by Lynne Jaymes
“You watch your tone young lady,” Gramps said. “Colored, Negro, Afro whatever-it-is. They was colored when I was a boy, and last time I looked, they’s still colored. Biggest mistake I ever made was to let you go to that artsy-fartsy school back east. Filled your head with all sorts of ideas.”
“Right,” she says, shaking her head. “Grand Junction has always been a hotbed of liberalism and justice.” Gram brings Gramps a sweating glass mug full of cold beer. He nods thanks and drains half of it in one go. It seems to calm him some.
“Now you mark my words,” he says when he’s finished. “This is bad news for all of us.”
“That’s right,” Mom said, not ready to give up the argument. “This place is such a paradise, we wouldn’t want anyone else coming in to share it with us.”
“I didn’t see you complainin’ none when I kept a roof over your sorry head when you came crawling back here with a baby on your back and no husband in sight.” He turns to me. “No offense.”
“Now Jed,” Gram says. She sits on the arm of his chair. “I’m sure it will be fine. Earl wouldn’t sell the place to just anybody.”
“That’s right, it will be just fine,” Mom says, mimicking her tone. “A little diversity isn’t going to kill you after all.”
Gramps grunts and downs the last of his beer. “I like my diversity a little farther away thank you very much,” he says and slams the empty mug onto the table.
Chapter Fifteen (Ty)
It’s already dark by the time we pull into the apartment parking lot. We’ve been quiet most of the ride home, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Supper was good and Gram makes some of the best fried chicken I’ve ever had, but there was something heavy in the air after Gramps went off like that and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. All I could think of was my dad and what he would have said to him. And what he would have said to me for just sitting there, silently watching the whole time. I glance over at Jenna in the passenger seat. She looks tired and worried and I wish there was something I could say to put her mind at ease. But all of the real, true things I could say to her would only make it worse, so although I’ve tried a hundred times to say something reassuring, not much has come out.
I turn the car off and reach for the door, but Jenna puts a hand on my arm to stop me. “Can we talk about it?” she asks, her voice barely audible.
I sit back in my seat trying to figure out what to do. This would be a good time to get out of whatever this is we’ve been doing the past couple of weeks. I could blame it on Gramps, tell her that I just can’t deal with her family. It would be easy. But I take one look at her brown eyes and know that I’m not going to. I’m not going to say what I should say because that will end it all for good. And even though that’s what would be best for her, selfishly that’s the last thing I want right now. What I want is more nights in the tree house, many more nights in her bed. I want to hold her hand as we walk across campus together and wait by the door for her to get out of class. One word of the truth is going to send all of those things crashing down around me. I can’t risk it. Not now.
“It’s okay,” I say finally. “Don’t worry about it.” I try to give her a smile, but I know it doesn’t erase all of the thoughts that have been racing through my head on the trip home.
“It’s not okay,” she says. “I know you think that Gramps is a white-hood wearing racist, and he does have a lot of old fashioned ideas, but none of the rest of us think like that. Mom went to school in Rhode Island for almost a year. I don’t agree with him at all, but when he gets in a mood like that, it’s best to just get out of the way and wait for it all to blow over.”
“I get that,” I say. I take her hand and turn it over in mine, stroking the palm with one finger. “Look, I’m in this with you. Not your grandparents, not your mom.” I lean in and kiss her softly on the lips.
“Good thing,” she says, kissing me back. I can feel her relax a little. “I hear Gramps is a lousy kisser.”
I groan. “Nice image to put in my head,” I say, climbing out of the car. “Thanks for that.”
I grab both of our bags and we walk upstairs. I’m not sure how to end this weekend. Part of me wants to climb in bed and have sex with her until tomorrow, but I know that we should probably give each other a little space.
“Do you want to come in?” she asks, when we get to her door.
“I do,” I say, bending to give her a reassuring kiss. “But I think I’m going to go home, do some work and go to bed early.”
Jenna nods. “Okay. I guess neither of us got much sleep last night.”
I grin. “For the best reasons.”
She digs into her bag and comes up with an unmarked white envelope. “Here,” she says, holding it out to me. “This is for you.”
“For me?” I open the flap and see a stack of green bills. “What the…?”
“It’s a thousand dollars. So that you can get your bike fixed.”
My heart sinks. “No way,” I say, handing it back to her. As much as I love my bike, I can’t take her money.
Jenna puts her hands up and won’t take the envelope. “You have to. It’s from Gramps. I told him what happened with your bike and he wanted you to have it.”
I stuff the envelope back in her bag. “I can’t pay it back. Between classes and the baseball schedule I can’t get a job right now. Take it.”
“No,” she says firmly, pressing it into my hand again. “Gramps said that you can work it off down at the shop when the season ends. A couple of weekends and you’ll be square.”
I hesitate. I can’t ask Dad for more money, he made that very clear the last time I asked. Plus, they don’t know about the bike and I want to keep it that way.
“Do it for me,” Jenna says. “I want to be on the back of your bike, cruising as far as we can to look at the stars.” This time I let her press it into my hand. “Call me selfish.”
“It’s not right,” I say, but I know I don’t have any other options. If I want the bike back, I’m going to have to take the money. I weigh the envelope in my hands. “If I take it, it’s just a loan. I’m going to pay it back as soon as I can.”
“Of course!” she says.
It doesn’t feel right, but I put the envelope in my back pocket because I don’t know what else to do. “Thank you,” I say, running my thumb down her cheek.
“Don’t thank me,” she says. “Thank Gramps. Apparently you made quite an impression on him.”
“Right.” If Gramps only knew the truth, there’s no way he’d be giving me an envelope full of money. I’d just be another useless colored person trying to cheat him out of something. Which makes not telling her feel even more wrong.
As if to seal the deal, Jenna wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me close to her. Kissing me hard, her lips open and taste of apple pie. She grins as she feels my hard-on growing against her leg, grabs her bag and puts the key in the lock. “Okay. I’ll see you later.”
“Mmm,” I say, covering my boner with my bag as I walk down the hall to my own apartment.
Without talking about it, Jenna and I settle into a rhythm, spending most nights together, often at her place because Jessie rarely leaves my living room and our PlayStation and her roommate Courtney is always out. Spring break comes and goes—I barely even notice because we’re away on a four-day road trip and Jenna spends it back home with her folks. In a matter of weeks, I’ve gotten to know every inch of her body, mapping it out with my hands and my tongue, which is why this many days away has been excruciating.
“Finally,” I say, spotting the campus bell tower in the distance. I gather up the books I’ve been pretending to read for the past few hours on the bus and shove them all into my backpack.
“Anxious are we?” Mitch says, popping his head over the seat behind me.
“Shut up. Tell me you’re not dying to see Nina.”
“I am,” he says. “We’re going out for dinner. Like civilized people.”
<
br /> I glance at him. “You’re obviously not getting enough.”
“Meet us out,” he says, not taking the bait. “We’re going to the Chinese buffet in an hour.”
“Nope,” I say, standing up as the bus finally pulls up in front of the gym. “I have other plans. I’m picking Jenna up at the studio and then we’re heading straight to her place.”
“Classy,” he says.
“Always,” I say, jumping into the aisle to be the first one off the bus. I exhale when I see my bike still locked up to the gate by the gym doors. I run my finger over the newly painted gas tank, a pang of guilt still surrounding me whenever I think of the thousand bucks they loaned me, but it’s good to have her back. The bike starts on the first kick, and I’m roaring out of the parking lot before the last of our guys even get off the bus.
It only takes a few minutes to drive to the studio and park my bike out front. There’s a partition separating the windows from the main room so I can’t see if they’re still working or not. There’s a burst of music as I open the front door, and peek around the wall to see Jenna, all alone in the middle of the floor. She’s wearing worn grey leggings and a black top with skinny straps, but I’ve never seen her look so beautiful. Coming out of a split she arches back, then up on one foot that’s bent in the toe shoe at an impossible angle, her other leg almost parallel to her head. As the music gets faster and faster, Jenna starts spinning on one foot until her entire body is a blur, stopping at the exact place where the music goes silent.
“Bravo,” I say, walking around the partition and clapping my hands.
“Ty!” she squeals and jumps into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist and covering my neck with kisses. She’s practically weightless—a tiny powerhouse on toe-shoes made of nothing but muscle. “You’re back,” she says, slightly out of breath. “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough,” I say, setting her gently on the ground. “That was beautiful.”
She pulls me down into a long, deep kiss that gets things stirring inside. “God I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too.” Her neck is salty with sweat and I want to inhale all of her. “Can you go?”
“Yeah,” she says, sitting down and untying the long ribbons that hold her shoes on and wrap halfway up her leg. There’s something undeniably sexy in that action. “Madame left me with the spare keys. I just have to lock up and set the alarm.”
I look around at the wall of mirrors that surround us. “You’re here alone?”
“Mmm hmm,” she says, grabbing a towel and wiping it over her face. She looks so innocent with her hair piled on top of her head, the tendrils falling to graze the back of her neck. Nobody would believe the ways I’ve bent her body to mine over the past few weeks.
I catch her hand as she reaches for her dance bag. “Lock the door.”
She rummages inside, oblivious to my suggestion. “I will. I just have to find the keys.”
“No,” I say, the idea getting more exciting. “From the inside.”
She looks at me quizzically for a second and then her face clears. “Here?”
I bite my bottom lip, thinking about all of the possibilities. “Damn straight.”
Jenna looks around the empty room. “Madame would kill me.”
I walk around the partition and flip the lock on the front door. “Madame doesn’t have to know,” I say, spinning her around with one hand and then pulling her to me.
She laughs a little, but I can see she’s considering it. “I don’t know…”
Instead of trying to persuade her, I bend to her, putting all of my desire and need into the kiss. Jenna drops her bag to the floor and wraps both hands around my waist. When her fingers find their way into the waistband of my jeans, I know she’s made up her mind. With almost no movement, Jenna unfastens my belt and hooks one finger in the loop, pulling me toward the wall of mirrors. She pushes my back up against the waist-high exercise barre, unzips my jeans and pulls them down to my thighs. My body is already on high alert when her tongue touches my cock and I grab the barre for support as I feel my knees shaking. I lean back against the mirror, totally focused on the sensation of her lips and tongue on me until I almost can’t take any more, so I reach down and pull her up off her knees. Without a word I spin her around to face the mirrors and slowly slide the workout pants down her thighs, exposing her perfect ass. I look up to see her watching our reflection, her brown eyes hooded as she licks her lips. I reach around in front and start stroking her, even more turned on when I feel how wet she is already. Jenna grips the barre with both hands as her head rolls back, her eyes close, and I can’t stand it another minute. Grabbing her around the waist with my left hand, I thrust into her from behind in one smooth motion, hearing her gasp as I push myself all the way in, not stopping until I feel her body press against mine. I watch her face in the mirror as she grinds against me, her ass pushing up against my thighs as my fingers work her clit in a frenzy of motion until she cries out, thrusting her head back and shuddering as she comes. I’m still riding the edge, so Jenna pushes backward and bends at the waist so I can put my hands on her hips as I drive into her, harder and faster until the room around us disappears and I pull her to me one last time, feeling her body surround me as I come in waves of pleasure.
I slip out of her as she turns to face me, one hand on my cheek as she kisses me squarely on the mouth. “Welcome home.”
Chapter Sixteen (Jenna)
Madame is working the class hard, but I can’t keep my eyes off the spot at the barre where we stood last night, where I bent over and let Ty take me until I was filled with him, where there are still tiny finger smudges on the mirror that we didn’t quite wipe off. Even thinking about it gets me hot, right here in the middle of class.
“One and two and three,” Madame intones, the stick she carries marking time on the wooden floors. “And finish.”
We hold our final poses for a few seconds, then relax and move around, gathering our things from the cubbies. “You coming to the game?” Nina asks, draping a towel around her neck. “We still have a little time.”
“Yeah,” I say, grabbing my bag. “I just want to get home and take a quick shower.” Because of our schedules I’ve only been to a couple of the baseball games and I’m actually looking forward to it. I love seeing Ty in his element, his passion is so visible when he talks about baseball.
“Jenna!” Madame calls from across the room. “May I see you?”
“Oh, right,” I say, reaching into my bag. “I still have her keys.”
“I’ll meet you at the game in an hour,” Nina says, slinging her bag over her shoulder.
“Okay. I’ll text if I’m going to be late.”
I walk over to Madame where she’s fiddling with the stereo at the back of the room. “Sorry,” I say, holding the keys out to her. “I forgot to give these back to you.”
“Thank you,” she says, putting them in the pocket of her skirt.
I turn to go, but she keeps talking.
“So everything was fine last night?” she asks.
I glance over at the mirror, thinking about how Ty’s face looked in it at the moment he came. The way his eyes closed and his fingers grasped my hips until the tips were white. “Yes Madame.” I know my face is red—I just hope she thinks it’s from the workout.
Madame tilts her head to look at me. “Your boyfriend—he is very beautiful, no?”
My heart skips a beat. Why does she want to know? “Tyler? I guess so. I think so.”
“I think he could be a dancer with those broad shoulders and slim hips.” There’s something mischievous about her eyes. When did she even see him?
I give a short laugh. “Ty’s a baseball player, not a dancer.” I glance at the clock. “In fact I have to get going if I’m going to make his game.”
Madame puts a hand on my arm as I turn toward the door. “Do you know the phrase about the ‘eye in the sky’? About how it sees everything?” She juts her ch
in toward the ceiling in the corner of the room.
I look back and see a small brown glass dome on the ceiling and I feel like I want to throw up. A camera. Why didn’t I think of that? Of course she’s got cameras in here—they came with the alarm system. “Oh my God.” I put both hands together. She’s going to drop me from the program I know it. I feel beads of cold sweat appear on my forehead. “I’m so so sorry. I didn’t mean for anything to happen! It’s just that I hadn’t seen him for a few days and—”
“It is okay,” Madame says gently, interrupting my rant. Her eyes look distant and a tiny smile plays around her lips. “I too once had a beautiful boy of my own. They are very hard to resist.”
I feel like I want to die. Did she see everything? The thought of her sitting down and watching the whole tape makes me want to run. “Did you…?”
She shakes her head and smiles sadly. “I did not watch the tape. Once I knew what I was seeing I erased the feed. Not to worry.”
“I’m so sorry! It will never happen again.”
Madame laughs. “I doubt that. I did get a look at your beautiful boy. That sort of passion cannot be tamed. It is the same passion that belongs to your dance.” She glances over at the camera. “But the next time, you may want to choose your location more carefully.”
“On the security camera?” Nina practically shouts. “Holy shit!”
I look around to make sure nobody near us in the stands is listening. “I know. I wasn’t even thinking. Madame said that she didn’t watch it and that she erased the tape but…”
“I bet she did,” Nina says. “I bet she sat there and watched the whole thing. Was it graphic?”
I nod, thinking about all of the things we did last night. “Very.”
“Awesome,” she says.
“Not awesome! What if somebody sees it?”
“I was kidding. I’m sure she got rid of it. Don’t worry.” She glances around us. “Did you guys do it, right there on the floor?”
I shake my head. “Against the mirrors.”
Her eyes get huge. “Oh my God. That’s insane.”
“I just…” I smile. “I just missed him so much. It’s like I can’t get enough of him.” I look out into the outfield where Ty’s standing, slightly crouched down, his glove against his knee. I’ve been so preoccupied with what happened with Madame that I’ve barely been paying any attention to the game. Just then there’s a pop and the ball sails off in his direction, but Ty’s too far back. Keeping one eye on the ball he sprints toward the infield, diving at the last second with his glove stretched out to snag the ball just before it hits the ground. There’s a cheer all around us as the team jogs in from the outfield and Ty drops the ball on the empty pitcher’s mound before he disappears into the dugout.