by Louise Bay
There was that word again. Home.
“Christie’s too small for Blake,” my mom said, squeezing my hand. “He was always destined to go out into the wider world and be something special.” The wider world? I was still in state. Was it possible that I was so paralyzed by my failure at Harvard that I wasn’t doing what I was meant to do with my life? Mom never pushed any of us so long as we were happy. She knew us pretty well; did she think I’d be happier if I reached higher?
I knocked back my lemonade and stood up. “Are these the lunches?” I pointed at some bags on the countertops.
“They will be in about twenty minutes. I’ve been waiting for the bread to cool.”
“Okay, I’ll be back. I’m gonna head out and help Barrett.” I kissed them both on the head and left.
Seeing Mary wasn’t as easy as it normally was. Perhaps it was because I’d been sleeping with Mackenzie, who was clearly a city girl, right here in Oklahoma. It was as if I were watching my two worlds collide. Mackenzie versus Mary—the warm up to the big game of Boston versus Oklahoma. Mary, and everything she represented, I knew inside out. She was comfortable. But Mackenzie was the promise of something that could blow my world apart—for better or for worse, I just didn’t know. Boston equaled uncertainty. Oklahoma, consistency.
I headed into the barn to find Barrett.
Or answers.
Or silence.
“Hey, what’s up?” Barrett asked, stepping out of the stables as the back door screen slammed shut. “You look like you don’t know whether to wind your ass or scratch your watch.”
I nodded. That pretty much summed up my mood.
“Give me a hand here, will you?” Barrett asked. He was loading hay bales into the back of his truck.
We silently began to work.
Snapshots of Mackenzie pushed into my brain. Her naked, rounded ass, poised and waiting for me. Her skin reddening with my teeth marks. The incredulity on her face when I made her come.
She was an incredible fuck. Perhaps the best I’d ever had. And last night, talking with her, things had shifted between us. It hadn’t just been about fucking.
It had been more. It had been connection. It had felt as if we had just begun—that there was so much more that I was yet to experience with her.
Red was the kind of girl you skipped work to spend the day in bed with. But listening to her, I wasn’t sure the guarded, people-pleasing girl Mackenzie was in her real life was someone I’d be interested in. With me, she was different. But would it last? I liked Mackenzie’s flaws. I didn’t want a woman who hid herself from me. The good and the bad, I wanted it all. Underneath a beauty so powerful it almost hurt to look at her, she was a little lost, a little confused. She didn’t know what she wanted in her future. She saw insecurity, imperfection. But I saw fight. I saw the passion to do something good. And that’s what made her so special.
Perhaps we weren’t so different.
––––––––––
I’d expected the girls to be waiting like ravenous animals around the fire when I got back to camp with the lunches, but from the shrieks coming through the trees, it sounded like they were on their way and I’d timed things perfectly.
“Just in time, brother. I could eat a cow,” Brianna shouted across the camp as she and the other girls emerged from the tree line. I waved and held up the lunches.
Mackenzie bounced toward camp, full of life and energy. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes clear—not a hint of the lack of sleep she’d endured over the past few nights. She stooped to tie her shoe, leaving the other girls to go ahead of her, and lifted her chin at me, indicating the log pile.
I nodded. I wasn’t going to pass up on a chance to touch my beautiful girl.
“I’m just going to get a few more logs,” I told Brianna as I dropped the lunches off.
I found Mackenzie leaning against the back of the shed. She glanced over her shoulder. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” I said, unable to take my eyes off her. “You been having fun?”
She nodded and pulled at my shirt, bringing us closer. “So you know how you thought that I wasn’t used to asking for what I wanted from guys?”
I smoothed my hand up her arm and traced her jawline with my knuckle. “Yeah.”
“Well, would now be a good time to practice?” she asked, her voice so quiet I could barely hear her.
“Sure.” I wasn’t quite sure where she was headed with this. Did she want to try something kinky tonight?
When she looked up, I couldn’t stop myself from stroking the freckles that ran across her nose.
“I’d really like you to kiss me.”
My grin spread wide across my face. It was such a small request, but she was clearly breaking new ground. This was a big deal for her.
“I can’t think of anything I’d like to do more.” I held her face in my hands, then rubbed my nose against hers before dropping a small kiss on the side of her lips. The pulse at her neck fluttered beneath my fingers, frantic from my touch. I pulled back and dropped my hands to her hips, then slid my palms over her ass, bringing her closer, letting her feel my hardening cock.
I took her bottom lip between my teeth, as her hands smoothed into my hair, groaning.
I couldn’t be near her without being desperate to kiss her. And I couldn’t kiss this girl without needing to fuck her.
I pressed her against the shed, pushing my tongue through her lips, circling and dipping, smoothing my hands around her waist and up to her firm, high tits. She ground her hips against me, riding the ridge of my cock through her clothes. I fumbled at her zipper and thrust my hands down her panties.
Jesus, she was wet.
“You been thinking about me all morning?” I asked.
“Yes,” she breathed into my neck. “Can you feel what I want? Do I need to ask you?”
Fuck, this girl got me hard in a split second. I was back to being fifteen and desperate to get to third base with a tree if it said yes.
“Ask. I’ll do anything.” It was true. At that moment, I’d have moved to China if she’d asked me.
Her breaths were stuttered, her hands pushing through my hair.
“Ask,” I said again and I pulled back slightly to look at her.
She worried her lip between her teeth. “I …I want you to taste me.”
“Here?” I trailed my fingers down her slit, half-crazed by her warmth, her stickiness. I pressed my tongue against hers, wanting her to know what she did to me. Without waiting for an answer, I broke away from her and sank to my knees.
I didn’t care that we were yards away from a bunch of people who could interrupt us at any second. This girl, my girl, was asking me for something. And it would be my honor.
I pulled down her jeans and underwear, and dove toward her, impatient to savor her, to have my tongue wet with her. Her knees buckled slightly, and I pressed her hips against the shed. Her hands threaded through my hair, urging me on, though I didn’t need the encouragement. She was sweet and slippery and I couldn’t get enough. I wanted to give her everything she asked for.
She moaned as I sucked gently on her clit. She tilted her hips toward me, and as I increased the pressure, her legs began to shake. Every drop of blood raced to my cock. Making her tremble was a complete power trip. I bet my life that she’d never asked any man to go down on her. She’d saved that for me.
“Blake.” My sister’s voice penetrated the booming in my ears, but I couldn’t pull my hands, mouth or mind from Mackenzie.
“Blake,” Brianna called again.
Mackenzie pushed at my shoulders. “Blake, stop.”
Her words broke the trance I was in. I pulled away, my breaths short and heavy, and I struggled to my feet.
“We have to go,” she whispered.
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” I growled into her neck.
“Me either,” she replied, stroking my chest. “But tonight …”
We had just one evening before she flew
home. One night. I hoped she didn’t need any sleep.
I forced myself to stop touching her and moved away. I needed distance if my hard-on had any hope of going down.
“Blake!” Brianna called again.
“Coming!” I shouted.
“Or not,” Red said with a laugh.
I groaned, wiped my mouth on the back of my hand. Then, clasping my free arm around the back of her neck, I placed a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll see you tonight.”
I grabbed a few logs and headed back to camp.
“What took you so long?” Brianna asked.
I cleared my throat. “Some of the wood had fallen out of the pile, so I rearranged a few things.”
“Did you get the forks? I couldn’t find them.”
I stacked the logs on the others, then returned to the box of lunches I’d brought from the house. “Here.” I handed the cutlery to Brianna.
“Oh, thanks. You okay?”
I nodded, but tried to avoid my sister’s eyes. My heart was still beating out of my chest, and all I wanted was to drag Mackenzie away, take her to some hotel with walls as thick as Fort Knox and fuck her until I was wrung out and she couldn’t walk.
I liked the fact she never asked for what she wanted from any man but me. And I wanted more of her, the version of Mackenzie who was only for me.
“So, girls, while we’re having lunch I’d like to hear your thoughts on this morning. Let’s go around the group and talk about what you liked, what you didn’t like and what you learned,” Brianna said as Mackenzie slipped back among her friends, shooting me a sideways glance.
Rose raised her hand. I chuckled. She looked like a school girl.
“Getting up to the platform for the zip wire was horrifying. I know it’s a sturdy staircase, but I’m not a great fan of heights. But I did it. And then when I looked down, there was no way I was going to throw myself off it willingly. But as I watched the other girls do it, I gained strength from them.” Mackenzie put her arm around Rose. “And I did it—and I still can’t believe it. Feeling so scared and then taking a chance? I feel as if I could do anything now. Like I’m breaking out of my skin like some kind of mutant superhero.”
“You had me until you said mutant superhero,” Kennedy said.
Rose elbowed her in the ribs. “I never thought I was a girl who could do something like that.”
“And can you apply that to your relationships?” Brianna asked.
“I don’t know if it will last when we get back to Boston, but right now I feel like any man would be lucky to have me.”
When she gets back to Boston?
I tried to think back to the conversations I’d had with Red. Had she told me where she lived? We’d talked about her growing up and how long she’d known Rose and Kennedy, but I couldn’t remember her telling me where she was from. Was it possible that the three of them came from Boston?
My Boston?
Was the world really that small?
Anxiety gripped me as thoughts turned upside down in my head, and I tried to hold back the images of me and Mackenzie strolling across the Common. No. That was not what this was. Boston or not, Christie was the beginning and end of us.
Red and I were a distraction to each other. Like she’d said, this wasn’t real life. I liked the woman sitting across the fire from me, no makeup, laughing, wanting me and not afraid to say so. But I was sure that Mackenzie in Boston wasn’t Mackenzie in Christie.
And if I went to Boston? I certainly wouldn’t be less consumed with work than I was in Oklahoma City. Whether I stayed or moved, I didn’t need the extra complication of a girlfriend. And she wasn’t asking for anything from me.
I added some more logs onto the fire as the girls continued to share lessons about their morning in between mouthfuls of lunch, talking over each other like old friends do.
“Anyone else?” Brianna asked.
“I’ll go,” Red said, and I had to fight back my smile just at the sound of her voice. Fuck, what was she doing to me?
“I feel changed. I see things now that weren’t clear to me before. It’s like I had this old map I’d been following for my whole life, but now, suddenly, someone’s told me that there was a mix up and I should have had a different one all along.” Her ponytail bobbed as she spoke, revealing that beautiful, long neck that was just begging to have my teeth on it. “Now it’s as if I’ve been shown an easier way of getting where I want to be—to who I want to be. The zip line was a symbol of that, I think. It showed me that just because you’ve never done something, and just because you might be a little scared, it doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t go for it.”
“And do you think that translates into your relationships?” Brianna asked.
“I think it applies to my whole life. When I get home …” Mackenzie stopped mid-sentence, pulling her eyebrows together as if she were concentrating, and I saw a blush creep across her cheeks. “I can’t be afraid of who I am. I need to believe it’s okay to ask for what I want—once I’ve worked out what that is.”
I’d give her a gold star for putting that plan into action about ten minutes ago behind the wood pile.
“Good for you, Mackenzie,” Brianna said. “What about everyone else? Do y’all think you’ll have more confidence to ask for what you want and show what you can offer?”
Mackenzie’s wide eyes and soft smile made her look more relaxed than I’d ever seen her. It was as if she was starting to look at home.
That word again. Home.
Christie really was full of very happy memories for me. And this trip back would be no different. I took a deep breath. So much of this visit had been about the girl sitting across from me. How had that happened? She’d been the distraction I was hoping for when I first saw her ass in Jimmy’s, but she’d been more than that. She’d turned this trip into something I wasn’t expecting, into an experience where a stranger became a friend, where a hook-up became something much more special. The knot in my stomach told me that as much as I didn’t want complicated, I wasn’t going to want to give her up when she left. She’d created some sort of need in me, and whether or not I went to Boston, I had to know if there was anything between us beyond Christie, Oklahoma.
Mackenzie
As the ranch came into view from the other side of the lake, Ann began to whoop. Turned out that all this time we’d been within a few hundred yards of where we’d started.
I glanced around at our group as we crossed the drive. We were slightly rumpled and sported the odd mud stain, and we lacked the gloss we’d had on arrival, but we’d gained something in return. Somewhere along the way, Kennedy had thrown her heart into the trip, and she wore her khaki shorts and walking boots as though she was leading our group. She always looked good, but her eyes were a little brighter, her smile wide and genuine. The bags that ordinarily gathered beneath Rose’s eyes had totally gone, her shoulders sat lower and the crease between her eyebrows had all but disappeared.
Oklahoma had worked its magic in some ways after all. But doubts began to gather. Tomorrow we were going home. How long would the magic last? Could I translate what I’d learned into real life?
Okay, I knew the theory now. I understood that I needed to be more open with men, to ask for what I wanted. I got that maybe I hadn’t been focused on whether I liked a guy, and that I’d been too concerned with how I got him to like me. And to some extent, I’d put some of the stuff I’d learned into practice with Blake. But that was here, under the Oklahoma stars. Would the being-me bit, the asking-for-what-I-wanted stuff work back in Boston, back in the reality of being single—no boyfriend, no fiancé, no prospect of children in my future? What did my life look like without all that?
I’d left Boston on a search for a cure. I guess I thought that I’d come back fixed and somehow it would be next stop happily ever after. Okay, I could accept that wasn’t about to happen, but what was? There was no certainty.
Brianna led us to the corral where we’d come on our first m
orning. Squinting in the bright sun, she said, “Girls, we’re getting a visit from our friend Lady Luck again.” I smiled, grateful Blake had prepared me. I really wanted to lift this horse’s leg. I needed to have learned something here in Christie. I couldn’t go back to Boston empty-handed.
Kennedy poked me. “Are you ready to be honest with yourself?”
I shrugged. I’d never considered that I wasn’t. So I wasn’t sure if anything had changed. If I did lift the leg, did that mean life back in Boston would be peachy? Every time the reality of life in Boston crept into my mind, we were off to do another task or Blake was getting me naked. Could I do real life? I needed Brianna on speed dial to help me navigate the everyday. I glanced at Blake, who looked lost in his own thoughts.
“I know I’m being sent this tall and unusual man, but I think I might call Josh,” Kennedy said. “Even if it’s just to apologize for the way things ended. What do you think?”
I looked straight ahead to avoid Kennedy’s gaze.
“We were friends a long time before I messed things up by kissing him,” Kennedy said.
I patted her back. “I think that would be good. But you need to prepare yourself. Josh might not be … receptive.” Kennedy had really hurt him.
“He might want to punch you in the face,” Rose said. “I would.”
“Well, hopefully it’ll never come to that. I’m going to call him. He was a good friend for a long time. Maybe I should email him. That’s less intrusive.”
“And the consequences are potentially less … physical,” Rose said and laughed.
The three of us took off our backpacks and arranged ourselves on the wooden log benches as we had the first day. I sheltered my eyes from the sun with both hands.
“Josh would never hurt me, physically. Or … at all,” Kennedy admitted. Rose and I had been devastated she’d cut Josh out of her life when they’d slept together after years of being friends.
“I just don’t want you to be disappointed the first time you make yourself vulnerable to a guy,” Rose said.
Kennedy was clearly trying to right some wrongs that she’d been thinking about while she was here in Oklahoma. Putting the things we’d learned into practice was going to be tough. I didn’t know where to start, so Kennedy was ahead of me. “Which one of my exes do you think the shaman was talking about?” I asked, wondering again if he’d meant Phil. Five days ago, a reconciliation would have been such a relief. Now the thought tugged at my stomach. Maybe that wasn’t how my life had to be. But what was the alternative? Spinsterhood? My plan didn’t account for a future without a wedding and kids.