Chapter 28
OOPS, I SAID IT AGAIN
Heath
Life is a goddamn cockblock.
Sunday night, Elizabeth asks if everyone will have a sleepover with her, and so Cricket stays at the house for movies and popcorn and staying up late gossiping with the ladies.
Monday morning, Lav decides to do her exorcist impersonation.
No idea where she picked up a stomach bug, but she has one, and it’s bad.
I refuse to let Cricket up to help.
Don’t need any more of us getting sick than necessary.
I miss two jobs in the early part of the week, and I still need to finish the mother-in-law house before Caro and Mike arrive to check out their wedding venue.
Wednesday, I think maybe I’ll sneak down and see Cricket after Lav’s in bed, except I fall asleep on the couch and wake up at three a.m. with my daughter snuggled on one side and my cat on the other.
And a crick in my neck, because I’m I can no longer sleep on the couch without hurting my body in my sleep years old.
But Thursday—Thursday, I can see the light.
Lav’s back to herself.
I finish the last coat of paint in the bedroom midafternoon.
My attorney reports that he’s gotten confirmation of delivery of our reminder letter to my in-laws that they’re not welcome in Lav’s life, and I haven’t received any emails or voicemails yelling at me about it, so maybe they’ve gotten the memo.
And I have a text message from Cricket that she thinks she’s ready to go into town.
Whenever I’m up for it.
No rush.
She can wait.
She’s not impatient.
And she knows this isn’t a date.
I smile as I read the wall of messages, her overthinking on clear display.
Some days it’s worse, and today is one of them.
Understandable.
She’s been safely squirreled away here without any interactions with the general public since she arrived.
I text her back to be ready in thirty minutes—earlier is better for avoiding the larger crowds—and then I head to the main house, where Lav’s getting a lecture in the kitchen from Dori about the chemical reactions that happen as grapes ferment.
“You got her another couple hours?” I ask Dori.
“Big plans, big guy?” Dori replies.
“Yes.”
Her eyes flare wide for half a second, then she grins. “If the house is a-rockin’…”
My face actually gets hot. “Did you time travel from the last century?”
“Yep.”
I shift a glance at Lav. “You okay with staying and learning about chemistry for a while longer?”
I expect the answer to be no, but Lav merely nods.
“You’re sure?” I press.
“If I listen good, Dori will make me a hamburger with spaghetti and meatballs on it for dinner, then an ice cream cone with a brownie on it for dessert, then get me a fruit basket because every girl deserves a fruit basket.”
Yeah. She’s feeling better.
“Epic,” Dori says to her. “Let’s cook.”
“Be good and have fun,” I say to my daughter. Then I nod to Dori. “Thanks.”
She grins again. “Take all the time you need.”
I’m halfway back to my house, taking the path through the grape fields, before I realize I don’t feel guilty for asking for the help.
That I’m not in hyper-responsibility mode.
And I’m oddly okay with that.
Somehow, sometime in the last month, I’ve not only remembered, but come to embrace what this place is about.
Community and family.
I’m smiling as I walk through my front door.
But when I head out after a fast shower and quick change and giving the cat her evening meal to knock on Cricket’s door—from the outside, like a proper date, even though this is not a date—I notice something else about myself too.
I’m nervous.
Afraid that I’ll do this wrong. Whether it’s casual or serious, that I’m fucking it up.
The way I sometimes felt like I fucked up Ava’s life by getting her pregnant.
I look down at the chicken, who’s made a home for herself beside the patio. “Is she ready?” I ask.
The Cluckinator doesn’t answer. Just gives me a tilted-head look, then goes back to eating the orange pulp that Cricket must’ve left out for her in the makeshift coop that I put together for her while Lav was napping this week.
Last thing I need is for my girls—ahem, for my daughter and friend—to get their hearts broken if a predator got to the chicken.
Shit.
Did Cricket text me back when I told her to be ready in thirty minutes?
I didn’t even look.
Does she know I’m ready to take her out tonight?
Does she still want to go?
She sent her message an hour before I saw it, so maybe—
The door swings open, and there she is.
Cricket, in jeans and a soft olive-green shirt with wide straps and some kind of embroidery along the neckline.
Her eyes are smokier, her lips pinker, and two small diamonds sparkle from her ears.
“Hey, stranger,” she says with a smile.
I don’t think. Don’t pause. Don’t hesitate.
I pull her against me and kiss her soundly.
Thoroughly.
Gripping her ass, thrusting my tongue into her mouth, and happily drowning in the intoxicating strawberry shortcake scent she carries with her everywhere.
She threads her fingers through my hair, and then we’re stumbling back into her apartment.
I don’t know if we shut the door.
I don’t know if the chicken’s joined us.
All I know is that I’m stripping her shirt and bra and pants, and she’s tearing off my polo and undoing my jeans, and then we’re tumbling onto her bed.
“Fuck, I’ve wanted this all week,” I groan into her neck.
“Missed you,” she replies, her hands roaming my body like she wants to touch me everywhere all at once, setting my skin on fire and making me hard and desperate and ready.
I don’t kick off my shoes. Don’t even take my jeans off all the way.
Just pin her to the bed, suckling at each of her beautiful nipples in turn while she clamps her legs around my waist and pants and moans and chants an endless series of yes, there, oh my god, yes.
I tease an orgasm out of her with my fingers, getting the reward of her glassy-eyed satisfaction, and then she’s grabbing a condom from a box in the nightstand and pushing me onto my back.
“No time to waste,” she says while my eyes roll back into my head at her hands on my aching cock.
“Fuck, you’re gorgeous.”
She beams at me.
Who needs sunlight when Cricket exists in my life?
“You’re not so bad yourself,” she says, and then she’s settling over my hard-on, taking me deep inside her, making me completely lose my breath.
She’s hot and slick and tight around me, utterly perfect.
“Gorgeous,” I repeat.
Her eyelids hang heavy, breasts too, while she rides me. “Even—better—imagined,” she pants.
I palm those beautiful breasts. “Fantasies come to life.”
“Wish—didn’t have—hurry.”
“More—later.”
A short laugh bursts out of her, her inner walls squeezing my cock harder and making my balls tense.
“Cricket—”
“Love—say—name.”
“I can’t—”
“Right there, oh god, there,” she pants.
Our skin slaps together as she pumps harder and harder on me, driving me closer and closer to climax.
Her breasts jiggle in my hands.
Sweat dribbles down my forehead while I thrust into her, matching her rhythm and straining against coming too soon.
“I love you,” she pants, and then she’s grinding down hard on my cock, her vagina tensing and gripping me in a series of spasms that send me over the edge too before I can process what I just heard.
I come fast and thick, everything spilling out of me like a dam breaking.
This isn’t like jerking myself off in the shower.
It’s more.
Deeper.
Harder.
My gut clenches. I grit my teeth and push into my release, flexing my ass like I can go deeper into her, my hands squeezing her breasts while she digs her fingers into my shoulders.
She has her head thrown back, hair spilling all over her shoulders as she moans through her orgasm, and it’s perfect.
What’s more gorgeous than gorgeous?
More beautiful than beautiful?
Ethereal?
Yes.
She’s ethereal.
Perfect.
“I love you,” she gasps again, and then she collapses onto me, spent, as the last of my own release rocks down too.
I fling a limp arm around her back.
She pants into my neck, her breath warm.
More, something deep inside me demands. More.
Yeah.
More.
I love you.
It’s so Cricket.
She doesn’t hold back.
She’s lived through having the worst of humanity thrown at her, and she still gives her all.
She doesn’t mean love love.
Or she does, but she means it Cricket-style.
The throw-herself-all-the-way-into-everything-she-does kind of way.
Or maybe she was talking to herself.
Maybe she loves the way she orgasms.
Yeah.
That’s what she means.
She knows this isn’t for love.
It’s friends with benefits. And she loves her friends.
Yep.
That’s my explanation.