Chapter 13
Milo
Iwake up to a warm body underneath mine and a painful crick in my neck.
Beau, it turns out, sleeps very hot. So hot, in fact, that I am sticky, stuck to him with sweat.
I don’t even bother trying to pull myself loose, though I doubt I could if I wanted to.
Beau’s arms are wrapped tightly around me, holding me close to him, nuzzling into my neck.
We’re both nearly naked, stripped down to our boxer briefs. Not sure when we did that. Probably around the same time I climbed up onto his lap and lay across his chest, if I’m being honest with myself.
I lose myself in his warmth, cuddling against the wall of muscle and flesh that makes up Beau. My arms squeeze around his shoulders a little. I pull myself closer to him, needing to be in his embrace. Needing to feel him.
I breathe in his scent, the delicious warmth and earthy undertones of cedarwood, like a fresh forest. Smoky and sweet. He fills my lungs, and I get the sudden, overwhelming desire to have him fill other parts of me.
My body heats at the thought. I don’t know if that’s just from rampant lust or embarrassment at my slutty thoughts.
Beau stirs, his chest rumbling as he yawns. His arm around me squeezes, and I’m suddenly incredibly aware of my bladder.
“Fuck, Beau,” I groan, wiggling to get loose so I can go relieve myself. Then I feel him under me, and it’s as if my wiggling has awoken the beast. His cock is rigid, and mine is plumping up to match. He begins to grind against me, and I immediately stop my wiggling. This isn’t okay.
But he hits just the right spot, and I let loose the moan I was holding back.
Our clothed cocks slide against each other, and the delicious friction zaps up my spine.
I know I should stop. I know I should try harder to climb off of him. Because I know that the second Beau wakes up, he’s going to freak out about this. He’s going to freak out, and I’m going to get my feelings hurt.
Speaking of which…
His eyes suddenly fly open, and he scrambles to sit up, which is really fucking uncomfortable. I roll off him, my ass hitting the rug with a thud.
“Fuck, Beau,” I groan again, but in a less fun way.
“Ha—hey.” His voice is startled and his eyes a little crazed. His hair is flat on one side and sticking up on the other. His dick is still rock hard.
“Hey,” I say from the floor, smiling up at him like a big blond lump. I feel so stupid for letting myself enjoy that moment with him.
“What are you...?” He gestures to me down on the ground, and I simply shake my head. I’m trying not to laugh. Or maybe I’m trying not to cry? I can’t really tell.
All I know is my eyes burn and my chest is a little tight. But I’m smiling at him. I’m smiling at him, so he smiles back. And I quickly look down and let a tear fall for this ruined moment together.
“Fuck, last night was brutal.” He reaches his arms up in a stretch that expands his chest beautifully. I want to lick the divots of his abs and around his pert pink nipples. I watch the muscle ripple, and the layer of fat he has looks so biteable.
Instead of acting on my frankly carnal desires, I nod slowly.
“Yeah, last night was a lot of fun.” I let loose a yawn, which in turn gets him yawning.
“Did you… Do you not drink?” Ah, that was one of the questions I was waiting for. It came a lot later than I thought it would, but I’m ready all the same.
“Yeah, I don’t drink.”
“During the season?”
“Ever.”
“Oh.”
A pause, a beat.
“Damn.” Beau looks at me with wide eyes. “I had my first drink when I was eleven.” He laughs at my look of shock and waves it off. “I wasn’t drinking like crazy. My dad just would pour me a drink whenever he had one.” He sighs. “Which wasn’t that often because he really wasn’t home much.”
“Your dad would…” I trail off, unsure of how to respond to that. “He would pour you a drink when you were eleven?”
He waves me off again, letting out a bit of a chuckle at my concern.
“Really, it was nothing. You’re making a bigger deal than it needs to be.” He continues to smile, but I can see the strain in his eyes. I know he doesn’t want to talk about this. Just something in me is screaming to keep poking the bear.
He stretches again, all that beautiful muscle extending and lithe before my very eyes, and I’ve suddenly forgotten what it was I wanted to bug him about.
Horrifying parenting, who?
It explains the heavy drinking, I guess. It’s completely normal to mirror what you saw growing up, and if you haven’t been told that’s not normal, why would you think any differently?
“Why do you look like that?” Beau asks, his face twisting slightly in confusion. “You’re making the same face you make when you find all the edge pieces for your puzzle.” That makes me laugh.
He’s fighting what we have so hard.
“Nothing, I just didn’t really understand why you drank so much last night, but I get it now.”
“Whoa, what?” he asks, eyes bugging and brows furrowing. Did I say that wrong? “What do you mean by that?” His arms cross over his chest. He looks so upset.
Fuck, I definitely shouldn’t have said that.
“I didn’t mean anything bad.” I throw my hands up in defense. “I just meant you were mirroring your dad’s behavior. That’s totally normal. I do it.”
His eyes squint, and his face gets red. It’s not a sweet blush, though. It’s absolute rage.
“I am nothing like my dad,” he shouts, hands clenched into fists at his sides.
My hands fly up to protect my face. I don’t even think. I just move. I don’t know why I respond like this, but something about his shouting makes me feel like I need to protect myself. I haven’t seen him angry before, and I don’t like it.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. His face relaxes slightly from the pinched rage.
We both stand there for a moment, letting the heated air between us cool off. He’s breathing hard, and I’m holding my breath. Finally, Beau speaks.
“I’m sorry I yelled.” His voice is steady, calm once again. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
I nod slowly.
“I’m sorry I said that about your dad,” I whisper. He shakes his head.
“It’s not that. I just don’t want to be like my dad.
” He plops back down onto the couch, throwing his head back and closing his eyes.
“My dad is just not a good man. His drinking wasn’t even the worst thing about him.
It was mostly that he was never there. Growing up, he was never home.
” He sighs and rubs his face vigorously with open hands.
“When he was home, he was mean.” His head pops up, and he looks at me.
“He never hit me, but his words cut fucking deep.”
I nod slowly, absorbing his words, letting them fill me.
I hurt him.
“I won’t say anything like that again,” I promise.
But I think to last night. To his drunken jealousy. What am I getting into?
An hour later, I’m asking myself the same question, this time while staring at Darlene’s rusted frame.
“Why do you need to drive?” I ask, eyeing Darlene and scrupulously seeking out any reason for us to not take this old-as-sin truck. Beau rolls his eyes.
“I need to drive her every once in a while, or her battery craps out.” That’s not the only thing that’s gonna crap out…
I eye the old rust bucket, nervous to get in but not wanting to piss off Beau any more than I already have.
So I climb into the truck, and send up a little prayer to whoever the fuck listens for those.
Our car ride is tense. Silent, save for the sound of Darlene’s tires tearing across gravel. I want to talk to him. I want to say literally anything to him. I just worry he was too vulnerable last night with me, then again this morning. And now he’s closing himself off.
Suddenly, a loud ruh… ruh sound comes from somewhere in Darlene’s belly.
It’s like a weird, hesitant cough, or maybe like she’s (fuck, I sound like him) clearing her throat to say something important.
I look around us, glad we’re almost at the arena, because I would bet money that the important thing she has to say is that she’s going to die.
There’s this weird hiccup in the engine, as if Beau’s let off the gas. I look over and see the RPM needle twitching. The power dips in waves, surging and dropping. There are these uneven chugging and metallic rattling sounds, and something misfires in the engine.
A squeal, like a stuck pig, sharp and angry. My hands fly to my ears, immediately overwhelmed by all the sounds and stressed by the impending doom of a vehicle careening to its end.
Even if that careening is probably overdue and definitely expected.
With a clunk and a shudder, the engine cuts out while we roll to a stop right in front of the arena.
Dead silence.
I chance a look at Beau, and his eyes are wide. He looks fucking devastated.
“Darlene?”
His hands grip the steering wheel like he’s clinging to his own life and not the life of his truck.
“Beau?” I ask carefully, worried to startle him. Our teammates, all walking into practice themselves, stop to watch the spectacle.
He’s trying to turn the key, but nothing is happening. No click, click, clicking. No turnover.
He looks over at me, big fat tears in his eyes. Fuck, I guess I didn’t realize how much she meant to him.
His eyes say all kinds of things as I look into them.
But mostly, they say what we both know.
She’s gone.