Tripp

by Kristen Kehoe

  This is how the beast is born. Right here, right now, staring at the girl I love—who knows me well enough to know there was a method to all of my asshole ways. I just hope she’s strong enough to take it.

  “Because…you were with someone else!” The words rip from me, pouring up and over—a dam unblocked after years of buildup—flooding over and out, saturating everything around it for miles. “Because…you let him touch you, and hold you, and dance with you…I couldn’t stand it. It made me insane.”

  I reach out, needing the contact with her as much as I need to purge myself of the words that have finally made their way from my mind to my lips. I tell her exactly why I went after her tonight—the pain eating at me while I watched her with Dean, the jealousy, the desire, the straight-up desire for her and only her. Then I lean forward so we’re sharing our breaths; the air she exhales I suck in, and I give her the largest truth of the night.

  “I’ll kill the next guy who touches you. They don’t deserve you.”

  Side note: when the girl you love isn’t afraid to take care of herself, don’t tell her you’ll kill someone else for her, because she’ll be determined to prove to you just how capable she is. Like Rachel, who promptly put her fist in my stomach the second after I spoke.

  “You don’t get to decide who touches me and who doesn’t, Tripp. Not now, not ever. I can take care of myself.”

  Challenge accepted.

  Her statement is smug, as is her look. Even though I’m leaned over on my knees, sucking in air, my body begins to tingle with the knowledge of a fight. Crying Rachel brings me to my knees. Aloof Rachel makes me weary and unsure. Fighter Rachel? Her I understand. Her I can deal with.

  Before she can get all the way past me, I snag her wrist, jolting her to a stop. Reams of satisfaction tingle through my body.

  “That’s the second fucking time you’ve punched me tonight.”

  Her eyes are slits as she responds to me while I straighten up from my bent over position. Goddamn it if my whole body isn’t throbbing in anticipation now. I know, sick bastard, but the electricity pulsing between us is causing my brain to short-circuit. My reason goes out the window—all I can see and smell and hear is Rachel as she throws the gauntlet.

  “That’s the second fucking time you’ve pissed me off.” I squeeze her wrist to let her know I’m ready, and she goes in for the kill. “Let me go, or there’s going to be a third.”

  I see her fist coming a mile away. With immense satisfaction, I snag it and twist, disabling her. Rachel isn’t thinking clearly because if she were, this move never would have happened. I have her hands captive behind her back, and the entire length of my front is molded to every inch of her back. Holy hell if I’m not turned on enough that my vision blurs.

  “I can do this all night,” I whisper, and I can’t tell if she groans or growls at me, but—Holy. Fucking. Hot.

  I’ve only been with one other girl in my life. What Rachel and I did that night so long ago? That was the most intense thing I’ve ever experienced. It was also the farthest I’d ever gone—not that I’ll tell her that. Lauren was saving herself until we said I love you. For some reason, no matter how badly I wanted to say those words just so she would let me touch her, I never did. Eventually, we slept together despite that. Though she said the words a time or two, I never reciprocated.

  Now, though, I’m holding the words back. The things I did with Lauren feel like eons ago and I know it was never like this. This crackling, tingling anticipation has everything in me ready to break down and beg before I explode. When Rachel curves her back and my front molds closer to her, I go blind, deaf, and dumb. I forget who I am. All I can think about is the girl in my arms who’s molding herself to me—the same girl who is now making me see stars. Literally.

  Rachel’s head slams into my face seconds after her foot crushes the top of mine. If it weren’t for the adrenaline moving through me, that move would have done more damage. As it is, I’m caught between admiration, pain, and laughter. She whirls on me with a fist; I snag it before she lands it on my nose. I use my body and my strength to pin her to the wall with her hands over her head. She struggles, and everything in my gets harder and harder until all I can think about is how she feels.

  “You’re fucking insane.”

  “Me?” she seethes. “You’re the lunatic who keeps manhandling me and calling me names—trying to tell me who I can and can’t hang out with.”

  She tries to throw me off by arching her hips and thrusting; my entire brain shuts down. I think I tell her to stop, beg her to quit moving because what she’s doing is making it impossible for me to do anything but feel her. Oh my God does she feel good. There’s energy with Rachel I’ve only felt one other time—when she and I came together. It’s something tangible, a force that pulls at me until all I can feel and think and smell is her.

  Just her. Rachel. Mine.

  She asks me one last time to move, to get off her. Her voice is strained—not from effort, but need. Like me, she feels the energy between us. Unlike me, she isn’t ready to admit it. I can’t move away from her, can’t let her go, can’t do anything but tell her the truth right now: I need her like I’ve never needed anything, and I can’t walk away.

  She’s stopped struggling now. Her breathing and mine are the only sounds. My forehead rests on hers, our eyes locked; in her, I see the same surrender I feel. Whether it’s actually there—or it’s what I want to see—I’m still not sure. I move closer, my cheek brushing hers as I skim her earlobe with my lips, inhaling her scent and taste.

  “Don’t. Tripp, don’t. It’s not fair.”

  In my head, I know she’s right. But touching her, feeling her respond to me—even when she’s not yet aware that she is—makes me need her in a way that’s so powerful it might rent me in two.

  “Don’t what, Rachel? Don’t want you? Don’t touch you?” I move from her ear to her neck, tasting the skin all the way to her collarbone, worshipping her with my lips the way I’ve wanted to for what feels like forever—ever since that first unexpected night that changed my life. “It made me crazy when I saw him kiss you tonight. When you put your arms around him and kissed him back, I thought I was going to kill him.”

  It’s the truth. I don’t know what I expect from her when I say it, but I have to tell her something—try and show her somehow what’s inside of me—but before I get the rest out, her lips are millimeters from mine; she’s no longer uncertain. She’s there to meet me, using her own lips to clash with mine. When she opens her mouth and allows my tongue access, I think I might die.

  Christ Jesus, here she is—the girl I dreamt of even when I convinced myself I shouldn’t. She arches against me. I keep both of her hands cuffed over her head in one of mine while I allow the other hand to sweep down her body. I pause at the gentle curve of her breast before moving farther down over her long torso to her hip and thigh. Pulling her leg around my waist, I flex my hips into her, ripping groans from both of us.

  I release her other hand because I need skin—the feel of her flesh warm and smooth and real beneath my hands. Wrapping her close, my hands under her shirt, I lose my mind when she hitches herself up and winds her legs around my waist.

  I don’t remember leaving the front porch and getting us to her bedroom, don’t remember walking down the hall or closing doors; all I can remember is tasting her, feeling her, and hearing her sigh each time my tongue tangles with hers. Rachel, my Rachel, is finally beneath me and I didn’t know it could be like this.

  I’ve had some pretty grand dreams in my eighteen years, but never have any of them come close to what I’m feeling now as I sweep her shirt off and fill my hands with her breasts; her fingers scrape and pull at the skin of my back. When I move lower to her nipples, I swear I could get high on the sound she makes.

  It’s like that every time I touch her—her response is uninhibited, primal, alive. I strip her of her clothing quickly, hating to rush, but knowing if I don’t touch her, all of her, I
might lose it. Somewhere at the back of my brain is a nagging fear—an awareness that we never talked. I never finished telling her everything I feel…but when my fingers find her and push her up and over that first wave, my tongue meeting that juncture between her thighs at the same time, that feeling and all others give way to this moment.

  Rachel is beautiful every day. She’s beautiful on the court, as a mom, as a person. She’s beautiful when she’s mad, and heartbreakingly fragile when she’s sad. But when she’s lost in passion, her beauty is unrivaled. Every passion she’s ever had comes to the surface, exploding until she’s the living embodiment of life.

  As she trembles through the aftershocks of her orgasm, I kiss her everywhere I can, stroking her hair and her cheeks, my lips nuzzling as I tell her everything I just saw and what it made me feel.

  I love you, my heart screams. I know this isn’t the time to tell her—not when we’re naked and vulnerable, or when she might think it’s a line, something I use as a thanks or a bargaining tool. To keep the words inside, I kiss her again, tangling my tongue with hers. She’s shaking, and because I can’t resist her taste, I move to her breast again.

  When I hear her ask me for a condom, my heart stops—that nagging feeling is back, full throttle, asking me if this is real or somehow I’m making a mistake. If it’s a mistake, it’s ours; nothing and no one is making me walk away from this girl tonight. We deserve this—here and now, we deserve each other.

  I shift, digging through my jeans, flipping my wallet open, and sliding out a condom. I roll back to her and make quick work of it. Then I shift back to the welcoming cradle of her thighs, meeting her mouth with mine. It’s a kiss that says everything—the passion, the love, the need, and when I pull back to look at her, I search her eyes and wonder if she feels it too.

  My heart seizes for a second when she breaks eye contact quickly, forcing my lips down to hers in a move I’ve perfected over the last year. Then I’m rocking with her—inside of her—becoming a part of her. Moving with her, I can’t think of anything but Rachel, and what she does to me.

  17

  Past

  The elevator ride is far from silent as my mother is next to me, but I’m not aware of what she’s saying. I stopped paying attention to her at the breakfast table the minute I got the text from Katie.

  Katie: Flow had her baby. Go visit her in the hospital.

  My first though was, had? As in, she’s not in labor anymore, and I’m just finding out about this now? When I texted this to Katie, she responded no more than ten seconds later.

  Katie: Not everything’s about you, dickhead, especially this. Go see her.

  Katie: And be nice.

  She added the last text before I finished reading the one before it. I clenched my teeth; I couldn’t retort, because after previous behavior, she has a right to say shit like that. So, now I’m on my way up to Rachel’s room to meet her baby. I feel cheated somehow that I didn’t know Rachel was in labor. I know Katie’s right, and Jesus is that a bitter pill to swallow. There are things that are off limits; being there with her when she brought her baby girl into the world is probably one of them.

  We step out of the elevator and onto the maternity floor. I’m struck with how happy it is. And how secure. There are locked doors and alarms everywhere—sign ins and sign outs, and rules the nurse hits us with when we say Rachel’s name and get our visitor badges.

  I remain silent the entire walk from the sign in counter to her room, shifting the gift bag nervously in my hands. My mom’s holding flowers—something she said all mother’s need. I nodded, but asked to stop at Rachel’s house on the way to the hospital. I might not know a lot about new mothers, but I know Rachel. I know what her go-to comfort outfit is.

  I’m holding a bag of her original Marvel-Comic Wolverine T-shirt and her oversized OSU Nike sweats, along with a Snickers bar and some Baked Barbecue Lays—wondering if I should really be here. For the first time since we started talking again, I find myself hesitating over the idea of seeing Rachel.

  I know my mom’s next to me, staring at me, but I can’t look over—just like I can’t make myself move. Rachel’s on the other side of the door I’m staring at. Everything I feared in the least eight months will be real once I open it and see her with her daughter.

  Daughter.

  Rachel is a mother. There’s nothing I can say or do to change what that means; I can’t help but wish that I somehow could. It’s stupid—beyond pointless—but right now, I wish like I have a thousand times in the past months. I yearn to be able to go back and change something, one thing, that could change this outcome right here—that Rachel wasn’t the one who paid the price for our recklessness.

  When the door opens from the other side, I step back and almost clobber my mother. “Good Lord, Jackson, settle down before you scare someone. What is wrong with you?”

  It’s a long list, Mom.

  Dr. C is on the other side of the threshold, holding the door open with a slight smile on her face. “Tripp, Georgie, come on in. The baby was just taken to get some shots and a jaundice check; I don’t know when she’ll be back, but Rae’s in here.”

  When she brushes past me, my mom gives me the look that says “get your shit together.” I take a deep breath and scrub my free hand over my face before stepping inside the room. The lights are dim, only the one over the small chair by the window is on. There are flowers and balloons, some teddy bears and a depleted bag of chocolates on the table. It makes me smile to think of Rachel eating her chocolate. I nod at Stacy, her older sister, who’s standing near the window, her arms crossed over her chest. She gives a smile in return before walking toward her mother.

  When I’ve looked at everything but the bed, I take a deep breath and turn. She’s wearing a hospital gown and her hair is piled on top of her head. Her face is pale—a stark contrast to her normally warm skin. My mom is talking to her quietly, but I can’t see Rachel’s face fully enough to understand how she’s reacting. I wait, happy to take in details before she notices me—gathering my strength for the moment she does so I don’t go and say something stupid… or nothing at all.

  I’m standing just inside the door and when Dr. C says my name, Rachel’s eyes veer to mine. I try to swallow through the dryness in my mouth, offering a small and stupid wave with the hand that holds her present. I want to make a wisecrack, to say something that lightens the mood, but our eyes are locked; there’s something in hers that keeps me from saying anything. I vaguely hear my mom tell me she’s going to get coffee with Rachel’s mom and Stacy, but I don’t dare glance away from Rachel as she keeps that gaze steady on mine.

  My heart’s pounding, but I stay still, waiting until the door to her room is closed and we’re alone before I try to talk. Looking at Rachel has made me weak; I don’t know how or why or what to do about it, but I do know I don’t want an audience.

  “Are you just going to stand there gawking at me?” she finally asks, and it breaks through the fog enough to have my feet moving. I pull a chair up next to her bed and sit so we’re eye level. When silence threatens to descend again, I toss the package on her lap with more force than intended. She winces, and I feel like an epic failure.

  “Sorry,” I mumble, heat crawling up my neck. Christ, maybe this is why she didn’t call me. Awkward much?

  “No worries. I just pushed a human out of my body from a place I can assure you that—no matter what my mom says about biology and chemistry and their ridiculous powers—was not meant to do that.”

  I grimace, involuntarily clenching my thighs at even the mere mention of the horror. “I don’t want the details, killer.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  She’s not laughing. Neither am I. She can’t see me shrug because she’s picking at a loose ribbon on the gift bag that holds her things. “I guess, because I wanted to see you. And because Katie texted me.”

  “She did?”

  I nod when she glances at me. Then I ask, even though I know
I shouldn’t. “Why didn’t you? Text me, I mean, or call me?”

  She shrugs and goes back to staring at the gift bag. I clench my fists in my lap to keep from putting my hands over hers and forcing her to look at me. It takes her two minutes, but she finally answers me, her eyes never wavering from the bag.

  “I guess…I didn’t know if you’d want to be here. I mean, this is weird, right?”

  I nod because it is weird, but then I put my hand over hers and wait for her to look at me. “Maybe it’s awkward, but I still wanted to see you. I’m still glad I’m here.”

  I’m nervous. Rachel isn’t the most open person—far more comfortable with yelling and innuendoes than talking about actual feelings. After what seems like an eternity, she nods. “Me, too.”

  I smile, the pressure in my chest easing. “You should open the bag—it might help you feel a little better.”

  She does, and her eyes fill, and the tears spill over. This time they’re less involuntary sobs like they have been the past few months, and more of a racking sob that shakes her whole body. I reach to pat her head; she slaps my hand out of the way and I nod, accepting the decision because, Jesus, is she a dog? I shove my hands back into my lap, aware that I’m way out of my depth.

  “Shit, Rachel what’s wrong? Should I call the nurse? Your mom?”

  I’m panicking, the tightening in my chest making it difficult to breathe. The one thing I was sure she would need has sent her over the edge. She shakes her head to all of my suggestions, but it doesn’t keep me from making more. I break down and offer to call Katie, though I know if I do, she’ll have my balls, blaming me for this.

  I stand to take my phone out, ready to dial and willingly put my own head on the chopping block when Rachel puts her hand on my arm and says my name through her sniffles. “Tripp, don’t. I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine, Rachel. You’re crying.”