Chapter 15
fifteen
brADY
The door swung open, and Mac said, “’Bout time.”
I stepped inside and toed off my shoes. “Sorry, Your Majesty. Some of us don’t get to sit in an office all day. I wanted to shower and change.”
“You could have showered here with me.” Her grin was sharp, a challenge.
I wrapped my arms around her and hauled her close, rasping into her neck, “We both know I wouldn’t have gotten clean that way.”
Mac’s giggle broke off as my lips worked their way down the column of her throat. “Yes,” she groaned. “Keep doing that.”
It had been nearly two weeks since I’d been over to her place and vice versa. Her grandparents had stayed through Easter. The RV had pulled out earlier today en route to Florida once more. For some reason, Mac hadn’t been open to sneaking out or using the tiny house like we had in the past. We’d still texted, and I’d visited her office at Grandpappy’s, but she’d made her excuses about spending our evenings together.
However, earlier today, I’d gotten a message announcing Nola and Junior’s departure, saying we were in the clear and the house was ours if I was free. I’d let the text sit there for all of twelve seconds before replying. Of course I’d be there .
I’d missed her, missed this.
As my hands drifted beneath the hem of her shirt, teasing and slow, I could feel her trying to rush us. Her fingers were at my waistband doing terrible, distracting things. For as much as I was eager for her touch, I wouldn’t be hurried along. This was the first time I’d had her all to myself in weeks, and I didn’t plan on racing to the finish line.
In a surprise move, I released her and bent low, lifting her over my shoulder.
Mac made a strangled sound and swatted my backside. “I hate when you do that. Give me a warning next time.”
I landed a solid smack to her jeans-covered ass, grinning as she yelped. Then I made my way up the stairs to her bedroom. It reminded me of our first time together. She’d been eager then, too. Hell-bent on getting me out of her system and shoving me from her mind.
We’d come a long way in six months, but not nearly far enough.
Mac laughed as I tossed her down on top of the bed, dark hair fanned out like a siren. I crawled over her, unwilling to have any more space between us.
For long minutes, we just made out, lips eager and hands skimming over each other’s bodies. I could feel her impatience in nails scored along my sides and the tug of her teeth on my bottom lip. But I still wasn’t ready to strip her down and sink into her, no matter how good I knew it would feel.
To appease her restlessness, I lifted her shirt and shifted my attention to her breasts. Pushing down the cups of her lacy bra, I licked and sucked and nibbled her pale flesh, only running my tongue across her pebbled nipples when I felt her hands slip into my hair. I loved how soft Mac was here, a contrast to all the sharp edges she presented to the world. But I knew that somewhere inside lurked a tender heart, fierce for her loved ones but capable of softness too.
I trailed kisses down her stomach, noting that her jeans were already unbuttoned and unzipped, ready and waiting.
Well, she’d have to wait for what she really wanted a little longer. I tugged her pants and underwear down her thighs, and then I settled between them, enjoying another one of her soft places .
“Yes,” she moaned, fingers moving frantically along my scalp, reaching for purchase as I licked her pussy deep and slow. I wanted her to be patient, to enjoy the ride. I wanted her attention and her focus, to really feel the connection between us.
Sex had never been like this for me—not with anyone else. Mac was special, and what we had was important. I just needed her to see it, to feel it, too.
I pushed two fingers slowly inside, relishing the tightness and the moan she let out. Her hips started moving, asking for more. So I gave it to her, suddenly desperate to be the person who met all of her needs.
My focus never wavered. Her pleasure had every bit of my attention as awareness seeped in. All her urgent little sounds, the way her body moved as she climbed higher and higher.
Finally, her limbs tensed, hands tightening in my hair. Then she was coming hard against my tongue, rhythmic pulses around my thrusting fingers. I gentled my touch and finally pulled away, resting my head on her thigh and gazing up the length of her body.
Mac was breathing hard, her face flushed pink in the warm light of her bedroom. And her eyes were on me. I pressed a wet kiss to her inner thigh and smiled.
She smiled back. “Get up here.”
So I did, suddenly helpless to resist whatever Mac wanted.
When I’d undressed and settled on top of her, she grabbed my face and kissed me deeply. I groaned, knowing she was tasting herself on my tongue.
My dick was cradled against her pussy. She was hot and wet and insanely inviting.
Mac gave a tiny roll of her hips and then paused. “I’m on birth control. And I’m healthy. If you wanted to skip the condom.”
I swallowed hard, wanting that and trying hard not to show how much. To feel her bare, with nothing between us.
Instead, I nodded solemnly and said, “If you’re sure?”
“I haven’t done that before, but I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I wasn’t sure. ”
I was immensely grateful that she trusted me in this moment and willed her to see that this wasn’t just some hookup. It was more.
We were more.
Her gray eyes held a challenge, and as I watched, her hips shifted again, rubbing my length through her center.
I held her gaze as I took myself in hand, guiding the head of my shaft to her entrance. Then I pushed slowly inside.
I could feel the tendons of my neck straining against the pleasure of it as I held myself tightly in check. Trust Mac to get her way—to hurry things along and let her impatience win. Because I was not going to last long in the viselike grip of her sex, in the all-consuming heat, the vital intimacy that had me bowing my head against her shoulder and cursing every bit of how good she felt.
She clenched around me as she laughed. “Did I break you?”
I shook my head. Words weren’t going to happen. My thoughts were fractured into sentence fragments and broken exhalations. Too good and Jesus, fuck . Then Please, please keep me .
My movements were tentative at first as I strove to feel everything and commit it to memory. The overwhelming pressure and the generous warmth. The way her red lips shaped my name on a ragged gasp. But then my instincts took over, and my thrusts grew faster and deeper. I ground myself against her, the way I knew she liked, and her legs wrapped around me in answer.
It didn’t take long for both of us to spiral over the edge, coming in a rush of sweaty limbs and greedy touches.
Chest heaving, I rolled to the side so I didn’t crush her. My shoulder pressed against hers, and I felt her leg hook over mine, keeping us close and connected.
“Jesus,” I exhaled, as I stared unseeing eyes at the smooth ceiling overhead.
“I know,” Mac agreed heavily from my side.
The longer we lay side by side, unmoving, the more my thoughts intruded, drawing me out and away from the moment. I worried Mac would push me away or make light of what had happened between us—what kept happening between us .
So I started talking, a desperate need to keep us right here, in this together. “What’s your favorite prank we ever pulled on each other?”
That startled a laugh out of her. “Oh, God. I don’t know if I can pick.” Then after a moment, “Remember when you signed me up to run for homecoming, and I actually placed and got a spot on the court?”
I grinned. That had been fun. “You just like that it backfired on me.”
“Well, yeah.” But I could hear the smile in her voice, though I was suddenly too chicken to turn my head and confirm. “What’s your favorite?” she asked.
“In fifth grade, when you won the contest to name the road the new library was on.” My lips tugged up on the corners. “Brady Buttface Boulevard was legendary. Ten out of ten. No notes.”
Mac cackled delightedly and buried her face in my arm. When she’d recovered, she admitted, “I spent every minute that summer reading so I could log the most hours and win.”
“You were dedicated,” I admired. “Like a sociopath.”
She laughed again and rolled to face me. I turned, too, propping an elbow up and resting my chin in my hand.
Mac’s expression was warm with the levity of our shared history. But there was so much more to it than that. Moments that were tainted with regret and shame—at least on my part.
“I used to go to Tanner Park with a soccer ball. Just hoping to run into you,” I confessed.
Her smile changed, lips parting in surprise as her gray eyes softened. “You did?”
I nodded. “I said I was just going out to shoot, but I knew you went with your friends sometimes. Twelve-year-old Brady wasn’t very enlightened.”
She poked a finger into my bare chest. “I’m not so sure that twenty-eight-year-old Brady is all that enlightened,” she teased.
I grabbed her finger and placed a kiss against the pad of it before twining our hands together. And instead of looking at her face, I stared at our fingers woven around one another when I admitted, “I had a crush on you. And like a lot of stupid little boys, I went about it all wrong. I teased you and picked on you, looking to get your attention even if it was with some nasty comment or stupid prank. I think after a while, the negative parts stuck.”
The confession pressed a heavy hand around my heart, squeezing until I felt my pulse pound like a drum. I risked a glance at Mac, and she looked dumbfounded.
Maybe it had been stupid to tell her that. There was a helpless and vulnerable voice in my head, calling me every inch a fool. Too much altogether and more than she was willing to hear.
But then her gaze softened, amusement curling her faded red lips. “I don’t know that chopping off my pigtail was the best way to go about making your feelings known, Brady Buttface.”
I smiled, grateful for her response. “You’re still bitter about that one, huh?”
“No six-year-old looks good with an asymmetrical cut. I looked like I was going to ask to speak to the manager.”
We both laughed at the thought of a first-grade Mac with an emergency haircut and the image it provoked. Mine undoubtedly faded and timeworn tender while Mac’s was probably sharper and bolder, like a drawing you’d traced over and over, committing it to vengeful memory.
So much of my youthful stupidity had come about with the intent of keeping and holding Mac’s attention. As we’d grown older, my goals had remained the same. I’d watched dates and hookups come and go, losing her interest. Men that had been forgotten or discarded after a week, a month.
I’d chosen to make myself interesting instead. My methods hadn’t been the best, but I hadn’t been able to stand the thought of her forgetting me. I’d wanted to be memorable, a constant in her life, separate from her family but no less important. To be her last thought before she went to sleep.
Sure, good thoughts would have been nice, too, but I’d taken annoyance and irritation because it meant I was still hanging on, still relevant to the girl who’d occupied my own thoughts so desperately.
And now, after everything, I wanted to burrow down so deep that she’d never be able to get me out.
When our laughter faded, I squeezed her hand and said, “This is where you say you also liked me and just tortured me because you were trapped in the mindset of a second grader with a fruitless crush, too.”
Mac grinned. “Nice try. No, I genuinely wanted to torture you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Although”—she paused dramatically—“when I was in high school, I definitely thought you were hot.”
“Thank you.”
She chuckled. “But I guess I stayed mad enough over the pranks you pulled and the things you said that the idea of not torturing you seemed a lot like losing. And I knew you could take it, whatever I dished out. You weren’t going to tattle or whine about it. You were going to give it to me right back. I liked that you were never careful with me. As messed up as it was, we gave each other shit, but it was ... fun. I wanted to strangle you half the time, but I also had to keep myself from smiling, if that makes any sense.”
It did. It made so much sense. Our brains must have been warped in the same way.
I stayed quiet a moment, parsing through the memories and the immaturity that had driven her farther and farther away from me over time.
Eventually, Mac cleared her throat. “Since we’re making decades-old confessions, I guess I should tell you that I overheard you and your friends.” I frowned. “Junior year. Floyd was running his mouth about feeling me up, and you told him not to even bother. That I wasn’t worth it, something like that. It’s not important, but that was why I was so mean to you afterward and during senior year.”
Mac’s attention skittered away from my face, and I figured she remembered more than she was letting on.
An awful awareness left me stunned. I hadn’t even considered that she might have overheard that conversation. I remembered it well. Probably because I regretted it so much. There had been the panic at hearing that Floyd was interested in her. The terrible, untrue things I’d said to warn him away. I’d told him she wasn’t worth the effort. That nobody even wanted her, and she wasn’t even pretty. When in reality I’d been an immature asshat, too scared to go after her myself and desperate to keep my friend from dating her.
“Mac,” I sighed. I untangled our hands and cupped her jaw, drawing her gaze back to me, hoping she could see every ounce of shame I felt. “I’m so sorry I said those things. It was shitty of me. I was young and stupid, but that’s no excuse. When I realized that my friend was thinking about going after you, I was jealous and misguided. I wish you’d told me. Or confronted me. Or punched me in the damn mouth.”
She laughed a little at that. “I wanted to, but I think I was too stunned to manage it at the time. When you’re seventeen, you didn’t just keep walking when you heard three boys gossiping about you on the high school bleachers. You lurked, and you listened. And then you got even. You know what they say about eavesdroppers anyway.”
My chest squeezed with regret. “I didn’t mean it. I thought you were beautiful and funny and so smart-mouthed and sassy. There has never been a time when I’ve been able to ignore you.”
“So you didn’t want me, but you didn’t want anyone else to have me either?”
“No,” I admitted. “I wanted you. I just wasn’t brave enough to make it happen. I’d thought we had too much history between us, and then after that conversation, I tried being nice, thinking it might make a difference—that it might give me a chance. But you’d been angrier than ever, rebuffing any effort I made to talk to you. And I don’t blame you,” I hurried to add. “I didn’t deserve another chance. Eventually, I fell back into what was easy between us—petty arguments and pranks.”
“Is that why you stopped being friends with Floyd?” she asked quietly, brows furrowed. “Because he went after me?”
“No. I hated what happened and the way he’d gossiped and badmouthed you afterward, spreading those rumors. That was why he lost my friendship.”
“Did you—that night at Abby’s ...” Her voice trailed off, but the question was loud and clear.
“Yeah, that’s why we got into it that night at the bonfire,” I confessed, feeling flayed open, a beating heart that had her name stamped all over it .
“So you’ve defended me twice now?” She brought her hand up to cover mine, her thumb brushing gently over my knuckles.
I thought about the shoving match with Floyd Ellerby and the standoff with Connor Pritchard, and I shook my head. “Not because you needed me to. I know you’re more than capable of taking care of yourself. But because those two assholes are cowards. The only way they’re brave enough to talk shit about you is behind your back, and that is what I couldn’t allow. It had nothing to do with your pride, Mac, and everything to do with standing up for what’s right.”
“Thank you,” she said finally. “For doing what’s right.”
Eventually, Mac rose to a sitting position. “I’m going to go clean up. You’ll stay?”
I made sure my voice was casual when I replied, “If that’s okay.”
When she settled back into bed with an oversized tee shirt, I’d already pulled on my boxers and gotten beneath the covers. Mac turned off the light from the bedside table and rolled onto her side.
I spooned behind her, my body outlining hers as I breathed in the spicy-sweet scent I loved. I draped an arm across her middle as she wiggled tighter against me.
My thoughts were loud, urging me to talk to Mac about the way I felt. My honesty and vulnerability from earlier hadn’t scared her off, and so the optimistic part of me considered telling her I wanted to date for real. No more of this sneaking around. I wanted to be together out in the open, go on a date without the asterisk. I thought maybe she was ready.
So I said, “Are you happy with how things are?”
I was close enough to feel her body tense and her breathing pause. I wondered if she could detect the rapid beat of my heart against her back.
When she stayed quiet, all my hopefulness evaporated like woodsmoke on a summer night. I quickly backpedaled, “You know, with your new position at the farm? You’re liking it?”
Her breath whooshed out of her, the relief of it tangible and heartbreaking. “Yeah, for sure. I actually really like the responsibility. I’ve learned a lot by handling the vendors. And, of course, it’s nice not to have to deal with the leafers all the damn time.”
I swallowed hard, forcing the tightness out of my voice. “Poor baby,” I teased. “Can’t stand the tourists at your tourist attraction.”
“Hey, you know exactly how they are. Entitled and bossy and unappreciative of our land and home.”
Despite the turn the conversation had taken and my resulting disappointment, I felt amusement at just how grouchy this woman was. I chuckled a little and said, “Bless your heart.”
She immediately rolled to face me, staring in incredulous shock. “Did you just bless my heart ?
I laughed harder. “Yeah. So?”
“Everyone knows that is little-old-lady speak for ‘fuck all the way off.’”
My shoulders were shaking, and I barely managed to say, “No, I meant it the nice way.”
She scoffed like there was no such thing, but she wrapped an arm around me and tangled her legs with mine.
And I thought I’d do a lot more than bless her heart, if only she’d let me.
“Do you have work tomorrow?” she asked, her voice soft from sleepiness.
I thought about it, then reached one long arm to her bedside table to retrieve my phone. I scrolled to the list app I used—one that, for some reason, worked better to keep me organized than a calendar.
I was grateful Mac had asked because I’d completely forgotten to set my alarm for the morning. “No work,” I replied distractedly, scrolling to make sure I hadn’t missed anything else. “But I do play Frisbee in the morning.”
“Frisbee?” she asked, sounding suddenly more alert.
I set the alarm and replaced my phone before I was able to answer her. “Yeah, Ultimate Frisbee.”
“Oh my God. You are such a walking frat-boy stereotype. ”
“I was also in a frat,” I said, pinching her side.
“Oh, I know.” She pinched me back.
“It’s just pickup with some folks in South Asheville. And it’s a good way to stay in shape and meet people,” I added, a touch defensively.
I could see her watching me, even in the dimness of her bedroom, infinitely amused.
“Do you want to come watch?” I asked.
“Hell yes, I do.”
“You’re just going to heckle me in front of strangers, aren’t you?” I asked flatly, ensuring I kept the excitement out of my voice.
“They’ll be quality heckles,” she replied happily.
“Great. I can’t wait.” Then I remembered. “Oh, Amos plays too. I have to pick him up in the morning. Is that okay?”
“Sure. I can’t wait to see the little punk again.”
Then she snuggled into my chest and tightened her arms around me. I smiled into the dark.
The following morning, we woke up early and headed downtown to grab caffeine and breakfast burritos to go from Cubhouse Coffee Shop. I picked up one for Amos and a box of pastries for his mom and sister. I parked down the block, and Mac waited for me in the truck to avoid nosy neighbors and prying eyes.
Amos didn’t seem to mind Mac’s presence. In between bites of burrito, they fought over the music selection for most of the twenty-minute drive to the field.
When we arrived, Amos trotted off in his cleats to warm up with a few of the other teenagers who came out on Saturday mornings.
I’d changed back at Mac’s house with the extra clothes I kept in my workout bag in my truck. Once I’d gotten her set up with a camp chair on the sideline, I tossed her one of my extra hoodies, knowing she’d probably get cold in the chilly morning .
Later, when I looked over to see her wearing it, I immediately dropped a pass and turned the disc over to the other team. But I couldn’t find it within myself to be too upset about it. Not when she looked warm in the April air, wearing something of mine.
It was proprietary caveman bullshit, but there it was. I blamed science.
I kept sneaking glances at her while I played, staying distracted by her presence. As much as Mac claimed she wanted to come so she could give me shit, I mostly heard cheers and whistles from the sideline. I was happy she was here, I realized. Glad to have her in another part of my life.
When Amos and I were sweaty and worn out and Mac’s cheeks were windburned and pink, we loaded up and headed back to Kirby Falls. I dropped Amos off first, even though it was out of the way. Then I took Mac home so she could get ready for a late lunch with her sister, Bonnie.
“I’ll text you later,” she said and then pulled me in for a kiss. “Or you can stay over again. If you want.”
“I want,” I confirmed and then leaned back over the console to kiss her again.
The smile stayed on her face all the way up the porch steps.
When I got to the end of the gravel drive, I shifted into park and grabbed my phone.
With the Chatter app open, I drafted a new post, letting my thoughts run away with me. It seemed safer this way. Like, if I let them out in a controlled environment, then I wouldn’t blurt out how much I loved her to her face.
@JuddsFamilyOrchard: @GrandpappysApples, There’s a place for you in every part of my life. In every corner of my heart. The sidelines, the front seats, east to west, north to south. You don’t even need to ask. There’s a reserved sign with your name on it.
That particular draft went into the vault with the other imaginings of a heartsick bastard.
What I actually posted was pretty simple, but I knew it would make her smile.
@JuddsFamilyOrchard: @GrandpappysApples, bless your heart.