Eager First Times

by Betsy Locke

  Cameron started to laugh. And I couldn't help but join in.

  Chapter Six

  I'd never fallen in love before.

  I couldn't believe it happened after I was already married to a man.

  Cameron was the man of my dreams but it took me a little while to figure that out.

  We were so happy together and spent two months in Spain on our honeymoon. I didn't need to work two part-time jobs anymore.

  I didn't have the burden of debt anymore. I didn't have to worry about that wreck of a house any longer.

  My mom would be happy for me.

  I deserved some happiness.

  The End

  Story Fifteen

  Copyright 2018

  All Rights Reserved.

  Disclaimer: This ebook is a work of fiction. Any resemblance characters in this story may have to real people is coincidental.

  No section of this book may be copied or reproduced without the author's permission.

  Description

  I thought the man I was obsessed with for so long was gone forever.

  But then he shows up on my doorstep and I can't say no.

  His hands all over me, his lips against mine.

  This was going to be the biggest secret to keep.

  Chapter One

  Today just kept getting worse and worse.

  It started with waking up just a few minutes later than I was supposed to. My alarm went off but I must've hit the snooze in my sleep. Not usually a big deal.

  That led to an insane amount of traffic on my way to work in the morning. I thought it would be fine because usually everyone else in the office came in late because of the delay. The bosses always overlooked these types of things.

  But I wasn't so lucky.

  I was the last one into the office and everybody took notice. I knew my bosses would put it in my file and use it against me later.

  At lunch, I realized I forgot to bring food. In the rush to get on time, I had completely forgotten to get the sandwich I had made the night before.

  I went to the food stand across the street from our building and got two hot dogs. My first bite, a squirt of mustard shot out onto my white blouse. I lost my appetite at that point and threw my lunch away.

  I spent the rest of my lunch in the bathroom, trying to get the mustard out.

  Throughout the day, my coworkers pointed out the stain.

  “Elizabeth, I think you have a little something on your blouse.”

  “Elizabeth, there's a yellow stain on your shirt.”

  I knew they were just trying to be helpful but I didn't need to be reminded about it every second of the day.

  Those bad things didn't even have to do with my actual work.

  Today was the busiest day in a long time. My title at the company was executive assistant but really I was just a glorified copy girl.

  My job was to take stacks of papers and copy them. That was it.

  I didn't know this was the only thing I would be doing at the company until my first day. If they had given me an inkling during the interview, I would've never accepted.

  But here I was with an insurmountable stack of papers. Every few pages had a Post-It note on it saying how many copies they needed. Some stacks needed two copies made per page. Some needed a hundred copies made per page.

  That meant a lot of time was spent next to the copier. Doing absolutely nothing. It was the most boring thing you could possibly do for money.

  I thought I was almost through the day until my boss asked me into his office. Kevin was a large black man with an even bigger ego. I was hired to be his assistant but I ended up working for multiple people.

  So in reality I had a lot of bosses to answer to and they almost never talked to each other. That led to a lot of miscommunication that I would then have to solve.

  I thought Kevin was bringing me in to talk about why I was late. As I walked to his office, I ran through the excuse of traffic in my head. I wanted to speak with confidence and make him believe that it wouldn't happen again.

  “Elizabeth, can you close the door behind you?”

  That was never a good sign. That meant it was serious. If it was something small like being late, the door would stay open and the conversation would be over quickly.

  I sat down in front of Kevin's large oak desk and crossed my legs. I knew not to say anything because that could make things worse.

  Kevin shuffled some papers and passed them to me. “Do you see anything wrong with this?”

  I looked at the papers and didn't know what he was referring to. When I made copies, I never actually read what they said.

  I sifted through the papers until I found a Post-It note attached that I had somehow missed. That meant that I had done the wrong number of copies for a stack.

  Shouldn't be that big of deal, right?

  “I'm sorry, Kevin. I must've missed it.”

  “Well I went into the meeting without enough copies for each partner. We can't have you making simple mistakes like this.”

  “It won't happen again, I swear.”

  “See that it doesn't. You can't afford to make another major mistake like this. See that you pay more attention next time.”

  I stood up. “I will. Don't worry.” I left his office with my fists clenched. I couldn't believe he was making such a big deal about nothing.

  So what if he didn't have enough copies. It's not like the future of the company was riding on how many copies were made.

  I went back to my desk and stewed in my seat. I almost wanted to walk right back in there and tell him I quit. I shouldn't have to deal with this.

  Then I remembered that I needed the money.

  I would have to have another job lined up first before I left this one.

  Chapter Two

  I finally made it home without anything else bad happening. I just wanted to forget about this day and move on.

  I went to the fridge to get a beer and saw my sandwich that I had forgotten. Then I realized that I was out of beer. It was the perfect end to the day.

  I took the turkey sandwich and decided to eat it for dinner. Cooking dinner did not sound like fun tonight.

  Little did I know that things were going to get even worse.

  I was sitting on the couch, eating my sad sandwich, and watching some crazy reality show on MTV. I always wondered if these people were really that crazy when the camera weren't rolling or if that's how they were all the time.

  I hoped it was the former because I don't know how some of these people could function in normal society without screaming their heads off.

  The doorbell rang and scared me out of my seat. I checked the clock and it read 8:30 PM. I never got any visitors this late at night.

  Scratch that, I never got any visitors period.

  I thought that maybe I should pretend to not be home. The I realized that all the lights were on and could be seen through the windows outside. It didn't help that the TV was really loud too.

  I slowly crept to the door and yelled, “Who's there.”

  “Its Charles,” the voice behind the door said.

  My heart froze in my chest. It couldn't be him...

  My stepbrother Charles was sent to prison almost five years ago for the robbery of a convenience store. He wasn't armed but he pretended to be. The judge threw the book at him and gave him ten years.

  He wasn't supposed to be out.

  Yet here he was.

  Did he break out of prison and on the run?

  I shook that idea out of my head. That kind of stuff only happened in the movies.

  Before Charles went away, I had the biggest crush on him. It was so difficult to be around him knowing that we could never be together because it was taboo.

  When he was arrested and convicted, I thought that I had dodged a bullet.

  I didn't want Charles to go to prison but I didn't see another way to get around my feelings for him. This way it made it impossible for me to pursue them if he w
as behind bars.

  I opened the door and the Charles I used to be so obsessed over was standing right there. He looked a little bit older in the eyes. Dark stubble hugged his chin. The white t-shirt he wore was stretched over his muscular physique. He had grown to almost double his size since the last time I saw him.

  Prison done his body good...

  “Elizabeth is that you?” he asked, his eyes examining me from head to toe. He opened his arms wide and hugged me.

  “What are you doing here, Charles?” I asked, the air being squeezed from my lungs. It felt so good to be in his arms again. It had been so long.

  Charles finally let me go and put me at arms length. “They let me out on good behavior.”

  “Wow! That's amazing.” I was genuinely happy for him but I was terrified of what was going to happen next.

  We both stood in the doorway to my apartment with an awkward silence. I didn't know what was I was supposed to do now.

  “Shit, I'm sorry. Do you want to come in?”

  Charles followed me inside, his head on a swivel as he looked around. “This is a really nice place.”

  “Thanks. Would you like a drink? Sadly I don't have any alcohol but I have water.”

  Charles bent over and looked at the framed family photos sitting on a bookcase. “Water will be fine. I haven't touched any liquor since I was put away.”

  “Right.” I went to the kitchen and got two glasses of water. I returned to the living room and Charles was holding a photo of the two of us.

  “You remember this time?” he asked.

  “How could I forget?” I took the photo from him and handed him the glass of water. “This was our family trip to Hawaii right before I went off to college.”

  “Right before I went to jail too.”

  I ignored his remark. “This was our last full day on the island and we spent the entire time in the ocean.”

  Charles started laughing. “Our skin was so sunburned that the plane ride back was spent in agony.”

  I joined in the laughter. It was crazy how after so much time had passed, we were able to go right back to how we used to be.

  And that was very dangerous.

  Chapter Three

  Soon we were both sitting down on the couch, our glasses of water empty. My nerves were all bundled up and I only wished that I had a little bit of beer to calm me down.

  “I still can't believe you're out so soon.”

  Charles ran his fingers through his slick brown hair that was combed backwards. “Five years isn't exactly a short time.”

  I nodded. “I know but you know what I meant.”

  “Well the prisons are getting overcrowded and they finally realized that I was small time compared to the other criminals.”

  “What happened Why did you do it?” I asked. I wasn't sure if the subject was sensitive but I was genuinely curious.

  “I could've told you if you appeared at my trial or wrote to me.”

  He got me there. Once he was arrested, I used that as an excuse to write Charles out of my life. I'm having to deal with those consequences a lot sooner than I thought I would have to.

  “That was a rough time for me, Charles. I had just left home for college and then I found out what happened to you. I made the wrong decision and I apologize. I should've been there for you. And I never even knew I could write to you.”

  “You didn't read my letters?”

  “You wrote me letters?”

  “Once a week. The entire time I was in there. I sent them to our parent's house.”

  I shook my head with tears in my eyes. “They never showed me any of them.”

  Charles put his hand on mine and a shock of excitement hit me. “Don't blame yourself or our parents. The blame lies solely on me. I put myself in that situation and I have to own up to the consequences.”

  I wiped a tear from my cheek. “I never knew what really happened that day. Only that you were arrested for armed robbery. I was in shock. I didn't think you would ever do something like that.”

  Charles sighed. “Let me tell you, it was a slow descent. You remember Mikey?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “That small guy that you used to hang around with all the time?”

  “Yep that guy. I thought Mikey was such a cool guy. He always had money, women on each arm. He wasn't attractive at all so I had no idea how he pulled this all off. He didn't go to college and didn't even have a job.”

  “Mikey always grossed me out.”

  “One day he asked me if I wanted in on what he was doing. I knew at that point that whatever he was into had to be illegal. I told him to count me out. I thought that was the end of it. Mikey turned out not to be friend.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Mikey was caught up in the protection racket. He told his employers that I was going to get the money that was owed to them by the owner of the convenience store. When Mikey told me what I had to do, I told him to fuck off. It wasn't that easy.”

  I was on the edge of my seat listening to Charles. The memories of my bad day had faded away. My bad day could never compare to his five bad years.

  “Pretty much I would be killed if I didn't pull off this job for Mikey. That was the gist of it. I didn't have a choice.”

  “Why didn't you go to the police?”

  “Mikey knew you, Elizabeth. He knew that I didn't care about my life but he knew that I cared about saving your life.”

  I gulped. My heart got stuck in my throat. I never knew he cared about me so much. He went to jail to save me.

  “I thought that I could do the job and then get away from Mikey forever. I didn't use a gun because I didn't want anyone to get hurt. Well I didn't count on the cops being right around the corner. It was some major bad luck.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I feel terrible. I thought you were a criminal for so long. I had no idea what happened. You have to forgive me.”

  “Nothing to forgive you for. After awhile in prison, I actually felt like a criminal. I made some poor choices in life and they led me down the wrong path. I need to make good decisions now and get back on track.”

  I let out a long breath. This was very heavy conversation. “Would you like some more water?”

  Charles nodded and I took our empty glasses to the kitchen. My head was spinning. I couldn't believe the sacrifice he made to keep me safe. Charles could've ran away and never looked back. I got my head back on track and poured water into the glasses.