Take Me Home

by Lorelie Brown

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” I scramble up and over the bed and pull open my nightstand drawer. My reflection in the mirrored top isn’t so flattering from this angle. Am I going to regret losing my vibe down the line? I don’t think so. I hope not. I fish the black zip case from its always-ready position on a stack of fashion magazines and pull it out. “Here.”

  She lifts an eyebrow. “It looks like a tuning fork.”

  “It does not!” I look again at the twin spokes with their tapered tips. “Okay, maybe it does.”

  “I’ve never really thought about holding anything shaped like cutlery against my woman parts.”

  “You won’t regret this, I promise.” I beckon her up onto the bed.

  She comes eagerly enough, stopping once she’s kneeling beside me. “Where do you want me?”

  “Sprawl. Wherever you feel comfy.”

  She nestles, half-sitting, half-lying against my piles of yellow, blue, and white pillows. “I could get used to this.”

  “Good.”

  Christ, she’s pretty. She’s wearing a bra that’s more decoration than support, with delicate triangles of black cotton and no underwire. She lets me unsnap it. I kiss her. It’s not like I can help it when we’re close enough that I can feel the hot wash of her breath on my bare shoulder. She kisses me back in a lovely way, melting into the pile of pillows.

  I pick up a small one with satin tassels and draw it over her flat stomach. She’s lean but soft, the skin beneath her belly button tender and malleable. Her breasts are small and perky. There are pale-pink stretch marks on the outsides of her hips. I kiss a wandering line of them. She giggles, but it turns into a moan as I trace over the arch of her pubic bone. My tongue is my guide. She smells warmly salty.

  I turn the vibrator on low and lay it above Brooke’s pussy on the mound of her pubis. I can feel the hum through her flesh.

  “Oh fuck. That’s going to be intense, isn’t it?” Brooke’s hips lift toward me.

  “I’ll start slow.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m so fucking turned on. I want all of it.”

  “Your wish,” I murmur, and push the button to turn it up.

  I draw it over her, starting wide at the crease of her thigh into her pussy, where her pale-blonde hair begins. Her eyes go wide. Her mouth stretches into a half-astonished smile. “More,” she orders.

  I draw it up the seam of her lips instead of turning it up. She’s breathing hard. Then I angle it down. Softly petting her with the firm point of the toy. Her lips peek open, gleaming. Wetness beads in drops on the fine tips of her hair. I bend down to lick it up. She’s delicious, and the buzz of the toy shakes my brains.

  I love what I’m doing. She loves it too. I tease her with the toy, going closer to her clit and then backing off. I ring her opening. She jolts and her stomach sucks in. The Lux dips into her sheath.

  I place the forks of the toy across her bright-pink clit. When I rock it up and down, Brooke throws her head back.

  “There,” she gasps. Her throat is long and lovely. The pulse where her collarbones meet is throbbing. “Don’t stop.”

  “I’m not. I promise.” Right now, here, I could promise her a thousand things. A million. At least this one I can follow through on.

  She comes with a long, keening moan. Her clear juices squirt to paint the tops of her thighs. She clutches my duvet, then slaps with a flat palm. Her words are a stream of consciousness that is exquisitely filthy.

  I laugh, but then hide it against the dahlia painted on her stomach. She’s shaking beneath me. I thumb the motor down again, but don’t take it away just yet. I let her ride out the waves of her orgasm. “Good girl,” I hum against her side. I twine our feet together. Her toes are curled, the tops of her thighs sweaty with exertion.

  She falls back against the pillows. “What’s the name of that thing?”

  “I shouldn’t tell you.” I toss it to the bed on the other side of her and nuzzle up against her neck. “You’ll go buy one and then I’ll never see you again.”

  She catches my hand, and then she ducks her chin and catches my gaze as well. “Oh, I promise you. You’ll see me again.”

  I burn hot from the inside out. Flames across my cheeks, probably. I shouldn’t pin quite so much on four simple words. But I am. I do. I want more time with Brooke. I want a chance at this.

  Whatever this might be.

  When I wake up the next morning, my warm and fuzzies take a definite postcoital dip. Brooke is standing beneath my window in the slanting yellow light of dawn and pulling her dress over her head. The pink of her hair flutters. She scrubs her palms across her eyes.

  “Are you checking on Snowy?” I’m hoarse from lack of sleep, or maybe from the second round we went for last night, the one that kept us up past three. I can still taste her salt on my tongue.

  She jumps, and I know the answer before she smiles sheepishly at me. “I have a friend coming. She wanted to get me before her run, and I didn’t want to …”

  “Be here when I got up?”

  “No!” She sweeps across the room toward me. The bed feels cold until she scooches in next to me. She pins me with the blankets and a hand on the far side of my shoulders. “I promise that’s not it. I was going to leave a note. But you have to take care of the puppy. You can’t take an hour and a half to drive me back to your mom’s place so that I can pick up my car.”

  “I could,” I say in instant defense. “She slept all night.” I should know. I checked on her twice, just because I’d wake up in the dark and hope she wasn’t in pain.

  “She’ll be up soon. And then you’ll have to take care of her. She’ll be in pain and confused. What she needs is love and attention.”

  I trail a finger across her eyebrows. “You love dogs so much.”

  “They’re hard not to.” She kisses me, but we both keep it mercifully brief. Not brushing your teeth the night of Thanksgiving isn’t exactly a wise idea. “Take good care of the puppy baby, okay?”

  “I will.”

  “And maybe think about renaming her. Because Snow White is a stupid name.”

  “Maybe I’ll call her Pasta.”

  “Why not go full bore? Name her Spaghetti.”

  “Don’t be silly. She’s angel hair if anything.” I grin. “Maybe capellini. Only the select few will understand my deep love for carbohydrates.”

  “Never take her traveling in Italy. They’ll mock you out of the country.”

  “Oh! Traveling! Man, that’s going to be fun.” Maybe not Italy, but I can’t wait to take her to the beach. I wonder if she’ll play fetch, or if she’ll be too much of a princess for that. “I need a name I won’t be embarrassed to say in public.”

  “Good rule of thumb.” The phone in her hand vibrates, and she glances down at it. “That’s my ride.”

  “You’ll call me later?” I hate how uncertain I sound. I can normally play the game a little better when it’s not dawn and when I have a few minutes post-wake-up.

  But she smiles gently and kisses my forehead. “I promise. Go back to sleep. I’ll lock the door behind me.”

  Brooke’s promises are enough to get drunk on. She gives them with such assurance, such calm. She’s brighter and bigger than me. I just want a chance to be with her again. But I shake my head. “No, I’ll walk you out. I want to check on the puppy.”

  “Sure.”

  She watches me with gratifying hunger in her eyes as I slip out of bed. I pull my robe on, and I’m shallow enough to admit that I pose a little bit, shifting my hip out. “You sure you don’t want to stay? I don’t cook breakfast, but I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “Fuck, I wish I could.” She looks genuinely regretful. I stop myself from asking where she has to go. I’ve thrown myself at her enough already.

  Dawn is creeping across the front lawn. I love my garden apartment and the way the three-story building is centered around a lovely courtyard. At this hour, no one is in the garden. Brooke stops in the
doorway, purse in her hand. “Do you mean you don’t cook at all, or you don’t cook breakfast in particular?”

  “I don’t cook.” I lean one shoulder against the doorjamb. The air’s still cool with evening. “I order a mean takeout.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

  “You do that.”

  She kisses me one last time, and I watch her walk down the stairs, but then I force myself to close the door. I lean against it. I sigh.

  “Man, oh man,” I say to the puppy. “What am I going to do about her?”

  Snowy doesn’t answer, naturally. Still, she definitely needs tending. After I take care of a puddle, I give her fresh water and try to coax her to eat a little bit. I have to give her a dose of medicine.

  Five hours later, I’m sprawled in my living room, hand-feeding her tiny pieces of kibble as she watches me with pin-drop eyes. “You’re a sweetheart, aren’t you? But you still need a name.”

  She thumps her tail against the carpet as if she’s agreeing. But she doesn’t pipe up with her new name either.

  It’s safer to fall in love with a puppy. Even an unnamed one.

  I don’t watch my phone hoping Brooke would call. I don’t. I actively deny myself permission to do so. I have enough on my hands taking care of such a high-maintenance puppy. She’s so sweet, but that just means she needs me even more.

  It takes almost two days for me to be rewarded with a ringing phone. Brooke. I swallow my squeal of excitement and answer with the most normal tone I can manage. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” She’s smiling at me. I can hear it. “How you doing?”

  I’ve missed you. I’ve thought about you. I’ve designed our personal stationery on Adobe Illustrator. I say none of these things. “Pretty okay. I’m worried about the puppy though.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “She won’t eat. She hates any food I buy for her.”

  “How many have you tried?”

  “Three.”

  Her incredulity is loud. “In two days?”

  “She has a broken leg! She needs energy and that comes from food.” I’m lying on the couch at the moment, with the puppy on my chest. I rub her head. She blinks sleepy eyes at me. “She’s moving a little, but it’s hard work to drag a cast around.”

  “I’m sure it is.” I don’t think she’s laughing at me. Probably not. “Do you want me to come over and check on her?”

  “Oh, could you? I’ve never had a dog before, so I’m kind of freaking out a little.”

  “You jumped into the deep end.” There’s a little shuffling around, and I think Brooke puts me on speakerphone for just a second. It’s the difference in the background noise hum that I can hear. But then she comes back. “I don’t have any appointments this afternoon. I can take a break whenever. I’ll have to be back before too long though. Walk-ins.”

  I laugh just a tiny bit. “I don’t really think of the Sunday after Thanksgiving as a big tattoo time.”

  “A weekend is a weekend, sweetheart,” Brooke drawls, and Tennessee colors her voice with dark-brown sugar.

  I want her to call me sweetheart forever. “I don’t have any plans. We’ll be here whenever you can get away.”

  Which turns out to be close to two hours later. The only drastic change to my positioning is that I’ve switched on Hulu and the puppy is now on my stomach instead of my chest. She’s such a warm ball of comfort that I don’t want to get up. “Who is it?”

  “Brooke.”

  “Come in,” I call. Tiny apartment for the laziness win.

  Except Brooke scowls at me. “You should have your door locked.”

  It’s cute that she’s protective. She looks gorgeous, of course. Her jeans are faded black, slim, and clinging low to her hips. She’s wearing a black T-shirt with a gold star on the chest, except the top peak of the star is a man pointing at the sky. I wonder what it’s from.

  “I do normally. But I keep having to carry her outside.” I bundle the puppy into my arms and swing into a seated position, hoping she looks pitiful enough that Brooke won’t be actually mad. “She needs to do her business.”

  “Is she trained?” Brooke sits next to me and pets the dog’s scruffy black head. “I’m kind of surprised, since she’d peed on Caleb’s phone.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t like him. Or maybe they didn’t listen to her well. Bennet has a very quiet whimper. Don’t you, sweetie?”

  “Bennet?”

  “That’s her new name. After the Bennet sisters.”

  “You named her after four sisters?” Her eyes are ringed in layers of dark mascara and liner and stone-gray shadow. It should be too much for her pale coloring and pink hair and a Sunday afternoon, but instead she looks so fucking good.

  Even if she’s betraying a startling failing in her Austen knowledge base. “Five.”

  “I always forget about the nerdy sister. One tiny puppy, five sisters.” She cuddles Bennet, rubbing her face against the fluff of puppy belly. “That’s a lot of name. Still better than Snow White though.”

  “You see, I don’t really know her yet. She might be an Elizabeth, all proud and judgmental, or she might be a Jane, quiet and reserved. I hope she’s not a Lydia.”

  “Was Lydia the one who ran away with the bad guy?” Brooke grins at me. “What’s the puppy equivalent? Getting knocked up by the pit bull downstairs.”

  “Fuck, I hope not.” My heartbeat jacks up. “A Doberman lives downstairs. He would kill her!”

  “Chill, I was just teasing.” She holds Bennet closer to her chest. “We won’t let anything happen to her.”

  We. I like that. “She needs a walk, probably. Want to go with us?”

  “Sure.”

  It doesn’t take long to clip her retractable leash to the collar I bought her. I like the way the rounded metal studs make her look like a tiny badass and the red leather stands out against her wiry black hair. I carry her down the open stairs, and Brooke follows behind. I put her down in the middle of the courtyard on a cobbled path next to a little patch of grass. “She likes the sunshine.”

  “I bet it warms her up.”

  I grin at Brooke. She grins back at me. We sound a little stupid, filling the air with banalities, but I love it. It’s these little moments that build the possibility of a relationship. Not that I would pass on a kiss from Brooke either. The afternoon sunlight filters through the purple-flowered jacaranda trees, giving everything a dappled beauty that I want to freeze and hold forever.

  It doesn’t take Bennet long to nose around and find the perfect blades of grass to pee on. She doesn’t go very far considering her neon-yellow-casted leg. I pick her up, and she cuddles herself to my shoulder, her muzzle lying against my neck. “Do you want to go get coffee? There’s a place down the street that let me bring her to sit on the patio this morning. They even give her a little bowl of water and a biscuit.”

  “Sure. But I thought you said she doesn’t eat?”

  “She doesn’t like kibble. She eats treats just fine.” I lead the way out of the courtyard and down the street. “Or she’ll eat kibble when I feed it to her. But she won’t eat it out of her bowl.”

  “Feed it to her?”

  My cheeks go hot. “She’ll eat from my hand. If I hold the food.”

  “You’re a giant sucker.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  Brooke’s laughing, a little bit at me, but it doesn’t sting because I’m giggling at me too. “You’re letting her wrap you around her back paw.”

  “It’s a broken paw!” I gently lift her bum so the yellow cast shows. “Broken!”

  “She’s still going to think she’s the boss of you.”

  “Is not.”

  “Is too.”

  We’re standing at a corner, waiting for the light to change. Cars whizz by. I want her to kiss me. No one is paying attention to us. I glance beyond her, at the storefronts we’ve passed. We’re anonymous in a crowd.

  She gets my s
ilent message. Her smile brushes against mine. She tastes like coffee. She doesn’t linger long, but the curl of her tongue over my bottom lip is enough to make me shiver. “I like you, Keighley.”

  “I like you too, Brooke.”

  This moment, perfect in the California sunshine, is enough for me.

  For now.

  Belladonna Ink is busy on Friday nights. Nayla, the receptionist, waves to me as I come in the front door while she talks to a customer. I have to nod in response because my hands are full of takeout bags. “She in the back?”

  Nayla shakes her head. “With a client. But they’re finishing up soon, I think.”

  I see for myself as I slip past the open booths where artists do their work. Brooke has her head down over a woman’s calf. I can’t see what she’s inking, but it’s got a lot of intricate color. I’ve learned over the past few weeks not to bother her while she’s working.

  I drop off the food in the break room instead. It’s empty except for Callista, a blonde goddess who only does black line tattoos—and does them amazingly well. She’s got a waiting list a year long and she only takes clients by appointment, so I’m surprised to see her here. We met last time I came to the shop to have dinner with Brooke.

  “Anything for me in there?” She’s got a big, bold smile with white teeth against her brown skin.

  “Sorry, hon. Just for Brooke.”

  “Did you bring her enough for tomorrow morning too?”

  “Maybe.” My cheeks blow hot and there’s fire across the back of my neck.

  “You’ve got it so bad for that girl.”

  I lay a finger across my lips. “Shh. You don’t tell and I won’t either.”

  She pushes aside the coffee table book of roman architecture that she’d been pouring through and nestles her chin on her hand. “Come talk to me, sweetheart. I love me some good gossip. What’s Brooke like in bed?”

  “Oh my God.” I cover my face with my hands. “I’m not answering that.”