“Nice to meet you,” I said to Cyrus.
“You too.”
“What can I get you two?” I gave myself a mental pat on the back that I was able to push all my feelings away and focus on the job. I’d be their waitress and then I’d go home and figure out a new plan for me and Maya.
3
Jude
I watched as April retreated, heading off to turn in our orders. A million questions ran through my brain, the most pressing one was, why did you dump my ass?
“Sister of my friend, my ass,” Cyrus said leaning in towards me. “What’s the real deal?”
I sighed. “She and I had a little…fling before I joined up. It was a long time ago.” Never mind that when I closed my eyes, I could still hear her sweet laugh and taste her sweet lips like it had been yesterday.
He rested back in the booth. “It’s not true you know. That time heals all wounds. It’s bullshit.”
I studied him, wondering if he had his own experience in heartbreak.
“Healed or not, that ship has passed. Still, it’s weird to see her working here.” I looked for her again.
“Why?”
I turned my attention back to Cyrus. “Her family had money. Her parents were killed but she and her brother were left with a large trust.”
Cyrus sipped his beer. “Maybe she spent it all?”
I shook my head. “No, she’s smarter than that. More likely her brother found a way to control it or take it from her.”
“Fucker.”
I nodded. It was hard to believe that August had been my best friend. We’d been an odd pairing, as he’d been such an introverted geek, and I was the proverbial poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks. We were different in every way except we’d both been smart and liked video games.
April brought our food with a cursory, “Enjoy,” and just as quickly she was gone.
“I can’t imagine August knows she’s here. He wouldn’t like it.”
“August? Her name is April and his name is August?” Cyrus quirked a brow.
I shrugged. “Her parents were interesting people. Really nice actually.” A part of me always wondered if they had lived, would April and I have been able to stay together.
“Why wouldn’t he like her working here?” Cyrus asked, shaking ketchup on his burger.
“It would be beneath him. That’s why I’m not with her. I wasn’t good enough.”
Cyrus’ eyes narrowed. “That’s bullshit.”
I shrugged. “I was a twenty-one-year-old poor kid with nothing to offer. Anyway, he wouldn’t like it that she was here. When I left, she was planning to go to college.” I kept the rest of her plans to myself. He didn’t need to know that I had left for four years to get my shit together while she attended college, and then we’d be together. We’d have careers and means to live if August was going to be a fucker about the trust. I’d truly believed April when she said she didn’t care about the money or my background. For the longest time after her letter breaking up with me arrived, I figured she realized she couldn’t live on love and choose. So seeing her here was off somehow.
I couldn’t keep myself from checking on April every few minutes. Seeing her was like a dream. But when we finished our dinner, I had to leave. I couldn’t let myself get sucked into a vortex of longing for April. Sure, I’d be back to find out what was up, but at the moment, Cyrus and I were about to launch a business. I needed to focus on that first.
Cyrus and I walked back to the hotel.
“Let’s call it a night. We have a big day tomorrow picking up the keys to our new office and getting things set up,” Cyrus said as we headed back to our hotel rooms.
“Sounds good. See you tomorrow.” I entered my room and for a moment, I just stood in the middle of the room as the situation in my life crashed around me. I was home. April was up the street working as a waitress. A part of me wanted to run back to the restaurant and fight for the life we’d once planned.
“Dumbass,” I said to myself. I wasn’t a young idealist kid who was in deep love for the first time anymore. I was a fucking Navy SEAL. I’d faced insurgents, took out terrorists. I was too strong to let my past color my present.
I undressed and got into bed realizing that SEAL or not, I couldn’t keep images of April out of my head. I hadn’t been able to do it over the last eight years, I didn’t know why now would be different.
The thing that really fucked my brain over was the idea that she was it for me. In the last eight years, I’d met other women, but none had affected me like April. I was worried that I’d never get over her. It would be unfair to be with another woman while April was seeped into my psyche. I’d given her my heart, and even when she gave it back, a part of her was still in it.
Fuck! I rolled over, begging sleep to come, knowing that when it did, it would probably involve her. As I lay in the dark, images of the day she seduced me flashed in my brain.
The day she opened the door wearing that pretty summer dress that accentuated all her womanly curves and told me her parents and August weren’t there, my first instinct was to run like hell. But then she invited me in, and I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t say no to the beer. And when she told me that she was a virgin, my dick twitched despite my attempt to tell it to calm down. Then she asked me to take her v-card, and what else could I do? Oh, I tried to say no, but I wanted her so bad. I wanted to touch those luscious curves. I wanted to feel her tight pussy around my cock. It was wrong, and yet, it also felt so fucking right.
When she touched my dick, I knew then that I’d have her, even though at first, I tried to scare her off. She didn’t want to go to college as a virgin, which I understood, but I was sure she had some fairy tale imagine of sex in her head, so the first thing I did was go down on her pussy. It was a mistake for so many reasons. For one, she tasted delicious. I could have spent hours eating her out. Second, she wasn’t scared or repulsed by it.
“You can do anything to me,” she’d said against my lips. “Anything you want.”
Fuck, just thinking about that now made my dick hard. Back then, as a twenty-one-year-old horny kid, I damn near came right then. She was giving into sensations, giving into me, and so I gave in too.
As the memory of that moment came back to me, I slid my boxer-briefs off and gripped my dick, ready to relive the moment.
I’d moved down her body, my fingers opening her soft wet pussy. “Have you ever had an orgasm, April?”
“Only when touching myself and thinking of you.”
Jesus, fucking hell…she got off thinking of me? I hoped to hell the real thing was better, I thought, as I licked and sucked and thrust inside her pussy with my tongue.
“Oh God, Jude…oh God… Oh God…”
Her pussy juice filled my mouth and all I could think about was needing to be inside her.
I couldn’t get my pants off fast enough. Finally, I was positioned between her legs, my hands shaking as I gripped her hips. “Are you sure about this, April?”
“Yes. Yes, fuck me, Jude. I want you.”
When she said to fuck her, I nearly thrust in, giving into the need clawing under my skin. But then I remembered that she was a virgin. She was trusting me with her body, and to make this good for her.
I swore, and readjusted so that I could take things slow. I made a silent prayer that I’d be able to do this without hurting her.
“I don’t want to hurt you, but I probably will.”
“I don’t care. I want to feel you inside me.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, and put my dick at her entrance, pushing until my tip was just inside her. She was wet and hot, and I had to bite my lip to keep from plunging inside.
“More.” She gripped my ass, pulling me to her.
“Fuck…you’re tight…” Little blasts of light were firing in my brain, as I pushed in a little bit more, then withdrew and pushed in again, repeating until I hit her barrier. “This may hurt.” I didn’t want to cause her pain, but my dick was a
bout to come out of its skin if I didn’t give in soon.
“I don’t care.”
I withdrew, and then in one forceful thrust, I plunged in.
She gasped, her fingers digging in my ass.
“Are you okay?” I asked barely holding on to the tether of my control.
“Yes. Oh my God, it’s amazing. You’re amazing…”
“We’re not done yet, April.” I hoped to hell she didn’t think that was it. I started to move, slow and methodically at first, but soon, my pace was quick and sharp. Her pussy clenched and convulsed around me, and it was so fucking awesome. She held onto me, and that was amazing too. April wasn’t the first woman I’d had sex with, but something about her was different. I hoped that when this was done, we’d be able to do it all over again, because I knew one time wouldn’t be enough for me.
My balls retracted, and my dick hit its threshold of friction. “Fuck, I’m gonna come…April…come with me…are you close?” I wanted to make her come again. I want to feel her pussy contract on my cock and shoot me off. I plunged in and her body went taut and her pussy clamped down like it was never going to let go.
Holy hell, I thought, as pleasure exploded from my dick outward. Like a tsunami, sensations flooded to every nerve ending in my body.
Now, eight years later, I still used that moment to get me off when I needed to take care of an urge. Now had been no different, as I grabbed a tissue to wipe off the cum on my belly at the memory of my first time with April. It had been the sweetest perfection, except for the moment of panic I had when I realized that I wasn’t wearing a condom. If she got pregnant, I’d have been well and truly fucked. But she’d planned our little tryst, so she must have been prepared.
A part of me wished I’d gotten her pregnant. If I had, I’d have stayed and there would have been nothing August could do about it. That I knew for sure.
Now that I was older, wiser, and didn’t give a shit what August thought, I wondered if maybe April, who was also older and wiser, and me could try again. There had been something between us. Something I hadn’t been able to let go of. It had to be something special, extraordinary. Something worth pursuing.
4
April
I woke the next morning wondering if I’d dreamt seeing Jude last night. After all, even though he broke my heart, I dreamed of him a lot. He was either touching me so lovingly like he had when we’d been together eight years ago, or he was riding in like a white knight and taking me and Maya away from here. Both versions of the dream had me waking up feeling angry and frustrated. Jude and I were over, so there was no reason to have my sexual fantasies still involve him. Second, I didn’t need a knight in shining armor to save me. I needed to save myself. I was smart and capable. Just because I’d let August take over and I was in a funk, didn’t mean I couldn’t steer my own destiny.
“Mama, I’m going to do a science experiment,” Maya said next to me at the kitchen counter as I made her lunch.
“Oh. Are you going to invent something?” I smiled at her, feeling so grateful to have her in my life.
She looked up at me, her blue eyes, so like her father’s, gleamed. “I’m going to find out what mushed peanut butter and jelly sandwich, carrots, and banana are like.
I quirked a brow. “Mushed?”
She nodded as she held her hands up, waggling her fingers. Then she took the cast-off ingredients remaining from her lunch preparation; bread crust, carrots, and a bite of banana, and kneaded it all together.
I made a face because it looked gross, and yet, I admired her curiosity and creativity. She definitely veered towards the sciences in her interests, and I made a mental note to find out about STEM programs for kids her age.
“Okay Einstein,” I said, picking up her plate with the sandwich, other carrots and half a banana and putting it on the table. “Wash up and eat up.”
Maya washed her hands, getting distracted by the bubbles floating up from her hands as she used too much soap. Then she jumped down from the stool she’d been on and came to the table.
I grabbed a cup of coffee and my sandwich, and sat with her. “So, what are you going to do for the rest of this Saturday?”
August walked in, took half my sandwich with a wink to Maya. I shook my head. For someone who thought I was too immature to run my own life, he sure acted like a dumbass boy.
“I have to head to the office to catch up on some paperwork,” he said.
So what’s new, I thought but didn’t say. He lived for work, and for keeping me here under his thumb. I tried to put myself in his shoes. It couldn’t have been easy, at twenty-one to take over my father’s firm. I’m sure many of the people there didn’t think he was experienced or had the leadership skills, but August proved them wrong. I admired that about him.
But eight years later, he had experience and was a leader, and yet still acted like he was trying to prove something. Whether that was to the people at the office or our deceased parents, I didn’t know.
I appreciated how much he helped me get through school and with Maya. We all lived in the family home, so I didn’t have to worry about shelter. I’d been able to get my education, although not as I’d originally planned. And I had a job with the firm too. Despite his controlling ways, he was very good with Maya. He was the father figure that Jude couldn’t bother to be.
But now, I was feeling antsy again to become my own woman. To stand on my own and be responsible for myself and Maya.
“I noticed some apartments for lease down near the office,” I said, testing the waters with him.
He glanced at me with a frown. “Why are you looking at apartments? The house is plenty big for all of us. It’s good for Maya to be around the home mom and dad made for us.”
I hated it when he tried to guilt trip me with our parents.
“Besides, it also makes more sense so we can carpool. And I can hang with Maya when you have your book club meeting or female empowerment workshops. And the biggest reason of all; Maya would miss her Uncle Auggie, wouldn’t you sweetie?”
“Yep,” Maya said around a bite of banana.
I didn’t even belong to a book club or female empowerment group, although I was ready to find one to help me deal with my brother. During the time I had a regular job at the restaurant, I usually told him I was with my best friend, Petal. Now when I was out, I usually really was with Petal, as she owned her own cupcake shop and hired me to help with her books. Most often, Maya was with me when I was at Petal’s helping decorate cupcakes. Right now, all my extra money came from that work. Between my job and the work that I did for Petal, I could live on my own. But part of the family trust was mine too, and maybe it was time to start demanding my share from August.
“I’ve gotta run. See you all later,” Auggie stuffed my sandwich in his mouth and waved to Maya who waved back.
“I’m done mama,” Maya said, pushing her plate away.
“Clear it off. Then we can go outside if you want.” When August and I were kids, my dad had built us a large playground in the backyard. As we got older, it didn’t get used, but my parents left it.
“Someday you’ll have kids of your own, and it will make them want to come to grandma and grandpa’s house to play,” my mother used to say.
She was right. Her grandchild did love to play there. It was sad that my parents didn’t get to see it.
Maya threw her lunch scraps in the trash and set her plate on the counter by the sink. “Mommy, are we going to move?”
I opened the back door for her. “I don’t know, baby. Maybe. I think it would be nice if you and I had our own place, don’t you?”
“But then uncle Auggie would be all alone.”
I sighed, happy that my daughter had such a sweet heart. “Auggie has his own life. We can still come and see him though.”
She ran off to the swings and I took a seat in one of the lounge chairs. I watched for a moment feeling a little guilty for fussing about my life. I had more than many. Still, I didn’
t feel in control of my own destiny. The only time I had was when I was eighteen and finally won Jude’s heart and planned for college.
“Look at me mama!” Maya gripped the chain of the swing and pulled as it swung forward. She had the most beautiful smile, filled with joy as the wind and sun hit her face.
“I see you baby. Are you having fun?”
“Weeeee.”
She continued to swing a few minutes and then jumped off and ran to me. “Mama, how come Uncle Auggie isn’t my daddy? Kids are supposed to live with their mommy and daddy.”
My stomach clenched. I hated it when conversations of her father came up. I couldn’t tell her he didn’t want us but I didn’t want to lie either.
“Auggie is my brother. That makes him your uncle. We all live in grandma and grandpa’s house because we’re a family. And families come in all shapes and sizes.”
“Could he be my daddy?”
“Ah…no. He’s your uncle. But he does lots of things like a daddy.” I had a lot of problems with Auggie, but he was here for us and he was very good with Maya. I wondered if Maya was on to something being concerned about him being alone if we left. Was that why he was insistent on us staying? Because he didn’t want to be alone?
She leaned against me. “Sometimes I wish I had a real daddy.”
“I know baby.” Sometimes I wished I could give her one. I wondered what Jude would think if he saw her. Would he see himself in her blue eyes and amazing smile? Would he encourage her athleticism that she certainly got from him, as I had two left feet.
Again, I had a niggle of concern that I needed to talk to him about Maya. He had rights and responsibilities. But what if he rejected her again? I could force a paternity test and take him to court, but to what end? I didn’t care about or need money. I wanted to give my daughter a father. Preferably one who wanted to be a father. To that end, Auggie fit the bill. He’d been there for me when I was struggling to deal with my parents’ deaths, Jude leaving, and then being pregnant. He’d probably agree with me that going after Jude for some sort of childcare was a waste of time. So again, I settled on keeping Maya away from him. I’d also have to keep him away from Auggie too, who’d might not go after him for childcare, but would likely attack him for not stepping up and being a man when I wrote him and told him about the baby. Then again, I think Auggie was glad Jude didn’t come back.
Eight Long Years: A Second Chance Secret Baby Romance (Heart of Hope Book 5) Page 3