Over the Fence Box Set

by Carrie Aarons

  “Yeah, keep telling yourself that, bro. By the way, you got a little drool …” Owen interrupts my Kelsey stare-down, wiping at my chin until I punch him in the arm. “Hey! That’s your pitcher you’re potentially injuring. Watch the merchandise!”

  I roll my eyes. “Oh, shut up. If that arm can take those ninety-mile fastballs you’ve been slinging at my face for the last month, it can take a tiny jab.”

  “Dude, don’t mention balls and slinging in the same sentence. It reminds me of this YouTube video I watched and this guy …” He stops himself before he can say anything more embarrassing.

  “Oh, do go on. Didn’t realize you swung the other way when it came to porn, but hey, I learn something new every day.” I chuckle as Axel’s face turns beat red.

  “Minka made me … you know what. Fuck off.” He flips me the bird before loping off as I cackle at his back. At least he picked my spirits up a bit.

  As the smile lazily floats on my lips, I watch as Kelsey almost takes a head-first dive into the deck. I’m sprinting in an instant, pushing people out of my path as I beeline for her across the deck.

  She stumbles, careening through the air. The drunk prick who has been mauling her face off looks unsure, not willing to injure himself trying to break her fall. He pathetically reaches out just enough to keep her from splitting her skull open, but her wrists, elbows, and knees hit the deck awkwardly, absorbing all measly one hundred pounds of her weight.

  I don’t hear anything crack and thank God for that. I reach her, my big body shadowing her small frame which is now sprawled out on the planks of the deck. I assess her, thanking God that nothing looks broken.

  “Up you go.” I reach down carefully and gently scoop her into my arms. My skin instantly heats, the chambers of my heart pump double time with her this close to me. She smells exotic, like jasmine and spices from continents far away. She’s so small in my arms, fragile but tough as nails at the same time. I never want to let her go.

  “There’s my big hero!” She swoons, wrapping her arm around my neck and hiccupping in a drunk, but totally adorable, way. Her big hazel eyes are filled with light and appreciation. I trick myself into seeing love in them, despite the fact that my gut knows it’s just friendship. “Why are you always saving me, huh?”

  Kelsey smiles, and I think I feel my knees buckling. My voice sounds like a broken thirteen-year-old’s when it pushes past my lips. “Well, what are friends for?”

  Shoot me. As if I’m not already about to blow my brains out because this girl will never see me as anything more than her fat friend, I add insult to injury by playing up the “best guy friend” act. My plan to squeeze into her life as a friend worked. But fucking story of my life, I can’t get myself out of the goddamn friend zone.

  “Let’s get you to bed, yeah?”

  She wriggles, protesting being taken out of the party. Thankfully, she’s light as a feather, and I only pull her closer as I shove through the crowd toward the back door.

  “Come on, Clint! I’m having fun! You’re not my dad, you know. I’ll give you a titty-twister if you don’t put me down!” Her electric-blue fingernails sneak out toward my nipple, and just the thought of her touching me like that, even in pain, sends a shiver of lust straight to my cock. I shift her so that I can carry her in one arm and wrap my other big hand around her two tiny ones.

  “Not fair! Just because you’re the Hulk doesn’t mean I won’t punch you in the balls while you sleep.” Kelsey shimmies her body against mine again in an attempt to break free, and I know that if I don’t get down the hallway to our spare room quick, I might be throwing her against a wall. And how would that affect our friendship?

  “I’m a ninja, remember, Roo?” I pinch her side, relishing the sound of her voice as it comes out in a happy, drunken yelp.

  “If I’m Roo, does that make you Christopher Robin? Or Winnie? Although now, you can’t really be Winnie. The most you pig out on is protein shakes.” The little pixie relaxes in my arms as I gently kick open the door to her makeshift room. My Roo. I started calling her that after we watched an old episode of the cartoon one Saturday morning. She’s exactly like the little kangaroo; petite, determined, always looking for her next big adventure.

  I set her down on the bed, careful to only remove my arms from under her when I know she’s stable. The fleeting feeling of her skin on my skin is doused in cold-hard reality, and the moment she’s gone I feel empty. Kelsey sits up, her bohemian skirt flaring around her on the bed, her hair, the color of fine-aged scotch, dusting her shoulders. Her long lashes flutter over her makeup free face. She’s so naturally beautiful it takes my breath away. The light floods the dark room from the slats in the blinds, and for a moment we just stare at each other.

  An electric current flows between us, and I hope and pray to whatever God there is that she’s feeling this too. This excruciating, burning need.

  I take a step toward her, reaching out and brushing my fingertips, rough with calluses from being mashed in my catcher’s glove, over her velvety soft skin. My lungs are on fire with the breath I’m not expelling. I keep every sound inside my body, knowing that with one exhale, I might send her running like a spooked animal.

  She leans into my hand, the soft strands of red hair streaming over the skin of my arms. Kelsey nuzzles my fingers, and I’m sure I’m shaking now that she’s this close to me.

  “Kels …” I can’t help it, I have to kneel down, look into her eyes and address her.

  Just then, the curtain closes over her hazel eyes, and I can feel the icy panic start to spread over my chest. Shit.

  “You’re always saving me.” She smiles a polite smile. One meant to get me out of this room. One meant to protect herself with.

  “I wish I didn’t have to.” I turn away, rubbing my fingertips together, hoping to save any remnants of her on my skin. She doesn’t respond, so I turn back to face her. “Why do you pick these losers, Roo? Do you even know …”

  I trail off, stopping myself from complimenting her when I know she doesn’t want to hear it. Or even worse. Telling her how completely I’ve fallen for her.

  “You’re sweet, Clint. That’s why I know I can trust you. You’re such a great friend.” Her smile doesn’t reach her beautiful eyes. I can tell she’s avoiding the subject altogether as she lies back, plopping down on her pillow in that way drunk people do. “Thanks for putting me to bed. Go have fun. Find a girl, get her number. Kiss her. Fuck her. Have fun!”

  Kelsey throws her arms up in the air, but her limbs are sleepy, almost overtaken with exhaustion. Before I can respond, I hear her soft breathing tickling the white pillowcase, letting me know she’s out cold.

  “I’ve already found her,” I mumble on my way out, shutting the door gently behind me.

  2

  Kelsey

  There are ecologists, zoologists, and other people who work with nature or animals that try to reduce their carbon footprint. Eat better. Plant Better. Recycle better.

  Those people are not me. I work on reservations, with animals, simply because I love them. Sure, I’m a vegetarian mostly because I wouldn’t dream of putting a poor, defenseless animal down my gullet. But, I’m not out to save our ozone layer or stop global warming. If I see poachers or hunters, I’ll cut a bitch. But harvesting garbage and banana peels to make my own gas to run my smart car? Yeah, that’s not me.

  I know, call me a hypocrite.

  Which is why, I have absolutely no problem pouring myself a ginormous bowl of sugary, processed Reese’s Puffs to cure my hangover. And adding a cigarette.

  After puffing in my morning fill of nicotine, I walk back into the boy’s house. It’s my temporary base camp for now until I get the urge to up and move again. That’s me, the group nomad.

  “You know I can still smell the stench of smoke even when you try to disguise it with perfume.”

  Clint’s gravelly, deep voice surprises me so much that I spill a puddle of milk on the counter as I fill my bowl. “Jesus,
Clint. You scared the crap out of me.”

  What I see when I turn around sends all sorts of wetness pooling in my girly parts. It doesn’t even matter that he’s just a friend, or that I should fight the urge to drag him back to whoever’s bed is closest. He stands in the middle of the kitchen, barefoot and shirtless with only a pair of Grover basketball shorts hung low, exposing his red checkered boxers. I’m a small lady, so his six-foot-two frame makes him look like those giants in Jack and the Beanstalk. His face is covered in a thick mask of beard despite the fact that only twelve hours ago, pre-party, I know he was clean-shaven. The closely cropped hair on his head is the same hue as the hair covering the rest of his body, jet black. Only I’d like to run my hands all over him to feel the difference. The hair on his head is straight, while his abs are smattered with tiny curls. And it’s not like he’s hairy, but he’s manly. It highlights the way his steel cut torso, calves, and thighs ripple and bulge with his catcher’s muscles.

  Clint Bellows looks like he should be one of those sexy lumberjacks, holed up in a cabin in the woods, naked on a bearskin rug Burt Reynolds style. He looks like he could throw you over his shoulder, or slam you up against a wall like you weigh nothing at all. Match his newly muscled body with his piercing blue eyes and sweet-as-sugar personality and he is every girl’s shy dreamboat.

  Everyone except this girl. Who doesn’t do dreamboats, or romantic cabins, or sugary sweet. I did do throwing up against a wall though. With anyone but the guy who has become my closest male friend. No matter how hot he’s gotten over the past year.

  “Just giving you your morning D.A.R.E education. Those cancer sticks will kill you.”

  He crosses the kitchen, a typical college craphole kitchen, and starts his breakfast routine. Two scoops of protein powder with ice and soy milk in the blender, scrambled egg whites in a pan with hot sauce. And why do I know his fucking breakfast order?

  “What, did you and Minka take up a campaign? Help Kelsey Quit Smoking. Good luck with that.” I know I have to quit. Minka and Chloe have been on my ass ever since I picked up the habit from an ex-fling of mine two years ago.

  “It’s your body …” Clint looks at me over his shoulder as he pours his egg whites on a plate. Why do his eyes flash such a heated blue when he says that? It sends shivers down my spine, the really good kind of shivers.

  I’ve felt my body’s response to him more and more often over the past few weeks. Ever since I unofficially moved in with the boys, Owen, Clint, and Parker, I’ve noticed a change in our relationship. When I was in Africa, our Skype sessions are what got me through. Clint’s laughter, his jokes, and storytelling are what kept me company on those lonely nights. I have to shut down the feelings that have taken up residence in my chest and those parts south of my waist, and quick. I can feel my entire being urging me to flee even as I sit inhaling my cereal.

  “So … last night. What happened after I passed out? I don’t remember a thing. Did you find a hot baseball groupie?”

  It’s true, I don’t remember much about last night. I have a flash of a memory, a sliver of a scene. Clint holding my face and whispering to me. It makes my heart swell and warm, and it’s the first time that organ has done that in what feels like my entire life. But maybe it’s only a dream. I can hope it was only a dream.

  He makes his way to the table, carrying his healthy and wholesome breakfast. His body is a slab of marble, massive and toned, as he folds into the chair and tucks under the table, the toes on his big feet brushing against my ankles as he scoots in. Again, the shivers rain down from my scalp and straight to my core. Traitorous body.

  “You don’t remember last night?” His baby blues level me, and I feel like he can see my entire soul the way he’s looking into me.

  “Um … not really … it was a crazy night.” I laugh it off, tucking back into my cereal and chewing a big bite loudly to drown out the silence shouting back at me from the other side of the breakfast table. When I look up, Clint is still pinning me with his gorgeous stare.

  “I took you to bed.”

  He says the words quietly, almost whispering them in his husky, deep voice. On a side note, for someone so against smoking, his gravelly tone mixed with that slight southern drawl makes him sound like he’s smoked dark Cuban cigars for the last twenty years. And all I want to do is get lost in him talking like that.

  It feels like I’ve been dunked in one of those ice baths athletes are always taking Instagram pictures in and then set on fire. My body goes into complete shock, my thoughts coming in half sentences. He did? Did we? Why don’t I remember? I slept with Clint?

  “I … you … we. Did we …”

  My thoughts come out of my mouth just as jumbled as they are in my head. Clint’s expression is all stone, his disheveled beard and the way his big hands form around his fork distracting me from the shocking truth he just laid down next to his protein shake.

  He takes a bite, slowly chewing the hunk of egg whites in his mouth while my stomach plummets to my feet and my throat goes dry as the friggin’ Sahara desert.

  Finally, he swallows, his large Adam’s apple bobbing and again distracting me from what might be the biggest anxiety attack of my life. “I took you to your bed. You were so drunk that the guy you were sucking face with dropped you on the deck. So I took you inside, tucked you in.”

  Warmth and relief coat my body, leaving me slick with sweat and my heart hammering with the unneeded adrenaline it was pumping. Asshole. He played me by twisting his words. Fucker wanted me to think that we hooked up. But why?

  My cereal is too soggy to eat now, and I’m not hungry anyway. I stare at the lumps forming in the bowl as I address Clint. “Why would you say it like that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He sighs gruffly across the table. I can’t even look up at him. I’m feeling a myriad of emotions … relief, confusion, even embarrassment. Am I ashamed that we could have hooked up and I didn’t remember it? Am I disappointed that we didn’t? Or am I embarrassed because once again, Clint was putting me to bed on a night where I couldn’t remember my own name? Probably all of the above.

  “Maybe because at some point, you’re going to have a major screw up one of these nights. One day, you’re going to wake up in the morning and regret what you do when you decide drinking half a handle of vodka is a good idea.”

  Even though his voice is barely above a whisper, Clint’s voice is so sharp and scolding, it’s like he’s broadcasting his disappointment to the world. Tears pool in the corners of my eyes, that itchy hot feeling burns its way down the back of my throat. He’s never spoken to me like this. In our almost two years of friendship, he’s never once gotten mad at me. Never once spoken to me like Minka and Chloe sometimes do. Like I’m a wild child, out to do damage to myself. I’m not even sure what to say back to him.

  Have I been contemplating my partying ways? Only every other day. Do I wish I could stop myself? All the time. But it’s like I’m on a path that I can’t back down. That feeling of uninhibited bliss is just too good, just a little too carefree. It’s like my own personal addiction.

  I don’t have to answer before Clint is scraping his chair back and throwing his dishes in the sink with a bang. “Whatever, Kels. Forget I mentioned it. I’ll see ya later.”

  And with that he’s gone, a couple of seconds ticking by before I hear the click of the lock on his door. I sit at the table, stunned into silence on what I thought would be a great morning. Hurt and confusion suffuse their way into my bloodstream, making my body feel even more lethargic than this hangover. I don’t know whether to cry, or knock on Clint’s door and verbally assault him in my usual way. Which is a new feeling. I’d never not responded to a jab with an equally sassy remark.

  I have to get out of here. My flight response is tearing me apart, the need to run so strong that I can practically smell my soles burning rubber. And there is one place I flee to when I need it all to melt away.
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br />   Dorothy lays her head in the crook of my neck and nuzzles, her bristly whiskers tickling the soft skin underneath my ears. Her tail wags in that slow, gentle motion it has when she’s completely content. It hits the tops of my knees through my skirt as I walk with her, rocking her like a baby. In essence, she is a baby. Just a thirty-six pound baby with claws the size of my face that could rip out your jugular.

  “You know, in another week or so you’re not going to be able to do that. You can barely do it now.”

  I turn with the female baby tiger cub in my arms and smile. Jackson Nole’s gray mop of curls stuck out of his Aussie hat, his green khaki uniform spotted with sweat.

  “Yes, I know, but she loves it so much. And I’ll be so sad when I can’t anymore. So I have to get all the time in that I can.” I juggle Dorothy up and down like a colicky baby, her orange and white fur brushing against my arms.

  She lets out a soft purr when Jackson noogies the top of her head. “You are such a softy, Mother Nature.”

  He’s been calling me that for years, ever since I started coming with my father to this preservation at the age of five. He loves to recount the story of me climbing into the bear cub den and lying down with them. Says I nearly gave him a heart attack until he saw me rolling a ball with one of the baby black bears. Jackson has been one of the closest people to me in my life and has seen me through some of my toughest times.

  Come to think of it, he’s been one of the few people in my life who I can count on and open up to.

  “Will you put that Amur down? Her mother will not sniff anywhere near her with your stench on her.”

  I turn away from the detached tone, taking Dorothy with me as I stalk away from the spot.

  “Kelsey Elizabeth!”

  I stop dead in my tracks. Dorothy protests, squirming around in my arms from the lack of motion. I set her down and nuzzle her head before she runs off to attack dirt balls.