Kneading You

by Simone Belarose

  The night stretched on, and slowly her sobbing slowed then stopped completely. I kept rocking her for a few minutes longer to be sure. When I couldn’t hear anything more I stopped and lifted her up.

  I’d take her to my bed, let her sleep there, alone and in peace. I could be good as my word, except as I laid her in bed, took off her shoes and set them aside then tucked her in I couldn’t leave her side.

  Fuck it, I thought and stripped off my clothes to lie down next to her. I needed this almost as bad as she did.

  17

  Claire

  I awoke warm and better rested than I had in weeks. A dim part of me was mortified I had cried like a little girl in front of Thomas. It had never been my intention to unload on him.

  He took it surprisingly well. I didn’t remember much besides the storm of impotence at my father’s death, all that I still had to do, and my unmourned tears at the loss.

  I don’t know what it was that set it off, but somewhere during our discussion, I felt the familiar tremble in my lips that presaged something worse. I hurried away so Thomas wouldn’t think he was responsible, or worse felt like he had to do something.

  Why was it that guys never understood what a girl needed when they cried? Most of them act like we’re some ticking time bomb like we’re some red hot thing that’ll burn them if they hug us or touch us in any way.

  Thomas wasn’t like that, though I was scared he might be. So much had changed in the eight years since we were friends that I was afraid his kind heart had grown up and hardened along with his body.

  The tenderness and care he showed me was the final straw that broke me. I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer and then the rest of the night devolved into vain attempts to hold back and a desperate desire to cling to Thomas. He was my rock, the only thing I could count on and he did not disappoint.

  He never disappointed.

  It was only when we were back at his apartment, his strong arms wrapped around me like a safety blanket that I realized how wrong I had wanted to be about him. I didn’t want him to be like other guys. He was Thomas. My Thomas. And he was different.

  His chivalrous words notwithstanding, I was more than happy to discover his thick arm draped over my body, his hand lying flat against my hip. I wiggled my ass against his crotch, felt the warm girth of his hardening cock wake up to my temptation.

  It was like having a superpower, and I had to admit it turned me on feeling him stiffen so readily even though I was pretty sure he was fast asleep.

  With what little self-control I could scrounge up, I stopped. I didn’t want anything to ruin this moment. It was such a peaceful, bright morning. The comfortable autumn chill of Sunrise Valley so early in the year was like falling back into my childhood.

  The longer I was away from New York the less stress I felt. Everything moved at a slower pace here, and while the town had its share of severe problems I was starting to find it harder to imagine myself leaving.

  Was I really going to go back to New York? Back to my old life? Would I pick things back up as if I had been on vacation? What about Thomas? He didn’t want to sell, and that really only left one option.

  He wouldn’t be able to come with me, and I had to ask myself if I was okay with that. Could we work out a long-distance relationship? It wasn’t something I had ever been interested before, never even tried it.

  With Thomas, I found myself planning and outlining proposals for ways we could keep this beautiful thing we had going.

  I wasn’t ready to let it go, and I knew deep in my heart that he wasn’t either.

  “Mmm, good morning beautiful,” he rumbled behind my ear. Gave me a nibble that made the hair on my neck stand up.

  “Good morning yourself,” I said, placing a hand on his thick forearm as he pulled me in for a deliriously intimate hug from behind. “What’s on the menu?”

  He paused a moment. “Apple fritters, cannoli cheesecake, some hazelnut lobster tail pastries and some more traditional fare like eggs, bacon, and sausage.”

  My mouth was already watering. “While you go be an awesome boyfriend I’ll-“ I froze, midsentence. The moment the word was out of my mouth I felt him stiffen against me, every muscle in his body went rigid. I desperately wanted to feel all of his hard angles but I was too mortified by what I’d just let slip to enjoy it.

  When had I started thinking of him as my boyfriend?

  He leaned in and kissed me on the side of my neck. “Is that what we are?” He breathed into my ear and I shivered with pleasure.

  My mind chanted, yes! I wanted nothing more than to give him what he wanted, it was the truth, wasn’t it? I wanted this.

  No, I needed this.

  “Good,” he said, and it took me a moment to realize that somewhere in all the fast-paced shouting of the word in my head, I must have said it aloud. I could feel the blush warm my cheeks and I tried to get away.

  Thomas wasn’t having any of that.

  He pulled me in and wrapped his bulging arms around me, kissing trails of affection all over my neck and shoulder. I wished so badly at that moment that he had been less of a gentleman. That he had undressed me while I was fast asleep, spent from hours of crying into his comforting embrace.

  Instead, I was still fully clothed except for shoes and there was painfully little skin that he could explore with his mouth.

  “I feel the same way,” he whispered to my neck and gave me one final kiss before he slipped away. The bed suddenly felt too big, and bone-chillingly cold. If he wanted me to get out of bed, that was the perfect way to do it.

  Driven by the need to get out of the suddenly unwelcoming bed and the desire to get back into his arms I rolled out from under the covers and scrambled to him. He was barely on his feet for a second when I came barreling at him like some rambunctious child.

  He took me with all the aplomb of an NFL linebacker taking a charging tackle from a five-year-old. Arms wrapped around me and lifted me towards his heavily muscled chest. I nestled up against him and smiled into his pecs.

  “I suppose you’re coming with me to make breakfast,” he said with a hint of amusement. The familiar rocking, swaying gait of Thomas instantly made me feel at ease.

  With a painful realization, I understood that it wasn’t Sunrise Valley that had eased my stress and helped me feel whole again. It wasn’t Sunrise Valley that I wanted to come back to, that I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving.

  It was Thomas.

  So stunned by the thought, I barely noticed that Thomas had gently dumped me onto the couch and headed into the kitchen with a kiss to the top of my head. Within minutes the sultry smells of frying bacon, eggs, and the sweet goodness of those heavenly delights he made filled the apartment.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said walking with forced calm to the kitchen. “While you’re-“

  “Being an awesome boyfriend,” he finished helpfully with a smirk on his gorgeous stubbled face.

  “Yes.” I tried not to blush or stammer, I failed horribly. I hadn’t been this flustered in years. “That. I’m going to get some things from the other apartment and…bring them over? Yes. I’m going to bring things over.”

  One curious dark eye glanced at me. It wasn’t rocket science. It was pretty obvious I was all flustered and tongue-tied and rather than stay there and make it worse I beat a hasty retreat.

  Out in the hallway, I took a deep breath and marched myself to Dad’s apartment. Once inside I started to gather up all my things, then paused wondering what I should or should not bring.

  It was hard to imagine that we were actually dating now. The dizzy, thrilling sensation deep in the pit of my stomach like the anticipation before a rollercoaster drop had me all out of sorts.

  Before I knew what I was doing, I had packed up all my things. Toothbrush, toiletries, all my clothes were shoved roughly back into my bags. I was halfway down the hallway, everything I had taken with me in tow before I even thought that this may be moving too fast.

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nbsp; The doubt lasted all of a moment before I rushed headlong into it. Screw it, I thought. Don’t I deserve to be happy for once? To jump into something that makes me feel like dancing without weighing the pros and cons first and creating a detailed analysis of each choice?

  The answer was an emphatic, resounding, yes.

  18

  Thomas

  A very, very small part of me feared that I’d never see Claire again. That she had finally snapped from fear of commitment and bolted. I wasn’t sure if I would have blamed her.

  When she walked back through my door, laden down with adorably utilitarian black cases with little rollers and long straps that went over her shoulders, I was thrilled. Really, I felt like my feet had left the kitchen floor and I was going to bump my head against the ceiling.

  She was more beautiful than I could ever imagine. There was always something holding her back, some shred of wariness that kept us from moving towards something more. Now it was gone and there was this ease between us.

  It was like we had just wound the clock back eight years. That effortless way we used to talk and be with each other was back. And our new relationship deepened that connection.

  Over breakfast we talked about the plans Claire had for improvements and the various recipes I had thought of implementing but never found the time for. She eagerly volunteered to be a taste tester, if I made sure that we’d go for a jog every night after work.

  “I’ll show you all my favorite haunts,” I said, chasing my eggs around on my plate with a piece of crusty bread. “There are some gorgeous places to watch the sunset over the lakes. You’ll love it.”

  “Maybe we can go camping sometime?”

  I couldn’t help but smile. Claire had never liked the outdoors much, for that matter I never did either. But there was no denying that there was something romantic about being utterly alone in the wilderness together. Undisturbed by our schedules for a few days. Untethered from phones and the digital world.

  “I’d love that.”

  We decided that on our nightly runs we’d go searching for ideal camping spots somewhere off the beaten path. Of which there were many. Most of Sunrise Valley was still pristine forests and valley landscapes that were rarely seen anywhere else.

  It wouldn’t be hard to find a place nobody knew of but us.

  Thinking about a spot that could be all ours gave me a thrill of excitement. The same sort of energy I felt coming off Claire in rippling waves. Something had changed in her, in us, and I was grateful for it.

  There was something about the way she talked, she was more present than before. I never felt like she was not giving me her full attention before, but now I felt like I was the only person in the whole world.

  In the middle of a crowd of millions, if she looked at me the way she did now, it would feel as intimate as if we were the only ones there.

  After breakfast, I went to work, and to my great pleasure, Claire decided to join me. All her documents and portfolios came with her, and she set up a temporary office in the kitchen of the bakery.

  I spent more time than I probably should have in the back. To be close to her. To see her even if we were both too busy to talk without losing focus. The way she handled her business calls was the epitome of efficient, she knew everybody’s name, what they were up to and always managed to make it seem real and personable.

  Some people she talked to for only a few minutes, but somehow made it seem like they were old friends.

  “Are they a college friend?” I asked after one of the phone calls ended.

  Claire looked up, slightly surprised at finding me there and then she flashed me a pleased grin. “Oh, no. McMullen is a client of mine, going on four or five months now.”

  I shook my head and rolled out the croissant dough again, careful not to overwork it. Grabbed the sheet, folded it over itself and rolled again. The trick was folding it enough to get those layers of delicious flakiness but not so much you melted the butter or worked gluten into it.

  Too much work and you’d ruin the whole thing. The texture was just as important as the taste with most pastries.

  When I didn’t say anything further she asked, “Why?”

  “You have this personable way.” I tried to capture what it was in words. “You know things about them that most people don’t know about each other after years of friendship. Things that I bet coworkers of ten years don’t even know.”

  I could see the doubt in her eyes. Did she really not see it?

  “Like the phone call before last, you asked him about his son’s tuba lessons. How many children did that guy have?”

  “Three, Galen, Freida and Henry - that’s the one who plays tuba and keeps him up all night.”

  “You see?” I said pointing at her with the rolling pin. “That is not something most people would know. You pay attention, probably ask the right questions when you’re first meeting somebody.” I chuckled. “I bet you even have a spreadsheet for it.”

  Her eyes widened in shock and she slammed her laptop shut.

  Oh my God, that was adorable. I knew she had a dorky love for organizational spreadsheets but that was just too cute.

  “You do!” I turned and laughed at her reddening face. “Oh, that’s adorable, Claire. How do you organize it?”

  “You have a customer!” she yelled back almost panic-stricken, one hand shakily pointing at the door to the front.

  With a wry grin, I wiped my hands on my apron and pointed back at her. “We’re not done.”

  I was still smiling when I went into the storefront to see Sally there. “Hey Sally, what can I get ya?”

  She blushed and gave me a shy smile back. Sally was a year or so younger than me and a regular at my shop. She was also notoriously shy. I don’t think I ever got more than three or four words out of her at a time. Though I always tried to get more out of her.

  My record was seven at once.

  As the local animal shelter’s vet, I guessed she was used to not having to talk to her patients since they couldn’t talk back. The shelter was run entirely by Jeff and a skeleton crew of volunteers.

  They had it bad for each other, and neither of them was capable of making the first move. It was painful to watch.

  “Just some…uhm…of your éclairs, an apple turnover, and a bear claw please.”

  “You got it.”

  While I busied myself picking out her order, I paused and added a few cannolis to the box, one chocolate dipped and the other two dusted with pistachios. Ringing her up, I left the cannolis off the bill.

  Being in love myself made me want to play matchmaker. Everybody deserved to be this deliriously happy.

  Sally looked into the box then at the receipt then back at me after paying. I could see the question forming on her lips, and I just leaned over, folded my arms atop the glass display and said, “I’m pretty sure Jeff loves cannolis.”

  She blushed like a furnace, squeaked out something that sounded a lot like “thanks” and practically ran out of the shop cradling the box.

  “That was so sweet,” said Claire, leaning against the swinging door to the kitchen to keep it open.

  “Crazy kids.” I gave her a hooked grin. “They’ve been beating around the bush for years, you remember Jeff? He used to be in Miss Templeton’s class.”

  “The one that kept getting flooded from some burst pipe or another and they’d shuffle them off to our classroom?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Skinny guy, long hair and heavy metal outfits?”

  I chuckled. That was Jeff, though he’d gotten quite a bit beefier in the intervening years since Claire had known him. “Not quite so skinny anymore, but still just as much into heavy metal. He runs the animal shelter over on Moore.”

  Claire nodded towards the door. “What about that girl? I don’t remember seeing her in Sunrise Valley before.”

  “She’s new, well new for you. Sally is the veterinarian for the shelter, which also doubles as a clinic.”r />
  There was a brief narrowing of her eyes and a pursing of her lips. “Well, so long as she knows you’re mine.”

  A laugh coughed out of me and nearly had me choking. It took me a few minutes to regain my composure. “Sally’s not into me.”

  Claire’s folded arms told me she wasn’t so sure. “All I know is that all day you’ve been back and forth and more girls than guys visit your shop. Most of them fairly young and every one of them blushes like a schoolgirl when they see you. Yes, Thomas, even Sally.”

  That was absurd, wasn’t it? “You don’t think-“ I began, but Claire finished my thought for me with a snort of laughter thrown in for good measure.

  “If it was anybody else I might not believe that you could be this clueless to a parade of young women practically throwing themselves at you every day, but then again it is you and I know how blind you can be sometimes.” Claire walked towards me, her hips swaying in a hypnotic trance. She wrapped her small arms around me and I encircled her with my own.

  “I knew I was a little thick when it came to the subtle hints of women, but…really?”

  Her cheek pressed against my chest, she nodded.

  “Well, I suppose that explains some things then.” I strangely felt disappointed. It wasn’t like the years since Claire left I was entirely alone, but I had no idea so many women were flirting with me.

  Nothing would have compared to what I had with Claire, but it did make me wonder if I could have been less lonely during the near-decade it’d been.

  If I was better at reading cues, would I have gotten together with somebody? The way Claire went on about it made it seem like every eligible lady that stepped through those doors was just about asking me out.

  I wasn’t that thick, was I?

  Maybe it was for the best. Knowing my luck I would’ve gotten together with somebody and because I was lonely and had no other choices would have stayed. I would never have known just how full love, real love, made me feel.