Guilty as Charged

by Harlow James

  “Holy shit,” I whisper as I’m blinded by pearly white teeth peeking beneath full pink lips dusted with day old scruff. His radiant blue eyes lock onto my own aqua irises as reddish-brown hair falls over his forehead, and then he flashes me a wink.

  I think my panties just melted.

  “Right? God, what a fine piece of ass.”

  “When did Jared start showing up?” I ask, tilting my head to the side as I study the way his muscles ripple when he moves while he flirts with every mom that goes up to his window.

  “About a month ago. He’s a college student home for the summer. His parents live a few blocks over in the housing track and he’s just trying to make some extra money.”

  I eye my friend from the side. “Do you know his birthday and shoe size too?”

  Ally swats my arm. “I know he’s twenty, and by how tall he is, I’m guessing at least an eleven, hopefully a thirteen.”

  I can’t help but chuckle. “Need I remind you that you have a husband?”

  She shrugs. “I’m not saying I’d do anything with that, but come on,” she says, gesturing toward him with her hand. “How can you not appreciate that fine piece of man?”

  “He is awfully pretty.” I reach up to scratch an itch on my face, but feel drool seeping out of the corner of my mouth and make sure to wipe it away discretely.

  She jumps in front of me, blocking the view of my new spank bank material. “You should go talk to him!”

  “What? No. He’s way too young.”

  “He’s only twenty. I bet his stamina is incredible.” She wiggles her eyebrows at me again.

  “I’m telling Collin you’re talking about him like this,” I say, folding my arms across my chest.

  “Collin and I have married sex, Sydney. It’s great and I love him, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not the same as twenty-something, no-strings-attached, romp-in-the-sack, hair-pulling and nail-biting casual sex.”

  I cover my mouth with my hand to stifle my laugh. “I think you’ve failed to remember that I’ve never done that.”

  “I know. Your prude-meter is off the charts. And that’s why I think you need to before daddy-dearest marries you off to Andrew.”

  The sigh that leaves my mouth resonates between us. Ally knows more than anyone that my father is hell bent on setting me up with Andrew Benton, the son of his friend whose family runs in the same circles as ours. Andrew reminds me of Elle’s boyfriend from Legally Blonde that she chases after in law school. He’s pompous, thinks he’s powerful because his family has money, and wears khakis and sweater vests as everyday attire. He’s looking for a wife that fits the image he’s trying to uphold, and since our families both operate that way, all the men think I’m the best fit. His perfectly quaffed hair matches his paid-for tan, and even though I’ve told him numerous times that I’m not interested, he refuses to give up, much like my father. And my father is adamant that the two of us marrying each other would provide me with even more protection after the attack I survived a few months ago.

  “That’s not happening. I refuse. But bringing home Jared will not help me advocate for my denial.”

  “I’m not saying marry the guy.” She rolls her eyes at me. “But wouldn’t he be fun to take for a ride? I obviously can’t, but there’s nothing stopping you.”

  I look around the throngs of married women gathered near the ice cream van, practically foaming at the mouths. Either they’re grossly unsatisfied in their marriages, or the allure of the forbidden is too much to contain. Of course, I wouldn’t know either since I’m twenty-eight and unmarried, and I’ve never truly given in to the desires I feel at night—the need to be handled with control, the quest to be deprived of air from an overpowering orgasm, the longing to see marks on my body from being pleased by a man that knows what he’s doing.

  Not even Ally knows about my true fantasies, but if you read enough romance novels, you’re bound to develop a few.

  “Mommy! I got a Minion!” Taryn comes rushing over, interrupting our conversation as she shoves the treat up at Ally to open it.

  “It’s actually Tweety bird, baby,” Ally replies.

  Taryn’s face scrunches up inquisitively. “What’s Tweety?”

  I gasp dramatically. “Oh, my heart. Your child isn’t aware of who Tweety is?”

  “It’s not like they play the classic Looney Tunes cartoons anymore on television. Don’t worry, I won’t raise my kids without them knowing who the original cartoons were.” Ally removes the wrapper from Taryn’s ice cream and then makes her way up closer to the window.

  “Hey, Jared,” she says while leaning against the white metal door.

  Jared leans forward and flexes his arms for good measure while blinding her with his flirtatious smile. “Hey, Mrs. Murphy. How’s it going today?”

  “Great. Couldn’t be better.” I roll my eyes, thinking about how frazzled she was when I walked into her house. “Can I get a strawberry shortcake bar and a Big Stick please? Apparently three-year-old’s can’t remember orders,” she teases.

  He winks at her and then moves around the vehicle. “Sure thing.”

  I shake my head in amusement as she turns around to face me and licks her lips while Jared’s backside is on full display as he bends over to reach into the freezer. The other moms all nod in agreement as they watch her. It’s like they have their own dirty moms club in which everyone is automatically a member and their meetings are held randomly like this to ogle hot twenty-something guys.

  “Here you go.” Jared hands her the treats and he hands her the change from the ten-dollar bill Taryn handed him earlier. “Who’s your friend by the way?” He throws his chin in my direction as I feel my cheeks start to flush. Am I really blushing at the man-child ice cream man?

  “That’s my best friend, Sydney.” Ally waves her fingers over at me as I shoot her a glare. “She’s single if you were wondering.”

  Jared’s eyes move down the length of me as I feel my body heat up. “I was. Nice to meet you, Sydney,” he calls out, waving his hand over at me now too.

  “Hi.” That’s all I say, all I can muster—because although I love my best friend and appreciate what she’s doing, there’s no way I’m going to open my legs to the twenty-year-old ice cream man. I do have some standards and don’t like to waste my time. Although I’m sure Jared could go all night long, I can’t. I have a job and a persona to uphold, and I haven’t been ready to let a man touch me just yet.

  “I literally give you an in, and all you say is hi?” Ally stomps back over to me and hands me the strawberry shortcake bar, then opens the Big Stick.

  “I’m not sleeping with the ice cream man,” I grit out before taking a bite. The cold and creamy mixture melts on my tongue as we start to walk back to Ally’s house while Taryn is covered in yellow stickiness all over her face.

  “You’re gonna let that go on longer?” I gesture down to my niece.

  “Yup. No sense in cleaning her until she’s done. Besides, it’s bath time once Collin gets home. That’s his job.”

  Once we arrive, Ally’s husband, who has now become one of my best friends as well, greets us at the door. We met him during our first year in law school and they fell hard and fast for each other.

  “Did we get ice cream?”

  “Yes, Daddy! I got Tweety.” Taryn reaches for him, but he avoids her sticky hands just in time.

  “Looks like you got more of him on your face and hands than in your mouth. Come on, let’s get in the bath.” He directs Taryn down the hall before stopping to greet Ally and give her a kiss. “Hey, babe. How’d it go today?”

  She wistfully looks at her husband as their faces stay inches away from each other. “It was crazy, as usual. We’ll catch up later. Sydney and I are going to go for a walk.”

  “Alright, sounds good. Nice to see you, Syd.”

  “Same to you, Collin. I heard about that case you won last week, the murder trial. Congratulations.”

  His smile stretches wide. Collin
is also a lawyer, specializing in criminal law. “Thanks. It was a big victory for the firm. How is estate planning treating you?”

  I chuckle, knowing that among lawyers, I picked the most boring specialty there is. But I actually love it. “Dull as ever, with the exception of a few custody cases that have been passed to me lately at the firm.”

  His face wrinkles in disdain. “Those can’t be fun.”

  “Nope.”

  “Alright, well you two go visit. Don’t let Ally get into too much trouble.” He winks in our direction, knowing damn well how much of a troublemaker his wife is. Back in college, I literally had to put her on leash at one point during parties so I could keep her near me. Otherwise she would run off and then call me randomly in the middle of the night to pick her up two towns away. The woman has always been crazy and adventurous, the complete opposite of me. But God, do I love her, and I think that’s why our friendship just works.

  With our tumblers of wine in hand, we take off for a stroll around her housing track, full of homes with river rock cascading up the sides, brownstone pathways, and large wooden doors. The community is definitely reminiscent of the one I grew up in just a few miles away, just on a much smaller scale.

  Newberry, Texas nights are one of the reasons I never itched to leave the town I call home nestled right outside of Dallas. One look at the sherbet-colored sky woven through light gray clouds accompanied by the slight breeze floating across your skin, and you’d see why I lived for these nights. Of course the humidity is a bitch to deal with, but the place I remained dedicated to made up for it. And Byron Kennedy, my boss, gave me an opportunity right out of law school to make a name for myself in an established firm outside of the bustling city. Despite feeling like I always had to be ‘on’ around people in our town, there was a comfort that I found from the familiar, especially when my life was threatened after work that fateful night.

  “Alright, spill. I can feel the heaviness in your chest as if it were my own. What’s going on, Syd? You shot down Jared, which I mean, I know he’s not husband material,” she jokes and I laugh at her bluntness. “But I feel like there’s something else going on. You know you can talk to me about anything, right?” Ally eyes me from the side as we cruise along the sidewalks.

  I let out a heavy sigh and then look up to the sky in reflection. “I don’t know … I’m not sleeping again.”

  “The nightmares?”

  “Yeah.” I sigh.

  “What about the sleeping pills?”

  “I stopped taking them.”

  Ally clicks her tongue. “Why? They’re meant to help you.”

  “I know. But I don’t want to depend on them for the rest of my life, Ally. I feel weak and I’m not used to feeling that way. It’s like I’m in this limbo state and the entire world is passing me by while I just try to survive day to day. Every day I battle fear and rage as little pieces of control slip through my fingers.”

  “How so?”

  “I just feel like I’m missing out on something, my life one monotonous list that repeats itself daily. And now with my dad breathing down my neck about the Andrew thing and tracking my every movement, I’m afraid that one day I’m going to wake up married to a man I don’t love and realize I regret my entire life. Do you ever feel like you’re afraid of living with regrets?”

  “Psh. All the time. I think I got married and had kids too soon. Sometimes I wonder if I married the right man, even though Collin has never given me a reason to doubt him. I play the what if game daily, especially when I’m fishing toys out of the toilet.”

  “Yeah, but at least you’re living. You have a husband and children. You partied and lived your life before you settled down. I haven’t. The only wild and crazy things I’ve ever done in my life were with you by my side. And even after the attack, if you wanna call it that, I feel like I resorted back to the same instead of taking it as a warning that life can end in an instant.”

  “You’re welcome for those stories by the way.” She nudges my shoulder playfully with hers as we continue to turn along the pathway, dodging a few other families and kids on their bikes out tonight. “But I hear you. What happened was terrifying, Syd. And I can’t blame your dad for wanting to protect you, but you don’t want to have to depend on him for that for the rest of your life, do you?”

  I shake my head. “No. And now he feels even more overbearing. That’s why I’m applying for my concealed carry license, and I think I want to take self-defense classes.”

  “I think that’s a good idea. Did they ever catch the guy?”

  “Nope. And that’s just it. Given how many people go through my father’s courtroom on a daily basis, it could have been anyone related to a case he presided over. That and he came up behind me, so I didn’t exactly get a good look at him.”

  I think back to that night often, the one where a gun was held to my head by an arm encased in a maroon sleeve as I tried to get in my car late one night after work. I can still feel the man’s hot breath on my neck as he pressed the metal barrel into my temple, telling me to watch my back and send a message to my father to make his decision wisely. My stepfather was presiding over a criminal case at the time of a well-known gang member and the media was covering it heavily. The man in question was being sentenced to life in prison on multiple counts of murder, and the person testifying against him was a member of their rival gang. I can’t help but feel that the intention to scare me was so my father would lessen the sentence or dismiss evidence, which clearly exposed how little they understood the judicial system. And even though I ran to my father and warned him, he never let it affect his decision, even though he knew my safety was being threatened.

  Since that night, he had a tracker installed on my car, an app on my phone to do the same, and a security detail that would follow me around town. The black car parked down the street from Ally’s house alerts me to the ominous presence I’ve become accustomed to. But I don’t want to live like this forever. I can’t ask my dad to not want to protect me, but if I felt more confident in my ability to protect myself, then I think that would help me sleep better at night.

  “That’s something that’s always going to happen. Anyone who works in law enforcement or the court system knows that invasion of privacy and threats come with the territory.”

  “I know. But I’m just questioning my own ability to stand up for myself.”

  Ally sighs and then pops up in her steps. “You know what you need? A night out. When’s the last time we had some fun?” Her attempt to change the subject helps lighten the conversation.

  “It has been a while since I’ve been out …”

  “Me too, and I think it would help loosen you up a bit before you go all Ronda Rousey on me and start carrying a pistol on your hip. Why don’t I ask Collin’s parents to watch the kids next weekend and we all go to The Jameson? I hear the place is off the chain!”

  I widen my eyes with shock as I look over at Ally. “Did you just say off the chain? I’m pretty sure that was the hip thing to say when we were in high school.”

  “Well, forgive me, but I’ve been too busy popping out babies to keep up with the lingo. Regardless, I think we need a night to get wasted and let loose. Collin could use it too. He’s been working like crazy. Let’s get drunk and then I can jump my husband when we get home.” She claps her hands wildly at the idea.

  “Is married sex really that boring?” I ponder out loud, ruminating on her comment from earlier while also wondering if what I’ve experienced so far is as good as it gets, which isn’t saying much. It’s not that I haven’t had the opportunities, but I guess I never allowed myself to give in to the temptation of sleeping with any guy I found attractive. It was part of that ‘good girl’ persona I tried to live up to weaving its way into my sex life as well.

  “Well, yes, and no. It’s like …” She looks up to the sky in contemplation. “It’s not as new and exciting as it was when we first got together and would jump each other every second we could.
Now there are kids cockblocking us and exhaustion to battle. But when we do connect, it’s a comfort that I can’t explain. He knows what I like and vice versa. I’m not worried about my stretch marks or my stomach being flat because I know he loves me for me. And when I feel him hover over me, I feel safe and loved unconditionally, which is a level of intimacy I don’t think you can get anywhere else.”

  “Sounds amazing …”

  She sighs. “It is. But sometimes I miss the wild—the carefree, scream your lungs out, being fucked within an inch of your life sex.”

  An older woman walks by us and shoots Ally a nasty glare.

  “Apparently you’re too bold for her,” I acknowledge.

  “She’s just jealous because she’s not getting any.”

  “I’ve never been fucked like that, Ally,” I whisper as we come up to some empty fields with foundations poured for new houses being built.

  “Never? Not even by Michael?” she asks, referencing the boyfriend I had a few years ago. We were serious and I thought he was the one, but he got a job offer in New York that he didn’t want to pass up, and I had no desire to leave Texas.

  “Nope. He wouldn’t even fuck me on the kitchen counter.”

  “Well, did you ask him?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She stops me cold and faces me head on. “Sydney, men can’t read minds. You literally have to tell them what you want most of the time.”

  “Do you do that with Collin?”

  She nods. “Yeah, I do. Sometimes I want it rougher, sometimes slow, and smooth. But he won’t know that unless I tell him.”

  “But it’s so awkward,” I say with a crinkle of my nose, even though this conversation is making me think of all the things I’d want a man to do to me at this very moment. I’ve just never been bold enough to ask.

  “Okay, that’s it. We’re going out next weekend, and your goal is to have a one-night stand with a guy and tell him everything you want him to do to you.”