I think I won a little in the power balance with my mom. Maybe my relationship can be repaired with Chrissy. And Lance …
He handles the car with ease, singing the words to a song on the radio to himself. There’s no doubt he’s mulling over a thought, one I’m not sure I want to know. One I’m not sure I know how to process.
I’ll never look at him the same. It has nothing to do with knowing how he feels inside me or what his lips taste like after they’ve been all over my body. It has everything to do with him going with me today, providing a shield when I needed it.
I’ll never look at him the same, but yet nothing’s changed between us. We’re still two people with an insane chemistry that we can never let combust.
As the wheels hit the ramp, Lance speaks. “Want to take a drive? I know a little place we could go.”
While the thought of curling up next to Lance and watching the sun start to dip behind the trees is, by definition, an excellent thought, so is the idea of not getting my heart broken by him.
“I better get home,” I tell him instead. “I have some cupcakes to make for tomorrow.”
“Lemon?”
I let the sunlight warm my face. “Is that what you want?” When we pass Carlson’s Bakery and he still hasn’t answered, I look at him. There’s a look in his eye I can’t place. “Lance?”
“I was debating between lemon and red velvet.” He pulls his car against the curb in front of my house. “I can never quite make up my mind.”
“Maybe I’ll surprise you.”
He squeezes my leg a final time before getting out. Before he closes the door behind him, he pokes his head back inside. “You always surprise me, Mariah.”
By the time I get my purse, he’s opening my door. The walk to my stoop is slow and I wonder if he wishes the day didn’t have to end just like I’m wishing too. Tomorrow brings another day filled with unknowns. There’s a fear replacing all of the excitement inside me, a fear that I’ll second-guess my decisions today, all night, and tomorrow I’ll realize I somehow didn’t see the whole picture.
But when I look at him and he touches the side of my face as I stand in front of the door, I know that’s partially not true. I won’t regret today for as long as I live. And if this is the whole picture, if only for today, then I’ll have to deal with the rest of it as it comes.
“Thank you for letting me accompany you today,” he says.
My heart melts. “Thank you for accompanying me.”
I hold my breath as he draws his face lower, pressing a kiss to the apple of my cheek. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” I sigh.
I wish I could ask him in or tell him I changed my mind, to take me on that drive after all. But I just had sex in my mother’s pantry. I have to balance that out with logic at some point.
Turning to unlock the door, I yelp as Lance’s hand swats my behind. He’s jogging down the sidewalk when I turn around.
“What was that for?” I ask.
He stops at the car and grins. “I just wanted to touch your ass.”
“You’re impossible.”
He climbs in the car and starts the engine, honking as he speeds away.
Twenty
Lance
I’m about to throw back a shot of tequila when the doorbell rings. Setting it down with more force than necessary, a little splashes onto the dark kitchen countertop.
Unbuttoning the second button of my shirt, I yank open the door. Peck is standing on the stoop, a plate covered in tinfoil in his hand.
“Nana sent leftovers.” He says this like I couldn’t have guessed.
My stomach growls. “Guess it’s good timing.” Popping open the door, I step aside so my cousin can walk in. “You just leave Nana’s? It’s late.”
“Nah, I’ve had that in my car a while. Ran by Crank to work on a motor I took apart yesterday and got caught up in it. Didn’t realize I was there so long.”
“I do that grading essays,” I say, taking the plate from him.
“You could’ve said anything and I would’ve agreed. Television, a book, porn. But essays? Fuck that,” Peck laughs. As we enter the kitchen, he motions towards the shot of liquor. “That good of a day, huh?”
Hunger forgotten, I slide the plate down the bar. It hits the coffee maker with a thud.
I’ve paced these floors all damn evening trying to work out this kink in my brain, this fucking blip that seems to be overriding all sense and sensibility.
Lifting the shot glass, I swallow the tequila in one gulp. It burns like hell, making me cringe. “That shit is horrible,” I say, smacking my lips together. “Reminds me why I stick to Old Fashioneds.”
“So, why are you shooting tequila?”
“Peck. I have a problem.”
He eyes me warily as he pours himself a shot and downs it.
“How do you do that without flinching?” I ask.
“Practice. Lots and lots of practice,” he says, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his flannel shirt. “Wanna talk about that or your problem?”
Pulling out a chair, I sit at the table. Peck follows suit.
“Fine,” I say, wishing I would’ve brought the tequila to the table with me. “I have this … what word do I want to use? This … discomfort,” I say, not happy with the word selection but going with it to hurry this along.
“Um, I think this is a discussion to have with Nana. Or your doctor.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I laugh. “It’s not like that, asshole.”
“Good because I love you and all but I don’t love you enough to hear about excretions and shit.”
I reach as far as I can to the side and grab the bottle of tequila. One more time and I have the shot glass too.
As I’m pouring another swallow of fire, I ignore Peck’s curiosity. I pretend like he’s not there until the shot has settled in my stomach and I feel the tinge of numbness only a good tequila can bring.
“Okay,” I say, licking the bitterness of the drink from my lips. “I think I’m experiencing feelings, Peck.”
His laughter is unexpected. It bounces off the walls of my kitchen, the sound amplifying as it rattles around me.
“If I hadn’t drunken this shit, I’d be knocking you off that chair.” I laugh, not able to keep a straight face.
“You’d be trying, lover boy.”
“Have I ever told you I hate you?”
“Not in a while,” he grins. “Good to know you haven’t lost all of your damn mind.”
The tequila sloshes in the bottle as I spin it around and around. “I might’ve. Or I might be. Fuck this shit.”
“All right. Slow down. What’s happening? Or who is happening?” His eyes light up. “The nurse. It’s the nurse, isn’t it?”
“She’s not a nurse.”
Peck leans back in his chair. “Okay.”
“It was the nurse, only she wasn’t a nurse. I actually know her in my real life. Not that the app isn’t real life, but you know what I mean.”
His smarmy smile from the other side of the table makes me pour another shot.
“I do know what you mean,” he says. “Continue on.”
“I told myself I’d just fuck her. But that was before I knew who she was. When she was just the librarian—”
“Wait.” Peck shoots up, leaning forward on the table. “The nurse is the librarian? The one you’re always talking about who bakes cupcakes and stuff?”
“That,” I say, pointing a wobbly finger his way, “is true.”
He motions in a circle and laughs. “Keep going.”
“So now I’m in this Catch-22, right? I mean, as the librarian, I like her as a person, but I totally want to fuck her. And as the nurse, I totally want to fuck her, but I kind of like her too. Now they’re the same person and I like her and want to fuck her and I did fuck her at her mom’s house today and now I have all these weird thoughts in my head that I can’t get rid of and I think …” I down the shot.
Peck takes the tequila bottle and places it in front of him. “I think you got more than a little pussy today, cousin. I think you went and got yourself fucked.”
My forehead hits the table. The room spins but I’m ninety-nine percent sure that it’s just my imagination, just like I hope the rest of this fuckery is my imagination too.
I was this close to not taking her home. It would’ve been so easy to just drive to my house or to Bluebird and spend a few more hours together.
Why do I want to spend actual time out of bed with a woman?
I don’t want to want this. I don’t want any fucking part of this but it doesn’t seem like I have a voice in the matter.
I love touching her, feeling her light up as our bodies connect. It doesn’t even have to include my cock, which is a new thing for me. I can control my dick. Plenty of practice there. But the rest of this? Wanting to hold her hand? Touch her face? Fucking talk to her about cupcakes and books and family stuff? What the hell do I do with that? Who am I?
And since when does thinking about a woman screwing another man bother me? It’s a given. People aren’t monogamous. Having to interface with Eric today and knowing he had her before me, that somewhere in her beautiful little mind she remembers what his cock felt like, made me want to knock him out. I want to erase that from her brain and fill it only with memories of me.
Fuck. This.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here. I’m not saying this for your ego,” Peck says, “because we all know that isn’t an issue.”
“Go to Hell,” I groan, my stomach twisting with the drink.
“No, I don’t think I’ll join you tonight in Tequila Town. I like my insides just the way they are.”
“I hate you.”
“You’ve said that.” He chuckles at his own stupid comeback. “Anyway, I’m going to assume she likes you.”