by R. J. Sable
“I’m not sure,” I frown. I wasn’t expecting it but I haven’t been kissed since the night he saved me. The two kisses can’t even be compared. One was an assault, the other was a tender gift that I will never forget.
“I didn’t mean to force you,” he stumbles over his words, obviously cautious.
“You didn’t,” I reassure him with a smile. “I just didn’t expect it.”
“You should have,” he grinned. “I’ve been wanting to do that again since I first saw you in the goth get-up.”
“Really?” I cock my head at him. “Even before you knew it was me?”
“I think I always knew it was you. I just thought it was too good to be true. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
I smile a sad smile and look up at him again. “What’s going on with us, Karl?” I ask because even though we’re being light and playful, I just kissed my friend and so much has just happened. I’m not sure what to think.
“You’re my girlfriend now. Congratulations.”
“You can’t just tell me I’m your girlfriend,” I frown at him, removing my hand from his so I can shove his chest lightly.
“I can and I did.”
“Doesn’t make it true.”
“Does too,” he grins. “You said we couldn’t be friends. This is the only option you have left.”
“What’s in it for me?”
His response is to kiss me again and I warm up from the inside out. There’s no tongue and I like that. I like that he just brushes my lips with his and holds me in his arms.
“Wagon Wheels,” he whispers and the decision is made.
Apparently, I have a boyfriend now.
“I won’t make a very good girlfriend, Karl,” I warn him. “I have nothing to offer you. I’m not perfect. I can’t do… intimate stuff. I can’t make you happy.”
I told you, honesty is my policy.
“Elise, being happy doesn’t mean being perfect, it means you’ve decided to look past the imperfections,” he holds me captive with his gaze and keeps his hands on the side of my face for good measure.
“I don’t want perfect, darling. Perfect is boring. I want you and nothing else.”
“I can’t do the girlfriend things, Karl,” I stress because I can never have sex with him. I know I’ll never enjoy that.
“Elise,” Karl sighs, brushing his lips over mine briefly. “I don’t want any of that. I want you. I want the arguing over stupid things. I want your stubbornness. I want the way you challenge me and make me a better person. I want the way you fight something fierce for what you believe in. You. Just you, Elise.”
“What happens when you want more?”
“There is no more for me. Only you.”
The thing is, I know he’s telling the truth. I can see it in his eyes and it makes me want to start crying again.
“Stop lying to yourself, Elise,” he continues before I can answer. “I know I’m more than a friend to you.” He smirks at this and locks his arms around my waist once more. “I see the way you look at me.”
“How do I look at you?” I whisper.
“Like I’m a Wagon Wheel,” he grins and I laugh. I have to because I’d be hard pressed to choose between him and my delicious round treats.
Karl grins and pulls me off the table. He tugs the blankets off of us and folds them before putting them back in the ottoman. He lets me keep his jumper which is probably for the best because I'm never giving it back anyway.
“I told you I had dibs on you,” he smirks.
“I almost removed your gonads when you said that,” I remind him because I still might.
“I was right,” he shrugs, wrapping his arms around me tightly so there's no chance of retaliation.
I'd knee him in the aforementioned gonads but he rubs his cold nose against my even colder one in an Eskimo kiss and it's so sweet that it makes me forget to hurt him.
“Were you seriously offended?” His cinnamon breath warms my cheeks and I sigh contentedly.
I nod and nuzzle closer because, despite the fact I'm wearing his jumper, he's warm, and soft, and… Karl.
“I only called dibs so Matt would back off,” he says seriously, tucking my head under his chin.
“What?” I frown. “Matt?” The notion seems stupid; Matt's never even so much as flirted with me.
“Matt,” he repeats and it's almost a growl. “He was looking at you wrong.”
“How does somebody look at me wrong?” I snicker.
“Like he wanted to see you naked.”
“Ew,” I retort because Matt and naked are not two things I need associated. He's not bad looking but he's... well he's Matt.
“I love the guy but he treats girls worse than Ian,” Karl grumbles. “I was saving you.”
Sure. He had honourable intentions.
And Shelly and I will be best friends one day and win the lottery three weekends in a row.
“If I call dibs, he knows to back off because I do it so rarely,” Karl continues.
“So that's the only reason you tried to claim me?” I ask sarcastically, stressing the word try because I'm my own person. Nobody gets to claim me.
“Well, that and the fact that I actually do have dibs on you,” he smirks.
“Karl,” I warn, trying to worm my hand up his stomach so I can turnip him.
He squeezes tighter so my hand can't reach its destination. “I've had dibs since we were six,” he growls seriously, surprising me by kissing my forehead. It's such a tender gesture and it contrasts with the growl in his voice.
“I'm not an object,” I growl back, only my growl is in anger.
“No, you're my best friend. You're the girl who lay under the apple tree with me. You're the person I've thought about every day for the last ten years and now you're my girlfriend.”
He takes my breath away slightly but not so much that I can't snap back. It's sweet but he still can't call dibs on me.
“You've had dibs on me too,” he cuts me off with a pre-emptive strike.
I open my mouth to say that I never asked for dibs but he cuts me off with another kiss. I swear I can feel energy coming up through his feet, his body, his lips, and anchoring me to him before it leaves back into the Earth.
I suppose he can have dibs on me if I get him in return. And kisses. I think I might be addicted to his kisses. It’s like his lips have erased the presence of their predecessors. Don’t get me wrong, kissing him when I was ten was kind of nice but nothing like this. This kiss is like a peaceful storm. It’s serenity and an emotional tsunami all at once.
“That definitely looks like canoodling,” a gravelly voice booms from the darkness.
I cringe and grasp balls of Karl’s t-shirt in my hand. Is there anything more embarrassing than being caught kissing by somebody’s granddad?
“Your father specifically said no canoodling, son,” Peter emerges with a stern expression on his face and Karl shifts his body so I’m tucked behind him.
I nudge him out of the way because he’s not taking the fall for this. I was definitely an active party and I knew the rules.
“Sorry, Peter,” I frown apologetically.
“Sorry,” Karl nods. “It won’t happen again.” He squeezes my hand subtly and locks fingers with me. I’m not sure if he’s trying to communicate something to me or give me a cue but I’m not big on being told what to do. Especially by him.
“Not the most convincing apology,” Peter frowns. “Twenty ought to change that.”
I cock my head at Karl because I remember how this works but he can’t seriously expect me to do twenty push-ups.
“Can I do thirty and let Elise do ten?” Karl chirps, accepting his punishment without protest.
Peter smirks slightly and opens his mouth to speak but I cut him off because I’m not about to put up with that.
“Why?” I slap his arm lightly. “You don’t think I can do as many as you can? I’ll do my own thank you very much.”
Peter just chuckles and look
s at us expectantly.
“Suit yourself,” Karl smirks, dropping down onto his toes and hands and holding a plank as he waits for me to do them.
I know he’s waiting for me to prove a point and he’s going to do them at the same pace as me.
I figure he must be freezing since I still have his jumper so I get down into position quickly so that I can show him I’m tougher than he thinks.
Peter counts as we complete our punishment and I can feel Karl’s smirk from a foot away as I try my very hardest not to grunt.
I’m not oblivious to the fact that we’ve probably been in this scenario a million times before in years past but this is the first time I’ve passed the time by imagining what Karl would look like if he was doing them without the cotton t-shirt.
The very soft, cotton t-shirt. It’s not really fair to put his t-shirt through this ordeal. He should probably have taken it off.
“Twenty,” Peter smiles as we shove up from the ground.
Karl’s breathing is slightly laboured but nowhere near as much as mine and I want to punch him for looking so smug about it.
And I would if my arms still worked.
“Your form was awful on those, Elise,” Peter shakes his head and tuts.
Karl smirks at me and I narrow my eyes at him.
“You need more practice,” Peter continues and I see the humour in his eyes. “And you’ll get it if I catch you again.”
He turns and strolls back into the house and we follow at a slight distance. Karl and I exchange a look as the light of the house illuminates his face and we both grin because we understood what Peter was saying.
If I’m not mistaken, he was encouraging the canoodling.
Canoodling.
Definitely on my list of favourite words.
And pastimes.
We pass Andrew and Peter in the kitchen and go down to the den to re-join the others.
“Elise!” Jamie cries out, she looks slightly worried so I bend down to her level to talk to her.
“What’s up, sweetie?” I ask her fondly.
“It’s bedtime,” she pouts.
“Bedtime?” I raise my gaze and cock my head at Ian because I haven’t had a bedtime in a long, long time.
“For Jamie and Jake,” Ian explains with a grin.
“Okay?” I prompt because I still don’t get the relevance.
“Ian said I could stay up for five more minutes because I wanted to say good night first but I couldn’t find you,” she mumbles, playing with her fingers.
“Well, maybe me and Karl can take you to bed and say good night?” I prompt, grinning at her.
She beams and nods excitedly, looking up at Karl for his approval.
He pretends to sigh and think it over but it doesn’t matter. I’ve made the decision for us. Girlfriends get to do that, right? I chuckle inwardly. I have no idea what girlfriends do but this is Karl and he can like it or lump it. I want to take Jamie up to her room.
“Come on then,” Karl grins, lifting Jamie up and passing her to me.
“Ugh,” I grunt because my muscles are still sort of dead from the push-ups.
“I’ll carry her,” he chuckles and I know he did it on purpose so I glare at him and make a mental note to make him suffer when I regain feeling in my limbs.
Ian carries Jake on his back and we take the two of them to separate bathrooms to clean up.
Jamie seems completely unperturbed about me being in the room as she gets changed and it’s sweet watching the way Karl is with her as he carefully tugs her top over her head.
Once she’s in her pyjamas, I kneel down so I can give her a good night hug. She’s very huggable.
“Night, Elise,” she whispers sleepily. “Thank you for the pizza.”
“You’re welcome, sweetie. Sleep tight.”
Honestly, I only gave her one slice. Ian made sure she had enough after that.
Karl lifts his sister into bed and bends down to kiss her on the forehead. He whispers something in her ear and she nods with a smile before snuggling up with her stuffed elephant.
“What did you say to her?” I prompt because I’m nosey and I figure that’s okay now that we’ve kissed.
“I asked her if she’d like it if you came over a bit more often and she seemed to quite like the idea.”
I grin back and take the initiative to loop my fingers with his. I blame Becky. She’s made me into a hand-holder.
Chapter 24
“About time,” Ian laughs as we come into the room.
Everyone looks up at him and I think they assume he means we took too long putting Jamie to bed but I know better.
Too fudging observant.
I know he sees a change in Karl and me. I know he can tell something is different.
I released Karl’s hand as soon as we started on the stairs to the den because I know him. I know he likes to act a certain way in front of others. I know that any intimacy between us has always been private and we’d both like it to stay that way.
We don’t say anything; we just slouch down into the sofa next to Becky Blossom and Rob. She seems much more comfortable in his knee now and I have to say, his thighs don’t seem to be complaining in the least.
I know Karl will want to tell Matt about us and I will obviously want to tell Becky so we both keep quiet because neither of them has the right to know before the other.
Shelly is thankfully fairly quiet, mostly because she’s attached to Matt’s face. I kind of wish Peter would come down and punish their canoodling just so I wouldn’t have to watch it.
Long after Craig has gone to bed, we’re watching horror films and I yawn. It’s late and it’s been kind of a long day emotionally.
“Tired, Elise?” Karl whispers in my ear. His hand is around me again but I no longer feel the desire to break his fingers. I might if he tries to remove his hand. I’m realising I’m quite attached to it.
“Yeah,” I sigh. My plan was to stay up all night because I’m not good at sleeping somewhere that isn’t my sanctuary.
“Come on,” he pulls me up from the sofa.
“No. What are you doing?” I frown at him.
“I thought you could sleep in my bed,” he cocks his head at me in confusion like he can’t understand why I’m resisting.
“I’m not going to sleep,” I shake my head at him.
“Elise,” he sighs. “Becky is having Ian’s room.”
Because her Dad insisted on it at a guess.
“There’s a lock on the door,” he adds in a whisper and I suddenly understand.
He knows why I wasn’t planning on sleeping. He’s been in my sanctuary and, since he seems to know me quite well, he knows I have trouble feeling safe when I sleep. He probably understands it more than most after witnessing first hand.
I just stare at him in response because, for such a big, gruff guy, he is incredibly thoughtful and I feel a little guilty for not being so considerate with him. I’m not sure if that makes me a bad girlfriend.
“Here’s the key,” he hands me an old-fashioned iron key once we get in his room. “That’s the only one so please don’t lose it.” The corner of his mouth pulls up slightly. “I’ve changed the sheets and stuff and nobody will disturb you.”
“Thank you,” I mumble, still slightly shocked by his forethought. I’m also slightly grumpy that he’s changed the sheets because I wouldn’t have minded trying to sleep in wood stain and cinnamon scented bedding.
“You’re welcome,” he grins.
It’s like we suddenly both realise we’re alone again and the air grows thick, emphasising the distance between us. I grab the soft cotton shirt and tug him closer because I’ve spent far too long without touching him and I need him closer.
You know, just in case he does something stupid and I need to hurt him.
“You really don’t have any manners do you,” Karl smirks.
I raise an eyebrow at him but that’s all the answer he gets because I’m too busy staring at his
lips and wondering if I imagined how good they felt against mine. How right.
“Kiss me again,” I demand.
He complies, placing his hands delicately on my waist but he complies in his own fashion. He wouldn’t be Karl if he didn’t.
He starts by gently pressing a kiss to the tip of my nose, his eyes still open as he does so. Then his warm lips flutter over my right cheek, powdering tiny kisses along the side of my face until he reaches my ear.
I have no idea what he’s doing but, as he gently sucks my earlobe into his mouth, I don’t care any more. It’s kind of an odd thing to do and not something I’ve experienced before but oh my holy Earth mother does it feel good.
I swear it makes my toes tingle and I can’t explain it.
He doesn’t linger long, he continues kissing a path down to my jaw and then slides his hands from my waist round to my back and buries his face in the nook of my neck.
“That wasn’t what I was after,” I grumble half-heartedly because it was quite nice and this cuddle is pretty comfortable as well.
He responds by kissing my neck and I tense and shove him off me. I scramble backwards and raise my hands slightly, ready to push him off.
It’s not a conscious decision and I hate myself for doing it but he can’t kiss me there.
“Elise,” he winces guiltily.
“You can’t do that,” I threaten him. I’m furious because I told him I couldn’t do intimate stuff.
I warned him.
“I can’t kiss your neck?” He takes a step back and cocks his head at me.
I kind of expect him to look annoyed or angry but he just looks upset.
I shake my head firmly because I can’t talk and control my breathing at the same time.
“Okay,” he nods. “Sorry.”
“I told you I can’t do that stuff,” I growl.
He frowns. “I didn’t realise that included kissing your neck. I won’t do it again.”
“You won’t get a chance,” I scowl, sitting down on the bed with a sigh.
“I can kiss your lips though, right?” He asks, sitting down with me.
I notice that he sits a good foot away and I appreciate it.
Lip kissing is fine so I nod and pick at my thumbnail. I hate that I just went from wanting him as close as possible to pushing him away and wanting to punch him in the face.