2. KOA
2
KOA
I pull into my parking spot in front of my townhouse and shut the engine off on my car. Releasing a long yawn, I rub my eyes attempting to wake up.
I keep telling myself this is the last time I'll go see her, that she doesn’t need me watching over her every shift, and she can handle herself just fine.
I’m going to wear myself out giving 100 percent to my team, balancing classes, and keeping an eye on Sydney every other night into the early morning.
I don’t know how to stop. I tried staying home once. I lasted all of thirty-six minutes before I was grabbing my keys and heading out the door to check on her. That’s what I convince myself I’m doing and it has nothing to do with my need to be near her.
The television flashes through the curtains covering the living room window as I approach the front door. Which roommate will it be?
Wyatt and Wren bickering over who committed the crime on their documentary?
Nash and his buddy Eli or Gage playing video games ?
Hart waiting for Lauren to come home from work?
The last scenario would be preferred. Hart and Wyatt both know where I go when we have a night off and she’s working. Hart, however, won’t give me shit about it. He said his piece months ago.
Wyatt on the other hand enjoys heckling me. My only advantage in this situation is he’ll be with his best friend, Wren, and she doesn’t let him get away with anything.
I open the door, drop my head, and inwardly groan when I see it’s Wyatt and Wren on the couch. If I don’t engage with them, maybe they won’t notice me slip into the kitchen and then upstairs to my room.
“The son did it,” Wyatt says, pointing at the television. He’s sitting on the couch with Wren’s legs draped over his lap. Only friends? I call bullshit. There is definitely something more going on there.
“He did not. What’s his motive? He finds his father annoying? If that’s the case, there would be a lot less people on this earth,” Wren snarks as I walk into the kitchen.
“I don’t like what you’re insinuating. Who do you think it was? Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick?”
I quietly grab a bottle of water from the fridge and pull out fixings for a sandwich.
“You can’t actually kill someone with a candlestick,” Wren replies.
“How do you know? Have you tried?” Wyatt fires back at her .
“No. I haven’t. A candlestick might be a blunt object but I doubt it’s heavy enough to cause enough damage. Even with a significant amount of force, it would take several strikes. A number of things could go wrong in that amount of time.”
“How would you kill someone then?”
I wish I could sit in the living room and watch the two of them while I eat. They are more entertaining than any reality show I’ve ever seen.
“Poison is a solid choice if done correctly. It would be easier to hide and less to clean up. I’ve watched enough of these shows to learn from their mistakes.”
“It’s scary how fast you answered that,” Wyatt grumbles.
“There’s nothing to worry about until I start insisting on making all of your meals,” she says, as I tiptoe past them toward the stairs.
“And where do you think you’re going so fast, young man? Do you have any idea what time it is? Your curfew was two hours ago,” Wyatt says as soon as my foot hits the bottom step. So close .
“Upstairs to bed. Goodnight,” I reply.
“Is all that lurking making you hungry?” He nods toward my plate of food.
“You have no right to question his habits. You followed me around campus for weeks,” Wren tells him.
“We aren’t talking about me right now, birdie.”
“Your generosity to let someone else have the spotlight for once is inspiring,” she deadpans .
“God, that mouth of yours,” he says, then kisses her lips, forgetting I’m in the room. I will have to buy her some of her favorite sticky notes the next time I’m in the campus store to say thank you for saving me.
Once upstairs, I put my food on my nightstand then grab my laptop. After flipping it open, I easily navigate to my secret obsession.
The Fiction Forum.
Sydney describes it as a book lover’s utopia. You can leave reviews, trade books, join local and online books clubs, live chat, and even chat privately.
I haven’t made any posts yet. I hang in the background following her into chat rooms in anonymous mode. I read all her reviews and comments. If she says something on this app, I know about it.
Damn, she hasn’t logged on yet. I check the time on my laptop. It’s earlier than I thought. It typically takes her almost an hour before she settles in for the night.
Unless she went back out. I followed her home from Ray’s—the bar she works at. It’s a good twenty to thirty minutes from campus. I like knowing she’s home safe. It gives me peace of mind. Sue me.
I haven’t gotten to the point I’m tracking her. Admittedly, after what happened to Hart’s girlfriend Lauren at the beginning of our season, it’s tempting. When Lauren didn’t show up at one of our games, Sydney was able to track her on her phone .
Without that…I don’t want to think about what would have happened.
I set the laptop down and exchange it for my sandwich. I make quick work of my food while keeping an eye on her profile. Waiting impatiently for it to light up green to indicate she’s active online.
When the dot on her profile finally flashes green, my shoulders slump. She’s home. I put my computer down and slide off the bed. I have a few minutes to shower before she’ll join a chat room.
Maybe tonight I will man up and leave anonymous mode. I’m always tempted but I’ve never pulled the trigger. I know once I do my addiction to her will rise to another level. It happens every time she talks to me. She always leaves me craving more.
I grab a clean pair of boxers and head down the hall to the bathroom I share with Hart. I’m glad he isn’t home tonight but I’m jealous he gets to spend unlimited amounts of time at Sydney’s place since she's his girlfriend’s roommate.
I turn the knob on the shower, then brush my teeth and strip out of my clothes while the water heats up. It’s been a long day. After baseball practice I spent too much time at the library working on a research paper, forcing me to rush across town to the bar.
I step into the shower and let the heat of the water seep into my overworked muscles as I grab the soap and start to lather up a washcloth. My mind drifts to thoughts of Sydney .
Fuck, she looked good tonight with her hair in a ponytail and a little red bandana tied around her head. She looked like a nineteen fifties pin-up girl with a little Southern flair in a concert tee, cutoff shorts, and cowboy boots.
I would have loved to drag her down the dark hallway or take her into the back office. My hand drifts down to my cock. Just the thought of her makes me hard. Getting myself off to the memory of her has been the only relief I’ve gotten from the self-imposed hell I’ve been living in the last few years.
Squeezing my erection tighter, I begin to stroke myself faster.
Sydney drops to her knees. Her brown eyes stare up at me. “I’ve been waiting for the day you’d let me get on my knees for you. I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” she says, as she takes my cock in her hand.
I rest a forearm against the cool tile—a harsh reminder this is all a dream. It doesn’t stop me from closing my eyes and imagining her plush lips skating up and down my cock instead of my hand.
“That’s it, baby. Show me what you can do with your sweet little mouth. Look at you. Taking all of me so well. You like sucking my cock. Don’t you, baby?” She nods. Her eyes shine with a mix of lust and god I hope there’s some love there too.
I push her hair out of her face and cradle the back of her head. She hollows her cheeks and sucks me harder. She doesn’t stop until I’m…
“Sydney,” I groan her name as ropes of cum hit the shower wall. “Fuck.” I stand under the shower head to wash off the guilt. No, not guilt. I don’t feel guilty for thinking about Sydney while I touch my dick.
Maybe a little guilty this shower has had more cum go down the drain than water since we moved in.
What I feel is resigned. My fate was slated a decade ago when I first saw Sydney roller skating down the street past my house.
My family had just moved into the neighborhood. After my dad left the military we moved to be with my mom’s family in Hawaii. I loved it there. Spending time with my grandparents and learning about our Polynesian culture, surfing, and playing baseball. It was a dream.
But my dad’s parents needed our help and we packed up everything and moved to Alabama. I was so angry about the move. I didn’t want to leave my friends and join a new team not knowing if I would be able to start.
My attitude changed the instant I saw her. I was pulling boxes off the back of the moving truck and she skated down the middle of the road with two braids in her hair wearing a worn pair of overalls.
It was her smile that took my breath away. It was big and bright. That’s all it took to make me a goner. I spent the whole summer that year chasing after her doing whatever she wished.
I shut the water off in the shower and drop my head. It’s hard to think about that summer. It’s the only one we had, just the two of us. I met Nash, Hart, and the other guys that fall playing baseball .
Sydney was still part of our little crew of friends, but I had to share her. I would never label myself as selfish but I was the king of greed when it came to her.
I towel dry the best I can and slip into my briefs. I’m dying to see what Sydney is up to.
The wood floor creaks beneath my feet when I step into the silent hallway. Wyatt and Wren must have given up on their show and gone to bed for the night.
I prop myself against my headboard and place a pillow on my lap, making myself comfortable. I need to put the finishing touches on the paper I started earlier today and turn it in before I go to bed, but I won’t be able to focus on anything until I get a little taste of her.
The small green dot flashes in the bottom corner of her profile picture. “Where are you, baby?” I click around to a few of her favorite chat rooms. Interesting. She isn’t in the conspiracy theory chat. That is the one she likes the best and spends most of her time in.
Sydney loves dissecting books word by word looking for clues that will tell her what is going to happen in the next book, and it’s rare she gets it wrong.
The corner of my mouth lifts. “There you are,” I mumble to myself. I should have known she would be in the fantasy romance chat. She’s been binge reading a new series for the past few weeks.
It’s all she can talk about when she’s in the forums. I think she even called it her Roman empire once or twice. Whatever that means .
I login to the chat anonymously and try my best to follow along with the conversation. I’ve been reading the books along with her when I can but I’ve fallen behind this week thanks to my busy schedule.
I can’t fight the grin on my face as Sydney goes into great detail explaining her favorite characters and scenes of the book she is currently reading. Her passion and enthusiasm for this imaginary world bleeds through the computer screen.
When she compares one of the characters in her current read to a character in a book we read together that first summer, it’s a sucker punch I didn’t see coming. Images of her laying down on a blanket under the canopy of willow trees in my backyard flood my mind.
We spent hours in an imaginary world of our own creation. It was a place where only the two of us existed. Hours would pass while she read her books and I hit baseballs into a net.
I move the mouse to hover over the button that will change my name from anonymous to my actual screen name. Am I really going to do this? I’ve been anonymous for over three years communicating with her under the radar.
Yes I am. It’s been long enough.
My pulse quickens as I type in the chat box. I keep it simple with a joke about that dude’s hair. It always made me laugh the way it was described in the book as velvety and supple.
A few people agree. Others welcome me to the discussion. I don’t care about them. What does she think ?
My foot bounces in anticipation of her reaction. Her screen name pops up and I grin.
FaeAtHeart
What are you talking about? You mean that description doesn’t make you want to run your fingers through his hair?
I picture her smiling on the other side of the screen. I miss being the one to make her smile. I used to be able to do it with ease. I was the one she would come to when she needed a serotonin boost.
Then I fucked it up. I made a decision that altered the trajectory of our relationship and it’s never been the same since. She hasn’t been the same . I’ll never forgive myself for that. If only I could go back.
Ignoring the others in the room, we begin to chat. Easily slipping back in sync like when we were younger. Volleying jokes and commentary back and forth. A piece of myself I thought I lost feels restored from this one conversation.
Ten years ago I fell in love with Sydney Pierce and my world was permanently altered. I didn’t see things the same way anymore. The only thing I could see was her.
Then I let her go.
I let her slip through my fingers.
That is an error I will never make again.