13. Elias
THIRTEEN
Elias
Regardless of my hangover from hell, I somehow find myself taking notes at the first workshop of the day, the fucking two hour long one circled on Mia’s schedule. By hand, mind you, because Mia’s laptop is too slow for me to type anything at all. This fucking workshop is called From Theory to Practice: Implementing Successful Project-Based Learning in Diverse Classrooms , and I can barely read my own handwriting through the headache stabbing through my eyes.
I’m telling myself that I’m doing this for a distraction, and nothing more. I don’t want to think about it. After I fucked it all up, broke all sorts of vows and promises and crossed all sorts of ethical lines.
I mean, I can’t even blame Drunk Me, considering how fucking sexy Mia looked yesterday, with that sad excuse for a dress and the man-eating look in her eyes that completely wrecked me and kicked my ass. Drunk Me was doing what Sober Me has wanted to do for over a week. But Sober Me is very upset that we don’t remember any of it, save for a few flashes of blonde and pink, a faint memory of soft skin against my mouth and my hands. What the fuck, Drunk Me?
But I’m a little bit pleased with Drunk Me, because he’s opened Pandora’s Box, and it’s too late to go back, and now that it’s opened, no one can fucking stop me. Either of us.
At least until tomorrow. We’ll do this through tomorrow, when we leave this beautiful little New Orleans bubble and return to our harsh realities, filled with best friends and brothers and Blonde Brigades and soft looking emo dudes named Adam. I’m giving myself a pass until tomorrow.
But who am I fucking kidding?
I can’t cross the line if I keep pushing the line away.
This Dr. Whoever finally wraps up his speech, the applause he’s getting drilling holes into my brain. I stand slowly, so I don’t jostle my head more than it needs to be, and glide over to the table to grab all the pamphlets and flyers and a copy of the slide deck, shoving them in my pocket along with my notes.
Next is food. We must feed our hangovers.
I stumble outside ( so bright ) and find a place that will do a hot muffuletta. Melty cheese will always save the day. Thankfully, there’s a place a block away, and while waiting for it to be heated, I grab sodas and chips.
Back in our hotel, I drag my feet through the lobby. Stacy with the eyelashes is there.
“Hi Elias,” she says brightly, and I think I grunt back. Caterpillars , I think.
I step into the elevator and all but crawl into our room.
Mia is still sleeping on her bed, but the water bottle on the bedside table is empty. I take all the notes and papers out of my pocket, throwing all of it onto my bed. I take off every single article of clothing I’m wearing and climb into bed with our plastic bag of grease and sugar. Because fuck it, right? A twenty-four-hour Pandora’s Box.
All I want is to hold Mia’s naked body in my arms, and I’m allowed to do that now. Thanks, and fuck you, Drunk Me.
I sit up with my back against the headboard. She half sits into me, snuggling into my chest, right where she belongs. I bend to kiss her head, running my hands over the smooth skin of her back.
“How do you feel?” I ask into her hair.
“Better,” she says. “What time is it?”
“Around noon,” I tell her.
Her body freezes. “I missed a workshop.”
I smooth the lines of her body down to get her to relax. Back, sides, waist, hips. A primal part of me roars when I notice little marks around her body, little bites and bruises and burns from my stubble. “I went for you. I took notes and got all the shit,” I say, waving towards the pile of papers in the bed next to us.
She sits up, looking at the pile first, then looking at me with hearts in her ice-blue eyes. It’s the way I want her to look at me for the rest of our lives. Wait, what ? “You did that?”
“Yup,” I say, my hands roaming over the smooth skin of her face, her cheeks, lips. I press my thumb against a mark I left on her neck. I can’t stop fucking touching her now.
“Weren’t… Aren’t you hungover?” she asks incredulously.
“Immensely,” I say.
She leans over and kisses me on the lips, and it feels foreign and familiar and a little like coming home. It’s soft and sweet, the complete opposite of the way I want to maul her mouth, and I’m not sure I’ve ever kissed anyone with this much trust.
“Thank you,” she tells me, after pulling away. She pokes at the plastic bag by our feet. “Food?”
I sigh, feeling like an animal, but figuring we’re both too hungover to fuck right now, anyway. Womp womp . “I got us muffulettas. And chips and soda.” I use my toes to drag the bag up towards us. “I think we got so wasted last night because we didn’t eat dinner.”
She frowns, pulling a sandwich out of the bag. “I remember beignets,” she says.
“That’s all we had,” I say, pulling the bag of chips out and placing it between her legs.
We sit hip to hip, arm to arm, our backs leaning against the headboard. I throw my leg over hers, and glued together we eat in a contented silence.
“Am I officially a member of the Blonde Brigade?” she asks me proudly, with a mouthful of food. “Even if we haven’t fucked yet?”
I wince. “Will you stop with that?”
“With what?”
“Just… for the rest of the weekend, could you not refer to other women?” I plead. “Or other guys,” I tack on.
She shrugs nonchalantly. “Fine. But one more thing,” she tells me.
I groan.
She shifts to look at me. I turn. “I don’t regret it,” she says, looking directly into my eyes, searching for something.
I put my sandwich down in my lap and grip her chin, kissing all the parts of her mouth. “Me neither.”
After we finish our food, I throw the trash on the ground, pulling her down horizontally onto the bed so I can just hold her again. I’m stroking her arms, down her waist, across her stomach, around her ass and down her thighs, the two of us kissing gently, not making out, just little pecks all over each other’s faces. I feel her learning my body, too, tracing the lines of my triceps and traps and down the middle of my stomach and in the ‘v’ of my hips.
“For someone who has a rule against cuddling, you sure love to cuddle,” Mia says against my mouth.
“I can’t keep my fucking hands off you,” I admit, and it’s borderline appalling how true it is. “But only until tomorrow.”
She pulls back, and I note the darker blue flecks in her light blue eyes, the rim of inkier blue around the outside. I’ve never seen them this close, not in the twenty-nine years I’ve known her, and it’s like a new level unlocks.
“Tomorrow?” she asks.
“That’s all I can give you,” I say, pressing my forehead against hers.
She’s silent. “Okay,” she sighs eventually, kind of sadly.
We fall asleep with that.
Mia’s not in my arms when I wake up. I check my phone. Four o’clock.
Went to see other talks. Text me when you’re up.
I text her immediately.
I’m up. Wanna do dinner?
Sure. I’ll come back to the hotel after this. It’s done in thirty.
cool
I spend the next five minutes in bed, scrolling back up through our texts from two nights ago. Just for funsies.
I hop in the shower after that, making sure to jerk off so I can last longer in Mia tonight. It doesn’t take me very long.
I’m drying off when my phone rings. I walk over to check it. Fuck .
I pace at the foot of my bed, staring at the phone buzzing on top of it. Fuck .
Fuck it. I clear my throat and pick up. “Hey, Leo.”
“Hey, man. How’s it going?”
Great. I almost fucked your little sister while we were wasted. I think there was some heavy petting, though. But I’m going to fuck her tonight. A lot of times. “It’s good. How are things back home?” I manage instead.
“Fine,” he says, and he goes off on a long-winded diatribe about work and tech and money and nonsense. “How’s New Orleans?” he finally asks, and I know what he’s really asking me.
“New Orleans is great. Have you ever been here?” I try to divert.
“Yeah. I went once for work. Tech conference.”
“Nice.”
“It was lit. I met someone who worked for another FAANG. We didn’t leave our hotel room.”
I choke on some spit.
“Actually, that’s not true. We went out for dinner once. But I fucked her in the bathroom.” He pauses, reminiscing maybe. “How’s Mia doing?”
“She’s… fine. She’s at a talk right now.”
“Nice. You didn’t go?”
“Nah,” I say. “Too hungover.”
He laughs. “Classic.”
I frown. I went this morning , I want to say. I went for Mia because it was important to her, because she was even more hungover than I was . “Yep,” I say instead.
“Well listen,” he says. “I know you’re probably all out and about, doing your Blonde Brigade thing.” At this point, I’m ready to stomp my foot like an angry child. “But can you keep an eye out for Mia? Remember what she said at breakfast this weekend? Just make sure she’s okay. Safe, or whatever.”
“Sure, man. I’ll do my best.” But the bar is real low.
“Cool. Thanks, Elias. Wanna grab a drink next weekend?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll text you.”
We hang up the phone, and I sit at the foot of Mia’s bed with my head in my hands, feeling like a piece of shit for lying to and betraying my best friend. Just until tomorrow, I tell myself. You’re allowed to be a piece of shit for twenty-four hours.
Mia walks into the room shortly after, and I haven’t moved from my spot. She drops her bag. She strides over to me with that look in her eyes, the one that looks like she wants to destroy me, and just like that, I forget all about Leo.
Who’s Leo?
She climbs right up and straddles me, no hesitation, her thighs on either side of my hips, leaving no room between us. My hands find their rightful place on her hips, immediately moving under her shirt and rubbing up and down her sides. She’s so fucking soft. And mine for the next twenty-four hours.
“I don’t want to go to dinner,” she tells me. “I want you instead,” and she covers my mouth with hers.
It’s soft at first, but there is an eruption of feeling, of emotion, of the distinct feeling of ‘perfect’ and ‘familiar’ and ‘a lot like coming home’, like the last piece of the puzzle clicking into place, like fitting the correct key into the lock. In the immediate moment her lips touch mine, I know it’s going to be the best kiss of my life. I want it to be the last first kiss of my life.
What Mia may lack in experience, she makes up for in enthusiasm. I don’t mind taking the lead. I kiss her top lip, nip at the bottom, kiss the corners, rubbing my hands up and down her sides. I feel her fingers in my hair scratching at my scalp, and that spurs me on. I lick at the seam of her lips, groaning when she opens for me. Our tongues tangle together, and I map the inside of her mouth, relishing in the first moments of these discoveries, trying like hell to imprint the feeling into my long-term memory.
I draw her tongue into my mouth while she rubs up and down against my already hard dick, feeling like hell with the two layers of denim between us. I wind my fingers through her perfect hair, tugging to the side, exposing her neck, where I drop open-mouthed kisses and bites. I use my other hand to reach up and unclasp her bra, and we both moan when I finally get my hands on her tits.
“I’m fucking obsessed with these,” I tell her, while licking her neck and pinching her nipples. I marvel at the weight, the perfection, as she bites at my neck. “What do you want, Mia? Use your words.”
“Put your mouth on me,” she begs, and I’ll never say no to this woman.
I tear off her shirt, slipping her bra off her arms, giving myself a second to stare and admire before I lift one in my hand and give it a long lick. I play with the little bud with my tongue, learning its texture, nipping and sucking and licking while she watches.
“That’s so hot,” she whimpers. “I knew it would be.”
“How many times did you think about this?” I ask, before switching to the other side. Wouldn’t want to neglect anyone.
“A lot,” she gasps, rubbing her clit against the zipper of my jeans. “Since Bathroom Incident.”
I groan, rewarding with her with a deep suck. “You have no idea how hard that makes me. Did you think of me whenever you came in that room of yours? With your fingers in your pussy, wishing it was my dick?”
She moans. “So many times.”
I grin evilly at her. “You’re going to have to wait a little longer, then,” I say, biting the top of her breast. “We’re going to go out to dinner first.”
Mia actually whines . “No,” she whispers. “Fuck the lessons. I want to stay here.”
Still smiling, I suck on her neck. “Nope,” I say. “We have to practice the finer parts of dating.” Also, I want to hold your hand and parade you around New Orleans.
“Then make me come first,” she begs, still grinding.
I sigh. Who am I to deny her of this? “Fine, Gorgeous. Can you come like this?” I ask, taking her hips and rubbing her forcefully against the seam of my jeans. “Or do you want my fingers?”
It sounds like she’s almost in tears when she answers, “Fingers.”
I smirk. “I can’t believe this is happening. I’ve fucking dreamed of this,” I say, tugging her jeans and panties down her legs until she’s entirely naked. I slide my fingers down, down, down, and groan when they’re immediately drenched. “Jesus, Mia. You’re fucking soaked.”
“It’s your fault,” she cries, now rubbing herself against the flat of my hand. I’m happy to take accountability.
I turn my fingers up, and just like that, my fingers are in Mia Roberts’s pussy. I blink through the realization, then hiss. “So tight, baby. I can’t wait to fit my cock in here. I can’t wait to see you stretch around it.”
I suck one of her tits into my mouth and let her ride my hand. I watch the flush creep up her beautiful naked body. It doesn’t take long for her body to start tightening up. “Whose name are you going to scream, Mia?” I grimace, the little movements against my clothed dick driving me up the wall.
Her body locks, back arching, forcing her tit deeper into my mouth. I give it one last bite.
“Elias,” she breathes, and she comes all over my hand, body trembling. “Holy fuck,” she whines, grinding on my fingers, flush creeping up her chest. It’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen, and I realize real fast that we aren’t sleeping tonight.
Gradually, she collapses into my arms, while I kiss her chest, her neck, the side of her face. She turns and looks up at me.
“I want to put your dick in my mouth,” she says, and I’ve never been harder.
“Nope,” I say. “Delayed gratification, baby. Remember when I told you to build tension? We can’t rush these things. I’m wining and dining you, you’ll be soaking wet, and then you can suck my dick all night if you want.” I lift her off me and slap her ass. “I made a reservation. Wear the dress and the heels again. Don’t wear underwear.”