Hometown Heartless

by Aarons, Carrie

  Staring at the screen, I frown until my temples hurt from all the negativity. I’ve been sitting in the Red Bird Coffee & Donut Shop for over two hours, on a Sunday no less, and it feels like I’ve accomplished nothing at all. Should I scrap it and start over again?

  “Marble frosted still your favorite?”

  A donut on one of the cafe’s signature white and red striped plates appears in front of me. As does Everett Brock.

  What the hell is he doing here? Did the Marines instill some kind of innate scent tracking in him that allows him to smell out my doubts and insecurities to pounce at the exact moment they’re highest?

  “I’d appreciate being left alone.”

  I don’t answer his question, because yes that freaking flavor is still my favorite. But I won’t let him see me internally drooling over it.

  “You looked confused. Or maybe stuck. I thought a donut could help.”

  Do not look up into those clover-green eyes. Do not look up into those clover-green eyes.

  Dammit, I cannot help it and I look up. Everett is smirking down at me, his broad shoulders filling out an old Brentwick Football long sleeve. He looks edible, and I want to slap my traitorous heart out of its droolfest.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m trying to concentrate.” I do my best not to reach for that darn donut.

  Cursing me out one day, telling me to stay away from him the next. Reeling me back in, telling me I’m beautiful. Now it’s walking right up to me in the local coffee shop and planting my favorite donut in front of my face. It’s like Everett is trying to win the Hot and Cold Contest of the Millennium and winning by a landslide.

  Despite my attempt to shrug him off, the legs of the chair on the opposite side of my table scratch against the linoleum as he pulls it out to sit.

  “I’m trying to work, Everett.” Though really, I should welcome the distraction with open arms.

  Talking to my childhood crush, and current love interest, is way better than failing through my college admissions essay.

  Everett slaps down his book, and I read the title as the large anthology lands across the table. Brentwick Community College Course Guide.

  “So you can work, I can circle which of these courses won’t make me want to blow my brains out.” Everett wiggles an eyebrow at me, though I don’t think his choice of words are particularly funny.

  “You’re going to community college?” Ironic that we’re both struggling with the institution of higher education.

  He shrugs, and I notice him set an Oreo chocolate donut and a large coffee down next to the syllabus. We’ve both had the same order since we hit high school, coming in to the Red Bird for “coffee chats” to feel like grown-ups. When there isn’t much in the way of adventure or excitement in a town for people under the age of twenty-one, we found the hang out spots we could.

  He shrugs, and I trace his jawline with my gaze. “Figure I don’t have much else to do. And I need to make some money if I ever want to get out of my parent’s house.”

  A wave of unease goes through me. “Well, you’ve only been home for a couple of months. Don’t you think it’s nice to be home with your parents? I’m sure they love having you there.”

  I also don’t know if Everett is equipped to handle living by himself. From what I’ve seen, when he isn’t lashing out at me, he shuts himself up in his room. He barely leaves the house, and I have a feeling he’s been going through some massive PTSD from what he went through.

  Everett scowls, picks up his donut, and takes a large bite. I shouldn’t eat his apology treat, but the marble frosted looks too appetizing sitting there, and so I do the same. Christ, it’s so good.

  “I’m a twenty-something veteran living underneath his parent’s roof. They’re constantly checking up on me, invading my privacy, and I feel like I can’t breathe. Does that sound like a great situation?”

  “Well, I guess not, but where would you live?”

  “An apartment. Maybe I’d move. Who knows.”

  Ah, the hot and cold is back in action. Cue Indifferent Everett, the guy who just brought me a donut to apologize and is now telling me he’d like to move away from me and everyone he loves.

  “I think community college is a great start, though. And your assistant coaching gig. They probably make you feel …” I trail off, because I was going to say normal and that’s such an asshole thing to say.

  “You were going to say normal, weren’t you?” Everett smirks, but I don’t miss the way his jaw tics.

  “No,” I lie and shove another piece of marble frosted in my mouth.

  “What are you working on?” Everett turns my laptop to him before I can stop the motion.

  “Hey!” I throw my hands up to cover the screen, like I’m some kind of pre-teen guarding her secret diary.

  He peeks through my fingers and even moves one so he can read the screen better. The ounce of contact, that one innocent touch, sends shock waves through the air between us.

  “Your college essay? You haven’t submitted it yet? It’s almost … is the deadline this week?” How he knows so much about college admissions when he never applied himself astounds me.

  A grimace works its way over my face. “Just making some last-minute changes to make it perfect.”

  Everett studies my face. “No, you’re not. You don’t like it. That’s why you haven’t turned it in yet.”

  How the hell does he know me this well, even after all this time.

  I sigh, relenting. “No, I’m not. I don’t like it. I can’t seem to get it right. How am I supposed to fit everything I feel, all of my personality, into these faceless paragraphs? They’re going to hate me, they won’t understand my passion or—”

  Everett snorts, and I stop, rearing back. He was baiting me, waiting for me to admit an insecurity and now, like I predicted, he’ll pounce on it.

  “Kennedy, no one could ever hate you. You’re the most qualified person I’ve ever met, no matter what it is you’re trying to achieve, and anyone would be an utter moron to deny you of it. I’m sure this essay is light-years better than what every other kid is writing theirs about. You just have these impossible standards, even for yourself.”

  That last part feels like a backhanded compliment, but my heart is beating so hard and my cheeks are so flushed right now that I can’t even acknowledge the barb. I think Everett just told me I was great. In a sense. Maybe.

  “It just doesn’t feel like me. And it’s too late to do anything about it.” I shrug, trying to seem nonchalant.

  “Can I read it?” he asks, with a note of hope I haven’t heard in his voice since he came home.

  “No.” I say it so quickly that I curse myself.

  Because the curious light immediately goes out of Everett’s eyes.

  “I just mean … the topic is a little private.” How can I let him read my essay about not being able to cope with death when he’s seen so much of it?

  He nods slowly, taking a sip of coffee. “I get it. But again, I’m sure it’s the best fucking college essay I’ve ever not read.”

  “Everett!” I squeak, because the people two tables over heard him drop the F word and are now looking at us.

  “Come on, Kennedy, you aren’t afraid of a little curse word. I’ve seen you throw around worse three beers in.” He rolls his eyes, the grin marking his lips purely devilish.

  That makes me laugh, because I’ve been known to rap while drunk. “If you can’t spit a little Cardi B once in a while …”

  We both look at each other, exchanging smiles in the silence. It’s the first time since he’s been home that I feel like us again. The Kennedy and Everett we used to be; friendly, known to make each other laugh, with an underlying chemistry that can’t be denied. For a split second, his capture and return, the promises and terrible words, they cease to exist. I have a glimpse of what we could have been, and if I’m being truthful, what I still want us to be.

  “So, can I sit here and look through my course catalogue,
or are you going to keep trying to distract me?” His lopsided grin has me mesmerized.

  I roll my eyes, but we both know I’d never tell him to leave.

  “You can stay. But be quiet. And maybe buy me another donut.”

  17

  Everett

  The first letter I ever wrote to Kennedy was on enemy territory.

  I was deployed only weeks after bootcamp ended, sent to the front lines as one of the Marines black ops recruits. I was high on the adrenaline of a naïve soldier’s heart and also scared shitless. As I lay awake, listening for the sounds of enemy footsteps or bullets whizzing past my head, I’d take out a piece of paper and scrawl my feelings and thoughts by moonlight.

  I told her, in that first correspondence, that I missed her. That one of my biggest regrets was not kissing her before I left. Those are the types of things you say when you’re thousands of miles away and feeling like a big shot who might have his head blown off at any moment. I told Kennedy about my training, what little I could divulge, and I wrote about missing our coffee shop dates and barn parties and …

  Her.

  I wrote some things in those letters that I honestly didn’t feel like, at the time, I’d ever have to face. Those are the things you do when you feel like your life was in the balance. Yes, I was cocky enough to think I was coming home. But I was also cocky enough to think that I wouldn’t have to have a real conversation about the letters we exchanged.

  Kennedy and I wrote to each other for a year, sometimes I’d send multiple or receive multiple ones a week. Her curvy, scrawled handwriting was my comfort at the end of a long day. Her words gave me strength when I didn’t think I could get through another patrol. I carried her picture in my back pocket through every terrifying mission.

  It’s easy to forget that, to ignore the stack of letters still in my canvas recruit bag that I haven’t dared to open. It’s easy to ignore the promises I made her, simply because I don’t want to deal with the consequences of making them. Blaming the conversation I don’t want to have on my PTSD, on the torture I suffered, it’s a cheap excuse. But one I thought I could use.

  Now, I’m not so sure. We sat across from each other in that coffee shop for an hour or two. The quiet companionship, the crackling heat of sexual tension, the glances we both stole when we thought the other wasn’t looking.

  I can’t ignore that anymore.

  Something is shifting with us, something I can’t stop or control. The more I’m around Kennedy, the more I want to bring up the kiss I never gave her. The date I never took her on. The Valentine’s Day I never planned. All of these were things in my letters, and even though I’ve fought hard against my feelings, they’re stronger than my willpower.

  I’ve been lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about taking her letters out of my bag for almost an hour. Will they cause me pain? Cause me to be transported back to a time when all hope in my body was crushed, along with my bones? Or will they give me hope, and perhaps courage, to finally tell her how I feel?

  Kennedy’s light comes on, the twinkle of it drawing me to my own window.

  How many times has the flick of illumination from her side caught my attention? I’ve stared across the void of our houses hundreds of times. At first, as a shithead teen trying to get a peepshow. The only thing I ever managed to see was Kennedy dancing around in her training bra, a memory that I used thousands of time back then to jerk of to. If she knew about that now, she’d probably smack me.

  But later, when we both got into high school and my feelings for her ran deeper, it was more of a study. I wanted to know her, wanted to read her expressions, see who she was when no one was looking. I’ve seen Kennedy thoughtful, I’ve seen her sad. I’ve heard her humming old show tunes through the window when it was open on a summer night.

  Now, I linger in the shadows of my room, standing right in front of the window but all the same holding my breath. I’ve wanted to storm down her door since yesterday, to finally give her that kiss I promised years ago.

  She walks to the window, her slender yet curvy body swelling in all the right places. Backlit from the lamp on her desk, I can make out her figure but not the specific parts of her body. When she comes closer to the window, moving until the moonlight streaks over her face, she’s looking straight at me. Those coffee-colored eyes hold mine, questioning, searching.

  I lean an arm against the window jamb, pressing my body closer, as I feel my cock harden. My sweatpants begin to tent, all from just watching her through this pane of glass. Like some kind of voyeur, in this secret, taboo way that only she and I are privy to. Can she tell how much she’s turning me on?

  Kennedy holds my stare, her chest rising and falling in rapid succession. Is she wet under those jeans? Do her panties hold evidence of what I do to her? Of all the things I wished for when I thought I was about to die, making love to Kennedy Dover was at the top of the list.

  I could go over there, invite myself in. Or better yet, scale the tree outside her room. She’d let me in, we both know that. My heart thrums against the bones containing it, the need to reach down and tug on my cock so primal that I nearly do.

  But holding off somehow seems more illicit. As if I need her permission. As if I’m daring her to reveal all of that pretty olive skin to me.

  She lets her hair down first, pulling it from its tie, and the waves of dark chocolate hair fall over her shoulders. The material of her sweater looks soft, a creamy pale pink, and I can see the way her jeans hug her hips.

  Pressing closer, I nod my chin, giving her the signal to keep going. Her hands fall to the hem of her sweater, pulling it up and over her head. My heart stops, sputtering in my chest, and then falls a little when she reveals the lacy tank top underneath.

  The skinny straps of the top slip, one plunging down her arm, and I wish so desperately I could kiss her bare shoulder. I watch as Kennedy skims her fingers up her arm, putting it back in place, and then brushing her hair over so it falls down her back. The swell of her cleavage draws my eyes, rising and falling in time with her breathing.

  “Take it off,” I mouth, the sound silent to even my own ears.

  Kennedy quirks an eyebrow, not ashamed or embarrassed, but almost challenging me. As if to say, “How far are we going to take this?”

  I’m not sure how it escalated to this. Maybe we need an entire property and panes of glass between us to get to the root of our mutual lust.

  Beats pass, and I blow out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. We’re suspended here, waiting to see if she’ll give in to my dare.

  I must blink, because I miss the beginning of her arms descent, but in the next second, Kennedy is pulling the scrap of material over her head. Creamy expanses of skin, her tight little waist and taut stomach are exposed. The dangerous flirting of her jeans, taunting me from across the gap, stay firmly buttoned and in place.

  My eyes skim up, capturing and memorizing each inch of her. The curve of her ribs, the swell of her breasts, the lacy white bra pushing them up. Fuck, do I wish I could see her nipples, reach out my tongue to lick one. My hands itch to touch her, to mold her tits in my palms.

  When I finally reach her face, the flush of her cheeks only serves to turn me on more. Kennedy reaches her arms out, grasping the curtains on either side. I want her to close them, and at the same time, it will drive me fucking mad if she does.

  With a final smirk, a small smile of victory, she slowly pulls them shut, pausing for a beat to give me one last look at her.

  A second ticks by, and then another. I stay pressed there, my hips involuntarily flexing, seeking Kennedy’s presence at the window once more. But she isn’t coming back, I’ve seen all I’m allowed to tonight. My heart still hammers in my chest, the head of my cock twitches with the need for release.

  There is only one option, and soon, my body hits my bed as my hand seeks the steel pipe in my pants. I wrap my fist around myself, tugging and a growl emits low in my throat. In my mind, Kennedy is on top
of me, molding her body to mine. My hands skim down her curves, tugging at each nip of her waist, feeling the velvet of her skin beneath my fingertips.

  As she grinds herself on me, I pull down the cups of her bra, finally seeking the tight budded nipples I want between my teeth. Suddenly, she slinks down my body, taking control as she pulls down the band of my sweats.

  Jerking faster, tugging hard at my tip until my vision goes white at the edges, I imagine Kennedy sinking her mouth down onto me, and—

  I’m coming, hot streaks jetting out into my boxers. Orgasmic bliss hurtles down my spine, ricocheting through my body as I gasp to remain conscious.

  My breath comes out in labored puffs, the exertion of my climax so heady that I fear I might fall over if I try to stand up. It’s the first time I’ve truly allowed myself to fantasize about Kennedy since I’ve been home.

  And being a twenty-year-old virgin doesn’t help.

  With the desire that just engulfed my body attended to, and no more tantalizing flirting out the window, I’m left feeling well, bored.

  My duffel bag taunts me, the canvas suitcase shoved into a corner of my room. When my mom first brought it up, about a week after I came home, I was shocked. I thought that thing had disappeared somewhere in the desert around the same time I did. I learned that my platoon sent it back to my parents when they assumed I was dead, along with the scant number of items I’d left at base camp.

  I know they’re in there, her letters. They were some of the only personal items I kept in my bunk, so I’m sure they were sent home to my grieving family.

  Suddenly, I can’t wait to dig into them. I jump up, a wave of frantic energy moving over me. I’m so hot and cold these days, I don’t know whether to cover myself in clothing or run naked into the freezing cold.

  Rifling through the bag, the scent of the desert and military life hits me so hard that I almost keel over. But I persist, wanting to find those letters. My hand lands on what feels very close to paper, and I grab, pulling it out.