Where I Belong (Alabama Summer)

by Daniels, J.

  “I’ll pick him up after work on Friday,” I say. She acknowledges me with another nod but her gaze never leaves the spot on the floor she is boring a hole into. I close her apartment door behind me and make my way out to my truck.

  It’ll always be like this with Angie. Even giving her what she wants, us, won’t change the person she truly is. She’s a bitch by nature and I’m tied to her for the rest of my life. But I don’t care how she treats me. She can spew all her poison at me and I’ll fucking take it. She gave me my son. And he’s the only thing that matters.

  Chapter Ten

  Mia

  “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” I direct toward my best friend who is currently rummaging through my clothes. For my date, no, friendly hang out with Ben and Nolan, I pick a pair of skinny jeans and a white tank top. I think this is very appropriate for going to a medieval dinner show as friends, but Tessa has other ideas. Articles of clothing are getting hurled into the air as she stays hidden in the closet I’m occupying for the summer. I step behind her and start grabbing clothes out of the air. “Do you mind? You’re going to be ironing all these after you pick them up.” I chuck the handful of clothes I’ve managed to catch onto my bed.

  Tessa emerges from the closet with my teeny tiny jean skirt and a tube top. “Strip. You package yourself up in this hot little number, and I guarantee my brother will be unwrapping you with his teeth later on tonight.”

  My best friend has a one track mind. A very dirty one track mind.

  I snatch the hot little number that I am definitely not wearing out of her hands. “This is not a date so there won’t be any unwrapping going on.” I toss the outfit onto the bed and continue brushing my hair in front of the mirror. “I told you, we’re hanging out as friends. There’s no need for me to be wearing anything revealing.”

  She plops down on the bed, sighing dramatically because this is Tessa we’re talking about. “Who the hell goes from a night of unbelievable nine inch pussy humming sex to hanging out as friends? Did you both hit a large rock when you jumped off those cliffs last weekend? Is your brain currently swelling and causing you to act like a complete idiot?”

  I pin half of my hair up before I turn and look at her. “I’m just now getting used to the idea of not hating Ben for the rest of my life. Do you have any idea how dead set I was on that game plan? I was close to having a voo-doo doll made of him.”

  “And now you two have bumped uglies, and you’re just going to pretend that you didn’t.”

  I grunt my frustration and shoot her a stern nook. “No one’s pretending anything. He asked me to give him a chance and I’m giving it to him. As friends. It would be really shitty of me not to.” I turn back around and continue messing with my hair. There’s no way I could ever pretend that Ben and I didn’t share that one night together. If it was possible to forget, I would’ve forgotten about it already. Lord knows I didn’t want to be reliving it every night alone in my bed. That memory was sticking around permanently. And what a memory.

  “I don’t see why you can’t give him a chance while he’s between your legs. You’d at least get some relief if he was fucking you into the friend zone.”

  “Pwincess Mia!” Nolan’s husky voice comes echoing down the hallway.

  “Hold on one second!” I snap my head around toward a grinning Tessa. “I really hope your nephew didn’t hear that,” I scold her, but she merely shrugs her shoulders in response. I grab my phone and stick it into my pocket, stepping in front of the mirror one last time. My hair is definitely not behaving, doing this weird curl thing at the bottom that I am so not digging. And of course, the more I mess with it, the worse it gets. I grumble my irritation under my breath.

  “Mmm mmm,” Tessa teases. “Just friends my ass.”

  I ignore her and apply some lip gloss. “What’s up with you and Luke? Are you two serious?”

  She rolls over onto her back, moaning playfully. “Luke is fun. Really fun. Tie me up and own my body fun.”

  I should be shocked by that description, but I’m not. Tessa is into anything involving men. Especially when it involves fun stuff. “But not serious fun?”

  “I don’t know. I like him and he likes me. I don’t need anything more than that.” We meet each other’s eyes in the mirror. She wants to tell me more, I can tell, but decides against it and gives me a sly smile instead. “How many condoms will you be taking with you tonight?”

  “You are ridiculous.” I flip her off over my shoulder, walking down the hallway and into the living room. Nolan is swinging his sword in the air behind the sofa, slaying invisible enemies, but my eyes don’t linger on him. They can’t. Not when he is in the room. All my focus is magnetically pulled in the direction of Ben who is leaning against the counter. He straightens when he sees me, melting me with his smile that beams like a thousand watt bulb. If I was wearing heels right now, I definitely would’ve stumbled.

  “Hey,” he says, twirling his keys on his finger. It’s so casual, like any normal greeting between friends, but his greeting makes my spine tingle and my toes curl. God, how does he do that? How does he turn a simple hey into so much more than that? I feel that hey settle between my legs and root itself there permanently.

  “Hey,” I reply, trying to sound as sure and steady with this whole friendship thing as he does. However, my hey comes out broken and weak, giving away my anxiety. Although, even if I wouldn’t have spoken, I’m sure my body language would be displaying my nervousness for all to see. I am completely rigid and the conversation with Tessa that just transpired moments ago is playing on loop in my mind.

  Pussy humming sex.

  Fucking into the friend zone.

  Condoms.

  Oh God, do not get wet right now. I drop my eyes to Nolan, needing a distraction.

  “Pwincess Mia!” He runs over to me and I bend down, bringing myself down to his level. My worries and desires are left above me as I focus in on his cuteness. “Daddy said we’re going to a surpwise.” He reaches out and runs his finger down my nose and I do the same to him. His tiny face scrunches up afterwards.

  “We are. But I have to ask you a question before we go.” His eyes get even larger, grayish blue just like his father’s, as he waits for me. “Have you ever been to a real castle, Sir Nolan?” He shakes his head and his mouth drops open. “Would you like to go to one right now?”

  I’ve never seen anyone go from one emotion to another so quickly. If I blinked, I probably would’ve missed it. He begins jumping up and down, almost knocking me onto my ass in the process. “A weal castle! Daddy! Pwincess Mia said we can go to a weal castle!”

  Ben laughs as I stand up. “You ready to go, buddy?” He picks a squirming Nolan up and smiles sweetly at me. “Are you ready, Princess Mia?”

  Am I? For friendship with a man that I can’t stop thinking about? Pussy humming sex. Shit. I force a nod and swallow down my fear. “Lead the way, noble knights.”

  **

  Nolan’s excitement was infectious and it grew as the evening played out. When we pulled up in front of the castle, he couldn’t get out of the truck fast enough and practically sprinted toward it. When he got his picture taken with the King, he couldn’t take his eyes off him, even when Ben and I told him to look at us so we could take pictures of him with our phones. He stared at him with eyeballs the size of dinner plates, his mouth forming a tiny O. It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. And when the actual show started and Nolan got to see the knights in action, jousting and sword fighting right in front of him, I don’t think he blinked even once.

  And then there was Ben. I kept catching glances from him the entire night, meeting his eyes every few minutes when I couldn’t keep myself from looking at him. I’m sure my struggle was obvious, considering he caught me each and every time I gave into my temptation. But the look he shot back at me wasn’t the one I was used to. It wasn’t the look he gave me when I knew he was thinking about doing things to my body. I was familiar with that look. The
greedy shift in his eyes, the tightness in his jaw, the way his nostrils flared like he was a caged pit bull. But I didn’t get that look tonight. Instead of the raw thirst I had seen in his eyes on more than one occasion, I saw tenderness. A friendly affection. He regarded me sweetly but there was nothing behind it. No underlying hunger.

  And God, I wanted to be devoured by him.

  “He is completely passed out.” I observe, walking next to Ben and focusing on Nolan’s exhausted face. I reach up and brush his wild brown hair off his forehead, smiling at his sleepy state. “I don’t even think an actual dragon could wake him up right now.”

  Ben opens up the back door of his truck, laughing softly at the sight of Nolan’s face as he peels him off his shoulder. “I figured he’d crash hard after all of this.” He buckles Nolan into his car seat, closing the door and grabbing the passenger door handle. “I may have withheld his nap from him today in hopes of getting to talk to you alone on the drive back. My son likes to monopolize the conversation, as you witnessed on the way here.”

  I smile, climbing up into the truck after my door is opened for me.

  Nolan talked nonstop on the drive to the dinner show, and every time Ben tried to talk to me about something other than dragons or knights, Nolan would adorably cut in and change the subject. I’d be lying if I said I’m not grateful for Nolan’s missed nap.

  I settle into my seat and buckle up. “I can’t say I blame him. Dragons and knights are way more exciting than what Tessa and I did today.”

  He closes my door and gets in on the driver’s side, starting up the truck and pulling away from the castle. I inhale, taking in Ben’s scent that has completely filled the space between us. He smells like pure Ben. No cologne, just him. Like a man that knows exactly how to please a woman. Shit. Don’t go there. “How’s your mom doing? Tessa mentioned a few months back that she was really sick. Is it breast cancer?”

  I cross one leg over the other, angling my body toward him. His one hand stays firmly planted on the wheel while his other relaxes on the console between us. I’m glued to his fingers, the fingers that I moronically doubted that night. I didn’t think there was a chance in hell he’d get me off the way he did. And now that I know what those fingers are capable of, I’m fascinated by them. I actually can’t stop looking at them. The length, the thickness, the fucking tips of them that played me like a record. I want him to turn his hand up so I can straddle his fingers and ride out my pent up orgasm right now, but that’s not going to happen. He clears his throat, gaining my attention and I’m quickly reminded of the question he hit me with before I wandered off into finger fucking la-la land.

  I paint on my most convincing I wasn’t just fantasizing about what you could do to me face and answer. “Yeah. She’s doing great right now. The treatments aren’t making her nearly as sick as they did in the beginning. It was awful when she first started them.” He glances over at me and gives me a sympathetic smile. “She wouldn’t eat anything and she didn’t have the strength to get out of bed. I couldn’t leave her side for more than a few minutes at a time because she was constantly getting sick.”

  “But she’s doing better now? Does she still have it?” he asks, turning onto the main highway that led to Ruxton.

  I nod once. “Yeah, she still has it, but I guess the treatments are working because she’s doing so much better than she was. I think she’s gotten most of her strength back.” I lean my head back against the seat rest, shifting my eyes from Ben’s profile to the road in front of us. “I just, I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to her. She’s the only family I have left besides my aunt.”

  The hand that I had longed to mount reaches over and grabs mine. He squeezes it gently, comforting me. “Nothing’s going to happen to her. And she’s not the only family that you have. Tessa would kick your ass if she heard you say that.”

  I laugh and he smiles at me. His eyes shift to our conjoined hands. After one gentle squeeze, he lets mine go. I hold in my disappointment and rejoin my own hands together in my lap. “So, Officer Kelly.” My God, does that have a ring to it or what? Images of him doing things to me in that uniform flash in front of my eyes too fast to focus on. I blink rapidly as his eyes meet mine and darken. And that look, the look that he’s hitting me with is directly connected to the pulsing spot between my legs. I clear my throat and the dirty thoughts from my mind. “Do you like being a cop?” Good save. I hide my heated face behind the strand of hair that fell out of my clip, shifting my attention to the road in front of us. My body goes rigid when his hand brushes my face, tucking my hair back behind my ear.

  “I do,” he replies coolly as if he didn’t just touch me. As if he’s completely unaffected by that touch. His hand returns to his lap before he continues, his eyes returning to the road as mine neglect it completely. I am entirely too focused on him and his smooth voice. “It’s never boring, that’s for sure. Plus Nolan gets a kick out of it.” His lip curls up into a smile. “When he’s not playing knights, he’s usually playing cops and robbers with me.”

  I look to the back seat at a very sleepy little boy whose head is slouched against his car seat. “He really is the cutest kid I’ve ever seen.” I pry his wooden sword out of his hand and place it onto the seat next to him. “You’ve raised this incredible little boy, Ben. If I ever have kids of my own someday, I hope they turn out as awesome as this one.”

  Our eyes lock. “If there was any woman that was born to be a mother, it’s you.”

  He means what he says. I can feel it. I settle back into my seat and stare at his profile. “Really?” I’ve never given much thought to having children, mainly because I’ve never pictured the person I would someday have them with. When you’ve gone twenty-three years without a boyfriend, it’s hard to imagine having a husband.

  He looks over at me like I’ve just asked him the most ridiculous question. Deep crease in his forehead and a curious frown. “Are you kidding? Look how you are with Nolan.”

  I shake my head in disagreement. “Nolan’s easy though. He’d probably love anybody that played knights and princesses with him.”

  “You’re not just anybody. You knighted my son, which he hasn’t stopped talking about, you gave him this amazing memory tonight, and he does the nose thing with you.”

  I furrow my brow, confusion setting in. “The nose thing? Oh, you mean when he runs his finger down your nose? That thing?”

  “Yeah. Do you know he only does that with me?” He pulls off the highway and onto the back road leading toward the house. I shake my head and he sees it before continuing. “I’ve never seen him do that with anybody else. Not Tessa, not my parents, and definitely not his mother. I don’t know why he does it, but he’s only ever done that with me.”

  I suddenly feel horrible, like I’ve barged in on a private Ben and Nolan bonding activity. “I’m sorry. He did it to me when he woke me up the other day and I did it back out of reflex. I didn’t know that was your thing.”

  “Mia, relax. I like that he does that with you. I like that that’s something you and I share with him. He’s only known you for a week and he’s already formed this special bond with you. You’d be an amazing mom.” He pauses, glancing in his rearview mirror. “You’d be better than the one he has.”

  “She’s not good with him?” I only have concern in my voice, but the thought of someone not being good to Nolan makes my blood boil. I keep that emotion tucked away though.

  Ben shakes his head. “She doesn’t spend time with Nolan because she wants to spend time with him. She does it to keep him from spending time with me. She’s never been a good mom to him. When he was a baby, she refused to breastfeed him because she was so worried that it would wreck her body. I begged her to do it because I knew it would be good for him, and she still refused.” His hand that is gripping the wheel seems to grip tighter. “I hate leaving him with her, knowing that he’s probably being neglected. Something could happen to him because she doesn’t pay attention and the t
hought of that…” His voice trails off and I don’t think, I just move.

  I push up the flip console and slide across the bench seat, pulling his free hand into mine. “Nothing’s going to happen to him. You can’t think like that, it’ll drive you crazy.” He glances over at me, our bodies pressed up against each other’s. I squeeze his hand the way he did mine when he was comforting me moments ago. “You’re going to worry about him because he’s your son, but you can’t let that worry eat you up. Just focus on your time with Nolan. Focus on making him happy every second you’re with him, because that little face back there should always be smiling.” The truck had stopped in front of the house sometime during my speech, but I have no idea when. I am purely focused on easing his troubled mind. Seeing him like this is heartbreaking.

  He stares at me with fascination. “You’ve given my son more in one week than his mother has in three years. You have no idea what that means to him. What that means to me.” His neck rolls with a deep swallow as he glances down at our hands that are interlocked in my lap. “How did I not see this amazing girl nine years ago?” His thumb grazes the skin of my hand, rubbing it softly.

  I don’t know how to answer him, so I watch him study our hands instead, admiring his features while he admires our connection. His long dark lashes and prominent cheek bones. He seems drawn to the very sight of our hands together, but that look of interest doesn’t linger. Exhaling loudly, almost frustratingly, he slides his hand out of mine and bypasses my gaze to look at the dashboard. “It’s late. I should probably get Nolan to bed.”