Just For Now (A Flirting With Trouble Novel)

by Annie Kelly

  In this fantasy, though? Well, I can be as submissive as I want to be. And I can like it as much as I want to.

  I push the vibrator further into my wetness until it nestles right at the entrance of my pussy. I’m dripping wet and starting to breathe heavily and audibly.

  One positive about living mostly alone? When I start moaning and crying out, no one can hear me.

  Then again, the fact that I’m alone is also the reason I’m sliding the vibrator deeper inside me and arching my back without a partner to assist me.

  I forget that and go back to Owen, with his sexy little smiles and eyebrow lifts. Owen, with his unassuming boyish good looks. I wonder if a guy like that would even want to play dominant to my submissive. It might be so far out of his comfort zone that he couldn’t even picture it.

  But imaginary Owen can.

  As I slide the vibrator inside my pussy, I angle the small secondary nub so that it hits my clit. I alter the speed to just a bit higher, then go back to my world—a world in which Owen Marshall, my boss, is fucking me stupid on my desk in my office. He doesn’t take his jeans off. He doesn’t take his shirt off. He slides his hard cock out of his fly and pulls my legs apart. Pressing a hand to the small of my back, he slams into me. No pretense. No ease. Just one hard cock and me, keening out a low moan of pleasure.

  I increase my own pace, riding the vibrator in my hand as much as it’s riding me.

  “Fuck, yes.”

  In my mind, Owen’s gripping my hips in his hands and yanking me backward onto his cock. I want him to be fucking me in a way that leaves me no say, no ability to protest. Not because I want to protest, but because I don’t. Because nothing has ever felt so good or so necessary.

  “Oh, God . . .”

  Imaginary Owen fucks me hard. Real-life vibrator fucks me harder. And I come, climaxing in a way that leaves no doubt that it’s been a long time since I’ve had a good orgasm. This one hits me like a ton of bricks, but some kind of delicious orgasm bricks. I let the wave wash over me and I manage to flick off the vibrator and set it to the side as I continue to ride out all the incredible sensations.

  Of course, now I have no idea how I’m going to face my boss tomorrow. Somehow, right now, it feels like a small price to pay.

  ***

  “Okay, Tyson, slow down. Tell me what happened.”

  It’s Wednesday afternoon and I’m sitting on the old wooden bleachers in the BYC gym, which never cease to remind me of the years I spent in high school, cheering for the Southern High School Stingrays.

  Now, though, I’ve got bigger fish to fry.

  Tyson sniffs, then rubs his nose. There are faint streaks down his dark cheeks, and he’s clearly been crying, which is not typical for Tyson. My heart goes out to him.

  I’ve known him since my very first day at the center, and he’s been one of those kids who has continually captured my heart over and over again. His mom works two jobs and his dad hasn’t been around since he was a baby. Tyson spent most of his time alone until his mom dragged him down to the BYC when he started high school. At thirteen, he was small—way smaller than the average freshman boy. His mother was terrified he’d get beaten up on the regular or, worse, recruited into a gang.

  She asked us to keep our eyes on him. Asked if he could start coming every day after school. He’s been here almost every day since, save the week he had strep throat and the few days his mother took him to the Eastern Shore for a family get-together.

  Now, though, with the sound of basketballs hitting the floor to punctuate our conversation, Tyson struggles to tell me what’s going on at school. He’s not doing well and apparently today was midterm.

  “It’s just hard for me, man,” he says. He shoves his notebook back into his backpack and lets his head drop into his hands. “I’m gonna fail the ninth grade and my momma’s gonna kill me.”

  “Stop it,” I say, tugging his notebook back out and looking down at Tyson’s interim report card. Three Ds and a C. It’s not great, but it’s not the end of the world, and I tell him as much. But Tyson just shakes his head.

  “I just can’t do all the writing stuff. The history and English? It’s hard for me—all the spelling and grammar and stuff. It sucks and I hate it.”

  I smile at that. Writing was always something that challenged me, too. I could never get my thoughts together. I could never outline or brainstorm in a way that made any sense at all.

  “Tell you what,” I say, slapping both of my jean-clad thighs, “I’ll talk to some of the staff and see if we can put together some organized tutoring for you. That way, you can get some homework help after school instead of just playing ball all the time. How does that sound?”

  He shrugs, twisting the ends of his cornrows with his thumb and index finger, but I know from past experience that that means he’s into the idea. I pat his back.

  “Go play basketball.” I smile at him. “Then come get a snack. Did you eat lunch today?”

  He nods, but makes a face. Tyson hates the school lunches, but his mother qualifies for free and reduced meals. Some days, he’ll come here with an empty belly and a terrible attitude. Those are days when the school served Salisbury steak or Unidentifiable Chicken Dish.

  I take Tyson’s backpack with me, then drop it off in the common room where the kids leave all of their school stuff while they play. I take a peek at the pool, where Jenn is monitoring a free-swim session. Most of the kids don’t have bathing suits, so we ran a donation drive last spring for kids’ bathing suits. As long as they don’t take them home with them, we always have enough suits for the kids who want to swim. It’s a huge blessing.

  As I walk in the office, though, Shannon has a look of utter disappointment on her face. The phone receiver is pressed to her ear. Frowning, I stop to listen to her.

  “Yes, sir. Yes, of course. Well, I will relay the message . . . yes. Okay, thank you.”

  She hangs up and I lean my hip against the front desk.

  “What’s up? You look like you’ve lost your dog.”

  She shakes her head. “No—that was the Maryland State Youth Council. They offered that grant you applied for a few months ago?”

  “Oh, right!” I brighten . . . and then realize there’s a reason Shannon looks so dejected.

  “Yeah—we didn’t get it.”

  I’m disappointed. I can’t even pretend that I’m not. But I don’t want Shannon to see just how sad I am, so I just shrug.

  “It’s fine, Shan. There are a million grants and a million different places we can go for money. Trust me.”

  That seems to succeed in making Shannon feel a little better—enough that when the phone rings again, she answers in a fairly chipper tone. I take the opportunity to head back into my office and shut the door.

  Dammit. That’s the second grant I’ve applied for that’s turned into a dead end. The problem with city programs like ours is that they’re terribly underfunded. We need to keep applying for funds. That’s how we pay our staff. It’s how we keep our world together. It’s how we prevent this entire operation from falling apart.

  I flop down into my desk chair and cover my eyes. Maybe I should take something for the migraine that’s threatening at the edges of my eyes. Maybe I should take the rest of the day.

  I shake it off—or at least attempt to. Tonight, I’ve got the dinner with Owen and then drinks with Cyn and her boyfriend, Smith. I’d made a contingency plan, which makes me a total dick, but I didn’t want to be stuck with Owen for hours on end in an awkward boss/employee exchange over burgers. I convinced Cyn that she needed to meet me after Trivia Night and, goddess that she is, she agreed.

  “But you owe me since you’re missing trivia,” she’d said reproachfully. I snorted into the phone.

  “Please. I’m not playing this week, which means you’ll probably win. You’ll be thanking me later.”

&
nbsp; But right now, going out feels like the last thing in the world that I want to do. I press my fingers against my temples for a long moment, then release. I manage to start sorting through the papers on my desk. We’ve got all of the enrollment forms for toddler swim lessons and morning preschool. When it comes to organization, the younger kids are the only ones we really get to commit—and that’s their parents, not them.

  There’s a light knock on my door. Sighing, I call out, “Come in.”

  Wendy pokes her head inside. “Hey—you busy?”

  I shrug. “I’m just doing enrollment. What’s up?”

  She glances back behind the door and speaks to someone in a low voice. Then she looks back at me again.

  “Charlie’s here,” Wendy says slowly. “She really wants to talk to Remy.”

  As expected, many of the kids were upset about hearing that Remy was gone. At the same time, just as many were sort of surprisingly unaffected. I didn’t really get it at first until Derrick reminded me of the difficult truth—most of them are used to adults coming and going in their lives. It isn’t anything new.

  But Charlie?

  Charlie is different.

  She and Remy are incredibly close. Close enough that she’d come do errands in the office when she was here sometimes just so that she could be around him. I think he’s the first person she told about her issues at home with her parents. Ever since she told her parents she identified as a girl, not the boy they’d known for a decade and a half . . . well, she started spending more and more time at BYC, even during hours where we normally kicked kids out so we could close up.

  Now, Wendy runs a hand through her dark hair, biting her lip and looking back and forth from me to, presumably, Charlie outside my office. It takes a LOT for Wendy to look nervous. I can feel a pit of something deep and difficult forming in my stomach.

  “I don’t think I can get Remy for her right now,” I say slowly, glancing at the clock. “I might be able to call him a little later. Does she want to come in and talk to me for a while?”

  Wendy ducks back behind the door, and I can hear some muffled whispers. She pops her head back in and nods.

  “If you have the time, I think that would be great.”

  “Of course.” I nod. I plaster on a smile. I don’t want to let Charlie in on my frustration or stress about money and grant programs. She’s got worries of her own.

  As Wendy widens the door, however, I realize that I just identified the understatement of the century.

  The first thing I notice is the blood. It’s dry and at the hairline—an obvious dark mark on Charlie’s pale skin and almost-as-pale blond hair. As I let my eyes travel down, the bruise along her jaw and another on her collarbone stick out like exclamation points on her skin.

  “Oh.”

  That’s what I say. That’s the enlightening, helpful, comforting response I come up with. Remy was so much better at this than I am.

  “Charlie, come sit down,” Wendy says gently.

  Charlie drops into the chair in front of me with a grace that is far beyond her years. She places her purse on the floor, then clasps her hands together and presses them between her knees. I try not to stare at her wrists. I try not to stare at her bruises.

  “I’m going to leave you with Rainey for a little bit, sweetie,” Wendy says softly. She barely touches Charlie’s shoulder, but still the teen flinches. Something deep in my body—my heart, I think—cracks in half.

  As the door shuts behind Wendy, Charlie looks back down at her lap. I duck my head and try to catch her gaze.

  “Hey,” I say in what has to be the lamest opening line ever.

  “Hey.”

  Charlie still looks down. I follow her gaze to her hands, where she’s tugging her sleeves down, clearly trying to hide something she doesn’t want me to see.

  I come around the side of my desk and sit on the chair next to her. Charlie gives me a wary look. Her ordinarily perfect eye makeup is gone. She can do eyeliner with a skill that most grown women would kill for.

  “You’re not wearing your eye makeup,” I say, trying to smile despite my distinct desire not to. Charlie’s eyes go wide, then fill with tears.

  “He took it.”

  I frown. “Who took it?”

  Charlie looks up at the ceiling, and I realize then that she’s not wearing any makeup at all—no foundation, no lip liner, nothing. Part of Charlie’s self-identifying has always included experimenting with different colors and shades and types of cosmetics. She has an eye for the art of the face. At one point, she was talking about going to school to be a makeup artist.

  “My stepdad,” she says softly. “He said . . . he said if I hadn’t been wearing it, that I wouldn’t have gotten in trouble.”

  I blink at her. “In trouble?”

  I feel stupid. I wonder if she’s already told Wendy the details of what happened.

  “The boys in gym,” she says, pulling one hand out from between her knees to reach up and touch the scab along her forehead. “We were running the mile and they—they cornered me by the storage shed.”

  I inhale through my nose slowly to try and prevent the sharp sound it could potentially make. Carefully, I reach out to touch Charlie’s arm.

  She yanks up one sleeve of her thermal shirt and I stop breathing.

  A thick white bandage peeks out from the cuff at her wrist. Hell, bandages.

  Fuck.

  This isn’t just a classroom scuffle—this is serious.

  “What happened here, Charlie? Did that happen before or after the boys attacked you?”

  She sniffs. “After. I went home and my mom cried and my stepdad told me that I was . . . that I was a faggot and that someone needed to toughen me up.”

  Something inside Charlie flares up then. I can see it in her eyes and it gives me something like hope that the girl I know is still in there. She straightens her back and shakes her shoulders as though to redistribute the weight she’s been carrying on them.

  “So I went upstairs, grabbed a razor, and showed him how fucking tough I can be,” she half snarls. She’s got her arms free now and she looks so fierce and beautiful that I want to hug her small, thin body.

  Instead, I do something different. I do something Remy would have done, I think, if he’d been here.

  I fall on my knees in front of her chair and hold out a hand.

  “Can I see?” I ask quietly.

  Charlie is reluctant, but after a few long beats, she holds out one of her arms. Gently, I peel back the tape and the stacked pads of gauze beneath it.

  The wounds are superficial. It’s not that they aren’t still alarming—of course they are. But this was clearly not a suicide attempt. And, from what it sounds like, it was more payback than anything else.

  “Is that when your stepdad took your makeup?” I ask her, reaching for the other wrist. She nods.

  “Yeah. I thought he’d just put it in the garbage at home or something, but I guess he took it with him when he left for work in the morning. I looked through all the trash cans, even the outside ones.”

  I chew on my bottom lip, thinking about what my best course of action should be. I know I have to explain this to Owen. This is the kind of thing we have to document and report, and I’m pretty sure Charlie knows that. But that can’t be all I do—because, in the end, that’s as much about protocol as it is about Charlie. Maybe even more about protocol than it is about Charlie.

  So I lead with what I think is my best possible recourse.

  “How about a makeover?”

  Chapter Five

  “I’ve got a makeup bag in my purse,” I offer to Charlie. “I’m not nearly as talented as you are, but I’d be happy to help you put it on. If you need help, that is.”

  Charlie’s face—so fresh and delicately featured—brightens in a clearly visual way.


  “I would love that. I tried to lift some eye shadow at the CVS by my house, but everything’s got sensors on it and I didn’t want to deal with getting arrested for snagging CoverGirl off the rack.”

  “Yeah, let’s try not to shoplift as a general rule,” I suggest, going around the side of my desk and grabbing my bag from the bottom drawer. I pull out my compact and mascara, then dig a little further until I find some lipstick.

  “This might be it . . .” I purse my lips. “I wonder if someone else has a makeup bag with them.”

  I consider the potential options and end with Shannon, who wears at least as much eye makeup as Charlie on her most artistic, experimental days. I step out into the front.

  “Hey, Shan, do you have makeup with you?”

  She looks up from the day schedule, then nods. “Of course. Never leave home without it.”

  Shannon’s arsenal is far more full than mine is—foundation (which is a little too dark for Charlie, but whatever), eyeliner, every color eye shadow known to the free world. I set up a makeup station along my desk, scoring a mirror from one of the locker rooms and a wad of tissues from my jacket pocket. The more elaborate I make the setup, the more genuinely excited Charlie looks. The smile on her face is priceless. It’s worth every second I spend away from my paperwork.

  As I move toward the door, I stop for a second and turn to face Charlie.

  “Hey—I don’t want you to get in any trouble at home if we do this. Should we maybe do this another time? When you aren’t going home as soon?”

  Charlie shrugs. “I’ve got baby wipes in my bag. I always remove my makeup before I go home. I can do that today, too.”

  I nod slowly. “Okay—if you’re sure.”

  She grins. “I’m sure.”

  I recruit Shannon to do the actual makeup application with a promise to answer all the phone calls that come in through the main line. Really, I wouldn’t have minded playing dress-up with Charlie, but I know that I need to touch base with Owen. I find Wendy in the break room, sitting alone in a chair. Her eyes look red.