8. Darren
DARREN
I don’t quit until the sun goes down. It’s only then that I realize my stomach is growling. How the hell didn’t I notice?
I’m not the kind of person who misses meals. Actually, I eat twice as much as the average person. I always have. I don’t know why, all I know is that I’m usually hungry a couple of hours after a meal. I work hard, and I assume the reason I never seem to gain any weight is because of that.
Or maybe it’s just genetics. Dot always complains that I got all of the “skinny” genes.
The door to the shop opens up and Katie walks out to meet me with a bottle of ice-cold water.
Is she trying to sway those hips like that?
Or is this just the way she moves? Whatever it is, it’s driving me wild.
Enough to distract me from my hunger and make me focus on another primal need that is screaming for attention in my jeans.
“Wow,” Katie surveys the work site. “You’ve accomplished so much.”
I look dubiously at the underwhelming scene in front of us. Today was about clearing the area of the old debris, digging holes, and pouring concrete for the posts that will eventually become the legs of the bridge.
Certainly it was a lot of hard work. But it doesn’t actually look like much. Not yet.
“It’ll be more like an actual bridge by the end of the week,” I say.
She puts a hand on my shoulder and my cock stirs even more. Any physical contact from Katie has always done this to me. Always.
“You don’t have to explain it to me,” Katie says. “I know you do amazing work. It’s like you’ve got all of the drawings in your head. It all comes together at the end, and it always looks perfect.”
“I didn’t know you looked at my work very much.”
“The gazebo at the dog park,” she says. “Dot and I always go there after grabbing coffee.”
“Y’all don’t own dogs.”
“That’s why we go! To dog-watch.”
I shake my head. This woman.
“One day I’ll have a dog of my own. When I own my own place.”
I glance at the apartment above the shop where Katie is living.
The previous owner of the building had a strict no-pets policy.
I never thought of changing the policy when I bought the place…
but for Katie, I’d change everything. I’d burn the old building to the ground and build a new one if that’s what she said she needed from me.
“You should get a dog,” I tell her. “I know you won’t let it ruin the apartment. And I could put a little fence in the back so it would have room to run around.”
The look she gives me makes me feel about ten feet tall. Damn . It feels good to be Katie’s hero. I could get addicted to this.
“Are you hungry?” Katie asks me.
More than you know.
“Starving,” I say, wiping the sweat from my brow with the front of my shirt. Katie’s eyes drop to the strip of skin above my waistband that is exposed when my shirt rides up. I don’t miss this, nor do I miss the way those brown eyes turn molten with desire.
So it’s not just me who feels this way.
“Why don’t you go home and wash up and change?” Katie suggests. “Then come back here and I’ll fix you something to eat.”
I smile.
“What?” she asks.
“You said ‘fix’ something to eat,” I explain. “Those Texas sayings don’t die easily, do they? And sometimes you still have that twang in your voice. The way you did when we were kids.”
“What, you think I lost my accent?” she grins. “Just because I went to fashion school for a while in New York?”
“I haven’t heard it come out in a while.”
“Well it’s still here,” she says. “Gets a little stronger the longer I live in Wild Bronco.”
“I like it.”
I want to pull her into another steamy kiss, but I’m quite literally drenched in sweat.
She looks pretty and clean in a white tank top and a hip-hugging pink skirt that I’m dying to look under.
I don’t want to mess that outfit up – not yet, anyway – so I lean in for a gentle, soft kiss. No other touching, just our lips.
When I pull away, she looks dazed.
“I’ll be back,” I promise her, loading my tools back into their box and throwing it in the bed of my truck.
“See you soon.”
Very soon. I speed home and take a thorough but fast shower. I clean my beard up a little and put on some more deodorant and a fresh set of clothes.
I’ve never worried much about how I look.
Still don’t. But Katie matters more to me than anything ever has, and I’ve had exactly twenty-four hours to absorb the things she told me last night when she drunk dialed me.
I’m still reeling from the information she gave me.
Knowing she’s never had sex, and knowing that I could be – will be – her first, is causing the pressure to mount.
I was her first kiss and I fucked that up. So if we’re going to have sex tonight, I’m going to make sure it’s a first that she enjoys. That she can never possibly regret.
“That was quick!” Katie exclaims.
I’m standing on the porch of her apartment. The door faces the back of the building and is up a narrow flight of steps. The tiny little porch is lined with potted plants, and fairylights wrap around the rail from the bottom of the steps to the top.
It’s a tiny, cramped little space but Katie’s still found a way to make it homey. I look at the little curtains in the window. They’re faded and patterned with horses. Knowing her, the material came from some old shirt at the thrift store.
“Did you sew those yourself?” I ask her as she lets me inside.
“Of course,” she says proudly.
“You’ve always been so good with things like this,” I say. “I should have known you’d make a career of it.”
“When you grow up shopping second hand, you learn how to make old things new,” she explains.
“I still have the shirt you made me.”
Her warm brown eyes widen.
“No you don’t!”
“Of course. I could never get rid of it.”
“There’s no way that it fits you anymore. I made that when you were like, twelve.”
“It definitely does not fit anymore,” I confirm. “But it’s sentimental. I could never get rid of anything from you, firecracker.”
“It was so bad!” she says. “I had just gotten my sewing machine and had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t even hem it.”
“It’s a style,” I reply with a grin. “Like…cutoff. Grunge.”
Katie is smiling at me in that “you’re my hero” way again and I lose all train of thought. That crooked little t-shirt that Katie made me still hangs in my closet, brought from place to place as I’ve moved through stages in my life, a little piece of my firecracker with me everywhere I am.
I follow Katie into the little apartment.
I know that she rented this place from Mrs. Hayes along with the store’s space beneath it.
Unlike the store, I didn’t insist on touring the apartment before I bought the building.
Although I would have had a right to do so, she was already angry enough that I was buying the building before she could.
She doesn’t understand that if I didn’t buy it when I did, another investor would have. And they would have raised the rent, kicked her out, and torn the whole damn building down only to rebuild a shopping strip in its place.
I know because I was there. The negotiations were cut throat. I got this place by the skin of my teeth and with the rent I charge, I’m not making a profit. Hell, I’m barely breaking even.
But I’d do anything to keep my firecracker happy. Seeing that smile on her lips is the fuel that keeps me going, my motivation to push through.
“I’ve made dinner,” Katie states the obvious, as if the delicious smells filling the little space wouldn’t tip me off. She glances nervously over her shoulder. “Fried chicken and potato wedges. Hope you’re hungry.”
“Starved.”
I follow her into the kitchen like a hunter stalking prey. I really am starved but one look at Katie’s ass and my mind is filled with thoughts of a different physical need.
I’m going to make this woman my wife.
She’s going to be Mrs. Baker and I’m going to knock her up as many times as I fucking can, as many as she’ll let me. She wants a husband and a house full of kids? I’ll make it happen.
Whatever she wants as long as I get a lifetime of worshipping her and her beautiful body in exchange.
“Sit down,” she says, putting a hand on my shoulder and guiding me to a tiny table by the window.
Once again she’s made a rundown little space feel cozy.
The kitchen linoleum is peeling and yellowed, a relic from the 1980s if not older.
The ceiling is sagging in the corner, and after just a few seconds of sitting beside the window I can tell that it has a leak, letting in the drafty evening air.
“Darlin, I can’t have you living here.”
I blurt it out when she sits down, unable to stop myself.
She raises a brow and I know exactly what she didn’t like about what I just said. So before she can argue, I continue.
“Not like this,” I say, gesturing to the state of disrepair. “It’s not safe.”
“Like my bridge wasn’t safe,” she murmurs. She takes a bite of chicken, closing her eyes. “Let’s not talk anymore about the property tonight, okay? Dig in before it gets cold.”
I watch her eat another bite, mesmerized by it all, before taking a bite of my own.
“Damn, Katie,” I say. “This is the best fried chicken I’ve ever had.”
She smiles sheepishly.
“Now I know that can’t be true. Dolly’s Diner makes the best fried chicken.”
“This puts Dolly’s to shame,” I say, shaking my head. I clear my plate in about two seconds.
“There’s more on the counter,” Katie says, gesturing to the little counter not far from our tiny table. I don’t even have to stand up to get the rest, placing it on the table between us.
“You’re the full package,” I declare. “All of this and you can cook, too.”
She shakes her head.
“You’ve always eaten your food like there’s not going to be more tomorrow,” she says with a smile.
“Does it bother you?” I ask her with a frown.
“No. Definitely not. Actually I kind of like it.”
“Why?”
“Because,” she looks down, her cheeks going pink. “I never have to worry about eating more than you.”
“Why would that matter?”
“Oh, Darren,” she shakes her head. “It doesn’t. It shouldn’t. But when you’re the big girl all your life, it feels like everyone’s watching your habits.”
“I don’t give a shit how much you eat, Katie. I’ve never watched you eat.”
Except to get turned on.
“I know,” she smiles. “I think that’s why it’s so comfortable to be with you. It’s always been that way. I can eat until I’m full and not wonder if it’s too much. You’re always eating three times as much as I am. And you’re bigger than me, too. I like that.”
“I like that, too.”
I finish my food, filled to contentment. Katie’s eating considerably slower than me, which means I’ve got nothing to do but watch.
And I do watch.
She smiles at me.
“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”
“What?” I ask innocently.
“Watching me eat,” she says. “And giving me that look.”
“What look?”
But I know exactly what the fuck she’s talking about.
“That fuck me look.”
I grin.
“You recognize that look, do you?”
“On you, I think I’m starting to,” she says. Then she puts down her fork, looking at me boldly. “And I’m ready, Darren.”