Chapter 25 Magnum Tampons
TANNER
Afucking massage. What was I thinking? I shut my bedroom door behind me and look down at the raging boner pushing against my sweatpants.
Fuck.
I should have stopped it the minute I told her I wanted to make her feel good, but I didn’t.
She was hurting, and despite telling myself for weeks that she deserves better than me and trying my best to maintain physical distance between us since I fucked my palm to the thought of her pleasuring herself, I just couldn’t stop myself from trying to make her pain go away.
She’s moaned before, but that moan? That moan changed something in my DNA, and now that I’ve heard it, I’ll never be the same.
I strip my clothes, and my dick springs free.
Checking the temperature of the water, I step into the shower.
For a split second, I consider using my hand again to put me out of my misery, but when I close my eyes, my brain is flooded with visions of Wren, and I know I shouldn’t.
Not again. Not now. She probably already thinks I’m a freak for running away like I did.
I don’t need her accidentally overhearing me jacking off after I was just massaging her.
No, that would be terrible. I slam the handle to cold and turn the water to ice.
Quickly, I get dressed again and dry my hair with a towel. When I walk out, she’s laying on the couch watching the movie.
“Did you shower?” she asks, confused.
“Oh…yeah.” Shit, I didn’t think that through at all. “I, uh, I remembered I forgot to take one this morning after the gym, so I took a quick one. Felt like I stunk.”
Felt like I stunk? Smooth.
“You’re so weird,” she laughs. “You want me to rewind the movie?”
“Sure.” I join her back on the couch, and she grabs the remote. “Hey, I’m sorry if the massage was too much earlier. I didn’t mean to bail like that when you, um…”
“Moaned,” she laughs, her cheeks turning a soft shade of pink. “You have no reason to be sorry. The massage was really nice. My moan was weird.”
Your moan was hot.
We both laugh nervously, and she lays down on the other side of the couch, beginning to rewind the movie.
“So, we’re good?” I ask, trying to relax into the cushions.
“Yeah, we’re good.”
The movie begins again, and I do my best to focus on the TV, but my mind keeps wandering to places it shouldn’t. We are friends. She is my temporary roommate. I shouldn’t be staring at her, and I shouldn’t have touched her, but damn I liked it.
For the next hour and a half, we watch the movie, and the only sound that fills the apartment is the sound of our laughter.
“I think I might go jump in the shower, see if it makes me feel better,” she says once the credits roll.
“That’s fine. I’ll be out here. You getting hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Then we’ll eat when you're done.” I check my phone, and it looks like the grocery delivery I ordered is five minutes away. While I wait, I move Wren’s sheets into the dryer, and then once the groceries have been delivered, I collect the bags from the front step and begin working on our dinner.
I’m blending all of the ingredients together with an immersion blender when I hear her bathroom door open.
“Whatcha cookin’?” she asks, appearing in the entrance to the kitchen a minute later.
“Carrot and ginger soup. I read online that ginger can help cramps, so I figured it might help you feel better.”
Her mouth parts in surprise. “You’re making me ginger soup to help with my cramps?”
“Well, I don’t actually know if it will, but I thought it was worth a shot. Are you feeling any better?”
“Kinda. The shower helped, but I’m still a little crampy.” She rubs her hand along her midriff.
Her eyes find the pile of grocery bags on the kitchen table. “What’s all this?” she asks, gesturing to them.
“It’s all for you. I ordered it at the start of the movie and it was delivered while you were in the shower.”
She starts to sort through the bags, and I try to stir the soup, but I can’t take my eyes off of her. She’s in pink sweats, and her hair is pulled back with one of those clippy things girls wear. She’s so pretty.
“You got all of this for me?” she asks, digging through a bag full of Almond Joys, electrolyte packets, and pain medicine.
“Yeah, I wasn’t sure what you needed, so I just got everything I could think of or could find online.”
She opens a different bag, and a laugh bubbles out of her. “How many tampons do you think I need?” She gestures to the three boxes on the table. “Oh, my god, and they're all super pluses.”
“I wasn’t sure which ones to buy, so I got the ones with the best rating.” I shrug, and my cheeks heat.
I have a sister, but she’s younger than me, and I wasn’t really raised in the type of household that discussed periods with the boys. It’s safe to say I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to this stuff, but I’m trying.
“Best rating?” she asks.
“Yeah, the store had regular, super, and super plus, so I got you the super plus because they're the best ones right? Like the plus means they're better than super.”
“No.” She cringes. “It’s the size. Super plus means, like, extra-large.”
“Oh, like condoms? Did I buy you magnum tampons?” My eyes widen.
“No, not like condoms. I meant the absorption, not the size. You know what, it doesn’t matter. Thank you for the tampons.” She giggles.
“I got you pads and one of those cup things too.”
More laughter erupts from her. “Stop it. This is actually adorable.” I beam at her compliment. She digs in another bag and pulls out a heating pad.
“Wait, you knew I already had one of these. Why did you buy another one?”
“When we were on the couch, you said you wished you had two, so I added it to the order.”
She places it back on the table and walks over to where I stand.
“Thank you,” she says, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing tight. “For taking such good care of me today. I’m not used to being the one who gets taken care of, and it means a lot that you would do all of this for me.”
I slowly let go of the spoon and wrap my arms around her too. Inhaling deeply, my nostrils fill with cherries and vanilla, and we both let the hug linger longer than we should. Her head nestles into my chest, and my hands gently rub along her spine.
Dolly pushes herself between our legs, forcing us to break the embrace.
“I think she’s jealous,” Wren says. “She really likes you.”
“Is it so hard to believe that I’m likeable?”
“No, I’d say that it’s becoming very easy to believe,” she says.
Blush covers both our faces, and as much as I wish I could grab her and kiss her, I know I can’t. The timer on the microwave sounds.
“Soup’s done,” I say.
“Good. I’m so hungry.”
We work together cleaning off the table and collecting everything we need for dinner. When we’re done, we both sit down.
“What did you think of the movie?” she asks, blowing on a spoonful of soup.
“I loved it.”
“You loved it?” she asks.
“Yeah, it was a really good movie. I was surprised too, but I’d watch it again.”
Mostly because I was completely distracted by her, and don’t remember most of it.
She giggles. “You know there’s a sequel?”
“A sequel,” I gasp. “Well, I know what we’re doing the rest of the night.”
She shakes her head and takes another bite of soup. “This is delicious,” she says. “Thank you. Soup is just what I needed.”
“It’s not bad, is it? I was a little nervous about the carrots, but it turned out pretty good.”
“It turned out very good.”
We both take a couple more bites of food, and my eyes find hers. She’s breathtakingly beautiful, and after the massage and that hug, I just want to hold her again, even if it’s a bad idea.
“Will you dance with me?” I ask.
“What?” She giggles. “Right now?”
Grabbing my phone, I search for the song I want and tap play. “Miracles Happen” by Myra begins to play over the speaker in the kitchen. “Come on, dance with me? I think I read that exercise was good for cramps, so dancing should help.”
I stand and walk towards her. Taking both her hands in mine, I pull her into the standing position.
“Tanner!” She giggles as I start swaying her from side to side with me.
“Please,” I beg, giving her big puppy dog eyes. “I danced with you in the Waffle House. The least you can do is dance with me in the privacy of our apartment.”
She exhales and starts to dance along to the music. The beat picks up, and I pull her away from the table and twirl her, causing her to squeal. For the next few minutes, we dance. Happiness radiates from her, and everytime she laughs, I do the same.
As the song starts to fade, I twirl her once more and then dip her.
Our faces are a hair’s breadth apart, and we both hesitate for a split second.
The air crackles between us, and then she stands abruptly and steps away from me.
Her chest rises and falls with heavy breaths, and I wonder if there is a chance she felt what I did.
I clear my throat. “We should probably finish eating before it gets cold.”
“Yeah,” she says, nodding. “Right, before it gets cold.” We both sit down at the table.
We finish eating and work together cleaning the kitchen mostly in silence, and I wonder what’s going through her head. Once we're done, she runs to the bathroom, and I get the movie set up.
“You’re gonna love this one,” she says, walking back into the living room.
“More than the first one?” I question.
“I think it’s really good.” She sits on the other side of the couch, and I hit play. She immediately begins to fidget, and I can tell she isn’t comfortable again.
“You hurting?” I ask about a quarter way through the movie.
“Oh, um, yeah. More cramps, but it’s fine. I think I’ve just been in the same place for too long.”
I grab a throw pillow and set it next to me.
“You want to try turning around, maybe laying this way?”
“Would you mind?”
“No,” I say, fluffing the pillow. She turns, removes the clip from her hair, and lays down, the top of her head barely touching the outside of my thigh. Within minutes, she sits up.
“Is it not comfortable?”
“Would it be weird if I put the pillow in your lap, so I could stretch out a little bit more?”
It’s just her head on your lap. It’s not her head near your dick.
“Oh, um, sure.”
She moves the pillow, and lays her head in my lap.
Calm the fuck down and don’t ruin this for yourself. I inhale deeply, trying to regain control of my body.
“You sure this is okay?” she asks, nuzzling against the back of the couch and pulling a blanket over her.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think she might be trying to kill me.
“Yep. You good?”
“It’s so much better. Thank you.”
I try to find a place for my hands, but my options are limited—the back of the couch or her ass. I settle for the back of the couch and continue to try to control my breathing and my cock.
______
“Your Crowning Glory” startles me awake, and when I look around the living room, I realize the movie is over, Wren is asleep in my lap, and my hand found its way to her ass.
I carefully stand, trying my best not to wake her as she nestles into the spot where I was just sitting.
She’s sleeping hard, and I consider for a minute leaving her where she is, but decide a night on my couch with her cramps will just make her feel worse tomorrow.
I gather her sheets out of the dryer and quietly tiptoe across the apartment to her room. Dolly trails at my heels, and when I push the door open, she runs in and jumps on the bed. The whole thing buckles under the small cat’s weight, and it’s clear it’s deflated.
I grab the air pump, and start to try to inflate it. It’s working, but it’s slow, and I have a bad feeling there’s a leak somewhere.
Shit.
I leave the sheets and return to the living room. Carefully picking Wren up, I carry her into my room and lay her in my bed. She surprisingly doesn’t stir, and I send a silent thank you to the universe because I know if she woke up, there’s no way she’d let me take the couch tonight.
I tuck her in gently, stopping myself from placing a kiss on her forehead. Returning to the couch, I lay down, make sure my alarm is set, and then pull the blanket over me.
Today was a good day. A really fucking good day.