Chapter 7
Kell
Way to start off being engaged.
With a cold soda can under his throbbing balls.
Eyes darting to find Rachel’s hand, he smiled at the ring on her finger. She was the only thing that could make him smile right now.
“Why did you pour vodka on my crotch?” he asked, the dripping a bit maddening as he stood in the shop wearing only the Love You Harder robe, his underwear, and a coke can.
“It numb.”
“Anya–”
“Fifty.” She held out her hand.
Kell looked at Rachel helplessly. “I don’t, uh, have my wallet.”
The way Rachel’s eyelids fluttered shut, her throat bobbing with a swallow, made him realize how stressed she was. If he was throbbing inside and out, filled with pain and humiliation, she was going through a parallel experience.
Her mom.
The surprise engagement party.
The fancy New York photographer.
As much as he hated to admit it, Anya was right–the ridiculous soda can solution was working. Perhaps not being immobilized by a tiny piece of flesh was helping, too.
Oh, how the mighty had fallen.
Kell was a big man, and to be held hostage by such an inconsequential bit of anatomy was humbling. Rachel had now watched him whimper and squeal, cower and beg, and his pride was sorely injured as well.
Reaching into her purse, Rachel pulled out her wallet and handed Anya sixty dollars, adding the extra and smiling gratefully. “Worth it,” she said to Kell with kind eyes. “Anything to get you out of pain.”
“Most pain was looking at cheap lemur costume,” Anya announced. “Lumpy stitching was crime against humanity.”
“What that zipper did to me was a crime,” Kell muttered, his breathing even, brain functioning again now that all of his body’s survival systems weren’t engaged.
Judy came from the front of the store, sizing up Kell, who stood there with his hand frozen, balls now throbbing in slow time, his Love You Harder robe open.
He was in his underwear and didn’t care.
“I have something your size,” she said, turning to a small closet door. “Abandoned clothes. We can get you out of that robe, at least, so you won’t make a spectacle of yourself walking back to your car.”
“I’m a pretty big guy, Judy,” he said doubtfully, though her offer would be accepted with gratitude.
With a flourish, she pulled out a suit, then a man’s dress shirt.
“So was this man. Politician on the road doing some kind of junket. They paid the bill but didn’t have time to come back to pick it up, so they said to donate it to a local charity.
” Judy eyed him head to toe. “I declare you a charity case right now.”
“I’m certainly hitting rock bottom.”
“Hey!” Rachel protected, giving his waist a squeeze. “How can you say that on the day you proposed?”
“Highest highs and lowest lows in the same hour, babe.” Kissing her temple, he looked at Anya, who was now refilling her flask with vodka from a much larger, unmarked clear half-gallon bottle that was capped with a cork.
Hardcore, man. Hardcore.
“Why don’t you get dressed and while you do that, Rachel can talk to Grandma about the costume.”
Rachel looked at the trash can. “Oh, that?” she wrinkled her nose, her phone buzzing over and over in her hands. “Anya put it right where it belongs.”
“No,” Judy said, leading Rachel out of the room, Anya on their heels. “The next costume. The one with holes in all the right places.”
To his horror, the door shut. Moving fast, he pulled the plastic off the shirt and slipped it on, but it was so heavily starched, he couldn’t button it. He could hear everything going on in the other room and if he didn’t hurry, Rachel was going to lose her temper.
“There is no next costume!” Rachel gasped as Anya said something to Judy, and it was clear the two were arguing in Polish.
“Kell? Can I come back in?” Rachel begged, but then she said, “Vodka?” and her words stopped.
As he looked at his reflection in a narrow mirror on the wall, he could see that the suit was slightly big for him, a surprise that he should have been able to shake off, but instead his mind ran through the politicians he knew who were bigger than he was.
It was a short list.
Putting on the pants turned out to be an ordeal, his body slow as molasses, the throbbing intensifying with movement.
And he had to do this all over again at home to change into his own clothes.
Emerging from the back room, he found all three women staring at him, Rachel in panic, waving her phone.
“Mom says Chloe is upset that the best light is gone, and something about securing a private jet for her to fly to Martha’s Vineyard for some salt therapy for her dog.”
Kell zeroed in on the flask in Anya’s hand, his earlier shot finally starting to loosen him up.
“Did you give her some?” he asked Anya, who nodded.
“Yes. Next time, bear.”
“Bear?”
A broad smile spread across her weathered face. “You perfect bear for furries.”
Rachel opened her mouth. Kell took her hand. Pulling her through the thin hall, he got her to the front of the store, then gave Judy and Anya a wave.
“Thank you! Bye!”
Over their protests, he got Rachel onto the sidewalk, where she dug in her heels like a donkey.
“KELL! I cannot believe this day! Mom is having a fit about Chloe, you’re injured, Anya and Judy think we’re furries, for goodness sake, and–”
All he could do was kiss her.
Nothing would erase the fiascoes of the last hour, but a kiss always fades trouble, even if just for a moment.
Those moments add up to a lifetime.
A lifetime that faced Rachel and Kell.
She pulled away, her hands on his shoulders, voice gruff but mouth smiling. “You can’t just kiss me every time you want me to shut up.”
“Why not?”
“Kell.”
“And I don’t want you to shut up. I just want you to stop worrying.”
“Never going to happen.”
“It’s my mission to make it happen.” Thumb caressing her ring, he touched his forehead to hers, the world dissolving into trivia compared to their hearts.
“I don’t care that everyone’s waiting for us.
I don’t care that your mother’s plans with some high-falutin’ photographer have gone awry.
I don’t even care if the gossip mill thinks we’re kinksters who like dressing up in animal costumes to have sex.
I care about you.” His hands enclosed her waist. “I care about you, and I care about us.”
“I love you,” she said, the words so earnest, so sweet, that he began to throb all over, her love a balm, an antidote, a cure.
“Let me love you, Rachel.”
“Let a Luview love me in Luview?”
“Yes.” He kissed her again. “Always.”
<3
Thank you so much for reading Kell and Rachel’s novella!