by Mia Ford
“Not exactly spying, Neil. This truck is older than God, you know? I could practically hear it starting in your driveway.”
“Hey! This truck is the best! What did I use to call her?”
“Oh brother,” she groaned, laughing again in a way that made me want to kiss her right then and there. “Bess? Jess? I don’t really remember, but I know I used to be jealous of her. Isn’t that crazy? You had me jealous of a truck, Neil!”
“I know,” I laughed, surprised by how quickly the two of us were falling into being comfortable again, but relieved all the same. “How great was that?”
“So great that you owe me this dinner. That’s for sure. Now, drive on, sir. I’m kind of starving.”
“Your wish is my command, sweetheart. Let’s go.”
Dinner was a blur. It may have been the wine. We had plenty of it, and there was a surprisingly good selection, given the fact that we were stuck in Ashville. But the wine wasn’t the only reason dinner flew by in a haze. It was her.
It was Fay. She sat across from me in a little black dress. A deep v in the front made it difficult for me not to stare down her dress. Her skin was smooth and tanned, making her green eyes sparkle brighter and her almost white blonde hair shine all the more.
As we ate, we talked. My concerns that she might be out with me to publicly chew me out had been completely baseless, which was a pleasant surprise. I was actually kind of disgusted with myself for having thought it about her, once I had gotten the chance to spend some actual one on one time with her. Just because I was a jackass didn’t necessarily mean that she was, and from what I could tell, she wasn’t anything close to that.
It was probably what I deserved, although I was working hard not to think about that. But it wasn’t what she was giving me, which made me one lucky son of a bitch. By the time we were done with dinner, something that took almost three hours, I felt almost high from my contact with her. It was so bad that I couldn’t think of anything to say in the truck on the way home. I just drove in silence while she continued to keep up the conversation for the both of us. Finally, when we were parked outside of her house, she turned to look at me, a slight frown creasing her otherwise perfect face.
“Hey, Neil? Did I do something wrong?”
“Wrong?” I asked quickly, wondering if this would be the moment where she finally asked me what the fuck I had been doing all of those years ago, vanishing without even trying to give her an excuse. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been pretty much silent since we got into the truck. I was just wondering if I said something wrong. I know sometimes I talk too much when I get nervous.”
“No,” I answered just a little bit too roughly, causing her to clam up immediately, which wasn’t what I was going for at all. “No, Fay, nothing like that. I was just thinking, I guess.”
“Thinking about what?”
“Thinking about how good it is to see you. Honest to God, Fay, it is.”
“It’s good to see you, too,” she said quietly. All of her former chattering immediately vanished. “Better than I thought it would be, actually.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that. Because there’s something else. I’ve been sitting here thinking about, too.”
Without giving myself the time to really think about it, I leaned forward and took her face in my hands. There was a moment when I was sure she would pull away and finally let me have it for all of the shit I’d pulled. But she didn’t do anything like that. At first, she didn’t do anything at all.
I thought I was going to have to end the kiss feeling like a complete asshole, but in the end, it didn’t wind up being that way at all. After sitting there stock still for a couple of seriously long seconds, I could feel her starting to soften at my touch, one inch at a time. Then she was kissing me back, melting into me. It was everything I could do not to try and pull her dress off of her, right then and there.
It was the strangest sensation. In some ways, I remembered this feeling. I remembered what it was like to taste her tongue on my own. Then in some ways, it was a totally new thing. It was unlike any experience I had ever had with a woman, and it made me want her more than I had ever wanted a female before.
I kissed her so that she would know that, and I kissed her so that my intentions were clear. Although I could feel her wanting me back, after a couple of very hot and intense moments, she pulled away from me. Her face was flushed, her breathing fast and shallow. I could tell that she wanted me, could see it on her, and yet when she spoke, it was to tell me no.
“I should go inside,” she said softly, her voice breaking a little at the end. “But thank you for such a lovely dinner.”
“Don’t go inside. Come up to my place. We can have another drink, talk some more.”
“Talk, huh? Is that what you think we’ll do?”
“I don’t know. I just know that I don’t want this night to be over yet.”
“I know, me either. But it’s best for me to go inside. We can see each other again if you like. I know I would like that.”
“Yeah,” I answered, doing my best not to let her hear the annoyance that was creeping into my blood. “I would, too. I’ll come by the diner, okay? We’ll make some plans.”
“That sounds wonderful. Goodnight, Neil.”
She kissed me again, immediately inflaming me and making me want to redouble my efforts to get her to come back to my place. And then she was gone. I spent the night alone, and it was a very long time until I was able to get to sleep.
Chapter 11: Fay
When I heard the knock on my front door, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I had hardly slept at all the night before. As a result, I’d fallen asleep on the couch while I was supposedly cleaning the living room. Even this much-needed sleep was broken and unsatisfying.
It seemed like, whether I wanted it to or not, my mind kept going back to last night. It kept going back to Neil, which made it hard to calm down enough to get any rest. My pathetic excuse for a nap was the closest I had come so far, and it was cut woefully short by the rapping at my door.
“Hello?” I called out uncertainly, my voice sounding pathetically weak in my own ears. “Who’s there?”
“It’s Courtney, bitch! What’s the matter with you? Did he drug you or something? Because I swear to God, if he did I’ll go up there to his big fancy house and kick the shit out of him. I don’t care how rich he is!”
“Hold on, I’m coming. And stop yelling about kicking people’s asses!”
I pulled myself up to a sitting position, trying to adjust to, or at least ignore, the feeling of dizziness that came over me with the movement. Part of me would have liked to have just ignored the knocking altogether, shove a pillow over my head, and get back to sleep, but I also knew that wasn’t really an answer.
Courtney wasn’t the kind of girl to just give up and go away. If I didn’t let her in, she was likely to just kick the door in and see what the hell was going on with me. I pulled the door open, squinting against the glare of the sun as it hit the snow, and then winced when Courtney started her yell-talking all over again.
“What the hell, lady? Do you know how long I’ve been out here knocking?”
“No, but judging by how shrill your voice is, I’m going to guess it’s been a little while. I know how good you are at being patient.”
“You’re damn right it’s been a while! Also, you sort of look like shit, you know it? What happened to you last night?”
“Ugh, I’m not really in the mood for your friendly critiques this morning, Courtney. If it’s all the same to you.”
“Who said anything about morning, girl? It’s the afternoon.”
I couldn’t help it. My mouth fell open when she told me that, and the look on my face must have been a pretty comical one, because the edge she’d had to her ever since I’d opened the door vanished. In its place was a general sense of merriment over my confusion and distress.
She started inside, and I stepped
out of the doorway, shivering in the cold air the open door had let in. I tried to figure out how I had slept so late. It was totally uncharacteristic of me, but then again, pretty much everything I had been doing for the last couple of days was out of character for me. So why should this be any different?
“You coming?” Courtney called out to me, already almost all of the way to the back of my house and headed towards the porch. She didn’t bother to turn and look at me as she spoke but waved a little baggy over her shoulder, making her intentions clear. I rolled my eyes but followed her nevertheless. If we had lived in a bigger town in a different kind of place, the idea of Courtney smoking weed on my back porch would probably have given me a coronary, but Ashville was a different kind of place than most others.
Smoking weed wasn’t the kind of thing I chose to do, but it also wasn’t something people ever got in trouble for if they kept themselves in check. There was literally zero chance of some cop showing up and asking her just what in the hell she thought she was doing. So I would sit with her while she smoked, just like I had been doing for years.
We settled into our accustomed seats on the screened-in porch that had always been one of my favorite places in the world. I waited while Courtney lit up, sitting silently and staring out at the snow-covered land I loved so well. We stayed quiet that way for some time, her filling my porch with the sweet, herbaceous scent of pot, and me trying very hard to get a handle on what it was I was feeling. I’d been trying to do that same thing ever since he’d walked into the diner without knowing it was me he would find there. It had only gotten harder as the time ticked by. Honestly, I was grateful for Courtney being there. There had been very few times in my life when I had felt the kind of confusion I was feeling now, but having Courtney there as a sounding board always helped me to feel better.
“So girlie, for real. What happened last night? The two of you went out?”
“We did indeed,” I said. “He came to pick me up and everything, Court. You would have been proud.”
“Ha! Sorry, but it’s going to take a lot more than that to make me proud of that boy. Don’t forget, I’ve known him for a while, too. I remember the way things were when he left. I was younger than you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t remember.”
“I know, but come on. You wanted me to go out with him, right?”
“That’s very true, I did. I’m glad you did, too, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to fall all over myself with how awesome I think he is. At least, not right away.”
“No, I get it,” I said. “But it seems like something’s different about him, Courtney.”
“Oh yeah? And you’re sure that’s not just because you’re glad to have him home? I’m not trying to be too hard on you, Fay, but you know how you are. You would forgive anyone just about anything. It’s one of the things I love about you, but it also scares the shit out of me sometimes. I don’t want anyone hurting you. That’s all.”
“I know that, and I love you for it, but I don’t think I’m wrong on this. At least, I hope I’m not. I can’t put my finger on it, at least not yet, but it feels like something about him is different now. I want to figure out what that something is.”
“Are you thinking he might be the guy?”
“What guy?” I asked.
“Come on,” Courtney scoffed, somehow managing to look uncomfortably authoritarian despite the massive inhale of smoke she took in while she spoke. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Is he the guy? You’ve been waiting all of this time, and we both know how in love you were with Neil. Have you basically been waiting for him?”
I wanted to tell her no, because I didn’t want that to be what I had been doing. I liked to think that I was stronger than that, that I wouldn’t have allowed my girlhood heartbreak to have such a long-lasting effect on my life. The thing was, I wasn’t actually so sure.
I hadn’t been waiting to have sex for religious reasons, and it wasn’t like I was attached to the idea of getting married before I did the deed. But still, I had waited all of this time, and I wasn’t even sure what I was waiting for. Maybe Courtney was right, and it had been him all of this time.
Just the thought made me tingle all over, and I wondered if Courtney could see my thoughts written all over my face. With how long she had known me, I was almost sure that she could, but thankfully, she had the wherewithal not to rub it in my face. She just sat there smoking, waiting to see what I would say next. It was only after I asked my question that she showed any kind of feeling at all, and when she did, it was a look of genuine surprise.
“What’s it like, Courtney?”
“Like? What’s what like?”
“Oh, so now you’re asking the questions you know the answers to? Come on, Courtney, don’t make me ask you in a bunch of different ways. I’ll die if you do, and I really want to know the answer.”
“You’re asking me what sex is like?”
“Yes! That’s what I want to know. That’s the million-dollar question.”
“It’s a hard one to answer. I guess some of it depends on who you decide to do it with. It’ll probably hurt some. I won’t lie to you about that, but then it’s something I don’t really know how to describe. It’s like falling, you know? It feels like falling, but in a good way. It’s warm and hot and makes you shiver all over. If you’re with the right guy and he takes it slow, you’ll start to enjoy yourself real quick. It’s one of the best things in the world, if you want to know the truth. Why do you think I do it so often?”
I laughed, trying not to be embarrassed by the answer to the question I had almost been too shy to ask. I wasn’t sure what kind of answer I was expecting to get from her, but the one I got was a whole lot more thoughtful and less vulgar than I had thought would come out of her mouth. It left me daydreaming about something I had never even done before, which made the timing of my ringing phone pretty fortuitous.
“Hold on. I’ll be right back.”
I made my way inside, my head still full of the things Courtney had just told me. I laughed out loud when I saw who was calling me.
“Hey there,” I answered, that odd tingling feeling still running through me. “Were your ears burning?”
“Hey yourself,” Neil said in a voice that let me know he was smiling on his end of the phone. “And I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Never mind. Just ignore me. I’m just being silly. What’s up?”
“What’s up is, I’m sitting here in my empty house, and it occurred to me that I’d like to see you again.”
“Sure,” I said, in what I hoped was a light, casual voice. Something that would make my excitement a little bit less obvious. “What did you have in mind?”
“Depends. Are you available tonight?”
“I could be, depending on what you’re thinking.”
“I was kind of thinking that I’d like to make you dinner.”
“Make me dinner?” I asked. “Like, you’re going to cook for me?”
“That’s kind of the idea, yeah.”
“You sure about that? I don’t exactly remember you being a master chef or anything. No offense.”
“None taken. But don’t count me out just yet, Fay. I might have learned a thing or two since we were in high school, you know? I might even be able to make something you enjoy eating.”
“You’ve got a deal, but only if you let me bring the wine.”
“It’s a deal, babe. I’ll see you tonight.”
Babe. After I had given him my yes, Neil had hung up the phone about as fast as a person could do, but he’d called me babe right before he did. That was something new about him. Something new for sure. He’d never called me anything like that when we’d been in high school. It was a new kind of smooth, and it scared me.
It made me wonder what other slick tricks he’d picked up out there in the wide world. The thing was, it didn’t scare me enough to make me want to call him back and tell him I’d changed my mind. In some ways, it
only made me want him more. Everything I had told Courtney was true. There was something about him, and there was no way I wasn’t going to find out what it was.
“Hey, Courtney?” I called down the hallway, my voice shaking just like the rest of my body.
“What’s up? You sound weird?”
“Looks like I’m going to need your help. I’ve got a date at the Driscoll house tonight.”
Chapter 12: Neil
“Ouch! Fuck!”
I dropped the knife I was using to chop herbs into the sink, having to draw on pretty massive reserves of strength in order to keep from hurling it across the room. My claim of being able to cook hadn’t been a lie. I’d taken some classes in Connecticut and had actually gotten pretty damned good in the kitchen. But tonight, I was acting like I’d never even seen the inside of a kitchen. It was pretty fucking bad timing. Fay was going to be here any minute.
The nerves had started almost immediately after I had gotten off the phone with Fay, and they hadn’t let up for even a little bit. For some reason, the fact that she was going to be inside of my house, just the two of us, was making me feel insane. Everything I had done since getting off the phone with her had felt like an accident waiting to happen.
I had almost slipped in the shower, catching myself with one arm and pulling a muscle in my shoulder for my trouble. Once I was out, I had cut myself shaving, and now I had cut myself again while cooking. The only thing I had working in my favor at this point was the fact that I was just about done with the cooking, which allowed me to relax for about five seconds.
The sound of a tentative, shy knock on my front door put me right back in the state of nerves I’d been in all afternoon. I wished that I had taken a shot or something before she got there. Not enough to get a buzz on, but enough to calm my nerves. No time for that now. I could practically see her moving from foot to foot while she waited for me to come let her in. I took a deep breath, reminded myself that I was Neil fucking Driscoll and not some dumbass guy who couldn’t deal with the ladies, and opened the front door.