Touch of Heartache

by Joy Penny

  Once the jolt settled, he really didn’t care. His dad didn’t work most weekends. He could deal with the kids.

  Right now, he just wanted to commit her touch to memory.

  She stirred then, letting out a little groan that reminded him mischievously of her groans from the night before. “Good morning,” she said, yawning. She shifted herself up and pressed her lips lightly to his.

  “Morning,” he replied. He rested one hand on her shoulder and laid his lips once lightly on her forehead.

  She grinned and gently detangled herself from him, pushing aside the sheet that covered part of their legs. “Do you want breakfast?”

  Grabbing for her elbow, Nolan missed but kept trying, holding on to nothing but air. “Stay,” he said, and he felt his voice crack. It sounded pathetic, but in that moment he didn’t care.

  The pain he’d shoved down and shoved down as he moved forward through every day shot to the surface like a bolt of lightning as she stood beside the bed. She stared at him over her shoulder, something illegible on her face, but she gave him a faltering smile and slipped back in beside him. “Just for a bit,” she said. “Checkout is at noon.”

  Nolan felt guilty then as she wrapped one arm back around him and snuggled against his side. He didn’t want her to pity him, he just thought—well, this was part of it, too, wasn’t it? The cuddling? Even if that was difficult to do when she was in the nude in his arms.

  He took a deep breath. The surest way to settle his loins was to focus on something else—focus on the friend he wanted her to be, if she wasn’t interested in letting them be any more. He could handle that. He’d expected that. Why would someone like her consider being his girlfriend?

  “Tell me more about you,” he said, staring at the ceiling and rubbing his fingers through her hair.

  “What about me?” she asked, and although her tone wasn’t entirely defensive, there was something there, something that was hidden behind a shield she kept guarded.

  “Well, you’re from near Chicago,” he said. “You’ve spent a semester in Spain… You love Tildy World. The greatest theme park on the planet,” he added to make her laugh.

  She did chuckle a bit. “That’s about it.”

  “I doubt that,” said Nolan. Giving her shoulder a squeeze, he started rubbing his hand up and down her upper arm, careful not to touch her breast and stop this conversation before it truly started.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked.

  “Did you always want to be a theme park resort assistant manager?”

  She stiffened beneath his touch. “No. I never even considered it.”

  “Then how—?”

  “I was set to become an elementary school teacher until a few weeks ago. In Minnesota of all places.”

  That caused Nolan to chuckle. “How do you go from snow to beaches?”

  Shrugging, Lilac nuzzled her cheek against his chest again. “It just happened.”

  Nolan waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. “I can see you as an elementary school teacher. Landon loves you. Even my bratty sister has nothing but good things to say about you—anyone who can make Landon smile is A+ in her book.”

  The little peal of laughter Lilac gave off then made Nolan’s heart flutter, and it didn’t help that she started running her fingertip across his stomach. “I like kids,” she said. “So I decided to teach them. But I was never overly obsessed with becoming a teacher. It was a lot of work just graduating with an education degree and a proper license. I was so busy the whole time, I barely had time to second-guess my decision.”

  “How did Spain fit in to that?”

  Her fingers stopped moving. “It didn’t, really. I just wanted to go. Well, I turned it into a Spanish minor, which certainly doesn’t hurt to pair with an education degree. But mostly, I just… Needed the break.”

  Nolan knew that feeling too well. He just didn’t know how it felt to have the means and opportunity to take that break—although if this was his break, this certainly wasn’t too shabby.

  “My time in Spain was amazing,” she continued. “And I just… I don’t know. I started regretting thinking so small.”

  Nolan wasn’t sure he’d consider teaching elementary “thinking small”—surely, it paid decently enough and it was definitely a more admirable job than putting on a silly plush suit and entertaining kids that way—but he didn’t say anything. To a point, he knew what she meant. Living abroad was more glamorous than teaching. “My mom was going back to school to be a teacher,” he said at last. “It was on her way back from a night class that she got into an accident.”

  “Oh, I… I’m sorry. I don’t mean to demean the profession. I met a lot of women—and men, but mostly women—who’d make amazing teachers. It’s just, I…”

  “No offense taken,” he said. He wanted to steer her back to herself. “If Mom could have lived in Spain, I’m sure she would have found that more appealing, too.”

  “I know,” said Lilac. “And I feel stupid for complaining. I could… I could do almost anything. Mom and Daddy would make sure I had everything I needed, even if I’d just wanted to take a year or two off to travel.”

  Wow, thought Nolan. A year or two off to travel? She lives in a different world than I do.

  “But no, I was determined to show them I would work. Determined to do something, to have a reason for my degree… I was all set to be a teacher and then Frankie told me about this job opening at Tildy World and—I knew I wasn’t qualified, I knew that, but you have to understand how much Tildy World meant to be as a child. I just felt like… If I didn’t at least try, I’d regret it the rest of my life. I didn’t think I’d regret not taking the teaching job. Not…” Her voice cracked. “Well, I do now, but not for the reasons I would have thought.”

  A jolt of panic shot through Nolan’s body. “You regret coming here?”

  “I wish I didn’t.” There was that sadness again.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, trying hard not to take it personally. He knew for a fact that she’d been miserable last weekend before they’d begun their flirtation. It wasn’t about him—but oh, how it hurt to know he hadn’t been enough to make her feel better or to want to be here in his arms. “Is this… What happened last weekend?”

  Lilac’s voice caught. “I don’t… It’s nothing.”

  “It doesn’t seem like nothing,” he said. “Lilac, you were wasted last Sunday—”

  She jolted upright and was off the side of the bed before he could even finish his sentence.

  “Lilac.” He raised himself up on one elbow and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “It’s fine,” she said through gritted teeth, giving Nolan one final view of her beautifully round ass as she bent over to grab something out of her tote bag. She put one leg and then the other through a pair of black-laced panties. She looked even hotter in them than out of them, which Nolan was surprised to discover was even possible. “I just… I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Then we won’t talk about it,” said Nolan, reaching a hand out toward her.

  She was already clasping a matching black lace bra. Nolan knew that if he got up and she saw his erection, she might snap at him for the inappropriateness of his lust at this particular moment. He settled for clenching the bed sheets hard with one hand instead.

  Before he could think of what else to do, she threw on a tank top, tossing a pair of jeans atop the nearby table. Someone came better prepared than me, he thought.

  She’d planned to sleep with him—that much was clear. So didn’t that mean something? “I just wanted—that is, can’t we be friends?”

  “I’d say we’re a little more than that now,” said Lilac, tugging one leg of her jeans up.

  “Then talk to me, Lilac,” said Nolan. Erection be damned, he sat up then, shifting the sheets slightly to hide what was going on down there.

  “I am talking,” grunted Lilac as she finished tugging the sec
ond leg of her pants up. She jiggled her butt so divinely just then, Nolan had to actually bite his lip and squeeze the sheet harder before he burst. “I’m trying to keep it casual, as we agreed.”

  “You mean, you decided.” It slipped out before he could think better of it.

  Lilac stared down at him, tears somehow bubbling from her eyes at the same time her brows furrowed and her lips trembled. “And you agreed.” She threw her hands up. “Isn’t this what you all want?” She gestured to her body, still so luscious even under those layers of clothes. “I let you have it. Doesn’t mean I’m going to pledge myself to you.”

  “Whoa, whoa,” said Nolan, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “Who said anything about dating you? I asked you to the beach is all. You’re the one who took it a step further. Not that I’m complaining, mind you…”

  That seemed to be the wrong thing to say. Or maybe there was no right thing to say just then. “See?” Lilac snatched her tote bag up off the floor and slid it over her shoulder, digging through and tossing a keycard down on the bed. “Well, then, we’re good. Just… Give that to the front desk before noon.” She was clearly trying to seem cool and collected, but Nolan couldn’t tell if it was anger or sadness that colored her every casual movement in that moment.

  And—feeling lost in his own mixture of the two—he empathized. “Sure,” he spat, grabbing for the key. “Casual, then. You’ve made it clear what you think of me. It’s all on the table.” Everything except the feelings I thought I had—I still have, damn it—for you… He was lying to himself. He still had feelings, fledgling though they may be, and his damn cock down below was currently raging at him, begging him to make this right—just for more access to that beautiful, curvy body. I’m as bad as she thinks I am, he thought.

  Lilac took a step toward the door, but she hesitated. “No,” she said. “I… I think better of you than that.” She swallowed. “You’re a good guy. That’s why I felt safe coming to you for this.”

  “For this?” he asked, raising a hand in question. “I… I’m glad you think of me that way, Lilac, but I mean, I… I don’t usually do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Sleep around. Keep it casual.”

  Lilac’s lips pinched. “And I suppose you think there’s something wrong with me for doing that?”

  “No, that’s not what I meant—”

  “No, I get it. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have…” She really started crying now, though she did her best to ignore the tears tumbling down her cheeks. “Just pretend this never happened. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here anyway.”

  Jumping off the bed, Nolan stumbled toward her, carrying the sheet in front of him. “Lilac, please. I don’t want things to end like—”

  But she was gone, the door shut closed behind her.

  Unless he wanted to waddle through the hotel hallways with the sheet over his member, he had to let her go.

  Nolan stood there behind the closed door a while longer, trying and trying to convince himself it was all for the best.

  After a shower and putting on his wrinkly, damp swim trunks along with his shirt, Nolan stared at his face for a long moment in the mirror before taking a deep breath and leaving the room behind. Lilac’s bikini was missing—she’d gotten up to go to the bathroom after they’d finished his third or fourth climax the night before, he couldn’t remember which—and she must have prepared to leave straightaway come morning. Just as she’d prepared to spend the night with him. All these plans and she hadn’t even let him in on any of them until he’d felt tugged and pulled and led by the nose in whichever direction she’d desired him to go. And like a dog—or a silly, clueless sandgrouse—he’d let her lead the way.

  She was the first girl he’d taken to a bedroom—or, more accurately, who’d taken him to a bedroom—who’d led him around like that. He thought he’d liked leading the way, but last night had been… Well, so much for that assumption. Still, he’d kind of had his way in the heat of the moment and he thought—if he wasn’t just being a touch too full of himself—that she’d liked it.

  The keycard given to the front desk, though they told him he could have left it in the room, and the whole night behind him, he sighed as he made his way to his car, pausing to confirm that sure enough, Lilac’s shiny new vehicle was long gone, replaced by a minivan carrying a family that was working to unload the day’s accessories from the trunk. Two little girls and a boy ran around the van, tripping up their parents, ignoring their cries to calm down.

  He looked longingly at the beach, so beautiful in the rays of the early morning sun, but he knew he’d find no comfort there—not now anyway.

  After getting inside his car, he fished out his phone. He’d missed half a dozen calls and there was a text message. He’d known his father wouldn’t be happy, but was it too much to ask him to give him a break just once?

  Then he saw the first text message that awaited him: Where are you? it asked. Willow’s in the ER.

  It was dated yesterday evening. Nolan felt as if his stomach had dropped out to the car floor.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lilac didn’t want to talk to Gavin. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. The wind on her face did little to dry the tears that ran down her cheeks as she drove back to Aunt Frankie’s, more than once tempted by a random turnoff leading to who-knew-where—anywhere. Anywhere but here. Anywhere but this mistake.

  One call to her mom and daddy and she knew they’d tell her to just go home. If she explained why, her daddy might even show up in Florida himself and knock some sense into Earl.

  Only it wasn’t just Earl who tugged at her heart now—it was Nolan, too. For completely opposite reasons. Last night had been amazing and… That was more than a little scary.

  Lilac knew this routine. Fuck the frat boy, have some fun, get over it, let a few months go by, hear the roar of her natural urges building up from below until they dominated her mind, fuck a new frat boy.

  Cute, eager, not that into romance and commitment—they made perfect bed mates.

  But Nolan wasn’t a frat boy. He looked like one. With his goofy demeanor and A-game flirtations, he’d probably pass as one. But he was also kinder, more responsible. He had a baby face but a far more mature heart.

  And she’d stupidly convinced herself that this was more of the same. That she’d still be able to see him around the park—go on dates on occasion—and there wouldn’t be this awkward, lingering tension between them.

  But the fact was it scared her, this tug in her heart. He was supposed to be a distraction. He wasn’t supposed to make her think about what had happened, what her life had come to.

  She’d embarrassed herself in front of Nolan again and again. Instead of proving the boost she needed to stuff that workplace nightmare down deep where she wanted it buried, he’d just opened her up to so much more.

  Wiping her face with her palm, Lilac did take a random highway exit, pulling into a gas station and fueling up her hybrid. The nozzle in place and pumping, she grabbed her phone out of her bag and leaned against the driver’s side door. It seemed as if everyone and their mothers had sent her messages or commented on the pictures of the beach she’d posted when she’d been in a better mood the evening before. Frankie’s emoji-filled text cheering her on—she’d guessed it was Nolan and she knew what spending the night meant—only made her stomach sour now. There was even something from Pembroke of all people, an FB message just asking how she’d been and how she liked Florida. Where to even begin? She hadn’t even told Brielle what had happened—she might have, had Brielle not been so dismissive last weekend—and she certainly couldn’t tell Pembroke.

  Gavin was the only one who knew. She’d begged him to stop harping on it all week, but he’d been there for her, trying to make her laugh, even if he was always circling back to the issue at hand.

  She started up a text, but her heart almost caught in her throat. Looking around—no other car was at a pump nearby—she hit “
call” for his number instead.

  Gavin answered on the third ring. “Li?”

  Lilac traced a finger over the top of her side view mirror. “Is this a good time?”

  There was laughter and muffled conversation in the background. “Yeah,” he said. “Just give me a minute.” She heard footsteps and then a door open and close, more echoing footsteps, and then a static-like sound that could only be the winds of the windy city. “Sorry, the guys are having some friends over.”

  “I’ll call back later.” Lilac’s voice trembled. The gas was finished pumping and she felt dumb for calling him from there, but she’d wanted to hear his voice.

  “It’s fine,” said Gavin. “I’m on the roof. And before you ask, it’s allowed. Sadly, there’s no pool or anything up here, but smokers have to go somewhere in an apartment building, I guess, right? I tend to avoid it because smoke is impossible to get out of your clothes. It’s too bad, though. The view is incredible from up here.”

  Lilac closed her eyes for a moment and pictured herself atop some Chicago building, the wind on her face and Gavin beside her. But it was so hot and sticky here. The only time she felt anything resembling a breeze was when she was driving.

  “Gavin, I want to come home.”

  Gavin didn’t say anything at first and Lilac wondered if maybe he hadn’t heard her over the sounds of the whipping air all around him. “If that’s what you need,” he said. “Just let me know what you need from me. I’ll meet you at the airport or drive down there to help you pack or—”

  Snorting, Lilac wiped away more tears from her face. “I don’t need you to come down here,” she said. “Besides, if you drove, you wouldn’t be able to get back in time for work on Monday. And since when do you have a car?”