by Kelly, Hazel
And for some reason, I didn’t want to look like a fool in front of him. As perverse as he was, I liked thinking that he thought I was pretty. Coming from him- a guy who’d probably lost count of how many girls he’d been with- it actually meant something.
And I knew it was totally pathetic to think that, but at the same time, I wasn’t surprised it felt so good. Most of the men who praised me did so based on my achievements at work, and as shallow as it was, it was nice to be appreciated for more surface level qualities.
After all, most of the time I wasn’t even conscious of the fact that I was a woman. I was too busy working my ass off and trying not to collapse from exhaustion. But being around Wyatt made it impossible for me to forget for one second that I was a woman and that he wanted me the way only a man full of testosterone could appreciate.
For a brief moment, I let myself imagine what it would be like if I was one of those women who wasn’t ashamed of their hunger for dick, if I was one of those women who actually felt confident that I knew what to do with one.
If that were the case, I guess I might’ve indulged him by crawling over to him, unzipping his dirty jeans, and bringing him to attention with my hand before taking his control away with my mouth.
But I wasn’t that girl.
I’d given one blow job in my life to impress a boy my senior year of high school. And he was impressed, too. Until I spat.
And the fact that I did that was apparently such juicy gossip that- despite the fact that it damaged my reputation for a while- I was spoiled for choice when it came to getting dates for school dances. As disappointed as I was, it was the first thing I’d ever stumbled on that seemed to ease my transition to a new school.
But giving head to that freckled dork, who I confused for being cool because he was a varsity athlete, was the longest minute and a half of my life, and I swore to myself that I would never be such a tool again.
And up until now, I’d kept that promise. And just because I might’ve met a man whose dick was talented enough that it deserved to be kissed, didn’t mean I was about to break it.
I grabbed the open wine bottle and stood up, deciding to get some air. Or more air. Or see how steady I was on my feet… anything to keep from being in such close proximity to the bulge in Wyatt’s jeans.
I walked across the cool grass, which was littered with fallen pine needles and cones, to the short wooden dock. It had a lovely homemade look about it, but was just long and sturdy enough that I figured a walk to the edge of it might do me good.
When I reached the end, I sat down cross-legged and looked out at the still water, letting my eyes scan the distant banks of the lake. Then I took a healthy swig of wine, enjoying a moment’s peace out from under Wyatt’s oppressive sexual energy.
After a few minutes, I heard some wood being knocked around, but rather than turn around to see what he was doing, I used the self-discipline he obviously didn’t believe I had to keep my eyes straight ahead.
Until he floated up beside me.
“Good evening, m’lady,” he said, his large hand holding the boards of the wooden dock. “Could I interest you in a ride in my row boat?”
I turned to look at the small canoe. There was a wooden bench across from his and two oars resting loosely in the oarlocks. “No thanks.”
“Come on,” he said. “It’ll be fun. When was the last time you were in a boat?”
“Never.”
“Never?” he asked. “Seriously? Of any kind?”
“No,” I said. “And that one isn’t going to be the first.”
“Why not?” he asked, looking up at me.
I took another swig of wine, squeezing the neck of the bottle in my fist. “Because,” I said. “I can’t swim.”
Chapter 15: Wyatt
I furrowed my brow. “You can’t swim?”
“No,” she said, keeping her eyes on the lake.
“Well that’s okay,” I lied. “I’m not proposing we swim.”
Her eyes scanned the length of the little boat. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be comfortable.”
“It’ll be okay.” I placed my hand on top of hers where it lay on the dock. “I promise.”
She pursed her lips and pulled her hand out from under mine.
I couldn’t look away from her nervous eyes. It was obvious that she was as embarrassed as she was intimidated.
“The water isn’t even that deep,” I said.
“Still. If something happened-”
“I would save you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and you’d probably give me mouth to mouth whether I needed it or not.”
“I don’t have to stop at your mouth if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m not getting in that boat.”
“Please, Addison. It’ll be so much more fun for me to row around with a pretty girl in the boat.”
She shook her head.
“Do it for me so I won’t look foolish.”
“My being in the boat doesn’t change how you look.”
“It’ll be romantic, like that scene in The Little Mermaid.”
She raised her eyebrows. “One of your favorites?”
I ran my hand over my head. “Only because the song writing is one of Disney’s best.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Don’t they end up in the water at the end of that scene?”
“Yes, but they’re being hunted by crafty eels,” I said. “Whereas the only thing you should be worried about is how disappointed I’m going to be if you don’t get in this boat.”
She took a deep breath.
I watched her chest rise and fall. Her hair looked dark under the night sky and her eyes were shiny like the surface of the lake.
“No funny business?” she asked.
“No funny business,” I said, extending my hand up to help her into the boat.
She moved the bottle to her other hand and turned towards me.
I was so happy she was obliging me it was hard not to get excited, but she wasn’t in the boat yet and I needed to focus if I was going to get her the rest of the way.
She swallowed and placed one foot on the floor in the center of the small canoe. Then she put the other beside it. As she leaned forward to put her weight in the boat, she squeezed my hand so hard I knew her fear was real, and my heart broke for a second that she was so uncomfortable.
The boat wobbled for a moment when she lifted her butt off the dock, and she ripped her hand from mine and reached for the seat across from me, swiveling around and planting herself down on it as fast as she could.
I steadied the boat against the dock, convinced I would need to take it slow if I wanted her to have a good time.
When I looked across at her, she was gripping the seat with one hand and holding the wine bottle straight over her mouth.
“You okay?” I asked.
She lowered the bottle and pressed the back of her hand against the corner of her mouth. She was so pale she was almost glowing.
“Addison?”
She nodded. “I’m okay.”
“We’ll stay near the shore.”
She squeezed her wrists between her knees and looked past the side of the boat.
I pushed us away from the dock as gently as I could and wrapped my hands around the worn handles on the wooden oars.
Addison stayed quiet at first so the only sound was the light creaking of the oars against the oarlocks and the splash of me dropping them in the water at the beginning of each stroke.
She was so beautiful when she wasn’t trying to seem hard. Her features looked delicate laced with uncertainty compared to how stern they seemed when they were locked in a judgmental expression.
“How are you doing over there?” I asked, noticing her eyes were darting around like jumping spiders.
“I’m fine,” she said, looking over her shoulder towards the shore. “But maybe don’t go much further out than this?”
“Sure,” I said, rowing with o
ne hand until the boat was parallel to the shore so we could drift along where she was comfortable.
“Thanks.”
God I wanted to kiss her again, to pull her close. She looked so desperate for reassurance, and I wanted her to feel good about trusting me. But between her doe eyes and her nervous movements, I felt like I’d be doing her a bigger favor if I let her get her bearings on her own.
“So how come you can’t swim?” I asked, realizing only after the question left my mouth she might prefer I didn’t call attention to her insecurity. However, there had to be an explanation. I couldn’t imagine how any parent could fail their child that way.
She shrugged. “I never learned.”
I pursed my lips.
She pulled a small band out of her pocket and put her hair up in a high ponytail. Her hair was thick enough that I could still see it hanging behind her head, but her exposed neck made her look even more fragile than she already did.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m surprised your parents didn’t make it a priority.”
“Wine?” she asked, extending the bottle towards me while she gripped the side of the boat with her other hand so hard her knuckles turned white.
I pulled both oars in so they were crossed on the floor of the boat between us and took the bottle from her. “Thanks.” I took a swig and put my elbows on my knees. “No swimming… no picnics…”
“Would you let it go?”
“Maybe if you can explain it to me-”
She sighed. “There were too many of us,” she said. “My parents had their hands full enough without making things difficult by taking us swimming and carting food to and fro outside.”
“I see,” I said, but I didn’t see at all. “So you’re from a big family, too, then?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Like you from the sound of it.”
I shrugged. “I suppose it’s biggish.”
“How many of you are there?”
I rolled my eyes up. “Just two sisters and two brothers and then me.”
“And your parents.”
“Yeah.”
“They still together?” she asked, tucking a stray wisp of hair behind her ear.
“Yeah. They’re going on forty years or something.”
“Wow.”
“It’s quite an achievement these days.”
“Sure,” she said. “And what do you suppose is the secret to their success?”
“Well my Dad’s hearing isn’t great.”
She laughed.
It felt good to see her loosen up for a moment.
“Seriously, though?”
“I mean it,” I said. “My Mom never shuts up, and I mean never. Plus, her taste in music is questionable to put it politely.”
She smiled.
“So I think the fact that my Dad can sit through anything is probably why they’ve lasted.”
“Wow.”
“That and the fact that my Dad still looks at my Mom like he did when they were seventeen.”
Her eyes sprang into little crescents. “Really?”
I nodded. “There’s this picture of them from when they were teenagers-”
She raised her eyebrows.
“And you can just tell by the look on his face that he’s so into her that he’s never going to get over it.”
“That’s really sweet.” She looked down at the floor of the boat for a second, her long eyelashes casting shadows on her cheeks.
“Yeah,” I said, smiling as I thought of the expression on my Dad’s face in that picture.
And for the first time, when I looked back at Addison sitting on the other side of that boat, I felt like I finally understood it.
Chapter 16: Addison
When I looked up, he was staring at me.
But that wasn’t the thing that struck me as odd cause I was used to him checking me out as shamelessly as if I were a lobster in a fancy restaurant.
It was that on this occasion, his eyes were softer, almost smiling. Like he’d just remembered a funny story or seen a picture of a baby animal.
I raised my eyebrows. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his hair over his shoulder.
I raised my hand to cover my mouth. “Are my lips purple or something?”
“Why? Are you cold?”
“No, from the wine.”
“Oh yeah.”
I pursed my lips and licked the length of them as hard as I could.
“They aren’t purple, Addison. Relax.”
“So why were you looking at me like that?”
“Cause you’re beautiful,” he said. “Especially when you’re not trying to be intimidating.”
“I don’t try to be intimidating.”
“Sure you do,” he said. “But don’t worry. It doesn’t work on me.”
I sighed and dropped my head, feeling foolish for saying I couldn’t swim because I had too many siblings.
I mean, I didn’t just lie. Saying I was from a big family when I had none was the complete opposite of the truth.
But the last thing I needed was for him to pity me.
I always considered pity to be a weak emotion, and casting weakness from my life had been an obsession of mine since I was old enough to understand the basic rules of playground hierarchy.
But there were some pitiful things I couldn’t shake off.
Like the fact that my own parents didn’t want me.
I don’t know why I was still insecure about that. I wasn’t so naïve as to think I was the only orphan around or the only kid from a broken home… or many. But despite how long I’d had to come to terms with my own circumstances, admitting my background to other people made me feel so unlovable.
Of course, why I would be worried about whether Wyatt thought I was loveable or not was a mystery. It’s not like I expected him to love me. On the contrary, it was the last thing I expected.
So why try to manipulate his feelings for me by protecting him from who I really was?
What did I want him to see in me?
“Is there something you want to share with the class?” he asked.
My eyes met his. “No.”
“You seemed pretty inside yourself there.”
I shrugged.
“Like a turtle.”
I cast my eyes down, hoping it was dark enough to hide my flushing cheeks. “Just zoned out for a second. That’s all.”
He nodded and held the wine out to me. “Want the last swig?”
“No, you go ahead.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Sure?”
I nodded and watched him tip the bottle to his lips until his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. It didn’t help my blushing when I remembered that his throat must’ve moved that way when he drank me last night.
“So,” I said. “Where do you fall in amongst all those siblings?”
“I’m the youngest,” he said, setting the bottle in the bottom of the boat by his feet.
“Ahhh.” I wrapped my fingers around the front edge of my seat. “Now that makes sense.”
“Does it?” he asked, sliding the oars back out.
“That you’re the baby? Of course.”
“Why?”
“Cause that’s why you get away with murder,” I said. “That’s why you’re so inappropriate. You probably grew up being told that everything you did was adorable and it went straight to your head.”
“Maybe,” he said, rowing with just one paddle to turn us around.
I looked over my shoulder to see how far away it was and was relieved that he’d kept his promise to stay close.
“Does that mean you’re the oldest?” he asked.
The swaying of his shoulders as he rowed was strangely sexual, and it took all my concentration not to look at his hips and imagine him thrusting towards me, his hair falling down around his face as he filled me with desire.
“Yeah,” I lied. “That’s probably why I’m so bossy.”
He nodded
in time with his slow strokes. “So you know that about yourself?”
“You’re not the first person who’s told me I’m too uptight for my own good if that’s what you’re asking.” I thought of the doctor. I wondered if she would approve of me putting myself in this stressful situation.
“And it always falls on deaf ears?”
“I guess I’ve just never found relaxing to be a very good strategy for getting ahead.”
He pulled the oars in and let us float towards the dock off the speed of his last stroke. “And is that all you’re interested in?”
“What?”
“Getting ahead?”
I shrugged. “What else is there?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Figuring out where you’d be happy to stay put?”
I shook my head. “Staying put isn’t for me. It never has been anyway.”
“Maybe you just haven’t found the right spot.”
“Or maybe I’m just meant to be one of those people that keeps moving.”
“I’m not convinced.”
“Of what?”
Wyatt inhaled and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands. “Well, I think there are people like that, people that are meant to wander and go where the wind takes them-”
“Me too.”
“But I don’t think you’re one of them.”
“Why not?”
“Cause you’re not nearly carefree enough.”
“I wish I could argue with that.”
“Yeah, carefree people never wish they could argue.”
“You know what I mean.”
“And I think you know what I mean,” he said. “You’re no hippie.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“You just haven’t found a place or even a side of you that you’ve liked well enough to get comfortable with.”
I pointed behind him. “You might want to-”
He turned around, grabbed the lassoed rope at the bottom of the boat, and tossed it over one of the posts at the end of our dock just before we floated past it.