Crush

by West, Heather

  Quickly, I looked away.

  We took our seats at the front pews, sliding in next to one another. Dad sat next to Danny, who sat next to me. I ended up at the end next to the aisle but was relieved at least to have Danny beside me. His leg brushed against mine and I bit my lip, ignoring the quick rush of heat that flooded my body.

  This was not the time for things like that.

  From where we were seated, I could just barely see the profile of her face. It was the tip of her slight nose and the curve of her forehead and little else. She looked pale, but otherwise beautiful, perfect even. Like she was just sleeping and might wake up at any moment.

  The thought made me shiver, and I looked down, away from the casket and the disturbed feeling it gave me.

  It just wasn’t right.

  The priest took up the podium and spoke kind words about how she was a good woman and would be arriving into God’s warm embrace, entering the pearly gates of heaven happily and warmly. I didn’t know what I thought about that, but it was a nice image so I tried to take some comfort from it.

  Helena, Selene’s older sister, took the podium next. She looked similar to Selene with her dark hair and eyes, but was a little heavier with deeper lines drawn across her face. She looked like the type of woman that had seen hard times and expected them only to get harder.

  I wasn’t close with her though she had a decent relationship with Danny. He was her favorite nephew—her only nephew—and for the first ten or so years of his life, she’d doted on him constantly. Things had changed after Selene had left her first husband and remarried. Helena was old school, believing that once you married, that was it, and the remarriage had caused a lot of friction between the sisters.

  Danny had gotten caught in the middle.

  Over time, Helena eventually came around, patching up the relationship with her sister, but it was never quite the same. Danny still cared for his aunt, I knew, but they weren’t as close as they had once been.

  I had never really known the woman; she had no interest in the daughter of her sister’s second marriage.

  Helena spoke of Selene when she was a child, how vibrant and fun loving she had been. Her words were soft and soothing, giving us all a little peace, even if it was the saddest kind. Beside me, I could feel Danny stiffen.

  He was trying to keep it together, I knew. My dad, too.

  It was funny, though, I was the one who seemed to be falling apart. I thought of all the times that Selene had proven herself as much my mother as my biological mother had been, caring and sweet even though I wasn’t hers. She’d welcomed me into her life and her arms without question, embracing me like any mother might. It left me feeling as though I was part of the family, regardless of how that family had changed or formed again.

  It was all too much and I couldn’t hold back the tears. I did my best to keep them soft, quietly letting them fall down my cheeks, but I couldn’t help the slight shake of my shoulders.

  Danny must have felt me shaking beside him because he lifted his arm and draped it about my shoulders, pulling me close to him. I felt his lips at my ear—a shiver ran through me, treacherous and inappropriate, but delicious just the same—as he whispered, “It’ll be okay, Ash, I’m here.”

  I let myself lean against him and soaked in his warmth.

  His hand smoothed down my arm gently, rhythmically, warming me through the fabric of my sleeves. I closed my eyes as I leaned against him, unintentionally breathing in his deep masculine scent. He smelled so good. He felt good. His warmth and the hard muscles of his body hiding beneath the fancy custom tailored suit.

  Perfect.

  My mind flashed back to images of last night and long passed memories of him with other girls. I thought of the things he did to them and the things I wished he would do to me. Wetness pooled between my legs, making me too hot and uncomfortable.

  I silently cursed myself, remembering that this was Selene’s funeral! I had no right to feel these things at all, but definitely not now. Definitely not as her son grieved. It was wrong to lust after him like that.

  But I couldn’t help it.

  When the service was finally over, we all said our goodbyes—I had to go up to the casket, looking at her face, painted perfectly, but so still and pale that it just wasn’t right—and then we left. Not everyone was going to the wake though most people who attended the funeral had been invited. The wake was going to be at dad’s house—there were hors d’oeuvres and trays of food being set up by a catering company while we were gone—and we were all headed there now.

  I took the time during the drive home to clean myself up in the backseat, fixing my makeup where it had smeared from my tears, and adjusting my hair though it looked much as it had that morning when I first fixed it.

  When we got home, the catering service was just finishing up the plates of food. There was also a temporary bar set up with several bottles of alcohol provided.

  I made a beeline for those though I probably shouldn’t have.

  Pouring myself a drink, people started to file in and one of them approached me.

  “Ashley?”

  I looked up to see the half smiling face of Melody. I tensed. She was still beautiful, but her blonde hair had been cropped shorter and there were bags under her eyes. A quick glance down showed that her stomach was huge, and it wasn’t because she was fat either.

  “Melody!” I exclaimed, not really sure what to think of seeing her here. Had she really been that close to Danny? I’d thought she was just one of his… fly by night girls as I liked to call them. “What are you… How are you doing?”

  Grinning, she gestured to her engorged belly as though in answer. “Pregnant, but good. Really good. I got married last fall.” She flashed me her ring, average sized and pretty. “Little one should be here by winter.”

  For a moment, I had no idea what to say. I was strangely relieved to see the ring on her finger and her belly fully of little baby bits, but it was also weird to see the promise of birth at Selene’s funeral.

  It was a good thing, I thought, and I had a feeling Selene would have approved.

  “Congratulations,” I managed to get out. “Guess that means none for you?” I gestured to the drink I’d poured myself.

  She shook her head. “Nope. I wanted to say how… how sorry I am for your loss. Your mom was such a great woman.”

  I didn’t correct her that Selene had been my stepmom, not my mom. It wasn’t an important distinction to me and just because people called her that didn’t negate my birth mother’s roll in my life.

  “Thank you,” I told her sincerely. Resisting the question for a moment, not sure if I really wanted to ask, I finally said, “Have you seen Danny yet?”

  Melody shook her head, her curls bouncing around her face. “We’ve sort of lost touch over the years, but I really just wanted to offer my condolences. Is he around?”

  I nodded. “I think he was in the living room the last time I saw him.”

  Smiling, Melody thanked me. Hesitating for a moment, she gave me a hug and told me to be strong. She waved then and headed towards the living room to find Danny. She didn’t have to search hard. I saw him appear in the doorway just as she was about to walk through it. She caught him there and they talked for a moment; I took a drink.

  The alcohol warmed my body, easing some of the nerves that were threatening to swallow me whole. Danny and Melody continued to talk in the doorframe, but I noticed that Danny’s eyes kept shifting. To me.

  Taking another quick sip of alcohol, I tried to dodge his gaze. I couldn’t deal with the strange, heated look in his eyes right now.

  When someone else came up to me, I was relieved.

  “Don’t suppose you remember me, do you?”

  He was a man, young, but probably a little older than me. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. Biting my lip, I gave him an embarrassed smile. “I’m sorry. You look really familiar, but I can’t quite place you.”

  He offered a
genuine smile. “Don’t worry about it. It was a long time ago. Mike ring any bells?”

  I wracked my brain trying to place the face with the name. After a moment, I finally managed it. “Oh! Mike! You were our neighbor from across the street.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. It’s been a while. How have you been?”

  I shrugged my shoulders, my smile falling.

  Suddenly, he looked mortified. “Wow. I’m an asshole. I can’t believe I just asked you that. Your mom just died; of course, you’re not doing great.”

  I waved off his apology, looking past him to once again catch Danny’s gaze focused on me. His dark eyes were heated, burning with something unrecognizable as he looked between Mike and me. He was still talking to Melody, but he didn’t seem very invested.

  Clearing my throat, I said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been good. This has been hard, but I’ll pull through, you know?”

  “Yeah, you were always tough like that.”

  “Thanks.”

  We drifted to silence and he scratched at the back of his head awkwardly. Finally, he said, “I’m really sorry for your lost. Your mother was a good woman.”

  I nodded my head and thanked him again. He lingered a little, talking about high school and how things had been before. We talked about the neighborhood and what he’d been doing since moving away. He was nice and the conversation was good, but I just wasn’t invested in it. I couldn’t be. I was too distracted by Danny’s heated gaze and Selene’s death and my father who kept wandering around from person to person, looking lost and devastated and dazed all at the same time.

  It was too much.

  Interrupting him in the middle of his sentence, I offered him a weak smile and apologized. “I’m sorry, but I just need a minute.”

  Before he could say anything else, I moved away from him. Danny and Melody were still in the doorframe, so I had to push through them if I wanted to make it to the stairs. I wasn’t thrilled by that—I didn’t want to be that close to her and I couldn’t be that close to him right now—but I did it anyway.

  “Excuse me,” I said, my eyes locked on Danny’s, my voice too breathy for its own good.

  Before I could weasel through them, Danny asked, “Are you okay?”

  I nodded stiffly, tearing myself away and hurrying up the stairs. I just needed a moment.

  Chapter Six

  I talked with Melody for maybe another fifteen minutes. She had always been a chatty one, pretty close to the top of a list of reasons why we’d never worked. Flirty, pretty, and looked an awful lot like Ashley.

  If I were being honest with myself, that last part was exactly the reason that I’d gotten with her in the first place.

  I was grateful she was married now and big enough that she looked about ready to pop. It was a relief because she’d been one of the girls from high school that had gotten attached. For a while, I’d been worried she would turn into one of the crazies, but it looked like she had really mellowed out since high school.

  When Ashley pushed through us, racing up the stairs, my first instinct had been to follow her. She looked so upset, on the verge of tears or panic or both, and I wanted to comfort her.

  Yeah, comfort, my own mind whispered back to me, reminding me of the dirty things I’d imagined her doing the night before. Of the dirty things, I wanted to do to her.

  I tried to convince myself that all I wanted was to offer her some comfort, but the heat that was boiling inside me told me that I had ulterior motives. I wasn’t going to do anything—we couldn’t, we were stepsiblings—but I had to admit to myself that I wanted to. Badly.

  Finally, I managed to get away from Melody. She took a break in her rapid-fire conversation as her baby kicked in the belly. I encouraged her to get off her feet, and she smiled up at me, bright and grateful. That was when I slipped away.

  I made my way upstairs, my aim to find Ashley.

  It didn’t take a genius to guess she was in her old room, so I headed that way, going down the hall all the way to the end. Her door was half closed and I knocked gently. “Ashley?” I called.

  Ashley was sitting on the bed when I pushed open the door, worried that she hadn’t answered me. She looked beautiful in her black dress and her sheer stockings, but she looked grief-stricken, too. I sometimes forgot that, although my mother was not her mother, the woman helped raised Ashley. They’d been close, Ashley’s own mother gone before I’d ever met her.

  Until this moment, I hadn’t considered what it felt like for her to go through a funeral so much like her own mothers.

  My heart ached thinking about my mom, but it ached for Ashley, too, wishing for nothing more than her happiness. It would make me feel better than just about anything right now.

  “Ashley?” I tried again, walking further into the room. Music began playing downstairs, echoing up the stairs and down the hallway to us, filtering in through the open door. It took me a moment to realize it, but they were my mother’s records playing. Laughter lifted up after them, and I should have been glad that people were celebrating her life instead of mourning her death.

  But I wasn’t. I was just lost and sad, empty with a strange weight that was more than I knew what to do with.

  “Selene loved this song,” Ashley said suddenly as an old record played a love song. “She used to sing it with me right after you guys had moved in.”

  My heart ached as she said that, but at the same time it, swelled. Ashley had loved my mother so much.

  “I’ll bet that was quite the duet,” I told her quietly, smiling wistfully. I knew what a great voice Ashley had and my mother hadn’t been bad, either.

  She choked back a sob, then nodded her head, but she couldn’t say anything. In answer. The music grew louder and the laughter did, too. Although I liked hearing my mom’s music, it seemed too much right then. I needed things to be softer, gentler somehow.

  Going back to the door, I shut it carefully, dulling the sounds from downstairs. I walked back into the room and took a seat beside Ashley.

  Her cheeks were rosy and I could smell alcohol on her breath; she’d been drinking. I had, too, honestly. As soon as I’d walked through the door and knew I wouldn’t have to get in the car again for a while, I’d cracked open a beer. Vodka had followed pretty close after that and now I had a decent buzz going on. It looked like maybe she did, too.

  “I didn’t think I’d miss her this much,” Ashley admitted to me, sounding both surprised and guilty.

  “You loved her,” I said. Frowning, I added, “It doesn’t mean you don’t love your mom, too.”

  She let out another sob and I pulled her into my arms, holding her tightly against me. She felt warm and supple, softer than I remembered her being in any hug before this. My hands went to her hair, caressing the soft strands as I murmured gently to her.

  “Everything’s going to be okay, Ash.”

  She clutched at my shirt, holding me closer to her. “I don’t believe you,” she said, clinging to me. “Make me believe you?”

  If asked later how it started, I wouldn’t be able to say. But I couldn’t help or hide the erection that started in my pants as I felt her warm and pliant pressed against me. And I couldn’t help the intense physical attraction I had always felt for her, urging me forward, encouraging me as her leg somehow ended up half in my lap, pressing against my length.

  And when she tilted her head upwards to look at me, licking her lips and staring down at my mouth, I wouldn’t be able to say for sure, but in that moment, I knew she kissed me first.

  Her mouth fit against mine, hard and urgent. Her hands clutched tightly at my shirt, holding me there, afraid I might disappear if she released me. But I wasn’t going anywhere. Her lips tasted like alcohol and cherry chapstick, soft and urgent all at the same time. They were softer than anything I’d ever touched.

  I should have known then that I couldn’t have stopped things once they started.

  Ashley’s tongue slid against my lips and I groaned, my ere
ction straining against my pants. My mouth opened and my tongue slipped out to meet hers, desperate to taste her insides. She moaned into my mouth and shifted her body. I didn’t realize what she was doing until she’d thrown one leg on the opposite side of my body, straddling my lap, her core hovering dangerously close to my hard member.

  My hands went to her hips automatically, squeezing them and pulling her down on top of me harder. She groaned again as she slid along my aching cock. My heart hammered in my chest, my blood pumping down south fast enough that for a moment I worried I might pass out. Her hands went to my hair, digging through my dark strands, nails racking along my scalp. She bucked her hips, causing friction between our most intimate places.