Chasing Happy

by Jenni M. Rose

“No, it’s probably not,” he argued. “Someone broke your heart and you’re scared to death to give it someone else. Is it about your mom? Or was there someone else?”

  “No, not my mom,” she shook her head, distractedly taking the towel from her hair and dropping it on the floor.

  “Then who?”

  “The abridged version?” She asked just as she had the night before.

  “If that’s all you want to tell.” He squeezed her hand encouragingly.

  “He was a cop.”

  “You dated a cop?” He sounded shocked.

  She pulled a face. “He was my foster dad for a while.”

  “Oh. You had foster parents?”

  “That’s what they do with kids when their parents are in jail,” she reminded him. “And yeah, I ended up having lots of foster parents.”

  “But this one…”

  “Promised me a lot of things.”

  “And broke his promise,” Max guessed.

  She nodded. “Something like that.”

  “And now you don’t trust anyone? Must have been one heck of a promise.”

  “It kind of was.”

  They were both quiet for a minute, Rosie looking down and toying with the bubbles and Max watching her.

  “He promised to keep you, didn’t he?” He asked softly, to which she eventually nodded. “Why did he break his promise?”

  “They had a new baby,” she told him with a careless shrug. “And thought I was too weird to be around him.”

  “You’re not weird Rosie, you’re special. Gifted,” he told her immediately.

  She let out a humorless laugh. “That’s the same thing he told me.”

  “Jesus,” he muttered. “It’s the truth. You’re incredibly special.” He pulled their entwined hands up and kissed hers. “I’m so glad I found you.”

  “If this doesn’t end up coming back to bite me in the ass I think I’ll be glad you found me too.”

  His face turned up into a sexy smile.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “You just said bite me in the ass. It gave me a few ideas.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re easily distracted.”

  “You’re anything but easy, baby,” he joked before he grabbed the soap and began washing up and down his arms. When he noticed she was staring, he held the bar out to her. “Wash my back?”

  She took it from him and twirled her finger around in the air, telling him to turn around. His back was incredibly smooth, much like the rest of his body with lean, ropy muscles. She pressed a thumb into his shoulder, massaging a knot she found just under the blade. He twisted and squirmed a bit, his breathing loud in the dark room but he never pulled away. When that knot was gone, she moved on, pressing her fingers up and down the muscles surrounding his spine. He leaned way forward, giving her more access, groaning a little when she massaged a tight spot. When that was gone, she moved on.

  After about twenty minutes Max sat there, unmoving.

  She pressed a hand to his back wondering if maybe she’d hurt him. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

  He shook his head. “Hurt me? God, no, but I don’t think I can move right now.” His head turned to look behind him and he startled a bit, staring at her breasts. “I was gonna ask if I could lay back on you but I can’t look away.”

  She brought her hands up to cover her breasts with a laugh and his eyes flipped up to hers. “You’re so beautiful.” Rosie felt her cheeks heat. “And you’re blushing which is adorable, by the way.” He motioned to her chest. “Can I lay back for a second? You can be my pillow.”

  She knew, even naked, Max would take care to not cross any of her boundaries. So, she slid down and opened her arms while he leaned back on her. His head rested on her chest, between her breasts. He wrapped his arms around her legs, her knees up and out of the water, his hands latched onto her calves. It was between her legs that was giving her pause, where Max’s back was pressed to her core.

  “Am I crushing you?” He asked.

  Deciding to ignore the inherent strangeness of having someone else naked and so close to her she answered, “No,” and slid her hands down his chest.

  “Wendy’s like me in a lot of ways,” he said out of the blue. “She’ll listen to what you have to say and just accept it. She might have a million questions, but she’ll believe you.”

  He was back to her admission which she appreciated. It made her realize he not only had been listening when she spoke but felt it was important to address what she said.

  “Dallas won’t change his mind and if he does we’ll vote him off the island. It’ll be three against one.”

  “It’s hard for some people to accept and understand,” she told him, having too much experience with both scenarios in her life.

  “Some people, maybe. But not us, baby. We’re your friends.”

  “We just met.”

  “Seems like a lifetime ago doesn’t it?” He asked. “As far as Friday goes, I can’t tell you which way things will go. I can just tell you we’ll deal with whatever gets thrown at us.”

  “I should call Jay,” she realized. “He should be there too.”

  “The crystals guy.”

  She laughed a little. Jay was so much more than that but if that was as far as Max grasped right now, that was okay too.

  “He sees energy too,” she told him. “He reads chakras.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “He says they’re the body’s energy points. He can read feelings through them, see emotions, sickness, that kind of thing.”

  “Sickness? That’s freaky.”

  “Remember when we met? At the restaurant?”

  “Like I could forget.” There was a smile in his voice and he reached up to hold one of her hands.

  “Our waiter was sick.”

  He shifted around, making waves in the bathwater, until he was hovering above her, his stomach now pressed between her legs.

  “Sick how?”

  She stared up at him. “I’m not sure. Something in his mid-section.”

  “Something serious?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How could you tell?”

  She shrugged. “I could see his aura.”

  “Aura?” His face wrinkled in confusion. “Is that like chakras or something?”

  “Or something,” she agreed vaguely.

  “Did you tell him? Whatever it was that you saw?”

  “What? Like, ‘Hey guy, sorry to interrupt but I noticed a black aura around your guts, maybe you want to get checked out?’ People don’t really appreciate that kind of stuff. Besides, it could have been anything. Maybe he just had indigestion.” She knew that wasn’t true. There had been an inherent sadness that had followed him around that made her believe it was something far more serious than that.

  He nodded. “I guess. It just seems sad to let him go on thinking he’s alright if he’s not.”

  “I can’t fix everyone,” she told him. “People, spirits…I can barely take care of myself, Max. I can’t help everyone.”

  He leaned down and kissed her. “I think you’ve done a pretty good job so far.” He leaned way back and inspected her face. “Krista.”

  “Oh my God,” she laughed.

  He eventually got out of the tub first and then gave her a few minutes to dry off and change. He’d set out a t-shirt and a pair of shorts for her to wear while they gathered a load of laundry. He showed her to the upstairs laundry room where she measured the soap and he pressed the right buttons, setting their laundry washing.

  From there, they went back to his bedroom where he set up some video game system and handed her a controller.

  “No, like this,” he told her with a laugh and turned it around. She’d been holding it upside down. “You’ve really never played video games before?”

  She shook her head, watching the TV screen flash with bright lights. “I’m not sure it will be any fun to play with me.”

 
“Nah, it’s Mario Party. You’ll be fine.”

  For an hour, he did his best to teach her the ins and outs of Mario Party. She thought the little mushroom guy was adorable but insisted on being the guy with the purple sweater. Max said he was always Mario. There were all kinds of fun little mini games built into the bigger game. All in all, it was fun but she didn’t see herself becoming a gamer. Books were still her thing.

  For the first time, Max joined her in the bathroom while she brushed her teeth. He stood next to her, scrubbing his own teeth as if this kind of thing happened all the time. When they got into bed that night, he was still settled with the sheet between them. They bathed together but slept with a sheet between them. Again, she appreciated his respect for her boundaries.

  “Hang on.” He held her shoulder before she settled in. “I don’t think you need this to sleep.” He tugged her shirt.

  He was in nothing but gym shorts.

  “I’m not sleeping topless.”

  “Why not? I am.” His hand slipped under her shirt and his hot palm covered her breast. He played with her nipple between his thumb and the side of his hand.

  “I don’t sleep topless.”

  He added a little pressure and her eyes slid closed. She felt him tug at her nipple making her suck in a breath. Her shirt lifted and his mouth surrounded her, hot and insistent. His tongue laved the underside of her breast as he sucked at her skin. Her shirt shifted again and he moved to the other side.

  He was right, she didn’t need a shirt for this. Trying to help she struggled to get out of the top but couldn’t quite manage, her arm tangled in the sleeve. He unlatched himself from her chest and, breathing heavily, helped her out of it.

  “You’re like, all these colors,” he mumbled when he looked down at her.

  “Huh?” She was confused.

  His glazed, caramel eyes were taking in her naked breasts. “When we first met, it was the blue of your eyes and the black of that one spot. And your hair. All the white, you know.” This was the closest she’d ever seen him come to rambling. Her eyebrows were drawn in confusion. “I thought,” he just shook his head.

  “You thought what?”

  “I thought your nipples would be pink,” he admitted, looking at her chest and running his tongue along his bottom lip.

  “Is pink better?” She didn’t know what he was getting at.

  Now he was looking at her in confusion. “Better? What? No! No. Your skin. Your hair, I don’t know. The first time I saw you like this, I was surprised.”

  She looked down at her small breasts that were tipped with brown nipples.

  “Oh,” she murmured inanely.

  He nodded, bringing his mouth back to her chest.

  She was not having sex with him tonight, she repeated to herself. She was not one of those girls that said she wasn’t ready but then did it anyway. Though she trusted Max to some extent, she wasn’t ready to share her entire self with him and she wasn’t the kind of girl that went halfway either. She needed to know she was truly in love before she went that far.

  Not only that, she wanted to know Max was in love with her too.

  She gasped when Max pressed his erection to her core and rocked. He was long and hard, his length rubbing her in a spot that sent a shiver up her spine.

  He kept rubbing rhythmically at the same time he trailed kisses from breast to breast. It was thrilling and dizzying all at the same time. Back and forth he rubbed, her body tightening at every pass. Her fingers flexed as she held onto his shoulders, holding on.

  “Max,” she whispered, excited but still nervous.

  “I’ve got you,” he told her, pressing open mouth kisses to her throat. “You can let go, baby.”

  She didn’t feel like she could let go. She felt edgy even though she knew what was happening. It had just never happened with someone else.

  Max persisted, kissing her gently, while rocking and teasing her nipples. He brought his lips to hers eventually and swiped his tongue across her lower lip.

  “I’ve got you,” he assured her again.

  He kissed her fully then, completely investing himself in her and she felt herself implode in a dazzling fireworks display. Sparks flew from her center to the ends of her fingertips and the tips of her toes. Her back was bowed and her breath was ragged.

  It was a moment before she swallowed and lowered herself back to the bed, eyes still closed.

  “Wow,” she whispered. Flexing her fingers, she let go of his arms.

  Max’s hips were still pressed into her but he had stopped rubbing. He was languidly pressing kisses to her cheeks and forehead.

  She flipped her eyes open and looked up at him, finding his expression somewhere between cocky and pleased.

  “You okay?” He asked, the smile plain on his face.

  She let out a breathy laugh. “Yeah.”

  “Good.” He leaned in to kiss her again the laid himself on the bed next to her, turning quickly to turn the light on his nightstand off.

  She just laid there, reveling in what just happened.

  “You’re quiet,” he said, suddenly wary.

  “I just had an orgasm,” she said her thought out loud.

  He barked out a laugh. “Yeah you did.”

  She didn’t say anything else and let that sink in.

  For the first time in her life, she truly believed she might just be okay.

  20

  “You’re sure you won’t come to Thanksgiving with me?” Max asked for the hundredth time as he drove her back to the camper.

  Apparently, he, his father and Dallas were going out hunting for turkey for most of the day, as was their tradition. She didn’t have any big plans, other than to call Jay, but she wasn’t ready to spend a holiday with Max’s family. Though she thought that maybe she was going to be just fine in life, there were still moments she just felt apart, like she wouldn’t know how to act at a real family Thanksgiving.

  “No, thank you,” she answered again. “Do you actually eat the turkey you shoot?”

  “No,” he admitted. “Usually we don’t shoot anything other than the breeze. I think the tradition mostly started just so we’d get out of my mom’s hair while she was cooking.”

  “Oh.”

  He pulled up to the camper and put his truck in park.

  “You’re sure?” He asked again.

  “I’m sure.” She leaned over Gizmo, who was sitting in the middle seat between them and pressed her lips to his. “We’ll talk later.”

  “I’ll call when we finish up.”

  She grabbed the cat and hopped out, waving as Max drove away.

  Letting herself in the camper, she looked around. It seemed strange being there, two days at Max’s and she’d made herself at home there. It had to be something about his energy as a healer. Where she would normally feel uncomfortable being herself she felt empowered because she knew he was listening.

  First thing, she left a message for Jay, telling him basics about heading to Smith’s Cove Friday.

  Then she decided cleaning wouldn’t be completely out of the question so she began pulling out the stacks of books she kept under her bed, along with a few shoeboxes full of cash and began sweeping and dusting.

  Before long, she was surrounded by piles of her old favorites, friends that kept her company when she had no one else. She picked up her well-worn copy of The Return of the King and flipped through the pages, remembering when she bought back when she lived in Virginia. It had been her favorite of the trilogy and she’d read it twice as many times as the other two books.

  Putting it aside, she grabbed the broom and began sweeping under the bed. It wasn’t dirty but she kept at it anyway until all the corners were clean. Before she put the books back, she decided to make herself a snack and put a toaster pastry in to heat.

  She got work, washing the linoleum under the bed and rinsing the mop. While that was working, she inspected her face in the mirror and decided her eyebrows needed a touch up.

&nb
sp; Five minutes of tweezing later, she smelled smoke and remembered the toaster pastry.

  “Shit,” she swore and hurried to the living area, which was filled with smoke.

  Quickly, she unplugged the toaster and put the small fire out by smothering it. She propped the door open to air the trailer out and stood watching smoke pour out of her camper.

  When she went back in, she stared at the toaster, hands on hips, lamenting the lost pastry.

  “Knock, knock! Oh, gross. Did you burn something?”

  Rosie turned to see Wendy standing in the doorway.

  “My breakfast.” Rosie pulled a face. “It’s still too hot to take out.”

  Wendy stepped into the camper, covering her mouth with the sleeve of her sweater and stared at the still smoking black rectangle.

  “Bummer.”

  “Come outside,” Rosie lead her out.

  Wendy stepped around all the books again but this time paid attention to them. “What are you doing in here? Having a yard sale?” She eyed the shoe boxes. “Holy Shit Rosie. What the hell are you doing with all that money?”

  “Just cleaning up.” She plopped herself into a chair and ignored the real question. “What brings you out here?”

  “I came to get you for Thanksgiving,” Wendy said it as if they’d made plans.

  Rosie sent her a look. “I’m not going to Thanksgiving.”

  Wendy scoffed. “Yeah, you are.”

  “Wendy,”

  “No,” she held up a hand. “You’re coming. End of story.”

  “I don’t want to come,” Rosie argued.

  “Like you don’t want to be my friend?”

  Rosie rolled her eyes. “That’s different.”

  “Okay,” she shrugged. “You’re still coming.”

  “You’re bossy, you know that?”

  “I’ve been told,” Wendy admitted.

  Telling her she was bossy reminded Rosie of Mrs. Murphy, Wendy’s grandmother. She wondered where the spirit had gone and in a strange, self-torturing way, even missed her a little. She told Max she wanted to tell Wendy the truth about herself, but now that the moment had arrived, she wasn’t sure it was such a great idea. What if Wendy didn’t believe her? What if she thought she was nuts and fired her?