Chapter 5 #2
Achievement meant something different now. When Rachel came to town two years ago, she was seeking career success–to close a deal between a small chocolate company and the huge conglomerate she worked for.
Instead, the only merger in their lives was them.
“You’re killing me, Rachel.”
“Is that…. good?” Her hand was clearly having fun.
He grabbed her wrist, his kiss blindly hot, desperately wishing that the busy common was empty. At the rate they were going, his brother would have to arrest them for public indecency.
“Leo the Lemur is resurrected from the dead,” he murmured in her ear.
She froze, then pulled her hand back abruptly.
“That’s the opposite of sexy,” she informed him. “But you smell so good. Always have. Limes and woodsmoke. Even in D.C., it drove me wild. I was so into you back then.”
“Let’s get me out of this stupid costume and into… you.”
“Now that’s a proposal!”
“My other one wasn’t enough?”
“It was more than enough.” She squeezed him lightly. “And when you’re in me, so are you.”
“We need to go home.”
“We need to find a tree to lean against.”
“Rachel!”
“What? I’m not allowed to be an animal, too?”
“Of course you are. I just–whoa.”
“Being engaged released something in me.”
“Then I need to have about a thousand rings made.”
“I’d say yes a thousand and one times, Kell.”
“You’re so perfect.”
“You keep stealing the best lines.”
“Spend the next six decades trying to beat me.”
“Deal.”
Hot kisses were part of his life with her, but this one was better than any other, because now she was his.
Forever.
“We’re in public,” she said against his mouth as his hand cupped her ass. Primly, she moved it to her waist. “And I work for the town.”
“Half the town works for the town.”
“But they don’t have to face Nadine Khouri at the next Love Committee meeting and get a nasty glare.”
“I wouldn’t mind being the cause of that glare, though,” he said, biting her earlobe. “You drive me crazy, Rachel. I want you right now.”
The flush on her cheeks and the wild excitement in her eyes made it clear she felt the same, but he was stuck in a lemur costume and they had another very public appearance to make with both their families.
And now, apparently, a fancy New York photographer as well.
“Where can we have a quickie?” she asked, his head exploding with the words.
“Huh?”
“A quickie.”
“You… want that?”
“Kell.” Something in her tone took his internal engine and revved it.
“Um, back home?”
“The minute we get there, we’ll be swarmed.”
For the first time ever, he wished he hadn’t moved to the family compound. She was right.
“My truck?”
“It has your company logo on it!”
“Your car?”
“It’s a compact. You’re huge. It would be like stuffing a bear inside a Little Tikes car.”
“Outside?”
“Where?” Her face changed, an idea clearly taking form. She pulled out her phone and tapped.
“Who are you texting?”
“Kylie.”
“Kylie?”
Holding up one finger, Rachel asked for patience, a quality he absolutely did not possess. Kell was three seconds away from ripping his suit off and banging her on the floor of the gazebo.
Other than the calypso drum version of “I Will Always Love You” that was currently being performed, that wouldn’t be the worst way to make love.
“Hey, Kylie? I know this is a weird question,” Rachel said, using the phone as nature intended–for an actual call. He couldn’t hear Kylie’s responses, but he didn’t need to.
Now he knew exactly what Rachel was doing.
“Could we use your apartment? Just so Kell can change before we come home, you know? My mom probably has everyone already being worked over so her photo shoot is perfect,” Rachel muttered. The murmur of a muted voice on the other side of the line came through, then Rachel laughed.
“Right? I know. Don’t let her force you to use the Jell-O powder as a lipstick base. It doesn’t work as well as she thinks it does, and the colors she uses are from two years ago.”
More muttering from Kylie.
“Glitter? Oh, she’ll die! Go for it!”
Kell elbowed Rachel.
“Kylie - gotta go. Thank you. You’re a lifesaver!”
She ended the call with a gleam in her eye.
“We can use Kylie’s place. Our old place.”
My old place, he almost said, but now wasn’t the time to nitpick.
Grabbing her hand, he pulled her toward his truck, but they only made it a hundred feet before Moore caught up with them and grabbed Kell in a bear hug. A quick pivot of his hips averted an extremely embarrassing moment.
“Finally! About time!” Moore released Kell and gave Rachel a much more dignified hug, with a kiss on the cheek. “Welcome to the family.”
“You’re not technically my family,” Kell poked him.
“I’m Luke’s best friend. That counts for something.”
“You coming over for the engagement party?” Kell asked, hoping the answer was yes.
“The ring is amazing,” Rachel gushed. “You’re so artistic.”
Moore gave her a humble grin. “I didn’t smelt it myself. Just helped design it and source the right materials.”
“Whatever you did, thank you.”
“It was my pleasure, and yes, I’ll be over at the camp shortly. Colleen called–she told me to pick up a bunch of appetizers from Bilbee’s.”
“Bilbee’s?” Rachel choked out. “You’re having them cater the engagement party?”
Moore and Kell shrugged. “Why not? Best food in town other than The Food Alchemist, and Blake and Sheila couldn’t do it on a Saturday.”
“My mother is going to go into shock at the idea of eating nothing but breaded protein,” Rachel said, squeezing Kell’s hand.
“Then we have Portia Starman in shock in Luview. I’m sure it’s not the first time. I remember when she filmed her reality show here and came into the store to ask me–”
“Um, we’re kind of in a rush,” Kell said quickly, dismay filling him as he looked around and saw at least eight different people who were going to stop him and Rachel, all eager to congratulate them.
All they were now was a human obstacle course, standing in the way of Kell getting some.
Moore reeled back slightly, but stepped aside. “You two go. See you later.”
Grabbing Rachel’s hand, he started running, the lemur costume’s head bouncing between his shoulder blades like he was getting a Swedish massage.
“Kell,” Rachel gasped. “I’m in heels!”
“And I’m trying to avoid all the huggers!”
“Huggers?”
“You want that quickie?”
“Of course!”
“Then we need to dodge all the people who want to congratulate us.”
“Ah.”
Miracle of miracles, they made it to the truck without another person interrupting them and slammed their doors shut fast. Sweating like a pig, he quickly realized he needed to unzip and get some air on his skin.
So he pulled down.
The zipper was stuck. Not just stuck; it would not budge, not one inch. Most of the time, when a zipper malfunctions, there’s a little bit of give. This sucker wasn’t moving a millimeter.
“Stupid, junky piece of...”
Rachel cut him off. “It’s fine. We’ll just go to Kylie’s apartment and get you out of this.”
“It’s not fine!”
“Why?”
“Because,” he said, pulling her close, “do you feel that?”
“Oh, my!” She snuggled in. “That is quite impressive!”
“That,” he replied, “does not want to be stuck behind a polyester fake fur barrier between the two of us.”
“Then let’s go home.”
“I’m not going back to the cabin dressed like this, covered in sweat, with a baseball bat under my fur, to hang out at our engagement party with your parents and Tim,” he insisted. “We’re going to Kylie’s first. I’ve got to get out of this thing!”
“What are you wearing under it?” she asked.
“Just my underwear.”
She planted her hands on her hips and gave him a mortified look. “You’re telling me that you put on this ridiculous lemur costume to sing “I Will Always Love You” onstage at the festival before proposing to me, and underneath you’re only wearing your underwear?”
“Yes.”
“Are you trying to repeat what happened to me in D.C.?”
“Not repeat...” he said slowly. “More like recreate parts of it.”
She looked around quickly, frantically even. “Is there a pedicab coming? Because if you tell me there’s a pedicab coming, I’m going to need a couple of therapy sessions to deal with this! Maybe even EMDR.”
He soothed her by brushing his hands down from her shoulders to her fingertips a few times. “No, Rachel, there’s no pedicab. I’m not re-enacting what happened to you in D.C. I’m just...”
Her phone rang. She looked down at the screen and grimaced. “It’s my mom. I do not want to talk to my mom right now.”
“Well, you’re going to have to talk to her in a few minutes.
First Kylie’s, then we’re going back to the camp.
” Sweat was pouring down his forehead as he fussed with the zipper, arching his hips up in his seat as he tried to smooth out the fabric.
The steering wheel mocked him now, holding his thighs in place.
And then the zipper gave way abruptly.
The force of his hand carried it down hard and fast, so fast that it got caught on his–
“AUUUUUUGH!” he screamed, the sound making Rachel shoot straight up, the top of her head hitting the roof of his truck.
Pain.
Sheer, blinding pain rushed through him, the sudden cool air striking his sweat-covered chest as all the sensations fought along his nerves for dominance.
“Is that–what did you–oh, no!” Rachel stammered, peering at his lap.
The zipper had caught on the side of his scrotum, grabbing a tiny bit of cloth, more than enough hair, and a not insignificant chunk of skin in its metal teeth.
A wheezing sound he didn’t recognize came out of his mouth, somehow simultaneously exiting his nose and back teeth. If he could breathe through his molars, it would sound like this.
Rachel’s manicured fingertips went to the pinch point and he screamed.
She pulled back.
“Kell!”
“Don’t!”
“But you need help.”
“Don’t touch it!”
“I think if I pull a little–”
“I SAID DO NOT TOUCH IT! YOU DIDN’T LISTEN TWO YEARS AGO, BUT DAMN IT, LISTEN NOW!”
“Two years ago? You got a zipper caught on your sac two years ago? This is a repeat event?”
“I meant the superglue incident.”
Confusion clouded her features. “You–you want me to get superglue? Does Colleen know a trick that – ”
“NO COLLEEN!”
Shuddering at the thought, he took a deep breath to steady himself, warmth flooding the spot where all the doom and gloom in the world resided.
In that tiny piece of stuck skin.
“I want you to stop threatening to touch me.”
“Threatening? When did I ever threaten to touch you?”
“Just now.”
Hurt filled her eyes. “I thought you wanted sex.”
“Not now!”
She seemed finally to understand. “Is–is part of you caught in there?”
“A very important part!”
“So it’s not just your underwear?”
“It’s my soul, Rachel. My entire soul is caught in that zipper. And if you touch it, I’ll die. My soul will die.”
A snort came out of her.
Rachel didn’t snort.
“THIS IS NOT FUNNY!”
“Your scrotum is caught in the zipper of a poorly-made lemur costume.”
“Stop it!”
“Stop what? Stating the facts?”
“Stop mocking me.”
“I’m not mocking you!”
She snorted again.
“You are absolutely mocking me.”
“I told you that funeral for Leo the Lemur was a bad idea. This is karma.”
“Then why doesn’t Jonas have his dick caught in a lemur costume zipper?” Their former classmate in the year-long fellowship at the environmental think tank where they’d met had been the one to host a funeral for a dead... costume.
“Because Jonas isn’t clever enough to think of doing something so sweet and thoughtful.”
“Which is why Jonas has an intact scrotum.”
“Jonas is a walking scrotum,” she muttered, making him laugh through the pain.
“I can’t–I can’t breathe,” he said. “It all hurts. Every part of me.”
“But only that one spot is caught.”
“IT IS AN IMPORTANT SPOT! IT IS TIGHTLY CONNECTED TO ALL THE OTHER SPOTS!”
“You have to let me try,” she insisted, reaching for him.
A vise grip he would never normally use on her clamped around her wrist. “Don’t.”
“Then we need to get you to the emergency room.”
“Absolutely not!”
Her phone buzzed. “That’s my mother!” she groaned. “Wondering where we are.”
“In hell,” he groaned. “We’re in lemur hell.”