Chapter 14 #2
“Shhhhh,” Jim came and he covered my mouth to keep me quiet, but it came out anyway, just muffled because of my excitement.
“You are like me,” I eyed him with hope. His hand was still over my mouth, making what I said come out all blended together since my lips couldn’t move correctly. He was reading my eyes again, like it was his normal form of communication.
Then he nodded.
I broke free and twirled around not being able to keep still, “Oh my God.” Turning back to him, “OH MY GOD,” not being able to contain my volume, my excitement clear, but my voice was breathy already from breathing in all the coal dust..
That’s when we heard voices. “Did you hear that? Sounds like someone is having themselves a good time down here.”
Jim reached up and flicked off my light, grabbed me and pushed me over the edge of the empty mine car, then jumped in after me forcing me to lie down flat, him lying next to me in the confined space.
I could barely see that he had his finger to his lips in a quiet signal from the occasional bulb hanging along the walls to light the way down here.
I nodded and held my breath.
“Who would bring their girl down here for that?”
“You are an idiot. They are probably two fags.”
“No way! Tom would never let those kinds of people work with us.”
“How would he know?”
“Jesus, if that’s true that means they have seen us naked in the dry room.”
The voices grew louder as they got closer and the entire time, Jim’s eyes in the darkness shined like the sun this morning.
Showing their true light and feelings. He was looking at me with fondness.
Then they burned out with what we heard.
I released the air I had been holding right in Jim’s face as the men faded away as they passed going down the other passage at the fork.
“This isn’t the place to have this conversation,” he whispered, the sound of his voice echoing off the metal mine car, but he didn’t make a move to get up.
“What conversation? The one we were having about you putting my dad in his place or the one where we both–,” but Jim cut me off with a finger on my mouth.
“Don’t”
“–might like each other,” not being able to stop myself.
Then the shock set in.
I just said that.
Out loud.
My eyes got big in panic. “Oh my God, that was rude of me to assume just because you are like me. It doesn’t mean you like me, like I like you. And, oh my God, I just said that out loud too. What is wrong with me?”
I went to get up and out of the mine car when Jim pulled me back down, then practically got on top of me so I couldn’t escape.
There was passion and longing in his eyes, and before I knew it, his lips were pressed to mine, his hands framing the back of my neck tenderly holding me there.
It was a light graze, not forceful. Like he was giving me space to easily turn away if I wanted too.
But his lips were pillows. Unexpectedly soft but also full of static, making my body tingle.
My arms were trapped between us in a position where I could place my palms on his chest and push, but instead of pushing, I grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer, his muscular chest touching mine.
It felt amazing with his weight on me. He tasted like the atmosphere though, given we were underground.
He broke the connection, leaning away slighting and leaving me feeling fluttery for a moment before I opened my eyes again. Whatever I was feeling, I think he was feeling too, because he looked like he was crashing down from a high or drunkenness.
And, oh my God, I could feel his hardness against my leg! Mine was probably even harder!
Then it hit me.
Holy hell, my first kiss was in a mine car!
A MINE CAR!
“Why did you do that?” I needed a verbal confirmation. The kiss wasn’t going to do it. I needed to know from the same mouth that made me feel light as a feather, and yet hard as a rock.
“Because I couldn’t help myself, you are so cute when you uncontrollably ramble,” he smirked. “But I also needed to shut you up.”
“So, you kissed me?” I whispered, trying to get my brain to process the event I just experienced for the first time ever, “In. A. Mine. Car.” Clearly, I still can’t get over that detail.
With my hands flat on his chest, Jim leaned his forehead onto mine, looking into my eyes. “I kissed you, in this mine car,” he repeated back but added, “And I enjoyed it.” Then he pressed his groin against me, his hardness as proof, like I could have missed that.
I am not going to be able to function today.
This was all happening too fast, with so many moving pieces that I was having a hard time keeping track of.
That was when Jim shifted a bit, his knee leaning between my legs when I felt pressure against the erection I sprouted.
I could tell he felt it against his leg when he continued to shift back and forth, rubbing.
He smirked at me.
This just keeps getting better. I was hoping he wouldn’t notice even though I know he sprung one too. I covered my face with both hands in embarrassment. I wanted to disappear or time travel anywhere but here.
“Charlie, it’s fine. It’s going to happen.” Jim was prying one of my hands away for me to look at him before he continued with humor in his eyes, “Although, you might want to try to hide it until it goes down as we really don’t have time for me to take care of that for you at the moment.”
I slapped my hand back to my face. I felt like it was on fire.
He laughed. Actually laughed, which had this metallic echo to it, since we were still laying in the mine car.
“Come on, we are so late. Will is going to have a cow if he makes his rounds and we aren’t where we are supposed to be,” he sat up on his knees, pulling me with him, my face level with his stomach.
As I was quickly getting out of the minecar, and out of that precarious position, I heard shuffling from behind me. “Did you hear that?” I looked in the opposite direction we came from, toward the room. I turned on my headlight, but nothing was there, but my senses were sizzling.
“It was probably loose coal sliding,” Jim said, trying to put me at ease with a hand on my back pushing me back the way we came. “That’s room four, the most unstable of all of them. Will only ever assigns three to four teams in there at a time, if any at all.”
The rest of the day went off smoothly, even if I kept stealing glances at Jim and his physique.
Even with us working through our lunch break to try to get more done, Will questioned why we didn’t have as many loads as other teams. Jim just told him I was still getting used to the workload, and I gladly took the blame.
Totally worth it.
Leaving for the day felt weird. I think Jim was feeling it too, because the look in his eye was conflicting. But all he said was, “Good work today, Charlie. I’ll see you tomorrow,” before giving me a pat on the back and went into the dry room.
The rest of my night was uneventful. My dad was still his normal self.
We made a quick stew dinner from canned beans, two potatoes, a fresh carrot and a small piece of pork.
We ate in silence before I retired to my room to continue to read my book, but I didn’t get very far because my mind kept getting distracted by a dirty blonde hair man that gave me a gift I had been longing for, thinking it was never going to happen for me.
A kiss.
Tuesday started the same as the day before, except this time, the sky wasn’t welcoming.
It was a dark cloudy overcast with no sun in sight.
We got to the dry room where Jim and David were yet again waiting.
I gave him a small smile which he returned but I felt some sadness as well.
He must have seen because his expression shifted, just a tinge.
If you weren’t paying attention, you would have missed it.
We wordlessly started walking to the tunnel and lift cage, David and Dad behind us, David gabbing away about how his mother tried to set him up with a girl my age, and he didn’t know how he felt about that.
After depositing our pails on the shelf along with my book, hoping to read some during lunch, we went to our assignments to start our day.
We picked up where we left off yesterday on the fourth pillar, which in all honesty is just a section of the outer wall of the room. My headlamp showed two sets of men farther down, working hard before the back wall of the room.
I stepped away from Jim and started swinging. I hit the wall twice in quick successions. When I was about to swing again, Jim saying my name stopped me. It wasn’t the fact he said it, it was the worry I heard. When I turned and shined the light in his face, his eyes were filled with questions.
“It’s fine, Jim.” I turned back to the wall and struck it again whispering, “I just wish I could have greeted you differently. I’m probably overreacting anyway.”
“None of your feelings are ever an overreaction, Charlie. It’s how you handle them that should be judged,” Jim said with all the tenderness of the world.
I swung again. When I put my axe down at my side, feeling the weight, I felt Jim’s presents closer to me, like he was about to stupidly hug me with others around.
So, I turned around and took a step away, "What are you doing? Are you out of your mind? I know I’m young and even though yesterday did happen down here, which I couldn’t stop thinking about all night last night to the point I couldn’t even concentrate enough to read my book, I know better for us being this close to each other is idiocy. ”
“Charlie, you’re rambling,” Jim cuts in, with mirth in his eyes, the asshole.
“Well,” fully aghast now, but Jim touched the side of my neck, and got down to my level, “I’m not that short that you have to bend down, you jerk.”
Smirking at me with humor, “I don’t know, you are about the average size of an ankle-biter.”
A laugh broke out of me, not expecting that to come out of the handsome rugged man I have come to admire, but not wanting to back down, “Get bent, Jimmy.”