‘You’re a nice guy,’ I said again.
‘You just keep telling yourself that, Feral,’ he said.
‘Which is why you are the only one who came up with the idea of putting the new girl on stage to dance. You knew it would earn more money for the family because … You. Are. A. Nice. Guy!’ I pointed an accusatory finger at him and he grabbed it. Before I could react he hauled me forward and kissed me.
But I backed off. I’d said no pigs and I wanted to stick to what I said. When his lips pressed down on mine, tasting of cold air and coffee, I caved a little. Melted against him. Kissed him back.
Finally, I broke free and said, ‘Stop, no. No kissing. No fucking. No –’
‘Oh, so now that I’m a nice guy you want zero to do with me. You’re one of those. Word on the street is you left mailman Keith high and dry in the parking lot of Mamma’s. No fucking for him … but that’s right. He’s a nice guy. You like the bad boys – we give you excuses to fuck and run.’
I opened my mouth and then slammed it shut – so startled was I by what he’d said.
‘I bet you’d like it if I wasn’t so nice. Suddenly you’d warm up, wouldn’t you?’ He pushed me back a step and I retreated.
‘Coop, don’t be an asshole.’
‘But you like me best when I’m an asshole, Feral. Because you can do whatever you want and then write me off. It works very well for you.’
He pushed me again – stiff-armed, not violent, the kind of shove that says you’re pissed but not confrontational. And I retreated.
My body was buzzing with adrenaline. Stomach sizzling, nipples hard, muscles trembling. I could feel a flush in my cheeks, but a coolness on the rest of me. When he shoved me again a small slick of fluid escaped my pussy.
Basically, I was a mess.
‘Why don’t you go now, Coop,’ I managed around a tongue that felt too big for my mouth.
He’d managed to work me all the way back into the doorway of the kitchen. I was nearly wedged between the small display cabinet and the shelf that held a haphazard array of spices and oils and whatnot from the move. My shoulder hit the shelf and some items rained down.
He pinned me with that wild green gaze and whispered, ‘Oops.’ His pale pink lips almost pressed to mine but not quite. My mouth tingled and I fought the urge to surge forward and get the kiss over with.
‘Maybe you like me better as a jerk and an asshole,’ he said, pushing his hand up under my shirt. He moved fast, cupping my breast, pinching me so I gasped.
‘Stop.’ But even I didn’t believe me when I said it. Because when he pinched me again, I moaned.
‘It’s easy to fuck and run on a guy you don’t like. And women call us dogs.’ His voice had become somewhat conversational and he swept his palm, flattened and callused, down my side. Skin and muscles rippled under his touch – and for a moment, the way that touch made me feel, it almost felt like bones had danced along with it.
‘But it’s very hard to fuck and run on a guy who has a heart or a soul or you see as nice.’
His hand toyed along the edge of my waistband, making my belly flicker and twitch. When he pushed his hand down lower, to find me hot and bare, I said nothing. I just watched his face. Watched hurt war with anger; annoyance battle pain.
‘Don’t,’ I said. But again, I lied because he kissed me and I kissed him back. His fingers drove into me while his tongue was still in my mouth. His fingers shoved harder into my body and his tongue thrust against mine.
I shivered, back pressed to the wall, pinned by his bulk and his hand. He still smelled like cold air. I smelled like coffee.
He fucked me with his fingers but never stopped kissing me. Because kissing me was keeping him anchored, I thought, somewhere between his hurt and his anger. Kissing me was what stabilised him.
‘I never get off from hand jobs,’ I said against his lips. This was the second time I’d informed him of such. Partially in a half-assed attempt to stop myself from letting this happen. From letting his anger and his need seduce the part of me that fed on that shit.
‘Yeah? Hunh.’
He stooped, grabbing a white jar and unscrewing the cap. I smelled it before I knew what it was. Coconut oil. A neighbour had given me a jar to cook with, which had started Todd’s anal coconut obsession – Todd seemed a million years ago now. The recipe had been for some Caribbean dish with shrimp and toasted coconut. My old neighbour also touted its wonderful healing properties and how it could be used for just about anything from Sunday dinner to heat rash and, yes, a lubricant.
The smell of beach and sun and vacation flooded my senses before I could speak and he was smoothing it on my nether lips, over my clit, into my cunt before I could really register. ‘I read about this,’ he said lazily and then covered my mouth with his when I gasped.
That gasp fed him because it was fast and brutal. Driving thrusts of a thick bundle of fingers, coupled with the bullying press of his thumb to my clit and the hard edge of his hip pinning me in place. Even as the release swept toward me, barrelling at me like some out of control thing, I tried to replay the steps from front door to here and couldn’t quite piece it together.
‘This is all because deep down you’re a nice guy,’ I accidentally said aloud as I came; cunt gripping and milking his fingers as he made me ride out each spasm. As he took my cries as his trophy and chuckled – almost cruelly – against my collarbone.
‘Is that what did you in? Is that your excuse, Feral?’
When the final twitch and ripple passed, he pulled his fingers free of my pussy and touched my lower lip with the middle one. ‘Lick,’ he demanded.
I did it. I didn’t think about it. I just did it. And he grabbed my free hand and shoved it to his fly. He was hard – gloriously hard – and I wanted him then. Even though I didn’t like him at all, possibly less than when this whole thing had started. I wanted to claim the prize that was mine – that hard on.
‘And now I get to live with this all day. Thanks, babe.’
He kissed me and was gone.
‘Fuck,’ I said to the door as it slammed.
I was trying to get into Coop’s head, and somehow he’d gotten into mine.
Chapter Twenty-Five
‘I have to get out of the house,’ I told Brutus. ‘I have to.’
I shoved all my dirty clothes and towels in one single load and carted them down to the laundry room. While the machine was agitating, so was I. I paced, realising of course that I was standing in the first place Cooper and I had been intimate with one another.
But if I went upstairs there was Deke. And if I went out back there was Stephen.
‘And Christ on a cracker, don’t look out of the window toward the street, woman,’ I snickered.
But it was true. I’d made a stand based on an angry knee jerk reaction and had cut off the three people I knew best beside my boss and her surly sidekick. The knee jerk reaction had led to regret and guilt.
Especially now knowing some of their histories. Their fucked up, tangled pasts.
‘God, this is not supposed to be happening. I was supposed to leave my complicated and messy life behind and have a fresh start with simple and easy ways.’
The dog cocked his head at me. I laughed.
‘That’s a pipe dream, though, isn’t it, B? There is no such thing as simple and easy in life, is there? That’s just unnatural.’
I tried to picture myself performing burlesque for charity. And couldn’t. I tried to picture myself doing anything on stage barring a truly bad performance of Our Town with a bunch of amateurs – which had been my last performance – and couldn’t.
But I’d figure it out. I’d have to research burlesque and fast.
‘Would have helped if I’d had some kind of internet service installed.’ I blew out a sigh. ‘The library, it is.’
I opened the back door and grabbed the packet of papers off the counter. The letters – in all the emotional hoopla and wild fucking – had been very much for
gotten. My increasingly wiggly dog bounded off at top speed.
On the back porch I waited, dead leaves drifting across my feet when the wind blew, for Brutus to return as I read:
My dearest,
Life is not supposed to be this complicated. We’re meant to listen to our hearts, don’t you think? We should feel what we feel and grab it lustily in both hands and take it with us wherever we go. Our joy, our love, our happiness. We should drag it behind us the way small girls tote their favourite dolls. Carrying it along through all of life's good and bad, clean and messy, holding it securely but loosely by one arm. Always having it by our side.
I can’t imagine that we’ve finally come to this place where I love you and you love me and we cannot be together. I cannot imagine careers at stake and veiled threats and judgments.
It almost seemed easier when it was all a big secret – even from ourselves. When we thought that first time just a fluke. Who is instantly attracted that way? Who instantly makes love in a rushed and cramped coupling and then stands to stare at each other – flush cheeked and breath wild – when all the frantic gropings are done?
I have to laugh because we did. And yet that seemed so much easier than the place we have gotten to where we’ve talked it out and admitted, confessed and conversed.
Because now it’s very real and we’d have to deal with all of them and sadly our time is not one for men like us. And dealing with them could get ugly or worse. I wish for the wild frantic coupling and the secret liaisons and us saying, ‘just once more’ …
Because that kept it all so very sacred. And what we have now is so very difficult.
Yet, I truly love you. And I always will.
MRS
‘Damn,’ I said to no one.
My throat was tight and my vision blurred by tears. I didn’t even want to admit that the line about the rushed and cramped coupling made me think of Deke and me in our infamous elevator ride. Or that the fact that it made me think of that sped my heart up so I had to take a deep breath.
‘Stop it,’ I hissed.
Then the phone in the kitchen rang and I jumped, dropping all the notes at my feet.
Saved by the bell.
* * *
‘We really appreciate this,’ Donna said. ‘With my back being iffy, we could use the extra hands.’
‘I really appreciate this,’ I countered. ‘With my life being iffy, I could really use something to be distracted.’
I helped Donna take a small platform to a spot under a big oak that had gone from green to golden just since I’d arrived.
‘We do a display every year, dyeing dogs for their owner. Only natural dyes and no chemicals, mind you. We like our pups colourful not chemicaled.’
I nodded. Joy dumped two boxes on the grass and headed back to Donna’s truck for more.
‘Is she okay?’
‘Yeah, she’s fine. She’s always a bit … Eeyore,’ my boss said.
I snorted with laughter and quickly covered my face. ‘Sorry.’
Donna shrugged. ‘She had a bad marriage, and a worse divorce, and I think it’s soured her on men in general – hunh, some days it’s more like it’s soured her on life in general.’
‘So we need to find her a man. She’s not hard to look at when she smiles,’ I said, popping open one of the boxes and finding all kinds of vegetable-based dyes running from red to purple.
‘Here we go.’ Joy dropped the box at my feet and tried on a smile. When she found it didn’t suit her, she glowered again. ‘Oh, wait!’ She ran back to the truck.
I eyed Donna. ‘Does she even like me?’ I asked, more curious than worried.
‘She loves you!’ Donna said genuinely. Then she winked. ‘Can’t you tell?’
‘Jeesh,’ I sighed. ‘Right, so nosy buttinski mission one at Tower Terrace … hunt down a man for Joy.’
‘Good luck. She knows and has dismissed all the men around her.’
‘Maybe we just need to drive a town over. They’re not as far away as everyone acts. What Willsinville is about fifteen miles from here?’
‘Eleven.’
‘There you go! Eleven.’
‘Eleven what?’ Joy asked, holding a book out to me. The Fine Art of Burlesque by Sarah Dobson.
‘Eleven, um … This one goes to eleven …’ I said doing the worst Spinal Tap impression ever.
She actually laughed and it did my heart good to see it. ‘I love that movie,’ she said.
‘Me too.’ I grinned.
I really was grateful for the distraction.
‘So, burlesque. Think I can do it? I have today and tomorrow to figure it out.’
They looked at each other and then at me. ‘I think you’d be better off acting,’ Joy said softly.
‘I could try acting like a burlesque dancer.’
‘Or just try being yourself,’ Donna said with a shrug. ‘I think the appeal is you. Which is why Cooper, as hard-assed and rigid as that boy is, came up with the idea. Don’t let him fool you, he’s a clever one.’
I was figuring that out. I was also figuring out that people around town saw him differently than me. All three of the pigs were different to the regulars. Because I was the outsider, and though they’d let me in, they knew their kind.
I had no kind. My kind had died some time ago, seeing as I was not in any way close to my extended family. They were scattered all around the globe; with such a large family on my mother’s side, I had only met one of my uncles one time. I’d struggled to realise my dream. But it hadn’t worked out. And now here I was starting over.
Terrace Tower was a second chance from my dad. I shouldn’t piss it away. And at some point – even I knew – I had to look at all the swirling, whirling feelings I was having and do something with them.
Keith walked up. ‘Hey there. Having fun?’
‘You know, I could use a big strapping man to help me with the dye tubs.’ Donna, though she was sixty if she was a day, gave him a coquettish head toss and batted her lashes.
Keith’s eyes came back to me, but he stuck out his elbow. ‘Lead the way, fair damsel.’
‘Oh good sir,’ Donna said and winked at me. Off they went and I watched. The small town hustle and bustle. The anticipatory feel in the air of something fun coming. Something for good.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Joy.
‘Uh-oh what?’
She nodded, but she was too late. He was right there, offering a steaming cup of coffee and a devilish smile. Some might say Satan-ish.
‘Morning, sunshine. I brought you coffee. And an apology.’
Deke.
‘Hi.’ I smiled, feeling, not butterflies, but pterodactyls in my gut. I sipped the coffee he’d brought me and when he slowly, giving me plenty of warning, moved into kiss me, I let him.
I parted my lips and took his kiss, touching my tongue to his. The tree trunk at my back dug into my plaid jacket and tore at the skin beneath. That harshness was the only thing keeping me grounded. As usual with Deke, when he was around I wanted to lead him off to a dark corner and simply be with him.
‘Do you forgive me for being an asshole?’
‘You weren’t an asshole. You reacted like a normal guy,’ I sighed. ‘I think I expected way too much out of all of you and your massive amounts of testosterone.’
‘It probably makes it worse that once upon a time we were all friends,’ he said, still confining me within the loop of his arms. I liked it – him looming over me, keeping me here, making me present and aware.
‘You’re still friends,’ I said, touching one of the three buttons on his thermal pullover. Dragging my fingers slowly down the row of shiny buttons.
‘Don’t touch me if you don’t want to fuck me, Farrell,’ he whispered, his face as serious as a heart attack. ‘Whether you like it or not, you’ve gotten under my skin and these days …’ He shook his head, jaw flexing and looked away.
‘These days?’ My heart quickened and my blood followed suit.
‘Just thinking
about you gets me hard. And it makes me want you in a way I can’t remember wanting anyone else. The only comparison I can think of is how you want air. But you don’t really want air, do you? You need it.’
My face went hot and I toed a patch of dirt with my boot. ‘Thank you for letting me kick you out.’
‘What was I gonna do?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It was all very overwhelming and I like you all and I –’ Like you the most … I heard it in my head but didn’t say it. I wasn’t ready to say it. What if I was wrong? What if it changed everything? What if it ruined everything for all of us? I had just started my life here. I liked it so far. I was still blindly feeling my way through the sharp hills and deep valleys of establishing myself.
Maybe I’d kicked it off wrong. Maybe I hadn’t. But I could not complicate it to that degree just yet.
‘You smell like a vacation,’ he said, pushing his face to my neck.
‘Oh?’
‘And funny thing is,’ he whispered, pulling back to look at me, ‘Coop smelled very “beachy” this morning too.’
I shook my head. ‘I didn’t fuck him,’ I said. It was the truth.
‘I didn’t say you did. And I get it, you come here and you start fresh and it’s this wild thing where you run around and claim the bits of life you want to claim. And you toss the bits of life you don’t want. And you do what you want and fuck everyone else.’ His dark eyes bored into me and I chewed my lower lip – suddenly nervous.
‘But?’ I barely said it aloud, my voice was so soft.
‘But some of us will still be here when you’re done being wild. When you’re done claiming, and figuring, and plotting, and wrestling life into submission. Some of us will still be here and we’re very willing to have you in our lives. Possibly permanently.’
I nodded, my tongue too small and too fragile to work.
‘And by some of us,’ he said, taking my face in his hands and kissing me, ‘I mean me. I don’t speak for those monkeys. I mean me. Me, Farrell. I dream about you. And when I see you in person, I still feel like I’m dreaming.’
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