Chapter 2McCormick
CHAPTER
TWO
MCCORMICK
“You naughty boys and girls, are you holding your big hard sticks? I am. Just look at how beautiful he is,” she purrs in her honey-smooth voice. I wish she would whisper like that in my ear.
She strokes the thick wood with her slender fingers and long pointy red nails, and I groan, wishing it was my cock. She probably couldn’t wrap her entire hand around it. I’m girthy, but it fits in my big meaty fist just fine. Stroking it just like she’s stroking her wooden stick, I tip my head back and breathe out a satisfied sigh. Feels so fucking good.
“Be gentle now,” she warns. “Learn to handle your stick with care.”
Yeah, handle me carefully.
My head whips up when there’s a knock at my door. “Fuck, terrible timing.”
It’s either Mrs. Cartwright next door, or Stiles. Pressing my eye to the peephole in the door, I see that it’s Stiles.
I can’t even be aggravated because when I open it, he’s holding up a brown paper bag splotched with grease stains, and I can smell how delicious it is without even knowing what’s in there.
“You brought food?”
“Steak sandwiches and onion rings.”
“Sweet! I was just about to boil some hotdogs.”
“I know,” he mumbles.
“I could eat that shit every night and not get tired of it.”
“I know,” he mumbles again.
Stiles plops his ass down on my couch and opens up the bag. I take a seat next to him, sliding my knitting stuff aside, and close my laptop.
He sniffs the air. “What’s that smell?” We both take another deep sniff, but I have no clue what he’s smelling. I took the trash out earlier.
“Smells like sex.” He eyes the laptop and the yarn. “Dude, are you jacking off to Betty Beasley again?” His gaze falls on my crotch as if he can tell just by looking what I was doing ten minutes ago.
I cross my legs, or try to. Fuck it, my thighs are too thick to cross my legs. “Was not!”
Stiles laughs, pulling his sandwich from the bag and unwrapping it. He licks the grease from his fingers. “I bet you jack off to her videos every night.”
So what? “That’s a terrible thing to say. We met Betty. She’s a nice girl.”
He rolls his eyes at my pious assessment of the freaky knitter. “Yeah, but it’s true. You do.”
“You’re gross. Is that all you think about?”
“No,” he snorts, “but it’s all you think about.”
“I do not!”
“Bullshit! I bet you keep your lube next to your knitting needles in your top drawer.”
“Do not!” Without warning, he hops up and heads into my room. I’m quick to follow. “Do not open that drawer!”
“I knew it!”
“It’s just that it’s easier to reach if it’s all in one place.”
“Bullshit!” he laughs.
This is utterly ridiculous. “Why are we even arguing about this?”
Stiles pauses, looking confused as he considers it. “I have no idea. Just wanna hear you tell me I’m right.”
And there it is, the motive behind all our arguments. “And I just want you to go fuck off.”
“You probably don’t have enough lube left for me to go fuck myself, so I’ll just sit back down and eat my sandwich if that’s all right with you.” He throws his shoulder into mine as he passes me, laughing.
It’s not until I hear the frame of my old couch squeak, and I know that he’s sitting down again, that I feel safe enough to leave my bedroom unguarded. Christ, he almost opened my drawer, and then what? I’d never live that shit down. He's already digging into his sandwich by the time I get comfortable beside him.
“Do you have to chew so fucking loud?” I ask, suddenly irritated because he invaded my privacy.
“I could go back to my house and eat this,” he points out, sounding as annoyed as I feel.
“Whatever. You gotta work tomorrow?”
“Nope,” he says, popping the P.
“You want a beer?”
“Yup.” He repeats the popping sound. “What do you want to watch?” he calls out as I move toward the kitchen. “Pimp My Bike or The Day I Almost Died?”
I pop the tops on both cans of beer. “I’m feeling dangerous, let’s watch The Day I Almost Died.”
“Sounds good.”
Resuming my seat, I take a swig, the sour effervescent bubbles fizzing all over my tongue, and swallow it down. Looking around my apartment, I take in the worn gray carpet covered with stains from the previous tenant, the Formica kitchen countertop full of gouges and knicks and scratches, the popcorn ceiling dotted with water stains, and the hole behind the front door where the knob went through the wall, again from the previous tenant, and I’m filled with a deep sense of satisfaction. It’s not fancy, but it’s all mine. I’ve got my best friend beside me, cold beer, greasy sandwiches, and a good show to watch on a decent-sized TV with cable.
“You know what? This is living.”
“Hell yeah,” he agrees, propping his foot over his other knee.
I hold up my beer and Stiles clunks his can into mine in a toast. “L.I.V.I.N.”
“You bet.” He burps loudly. “We going riding tomorrow?”
“Sure. Why not? I gotta change the oil in my bike first though.”
“We’ll stop by my shop in the morning and I’ll change it.”
“By morning, you mean like noon, right?”
Stiles chuckles. “That’s exactly what I meant.”
I finish off my sandwich, suck the grease from my fingers, and wipe them clean on my shorts. “You done eating?”
Stiles shoves the last bite in his mouth and wipes his fingers on his shirt. The opening credits roll on the show, and I turn the volume up before setting the remote down on the table. “You mind if we do that thing?”
Stiles chuffs and rolls his eyes. He settles into the couch, opening up his lap, and rests his arms along the back. “Go get your blanket,” he huffs.
“First, I gotta make sure I locked the door.” Can’t trust those Bitches not to bust in here without knocking.
After checking if the door is locked and the chain is set, I grab my throw blanket from my bedroom and sit back down. Sliding off the carbon fiber socket from my thigh, I prop my prosthetic against the side of the couch, but choose to leave my protective sleeve on so I can slide back into my leg when the show ends and Stiles leaves. I rest my head on Stiles’s thick thighs and he arranges the blanket over my legs, smiling at the silly hot dog pattern. He gifted it to me on my last birthday. The dark hair on his legs tickles my cheek. He smells like motor oil and sweat—like heaven.
“You know this never happened, right? If anyone ever finds out about this, we’ll never live it down,” Stiles warns.
“No shit. It’s not like I’m gonna tell anyone I need buddy cuddles. Quiet, or we’re gonna miss the intro.”
I hate to admit that I’m touch-starved and lonely, but if you can’t say those things to your best friend, who can you say them to? I know Stiles won’t judge me. He’s likely as lonely as I am. He doesn’t complain about being my body pillow, and I try not to make it weird by asking him to rub my head. But sometimes he does anyway. Usually, about halfway through the episode, his fingers absentmindedly find their way into my hair and brush the short spiky strands. I’m usually asleep before the show is over.
“Hey, did that girl ever call you back? You never said.”
Stiles snorts. “If she’d called me back, I’d have said.”
What the fuck is wrong with girls in this town? Can they not see this man is a catch? He’s loyal, honest to a fault, funny, and there’s not a thing he can’t fix on your bike. Stiles is a keeper. “Whatever. Fuck her. Listen, if you have to take a piss, do it before I fall asleep.” He chuckles and reaches between his legs to adjust himself. I must’ve been dangerously close to his junk. “Hey,” I add, “thanks for bringing dinner.”
“You gonna run your mouth through the whole show, or are you gonna pipe down so I can listen?”
I make the silent motion of locking my mouth and throwing away the key, and he laughs again. We both know it’s bullshit. I can’t stay quiet for long.
When it comes to eligible women, the pickings might be slim in Black Mountain, but if I ever find one who has seven out of ten of the qualities my best friend has, I’ll marry her in a hot minute.
That is, if I have Stiles’s blessing.