Chapter 21
21
Kit
S o…that happened. Three times. Four really.
Nothing had changed, obviously. I mean, realistically. Outwardly, maybe. I didn’t know. Nothing should have changed, but it felt like everything had. Him. Us. Me.
Especially me.
After making me come two more times and another of his explosive orgasms across my tits, he fell asleep almost immediately. I watched him for a minute. His eyelashes were so long. Longer than you would think. They were light, so you didn’t notice them at a distance, but close up like this, they were long and lush and pretty.
Pretty.
I was losing my mind. Honestly.
I grabbed my Shrek shirt but didn’t put it on. Poor Shrek, we’d used him terribly. I slipped Liam’s shirt over my head instead. The smell of him enveloping me like a cloud. Warm and masculine. I lifted the collar and buried my nose in it.
A good smell. The guy had a good smell and pretty eyelashes and a filthy mouth and fingers that were a gift from God. He was a full package of sin and trouble and charm. That rookie I’d met in Nashville that night had grown into a man, but he’d kept the things about him that made him special. He hadn’t become jaded or cynical. Despite what had been done to him.
I had built a thousand walls between me and the world and he’d skated right through them, like the defenses of a far inferior team.
Quietly, so I didn’t wake him and have to explain why I couldn’t stay in his room another minute, I crept out the door. Shutting it silently behind me, I made my way down the creaky old staircase to the living space downstairs.
I checked on Tess who was sound asleep in the bottom bunk, arms and legs flung every which way, before crawling into my own bed, pulling the sheets up over my body and laying there feeling the thrum of my blood between my legs. I cupped a hand over my pussy as if to remind myself that it was still my body. Sore and tender, yes. But I was still me.
So why did I feel so different?
“Kit, psst, Kit.”
I opened one eye to see Tess beside my bed, wearing her pajamas and carrying the bird book we’d bought at the bookstore the other day.
“Hey Tess,” I said. I closed my eyes but smiled at her. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know. But I think there’s a Great Blue Heron on our patio.”
My eyes flew open. “What?”
“I’m serious!” she whispered, like the heron might hear her. “You have to see.”
Well, I did have to see. I flung the sheets off my body and pulled on a pair of shorts and sweatshirt over Liam’s t-shirt. We stepped out of the bedroom hallway to the main room with the windows out onto the back patio and the beach beyond.
The sky was a bright blue but the sunlight was the thin watery sunlight of dawn. I didn’t even bother to look at the clock. Too depressing.
“Look!” Tess cried, jumping silently beside me, pointing wildly out the window where indeed there was a gigantic bird at least three feet tall, holding itself still and looking right at us.
“Oh,” I said, startled. “That’s… that’s a Great Blue Heron.” It looked like an alien. Shaggy feathers all down its front but those piercing eyes looking right at me as if to say… I know what you did to poor Shrek last night.
Tess collapsed onto the floor, the book open in front of her. “Did you know that they’re wingspan can be up to six feet wide?”
“I did not.”
“And the female lays the eggs but the male sits on the eggs during the day.”
“Didn’t know that either.” I stepped closer to the window, trying to get a better look and see if there wasn’t another bird out there. But my movement startled the heron, and it took off with a tremendous rustle of gray blue feathers. Its wingspan was no joke.
“Oh, no!” I cried, watching it soar up into the air. “Sorry, Tess,” I said, but she was running past me to the window, where, over the trees and the dunes between our house and the beach, a whole flock of birds rose up into the air, circled, and then resettled on the beach.
“What were those?” she asked.
“They don’t look like seagulls,” I said. Slowly we turned to each other, each of us thinking the same thing. I pulled open the screen door and she took off running. I shut the door behind us and followed.
Two hours later Liam found us sitting in the sand, the book open on my lap as we discussed everything we’d seen today. We were new at this birding thing but I could tell we had a natural gift.
“Good morning,” Liam said, as he stepped beside us. He handed me a cup of coffee and I looked up at him with complete and utter gratitude.
“Liam!” Tess cried and then regaled him with stories of herons coming out of the sky to catch birds and tiny little sandpipers with black beaks and bright red eyes digging shells out of the sand. “And eating them!” she said, acting out some of her favorite parts of the wild world of birds we’d watched this morning.
“You’ve had quite a morning,” Liam said, sitting down beside me.
“We have,” I said, my voice shrill and weird. I was trying so hard to pretend to be cool but all I could think about was him between my legs telling me I was such a good girl. Which led me to thinking about how his cock felt in my hand. The way I’d made myself wet for him. And that, all I wanted to do in the world, was lock myself in that bedroom with him for the next five hours so he could really fuck me.
I didn’t think too much about why we hadn’t gone there last night. It was like we were getting used to each other again. Maybe testing some limits first. He’d certainly tested mine.
“Kit,” he breathed. “What in the world are you thinking about right now?”
I whirled to face him, only to find him studying my face.
“You blush when you’re turned on, by the way,” he said quietly. Tess, who’d gone up to the edge of the water to look at the prints left in the sand by all the birds, wasn’t paying any attention to us.
“I’m not thinking anything,” I said, unable to not be awkward.
“Liar,” he said and kissed my cheek. “It’s okay. I’m thinking about it too.”
I was powerless to keep my mouth shut. I couldn’t stop myself from saying, ‘what are you thinking about,’ if I were paid a million dollars.
“I’m thinking about how you taste. And how many hours are between now and when that little girl goes to bed so I can fuck you the way you want to be fucked.”
“How…” I swallowed. “How do you think…?” I couldn’t say how do you think I want to be fucked . The words were too dirty to say out loud in the sunshine surrounded by Tess and birds and wide open space. They were words for closed doors and dark rooms.
“Hard,” he whispered. He apparently didn’t have the same hangups. “Deep. And by me.”
I felt a bloom of heat and damp between my legs, and I had no idea how he could turn me on with just some words in my ear. When plenty of other men left me cold and bored when they were trying their hardest.
Well, not plenty, I thought. But some. Enough that I stopped trying, thinking there was something wrong with me.
“Liam!” Tess cried and waved her hand, beckoning him to her side. She crouched in the sand, fascinated by something.
Liam kissed my shoulder. “That’s my shirt. I like you in it,” he said and jumped to his feet, going down to the edge of the water to study whatever Tess had found.
They were cute together. Their heads tilted in identical ways. She looked up at him and I didn’t know if it was my imagination or what, but I could have sworn their noses were the exact same shape. Long and straight. And their chins were the same kind of pugnacious.
Stop, Kit, I told myself and took a sip of my coffee.
But once I saw the similarities they were hard to unsee.
It was another perfect summer beach day. When the sun got too hot and Liam complained of being starved, we packed it in from the beach, but not before we all picked up twenty pieces of trash.
“My mom says we have to do that whenever we go to the beach or the park,” Tess said. “We have to leave it better than when we found it.”
“Your mom is a nice lady,” I said, and Tess, for the first time since we’d been together, nodded, but looked weepy.
“You miss her?” I asked, curling my arm around her shoulder and giving her a squeeze. She nodded.
“You know what I do when I miss my mom?” Liam said, scooping Tess up under his arm until she started screaming and laughing at the same time. “I go have pie for breakfast. Just a big piece of pie.”
“Do you really?” I asked.
“You doubt me?” he asked, pretending to be offended.
“Just seems like you are looking for a reason to have pie for breakfast.”
“Well, I am, but it does remind me of her. So?” He looked at me and gave Tess a jostle. “What do you say? Pie, and then, let’s see, you probably don’t want to go back to the bookstore again.”
“I do!” Tess cried.
“Nah, you’re probably like, been there, done that,” he teased. “You probably want to go to the bait and tackle shop instead.”
“I don’t even know what bait and tackle is!” Tess cried.
We both laughed, but Liam kept up the ruse the whole way there, listing shops Tess would have zero interest in, all the while knowing he would take us back to the bookstore.
My heart swelled with something…something I wouldn’t name. This week was temporary. I knew that more than anyone. What I didn’t need to do was fall in love with this man.
In the bright sunshine, surrounded by the squawk of birds and Tess’s laughter, I was worried it might be too late.
Liam
You have to love a diner. Honestly, was there anything better? All day breakfast. Pie whenever you wanted it. Carrot cake, if that’s your thing. Fried chicken no matter what and always, always, a decent meatloaf sandwich.
Pappas Diner gave off every vibe of being top shelf. Great big, comfortable booths. It smelled like coffee and french fries. And… best of all… the spinning pie rack was full. Cream pies, three-layer chocolate cakes, a dozen different fruit pies. It was the best pie rack I’d seen in ages.
There was a stuffed lobster in a case that was very weird, especially since we were supposed to rub it for luck. Tess refused, so Kit did it for her.
We took a booth by the window and Tess went to work on the kids’ paper menu with the cup of crayons our server dropped off.
Kit looked over the menu but I didn’t bother. “You know what you’re getting?” she asked.
“Eggs over easy, bacon, wheat toast, home fries and chocolate chip pancakes and a piece of blueberry pie as an appetizer.”
Kit gaped at me.
“I know, it’s hard work keeping this figure,” I said, running a hand down my stomach.
Tess and Kit ordered a spinach and feta omelet to split with toast and home fries and I convinced them both to get a piece of pie.
Tess got chocolate cream.
“Awesome,” I said, reaching over to high five her.
Kit got coconut cream.
“You’re a monster,” I said, making Tess laugh.
The bell over the door jingled and Nick walked in by himself. He wore his navy blue coveralls and a baseball cap.
Shit. I couldn’t hide. I was a pro hockey player and it wasn’t in my nature. So when our eyes caught across the room, I shrugged as if to say – sorry man, didn’t know you’d be here. He stopped for a second like he might turn around and leave, which seemed a little childish to me, but this was his town. His diner.
He’d made it clear I was not invited.
I waited to see what he was going to do. Ignore me was the obvious choice. But to my surprise, Nick walked over and stood at the edge of the table glaring at me. I had one of those time warp moments that I had with Wyatt sometimes, like when he was a grown man and he said something or made an expression like he did when he was ten. I felt myself slip back in time to when we were kids and then back to the adult versions of us. It always felt like a kind of magic. A trick I had with my brother.
Here it was again. But instead of the past, it was like a doubled version of my older brother. A tiny taste, without having experienced it, of what it might be like to have two older brothers.
“Shit,” I said on a gusty laugh, feeling like I’d really missed out on something, and I was sad all over again. “You are glaring at me just like Wyatt does.”
Nick looked up at the ceiling and then back down at us. He was obviously chewing his tongue. If he was going to cuss me out again, I really didn’t want him to do it in front of Tess. I was just about to say something when he forced an extremely awkward smile across his face.
“My dad said I was a little out of line the other day,” Nick said. “The playing dirty thing.”
“You kidding?” I joked. “Wyatt threatened me with a bat every day of my life for three years. I know about playing dirty.”
“Still,” he said. “I was raised better than that.” He looked at me pointedly as if to make it clear he’d been raised by Antony Renard and his wife, and I had no argument to make with that.
“Antony seems like a really good guy.”
“The best,” he said. “And my mom is even better.”
“Moms usually are,” Tess said, doing the word search on her table mat.
“What did you order?” Nick asked.
“Pie!” Tess answered, looking up with delight. “For breakfast.”
“Pie for breakfast? What? Is it your birthday?” Nick teased.
“No, my birthday was last January, this is just ‘cause we’re on vacation,” Tess explained.
“Do you want to join us?” Kit asked.
Right. Because that was the cool thing to do. I could have kissed her I was so grateful. She said it with the right amount of kindness and interest, without it being desperate, like it would have sounded had I done it.
Nick blinked a few times, as if wrapping his head around us being nice to him, when he’d basically been a dick so far.
“Uh…no,” Nick said. “Thanks. I’m ah…just picking up something to eat and taking it back to the garage.”
“You eat breakfast in your garage?” Tess asked.
“My garage is my shop,” Nick answered. “I fix cars.”
“You own your own shop?” I asked, hungry for any little detail.
“Yeah. On Second Street, just past the park.”
I held my breath waiting for him to invite me to come see it. To casually ask me to hang out. I’d never fixed a car in my life but I would learn if we could do it together. But Nick was silent. That silence told me loud and clear he wasn’t interested in me dropping by his place. He’d apologized for threatening me, sure. He’d made small talk with me. That was as far as he was willing to take it.
“Nick!” A man in the back, with a bald head and earring rang a bell on the pass through between the kitchen. “Come get this burger!”
“You have hamburgers for breakfast?” Tess asked, like the idea was fascinating. “That’s almost as crazy as pie.”
“Well, I’ve been up for a while so this is my lunch,” Nick said, smiling at Tess. He gave us a wave and went to grab his sandwich.
I made eye-contact with Kit, and she gave me a little wince of understanding. Like she understood how much more I wanted from Nick. It was like when you were so hungry you stopped being hungry and then you had one tiny thing to eat and your stomach became a bottomless pit.
That tiny conversation only made me want more. So much more.
“Am I so see-through?” I asked her, and to my shock, she lifted her hand and pushed the hair that had fallen over my forehead back up on my head.
“I’ve never seen anyone who wants to be loved more than you,” she said.
“Except you,” I said, and she seemed struck by the comment.
That’s right, I thought, you can see me, and I can see you.
Kit shifted a little in the booth and turned to Tess as a distraction. “So your birthday was in January, Tess. What’s the actual day?”
“January 14 th ,” she said. “My mom took me out for a special lunch and we didn’t have pie but I had birthday cake. It was awesome.”
Maybe it was wrong to ask a kid, but it made me wonder about Tess’s dad. Was he part of her life at all now that he wasn’t with Janice? “What about your dad, Tess? Does he send you a present or something on your birthday?”
Tess shook her head. “I don’t have a dad.”
There was no sadness or regret in her tone. Just like she was stating a fact.
“Well,” Kit said. “You do have a dad, but maybe you just don’t see him very much.”
“Nope,” she said, filling in more of the puzzle on her place mat. “Mom said some kids have dads and some kids don’t and that’s that.”
“That’s that,” I repeated, not liking the finality of that. Tess was a great kid and some guy out there was really missing out.
I was distracted then by the woman headed to our table. She carried a large tray over her shoulder and stopped when she got to us.
“Okay,” the server said. “Who is having pie for breakfast?”
The three of us raised our hands.