9. Brooks
Chapter nine
Brooks
I woke up earlier than normal the next morning, barely able to sleep. Thoughts of Sydney filled my brain, making me unable to rest. She was in the room right next to mine, probably sleeping soundly, having no idea that the client she was working for had a major crush on her.
Though I tried to think about something else, anything else, one part of my body just wouldn't get the memo. My hard dick pressed against my sweats, begging for release. Luckily, I had a bathroom in my bedroom, so I didn't need to worry about avoiding Sydney as I made my way to the shower.
I turned the water on colder than normal, undressed, and stepped in, hoping to relax. My hooves stayed steady on the stone tile below. Most people had acrylic showers nowadays, but I opted for a more expensive one that was well worth it to prevent slipping.
I washed my hair and face before I was forced to admit my dick wouldn't be going down on its own.
I wrapped my hand around it, gripping it tightly and playing with the tip with my fingers.
My mind wandered to Sydney. The way she looked crawling into my truck, the intensity of her eyes as she snapped photos with her camera. I couldn't help but imagine the way her ass would bounce as I fucked her from behind, slamming into that tight, warm cunt.
Maybe her eyeliner would run as she took my cock to the back of her throat, and she would cry out as I ate her pussy, making her come over and over again.
Though I enjoyed getting off as much as the next person, the real joy for me came from pleasuring my partner, particularly oral. I was bi, and quickly learned that whether it was sucking dick or eating pussy, I loved it all and would do it for hours on end if I could.
The vision of her coming above me, her thighs wrapped around my face, had ropes of cum shooting from me, covering my shower wall more than I'd like to admit.
I used the sprayer to wash it down before cleaning myself up, drying off, and getting dressed in my usual jeans and flannel before stepping out.
When I got to the living room, I was surprised to see Chicken's crate open. I was concerned until I heard the telltale foot slaps and a slight bit of laughter from the kitchen.
Sydney was there, her knees on the floor and her camera in her hand. She was snapping photos of Chicken, who looked to be eating some of the food I kept for him in the house. She was using it as a treat to keep him focused.
I allowed myself to watch for a few seconds. Something about her with a camera in her hand made her look much freer than normal. It was all in the subtlety. The way her jaw unclenched, and her eyes went wide in wonder.
"Mornin'," I drawled. “You’re up early.” The only one usually up at the same time as me was Gabe, and that’s because night was day for him.
Her eyes flicked to mine. Every time I saw them, I was reminded of my favorite glade on the edge of the property. Maybe I should take her there.
I shook my head. Stop it. There was no reason for me to do that. She wasn’t staying.
Sydney stood up, being extra cautious with the camera in her hands.
“Good morning. Yeah, I tend to get up early. I hope it's okay I fed him," she said. "He kept quacking at me, and I felt bad." "It's fine. I usually feed him right about now anyway."
I would also usually head to my mother’s to have breakfast right after, but something wanted me to keep her close as long as possible. She had changed out of my clothes, wearing tight tan slacks and a green blouse. Just like yesterday, not a hair was out of place, not a wrinkle in her clothes despite sitting in the dryer.
It made me want to see her rumpled even more.
"How do eggs sound?" I asked as I entered the kitchen, grabbing the pan and eggs from the fridge. Anything to keep my hands busy.
"Sounds good. Do you have avocados?"
I turned and glanced at her. "Avocados?" Though this was a farm, avocado trees needed to grow in an almost tropical environment.
"I like having avocado toast in the mornings."
"I don't, we can’t grow them here. But I can do some roasted tomatoes and cheese," I offered. She looked a bit skeptical but went with, “I’ll try it."
She sat at the table behind me, doing something on her computer as I cooked for both of us. Though I wasn't a chef by any means, I felt comfortable in the kitchen and made some pretty decent eggs.
Once the toast was done, I stacked it with seasoned fried tomatoes, sunny-side-up eggs, and some feta I had kicking around the fridge.
I brought both plates to the table and noticed Sydney was uploading photos.
"Are those the ones you took?" I asked.
She snapped her laptop shut as if she was caught doing something bad. "Yes," she clipped.
I sat down next to her, a smirk gracing my lips. "Can I see?" She set her laptop aside, avoiding looking my way. "They aren't done yet." She looked around. "Can I have a fork and knife?" I stood and grabbed one quickly. "What do you mean not done? Don't you just snap the photos and... done?" "Thank you," she said as I passed the utensils over. She cut off an edge and took a bite. Even when she ate, she was so perfectly composed and polite.
I picked up my piece and ate half in one go. The runny yolk broke, dribbling down my chin a bit. I caught it with my finger and trailed it back up to my lips.
When I brought my glanced back to her, she was eyeing me, but I didn’t see any judgment there, just interest.
"To clarify, there's much more to photography than just snapping the photo. I edit them all afterward to get the look I'm going for. And half the time, the photo isn't usable." I furrowed my brows. "Why not?" "There's so many things that go into a good photo. Lighting, camera settings, composition. I spend hours before editing just shuffling through to see if I got anything I like." "I didn't know that.”
She shrugged. “Most people don’t.”
We finished up breakfast. She tried to do the dishes, but I told her it was fine and shooed her away.
"You're letting me stay here and eat your delicious food; the least I can do is the dishes," she insisted.
"I’m glad you liked it,” I said with a satisfied smirk. “You can relax before we need to go out," I told her. "We have a long day ahead." I had planned for us to visit the fields so she could gather her samples, meaning we would be out for hours.
"I insist," she said, not budging.
I sighed, my tail flicking behind me. "I wash, you dry?"
She crossed her arms. "Fine." So we did just that. Between the two of us, it didn't take long, even with her learning the layout of my kitchen.
Once we were finished, I grabbed Chicken, and we headed out to my mother’s.
“Oh no. I forgot Matilda. We should have gone to get her at the inn,” Sydney said. She looked… guilty.
“It’s okay, don’t worry. We can go there right after.”
But when we arrived, Matilda was already there and reading to my nieces and nephews, who were enthralled by her storytelling. Even my mother was sitting with her knitting on the couch listening.
“What’s goin’ on?” I asked Beau, who was still at the table eating.
“Oh, Gramps picked her up this morning and brought her here. Matilda is great with the kids. They’ve been stuck to her since she got here. And she keeps pulling these from what seems like nowhere.” Beau reached into his pocket and pulled out a candy I recognized well. It was that one that looked like a strawberry on the outside. I had no idea what they were called or why it seemed only old people had them, but they were good.
I plucked that one from his fingers faster than he could react, quickly unwrapping it and popping it into my mouth before Beau could fight me for it. “Hey! That was mine,” he snapped.
I sucked the candy harder and shrugged as the slightly sour strawberry taste filled my mouth.
“Don’t fight, boys,” Matilda said from her chair, noticing the commotion. “I have more.” She pulled a handful from her cardigan pocket. Beau was right; that looked like way more than would fit in that small pocket.
The children rushed her as she pulled them out, asking politely for another. She gave them each one but said that was the last one until after supper.
“Sydney dear,” Matilda said. “Richard told me about the room flooding. I was asleep by the time it happened. Are you okay?” Sydney looked surprised she was being checked on. “I’m fine. They had to move me because the rest of the rooms were taken.” “Where are you staying then? We have some room here if you need,” my mother said as she came in from the kitchen.
“She’s fine,” I said a bit too quickly. “She’s staying with me.” The room fell into what could be described as stunned silence.
My mother seemed to snap out of it first. “That’s great. It’s close so she won’t have to come all the way from the mountain.” “Yes,” Sydney said in her extreme professional tone. “Brooks has been an excellent host.” Something about the way she said that grated on my nerves. It was just so… detached, in a way I didn’t like.
“I’m glad you found somewhere to go,” Matilda said before she carried on with her reading.
“She seems to be good with them,” Sydney said from behind me.
“She’s great,” Beau agreed. “She watched them yesterday when she was here too—at least when she wasn’t napping.”
Sydney gave a small smile. “We can just leave her here then, I suppose.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she affirmed, still acting a bit strange. “Let’s go.”
I followed her out. As I trailed behind her, I couldn’t help but stare. She was gorgeous in her slacks and blouse with boot-like heels.
She was gorgeous in anything. Like yesterday, when she had been wearing my clothes.
“Are you sure you don’t need help?” I asked. “I’m sure Matilda expected to work.”
Sydney shrugged. “Matilda is nice and all, but she’s not the fastest, and I don’t think she’s been out on site since before the internet. I think it’s better this way; I’ll get it done faster.”
I nodded. “I guess that tracks.” Though the thought of her working faster bummed me out. I wanted her to stay longer, though I knew that was a silly thought.
As we drove, I realized that, if we were going to the field today, there was no way she could wear those pretty heels. I should have warned her. Though a lot of the rainy season had passed, it was still pretty muddy.
With that in mind, I turned right instead of left at the bottom of the hill and started driving us into town. She was playing something a little different today. It wasn’t quite as bubbly, but it had more of a beat to it, and I still enjoyed it.
“Where are we going?” she asked after we’d been driving for a little while.
“Oh,” I was so in my head I had forgotten to tell her. “To town. You need new clothes.”
She scoffed. “There’s nothing wrong with my clothes.”
“I’m not saying there is.” I chuckled. “But it’s muddy out in the fields, and I don’t think your heels are going to cut it.”
Her eyes moved down to her feet. “But they’re boots.”
“Maybe in the city. But three seconds with those out there and you’ll be as stuck as your car was.”
“I see your point,” she said.
Soon we were off the dirt roads and out on the cracked pavement leading into town.
“This place is cute,” she said as we drove through Main Street.
“Cute?” I asked.
She nodded. “No crowded streets or noisy traffic. People say hi to each other when they pass. Hell, you barely have a single traffic light. It just feels like a place ripped straight from a book.”
“I guess. Have you been out of the city much?”
She shook her head. “We almost never left. When I went to college, I didn’t have the time or money to go out and have any kind of crazy spring break, and then I jumped right into working, so there hasn’t been much time for that.”
I considered her words. It had been a long time since I actually looked at my surroundings, but with Sydney here, it felt like I was seeing it all for the first time. Though I’d only been to the city once, this place was a whole different world compared to that.
I parked along the street, and we got out in front of Trash to Treasure. It was a tall, red-brick building with a large, worn, hand-painted sign with the name over the window. The front windows were full of showpieces Jake managed to arrange in a semi-organized way. It was always a bit chaotic, but he tended to at least make it presentable while big events were going on.
That could not be said for the rest of the store. It was filled to the brim with racks of clothes shoved in so tight that pulling out one usually brought a few more along. The back wall was stacked to the roof with furniture precariously balanced on top of one another. I wondered what he did when someone wanted something from the middle. Maybe they were too intimidated by the pile to even ask.
“Jake!” I called as we walked in.
“Back here,” Jake said. We tried to follow his voice, but it had always been a maze in here.
“One more time,” I said.
“Over here,” he huffed, as if he didn’t know his store wasn’t easy to traverse.
We finally found him amongst the shelves of old stationery. “Hey,” he said. “I’m just unloading some of the new stuff. You have to see these new comics I got in too. I’m going to take them over to Gabe later to see if they’re worth anything.”
“I’m sure he’d love those.”
“Can I see?” Sydney asked.
Jake’s eyes moved to her, as if he hadn’t noticed her at first, and his face instantly changed. He was a racoon shifter, with small black ears and a ringed tail to match. Jake, Gabe, and I had grown up together, and though some people thought Jake could be rude, he was just… fully himself.
“You’re not with the… government, are you?” he asked.
She blinked. “No. I work for an agency that is contracted to provide organic certifications.”
“So you work with the government? You’re not actually a spy?”
“I can promise you the only thing she’s spying on is the state of my pesticides,” I replied in her stead. “And she’s cool, don’t worry.”
Sydney’s cheeks pinked in the most delightful way at my words.
Jake shrugged and pushed the box over. Sydney bent down to look at them. I squatted alongside her as she flipped through the box, occasionally pausing before continuing.
“Do you read comics?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I used to when I was younger. My library had a huge collection, and I’ve always loved the art style.”
I hadn’t ever been that into comics. Jake and Gabe had always loved them and traded them back and forth, but sitting down to read something for that long had never been my forte.
Sydney’s gasp had my attention going back to her. “This is Spark Girl! It was one of my favorites. And it looks like there’s a whole collection here.”
“We can get it if you want,” I said without thinking. I think I would get her anything to see her glow like that.
“Just take them,” Jake said.
Sydney looked up. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “If Brooks approves of you, you’re probably okay.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you have any work boots or jeans we could grab?” I asked, remembering why we were here. “Syd needs something she can wear in the field.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “If you go back around the corner and take a left at the decorative duck statue, you can’t miss it.”
“Thanks, man.”
We walked in that direction, passing the duck statue he mentioned. It had a sun hat tied over its head and rested in a bed of ceramic florals.
“Aw, cute,” Sydney said. “Reminds me of Chicken.” While this was certainly modeled after a mallard and not a harlequin duck, I could see the personality resemblance she was referring to.
We finally made it to the rack of clothes with different shoes resting above them. It was easy to find a pair of worn-down work boots, a few thick pairs of jeans, and a couple of flannels she could get dirty.
Jake checked us out, and I made him promise to grab drinks with me once the Blossom Festival was over.
“I forgot about that,” he grumbled. “It’s the worst time with tourists.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “Every time is a bad time with tourists.”
Whatever the season, Hallow’s Cove was a premium vacationing spot. In part because it was disconnected from most of the outside world without phone service, but also because you could find everything here.
You could ski up at Hallow Hill in the winter, go down to Kasper Marina in the summer to swim, and of course, everything that happened in the town itself. Our mayor, Louise, and town founder, Barnaby, had done a good job over the past few years bringing more fun events, including the Street Fair they had started last year. And though not everyone loved how touristy the town was, no one could deny they kept it thriving.
We went back to the truck, but when I checked the clock, it was almost noon. “Why don’t we do a bit of walking around before we head back?” I asked.
Sydney looked wary for a moment. “Don’t we need to work?”
I shrugged. “I’m sure we can get it all done. And it’s almost time for lunch anyway.”
She shifted on her feet as she considered, and I could almost see a smile when she said, “Sure.”