CHAPTER 8 – SAY YES TO MEATBALLS
Jack
It’s a seventy-degree day and the Shaws’ backyard is full of the kind of faces you see once a year at best: work buddies, college friends, and random neighbors with bright, smiling faces, kids in tow.
Gerald is at the grill, sweating into his Gophers visor, one arm windmilling tongs like he’s hailing an airstrike.
Nancy floats between coolers and the pop-up tent, offering drinks like the consummate hostess she is.
Kids orbit the adults in centrifugal packs, faces sticky with day-glow orange powder, the boys already shirtless and weaponized with Nerf blasters.
I see her instantly.
Eliza. She’s sitting on the far side of the picnic table, laughing at some unfunny joke her mother made, a paper plate balanced on her lap.
Sundress, blue again, with those little white flowers.
The fabric clings to her chest, making it impossible not to stare, so I snap my eyes away while pasting a vacuous smile on my face.
I’m not sure what’s more dangerous: looking, or being caught looking.
We’ve tried to be discreet though. In the past month or so, we’ve been meeting only in private places, which include my house and a few hotels a couple towns away.
My truck, once or twice, which isn’t “safe” per se, but Eliza’s made me forget what the word “safe” means because it’s been a clandestine operation: her showing up at my door at midnight, me driving a hundred miles for two hours of sweaty, desperate fucking in a Days Inn.
Even worse, every time we say “we have to be more careful,” it’s a guarantee that we’ll lose control within the next forty-eight hours, and I’m not a man given to self-delusion.
We’re going to be caught, I’m sure of it.
But right now, in the bright suburban sunshine, we are nothing to each other. Mere acquaintances at a barbecue, me her dad’s best buddy from long ago. Eliza knows the rules, maybe better than I do.
I grab a beer from the cooler, nod at Gerald, who’s cranking the lid off a container of brats and telling a story about a pothole lawsuit.
He waves me over and I take my spot at the periphery, where all the ex-military and low-key alcoholics lurk.
I know most of the faces: guys from the local bowling league, a few dudes who have an insurance outfit downtown.
They’re all fatter and grayer than last year.
Nobody here knows I’ve been inside their buddy’s daughter, and nobody will, if I can help it.
Across the yard, Eliza is half-turned away, but every now and then she glances over the shoulder of whoever’s talking to her and locks eyes with me, just long enough to make my heart jump.
She doesn’t blush, but she does smile, just the tiniest bit, before tucking a lock of golden hair behind one ear.
Damn, this woman is beautiful, and if I could, I’d claim her as mine in front of the whole world.
But I can’t. Not now, and I know it.
Meanwhile, Gerald’s prattling away: “You remember Jack, right? He’s the one who almost got court-martialed for flying an F-16 under the I-94 overpass.”
Laughter, all around. I smile, try to look sheepish. “I maintain the bridge had sufficient clearance.”
The other men laugh, slap me on the back. “That’s what the girls said!” one of them shouts.
Nancy emerges with a tray of salads—potato, macaroni, something green that’s already wilting.
She’s a sharp woman, always has been. The type who can recall what you wore to Easter in the year 2000, but forgets her own birthday.
She hands off the tray to her daughter and says, “Eliza, make yourself useful,” in a tone that means don’t be a floozy, even if you’re not doing anything wrong.
Eliza glides through the crowd, her dress flaring around her knees, and for a second I can’t remember what it was like before I saw her like this—alive, confident, the opposite of the cautious, shy kid I remember. She stops near the grill, just within my orbit, and offers up the salads to the men.
“You want some, Jack?” she says, bright and polite, but with that sexy, unmistakable undertone. The one she used last week when she begged me to tie her wrists to the headboard and do things to her she’s never let another man do. Do the other guys hear it? Oh shit.
But I act normal and smile benignly. “Sure,” I say, and she spoons a heap of potato salad onto my plate, careful not to touch my hand.
Gerald’s watching us, but only in the way of a dad who’s proud his kid can pass food without making a mess.
He launches into a story about Air Force chow, how the mashed potatoes in Minot could be used as mortar, and everyone chimes in with their own complaints about base food.
Eliza smiles and laughs, but I see the flicker—every time she moves, her body is hyper-aware of mine.
I excuse myself to get another beer, but really, it’s to put distance between me and this gorgeous, magnetic girl.
I need to get my head on straight. I walk along the side of the house and stare at the line of trash cans, each painted with the Shaw family address in neat black marker.
I can hear the party, but out here it’s just the hum of a neighbor’s weed whacker and the scent of fresh-cut grass.
One month. In one month, she’s become the only thing I want to think about, and the one thing I absolutely cannot have.
When I come back around, Eliza is at the folding table again, arranging a tray of little meatballs on toothpicks.
I catch her eye, and this time, she doesn’t look away.
She just stands there, arms folded, her weight on one leg, the hem of her dress catching the breeze.
Her eyes say “come here,” but I don’t. I can’t.
So she does.
The young woman steps up beside me, not quite close enough to touch, but close enough that I smell her perfume—a light, flowery aroma that cuts through the odor of charcoal and lighter fluid.
“You having fun?” she says, low so only I can hear.
I keep my eyes on the grill. “Always a blast, hanging out with a bunch of guys who peaked in high school.”
She giggles, a real one, not for show. “You should see my mom and her friends. It’s like the middle-aged PTA meeting from hell.”
We stand there, silent for a second, the air between us electric.
I can feel Gerald’s gaze flicking back and forth between us, but it’s not him I’m worried about.
My buddy couldn’t see a grenade if it landed right in front of him.
It’s Eliza’s mom that I worry about. Nancy is talking to two other women, but her eyes are laser-guided; she’s tracking every move.
Then, her daughter leans in, voice even lower. “I can’t stop thinking about last time, Jack.”
I grip my beer harder because the last time we were together, I took her double again, but this time with the dildo in her pussy and my dick crammed into her ripe peach.
Eliza moaned and squealed before coming like a hurricane, the dildo practically slipping out from her powerful pussy convulsions.
It was a beautiful sight, and I plan on doing it again, but right now, I can’t be visualizing such filthy scenes.
Not with her mom and dad in close range.
“You’re not making this any easier, you know,” I growl, my cock jerking in my pants.
Eliza shrugs, a small smile curling at the corner of her lips. “I don’t want to.”
There’s a tension in the air, an electric hum that makes me want to reach out and take her hand, consequences be damned. But I hold still, and after a second, she moves away, back to the picnic table.
I try to join the conversation at the grill, but I’m not really present.
Gerald tells a story about high school football, about the time he and I got drunk and crashed a pep rally dressed as cheerleaders.
The other men hoot and shout, but I can’t remember any of it.
All I see is Eliza, sitting with her legs crossed, arms bare and golden in the sun.
Then, she does it.
I’m talking to Gerald, but I see her out of the corner of my eye: she stands, balancing her plate, and as she passes me, a meatball rolls off her plate and lands right near my shoe.
Yeah, a fucking meatball. I get those things are spherical and roll easily, but shit, really?
I know my little girl is graceful and dexterous, and would never let a fucking meatball roll off her plate without knowing exactly what she’s doing.
“Whoops!” she says, bending down to pick it up with a sweet smile.
I do the gentlemanly thing and bend down at the same time. We meet, face to face, inches apart, her hair brushing my cheek. We reach for the meatball at the same time, and our fingers touch—linger even. It’s less than a second, but it feels like a live wire.
“Really, sweetheart?” I rasp under my breath. “A meatball?”
“I love meatballs, Daddy,” Eliza giggles softly in return. “Especially when I have your meatballs dangling in my mouth. I love sucking on them.”
It’s then that I hear a sharp intake of breath.
Oh shit. Sure enough, Nancy’s watching us, her eyes narrowed and suspicious.
She’s standing by the lemonade jug, but it’s clear as day what she saw: two adults, alone, hands lingering over a dropped piece of food.
In any other context, it’d be nothing. Here, her mama bear instincts have gone off and the sirens are wailing.
I pull away fast, pretending to dust my hands off. “I’d toss that,” I say, too loud. “It has grass stains on it.”
Eliza straightens, her face carefully blank, but there’s a flush on her cheeks. “Oh, you think?”
Gerald grins, oblivious. “My daughter always was a klutz,” he says, and pats me on the back. “You’d think I’d have taught her better.”
I force a laugh, then mumble something about needing to check on the beer situation in the garage. I leave, fast, my heart hammering.
Inside the carport, the air is cool and quiet, the fridge humming in the background. I lean against the door, try to get my pulse under control.