Chapter Nine #3
She couldn’t help but smile. The volume was low. Whatever game he was playing had the worst graphics ever. Some little guy was running up a ramp, trying to avoid barrels being thrown down at him by a giant ape perched at the top of the scaffolding.
His bare feet were framed by the frayed hem of blue jeans that looked as though they had been washed and worn a million times. They perched on the edge of a long wooden coffee table.
“What are you playing?” The last time she’d sat next to him on the blue sofa, he’d ended up kissing her. He’d kissed her twice again since then.
He paused the game and looked at her. One eyebrow raised, his mouth open. “You don’t know Donkey Kong?”
“It looks kinda crappy to be honest. I saw a calculator once with graphics like that.”
“Andrea, wait … what’s your middle name?”
“Rosa.”
“Rosa … hmm, I like it. Andrea Rosa Caron. You mean to tell me you’ve never played Donkey Kong?
This is the original Nintendo version and everything.
” He waved the controller at her, like she knew one end of a gaming console from another.
“Okay, sit. You have to give it a shot.” He patted the seat cushion next to him.
With the press of a couple of buttons, the gorilla climbed up the scaffolding. Cujo handed her the controller.
“Okay. Kong is going to start throwing barrels. You have to jump them. Press this button.”
He grabbed her around the waist and wrestled her between his legs, her back pressed against his muscular chest. Chin resting on her shoulder, he covered her hands with his, working the controller with her.
“Okay, press this”—he moved her finger—“and you can grab that hammer. Start bashing the barrels, like this.”
He showed her a couple of times, then Drea went for it. Wow. Three hundred points to smash a barrel and one hundred for jumping it.
The blue barrel came out of nowhere and hit the little guy on the head. “No, how did that happen?” she asked, disappointed.
“Sorry, forgot to say they come straight down, too.”
By the third attempt, she was starting to get it. Cujo had let go of the controller, but was still hugging her from behind, and she liked it.
His excitement was contagious, and by the time she got to the top of the scaffolding to the girl in the pink dress, Drea was bouncing.
“What the hell?” she exclaimed as the pink heart disappeared and Kong grabbed the girl and carried her off the top of the screen.
“Next level,” he whispered against her neck, his lips brushing her skin. A shiver rippled its way down her spine.
Fingers inched slowly up her ribs, and his warm breath teased her ear. Her stomach tightened as he cupped her breast through her T-shirt and rubbed his thumb over her nipple.
‘How high can you get?’ appeared on the screen, but the game no longer held her interest. Her fingers ached with the need to touch him, to hold him. But getting involved with Cujo was a fool’s errand.
Slow kisses brushed her jaw, but she resisted the urge to turn and meet his lips. She sank against Cujo’s strong chest. She’d been distracted by the hero’s quest to save the girl, but now, she had to face reality.
Cujo pulled her hair gently to one side. The slow graze of his fingers across her skin left a heated trail along her neck.
“I gotta go, Cujo,” she sighed.
“I know,” he whispered, but didn’t move.
His lips brushed the side of her neck, then the back of her ear. Drea bent her head, granting him better access. It was crazy, but being with him simply drowned out the noise of everything else.
Drea’s phone rang, making them both jump.
“The worst possible timing,” Cujo said, leaning forward, still holding her tightly. He reached for her phone and read the screen.
“Rosa,” he said, handing it to her.
There was a knock at the door, and Cujo climbed from behind her.
“What’s up, Mom?”
“Celine is making me eat tuna.”
Despite her annoyance, Drea laughed. “You called to complain about tuna?” How in holy hell was she meant to focus on tuna, when all she could feel was the imprint of Cujo’s hand across her breast and the whisper of his lips against her skin?
Here, in Cujo’s home, she could almost find herself again, could almost connect to the person she was before her mom got sick. That girl felt like she was within reach.
Patiently, she let her mom ramble, punctuating the conversation occasionally with an appropriate comment or well-placed murmur of agreement. She looked over to the door. Cujo was outside, and she wanted to be with him.
“So Celine said this afternoon we have to go and—”
“Mom, I gotta go. Please find a way to get along with Aunt Celine.”
“But what about the tuna?” Who gave a flying fuck about the tuna?
“Good-bye, Mom.”
She wandered out to the porch and found him sitting on the front steps, swirling a key ring around his finger. She sat beside him and he slid his arm around her shoulders.
“How was Rosa?” he asked, his fingers running up and down her arm.
“Worried about fish.” She tangled her fingers with his.
“Want to tell me what’s going on with you?”
It seemed too big a question. To tell him so many of the things that festered inside her, keeping her awake.
How could she explain the fact she was days away from hitting the food bank?
Or that she grappled with the dichotomy of the angry, sick Rosa dying without ever really getting to know loving, caring Rosa, her mom.
And there was the woman. “I can’t forget her. I dream about the gun, and us, stuck in that tiny closet. I also dream about her. If I had been at the front of the shop, maybe I could have done something. I won’t be able to rest until I know she is safe.”
They sat for a few more moments, until Cujo gently kissed her temple.
He handed Drea a set of keys. “Thought you might need a car while yours is in the shop.” She looked over at the little silver car.
“How much is it going to cost?” she asked quietly. “It could be months before I can pay you back.”
“I offer a great sex for cash payment plan, Drea. You can work it off.”
She glared at him, but he smiled at her, the blue in his eyes brighter than usual.
“Joke, Drea. I co-own the garage with my brother, Devon. That’s one of our loaners. No charge.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “Do you own part of the tattoo shop as well?”
He shrugged. “Yeah.”
Drea chewed on her bottom lip. He wasn’t as lazy and laid-back as he seemed. She’d totally misjudged him.
He pushed a loose piece of hair behind her ear, and the heat from his thumb trailed along her cheek. “Call it a birthday gift. I missed it this year.”
“You didn’t know me when it was my birthday this year,” she said smiling at him shyly.
“Details, details,” he said, brushing her lips gently with his.