Falling In Between

by Devon Ashley

  “So what does my argument need to be to get you to remove that top?”

  I bit the side of my lip while I debated, but I quickly followed it up with a shake of my head. “Goodnight…” I sang. I heard him cry out in protest when I hit the ‘end call’ button. I had just rolled my way off Sophie’s king sized bed and made it all the way to the door when he called me back. I chuckled and shook my head for a moment, but for some reason, I still locked the bedroom door and pulled my shirt off as I went to answer it.

  I screamed. Literally. Then I snapped my fingers and shook my head at him. “Nope. Get out of that damn bed already.” I threw his clothes at him one by one, trying to smack him in the face each time.

  “What?” Chance exclaimed playfully, knocking down each bit of clothing as it neared.

  “Out! I don’t know when we fell into this pattern of just staying in bed all the time, but no more. We’re backtracking to dating again. You know, back in the day when you used to take me to places?”

  He pulled his shirt over his head and when it emerged his smile was just wicked. “You mean places like the camping site and BoJoe’s?”

  “No,” I said, drawing out the word. “I don’t mean places we had sex. I mean the movie theatre, the park, the restaurants, the hiking trails.”

  He threw the sheets off himself and very slowly pulled his bottoms on. Very, very slowly. Like, we’re talking absolute minimum speed here…freakin’ glacial.

  “Well, we could have sex there too if you’d like.”

  I screamed dramatically and stormed out of the room. As I pushed through the door, I heard him lightheartedly call out, “Oh, come on! It was a joke!”

  On the bright side, we did hang out in the park for the rest of the dream. And since it was a public place, we lay out in the sun and he kept his hands to himself – mostly. He did try to wrap around me a bit while teaching me to bump and kick around the soccer ball.

  FYI – I suck at soccer. I just trip all over myself.

  The following evening my dream took me to the town square. I spun around, expecting Chance to be there like always, but was totally surprised when it was just me and a bunch of dream walkers hurrying about my make-believe world.

  I shrugged and began window shopping down Main Avenue. I had already passed the fancy pet boutique, the scrapbooking place and was now gazing into a chic clothing boutique when I saw Chance’s reflection come to rest behind me. His arms wrapped around my stomach and he swayed me as he gently kissed my temple.

  There was something different about his reflection and I turned with curiosity. Sure enough, the comfortable t-shirt and cargo shorts I was used to seeing had been replaced with a sensible pair of slacks and a nice button-down shirt.

  Drool. Who knew that this sweaty soccer boy with tousled hair and baseball cap could clean up so nicely!

  I exaggerated my smile as I looked him up and down with pleasure. “Wow. Wherever we’re going, I think I’m a little underdressed to be your date.”

  “What are you talking about? You look great.”

  I looked back down at my apparel, and sure enough, I was now wearing a short burgundy strapless dress that had a black sash cinched tightly underneath my chest and super cute black heels.

  “See?” He leaned in and brushed his lips against my ear. “Beautiful.”

  My heart warmed and melted right there on the spot. He took my hand and led me around the next corner and through a black iron gate covered with privacy panels. I gasped. Inside the gate was a small patio area filled with flowering vines that traced up the walls and wrapped around the wooden lattice up above us. Twinkling lights were twisted through and were the only source of light besides the candle on the table for two: a black bistro set with plump velvet cushions. Soft music sang from the speaker in the corner and a door led off to the adjoining restaurant. By the smell of it, Italian.

  I sighed contentedly. “This is pretty.” He murmured his agreement and I asked, “Let me guess. You know the owner?”

  “Nope. Just requested the best private table they had. Did I do good?”

  I wrapped myself into his chest and whispered, “Beyond good. This is perfect.”

  We spent hours there, the first just swaying in each other’s arms to the music, the second devouring the divine meal that our waiter brought us, including the tiramisu we fed each other, and then the last playfully dancing and indulging our lips with sweet, flirty kisses. Near the end, I found myself atop his lap in that metal bistro chair enjoying the shivers he created wherever his touch came into contact with my skin.

  I closed my eyes and leaned my head back as his kisses climbed up my neck. When I reopened them, the twinkly lights that were blinking like the stars above us were gone, and I was now sitting atop his lap on our familiar bed, with flickering candle lights on the table beside us. His kisses reversed and went down my neck as if he didn’t even notice the change in location.

  The zipper on my back released the snug hold the fabric had around my abdomen and I let out a light huff.

  His lips curled deliciously and went to nibble my ear as he whispered, “Do you want me to zip you back up?”

  By the way he bit passionately into my neck – my hot, will-turn-me-on-without-a-doubt, zone – he clearly wanted me to bend to his will. And my insides were screaming at me to let him do whatever he wanted. So I didn’t even object when I felt the silk travel north of my body.

  As I lay there later, I could feel myself once again on the brink of sleep, where I knew he would fade away and the rest of the night would be dreamless. I was almost gone when he kissed his way up from my shoulder to my neck, but the words he whispered into my ear startled me back awake.

  “I love you.”

  Since he was spooning me, he didn’t see my eyes shoot open. I was at a loss of what to do or say in that moment. He continued to nibble at my body, which I had managed to keep still even as he shocked me with those words, so I wasn’t even sure if he knew I was awake or not.

  My heart revved up and I could feel panic flush through my body in waves. Love? What? I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I supposed love was possible in a dream world, I had just never thought about it. The same way I had never really thought about the relationship we had in here. My real relationship was out in the real world with Robert. Right?

  So why did my heart melt and flutter a bit when my dream guy whispered those words in my ear a second time?

  When Christmas vacation ended and January rolled in, I practically flung myself into Robert’s waiting arms. We didn’t even care that the common room was filled beyond capacity and that every single pair of eyes were probably watching us grope our ‘hello, welcome back’. Three weeks was way too long to be without his lips and we were quick to sneak upstairs and re-familiarize ourselves – which Sophie and Jhett were more than willing to do back in our bedroom.

  “You know, I’m glad you spent all those summers here, because now that I’ll have to spend most of my weekends traveling for swim meets, I want more of our evenings to be spent like this.”

  My lips pressed back into his and murmured an agreement. Who knew all those summers taking classes just to get out of living in group homes would be so beneficial in the end? I was actually just a few classes shy of graduating and technically didn’t have to take electives to fill the rest of my day. Instead, I chose to add on several study hall periods, which was basically the academy throwing me into the classroom where a teacher had the period off. It was perfect. I could spend half my day working on college and scholarship applications and also getting my homework out of the way.

  Which was gonna allow me some time to volunteer at the hospital like Sophie suggested. I took the bus into town the second week of January – to Robert’s dismay. He wanted to drive me but I wouldn’t let him since he still needed his afternoons for homework, and driving me to and from both times would cut an hour and a half out of his day. He lightened up again when I reminded him he’d get his homework done a lot quic
ker without me there and then our evenings would be completely free for one another.

  The bus I took dropped me off at the street in front of the hospital and I bolted through the slush before my body could freeze anymore. What the hell was I thinking volunteering while the snowstorms were still coming down every week and dumping endless piles of snow on the ground?

  I stomped the snow from my boots and shook the damp flakes free from my hair as I crossed the threshold into the building. I headed toward the ward I was housed in during my stay and looked for Margaret, the nurse that agreed to take me on. I vaguely remembered her from my stay here. She was the head nurse in this ward and I could recall her popping in occasionally to take my vitals and change out my IV drips.

  Margaret was sitting behind the counter at the nurses’ station recording something in a patient’s binder. She was an older woman, probably in her late forties, with brown eyes, light skin and streaks of gray beginning to fill in the black hair that fell to her shoulders. When I got to the counter she looked up and smiled when she recognized me, and pushed her reading glasses on top of her head.

  “Miss Jenna Baker. Glad to see you’re doing so well. No more jumps, I hope?”

  “Nah, but the pond’s frozen this time of year, so let’s give it some time to thaw back out.”

  She laughed and reached for some paperwork behind her. “You’ll need to read and sign some confidentiality agreements and then we can get started.”

  Why did they have to use all that legal jargon on those forms? If they wanted me to agree to something, shouldn’t they just write the agreement in dumber words so I’ll know exactly what the hell it was they were asking of me?

  Whatever. I just signed.

  Margaret said she was desperate for someone to help her out with entering the data from the patient files into the computer system so she could go through and approve it afterwards. The other nurses were just as busy as she was, so I spent the majority of my time doing this for her. A lot of time, in fact. Mid-February rolled around before I got to come out from behind the computer and breathe the…smelly disinfectant, germ-filled air. Lovely.

  That’s when she sent me to work the information desk in the front lobby, but even that was short lived once Margaret’s ward got slammed and she needed me again for data entry. It was nothing exciting but I liked the people there and I now understood how Sophie found it so easy to become friendly with the staff.

  Towards the end of February, Chance took me to the Vermont State Fair. I’d never been in real life, so it was interesting to see it through his eyes. Smelly petting zoos were never my thing and carnival rides that jerked and jiggled violently just made my stomach jump into my throat and made me sick, but having his fingers entwined around mine made it all seem bearable. His favorite part was obviously the demolition derby. Seriously, I just didn’t get the point of thirty cars racing around intentionally trying to destroy one another just to be the last car running, but I had honestly never seen Chance so freakin’ excited before. He didn’t get why I kept watching him instead of the crashing cars. Sorry, but I actually found the most entertaining part of the fair to be watching him watch the derby. I don’t think I’ve ever held a smile so long.

  And when our trip to the fair was over, he took me back to our spot in the woods so we could camp beneath the twinkling stars for the night. As I lay there with him asleep by my side, I kept my eyes on the serenity of the night sky, still feeling this weird sense of déjà vu.

  Since the first night Chance told me he loved me, he had followed it up with a few more instances, but always when he thought I was sleeping. I began to wonder if he found it difficult to admit it when I was awake. Hell, I could understand that, and I was a little grateful they had all come out that way so far. I wasn’t sure or not if what I felt for him was love. I’d never been in love before. Truthfully, I’d never even had family members to love. And when I thought about the possibility of it being love, my insides twisted and knotted and this heavy suffocation sat down on my chest, making it harder for me to breathe.

  And then I thought about Robert, and how my body did the same thing when trying to determine if what I felt for him was love too.

  My hand traced its way to Robert’s hair and my fingers softly combed through his waves. His hand traced down my side, and when it paused to go back up, his hand slipped under my cotton shirt. My smile extended so far I had to pause my kisses, and my hand went down to pull his out.

  “Down boy,” I joked, and resumed kissing him. Another minute later he tried it again and got his hand all the way to my breast before I caught him. I rolled on top of him, pinning him on his back and sat up on his lap. “You need to behave,” I teased.

  He smiled and cradled the back of his head with his hands. “In all fairness, I think I’ve behaved quite well these past five months.”

  “And you think it’s time to be rewarded for that good behavior?”

  “I’m just saying, even the incarcerated earn conjugal visits.”

  I cried out laughing. “Wow. I can’t believe you just went there.”

  He shrugged. “We’re going to have to talk about it eventually.” He playfully thrust his hips upward, lifting me with him.

  “Alright.” I brought my face down to his. “I’m willing to discuss the terms of your parole, but for now, I’ve gotta get going.” I quickly pecked him on the lips and tried to pull myself out of reach before he released his hands, but he managed to snag my hand before it cleared.

  “Wait! What?”

  “I’m going to the hospital today,” I said, leaning my body away, trying to pull free.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. This is the only weekend this month that I don’t have a swim meet to travel to.”

  Chuckling, I cried, “I’m sorry.” I pulled even harder and broke loose from his grip, but I fell backwards onto the floor. He slowly stalked towards me, his smile filled with desire and I pointed my hand at him. “Don’t. Behave!”

  “Don’t behave? I accept your terms of parole.”

  “That’s not what I meant!” But when my smile broke through, he knew I was lying.

  He reached out and jerked me into his arms. When he started kissing hard into my neck I knew I was done for. I let him back me into the wall and he pressed his abdomen flush against mine.

  “Seriously,” I said breathlessly, “I’m going to the hospital today.”

  “That’s the nice thing about volunteering,” he mumbled between love bites, “you’re not required to show up.”

  He deepened the kisses and roughly traveled the line of my jaw and down my neck to my collar bone. An explosion went off inside me and my lower back arched so far forward I literally felt every part of him pressing into me. His hand reached behind the base of my spine and he pulled to extend my arch even farther. A long, embarrassing moan escaped my mouth. When his other hand graced my stomach and slipped up my shirt, I didn’t stop him from his intended destination this time. And even I was surprised when I hitched my leg over his hip and grabbed his head with both hands to bring his lips to mine. His hand abandoned my back and slid down to rub my lifted thigh.

  There was a jingle in the door and it took us a second to process the noise.

  “Shit!” I quickly forced my leg to the floor and pulled his hand out of my shirt but Jhett still caught me doing it.

  “Oh, crap,” he said, his mouth still hanging open. “I can come back later.”

  “No!” I practically shouted. “Nope. I’ve gotta get going.” I pushed on Robert’s chest and he obediently backed away. I avoided his gaze and rushed for the door, trying hard not to notice Jhett cocking his eyebrows at me in amusement.

  “Sorry, man,” I heard him say, and then I heard the thump of a pillow hitting something as I rounded the hallway and bolted for the stairs.

  I rushed the entire way back to my dorm and burst through the door so fast that Sophie almost fell off the edge of her bed in fright.

  Her hand to her hear
t, she blurted, “Are you okay? You look flustered.”

  “I think I almost had sex with Robert,” I said, heading straight for my chest of drawers.

  Sophie bounced up and down, clapping her hands and squealing her delight. “Oh-my-God-what-happened?!”

  “Your boyfriend walked in on us,” I cried, frantically waving a fresh pair of much-needed panties in the air. “That’s what happened.”

  She gasped and her hands covered her mouth. “I am so sorry! We just got back from lunch cause you wanted me to take you to the hospital. We split in the parking lot.” It was really hard to understand that clearly with all the giggles coming out.

  I sat down on my bed and buried my face in my hands…and my panties. “Oh, God. I am so mortified.”

  “Why?” Sophie asked carefully. “How much did he see?”

  “Less than he did that night at the pond. But still. Awkward.”

  “Soooo…” Sophie remarked, releasing a small cackle, “you gonna let Robert do the nasty to you or just let Chance finish the job again?”

  I pitched a pillow at her head but it sailed to the left. Dang. I never was good at aiming.

  The hospital was a welcomed relief after the day’s humiliation. Usually there was enough work to stay busy and keep my thoughts from weighing down my mind. Hopefully, today wouldn’t be any different.

  “Hey, Margaret,” I sang, leaning over the counter at the nurses’ station.

  “Jenna, good to see you,” she said, smiling as she looked up from the chart she was writing in.

  “So what do you have for me today?”

  “Would you believe practically nothing? It’s been so slow around here the past few days that we’re basically all caught up.”

  God, please don’t send me home to deal with my almost sex-capade with Robert! Not yet! “There’s gotta be something I can do for you guys around here.”

  “Well, I can think of one thing but you might consider it a little weird.”