Shelby #3
“My boss asked how New York sounded for our new office,” he drawled, his fingers slowly tracing around his mouth before returning to the table. “That’s why he called.”
I was enthralled.
Captivated by the movements of his body, the slow flutter of his dark eye lashes against his skin.
“What did you say?” I was glad my mouth knew what to say because I’d lost the ability to manage coherent thoughts.
He sat back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach and I wondered what his skin would look like underneath his shirt. Would it be smooth or would there be a smattering of hair. Would it be dark across his chest or light....
“I agreed to go and see the space.” He replied, reaching for my attention through my sexy thoughts.
“I’ve never been to New York. When are you going?” I asked, already knowing what I was going to say next .
He shrugged lazily. “Whenever I want. He told me to call him back once I had a return date.”
“Can I come with you? I’ll provide muscle relaxants,” I wiggled my fingers exaggeratedly as an example of how much of a necessity I really could be on his business trip.
Pausing, I studied my hands and the way my fingers swirled through the air.
The gold ring I was wearing on my right hand was so shiny and new.
My bracelets clattered down my arm, tinkering the otherwise silent area around us.
Corbin nodded, a slow grin forming as he watched me.
“How are you two love-birds feeling?” Kenn appeared suddenly, his accent thicker than before and I bit back a grin at his incorrect assessment.
Corbin’s wide-eyed gaze shot to mine and the look of bewilderment on his devilish face elicited a sudden laugh which, with my hand across my mouth, erupted as a snort.
A slow, contagious giggle teetered from within until I could no longer contain it and I was head thrown back, mouth open wide, silently shaking.
When I was able to catch my breath, Corbin was watching me, grinning with a face of teeth, full of shared secrets and barely contained composure. It was only when his face blanched and he lunged for the menu, a bemused Kenn watching on, that my own laughter paused.
“ High Tea & Co.” He emphasised the word high, and my mind waded through my thoughts to catch up. “Are these laced?” He hissed, his wide-eyed glare turning towards our bemused waiter.
“The items she ordered,” he pointed to me, “all have Pa’s finest ingredients.” He puffed his chest, hands on his hips as if he was proud of his explanation and my mouth opened for the briefest second, before the realisation sank through and set me off into another round of giggles.
I was so fucking high .
The cloudy sense of deep joy, the vibration of his vocal cords around the space between us, the way the colours of the landscape appeared more alive. The cyclical spiral of my thoughts, the wave of euphoria, the cloud-like sensation was all a result of the food.
Those mouth-watering, delectable pancakes were hash cakes, the mud-cake was mixed with weed oil, and those cookies were baked with a suspicious amount of butter – and that felt like the greatest gift of all.
Thanking Kenn, I whispered-screamed as if we were sharing a secret, “Corbin Chambers, are you stoned?”
“Shelby Hudson, this is your fault,” he remarked, running a hand down his face. “You’ve gotten me high and now my hands feel like feet.”
“Ummmmm,” I giggled, unable to control myself.
“You’re sooooo blazed. Maybe we should move, and it will leave our systems quicker.
” My chair scraped across the concrete dramatically as I pulled my linen pants from where they were firmly stuck to my backside.
“It’s hot as hell in your country. My pants are literally stuck to my butt. ”
“Show me?” He said deadpan before grinning.
“Oh, baked Corbin is funny,” I joked, enjoying the way his eyes lit up. “Now, come on, let’s walk,”
“Going for a walk is not going to eradicate this level of high, but sure. And it’s your country too, weirdo.” His lazy smile pressed forth.
“Kenn,” I bellowed as if we were old friends, “I’m leaving our stuff. It better be here when we get back,” I was aiming for menacing, but the hiccup which shot forth softened the blow and only made both Corbin and I fall into peals of laughter again, outrage at our current state forgotten.
When he composed himself, he waited a few steps in front of me, his perfectly tanned calves calling my name like a loudspeaker and making me glad I was wearing pants.
His delicious colouring was only going to highlight how translucent I currently was.
I wondered how soft the hair on the back of his legs would be if I ran my finger along his calf.
How the dip and curve of his defined muscle would feel under my touch and if he would let me test it with a long, soft graze of my nail.
His hand was outstretched, and instead of acting on finger painting his legs, I skipped forward, slipping my hand into his. The warmth of his grasp encasing my own was welcomed and with my other hand, I reached up to hold his bicep – something new.
“Okay, eager beaver, where are we walking?” I asked, a cheeky grin on my face.
I was incredibly high. I’d smoked marijuana in high school and maybe once or twice after, but it had been a long time in between acts, and I’d gorged those pancakes as though they were my last meal.
Something I couldn’t currently bring myself to regret with how fluffy and light I was feeling.
“Did you even read the menu?” His eyes danced as our feet fell into sync across the verdant grass. If he were sober, he would no doubt be researching the medical effects of marijuana or how long it took to exit the system, but his blazed eyes told me he was currently too wasted to care.
“I read it enough to order, but now that I think about it, Mum’s diary is making a little more sense…” I thought back to the entry on this cafe. Her acknowledgement that the sweets were her highlight. “It’s pretty obvious our mum’s enjoyed some weed with old Pa.”
“It tracks,” he said, his thumb brushing the back of my hand. “Mum always tended to lean towards the natural. She won’t even drink tap water because she said the government uses it as a form of mind control.”
I cackled. “She sounds like my Mum. Before she got sick, she told me the dishwasher repair guy’s sister said you should thaw your meat outside and so she would intentionally freeze her meat, just to thaw it on the front lawn.
It was practically cooked by the time she brought it inside,” I shuddered, and Corbin’s deep chuckle reverberated through the surrounding brush.
I leaned into him, ignoring the flutter being this close to him sent through to my stomach or how that swirling feeling dared a little lower.
Needing a distraction, I watched our footfalls.
The dirt track was firm, scattered dry leaves crunching underfoot as I shooed a fly.
It was beautiful before, but with a high which elicited cotton wool through to my bones, it was a rich and layered sensory walk infused with the earthy smells of driftwood and testosterone driven virility. I was in utopia.
“That’s one way to cook,” he responded, and I lifted my head to look at him.
“Honestly, I could eat some street thawed meat right now. I’m starving,” I confessed.
“We just ate enough food to feed a small village. But I could probably go more too,” he sighed knowingly, making me giggle.
I grinned apologetically as we moved further down the walking trail. We couldn’t have been more than ten minutes from the cafe, but it felt as though we were the only people for miles and when we eventually came to an opening, I gasped, pointing to a rickety old bridge over a small gully.
“Look!” Detaching myself from his grasp and trying not to focus on the way I instantly missed his touch, I raced across the bridge.
It appeared entirely out of place yet so obviously perfect and when I reached the middle, I glanced back and gestured for him to follow. Plonking myself down onto the ground in a less than graceful move, I swung my legs over the edge and tapped the ground beside me for him to sit.
He followed, the bridge creaking under the strength of our combined weight and I looked into the shallow water below. The moss and rocks were clearly visible, the water cascading through effortlessly searching for another body to join.
Taking his place next to me, our thighs hugged, which despite the warm weather, felt perfect and he reached for my hand again.
I didn’t look at him, scared of what I might do or say with how my body came alive under his touch.
It had to be the weed, because this was Corbin.
And while I could see myself enjoying the fruits of both his mind and body in very filthy ways, he was still Corbin.
My incredibly sexy but very much out of my league friend.
“Sometimes when I hold your hand, my colour changes to Sasquatch Socks ,” leaning forward, he rested his other arm on the railing separating us and the ankle-deep water below.
“That is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me,” I breathed, looking down at where he held my hand firmly in his.
It was hot and my palm was sweating and I knew when he moved away, our legs would separate the same way you did when you stuck to a chair in the heat, yet I wanted to be closer.
I felt encased in the warmth of his body, and I wanted to suffocate under the fire that was his flame.
I pictured the vibrant pink of sasquatch socks. The way that sentiment felt like a smile of mammoth proportions. Like a yearlong back tickle from someone you love. How the pad of his thumb felt grazing across my skin and how I wondered what it would feel like on other parts of my body.