Kneading You

by Simone Belarose

  He was what I needed right now. I shouldn’t have blown him off to come out. The little spark of fun wasn’t worth all this emotional baggage that was weighing me down. While Beth, Tina, and Lois were arguing over what platters to get, I was conveniently excluded from the conversation.

  I don’t know whether they did it on purpose or not, but I felt more alone sitting in a group of four people than I ever did going out on my own. Though I doubt anybody heard me over the fierce debate of blooming onions versus mozzarella sticks, I excused myself to go to the bathroom.

  Leaving my purse on the table I went in search of the toilets, surprisingly eager to be away from them and on my own for even a moment. It was like I couldn’t think straight with all the talking. The alcohol hadn’t helped matters any. And rather than loosen me up as it did at the club, now it made me feel anxious and worried.

  I came back from the bathroom feeling a little more myself. As I rounded the corner back to the table I heard my name and instinctively paused, but it wasn’t directed at me I realized a moment later. I stayed out of sight and listened against my better judgment.

  “…really don’t know why she even came back,” said Beth. “I’ve been leaning on her this entire time to sell that ratty old building and make some real money. I guess with her college degree she thinks she knows more than me.”

  “Why did you even invite her out with us?” asked Tina, her voice took on a nasally quality I hadn’t noticed in the car. “She’s such a prude. I guess that’s what we get for being nice to a charity case like that.”

  “Didn’t her dad just like, die or something?” asked Lois. “What’s she doing going out partying anyway? Is she like a major slut or something?”

  Before I knew what was happening my fists were balled in anger and my vision blurred with tears.

  “Something like that,” said Beth between mouthfuls of something that muffled her words. “Honestly I can’t wait until she leaves. The town was so much better without her around. You know I pretended to be her friend in high school and she was just as boring and bland as she is now. I really thought living in New York City would make her interesting. Boy was I wrong. I don’t see what Thomas ever saw in her.”

  I turned and marched back to the bathrooms, tears trailing down my face. Marched to the hand sanitizer and pumped a frothy pile into my hand and used it to wipe away the bartender’s number written on my wrist.

  Whether he’d been put up to it by them or not, I didn’t want anything to do with tonight. Really, I should have known better. Going home alone was better than some booty call that would - somehow, I’m sure - get back to Beth and her bitchy friends.

  I couldn’t believe what I had heard. I thought they were nice. I thought they wanted to be my friends. Instead, they talk about me behind my back like I was trash.

  Screw them. I didn’t need their approval. There had to be a rear exit somewhere around here. After a minute or two of searching, my watery vision not helping matters, I finally found it and pushed it open into the night air.

  A thin band of paved walkway wound down to the lake and into the park proper beyond. The thin moonlight that came through the heavy clouds painted it silver like it was a path laid out just for me to follow.

  Finally free of the stuffy interior, I stormed away into the park beyond. I shouldn’t have gone out. I should have stayed at Dad’s and worked through the boxes.

  I reached into my pocket to call Jemma, I needed a friendly voice, only to find my pocket empty. I’d left my purse, wallet, and phone back at the table. The chill night air froze the tears to my cheeks, I didn’t even have a tissue to blow my nose.

  Feeling miserable and not wanting to give them the satisfaction of seeing me cry, I continued deeper into the park. I finally found a bench that looked moderately familiar. It looked out onto the dark lake rippling with milky moonlight.

  Streetlamps marched down the path it was on, and I felt confident that after a good hard cry by myself I could navigate my way out and back to my apartment.

  It was only after I sat down that I remembered my keys were also in my purse back at the restaurant.

  10

  Thomas

  “Goodnight Miss Peterson.” I handed over the boxed scones, an assortment of blueberry crumble, pumpkin, cinnamon spice, and lemon. “Tell Dave I hope he gets better.”

  Miss Peterson took the box gingerly and waved from the door. “I will dear, maybe when he’s feeling better you’d like to come over for dinner sometime. One last cookout before the weather gets too cold.”

  A smile came to my face. “I’d love to, just tell me when.”

  “Will do!” The door opened with the jangling ring of the shop’s bell and she was gone. I followed behind her, closing up the shop and wondering what Claire was doing right at that moment.

  I hoped she was okay.

  For some reason, I had the feeling like she didn’t want to cancel our plans, but I couldn’t figure out why. Of course I had been disappointed, but that shouldn’t have mattered. After her last disappearing act, I had to admit that deep down I expected it to happen again.

  It was nice of her to let me know this time.

  Closing down the shop took a lot longer than most people realized. I could have done a number of things to make it faster, but I was particular. I checked my phone. It was just a little after seven and I had no messages.

  Frank’s late, I thought to myself. All the dough that needed to rise overnight was tucked away into the proofing oven and all the fresh bread and baked goods that I’d made were boxed up and ready to go.

  There was a knock at the back door, three short raps. I opened it and let Frank in. His clothes were half-soaked with rain. “Sorry,” he said taking off his cap and tucking it into his back pocket. “Rain slowed me down some, but I sure do appreciate you waiting up for me. Most people wouldn’t bother.”

  “I know the food goes to a good cause,” I said stacking the boxes onto a dolly for him. “That’s all of it.”

  Frank tilted the dolly back and made a grunt of surprise. He looked at me suspiciously. “You sure you don’t bake extra just to give away?”

  I shrugged my shoulders, stuffing my hands into my pockets. “What can I say, business isn’t always great. Listen, is this your last stop for the night?”

  He paused at the door, one foot keeping it open. Rain poured into the kitchen, slicking the floor. “‘Fraid not, why do you ask?”

  “Ah, nothing,” I said. “Just wondering if you wanted to go out for a beer.”

  That made Frank smirk. “Next time I’ll make sure this is my last stop, how about that?”

  “Sounds good man,” I said coming over to hold the door open. “Drive safe.”

  “Only way I know how.”

  He disappeared into the rain and I let the door swing shut.

  So much for keeping my mind off Claire. The truck outside rumbled to life and I opened the door again just in time to see the tail lights swing out of view. It was still raining, but a cold fall rain might just be what I needed.

  A quick stop back at my place, and I was changing into my running clothes and sneakers. Phone set to my favorite playlist and earbuds in, I set off down the steps and towards the park.

  It was colder than I thought it’d be, the wind and the rain only made matters worse but I counteracted it by pushing myself harder. I needed to clear my head. Normally I’d take the forest path, but given the storm and the dark night, I stuck to the lit lake path that wound between the two dark spans of water.

  The course was already mapped out in my head. I’d do a figure eight around the western lake, come up through the middle path and then loop around the eastern lake. All in all, it was around ten miles, more than doable.

  That hadn’t always been the case. When I first started to take better care of myself, I could barely do a quarter of that before I was wheezing and out of breath with a stitch in my side.

  Now I could do the whole circuit no problem. A fe
at I never would have thought possible before. In a weird way, I had Claire to thank for it. As I found my stride, I thought back to how miserable and rejected I felt after she left.

  Beth had eventually gotten sick of me pestering her about Claire, and told me that Claire left because of me and the town. She didn’t want to be tied down in a dead-end place like Sunrise Valley. Or a dead-end loser like me.

  It had hurt, which was the understatement of the century. It was deeper than that. It was a wound that still hadn’t quite healed, but if I had never fallen so low I wouldn’t have learned how to care for myself.

  Claire, in her own way, had shown me that there was more to life than trying to please other people. I had to put myself first because that’s what everybody else did. Maybe one day I’d find that person who would be worthy of me putting them first, but until that day I had to take care of myself.

  Nobody else would.

  So I started working out. I was fairly lanky as a teen and the coaches for the basketball and football teams had tried to recruit me to no avail. I wasn’t interested in sports, but once I discovered weightlifting and running I was hooked.

  The process hadn’t been fast. It took years with more stops and starts than I cared to admit, but now it was a habit that I counted on to get me through hard times.

  Whenever I was feeling down, I could lift some weights or go for a run. I didn’t need a gym membership, I didn’t need anything but the clothes on my back and shoes on my feet. All of which were soaked to the bone.

  The streetlamps made shimmering pools of light, safe havens in the dark stormy night. I used to play a game when I was little, running from one light to the next as if something was in the dark chasing me.

  I’d tell Claire and Jemma about the monsters that lurked in the shadows that would get us if we stayed there too long. I couldn’t help but laugh at the memory.

  When I got to the benches by the first lake, I noticed they weren’t empty as usual. Most of the time I went running nobody was there. In the spring the lakes were a popular destination for people having picnics but as the weather cooled off so did the picnickers.

  Which made the lone figure sitting on a bench stand out even more. Not to mention by that time the rain was a proper downpour. I didn’t see an umbrella so rather than run by them as I would normally do and let them have their privacy as I had mine, I felt compelled to investigate.

  As I slowed to a jog then a brisk walk I took out my earbuds and shoved them into my soggy pocket. “Hello?” I called as I got closer.

  I didn’t want to startle them by just appearing out of the dark and the rain.

  They startled anyways and when they whipped around my heart did a little backflip and my stomach dropped out. “Thomas?”

  “Claire! What’re you doing out here?” I was at her side in a second. She was utterly soaked through, shivering in the cold. I had my hoodie off and around her shoulders before I even realized what I was doing. It was thoroughly soaked too, but maybe my body heat would help.

  She looked at me with utter bewilderment. With the disbelief of a person dreaming she reached out and touched my face. Her cold fingers trailed across my stubble and I felt a warmth rise inside me despite the chill rain. “It is you,” she said softly.

  Winding an arm around her I coaxed her to her feet. “Come on, let me walk you home.” I didn’t know what happened, and I desperately wanted to know but first I had to get her warmed up.

  Like a lost child she let me lead her away from the bench and back to the paved trail. My heart broke a little seeing her so sad and confused. Now wasn’t the time to pry, I squeezed her to my side and urged her on.

  She rested her head on my shoulder, through the howling wind and rain I could still hear her sobbing. I said nothing to bring attention to it, only squeezed her tighter and gave her arm a brisk chafing to let her know I was there for her.

  “Wait,” she said and I did, worried she’d suddenly realized who she was walking with and didn’t want anything to do with me. Instead, she reached down and pulled off her heels and dangled them from her fingers. “That’s better.”

  I kicked myself for not noticing earlier. We walked the rest of the way out of the park and it was only once we were out at the street did I stop her and say anything. “I’ll carry you.”

  “Excuse me?” she said, the rain had eased up but I could still tell by the red-rimmed eyes of hers that she was still crying.

  “You’re not wearing shoes,” I said matter-of-factly. “And I’m not about to let you walk on the street in bare feet. So, I’ll carry you.”

  She leaned away from me a little, a flicker of distrust in her gorgeous green eyes. “And if I say no?” she asked with a ghost of defiance.

  “Then I’ll haul you over my shoulder like a bag of flour and still carry you across the street. Your choice.”

  This wasn’t a point I was willing to back down on. Something flickered in her hooded eyes I didn’t recognize. She stood there a long moment, chewing her lip. Probably wondering if I’d make good on my threat.

  I would. I was not the pushover she remembered.

  In the end, she relented and let me sweep her up into my arms and whisk her across the street. She was surprisingly light, and I wanted to believe that she snuggled up to me out of affection rather than the warmth coming off my chest.

  My heart jackhammered in my chest and I knew there was no way she wasn’t aware. I hoped she thought it was because I was exerting myself.

  I carried her all the way back to my apartment, I didn’t even think twice about it until we were inside the warm interior and I was setting her down gingerly on the floor. We both were utterly soaked. I knelt down to unlace my shoes.

  Claire choked out a sob and held a hand to her mouth to stifle it. “I don’t have my keys,” she whispered looking down at her clothes. “And my clothes are ruined…and I’m getting dirt all over your floor.” As if somehow that was the worst of all this.

  Not even thinking about the context, I said, “Bathroom’s down the hall on the left, there’re clean towels in there. I’ll clean up out here and leave you some dry clothes if you don’t mind wearing shirts a few sizes too big.”

  She nodded numbly and staggered off through the living room and into the hall leaving muddy footprints in her wake.

  While she showered I changed into dry clothes, toweled myself off, cleaned up the floor and got out a pair of warm sweat pants and an equally cozy sweatshirt.

  I tried my best to remain on task, but the thought of her wearing my clothes set my blood pumping like mad. I set the clothes down on the small table in the hall opposite the bathroom.

  I didn’t think she’d appreciate me standing there with a raging erection handing her clothes.

  Instead, I went to the kitchen to brew us up some coffee and get my mind out of the gutter. I was glad that I was a bit of a neat freak and cleaned my bathroom and shower regularly, which inevitably led me back to thinking about her naked and using the same towels I used on my own body.

  Gritting my teeth I gripped the edge of the counter with all my strength and willed myself to be better. To be there for her. Just thinking about her alone in the rain, and what might have happened to her if I hadn’t gone for a run or if Frank had been free to go out for a drink made my stomach sick.

  Did she even know how to get out of the park from there? It was notoriously confusing since it didn’t have any signage of any sort save for the entrance. It was just as easy to go deeper into the park than leave.

  My heart thumped against my ribs when I heard the bathroom door open.

  A strange mixture of anger and protectiveness came over me. I wanted - no, I needed to know who did this to her. I turned around and walked back to the couch in the living room just in time to see her wet hair with a towel wrapped around her waist and chest whisk back into the bathroom.

  The towel hadn’t covered her thighs entirely and my mind had a field day with that. Just in case I crossed my leg
, resting my ankle on top of my knee and leaned forward cupping my mug to hide the evidence of my dirty mind.

  She came out, looking stunning as ever wearing clothes several sizes too big. It was just like a kid wearing their parent’s clothes and it was utterly adorable.

  Claire flapped her long sleeves that went way past her hands and managed to push her hands through only to have the sleeve fall back over them again a moment later. “You don’t have any girl’s clothes?” she asked in a huff.

  “No,” I said furrowing my brow in confusion. “Why would I?”

  She opened her mouth and then shut it. Maybe she thought better of what she was going to say, or maybe she realized what she had meant. Either way, she sauntered over to me and plopped onto the couch next to me.

  “Is that for me?” she asked, pointing a dangling sleeve at the mug on the glass coffee table. I gave her a nod as I drank my own.

  Claire’s eyes lit up and she extricated her hand long enough to curl her nimble fingers around the mug and bring it to her lips. My eyes lingered longer than was appropriate, but I told myself I was worried about her.

  “I suppose you want to know why I was out in the park all alone?” she asked eventually.

  “The thought had crossed my mind.”

  She heaved a heavy sigh, steeling herself. “This morning, during breakfast Beth called me…”

  11

  Claire

  By the time I was finished telling the story I was a sobbing wreck again. I’d cried more in the last few days than I had most of my life. What was it that Thomas did to me that made me so weak, so vulnerable? I always did my crying alone, but I couldn’t deny the way it felt to be held and comforted.

  I craved it.

  The latter half of my story I told with my face against Thomas’ muscled chest, breathing in his calming scent and listening to his heartbeat pound solid and strong. I needed this more than words could express.