She cocked her head to the side and for some odd reason I found it extremely adorable to watch. “You seriously listen to Taylor Swift?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of Prevail’s version,” I studiously told her.
“You know the part about a nightmare and a daydream? That’s me,” she said with all seriousness. I wish I knew what was going on in her head. She was so damn hard to read, especially when she said things like that.
“My nightmare. My daydream. Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter what you say. Something about you is telling me that we are supposed to be together. I feel it in here.” I pressed my fist to my heart while my eyes pleaded with her to admit that I was right. Ever since I first laid eyes on her, I knew she was the one. Every day for nearly a year, that belief never wavered.
When you know, you just know.
“It does matter. We barely know each other. Don’t confuse lust with love, Ben.”
“What are you so afraid of?”
“Nothing. Everything. I don’t know okay. You should bring me back to my room now.” She tried to stand but I tightened my hold on her waist, forcing her to stay in my lap.
“No. This is too important.”
“You might want to take a page from Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” and recognize when you should walk away.”
“Do not make me laugh when I’m trying to be serious. Being cute isn’t going to get you out of telling me why you won’t give us a chance.” My lips twitched, and I fought and won against laughing. Damn she was something else.
“I wasn’t being cute!” she yelled exasperatedly.
“Babe. Any woman who can sit here in the middle of a serious conversation and quote Kenny Rogers is being cute.”
“I wasn’t trying to be cute,” she grumbled.
“Well you were. And I’ll raise your statement with this one—you also need to know what cards to keep, and you, sweetheart, are a keeper.”
Taking her face in my hands, I leaned in to finally kiss her. She licked her lips in anticipation. Her breaths were little puffs of air on my face. Her eyes closed, mine followed suit and just as my lips were about to brush hers the lights flickered off and then on, signaling that the night was drawing to an end.
Filled with frustration, I pulled back and waited for her eyes to open. She blinked at me in both surprise and disappointment. I gave her a crooked smile and said, “Let’s get you up to the room.”
*****
Arm braced on the doorframe above Rissa’s head, my body leaned towards her. “Thank you for tonight,” I whispered.
“I didn’t do anything,” she said in confusion.
“Trust me. You did more than you know. I had a really good time hanging out with you.”
“Ben?”
“Yeah, sweetheart?” I took a lock of her hair and wound it around my finger.
“Are you going to kiss me?”
“Do you want me to?” I leaned in a little closer, loving the way her breathing accelerated and her eyelids fluttered.
“Not as much as I want that orgasm you promised,” she breathed.
Fuck. I was going to Hell, but no way would I walk away after that comment. I always made good on my promises.
Dipping my head to capture her mouth, we both stumbled when the door opened behind Rissa.
“What are you two kids doing out here?” Meredith cheekily asked.
Rissa’s back went ramrod straight and there was a hint of annoyance in her voice when she responded, “Ben walked me to the door. We were just saying goodnight.”
“With your tongues?” Meredith kept poking.
“No tongues were involved,” I bit out, hating her in that moment for intentionally barging in on us.
“So sorry I interrupted then.” She gave me a big smile that said she knew exactly what I thought of her stunt and then looked over at Rissa. “Let’s go, lady. You have to get up in six hours to catch your flight and you reek like a liquor store, which means you’re going to be hungover tomorrow.”
“Night,” Rissa mumbled as she walked past me into the room.
“Night, Ben,” Meredith repeated before closing the door in my face.
Scrubbing my hands down my face, I stared at the door for several minutes willing her to come back out and finish what we had started. When that didn’t happen, I turned away and went up to my room.
Alone.
Dammit.
SIX
“So how was it?” Ed asked first thing Monday morning when I met him to start our shift. He stood in front of our assigned truck rubbing his hands together anxiously and shuffling from one foot to the next.
“You’re pathetic.” I laughed at how ridiculous he looked.
“Come on. I’ve been waiting to get the lowdown on your weekend,” he said unapologetically.
“It was fine.” I got in the truck and cranked the engine, forcing him to get in as well.
“Just fine?”
“Yeah. Fine. What are you a fucking chick now?” Was he going to ask me about my feelings next? I sure as fuck hoped not.
“Hey, I’m in touch with my feminine side. Any real man is,” he scoffed. All I could do was shake my head as we maneuvered out of the lot and over to where we would spend the majority of our morning.
“I could really use some coffee.” After a delay with the plane, I hadn’t gotten in until nearly midnight. Then I laid in bed for hours trying to fall asleep, thinking of Rissa and that damn kiss that almost happened, all the while knowing I had to get up in five hours.
Ed glanced at the clock and gave me a wry smile. “Won’t be able to take a break for at least an hour. Shift change. No way we won’t be missed.”
“Fuck. I know,” I ground out and then yawned wide. It really was going to be a long day if I didn’t wake my ass up.
“Since you won’t tell me what happened, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that first,”
he held up a finger, “you drank too much. Second,” another damn finger raised, “you had some hot chick bouncing on your pole all night. And third,” not only did he add a finger this time but he gave me a shit eating grin too, “you performed a classic KISS song and was crowned homecoming king.”
I cursed and looked around the cab of the truck for something to shoot at him. Coming up empty, I yelled, “You fucker. Who told you?”
“Ran into Tanner at the Harley Davidson store over the weekend. Never laughed so hard in my life.” Just to prove a point he let out a loud bark of laughter that didn’t wane for several minutes.
“So you know that he lied to me then. Got stuck playing Paul Stanley. Would have rather been Peter Criss,” I mumbled in an aggrieved tone.
I couldn’t wait to see Tanner and kick his ass.
“Was I right about the rest? You still recuperating from too much booze and too many chicks?” Ed was like a dog with a bone not wanting to let it go, so I decided to give it to him. Or at least a watered down version.
“I might have had too much to drink on Friday night. Saturday wasn’t bad though.”
“And the babe bouncing up and down on your knob?”
My mind immediately flashed to Rissa confessing that Scott was the only man who had ever gotten her off and how badly I wanted to show her all the things I had dreamed of doing to her. An image of her laid out before me with her legs splayed wide and her back arched popped in my head and had my blood heating. Shaking my head in an effort to stop those thoughts, I let out a nervous chuckle before telling him, “No. No bouncing took place.”
“Not even a blowjob?” he asked incredulously.
I sighed heavily with regret when I envisioned Rissa and me doing a little sixty-nine action. Shit I really need to stop this train of thought before I had trouble hiding my body’s reaction to them.
“Not even a blowjob,” I admitted.
“Hand job?”
“Well...” I let the words trail off hoping they would be enough to quench his thirst for the dirty deta
ils.
“Nice. Need to live vicariously through you. Love coming home to Ella. Love the way she takes care of my needs. Still love hearing your stories.”
“Sick,” I murmured through a smile.
“You still haven’t told me about the hand job.”
“What the fuck do you want me to say? It was a hand job, dude. Get over it,” I said hotly. There was no way in hell I was telling Ed about my crash and burn with the two girls on Friday night. He would have thought I was nuts for not going through with it.
“What crawled up your ass today?” he grumbled and sat back, crossing his arms in a pissed off stance.
“Look. I’m tired. I need caffeine and I really don’t want to talk about this weekend.”
“Whatever,” he mumbled under his breath before pulling out his phone and ignoring me. Whatever was right. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with the third degree just then. He would just have to deal with it.
Two hours later I had an extra-large cup of coffee in hand and was feeling more alert when I watched as Rissa pulled into the parking lot of her employer. Clutching the steering wheel, I fought the urge to go over to her. It was a real compulsion to spend time with her. To get to know even more about her. What made her tick. What would make her laugh loudly. What would make her face light up with excitement. And it was an aching physical need I had to set aside in order not to touch her, kiss her or love her. Especially now that I knew how soft her skin was and how damn good she smelled. I wanted nothing more to taste her and make her mine.
Ed still didn’t know the nature of our relationship now that we had finally spoken to one another and I wanted to keep it that way. I wanted to keep her to myself, opting not to share her with my friends. Not yet at least.
*****
The sound of a jarring thud echoed throughout my living room as my fist connected with Tanner’s jaw.
“You fucking prick!” he shouted and lunged for me. We both fell backwards onto the wooden floor, skidding to a halt several feet from where we started.
“You suck! You know that?” I shouted back. Planting my hand on his face, I pushed his head back.
It had been a long time since we really fought and as we wrestled and punched each other on the floor, I found it to be a bit cathartic.
Spending a good portion of our younger years in fisticuffs, my mother had learned early on to let us have our fights as we were growing up. That wasn’t to say she didn’t have a million heart attacks whenever we really got into it, but she realized it was us blowing off steam. There was never a time where we didn’t walk away from a scuffle with one another without a back slap and a smile on our faces.
I liked to think of it as our way of communicating our feelings.
Tanner grunted when my fist connected with his ribs. “That’s for setting me up last weekend.” A kick to the shin was next. “And that’s for telling Ed what happened.”
“You’re such a little bitch.” He pulled back far enough to cock his arm and land a punch to my nose that instantly had my eyes watering.
“Not again.”
Both Tanner and I broke apart at the sound of our mother’s exasperated voice ringing out in the room. She stood at the edge of my living room with her arms crossed in the universal pissed off mother stance.
Leave it to her to pick now of all times for an unexpected visit.
“Mom,” I started but the scathing look she gave me had me quickly shutting up and thoroughly chastised. How was it mothers could do that with just a look? Was there a special school they attended?
“I really thought you two would grow out of this at some point. I’m sick of bloody noses, black eyes and broken bones.” She slammed her purse on the table next to doorway. When neither of us had moved from our positions on the floor, she shouted, “Get up!”
Scrambling to my feet, I brushed off my pants and looked at my feet. In my errant child pose—the same one Tanner mirrored—I waited for her to finish her rant. It was a process that we both knew too well. After she read us the riot act and made us feel nothing but pure guilt, we’d be able to visit with her.
“What has you two fighting like hooligans on the floor?” she demanded to know as she stood in front of us with her hands on her hips.
“You never cared when we fought before,” Tanner unwisely pointed out.
“That was when you were kids for God’s sake! You’re thirty years old, Tanner. There is absolutely no reason for you to be beating on anyone let alone your one and only brother,” she exploded.
At fifty-two years old, Natalie Harris looked like she was our older sister rather than our mother. Her dark blonde locks fell past her shoulders and her blue eyes popped against her fair skin. Skin that was now tinged red, a sure sign that if we didn’t play our cards right, we were going to really be in for a tongue lashing. It didn’t matter how old we were.
“So do tell. What was so rip-roaring important that you had to take fists to your brother?” Her shrewd gaze assessed Tanner, waiting for his answer. I braced knowing he was going to throw me under the bus. No questions asked. It was what he did.
“He hit me first,” the bastard tattled on me just like I knew he would.
“Benjamin?” She turned those sharp eyes to me and I fought the instinctive cringe.
“He lied to me... again,” I said on a sigh fully aware that there was no way that was going to be a good enough excuse.
“And you thought talking it out with your fists was better than using your words? What did I teach you?”
“Talk first, fight last,” I recited by rote.
“Your father would be so disappointed the way you two act sometimes. He and his brother were thick as thieves. They never would have treated each other like a punching bag. Now I want you two to hug and say you’re sorry.”
“Mom, we’re grown men. I’m not hugging him or saying I’m sorry,” I defiantly told her.
“Benjamin Radcliff Harris, I don’t care how old you are, I’ll still take you over my knee. Now say you’re sorry right this instant,” she ordered.
Tanner’s snicker made me want to reach over and punch him again. Knowing the only way out of this was to either do as I was told or risk upsetting my mother, I turned to Tanner and put my arm around him, patting his back quickly before stepping away.
“Are you forgetting something?” my mother asked with an arched eyebrow.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled under my breath.
“What was that?” Tanner—the dick—chimed in.
“You fucking heard me.” I glowered at him. My hands tightening into fists to keep from smacking him.
“Say it right this time, Benjamin,” my mother scolded.
“Fine. I’m sorry, all right? I’m sorry you’re a complete asshole who constantly asks for favors and then screws me over. You should be harping on him for fucking me up the ass, Mom, not me for reacting to his betrayal.”
“You two are pitiful sometimes. I need a drink,” my mother announced on a heavy sigh right before she turned her back on us and stormed in the kitchen.
I found her a few minutes later sitting at the round kitchen table that sat six people easily. She had a bottle of beer in front of her and her head in her hand, staring out the window. She looked so forlorn that it made my heart squeeze.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” I asked her. Pulling out the chair next to her, I sat and then ran my hand soothingly up and down her back.
She turned sad eyes to me and whispered, “Twenty years.”
That’s when it dawned on me why she was so pissed to find us fighting and the comment about my father being ashamed of our behavior.
Twenty years ago, my father left the house to go to work at the electric plant across town. He kissed my mother far too deeply for us kids to see, making us gag and groan at their PDA. It happened like that every time he left and we were around. Then he ruffled both mine and Tanner’s hair before promising he’d see us later. Only he didn’t get to keep that promise and he ne
ver came home. A freak explosion took him, my uncle Kyle and my dad’s best friend Mark’s lives that day.
My mom never fully recovered. Over the years, I don’t think I had ever seen her date let alone show even the smallest bit of interest in a man.
Tanner sat on her other side, grabbed her hand from her face and held it on the table. Gone was the tension between us as we gave knowing looks across the table. This was about her and what she needed. Not about our petty differences.
“Mom, why don’t you stay tonight? We can pop some popcorn and watch reruns of Rehab Addict on television?” I gently prodded her with her favorite show. It could go either way with whether or not she took the bait.
“I can hang too,” Tanner added. He knew better than to ever offer for her to stay at his place. Between the mess and the random women that might pop by, it was a well-known fact that our mother preferred not to go there if she didn’t have to.
“You don’t need your mother cramping your style,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Ben? Style? Please,” Tanner ridiculed. “When was the last time you brought a girl home?”
“Benjamin respects women,” my mother came to my defense. “I wish I could say the same about you. I taught you better than to have a revolving door of women. I want you two to find nice girls to settle down with and give me grandbabies.”
“Hey, I respect them,” he said incredulously.
“Before you kick them to the curb,” I muttered under my breath earning me a glare from my brother.
“How about I make dinner for you guys and then we’ll do our TV marathon?” She shrewdly changed the subject when Tanner started getting hot under the collar.
“I’d like that,” I told her. Standing from the table, I kissed her hair and went to cancel the poker game scheduled at Ed’s that night.
Nothing was more important than family.
SEVEN
I welcomed the rush of cool air as the door to the sandwich shop opened. It was a stark contrast from the hot, humid air I had been sweating my balls off in for the last six hours.
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