by Sierra Hill
And reality bites like a motherfucker.
32
Sutton
It’s just after eight p.m. when we decide to return to Miles’s childhood home for the night, the house his grandmother left behind when she moved into the nursing facility. We’d stopped by my parents’ house for a brief chat, but after the confrontation with his Granny, Miles was visibly worn out, so we didn’t stay long.
My mother gave me a curious lift of her brow before we left her house but didn’t say a word when I mentioned staying the night with Miles. Not that she’d say anything anyway, since I’m a twenty-five-year-old adult who no longer lives under their roof or by their rules.
Our three-block walk between the two homes is relatively quiet, as we hold hands and maneuver the streets that I’ve known by heart since I was a kid.
“Miles,” I whisper, my voice sounding abnormally loud in the quiet silence of the mid-summer evening. “I’m not going to pry or push, but have you considered talking to a therapist?”
I’d been contemplating saying something to him since I found him in the hallway weeks ago, knowing how far gone he was over all that he’s lost over the years. And the burden also includes the decline of his grandmother’s health and mental fitness. It’s just too much for any one person to bear alone.
Miles snaps his eyes down to me. “For what?”
Whether he’s pretending or is just resistant to the idea, I don’t know. But I’m not going to sidestep this important suggestion.
“A grief counselor. For the feelings and emotions you’ve obviously shut down all these years, that are likely resurfacing with your granny’s situation.”
He makes a scoffing noise. “I’m good. Thanks.”
He uses a key and unlocks the door into the small, three-bedroom bungalow-style home his grandmother no longer occupies. As we step across the threshold, I can still smell the spices that used to waft through the kitchen and hear traces of the arguments between brother and sister that always seemed to occur. He may have been a protective older brother to Melodie, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t love to antagonize the hell out of his little sister.
I’m about to say more about the need for counseling when Miles shuts and locks the door and, without a word, reaches for my wrist and pulls me into the living room.
“All the help I need is right here in this room with me tonight.”
I lick my lips as his descend on mine, nipping hard and sampling me like I’m his dessert he passed on earlier.
Whimpering at the slight sting of his kiss, my breath hitches when he speaks against my lips.
“I need your mouth on my cock again, Sutton. I want to give these beautiful full lips all the attention they deserve and watch them wrap around my cock and see it disappear in your mouth.”
Mmm, yes, I want that too.
I drop my hand between us to the front of his jeans, grasping his erection that bulges underneath. Stroking up and down with enough pressure to ensure it’s felt all the way down to his toes, I get a flutter of satisfaction as he grunts with pleasure.
“On your knees, Button.”
The command elicits an unsuppressed shiver that runs up my spine. Before I drop to the floor, Miles cups my face and kisses me with endearing tenderness. So contradictory from his rough, sexy commands. My breasts rise and fall with heaviness, nipples distending with the need to be plucked and teased.
Falling to my knees, I reach for his belt, unbuckling and then unzipping as I take his cock out, the sight of it making my mouth water with anticipation. Miles shimmies out of his jeans, pushing them down to the floor and out of the way. He then reaches down and lifts my shirt over my head and unclasps my bra.
“I want to feel these jiggle in my touch every time you swallow me down,” he says while cupping my breasts before moving one hand to guide my head toward his swollen cock.
My thighs clench at his dirty words and devious deeds, and there is no one else I’d want to tell me these naughty fantasies.
My fingers lace around the base of his shaft, hard and satiny soft all at once, and lick the top of the crown. I swirl my tongue around the rim, flicking the sensitive slit and then wrap my lips around him firmly. With each action, each deliberate move, I extract a groan from Miles’s throat and chest, and there is no better sound in the world to my ears.
His thrusts soon become rough, breaths ragged, as I continue to suck and lick and swallow him down, moaning around his throbbing girth. It doesn’t take long before his hips jerk unevenly, his panting loud, and his fingers steel their grip in my hair, controlling the pace of my moves.
“I’m close, Button. So fucking close. I want to see you swallow me down, baby. Every fucking drop.”
The words are music to my ears, flooding my panties with arousal so hot, I can’t stop myself from touching myself.
When I slip my hand down my shorts, my fingers easily glide over my wet sex. I moan, the vibration striking a chord and turning Miles into a beast.
Miles palms my breast roughly, plumping and squeezing, my nipple pebbling stiffly and shooting zings of pleasure to my clit. My climax hits me hard, abruptly, and violently as I cry out. At the same time, Miles’s grip tightens in my hair, and his body stills. His cock begins pulsing as a stream of hot liquid hits the back of my throat, coating my tongue, sliding down my throat as I swallow all of him just like he asked.
I blink up at him from below, my mouth still full of him to find his gaze has gone soft with post-orgasm afterglow. He slowly disengages, pulling his semi-hard dick from my mouth, and uses a thumb to wipe away the remnants of him from across my lip.
I take his offered hand and stand to my feet as he angles his head into my neck and nibbles my skin. He continues biting his way up to my earlobe, where he tugs it between his teeth.
“Did I see you finger fucking yourself to orgasm?” he asks, just as easily as he could have asked me if the sky is blue.
I nod sheepishly. “Yes.”
“Give me that hand.”
Chewing on my lip, I deliberate for a second and then lift the hand I used to finger myself. My fingers are coated with my essence, and the menacing stare from Miles makes me think I’ve done something wrong. He snags my wrist without warning, the action so sharp I snap my head back.
And then I watch with parted lips as he sucks my fingers into his mouth, the tip of his tongue flicking over my fingertips, and then pulls them back out.
The corners of my lips curve up into a sideways grin, and I cheekily ask, “Miles? What are your thoughts on fucking me in your childhood bed?”
A boom of laughter erupts from his chest. “I’d have to say I have plenty of thoughts on that. Let me demonstrate.”
33
Miles
The morning sun streams in through the old, plaid curtains of my childhood bedroom, casting enough light to color the room in warm, orangish-yellow hues. And to paint a sleeping Sutton in an angelic glow.
But I know the truth now about Sutton. She is far from an angel after all the dirty fucking we did last night.
Her hair cascades over the pillow like an autumn leaf falling to the ground. She sleeps curled in a tight cocoon, her hands drawn up under her chin in a prayer position.
And dear God, did I hear her screaming the lord’s name over and over again last night in feverish prayer as we came together several times in unlawful carnal knowledge.
Which has me horny-as-fuck right now just thinking about it.
I thought it would be weird to sleep with her in my childhood bedroom. In a house where we grew up, where every room holds a memory of a young Sutton and my sister. Where I would chase them around like a lunatic, pretending to be a monster. Or play Go Fish or board games, or I’d tell them ghost stories on Halloween after we returned from trick-or-treating and rummaged through our loot.
But none of those memories warranted a moment’s consideration as I slid into her each time, her willingness to accept me for who I am and who I’ve been is t
he only thing that brings me any measure of comfort these days.
As if she knows I’m thinking about her, Sutton rolls over to her back to find me blatantly ogling her naked form.
“What are you staring at?” Her morning voice is raspy and throaty, not dissimilar to the way her voice rasped last night.
I place a kiss on her bare shoulder and trail my finger over her collarbone, descending a path between her cleavage, discarding the sheet as I go.
“This has to be the best sleepover I’ve ever had in this house.”
Sutton blushes, giggling from under her arm that covers her face. “But I have morning breath and messy hair and no make-up.”
“None of which I care about because you are beautiful any time of day.” I remove her arm from her face and brush the strands of hair out of her eyes. “I’m just sorry it took me so goddamn long to figure that out, Button.”
She rolls to the side to face me, my palm dropping to her shoulder as I run my knuckles over the smooth velvety skin I’ve been itching to touch since I woke earlier this morning.
I’ve actually been awake for an hour now. After using the bathroom, letting Blackie outside and feeding him, and putting on a pot of coffee, I returned to watch a sleeping Sutton. I tried to conjure up all the memories I could of her and Mel back in the day, and if at any point, I saw her as anything more than my sister’s friend.
Perhaps had there not been such a noticeable age gap as kids, it might have been different. But by the time I left for college, she and Mel were still in middle school, jailbait for an eighteen-year-old guy. And it never dawned on me to think twice about Button.
The fact that I have no recollection of the kiss we shared the day of Mel’s funeral is just a travesty. By that time, Sutton was a senior in high school and had matured enough not to be seen as a little girl or kid. I’m sure she was just as striking then as she is now. She has a natural beauty and sensual sweetness that radiates outwardly to the world.
All I remember of that day is that I was mired in grief and completely inconsolable. Filled with so much anger and rage over losing my baby sister that I was blind to anything or anyone around me. Even the beautiful, starry-eyed girl who was eager to share in my grief and be a shoulder to cry on.
Sutton smiles up through her long lashes, and I bend down to kiss the top of her forehead.
“We can’t change the past, Miles. But I’m really liking the direction the future is taking now.”
A phone buzzing in the distance pulls us out of our bubble, and I pat around the bed to see if I can find it. Sutton rolls to the side, grabbing her phone, scrolling through some texts as they appear on her display, and her eyes grow wide with panicked shock.
“Oh my God,” she says, throwing off the sheet and jumping out of bed, searching the vicinity for her clothes. “I’ve got to go home, Miles. It’s my boss, my friend Lucy. It’s her son. They’re at Children’s Hospital. He has to go in for emergency surgery. I. . . I. . .”
I roll out of bed, throwing on some shorts and a T-shirt that I found in the dresser bureau as I go in search of the lost articles of clothing deposited last night somewhere on the floor.
When I return to the bedroom, tears flow down Sutton’s sad face, and she’s trembling out of shock.
“Hey, Button. You’re okay.” I sit down on the bed next to her, cradling her in my open arms. “We’ll go back, but there’s nothing you can do in the meantime except let her know you’re coming, and you’re praying for her. Can you do that? Or do you want me to text her?”
She hands me the phone with quaking hands and runs to the bathroom and slams the door behind her, where I hear her sobbing in inconsolable grief.
Ah, shit. My poor Button.
And I understand what it’s like to be unable to take away someone else’s pain and agony from them.
I type out a brief text to Lucy on her phone and head toward the hallway, waiting for Sutton to wash up.
“Are you okay now?” I ask her through the bathroom door.
Her weak response tells me she’s lying. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just give me a little bit.”
“Of course. I’ll be right here when you’re ready to go.”
I begin pacing the hallway and end up on the far end where Mel’s old room had been. The door is shut, probably not been opened for over a year. I’m not sure how often Granny had gone in there. For me, there’s still far too many memories and ghosts living in this room. But seeing as I have nothing but time to wait, I open the door and step in.
It’s been seven years since I’ve stepped foot into this room. How strange is that?
There are posters of bands I’ve never heard of on the wall, a desk in the corner with framed pictures and books, knick-knacks, and swimming trophies. I see three frames on the wall shelf, along with a wooden box decorated with painted flowers in yellow and pink.
I stare at one of the framed pictures of Mel and me on my high school graduation day. I’m a foot and a half taller than her, so I’m bent over her like a tree, casting a shadow over her small form, my bright blue tassel from my cap dangling in her face. Her smile is big and bright. And she looked so happy.
What went wrong, Mel? Why didn’t I see it?
Another picture grabs my attention. This one is Mel and a younger Sutton. They’re both in swimsuits, their gangly teen arms flung around each other’s shoulders in proud celebration, with medals hanging from their necks. It must’ve been from one of their middle school swim meets where they’d finished in first and second place. Their smiles tell it all.
Sutton’s smile hasn’t changed in the least, even though her appearance is so vastly different from her pre-pubescent days. At that age, she was a tall, skinny girl with toothpicks for legs. Short cropped hair that never seemed to lay flat and teeth that bucked out in the front with a bit of a gap in the middle. There’s hardly any resemblance to the woman she is now.
“I remember that day like it was yesterday.”
Sutton’s voice startles me as she steps into my peripheral view, reaching for the photo and picking it up in her grasp. Her smile is wan, but filled with a tender sadness, as she replaces it on the shelf.
“She was such a natural swimmer. Competitive to a fault, but she was always striving to achieve perfection. God, Miles. She would’ve gone so far in whatever career or field she chose. I just wish. . .”
I close my arms around her and hold her, clinging to our connection and the spirit of Mel.
“I know, Button. I know. I wish, too.”
34
Sutton
Miles dropped Blackie and me off at the apartment so I could shower and change before rushing back over to the store. Lucy indicated no visitors were allowed just yet for Antonio at the hospital, but I was getting regular updates from her via text as she learned more from the doctor on the status of his condition.
She said they’d diagnosed him with pediatric Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel disease that may require surgery to remove an inflamed part of his intestine. My heart sank as I read her texts.
Lucy: Dr says they won’t know the extent of the damage until they have a CT scan and ultrasound. Then they might have to perform surgery.
Lucy: My baby boy might have to have a portion of his colon removed.
Lucy: I am not okay.
I racked my brain trying to think of something—anything—that I could do to alleviate her pain and worry, but it’s impossible to do. She has her family and husband, Juan, by her side, and all I can do is let her know I’ll take care of things at the store, so she doesn’t have to worry.
Me: I’m so sorry, Lucy. Please don’t worry about the shop, I’ll take care of things for you. Just stay strong and know I’ll be here if you need me. Praying for you and Antonio. Xoxo
The words rang true, but hollow, as I could only console in her time of need. No mother should have to go through that with their children, and it broke my heart for this woman, who through insurmountable odds, raised three ch
ildren and built a business that flourished through her tireless pursuit of perfection.
The weight of despair weighs heavily on my mind and heart as I finally get to the store to relieve the other part-time employee, Camilla, who is assisting with a customer at the moment.
Traipsing into the back storeroom, I lock my purse away in the small footlocker Lucy has for each of us and pin my nametag on my shirt. I check the clipboard hanging on the wall to see there’s a delivery scheduled for today, which means I’ll be handling inventory late into the evening tonight.
Which is just as well, it’ll help me keep my mind off of everything going on—with both Lucy and Miles.
What a crazy, wild, and emotional trip it was back to Mystic. While Miles didn’t become overly defensive when I mentioned grief counseling to him, he didn’t exactly seem thrilled by the prospect, either.
As a student of psychology, it seems clearly obvious to me that Miles has suppressed his grief over the years, and it’s eating away at him, just as Antonio’s gut disease is doing to him. The two things may be unlike in how they manifest in a person, but each equally, and without compassion, will tear at the fabric of their internal systems and destroy them if not handled properly.
For Antonio, it may mean surgery and a lifetime of medications and treatments.
For Miles, it could be managed by seeing a therapist and unloading all that grief he’s been holding onto for years.
The remainder of the day passes by relatively quickly, the shop being busy on a weekend day. Miles texted me once, earlier on in the day, and I responded with a quick, “talk later” reply because we’d been slammed.
When I did finally get a chance to text him a real reply, I mentioned I’d be working late after the shop closed to handle the inventory and restocking.
Miles: Can I bring you something to eat?
Me: You are so sweet. You don’t have to, but I’d love it.
