed in my room. There was a home game tonight against the Fisher Cats. Then he’d be away for a whopping seven days. What I didn’t understand was why he was in the kitchen right now!

  I wasn’t dressed in my own clothes either. Shit. I’d dug in Sandra’s box again. I had a job interview at the library in an hour. I was applying for a part-time position. I’d still been in contact with Mickey’s parents. They’d started the habit of picking up Samantha and taking her with them to all Mickey’s home games. They’d be here soon to get Samantha and then I really needed to start walking if I wanted to make my interview in time.

  So what the hell was Mickey doing home?

  He regained animation and finished his bite of apple. His eyes kept on me as he rather dramatically chewed and swallowed.

  I felt my skin boil under his scrutiny. Did he noticed these weren’t my clothes?

  He was blocking the fridge, so I went for the pantry. My appetite had vanished, but I needed something to pretend to do. I hung on the door looking inside, trying to decide how long I should wait before bolting back to the living room with Samantha.

  “Why are you dressed so modest?” he suddenly asked, breathing his silent streak.

  Oh fuck.

  “No reason,” I said into the shelves without turning around.

  “You going somewhere?”

  I shrugged.

  “You have a date?”

  Yeah right. Like I’d wear khakis on a date. I might have laughed if I wasn’t mortified at the moment. I grabbed a box of crackers, the first thing I saw, and turned around to face him. “I don’t see why it’s any of your business whether I have a date or not.” My words came off harsh and unwavering, even if I felt the opposite inside at the moment. “How I dress is none of your business. You can go back to ignoring me now.”

  “Okay. Fine. Whatever.” He took another bite of his apple, his eyes narrowing across the distance at me. He hadn’t budged from his spot, all suave and handsome and annoying.

  I stood there like an idiot and chewed on a cracker. Shit, I had to ask— “Why aren’t you at your game?”

  “It was cancelled.”

  I coughed on my cracker bite.

  “Half the Fisher Cats caught some nasty virus,” he went on. “And have you looked outside lately—it sounds like its hailing. We can’t play in weather like this. They went ahead and just cancelled.”

  I hadn’t looked outside recently. I’d been stressing over my outfit and my hair for the last two hours. But now that he mentioned it, it did sound like something crazy was happening outside. How was I supposed to walk to the library in hail?

  “My mom called and said she could still come pick up Samantha, maybe take her to a movie or something. But I told her you were home and that wasn’t necessary.”

  A whimper left my lips. I quickly clamped my hand over my mouth. I didn’t want Mickey knowing how disheartened I suddenly was. But this was the fucking worst timing ever.

  “So, did you have plans?” he asked again, all smugly. Silver lining: at least he hadn’t noticed I was wearing his ex’s clothes.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “I guess they’re ruined now.”

  He smiled. He actually had the balls to smile. That asshole.

  “Could you watch Samantha?” I blurted it out before I had time to think through the implications of my request. “And could I borrow your car?”

  The lightness on his face disappeared. “No,” he simply said.

  I huffed. “Please.”

  “No. I can watch Samantha, but you’re not taking my car. I just got the dent in the side of the Corvette fixed. Why would I let you borrow it again?”

  I wanted to go across the kitchen and slap him. “That was an accident. I didn’t do it on purpose. So that’s what this whole silent treatment has been about. Your stupid car. If you want me to pay for the repairs then I will.”

  “With what money? Besides, I thought you already paid me.”

  What? I didn’t know what he meant. Unless he thought when we’d had sex that had been my payment. “Oh. My God,” I said aloud. “You’re a jackass.” My words didn’t even come out half as angry as they should have. I was too shocked, too hurt, and too embarrassed to get good and angry at him. Did he think that low of me? Did he think I’d trade sex for car repairs?

  “What?” he asked all innocently.

  I didn’t have time to argue.

  Leaving him behind in the kitchen, I hurried toward the entryway. “Samantha, I’ll be back in an hour or two,” I yelled. “Mickey’s going to watch you while I’m gone.” There was an umbrella in some sort of decorative umbrella holder by the door. I grabbed it and rushed out into the storm.

  * * *

  It was no joke hailing. I’d experienced plenty of hail storms in Kansas—ones that had even put little dents in the roof of my trailer. But I’d never physically been outside in the middle of one with only an umbrella to protect me from the sky. I ran down Mickey’s street, passing a few houses before deciding the umbrella was absolute shit. So I chucked the umbrella and hugged a pine tree, getting lost in the branches, doing my best to keep my body out of harm’s way. The hail stones
had changed from pea size to almost golf ball size! Every once and a while one would miss the branches just right, hitting me, and damn they stung. Like being shot by a paintball gun.

  A minute later I saw Mickey.

  My breath caught in my throat. I hadn’t expected him to follow me. I didn’t know he cared enough about me to follow me. But, apparently, he did. He jogged down the sidewalk—barefoot, no less, with his hands over his head in an attempt to block the storm. “Raven! Raven!”

  He screamed my name and I could have ignored him. I mean, I was so deep in the tree’s branches that nobody would have been able to find me. But Mickey was going to get himself killed or injured if he didn’t get out of the storm.

  “Mickey! Over here!” I yelled into the wind.

  He heard me and changed directions, cutting across ice covered grass to get to me. Pushing into the branches, he joined me in my tree hiding spot. Awkward. I adjusted, trying to make room for his large body without letting him physically touch my body. But, dammit, there just wasn’t enough room. Touching was our only option. My body ended pushed flesh against his body. To make it worse, he boxed me in with his arms by gripping the branch above my head.

  Mickey’s chest heaved up and down as he stared down at me.

  “What were you thinking?” he demanded. He sounded pissed.

  I didn’t respond. It was his turn to endure the silent treatment.

  “You could have gotten yourself hurt,” he scolded. “Where were you even going?”

  Still I remained quiet.

  “So, what, you’re not talking to me now?”

  I raised my eyebrows. Damn right, I wasn’t talking.

  “I see. Real mature.”

  The storm raged. Along with my heart. I glared at him and really wanted to keep silent, but I couldn’t help myself and had to speak up. “You’re the idiot who started the silent treatment, not me!”

  “Fine, you’re right,” he answered. “I started it. But I didn’t like the way you took advantage of me with the car thing. You could have just told me about the dent straight up. You didn’t have to sleep with me first to soften the blow. I wouldn’t have cared.”

  “You’re such a dick.” I shoved him in the chest as hard as I could—he didn’t budge, so I tried it again. “I didn’t sleep with you because of the car, you moron!” I tried for a third time to shove him away. This time he caught wrists, his hands circling like handcuffs, making it impossible to try to hit him again.

  “Stop, Raven. Stop.”

  I saw red as I stared up at him. I hated the term ‘trailer trash.’ I hated the stereotype. But that was what I was. That was the world I’d been raised in. When I’d kissed Mickey during sex I’d let myself hope for a small moment, stupidly enough, that maybe the world had something more to offer for me. That I could be a different person—a different person with Mickey. A person who wore khakis, went to baseball games, had a job at a library, and didn’t have weird rules for sex. A person who could be someone like Mickey’s girlfriend.

  Turns out…I was exactly who’d always been. Just me. The prostitute. Turns out…that was how Mickey saw me, too.

  “How enlightening,” I mumbled. “It’s good to know what you really think of me.”

  His face paled. “What do you think that is?”

  I only huffed. I wasn’t able to spell it out for him.

  “When we slept together it wasn’t because of the car,” he concluded. “The sex was just sex?”

  “That’s literally what I just said!” Holy Hell, would this storm ever let up? I was about to take my chances, risk concussion, and walk out of the branches. “Let’s just stand here and not talk until the hail passes. Okay? And I’m super pissed at you for leaving Samantha alone at the house. She’s probably terrified at the moment.”

  “I told her I’d be back as soon as I got you. She’s a tough little girl, she’ll be okay.”

  “Don’t presume to think you know my daughter better than me!” Actually, Mickey was probably right. She’d been through tornado warnings. A little hail was nothing.

  He sighed. “I’m sorry, Raven. I’m sorry for thinking you had ulterior motives for sleeping with me. Our connection was so damn amazing. So much so that I was hesitant to believe it was real. But you know what this means—”

  A hint of a smile touched his lips.

  I scowled at him.

  “It means that it was real. This is a game changer.”

  A shiver ran through me.

  “Complete game changer,” he repeated.

  My heart, the treacherous thing, went a little haywire at his words. I was suddenly very cognizant of the fact that were pressed so close, his grip on my wrists a little too tight, his blue eyes way too intense as they stared down at mine. He had me locked in place. Would he try to kiss me? He better not or he’d be getting a knee in the groin.

  Thanks the Lord above, the hail suddenly stopped. It changed to rain in the blink of an eye. God must have been on my side—because rain I could handle.

  “Whatever, Mickey,” I said to him, yanking my hands out of his grip. “What the fuck ever.” Then I left him and the branches. It was too late to go to my interview. Instead I started walking back for the house.

  CHAPTER 12:

  MICK

  My foot was cut. Shit. At some point in all my running barefoot through ice, I must have cut it. Raven left our tree—hot and heated—and started walking back in the direction of my house. I went to follow her and that was when I realized what had happened. I’d been too distracted to notice the pain, but I noticed it now. Blood trickled into the grass as I lifted my foot to inspect it. Yikes!

  “Raven,” I called out before she could get too far away from me.

  “Go to hell,” she shouted over her shoulder.

  “I cut my foot.”

  She groaned, like I was inconveniencing her to death, but she did stop and turn around. In a huff, she marched back over to me. The rain had thoroughly drenched her. Her white blouse was see-through, her black hair flattened, her makeup smeared, and her eyelashes dripping with little beads of water. The water accentuated her green eyes. It reminded me of a time we built little boats out of aluminum foil and played in the rain an entire afternoon. I swallowed hard, staring at her, in awe of her beauty. What an idiot I was. I couldn’t believe I’d spent the last two weeks angry with her over literally nothing. She had every right to be pissed at me.

  “I cut my foot,” I repeated.

  “I can see that. What do you want me to do? Kiss it and make it better?”

  I chuckled. “That wouldn’t hurt.”

  She didn’t even so much as smile. “No.”

  “Okay. Give me your shirt so I can make a bandage then.”

  Her lips parted and her mouth fell open. “You’re full of it.”

  “Fine.” I took off my own shirt, and I tore it in half. Using the material, I tied a makeshift bandage around my foot. It occurred to me then that this might affect my pitching. Shit.

  “Now what?” Raven asked.

  “Now I hobble back to the house.”

  “You know—this never would have happened if you hadn’t gallantly tried to come rescue me in the hail.”

  She sure liked to be difficult.

  “I wouldn’t have had to come rescue you had you not run off into the hail in the first place,” I retorted.

  “I wouldn’t have run off if you if you wouldn’t have implied I paid you with sex for denting your car.”

  Okay, she had me there.

  “And I really did have somewhere I needed to be,” she added.

  I rolled my eyes. Why were females so difficult? “Fine, you win. This is all my fault. Happy now?”

  “As long as you’re willing to admit it.” She sighed, grabbing my arm and maneuvering it over her shoulder. She let me put some of my weight on her as we walked back in the grass along the sidewalk toward my house. It stung a little to walk on the cut, but I was fine. I probably didn’t need her
help to walk—but, really, who was I to turn down physical contact with Raven?

  Back at the house Samantha seemed more concerned than Raven. “What happened?” she asked with worry in her voice the moment we came through the front door. “Should I go call an ambulance?”

  “No. I can call the team physician. He’ll come to the house.”

  So that was what I did. I called Jeff Wilson, the Sea Dogs team physician. He made house calls when needed. In less than thirty minutes he arrived and immediately started stitching. “It’s deep,” he told me, with the needle in his hand. “You’re going to have to stay off it for two to three weeks while it heals.”

  “What?” We were in the living room, on the couch, and I dropped my head back against the fabric. He’d numbed my foot so I couldn’t feel anything, but it wasn’t the pain from my foot that hurt. “This is such bullshit.” I was beyond annoyed that I would have to miss any time over this.

  “I know. I’ve got some crutches in my truck. I’ll go get them. Use them—the less weight you put on your foot the quicker it will heal.”

  Jeff finished stitching, applied gauze, and a giant bandage to the bottom of my foot. Then he left to get the crutches. Samantha hadn’t left my side. She’d been watching Jeff the entire time he was stitching, not even the least bit squeamish. “Kid,” I told her now. “You’re going to have be my legs for a few days. Do you think you handle the job?”

  “Yes!” She seemed desperate to help in any way she could.

  “Great. First things first. Could you go get me a beer out of the fridge in the garage?”

  She dashed off. I rarely drank during baseball season. But this moment called for a drink—maybe a few of them. Raven sat in a chair across the room. She hadn’t said a word since Jeff had arrived. She hadn’t left the room either though, so I took that as a positive sign. I met her gaze across the room, and still we didn’t speak.

  Samantha reappeared a second later with a bottle of my favorite IPA. And Jeff returned a minute later with the crutches. He propped them against the couch for me. “I’ll call Coach Frank and management and let everyone know what happened. This will fuck with the pitching rotation for a couple weeks, but the team will manage. Come find me first thing tomorrow morning when you come in. I’ll change the bandage before we leave for Connecticut.”