by Madison Faye
“Well, maybe next weekend?”
Jake sighed again. “It’s just bad timing is all.”
It still felt like he wasn’t saying everything, like he was holding something back or was distracted by something else.
“Oh, okay.” I tried to hide the disappointment in my voice, but I knew I was probably failing. “Well maybe we could video chat alter tonight-”
“I have to go, Chelsea.” He said quickly, his voice edged. “Look, I’m sorry. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
Um, okay.
*****
Except Jake didn’t call the next day, or the day after. And on the third day, when my phone still wasn’t ringing, and after I’d restarted it five hundred times to make sure it was actually working, the dark clouds closed in.
Somehow, something had gone wrong, and the worst part was I didn’t know what that was. I sulked in my room that whole third day after last talking to him, trying to puzzle things out in my head and see if I could see what I’d said or done. Had he pieced it together from my “I have something to tell you later” comment about what was up? Had he guessed what my not-so-little secret was and decided he wanted out? I mean, I still wasn’t totally sure what Jake and I were, even if I knew - or at least was pretty sure I knew - how I felt about him. But it wasn’t like I could hold him to me with a baby or something. That was something psycho girls did, I wouldn’t be that type.
But, I wanted him, and I wanted us to be an “us”.
I just hoped he did too.
*****
“Honey, whats wrong?”
I’d always thought that mothers had an intuition and a type of sixth sense that I would never understand. Of course, right then, I wondered if maybe I would someday in soon; say, in nine months. I smiled into the phone, sprawled out on my bed and watching the snow fall down on the city of Boston outside my dorm room window.
“It’s nothing, mom, just tired is all.”
“Classes? Oh, you’re not getting stressed about midterms already, are you?”
“No, mom, it’s really nothing.”
Of course, mom wasn’t buying it. “Boy?”
More like “man”, I thought. And then, the tears started to fall, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop them.
“Oh, honey!” My mother’s voice soothed me over the phone, but the thought of whatever was happening with Jake and him not calling me back by then had me sniffing back tears nonetheless.
“If he’s no good for you, honey, he’s no good; okay?”
Oh, mom, you have no idea how wrong he is for me.
“No, it’s not that, mom, it’s just...I think maybe I thought it was something it wasn’t.”
I could hear my mother tsk over the phone. “Well, it sounds like he doesn’t deserve you then, sweetie.” She sighed. “Well, I know you always make good choices, so I know you’ll be okay, honey.”
Oh, right; good choices. Good choices like losing my virginity to my way older neighbor, and not using protection, and - oh, by the way - getting pregnant with his child. Those kind of good choices?
“And honey?” My mom cleared her throat. “As long as you’re being safe.”
“Mom!”
“Look, Chelsea honey, why don’t you come home this weekend?”
I brushed the tears out of my eyes and shook my head. “Oh, I can’t-”
“Why not? You’ve got that free day on Monday, honey.” My mom chuckled. “I checked the campus website, you know.”
I laughed, which was more of a sniffling sound than actual laughter at that point.
“We’ll fly you home and everything, how does that sound?”
“No, mom, I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
I could almost hear her shaking her head at me. “Honey, we went you to come home for a weekend. You can just come home, sleep in, and recharge a little; okay?”
Honestly, I was feeling better already at that point. And hey, maybe I could figure out a time to talk to Jake and just tell him what was going -
“Oh, honey!” My mom laughed. “Just wait until you hear the latest neighborhood gossip.”
I felt a lump form in my throat. “Oh?”
“Guess who’s trying to patch things up?
And just like that, I felt my heart drop. I knew right then before she even said another word what she was going to say, and it felt like being stabbed right in the heart.
“Wait, what?”
“Jake and Lenore!
The lump in my throat grew bigger, until I could barely swallow it down. “Jake’s trying to get back with Lenore?” Just saying the words out loud stung.
“Apparently! Well, maybe its the opposite, but that’d be so nice wouldn’t it?”
“Mom she cheated on him!”
My mother sighed. “Now, honey, thats not our business.”
Well it was MY business! And just like that, the idea of going home sounded like the worst idea in the world. That’s why he hadn’t come to visit; it’s why he’d blown me off. He’d had his fun with the young naive girl; he’d gotten what he’d wanted. And now he was going to patch things up with that wench of an ex-wife!
It hurt so bad that I winced, squeezing my eyes shut to try and block the whole scenario out of my head.
“Well too late!” My mom laughed, obvious to the thoughts of hurt and betrayal rushing through my head. “I just bought your ticket!”
I winced again, ribbing my eyes with my hand and feeling my heart sinking through the floor.
“Well, guess we’ll see you Friday, honey!”
Wonderful.
Chapter 22
Jake
“Dammit, why are you here, Lenore?”
It was the fourth fucking day in a row of her showing up here; the six-month pregnant, crazy ex-wife. And one guess why she was suddenly darkening my doorway?
Because she’d stepped out on the new guy - you know, the one she cheated on me with - and he’d caught her. So, no he was gone, and here she was looking for a damn handout. Or to get back together, or something equally as ridiculous that I’d spent four days trying to get out of my life.
I didn’t hate Lenore - I’m not that kind of guy. But I knew we’d been wrong for each other on every level. And now? Shit, now there was Chelsea. Jesus, Chelsea who I’d been ignoring like an asshole for days because I just had to deal with this whole Lenore crap first. I knew I should’ve just told her, but I also just didn’t want to bring her into all this garbage. She was above petty shit like this; like some sort of damned angel that I didn’t want to sully with my old baggage.
I’d meant to call her for days after I’d first told her I couldn’t come visit, because I’d known from that hitch in her voice that she was probably devastated. Shit, I was pretty messed up that I couldn’t come. But I hadn’t wanted to go there with this cloud hanging over me. I needed to settle this ex-wife crap and get her out of here before I could give everything to Chelsea that she deserved. So yeah, I’d meant to call her, and then when I finally did, she’d stopped answering.
Great.
Lenore was giving me the same sob story again, like there was some big misunderstanding about her new guy coming home and finding her with yet another guy in their bedroom. Right, I could totally see how someone might misconstrue that one...
She started to yell, and I put my hands up on her shoulders to stop her. “Lenore! Jesus!” I growled and shook my head, scowling. “For the last time, get off my damn porch.”
And just then, the car pulled into the driveway; Sarah McKenzie’s car. And just as it pulled past me, my whole heart suddenly dropped out as I realized who was sitting in the passenger seat.
Staring at me, with my hands on my damned ex-wife’s shoulders on my porch.
Chelsea.
Fuck, I couldn’t imagine what she thought seeing that. Actually, by the smoldering and broken look she flashed me from the car, I could imagine what she thought, and it was nothing good, that’s for sure.
Fuck.<
br />
I whirled back to Lenore as the car drove up the rest of the driveway and narrowed my eyes at her. “I’m going to tell you this one more fucking time, Lenore. There is nothing for you here, got it? Look, you need money and don’t want to admit to your parents why you’d be asking? Fine. Your deadbeat new guy bailed? FINE.” I drew myself up, my face stony and my fists clenched at my sides. I had to settle this now so that I could go explain everything to Chelsea.
“I’m the better guy here, Lenore, and if you need money for your kid, fine. I’ll send you a check, but get the fuck off my porch and stay out of my life.” And with that, I stepped back inside and slammed the door.
Slammed door.
I could hear her huffing something about “this not being over” as she stomped back to her car, but I was already whirling around to find my phone.
Because never mind all the Lenore crap. Right then, I needed to get to Chelsea. I needed to get to the one good thing in my life - the one perfect, pure thing - and fix it.
Chapter 23
Chelsea
That fucking asshole.
It hadn’t been enough for me to hear about him trying to get back together with Lenore. I’d had to come to see him with her the first second we pulled into the driveway. So screw him; him and all his bullshit and his lies and for messing with my head.
I stomped my way to my room under the pretense of being tired the second I walked in the house, barely saying hello to my dad and Dennis. I could barely see straight, just thinking about seeing him with her right on their front porch like that. I mean, the whole thing with Jake had been foolish, I knew that now. I’d thought of it as “wild” and “crazy” before, but I knew now I’d just been a stupid, inexperienced girl. I’d been Jake’s mid-life crisis; his little red sports car.
And I hated him for it, and for what I’d given him.
He called me almost immediately, but I of course ignored it. It and the six more calls after that. On the seventh, I did pick up, but this time just to tell him not to call again and then hanging up before he could say a word or another lie.
I did managed to drag myself downstairs for dinner, but we’d barely gotten started before there was a knock at the front door. I knew it was him even before my dad walked chuckling with him back into the dining room. My eyes narrowed at him, glaring at that asshole while the rest of my family beamed and grinned away at him like was some sort of nice person; like he wasn’t a lying, manipulative asshole. Part of me even wanted to just spill the whole thing right there, just to screw him. Yeah, I’d probably get in trouble too, but honestly, who was going to get it worse in that scenario? The young and naive nineteen year old, or the forty year old man who should have known better?
Jake small-talked with my parents about some neighborhood thing or whatever, but I knew he was there for me. I knew he was there to try and spew more stories my way.
I was not about to give him that opportunity though.
I excused myself to my mom while dad talked Jake’s ear off, complaining about my stomach again before I headed back upstairs without a second look his way. Come home and relax and unwind? Yeah, right; like that was going to happen. Now that I was here, all I wanted to do was go back to Boston and cry and eat ice-cream with Lucy.
*****
It was much later, and I was in bed but not really able to sleep when I heard the thumping outside my window. I ignored it, figuring it was probably the trees against the side of the house or something. But then suddenly, my bedroom window was opening, and it was like my whole body froze in a silent scream as the shadowy shape of a man came through it!
The scream was just about to break free of the iron grip of my frozen throat, when his hand came down across my mouth, muffling me as his lips found my ear. “Hey! Chelsea! It’s me! It’s me, honey.”
Jake.
I shook my head free of his hand and glared at him. “You asshole,” I spit, glaring at him and back away from him in my bed. “You fucking asshole!”
“Hey!” He snapped at me. “You know it’s not like that.”
“Oh, do I?” I sneered. “Tell me, Jake, what is it like?”
“It’s not what you think, Chelsea. The Lenore situation is not what you think it is, I swear to you.”
“Get out,” I said softly, determined not to cry in front of him.
His eyes locked with mine. “Not a fucking chance.”
I gasped as he moved up onto the bed, his arms on either side of me as he hand-walked his way up my body until his body was pinning me to the bed. I could feel the throb and the pulse of something hard pressing into my stomach, and I gasped as I realized it was his cock. His wonderful, amazing, perfect-
I quickly shook my head, dragging my mind back to the reality of the present. “Oh, what, you think can just come up here and think you’re going to fuck me and make it all better?”
“That’s exactly what I think,” He growled, a grin playing out across his lips.
I swallowed quickly, feeling the lump in my throat and the heat suddenly roaring through my body at his closeness. God had I missed him. I bit my lip and looked up at him, my eyes still glaring. “Yeah? Well, what if I don’t want you to.”
Jake grinned. “But you do.”
“I do not,” I hissed back, before suddenly gasping as I felt his hand slide right between my legs and up under the long t-shirt I wore to cup my hot little pussy right through my panties.
“Liar,” He growled out, his fingers stroking me slowly, coaxing the wetness from my slit and a gasp from my lips.
And just like that, the last of my resistance broke.
I whimpers as he kissed me, my mouth latching onto his and my arms clutching him to me tightly as if I was worried he’d slip way from me. I needed him, after so long. I needed him to take me, to have me and to dominate me like I loved.
He was right, I’d lied: I did want him to fuck me and make it all better.
His skin was hot to the touch as I tore his shirt off, my lips barely breaking from his in order to strip it off his head. I cooed into his mouth, my fingers trailing over his muscled chest and shoulders, and whimpering as he gently bit my lip. His strong hands found my shirt and pushed it up, and he hungrily eyed my aching nipples before closing his lips around one of them and sucking it gently. I arched my back to him, gasping as his lips and tongue slid over my breasts and sucked and nipped at the tender flesh there.
I could feel his throbbing cock pulsing against my pussy through his pants, and I tore at his belt before shoving his pants down. Touching his cock again was like medicine; like a soothing balm that I’d been craving. I actually moaned and felt a little tremble in my pussy when I wrapped my fingers around him, stroking the velvety skin over the iron-bar of his massive cock.
I needed him; right then and right away, and he knew it just as well.
I gasped and then moaned deeply as he flipped me over, grabbing my hips and pulling my ass high in the air. His strong hands yanked my panties down over my ass to my knees, and then I moaned as I felt his tongue slide wetly across my pussy. His tongue slid deep, lapping at my juices deep inside as his fingers played over my clit. I was biting my pillow, groaning loudly into it as I felt his magical tongue drag higher. I squealed when he tongued my asshole, my whole body feeling like it’d been shocked my some wonderful, magical spark at the feel of his tongue at my most private place.