Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
Rowdy
The knock on the front door is urgent, and first, I jump out of my skin, thinking it’s the cops.
But cops usually announce themselves.
Most of my friends let themselves in the back door without any sort of prelude.
My brain does a quick breakdown of who it could be as I shut off the game and head to the door.
I don’t dare hope it’s her, but somewhere deep down I know it is.
I check the camera app on my phone and confirm my suspicions.
On the live feed, there Riley is, squatting down to pet Panini, the border collie/German shepherd mix who lives on my porch.
I press the talk button. “Can I help you?”
Riley jumps, pressing a hand over her heart. “It’s Riley,” she says, standing upright. Panini gazes up at her adoringly, sitting pretty at her feet. Some security dog.
“Riley…Riley…I’m sorry, Riley who?”
“Rowdy, I don’t have time to joke around. I have to talk to you about something.”
“Ever heard of texting? Calling? Oh wait. No, you must have lost your phone.”
“Rowdy.”
“Surely you lost your phone, otherwise I think you would have texted me back about getting together to practice making small talk.”
She rubs her temples. “Rowdy, can I please come inside? It’s about the gala.”
“Uh-oh,” I say teasingly. “You’ve come to tell me that Wilson Rogers III is planning on being there and you need me to give you a crash course on manners.”
“Manners? I didn’t break into your house! I didn’t let everyone in town assume we were dating! I wasn’t the one who asked someone at Robin’s Deli and Groceries about the sort of things I buy!”
Yeah, I’d better let her inside before the neighbors start to complain about all this shouting while their little ones are trying to take their naps.
I throw open the door and greet Riley with a huge smile. “That’s better than staring at you on the security camera. Come on in, I’m done fucking with you. For now.”
Riley enters and casts her gaze around the living room.
Once a formal parlor, I’ve turned this old Arts and Crafts home into a bachelor pad.
Except for the oil-painted canvases that cover the walls.
Black-capped chickadees. Blue herons. Red-tailed hawks.
A sunset over blue-green hills. All done by her.
I watch her reaction closely.
She looks at me with regret in her eyes. “How many of these do you have?”
“Seven in here. Eleven in my bedroom. A couple more in the kitchen and bedroom.” Riley shakes her head, then closes her eyes tight like she’s counting down in her head to calm her nerves.
“We have to…we have to cancel.”
I take a step back. “They’re canceling the gala?”
Riley shakes her head. “No. I’m so sorry, Rowdy. I really regret getting so annoyed with you just now. The thing is, I have to uninvite you as my guest.”
That, I wasn’t expecting. I run my hand through my hair. “Why?”
“Wilson Rogers III is going to be there.”
I can see there’s more she wants to say, but she can’t bring herself to say it.
I have no intention of torturing her over this. “And you think I’m not going to behave myself. That I’m too loud and lowbrow.”
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
“But you’re thinking it,” I reply.
She bites her bottom lip, her face flushed. “Rowdy,” she whispers. “There’s so much riding on this.”
“I have no intention of fucking this up for you or anybody else. I’m gonna be there to support you. You and I just have to establish a rapport so we can play off each other and charm the pants off that troll.”
She smiles. “That’s what I call Wilson Rogers III in my head, too.”
“See? Look at that. We’re already on the same page. Of course, I knew that already based on the other day…”
Riley blushes and puts her hands over her cheeks. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure, have a seat. Want some coffee?”
“It’s after 7.”
“So?” I say, firing up the machine. I feel her presence in the kitchen. I can feel Riley staring at my back. It feels good having her here, in my house.
“I don’t have any caffeine after 7 or I’ll be awake all night.”
“Fair enough. And just for the record, I didn’t break into your apartment. I have a key from the time I did some electrical work for Daphne.”
“That’s not exactly a comfort,” she says, taking a seat at my kitchen table. “But really, all I came to say was I can handle this on my own.”
I start the coffee brewing, take out my favorite mug with the iridescent “Evergreen Tools” logo, and turn around. “How?”
She shrugs. “YouTube tutorials on social skills?”
“Come on,” I say, leaning against the counter and folding my arms over my chest. “Don’t you think you’ve been handling things by your lonesome long enough?”
“And there’s no reason I can’t keep doing everything the way I’ve always done it.”
“But I sure make things more fun, don’t I?”
Riley slowly blinks but doesn’t break eye contact. It’s one of the things I love about her. She can say she’s riddled with anxiety, but she can maintain eye contact better than anyone. I don’t get it.
“Yes. It was so much fun.”
“And I think we could have more fun if we had an actual bed. Oh look,” I say, gesturing at my bedroom door across the hall, “There’s one right over there.”
Riley licks her lips. “I didn’t come here for that.”
“But some part of you did,” I say.
Her eyelids blink rapidly. “Not going to lie and say I would never do it again. Not going to lie and say you don’t turn me on, and the sex wasn’t great.”
“Great?”
“Incredible.”
“It was,” I confirm, feeling satisfied with myself.
“But that doesn’t help the problem of tomorrow night. I’m really, really stressed about it, Rowdy.”
I put up my hands in surrender with a smile. “You know, I’ve heard that sex can help relieve stress. Must be why I’ve been in such a good mood.”
“Rowdy.”
“You just gotta trust me that I know what I’m doing.
Even with the Wilson Rogers III’s of the world.
I got news for you, baby. He’s nothing but an overgrown frat boy.
Access to money doesn’t make people any better, classier, or harder to impress than anyone else.
I happen to know that Wilson Rogers III got up to more trouble at Duke than I ever did in little old Songbird Ridge, and the only difference between him and me is he doesn’t sit with one arm around his lunch tray as if someone’s gonna steal his biscuits. ”
She shakes her head. “I have no idea what any of that meant, Rowdy.”
Each time she says my name, I feel crazier and crazier inside.
“It means he had lawyers that kept him from ever serving time in jail for drunk driving.”
“Oh my gosh, did you—”
“No, I never drove drunk. But when I was young and had shit for brains, I got caught with weed. Like, kind of a lot of it. And I know all about Wilson Rogers III because I did my community service with a dude who used to run around Durham with the Rogers boys, and they are all subhumans with money…hey, are you okay?”
I notice that while I’ve been ranting about that bottom feeder, Riley has stood up and now made her way to stand in front of me. Her look is fierce, like she’s fighting with the two different entities inside of her. One who wants to dump me, and one who wants to forget her problems for one night.
I wait to find out which one she’ll obey.
Much to my relief, she grabs the front of my shirt and kisses me. Hard.
My hands slip around her waist and pull her tighter to me, deepening the kiss.
“Rowdy,” she says. “You need to stop arguing with me and just fuck me so I can feel less guilty about breaking off this fake date.”
“Now I’m the one not understanding the words coming out of your mouth. But I’ll do whatever you want to do,” I say.
“Good,” she says, kissing me again and slipping her hands under the hem of my ratty tee-shirt. Her cool touch against my stomach makes my cock twitch.
Against everything that compels me, I grab her hand and slow things down. “Let me buy you dinner first, at least.”
“What?”
“You want to practice? Then practice going on a date with me.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I make it a personal policy never to have sex until after the first date.”
“But we already had sex.”
“We sure did. But now you gotta let me reverse engineer things, otherwise this is just a booty call.”
She blinks those long lashes at me. “But I don’t want to go out. I want to stay in and break off the date.”
I do not understand this girl, and I may never understand her. But I’m gonna love her forever anyway.
“Well, I was just about to order some takeout from the Magpie.”
“You order takeout from the fanciest restaurant in town?”
I shrug. “Sure, why not. Beats making reservations. I do it every Thursday.”
“Oh,” she says. “So you do have a schedule after all.”
“Yeah, and every Saturday, I get a massage.”
“You are not the person I thought you were, Rowdy.”
She leans in and cinches her arms around my waist.
“Who did you think I was?”’
She’s so close, her breath wafts over my face, and I can already taste the kiss that’s coming. “I just thought you were another hometown boy who never left. I thought you were a nice guy, but a party boy. A guy who… I don’t know, just another guy like, a guy like my ex.”
I plant my lips against the base of her throat. She moans, and I can feel her nipples harden through the material of her shirt. She’s soft in my arms, nestling against my body. Her softness against my hardness.
Riley’s mouth opens, and I slide my tongue in, enjoying her sweet taste. This time it’s cinnamon and something else.
“Did you save some gummy bears for me?”
“Sorry,” she says with a smile. “But don’t worry, you have food on the way, right?”
“I’m thinking about having dessert first,” I say.
“Oh?”
“It’s one of those fun things you can do when you have an adult, and there are no rules,” I tell her.
Her hands run over my stomach, teasing the hairs that make up the trail pointing to my throbbing dick.
“One of those adult perks,” she says.
“In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m talking about having dessert in the bedroom.”
She tilts her head. “Well, that’s different…oh, you mean…”
Two seconds later, I’m carrying her across the hallway, with one arm hooked under her knees.
“Rowdy!”
I say nothing until I have her perched on the end of the bed and I’m tugging her leggings down. “Tell me to stop.”
I look up at her as I peel her leggings off over the tips of her manicured feet and rub from her ankles, slowly working my way up to her knees and then her thighs.
Riley says nothing but watches me with her lips parted.
“Lift up for me a little.”
Riley does as I ask, and I slip her panties down, down, down, and then duck my head underneath, resting her thighs on my shoulders. Her knees are tethered behind my neck by her underwear, unless she demands to be rid of them.
There’s something crazy and dirty about leaving them there, and she seems into it, too.
I push her thighs open as far as I can go without ripping her underwear.
And then, I duck my head down and have my dessert.