Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Oliver
“I can’t believe you set all of this up,” Sally says with more enthusiasm than I thought she’d have.
I’m still learning things about Sally. I want to know every inch of her, not just her body, which we’ve had plenty of time to explore, but her mind too. The walls are coming down, and I can tell there’s so much she wants to tell me.
I sit in the open back of my Jeep and watch her explore my setup. Tyler and Jaxon helped me clear the area to make the campsite. Jaxon was mostly there to do grunt work with me while Tyler set up the projector. Jade even came by with fairy lights, saying girls like mood lighting.
I love my friends.
I’m so happy they like Sally as much as they do because if they didn’t, it would make everything more complicated. I want to say that my friends come first, but there’s just something about Sally that pulls on my heart in all the right ways.
I don’t just mean because I’m so ridiculously attracted to her but also because she’s been filling a void inside me.
“Ollie!” She runs adorably toward me, and I open my legs to let her slip between them.
I reach out, taking her into my arms and burying my face in the crook of her neck.
“Oliver, you’re going to get a face full of my sweaty hair.”
“Don’t care,” I say into her neck.
“What are we watching?” She pulls away, and the fairy lights twinkle in her eyes as she turns to look at the setup again.
Before she can get too far, I pull her back into my hold, this time with her back flush to my chest.
“We have a few options, but I asked your siblings what you liked best.”
She looks at me, surprised, and I kiss it away. She deserves this small amount of effort.
Sally looks at the basket of snacks I packed from earlier—another thing Ella helped me with.
“You’ve already done so much for me. We should watch something you want to watch.”
I shake my head. “You realize you literally put together a whole garage sale and raised enough money for the repairs? That’s not cheap, Sal.”
“I didn’t do that to be rewarded.”
No, she did it because I talked about pushing my travel plans back, and she knows how important that is to me.
“Ready to watch Howl’s Moving Castle?”
“That’s my favorite movie!”
I laugh at her enthusiasm. “I know.” I effortlessly lift her into the bed of my Jeep and climb in with her.
Sally nestles into me as I start the movie. Though, even an hour into it, all I can do is focus on her. My fingers rub in a slow, methodical circle on her stomach underneath my hoodie. We both changed into more comfortable clothes.
I curse the universe because every time I try to instigate anything more physical, she stops me, saying to pay attention to the film.
It appears my girl is also the type to focus on what she’s watching.
Can’t blame her, though, because the minute the main character turns into an old woman and meets the magician guy, I am hooked.
I’ve never watched an animated movie before this one, but I might have to watch more.
The two characters feel drawn together, and honestly, I feel the same way about Sally.
Something familiar strikes my head with the thought. She reminds me so much of Simon.
With her sole focus being on the film, my mind wanders back to the boat. I didn’t want to think about it, but what she said really struck me as odd.
Conquering the ocean.
I mean, Lake Michigan is not the ocean, but to some people, it might seem just as vast. It seemed that way when Simon and I were kids.
I had foolishly let my dad’s love of the water cloud my judgment, and then Simon brought me back with a simple task.
To conquer what was hurting me and move on from the pain my dad caused.
Simon was the reason I had this dream, and I am going to see it through for him. Sally said the same thing, word for word, and that is what’s bugging me right here and now. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, could it?
Does Sally know Simon? Is that why they seem so similar? But that doesn’t make sense.
I shake my head and press a kiss to Sally’s hair. She sighs in relief at my contact and inches closer to me. I don’t want to ruin this moment by asking, but I need to ask eventually, just to put my mind at ease.
I whisper against her head, “I think when I start traveling, I’m going to figure out where my best friend is located and visit him.”
“If that’s what you want, you should do it.”
Warm water cascades down her back as I pump into her from behind. Hair soaked and sticking to her flesh, I take hold of the pink strands and pull back so her back is flush my my chest.
Sally moans my name with each thrust, and I have to bite back the orgasm that wants to spill inside of her.
“Ollie,” she pants as I grab hold of one of her tits.
“That’s it, princess. You take me so good, just like a good fucking girl ready for my cock at all times.”
Her ass pushes back into me, meeting the thrusts with just as much need as I have for her.
I pull out, remove the condom, and work my shaft. My vision blurs from the intensity as I come on her backside. She loves it when I do that. And the image of her covered in me is the hottest thing ever.
My back rests against the shower wall as she turns to look at me and gives me a quick peck on the lips. I reach out of the shower and grab a washcloth.
“Come here.” I wipe her clean of my cum before we finish with shampoo and body wash.
My fingers work through her hair as she sighs dreamily. Then she starts to wash me off, and I can already feel myself getting harder again. God, this woman has such a hold on me.
“How do you feel about going to a picnic?” I walk out of the bathroom.
Sally wraps a towel tightly around her body as she looks through the drawer. She looks at me for a second before realizing I’m naked and glancing back at the clothes with a red flush.
She acts like we didn’t just have sex in the shower. It’s our thing. Sally says she loves the way the warm water relaxes her muscles as I work into her.
That doesn’t stop her from almost always getting dressed immediately afterward.
I know it’s not because of me, but herself. She doesn’t like seeing herself naked for long periods of time.
“We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
She shakes her head. “We should totally have a picnic. Who’s the picnic with?”
“It’s a tradition that, every summer, we have an end-of-the-season picnic. This one is pretty important since half of us are going to college next month, and we won’t get to see each other anymore.”
Something gleams in her eyes. “What do you want me to bring?”
“Just yourself, princess—”
She drops her towel, and my mind pauses like a record scratch. Her perky tits look so good out in the open, but they are quickly hidden away with her bra, and the rest of her body follows suit.
I shamelessly watch as she gets fully dressed, forgetting that I’m also completely naked, and now I’m sporting a full hard-on.
“No, mister.” She points at my dick. “Will Ella be there? We can make something.”
I fetch a pair of my underwear and throw them on.
“I’m pretty sure Jaxon is asking if she wants to go later today.”
“It kind of feels like a group date.”
She’s right. Tyler and Piper are endgame like always. Casey has a new boy toy she met on the fourth. Jaxon and Ella have their situation-ship, along with Sally and me.
“You don’t need to bring anything. Casey always brings more than we need. The Gutierrez family loves to feed people.”
“Nope,” Sally pops the word out before walking out of the room.
I follow her into the kitchen as she looks through each of the cabinets and then the fridge.
“I’ll need to go to the grocery store before making anything.” She pulls out her phone. “I’m going to see if Ella can pick some stuff up on her way back.”
I watch her as she moves around the kitchen effortlessly. It feels like yesterday that I was in here fixing it up and Sally was refusing to talk to me. I have to thank Ella for pushing me to help make this place sellable.
Even if it’s the last remnant I have of Simon. Maybe this house being sold and someone else living here will help me move on.
The idea leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, though. This house getting sold also means losing something that connects me to Sally. This house is the reason she’s here, and we’ve been able to have whatever this relationship is.
“Don’t give me that look. I refuse to go to any group event and not bring something. Usually, it’s Mama or Mia pushing it, but this time, I want to be a good girlfr…”
Her voice trails off, and my ears perk up.
She was about to say girlfriend. God, I might be just imagining it because I want to be her boyfriend, but I want her to finish that sentence.
“Good what, princess?”
She flushes and quickly turns away. “Nothing. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Sal, finish the sentence.”
She thinks for a second, and I can see her expression growing fond but then morphing into a frown. I lost this round.
“It’s nothing, Oliver. Leave it be.” I move to pull her into a hug, but she quickly wipes something away. “Can you go into the second bedroom and see if there are any cookbooks in there? I know Mimi said she wanted to keep some and bought them from the sale.”
I don’t want to push her further because, no matter how much progress I make, pushing will always be a step in the wrong direction with Sally. She’ll stop opening up. She will close that part for good.
I walk into Simon’s old room. Most of everything is gone now after that sale. Once again, he helped me move forward, even if it’s just his ghost.
There’s a book on top of the bed with a cute little cartoon on it. Sally said Mimi reads romance all the time. With the way she blushes every time she sees a shirtless guy, you’d think she has never experienced anything.
I walk over to the desk. Maybe she’s been using it. She is writing a book, last I heard. My hand trails over the wood and pulls open one of the compartments.
Instead of finding a cookbook, I’m faced with different letters. Curiosity killed the cat, but Sally never mentioned them. Different letters. Mimi types all her writing. These are handwritten.
Being the nosy boy I am, my eyes scan a letter, and immediately, my brow furrows when Simon’s name is written out.
It’s a letter to him from his mom. The same mom that let CPS take their son and then, a week later, was walking through the park, smiling like she didn’t just ruin her son’s life.
I quickly go through the letters to see what else they wrote to Simon, but my mind pauses on the fourth letter.
His mom wrote out Simon but then crossed it out and wrote Sally next to it.
What does that mean? The rest of the letter goes on to talk about her bullshit apology, but I can only focus on her comment about Sally being her daughter.
Nausea rolls through me. Sally’s been lying to me this whole time. Since the beginning, she’s been the same person I’ve wanted to see for years.
Sally is Simon.