SWOLLEN: A Secret Baby Sports Romance

by Stephanie Brother

  “It’s raining.”

  “It’s been raining all night, Tilly. You must have slept through it.”

  I can barely see the bottom of the garden, and the decking is completely soaked through. Where the football smashed through the glass, the carton we used to fix it has gone soggy, leaving a leaked pool of water on the ground underneath it. Marvin’s put a bucket down but it’s not really doing anything. This is shit.

  “It doesn’t look like it’s going to stop.”

  I can barely hide the genuine disappointment in my voice. I don’t want to feed Landon’s ego any more than I already have, but I was looking forward to today. I was looking forward to getting to know him more, without Mom and Marvin hanging around like gatecrashers at a private party. It’s good to spend time as a family, but there is stuff I want to talk to Landon about that I can’t do with these two around. We haven’t even talked about what happened last night, aside from a few whispers of agreement about how much we enjoyed it, and I kind of want to give it the attention that it deserves, principally because I want to relive it again, every single perfect moment of it.

  After that, when all the talking’s done, and I’m satisfied we are on the same page, or at least I’m satisfied that Landon understands that I’m not giving in to him too easily, that he has to work for what we are sharing and that every single connection like the one last night has special importance to me, we can fuck each other’s brains out, and I can scream into the air when I’m done.

  “Looks like you might have to leave the lake trip for another day.”

  “We could go anyway.”

  “In this weather? Don’t be silly, Tilly. How are you going to sunbathe and swim with the rain pelting down around you?”

  “We could just go for a drive.”

  And fuck in the car.

  “Wait for a while and see if it clears up. I’m sure Landon doesn’t want to drive through this mess.”

  “It is coming down pretty hard, Tilly. I mean if we went out in this, it would be really hard to see where we were going. It’s a big difference to the weather we had yesterday. A huge difference.”

  I don’t even need to tell you which words Landon was emphasizing then, his gaze never once dropping from mine.

  Mom nods, completely clueless as to what he’s referring to. “There you go, listen to your stepbrother. It ought to change later on.”

  I’m reminded again of the label that has been thrust upon us, and I find myself wondering whether it makes any difference at all. Last night was better than anything I could have ever expected, perhaps as a combination of the situation we found ourselves in, but largely, and most importantly, because I experienced a side of Landon I never thought existed.

  I don’t overestimate when I talk about how he made me feel, how he makes me feel in general, both physically and emotionally. That orgasm, all of those orgasms, from both of the times we have fucked have just deepened and deepened in intensity. When I look at him now, across the table when we eat, sideways when I’m stuffed into the sofa next to him, so close our noses are touching, I don’t want to look away, and I don’t want to think about anything else. And what I see in Landon, and I hope for my own sake that I’m not misunderstanding him, is the same thing coming right back at me.

  We both talk a good game, Landon especially, and we’ve both been masking true meaning with cleverly constructed sub text, both when alone and with Mom and Marvin, but I feel like we are both intelligent enough to understand what it is we really mean and want from each other, even if we are only saying it indirectly, or not even saying it at all.

  The real test will come when the vacation is over, Landon gets into his car and Mom, Marvin and I get into ours, and we all leave here and return to our normal lives, which is why getting as much time alone with Landon while I can is important. I have a feeling he thinks I want to dig my claws into him and never let go, but it’s not like that, I just want to entertain that as a possibility, while making it clear to him that if he wants us to fuck, he does so with the same open minded attitude. I’m not here as some kind of sexual tension reliever, even if the sex is so good it might even justify it, and i’m not going to allow him to treat me as such, which is why I probably should have tried a little bit harder to resist him last night.

  I’m only human though, I was extremely horny, and this is Landon Maddox, my secret guilty crush, even though I would never tell him I thought it.

  The morning passes and the rain continues, showing no signs of any intention to stop. I spend large parts of it looking forlornly out of the window at mist rising off the sodden earth or tree tops swaying in the accompanying wind. Mom busies herself in a way that she has perfected, while Marvin, never one to say much anyway, plods slowly through a nature magazine, or dozes lightly, head tilted back, mouth open.

  I want to encourage Landon to join me in the bedroom, just so we can be alone together, but every time I think i’ve found out a way to do it without sounding like we are doing something suspicious, I can’t seem to convince myself it’ll work and end up not saying anything at all.

  It doesn’t seem right, anyway. Landon and I in the bedroom together with the door closed. What would we be doing? I suppose we could watch one of the films I’ve brought, but why not watch it out here? We could play a board game, but again, why would we need to do it privately? Even if we did manage to sneak off behind a closed door, we still wouldn’t be able to talk openly.

  Each time I look at him, I feel my insides dancing about with nervous excitement. Any more butterflies and I’d have to open a conservatory. Just with a quick glance, I can’t help but tell him I need him, and he knows it too. I can’t seem to concentrate on anything else. I can’t seem to go five minutes without looking over, as though I have to keep checking I haven’t somehow missed my chance with him, that he’s still thinking the same or he hasn’t just disappeared entirely.

  Just after lunch, when we are all sat in the living room and I’ve read the same paragraph in my book about a hundred times because I just can’t think about anything else but Landon, and the rain, if anything, is coming down even harder than it was this morning, which is souring my mood even further, he gets up to go to the bathroom.

  “Where I you going?” I say, accusingly, without even thinking about how inappropriate it is, and that asshole comes back with,

  “The bathroom, is that alright, Tilly? I mean, you can join me if you want.”

  That’s embarrassing. I have to laugh it off, even though I know I’m going red, but it’s a mistake I’d love to have a chance at rectifying, not because it reveals to Mom and Marvin anything about what Landon and I have been up to, but simply because it confirms to Landon, if there were any doubt remaining, exactly what he’s been accusing me of being unable to admit. That I can’t resist him, no matter what I say, I can’t hold myself back.

  “It’s not going to stop just because you’re staring at it.”

  “It might.”

  “Why don’t you find something useful to do?”

  “Like what?”

  “You could art?”

  “That’s not a verb, Landon. You don’t just art.”

  “Sculpt then, whatever. You look like you need to do something with your hands.”

  “I haven’t got my materials with me, and I’m not in the right mood anyway. I wish the decking had a veranda, at least we could go out then. It’s not good to be cooped up inside.”

  “Plenty of board games.”

  “We could play twister.”

  Trust Landon to think of the game with the highest chance of physical contact.

  “I’m not sure if they’ve got twister, but you could take a look.”

  Trust Mom to see the innocence in that suggestion. Twister has only ever been played to get closer to someone you like, she can’t be that naive not to realize it.

  “Isn’t anyone else bored?”

  “Yep.”

  Landon puts his hand up.

 
; “Me too.”

  I flop down on the couch next to him, unable to keep myself away from him any longer. I know there’s another seat available, and I barely fit into this one, but I’m going to sit here anyway, there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?

  “I’m so bored my muscles are seizing up.”

  “I bet it’s not raining at the lake.”

  “You’re that desperate to go, huh?”

  Landon wouldn’t be able to wipe that smug grin off his face even if it were raining inside the house.

  “No.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it to me.”

  “We could check.”

  Does that sound desperate? Wanting to go to the lake doesn’t mean I automatically want to fuck him. I mean, he doesn’t know that at least.

  “That’s like a monsoon brewing out there, Tilly.”

  Maybe he’s bored of me already. Fuck. Maybe I’m falling for him and he’s not falling for me, except I know he wants me because I can see it in his eyes every time he looks over. Every time I look at him I get a look back that tells me. He’s the one that made this happen in the first place, both times. If Mom and Marvin weren’t here now, we’d be fucking. He wants to, I know that, so why is he holding out on me? Is it to make me beg? Is it because he wants to be sure? Is it really raining that hard?

  “You’ve never driven in a monsoon?”

  “I just don’t like taking unnecessary risks.”

  “Very wise, Landon”, Mom says. “It’s a real mess out there still and the last thing we want is for you to slip about on the road and have an accident.”

  Asshole.

  “You could be missing out on a hell of a lot with an attitude like that.”

  “You’re forgetting, I’ve already seen what’s out there.”

  Double asshole. I know he’s fucking around because of the way he’s smiling at me to goad me on, which means this is a test and I just have to find the right words to convince him, but fuck him. I shouldn’t play, but I can’t not.

  “You never want to see it again?”

  “I can wait until the rain passes.”

  “Maybe I can’t.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second.”

  “Seriously. I might change my mind tomorrow. I might be over it. The lake, the sunbathing, everything. Come to think of it, I might even move my bed back in here. The only reason I slept for so long was because I was up half the night with your snoring.”

  “Huh.”

  Bingo. Just the possibility that I could stop this any time I want seems to be having some effect.

  “You know the lake is always going to be there, right?”

  “We might not be though, and tomorrow it might be raining again. This vacation isn’t going to last forever.”

  “We can always come back.”

  “Better to find out whether it’s worth it first or not.”

  Zing! Strike two. Landon looks like he’s about to topple.

  “Alright. If you really, really want to, we can go, but if we go, we have to go all the way.”

  I can’t hide my smile. Back seat or front seat? I’ve never fucked in a car before. How long can we get away with being outside for without Mom and Marvin getting sus? We could pretend to have been caught in it, pretend we actually did have an accident.

  “Don’t be silly, Landon. Look at the weather. You don’t think going together is dangerous. You’ll regret it when you both get caught.”

  Landon and I look at each other and then back to Mom. We know what she’s talking about, but she could equally as easily be talking about what Landon and I aren’t talking about. Again, I ask myself, does she know? It’s not impossible that she heard us last night, but would she really bring it up like this?

  “You’re just going to get wet, Tilly. Really wet. And it’s going to be hard all the way for Landon. It’s a big risk-. What are you two laughing at?”

  Landon and I can’t help it. When I’m finally able to gather myself and catch my breath, I’m crying so much I can barely see. Landon’s just as bad.

  “What is wrong with you two?”

  Marvin looks up from his magazine momentarily to give us the once over.

  “Not enough oxygen in here I reckon.”

  “Sorry, it’s just, I don’t know, something funny about what you said-.”

  Landon can barely finish his sentence before he’s creasing over with laughter again.

  “I’m just concerned about you two, that’s all. There’s nothing funny about that. I don’t want to get a call from someone that’s found you two on top of one another in a big pile.”

  I know she’s talking about us having an accident, but based on what I hope we end up doing, it sends me into another uncontrollable fit of laughter, during which time I can’t help but press myself against Landon’s chest, put my hand on his thigh to try and steady myself and rest my head momentarily against his shoulder.

  “Alright, do whatever you want, see if I care. You’re both adults anyway.”

  Mom gives us a dismissive wave of her hand and returns to the kitchen to continue tidying up.

  I turn to Landon, my belly already tumbling over nervously.

  “Are you sure you want to go?”

  “Are you sure you are ready to come again?”

  The ‘again’ is tacked onto the sentence with just enough ambiguity that it doesn’t sound completely awkward. It still forces me to squeeze Landon’s thigh with a hidden hand just to make sure he doesn’t risk doing it again. Mom looks over momentarily, trying to place the origin of the yelp, satisfied enough that nothing is wrong when we both smile innocently back at her.

  We are both ready in less than five minutes, as eager as each other to get out of the door. The sky above us is grey, but over in the distance, perhaps in the direction we are travelling, I can just about see a slither of blue.

  To get to the car we have to rush through raindrops as big as broad beans, while Mom stands at the door watching us both go, perhaps worried we might not come back at all.

  I cannot even begin to explain how thrilled I am, my stomach turning over so much I almost feel sick. I’m nervous because I know what's coming, excited because I want it more than anything else.

  I’m wet when I get into the car, fifteen seconds underneath the rain enough to plaster my hair to my shoulders. A moment later, Landon is alongside me, his face wet, his T-shirt almost sodden through.

  “This better be worth it, Tilly.”

  “You already know it is.”

  If Mom wasn't waving us away I’d kiss him right away. When we are far enough away she wouldn’t even be able to see us with her birding binoculars, I can’t keep my hands off him.

  “That’s what I didn’t get to do this morning. If you’re lucky, I’ll show you the rest later on.”

  Landon

  Tilly pulls herself away from me, but leaves her hand rested on my thigh, close enough to make me pay attention if she wants me to.

  “You ought to be careful, Tilly. I might start thinking you actually like me.”

  “I don’t think there’s any chance of that happening too soon, and don’t flatter yourself anyway, Landon, I was right on the edge of giving up.”

  “Was that before or after you practically begged me to bring you out here? On such a beautiful day too.”

  “You didn’t have to come if you didn’t want to.”

  Rain hammers against the windshield and I have to drive slowly just to keep the car on the road.

  “How could I refuse?”

  “You can’t, obviously. So go on, admit it.”

  “Admit what?”

  “Admit you can’t resist me.”

  I have to give her a look then, just to keep her in check.

  “I knew it. Even with his career on the line, Landon Maddox couldn’t keep his hands off me.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t need to.”

  “And my career is only on the line if
they find out, which is why we better make it worth it if they do.”

  Tilly holds my gaze for a while before I have to look back to the road.

  “I came out here to see the lake, I don’t know what you’ve got in mind.”

  “I’m not sure how much you’ll see with the windows all steamed up.”

  I know exactly what she’s got in mind even if she plans to play it hard to get. She knows I know too, that’s what that little display was all about when we’d barely even left the house, that’s why she’s got her hand inches away from my dick, and why she doesn’t mind me squeezing her leg when I should be changing gear.

  “I’m not going to tell anyone by the way. Not unless you piss me off.”

  “I guess I better behave myself then.”

  “Well I didn’t say that.”

  It’s a forty five minute drive to the lake in this weather, and when we get there, it’s still raining too heavily to get out of the car. In the distance I can see blue skies, and light breaking through thick grey cloud, but right where we are, it’s like being stuck in a washing machine. I kill the engine, and the windows fill with water so quickly I feel like we are sinking underwater. We can barely see out of them, but it doesn’t matter. Even if someone else were stupid enough to be out in this, it means they wouldn’t be able to see in. Tilly can’t see the lake, but I know that’s not why she’s demanded we come here anyway.

  “Stunning.”

  “I don’t know. Looks a little rocky from this side. A little dangerous.”

  “It might look different if you get a bit closer.”

  I’ve practically been hard or at least semi hard for most of this vacation, but yesterday and today, after Tilly and I fucked for the first time, then couldn’t fuck because of Dad’s Lazarus appearance, and then fucked again, but slowly and quietly, I’ve been a hair trigger away from exploding. I don’t like to admit it, but Tilly is driving me wild, without really doing anything out of the ordinary either.

  Just watching her gets me going, listening to her talk about nothing when she’s really talking about us, seeing the way her brain ticks over, it turns me on. Last night was incredible, even if we were restricted, perhaps because of it, and right now I want to rip her clothes off with an urgency that risks betraying just how I feel about her, which, by the way, seems to grow in intensity the more time that passes.