Starting Fires

by Makenzie Smith

  When we left, I was the one to hug my father. Not waiting for him to say it, and scared that he wouldn’t and then I’d be disappointed, I whispered, “I love you. Come home soon,” into his ear. As I pulled back, I ignored the tears in his eyes. He wouldn’t have wanted me to see them.

  Lucas stretched out his hand and they shook. “So nice to meet you, sir,” he said.

  “You too. Take care of my little girl.”

  “I will,” he said. “I promise.”

  Chapter 34

  We’d spent nearly the entire day with my father. As we came into my room, Lucas immediately went to take a shower. He had a thing for it and sometimes took two a day. I didn’t blame him. It was glorious.

  Waiting for him to come out, I sat on the bed. I never would have gone if it hadn’t been for him. This day wouldn’t have happened. And it had been a good day, a great one. I felt closer to my father than I had in years. And it was because of Lucas.

  The bathroom door was slightly ajar and I heard him groan as the side spouts turned on. I pictured him, naked just on the other side, his eyes closed and mouth slightly open as the water rained down on him.

  Without over thinking it, I walked towards the door, slowly discarding my clothes as I approached. He didn’t hear me come in, and through the barely fogged glass, I could see him, leaning an arm against the shower wall. I grabbed the door, and took a breath, telling myself that I still had time to change my mind. He let out another pleased murmur and threw his head back. Before he caught me watching him or I changed my mind, I quietly stepped in.

  The assault of water made me blink rapidly. After a few seconds, I slicked my damp hair back, and reached around him to turn the knob a little hotter. He was looking down again, and I wasn’t sure if he’d even seen my hand. There was no indication that he had, until I went to pull it back and he grabbed it, placing it on his stomach.

  I sighed and fully entered the waterfall, wrapping my other arm around him and pushing my chest to his back. One of his hands stayed propped against the shower wall, but his other held mine just over his heart. My eyes were closed, my mouth open on his back.

  There was something about him. Something he did to me. Something he made me feel. I needed him, and it scared me. People left you. People hurt you or betrayed you. And he already had, but I felt like I couldn’t live without him. That scared me even more. But right now, I tried not to feel any of that. I tried to feel him, to hold on to him, to pretend that he loved me as I loved him. To pretend that he loved me so much that he’d never sought out another.

  My free hand tightened around him, and I laid my head on his back, letting it move with his heavy breaths. Slowly, he turned around and lowered his head to mine. The water was shielded by him, but droplets ran down his face and off his eyelashes. Every so often one would fall to my face. My arms went to his neck and his to my waist. We pulled our bodies as close as we could to each other. When we kissed, I wanted to cry. It had been months, but his lips knew mine as if they’d never been apart. I clung to him, rising on my tiptoes. Without breaking our kiss, his hands went to my legs, and he grabbed them, wrapping them around his waist.

  A little more aggressively, we clutched one another as he turned to put my back against the wall. Away from the water, he pulled back, and pushed the excess through his hair, before kissing me again. I could feel him, nudging against my bottom, and I wiggled so that he could find me. When he was close, I widened my legs, and let my weight drop a little. In this position, he would have to do the rest. But he was hesitating, still giving me kisses, and letting his hands roam my body. “I need you, Lucas,” I whispered.

  His mouth went to my shoulder, kissing it forcefully as he pushed into me, holding in his groan. The sensation made me gasp and my neck arch. Slowly, painfully slow, he pulled out and pushed back in. Once he was fully inside, my entire body tightened. Stretching and clutching, missing him, and the connection we used to share. My hands gripped him, trying to get as close as I could.

  He kept me in place, holding me at the hip and neck, bringing his mouth to mine. His eyes were closed, but during our kiss, I’d opened mine, watching him. Pain and pleasure mixed on his brow as he moved faster. The hot water splashed and stung against us, making droplets slip down his face and neck. In the slick shower, it was difficult to maintain our position, and as his thrusts turned frantic, we were stretching and slipping, but unwilling to part.

  As if frustrated, he pulled me off the wall, and kicked the shower door open. “Where, baby?” he asked huskily, bobbing me on his dick, making it hard to think. “I don’t care where I have you,” he said, “as long as I have you.”

  “The…” I started, but stopped on a moan as he swiveled his hips. He flicked the water off and continued walking out onto the rug, moving me with his strong arms.

  “Where?” he asked again, giving me a squeeze.

  “Bed…” I breathed. “Take me on the bed.” We were still drenched from the shower, but I didn’t care.

  He walked across the room, stopping every few steps to thrust into me. When we hit the bed, my back went to the mattress, but he stood, tugging me to the end and grabbing my hips. The dim sun light filtered into the windows, and as far as I knew, we were alone, so I didn’t try to stifle my moans and neither did he. I tried to watch him from my elbows, but as he moved harder, I couldn’t and fell back. “I’ve missed this,” he said. “God, have I missed this.”

  My hands were gripping my hair, and my eyes were closed but I managed a strangled, “Mmhmm.”

  “Look at me,” he said. “I want to see your eyes.” I managed to open them, and he leaned down to clutch my face. Still standing, he moved faster, going deeper. My legs hiked, and his eyes never left mine, nor mine his. They were trying to tell me something. I brought my hands to his face, and whimpered. He kissed my palm, and started breathing heavily, but his eyes never lost their intensity.

  He leaned further over me, his hips rolling even harder, and his message was forgotten as he hit a part so deep it made me jerk. A gush of warmth rushed through me as he continued the pace. “Shit,” I strained out, sounding high pitched, and desperate. My head fell back as I enjoyed my orgasm with abandon, not caring about the sounds coming out of me. It became so intense, that I started pulling away from him.

  “Damn,” I heard him say, and then I was being flipped over. My hands clutched the blanket as he grabbed my hips and held them away from the bed, pounding into me. For what felt like forever, he kept me that way, cursing and groaning through it. His hands roamed all over my body, kneading, caressing, squeezing. When he finally tired, he pulled out and moved to lie on the bed.

  Without being asked, I scrambled to straddle him, clutching his face as he had mine, trying to give him my own message. Slowly, I eased down and moved my hips, rolling and jerking, not letting him participate. Our heavy, desperate breaths mixed as I took over. His hands squeezed my ass, as I rode him, and I couldn’t be sure, but I think my message was conveyed. His head fell back on a wince. “Get up, get up, get up,” he rushed out.

  Not knowing what the problem was, I quickly pulled off him and waited. His eyes were closed and he alternated breathing out of his nose and mouth. “Is everything okay?” I asked quietly. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “No,” he huffed, shaking his head vehemently. “Not at all. Just not ready for this to be over.” I wasn’t either. Waiting for him, I gave him soft kisses against the side of his mouth. After a moment, he took my hips and pulled them back down. This time, he did all the moving, squeezing me and not letting me respond to him. Forcing me to take it as hard or a gentle as he wanted me to. As I loudly gasped, he flipped me over to my back. All of my limbs came around him and my mouth went to his, my kiss telling him what I could never find the strength to say.

  By the time we’d finished, the sun had long since set, and we were both too exhausted to leave the bed. Naked, we fell asleep, spooning under the blanket. As I was nearly under, the last words I h
eard from him were, “I miss you, Marzy.”

  I may have told him that I missed him, too.

  I woke first, slipping out of bed without disturbing him. As quietly as I could, I readied myself for the day. He was still sleeping when I finished, clutching the pillow as he had been clutching me.

  I sat next to him and ran my fingers through his hair. He looked so peaceful and content. Here in New York it was as if none of our problems existed. It was easy to pretend that nothing had pulled us apart. He stirred under my fingers, smiling with his eyes closed. “Good morning,” I said. “Or good afternoon. It’s a little after 12.”

  “Seriously?” he groaned and rolled to his back.

  “Yes,” I chuckled. “You can keep sleeping,” I said. “I don’t mind. I’ll go pick us up something to eat.”

  “No, I want to go with you.” He rolled out of bed—not caring about his nakedness—and strolled into the bathroom, winking at me.

  A little while later, we rode to get lunch. In the booth at the restaurant, he sat next to me, keeping a hand on me the entire time, even while he ate. Instead of going home, he decided to take me to a park.

  It wasn’t far from where my dad lived and had a decent sized pond set in the middle of a bike and walking trail. Pretty trees and gardens were scattered throughout the grounds. Lucas bought a bag of bread from a little, old lady so that we could feed the geese swimming across the water.

  Before long, I had quite a gaggle surrounding me. He was sitting on the ground off to the side, watching me with a smile. The animals weren’t scary, but they kept eagerly chomping, and I was afraid that they’d nip a finger. Every time I squealed, he would chuckle. “They’re just geese, Marzy,” he laughed.

  “Oh, are they?” I said and threw a handful of bread in his direction.

  The geese took off towards him, waddling and squawking. His eyes went big as they charged. Before they reached him, he jumped from the ground and took some quick steps, stumbling out of their way. I’d fallen to the grass, laughing, as he tried to catch his breath. “Oh my God,” he breathed. “That was terrifying.” It was too much, and I fell back in hysterics. Suddenly, Lucas was over me, chuckling in between kisses to my neck. “You better stop,” he said.

  “Your face,” I laughed. “Oh my God, your face.”

  “That’s it,” he said, playfully. “I’m throwing you into the pond.”

  “No!” I giggled, trying to push him off me. It was no use. He was stronger and had me up and around him in no time. “Stop,” I begged, as we closed in on the bank. “Please, don’t.”

  “Only if you stop laughing,” he smiled. That was more difficult than he realized. I did try, but now I had the giggles, and my body was shaking as I tried to hold it in. “Come here,” he said, looking at me sweetly.

  Still smiling, I brought my mouth to his. Neither one of us were able to suppress our amusement, and were grinning as we pecked our lips together over and over.

  Holding me around his waist, we stood in the park, not caring about the people around us. Here, we were in our own little world, too consumed with each other to care.

  As we left, he held my hand and reached for it again when we were in his car. At my father’s house, he was all smiles, and I felt it too. Overwhelming happiness swelled in me. But then one thought, just one tiny thought, turned it sour.

  Candycane.

  She’d been in his phone as Candycane. The whole time he’d been here, he acted as if we were an item, and that we had been the past nine months. If we truly were, why was she in his phone as that? There were many other things, too. Little incidents that had nagged at me, but that I’d ignored or tried to push away. Now that I was thinking about having him, fully having him, I couldn’t decide if I trusted him to take care of my heart as it needed to be.

  We were in my room and he had his suitcase on my bed, going through it, not realizing that I was having this internal struggle. With a huff, I sat down on the opposite side and began fiddling with my fingers.

  “What’s wrong, baby?” he asked.

  So many things felt wrong. Or right, depending on how I looked at them. I was still a confused, broken mess. “Why is she in your phone as Candycane?” I quietly asked him.

  “What?” he said, instead of answering.

  I turned to look at him over my shoulder. “Candace. Why is she in your phone as Candycane?”

  He looked at me, either trying to decide how to respond, or where I was going with this. After a moment, he sighed and resumed rifling through his bag. “She just is,” he said.

  Tears came to my eyes. What was that supposed to mean? She was his Candycane? I was Her? “That’s not an answer,” I said.

  “I don’t know, Marzy. It’s what I used to call her. I just never changed it. If it bothers you, I will.”

  If it bothers you. No. It shouldn’t even be something that I had to be bothered by. If I were important to him, he would want to change it himself. “Let me get this straight,” I said, moving to face him. “You make out with her, let her sleep in your bed, and will change it if it bothers me? What the fuck do you think, Lucas? Yes, it bothers me. But what bothers me more is that you don’t even see how it could be something that would hurt me!”

  Upon hearing my outburst, he moved his bag away and sat on the bed. “I’m sorry, you’re absolutely right,” he said. “Don’t be angry with me.”

  His face was so sincere, and open. He didn’t want this fight, but I couldn’t keep holding all of this in. “Tell me what happened at the lake,” I said. “All of it. And why. I need to know.”

  “I didn’t want her to be there,” he said, his eyes pleading for understanding.

  “Then why did you ask her to come?”

  “I don’t even remember inviting her!”

  “That’s not an excuse. You still did.”

  He huffed, running a hand through his hair. “It was that night we got into it about Paul. I was really drunk. Bad drunk. I barely remember you being at my house. At some point, I guess I texted with an invite. I was being dumb and not thinking straight. Maybe I was trying to hurt you like I thought you’d hurt me. It’s not an excuse, I know.”

  My throat felt tight. I’d already surmised this much. “It isn’t,” I said. “Especially since I wasn’t doing anything with Paul. But what happened at the lake? Stop trying to avoid it.”

  He took a deep breath. “Fine. She called me that Thursday telling me that she was coming. I had no idea what she was even talking about, and told her that she was crazy. I didn’t want her there. That only pissed her off, and apparently I’d already given her the address, so she showed up anyway.”

  He reached across the bed for me, covering his hand with mine. I didn’t pull away, but didn’t offer any affection in return either. “I avoided her,” he said. “I didn’t speak to her, and I was never alone with her.”

  “Until the next night,” I said, pulling my hand out from under his.

  His fist clenched and he lightly pounded it on the bed. Knowing that I wasn’t going to let him off that easy, he hung his head. “Until the next night,” he repeated. “Dad and I had been drinking-”

  “Of course,” I muttered. It was always when he was drunk. Such a nice excuse. Next, it would be I didn’t mean to put it in her, Marzy. I swear. I was drunk.

  “We’d been drinking,” he continued, trying to ignore me. “Just having a good time. Candace wasn’t even with us. By the time Fontenot texted me I was toasted, but then I got worse. I kept imagining him with his hands on you. Babe, you have to understand, I had no idea where I stood with you.”

  He waited for me to say something. Clear that I wasn’t going to, he continued. “She found me alone on the deck. Dad had already gone inside. It was obvious I was drunk, and she just kissed me. Out of nowhere. I didn’t ask her to. I don’t even think I’d spoken to her.”

  “Did you kiss her back?”

  He swallowed, and I knew the answer before he told me. “Yes. But only for a lit
tle bit,” he rushed out. “Once I realized what was happening, I stopped it and went inside.”

  “How did she end up in your bed then?”

  “She followed me. I told her to leave. I swear I did. But she wouldn’t. She started crying, and telling me how much she loved me. Nothing I said would calm her down. Finally, I promised that we would talk about us later, but right then I was tired. She went to leave and after that, I fell asleep. I thought she’d gone. It wasn’t until the next morning that I knew she’d slept there the whole time.”

  So he was the one drunk during that conversation, not her. “Do you realize how embarrassing this is?” I asked. “I was at your parent’s house the next weekend, and they knew she’d been with you and no one said anything to me. They all knew.”

  “Marzy, they understood. They know how she is, and they knew how I felt about you.”

  “Well at least someone did,” I spat. “So that’s your excuse? You were drunk? That’s it? What’s going to happen the next time we get into a fight? Are you going to get drunk and call her to make you feel better?”

  “No!” He reached for me again, but I pulled away. “No. She’s gone. I told her that we couldn’t even be friends anymore.”

  “Was she the only one?” I asked, my voice cracking.

  “Yes. Absolutely yes. I never even touched anyone else.”

  I found that hard to believe. Especially in the beginning when I’d told him that I didn’t care. “What about Sandra on Halloween? You were upstairs with her for a long time, and then she was all over you that night at the bar.”

  “Sandra? No! I was just talking to her. When Ian told me you needed me, baby, I came.”

  “But you’ve been with her haven’t you?”

  “A long time ago,” he huffed. “Months before I even met you.”