The Ground Beneath

by Stephanie Vercier

  But he’s not alone.

  A woman, basically naked, is against the wall, her arms and legs locked around Josh, one stiletto dropping to the ground as he groans into her.

  So much for the no touching rule.

  With a grimace, I turn away, ready to bolt.

  “Hey!” he calls out, his voice loud and slurry. “You finally—grunt, grunt—joined us!”

  “We need to leave,” I order him, still averting my eyes.

  “I’m not leaving until”—he manages, his groans accompanied by a shrieking, high-pitched sound of faked pleasure from the woman he’s screwing—“until… ahhhh… until I’m finished here!”

  I pull out my wallet, grab two hundred-dollar bills and let them slip to the floor, deciding this woman isn’t doing this for free. “When you’re done, would you call him a cab?” I say, hoping that, between her porn-star cries, she’s listening to me. “I’m taking your SUV, Josh. You’re in no state to be driving.”

  “Don’t be a pussy!” he calls after me. “She’s got a friend. She’ll let you fuck her. Or you can fuck this one too!”

  I stop listening to him, and it’s only when I’m out of the club and can take in the cool, fresh air that I feel like I can finally breathe again.

  “You can stay with me tonight if you don’t want to go back to Sheila’s,” I tell Alli, really wanting to tell her she could stay with me every single night of her life.

  “I might take you up on that,” she says, taking one last forkful of the dinner she’d made for us, butternut squash ravioli, green beans and baked potatoes. We’d gone to a grocery store to pick the ingredients up earlier, her insisting that she hadn’t been able to cook in a while and had missed it and me never having had something like butternut squash ravioli in my life and willing to try it.

  “You’re a great cook, you know,” I tell her, having greedily taken a second helping while she’d still been working on her first. “I don’t think anyone has cooked for me since…” I shake my head.

  “Your mom?” She can read my mind, offering me a faint smile, one that is kind and compassionate.

  I’m glad I told her about how much I miss my mother and my aunt, how things hadn’t been the same after I’d lost them, because she understands that part now. She can just smile at me and say I know, and it’s all that needs to be said. But there is more to tell, a past I wish I could just erase.

  “Are you thinking about her now?” she asks me, and I realize I’ve been quiet, lost in my thoughts.

  My phone rings, lighting up from the counter where I’d left it. It’s an interruption that maybe I should be thankful for, but I’m not.

  Alli turns to the counter. “You can get that, you know. I don’t mind.”

  I shake my head. “I’d rather not. I like the idea of tuning everyone but you out.”

  She laughs when the phone keeps ringing and says, “But the outside world doesn’t want to be turned off. Just check it, and I’ll start the dishes.”

  I reach for her wrist when she picks up my plate. “Alli, you don’t have to—”

  “I like doing dishes once in a while,” she says. “I actually find it calming.”

  “Fine, okay,” I say, releasing my light grip on her wrist.

  “Go and check your phone,” she instructs before she stacks her own plate on mine and then heads into the kitchen.

  I don’t know why I hadn’t just turned the damn thing off. Maybe it’s because I was worried about Josh, afraid I might get a call from the hospital saying he’d been run over or beaten up or died of alcohol poisoning.

  “Hey,” I answer, having made my way into the living room.

  “Hey,” Josh says from the other end, sounding a lot like he’s nursing a hangover.

  “You okay? I parked your SUV at your place and caught a cab back to mine.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he says, clearing his throat, then adding, “I was calling to apologize, and I didn’t really want to leave it on a message or whatever. So sorry for blowing up your phone.”

  “No… that’s okay.” I turn away from Alli who’s filling the sink with water and dirty dishes and humming softly. “I just can’t be around shit like that anymore, Josh. So, yeah, maybe I am changing, and I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not sure I was ever supposed to be.”

  There is silence at the other end before Josh finally says, “Does that mean we were never supposed to be friends?”

  “No, not at all. I just think our friendship is going to have to change.”

  “More golf and fewer strip clubs, you mean.”

  I allow myself to laugh at that. “Yeah. You think you can be okay with that?”

  He lets out a long breath. “I have to be, don’t I? I mean, I’ve been your friend because I genuinely like you, man, like a brother I never had. So, I won’t get laid as often without you at the clubs with me, but I’m okay with that.”

  “I appreciate that, man.”

  “I know I should probably grow the fuck up too, maybe stop having sex with strippers.”

  “Yeah… that was…” At this point, words fail me.

  “I know… I know. At least I used a condom, and I stopped her after you left. I don’t know, the whole thing felt nasty... I mean, from my end. I’m not saying she’s the nasty one.”

  “I guess that’s good… that you stopped.”

  “Gave me blue balls, but, whatever. I gave her the rest of what was in my wallet. She seemed… appreciative. She dropped the whole porn-star stripper act and thanked me, said she’s trying to put herself through college.”

  “Not the easiest way to get through school,” I say, knowing how lucky I am to make what I do with my job, fully realizing a lot of people have to give up parts of who they are to earn a living.

  “Guess that makes me part of the problem,” he grumbles.

  “You want to talk about that?” If he wants to unload feelings, I should probably do my best to listen.

  “No… no, that’s okay. That’s what my therapist is for.”

  “You have a therapist?” More than anything else that has happened today, this is what actually floors me.

  “Not a very good one apparently, but my mother’s convinced seeing a shrink is the only way to get through life.”

  “You can talk to me,” I offer. “I’ll work at being a better friend.”

  With a small chuckle, he says, “No offense, but I need to haul my baggage to an objective third party, even if he’s a creepy little shit. But I appreciate the offer, and I’ll try to be better too, a better friend I mean.”

  “Sounds good,” I say.

  “It actually does. Talk to you soon, man.”

  And then he hangs up.

  I used to get in fights in high school, usually the kind that started when I told one of the guys on the team to quit picking on a kid half their size and they chose not to let up, would tell me I was taking things too seriously. But I’d once been that kid who couldn’t fight back, so laying someone out flat was fueled just as much by anger over a crummy childhood as it was trying to do the right thing. And for that, people were wary around me, that I could be chill one minute and then turn on a dime.

  I kept friends because I was the best football player on the team, not because of my winning personality. And the girlfriends I had were for only one thing, and they were just as happy to move along as I was. So, when I left Mountainside with a full scholarship and what people called a bright future, I knew that nobody except for maybe my high school coach was really going to miss me. My dad was drowning in alcohol and disease and the angriest kind of depression. Keith was already living on his own and working long hours at construction or at tow yards or really anything he could get. Billy was closer to Keith than me, still in high school and probably glad to see me go so people would stop asking him when he was going to get his head out of a book and start playing football.

  I’d stopped talking to the guys I grew up with in Mountainside a long time ago, most of
them thinking fame, even the kind I found in high school, made me a self-important dick. So, knowing that Josh would actually miss our friendship fills me with a pride I haven’t felt in a long time. It makes me imagine that he sees beyond what I’ve shown to him, that he doesn’t want to ditch the person I’ve been hiding for the last twenty years.

  I turn my phone off, set it on the coffee table and then return to Alli in the kitchen. “Just my buddy Josh that called,” I say, sliding my hands around her waist.

  “Everything okay with him?” she asks.

  “Looking that way,” I say, not wanting to go over the gory details of what happened earlier. “We could leave those for the morning, you know.” I just want to be with her, dirty dishes be damned.

  She drops a cup back into the sink so that it clatters and then leans back into me. “Okay. As long as you make it worth my while.”

  “Oh, I think I can do that.” I wrap her tightly to me, kissing her neck and then, when she turns just the right way, her lips.

  She moans softly, and I’m hard in an instant—she does that to me, just the thought of her. Then I’m leading her to my bedroom, the need to be with her my entire focus.

  “Take your clothes off for me?” I ask once we’re in my room. I’m desperate to be inside of her, but I don’t want to rush everything, don’t want to miss the visual feast of her body.

  “If you want me to,” she says, just a little shy.

  “Yeah, I do,” I say, and I sit on the edge of the bed, my eyes glued to her.

  I love seeing Alli in her clothes, the way everything she wears conforms perfectly to her, but I love watching her slip out of them even more. She unbuttons the small buttons of her blouse, then pulls it away from her smooth, cream colored skin, revealing a lace bra that makes it very difficult to remain seated. The blouse hits the floor, and her attention moves to her skirt, unzipping the back so that the material practically floats down her long legs. She stands before me, in nothing more than her heels, panties and matching bra now. I’ve been with beautiful women before, seen plenty of them, but there is something that radiates from Alli that makes her the most beautiful, the most flawless, the most perfect, and meant for me.

  And I can’t stay on the bed any longer.

  I’m up and dragging my hands all over her body, unclasping her bra and burying my face between those beautiful breasts of hers. She moans when my lips cover her nipples, and I push my crotch up against her, my cock so hard that it might just explode if I don’t get out of my clothes.

  “Let me help you,” she says, her slender fingers working the button of my jeans and then my zipper.

  “I want to fuck you so bad,” I growl.

  “Not make love to me?” she asks with the sweetest smile that it nearly undoes me.

  “I can do both at the same time,” I say, letting out a groan when she traces the edges of my cock beneath my boxers. She raises her lips to mine, and I kiss her, so deep that I don’t ever want to come up for air.

  It’s not enough to just touch now—I need all of her. I rip off the rest of my clothes while she slides out of her panties, and then I’m pulling her into bed with me. She’s flat on her back, and I’m above her, spreading her silky smooth thighs.

  “You sure I’m not going to hurt you?” I ask, wondering if—but hoping she won’t—need more time to recover.

  “It’ll be worth it if you do,” she whispers, her voice so perfectly feminine and alluring that it undoes me.

  Like I’ve been waiting to do this my entire life, I push into her, that first touch of friction bringing both immense relief and need. I go in deeper, and she sucks in her breath, her eyes going wide. “You okay?” I ask, all of the sudden worried. “You want me to take it slower?”

  She wraps her arms around my neck, pulls my face to hers and kisses me. “I don’t want it slow,” she says after, and it almost feels like a challenge.

  I could go buck wild, but I try to be gentle, no matter what she says. Whatever we do, it’s more intense than anything I’ve ever experienced, my cock free without a condom, the sensation of being rooted inside of her the most primal kind of pleasure.

  “I want you to stay with me tonight,” I tell her, watching her from above as I thrust, making me a part of her.

  “I’ll stay,” she lets out between two small whimpers.

  And that only makes this better. “I love you, Alli.” The words are never enough to express what I feel for her.

  “I love you too,” she says, her last word clipped as I feel her body swell into an orgasm.

  I let go too, nearly swallowed up whole by the way it feels to come along with her, to be able to release a part of myself into someone that I love, someone I feel like I’ve been waiting for all of my life.

  It takes a while to catch my breath, spasms still rolling through my body as we turn to our sides, my cock still rooted inside of her. “I don’t want to let you go.”

  “I can tell,” she says with a small, sweet laugh. “And I don’t mind. I don’t want to let you go either.”

  “Maybe it could be like this every night.” I rest my forehead against hers. “You could move in if you wanted to. I could clear out some of my stuff, and you could bring in some of yours.”

  She’s quiet, her breaths beginning to relax.

  “Alli?”

  “It’s too soon for that, isn’t it, Hunter?”

  “I don’t know.” It’s a truthful answer. “I’ve never been in love before, so I don’t really know how fast or slow we’re supposed to go—we can go slow if you want. I don’t want to push you too hard.”

  She moves away from me, and I let her, our bodies finally disconnecting. I’m afraid of what it means, but she reaches out and touches her fingers to my lips, her eyes locking on mine. “Let me keep my room at Sheila’s for now, but I can stay here with you as long as you still want me—”

  “I’ll always want you,” I break in, sliding my hand around the curve of her rear. “Always.”

  She lowers her gaze and nods. “Okay. I love you, Hunter—I know that—but I need to catch a breath every now and again. I need to remember who I am.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you? You’ve had your whole life to follow your dreams and make a name for yourself, but I’m just starting. I want to do things in my life that I can be proud of. I want a career, and I need to know that you’ll let me have that, that you won’t want to start having kids and settling down and—”

  “You’re in the driver’s seat,” I tell her, meaning every word of it. “All I care about is you and what makes you happy.”

  “I want to make you happy too,” she says quietly.

  “You already have,” I say, kissing her.

  Probably happier than she could ever know.

  She’s made me love her.

  It means I can be hurt again, the kind of hurt you don’t get over, not with a woman like Alli. But of course it’s worth it, to take a chance, to risk your very sanity to be with a woman that you love.

  To be with Alli.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ALLISON

  “Thank you for at least letting me know you’d be out for the night,” Sheila tells me when I come into the office this morning. Like usual, she’s beaten me here, so I didn’t have to feel any embarrassment in facing her when Hunter dropped me off at her condo to shower and change for the day.

  “Of course,” I say, “and I’m thankful to have someone worrying over me.”

  “I wouldn’t be doing my duty to your parents if I didn’t worry about you.”

  This is when I hug her. It must come as a total surprise because it takes her a while to put her arms around me in return. I really am thankful for this woman, a woman who was once such a good friend to my parents but since has had a falling out I’ve still not had the nerve to ask about.

  “This is wonderful,” she says, finally pulling out of our embrace, “but we really do need to get back to work. This business isn’t goi
ng to run itself!”

  “You’re right,” I say. “I’m just glad we’re good.”

  She nods, appearing to accept my assertion that we are in fact okay when it comes to my relationship with Hunter and all that it entails.

  It ends up being a busy day, not just for myself but for Hunter too. He was needed at practice today, “to give pointers and look for deficits,” so he’ll be in the thick of it until evening. As for Sheila and I, her schedule is booked completely solid, and I’m doing everything I can to do a good job and exceed her expectations. But I do admit to myself that signing on Henry and Theresa Carmichael has created a tidal wave of tasks I wish I didn’t have to do.

  And it’s a little hard to completely focus on everything with my thoughts floating back to Hunter. It happens so many times that I have to start pinching my wrist just to stop them. Being loved and being able to return that love is a euphoric feeling, to know there is one person in the world who wants to share everything with you, who wants to spend their entire life with you. But it’s frightening too, because I’ve experienced something similar before with Wyatt, only to discover much of that feeling was based on lies about who Wyatt really was.

  Hunter isn’t like Wyatt, of course. He’s not trying to make me into something that I’m not, and yet, it’s still all a little scary.

  “We’ll take things as slow as you need them to be,” Hunter told me this morning, just after he’d kissed me outside of the elevator in Sheila’s condo building.

  I’d thanked him with a kiss in return, while being half afraid if I took things too slow, I’d lose him.

  But moving too fast—when I felt like we’d already fallen in love at warp speed—is just as dangerous. There hasn’t been time enough for Hunter to really think about the drawbacks of me being young and inexperienced, of the possible eventuality he might get tired of me not being able to go into a bar with him or be frustrated that I’m not ready for the things that he is. I don’t want him to ever feel like I’m tugging him down instead of lifting him up. So, if he’s going to change his mind about me, I’d rather it be sooner than later, before I’m so far in that I’d be unable to find my way back out.