by Kelly, A. S.
“Goodnight, Jordan.”
She doesn’t meet my eye as I leave her apartment, and I don’t look back at her as I’m walking out. Some agreements should never be signed – I should know that by now. It was one of those signatures which led me to the person I am today: the man that Jordan doesn’t want.
Jordan
I’ve managed to drag Anya to the first match of the tournament, which is being held in the city’s official GAA club, the Four Masters. It’s wet and humid this morning, and the field will definitely be slippery. I really hope the weather brightens up for the second half of the match.
The seats are almost completely taken – there are parents, teachers, supporters, and locals who are just plain curious. I never thought an event like this would generate so much interest.
“Are you nervous?” Anya asks, giving me a gentle shove.
“A little.”
“Are you scared of losing?”
Losing, definitely. I’m just not sure yet of what.
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t you go to the training sessions? Didn’t you say the coach was doing a good job?”
I nod, avoiding her gaze. Anya still doesn’t know that I accepted his invitation last night, and she definitely doesn’t know about what happened afterwards, in my apartment. I haven’t had time yet to catch her up, and I don’t intend to do it now. Not with Niall sitting only two rows away, on the bench.
“You have to trust him. All those years playing must have been good for something, right? I mean, his face is hanging in the window of Intersport for a reason.”
“I think so,” I say, vaguely, hoping that the match will start soon, and I can avoid any more conversation.
“Good morning, ladies.” Tyler lifts his cap in greeting and settles himself down next to me.
“Hayes,” Anya says, coldly. “No cats stuck in trees to save this morning?”
Tyler laughs. “I was on the night shift. I have the day off today.”
“Lucky you.”
“Lucky for you guys.”
Anya grimaces, taking a sip of her takeaway coffee.
“How’s it going?” he asks me.
“I just hope they win.”
“Relax, they will.”
“You think?”
“The other team hasn’t trained as hard.”
“So our hopes are pinned on the fact that our opponents are lazy?”
He laughs again. “More or less.”
“That doesn’t sound promising.”
“It doesn’t look like you have much faith in Kerry.”
“He didn’t have many sessions to get to know the team. He didn’t have enough time to prepare them, to—”
“I wasn’t talking about the tournament.”
I should’ve seen that coming.
“I don’t think that’s any of your business, Tyler,” I tell him, my voice hard.
“Probably not, no.”
He fixes his gaze ahead of him, towards the bench, where Skylar has joined her dad.
“Luckily, someone else has decided to put their trust in him.”
I smile involuntarily.
“And I think it’s been really good for him.”
As soon as the match started, Anya disappeared in search of another coffee, and Tyler went over to join Niall on the bench. Skylar came over to sit with me.
“How did last night go?” I ask her, discreetly.
“It went well, I think.”
“You think?”
“I haven’t been out with many guys, so I have nothing to compare it with.”
“You shouldn’t try to compare them anyway.”
“Maybe not. What about you? You weren’t with Kerry when he came to pick us up.”
“He dropped me home first,” I say, vaguely. “I was tired.”
Skylar doesn’t push it.
“Is he playing today?” I ask, trying to change the subject.
“I don’t think he’s cut out for this kind of thing.”
“But he’s on the team, isn’t he?”
“And I don’t really know why.”
“Maybe he was trying to impress someone.”
She looks at me. “I don’t need that kind of bullshit.”
“No?”
She shrugs and turns her gaze back to the field. “I don’t like sporty guys.”
“What do you like?”
She considers this for a moment, then looks at me again.
“Real people. People who stick around.”
I smile at her honesty, and the way she’s trying to keep up her stony exterior. In reality, she could burst into tears at any second.
“He’s a good kid, Carter. Not just because he’s responsible, or because he has the best grades in the school. It’s because he’s a good person. He has a big heart.”
“How do you know him so well?”
“I know all my students well. I know their stories.”
“Did his mother leave?” she asks me, brazenly.
“Yes.”
“But his dad stayed?”
I smile at her, nodding slowly.
“Why did you tell him about my graphic novels?”
“I just told him that there was this bright, clever girl with a limitless imagination, but that she’d lost her way a little. I told him she needed a hand finding the right path.”
“Did you really say that?”
“Yes.”
“So, you’ve read them, too?”
“Yes.”
“Did you like them?”
“I did. I think you’re extremely talented.”
“You’re not just saying that because you like my dad?”
I take a deep breath. “No.”
She sits silently for a few minutes.
“I’d like to try.”
“Try what?”
“This thing.”
“Are you talking about your novels?”
She looks timidly at me, nodding. “But I don’t know where to start. I just wrote a few things down and threw them on the Internet.”
“What do you want to?”
“I want to do that,” she says, cautiously. “I want to write, to invent things… I want to bring everything in my head to life.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Absolutely.”
She smiles proudly.
“Could you help me work out how to do it?”
“I’d love to.”
She turns her gaze back towards the field, trying to mask her embarrassment. I do the same, shifting my eyes ahead of me at the very moment that Niall looks over towards us. He lifts his hand to me in greeting and I mirror his movement, before he flashes me a small smile and goes back to his team. Meanwhile, I go back to tormenting myself with the thought of him, of us; of the last thing we said to each other.
“He’s not so bad, you know,” Skylar says, breaking our silence.
“No, he’s not.”
“He just needs people to put their faith in him.” She turns to face me again. “Just like you’re doing with me.”
Jordan
I yank up the zip of my hoodie and pull my cap down on my head, trying to protect myself from the rain. I quickly cross the road and jog towards the Chinese restaurant which sits around the corner from my house. I’m preparing myself for a depressing, lonely dinner for one, sitting in front of the TV. I tried to call ahead and ask them to deliver my order to me, but they told me they were too busy and that it would’ve taken an hour. It would’ve made no sense to wait.
After this morning – the game finishing in a tie, Tyler’s conversation, my chat with Skylar, and Niall’s sad eyes – I just want to wrap myself up in a blanket and stuff my face with food. I want to watch romantic films back-to-back, with Caramel curled up on my lap, then maybe go to bed with a good book – one of those sad, painful novels that would leave me sinking even deeper into my own misery. A weekend of self-pity is just what I
need before I can start to feel better again. This is exactly what I did after my marriage broke down – although it took much more than just one weekend, and I don’t plan to meet the same fate now. I mean, what did it all mean? A few dates, a couple of nights of sex, some laughter, a few kisses, some stupid jokes. They’re all things I can forget, lock away in my mind as if they never happened. I need to stop feeding this ridiculous feeling in my stomach. I can’t fall for it again; I can’t give another guy my heart just to watch him chuck it away once he’s done with it.
I push open the door and shake the rain from my jacket, approaching the counter and waiting to be served. I order a hearty dinner for one. They tell me it should be ready in about ten minutes, so I step aside for the next customer and head back towards the main part of the restaurant, which is full and buzzing – just like it is every Saturday night. I decide to dedicate my wait to one of my favourite hobbies: watching people have dinner. I see a lot of familiar faces, happy couples chatting away as they eat – probably discussing their next holiday, or deciding what to watch on TV – before my eye falls onto the last couple I could ever have prepared myself to see tonight.
They’re talking, almost non-stop. Well, Steven is, anyway. It’s strange – he barely spoke with me. I was always the chatty one. He never held my hand when we were out for dinner, and he never looked me in the eye, like he’s doing now, with her.
I should look somewhere else; now is definitely not the time to be dragging up the past. Especially not when I’m already suffering so much from everything that’s going on in the present. But I can’t help it; I try to reason with myself, to work out where I went wrong. I need to know why he never gave me a chance to make things right.
He lets go of her hand and she stands up, probably heading for the bathroom, and I watch her cross the room: she has one hand resting on her stomach, her expression proving that she has something wonderful on the way. I feel like my heart is about to shatter into a thousand pieces once again, all because of the same man.
Before I can realise what I’m doing, I cross the room, too, but in the opposite direction. I rest my hands on the back of the seat at the exact moment that Steven’s eyes land on me.
“Jordan? What are you doing here?”
“Why?” is all I can ask him.
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s… She’s…” I’m trying so hard not to cry, but pain is lapping at me. It’s screaming; so loud that I’m worried everyone in the restaurant can hear it.
“I didn’t want you to find out this way.”
“I don’t understand.”
Steven’s gaze is calm, almost kind.
“I’ve changed. She changed me.”
I’m certain that my pain can be heard all the way from the moon.
“We’re getting married. In two months.”
I can’t even hear my own laboured breathing anymore.
“And I’m…happy.”
I can’t avoid it; I can feel my heart breaking again. And I leave it lying there, in pieces, in the exact place it fell.
I don’t know what to do with it.
I don’t want it.
I can’t suffer like this anymore.
I sit in my car, staring through the window at the gate. The rain is hammering so hard against the windscreen that the wipers can’t work fast enough, can’t give me a clear enough picture of the scene in front of me; or maybe all the tears I’ve cried have clouded my vision from everything else. I glance at my phone, sitting on the passenger seat, my unanswered message still flashing on the screen:
I’m outside.
The gate opens ahead of me, and I jump out of the car, both feet landing on the gravel as I jog towards his front door through the rain. When it opens in front of me, I don’t say a word; I slide my hands down his face and press my mouth against his. Niall stands there, frozen, his hands on my arms, trying to pull me away – but I won’t let him. He wants an explanation that I can’t give him. I press my wet body against him and kiss him harder, slipping my tongue into his mouth and pushing him against the outside wall. I finally feel him give in to my touch.
His hands are on my face, keeping me close to him, as my own hands slide frantically over his shirt.
“Fuck, wait.” He pulls away from me and looks at me, confused. “What the hell…?”
I try to kiss him again, but he grabs my wrists, stopping me in my tracks.
“What are you trying to do, Jordan?”
“I thought that was obvious.”
He studies me for a moment, waiting for me to give him a reason for my behaviour; but tonight, he’s getting nothing other than my pure desperation.
“I came here to be with you.”
Niall’s gaze falls onto my lips.
“No agreements or contracts.”
His breathing grows heavy on my skin.
“Just us. Just tonight.”
* * *
I throw my hoodie onto the ground and we fall into the hay, which sticks to my clothes.
“You could’ve called me, I’d have come to yours. I live with my parents, for fuck’s sake,” he breathes anxiously into my neck.
“I didn’t plan it.”
His hands move quickly in search of my breasts. He bends down to them and bites them through my T-shirt.
“Like the first time,” he pants, before staring at me, his eyes laden with desire.
“Just like the first time,” I say.
This is exactly what I wanted: another night of thoughtless madness, with no expectations. Nothing but our bodies, pressed against one another.
He lifts himself up to take off my top, then tugs his own over his head. He turns his attention back to my body, his chest crushed against me, his hands encircling my breasts, his mouth pressed on mine. He kisses me hungrily, as if my own urgency had been transferred into him. He takes my nipples between his fingers and rolls them, torturously.
“Niall.” My hands trail down his back, before reaching down to grab his butt cheeks, pulling him towards me.
“Fuck,” he sighs into my mouth. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
He reaches for the waistband of my tracksuit bottoms, before tearing them off and chucking them behind him. One hand is on my thigh, pushing aside my underwear; I feel his fingers slide inside me.
He takes a deep breath, enjoying the wetness between my legs; I’m ready for him. He shoves his fingers in deeper, before sliding them slowly out, studying my pained, ecstatic expression.
“Niall.”
“There’s no rush. Some things take time.”
I lift myself from the hay, making him do the same, before pushing his shoulders back. He lies down. I throw my legs over him and straddle his body, quickly undoing the button of his jeans. His hands wrap around my hips as I take hold of his erection.
“Fuck, Jordan. That’s not taking it slow.”
“I thought there were no rules tonight.”
I move on top of him, pressing myself against his hardness.
“You really know what to do – and not just with your words.”
He grabs my arse with his enormous hands and squeezes, echoing my movements on top of him.
“When I’m on top of you, I don’t stand a chance; but when I’m underneath you…” He breathes heavily. “I’m totally fucked.”
“That’s what I came here for, Kerry.”
“You came here to make sure I’m fucked?”
“I came here to take exactly what I want.”
Niall
Spurred on by her words, I push my hips towards her, begging her to take whatever she wants from me before I die right here, underneath her. I want to enjoy her sudden and unexpected desire to have me.
Jordan answers my prayers, leaning on my shoulders as I push aside her underwear. She slides slowly onto my dick, stripping me of the agony of waiting, just one second before the end. When I’m finally inside her, she moves her arse around on top of me. I have one hand echoing her mo
vements; the other is holding onto her panties. She closes her eyes, letting her head drop into her shoulders, her wet hair trailing down her back. I tug her underwear in my direction, inviting her to watch me as my thumb starts to gently rub her clit. I move my hips against hers; Jordan’s eyes are fixed onto me, her lips parted, her breath heaving. She plants her hands behind her, onto my thighs, giving me a full view of her incredible body as it moves sensually on top of me. My hand slides across her arse, into her underwear, stroking the sensitive skin around her opening. Jordan stifles a moan as she feels my fingers playing with her: her movements grow erratic, as if she were losing control of her own body.
“Yeah, like that…” I lift my hips up as her body bends forwards. I push inside her with my middle finger.
“Oh, God…” She pushes her hands against my abs.
“Take anything you want, Headmistress.”
She leans her head forwards, her hair falling onto my chest as her nails dig crescent moons into my skin. My thumb is pressing tirelessly against her clit, my fist tugging at her underwear. I lift my hips quickly, pushing as deeply as I can, as my fingers playing slowly inside her.
Jordan moves desperately on top of me, her desire uncontrollable. She wants me, my fingers and my dick. Now.
“Oh, God… Like that…” My movements are suddenly sporadic, too, anxious to come inside her. “Come with me, Jordan. Show me how much you want it.”
I feel her lose control of her body, her moans lost in her heavy breathing as the orgasm ricochets through her; I push inside her, as that same orgasm rips through me.
Jordan falls on top of me, stretching out across my stomach, her legs still trembling, wrapped tightly around my waist. I brush the hair from her face and search for her mouth. My tongue slides inside her, trying to catch her breath. I kiss her, and she lazily lets herself be kissed. I turn onto one side, keeping her pressed to me.
“You’re wild, Headmistress.”
She looks at me through half-shut eyes.
“And I really like you. And I like that you came here tonight just because you wanted to be with me.”