Just My Type

by Tara Sivec

  We both laugh, and I shake my head at her. Of course I called her as soon as I got in the door the night of the aquarium, telling her everything in explicit detail. And the best part is, it wasn’t so I could pick it apart and analyze every single minute, like I would normally do. I told her everything, because I wanted to relive it. From the ridiculous nerves in the Jeep, to swimming with otters, to the best orgasm of my life, and ending with several bags of fast food, sitting on my front stoop, where Baker made me tell him funny stories about Lincoln as a baby, while we shoveled french fries and cheeseburgers in our faces.

  “It’s more than the diddling,” I tell her honestly. “I like him. I really like him. And I don’t give a shit if it’s too soon. He makes me happy. He makes me want to like living here, because that’s where he is.”

  “Jesus, look at you getting all in touch with your feelings and shit,” Brooklyn says in awe. “My little country girl is all grown up, becoming citified and mature.”

  I snort at the southern twang she adds to her voice, even though we don’t have any kind of twang in Montana.

  “Well, you did the same thing; you just did it backward,” I remind her.

  Even though Brooklyn grew up with Clint and me in White Timber, she’d always dreamed of bigger and better things. She moved to New York right after graduation, and her visits home were few and far between, only zipping in to see her dad before zipping right back out. Her glamourous life in New York turned into a dumpster fire at the same time her dad had to have major heart surgery, bringing Brooklyn back home, where she never left again.

  “And look how great that turned out. I hated this place, and now I can’t imagine ever leaving again,” Brooklyn says wistfully. “But before you become a stuck-up city snob like I used to be, you need to come home for the reopening of the farm, and get you some good country lovin’.”

  I laugh as I glance over at the wall calendar that hangs on the front of my fridge. I’m old-school, and still hand-write mine and Lincoln’s schedule on a calendar. It brings me great joy that I don’t have to push any buttons or type in seven passwords just to find out what time I need to be somewhere. By that point, I’m already late.

  I don’t have to look long to see when the date of the reopening is. Lincoln always draws a big, orange pumpkin around that date every year with crayons or markers, even these last couple, when we hadn’t been able to go home. Lincoln’s carefully drawn pumpkin on the calendar tells me it’s a little less than a month away.

  “Stop staring at your calendar, worrying that it’s less than a month away,” Brooklyn orders, reading my mind like always. “Your brother already booked your plane tickets, and don’t even think of bitching about him paying for them. It will put him in a mood that will not allow his penis to fully cooperate in the festivities I have planned for it this evening, after the girls go to bed.”

  Now it’s my turn to pull a Clint, as I cover my mouth and start gagging while Brooklyn ignores me.

  “Also, he booked three plane tickets. One for your pool diddling, gentlemen caller as well,” Brooklyn informs me, wagging her eyebrows up and down like a creepy lecher.

  My gagging immediately stops, and I slowly drop my hand from my mouth.

  “How in the hell did he book Baker a plane ticket? He needs his date of birth and all that shit,” I remind her in confusion.

  “You sent me a screenshot of his sister’s text to you. The one about him crying over a Frisbee or whatever,” Brooklyn states. “You still had her number as her contact name. I sent her a text, got Baker’s info, voilà, plane ticket booked.”

  I’m too stunned to reply before Brooklyn says she has to go, and she quickly ends the call, telling me to call her after the weekend. When her face disappears from the screen, the timer goes off on the oven, so I get up from the table and pull my homemade mac and cheese out.

  I cannot believe Blake never said anything to me about Brooklyn texting her. Does Baker know? Does he think it’s weird my family booked him a plane ticket without me mentioning it to him? Has he not said anything, because he thinks I’m going to keep it from him, drug him, tie him up, and kidnap him to Montana?

  My excitement about going home bubbles up a few notches knowing Baker might be going with us. You know, as long as he wants to, and he knows I would only tie him up in a naked, sexual way, and not in an illegal, kidnappy way. It’s been too long since Lincoln and I have gotten to experience the yearly reopening of Hastings Pumpkin Farm. My brother goes all out on the first day of the year, with bounce houses and face painting, games and cotton candy machines, and tractor rides and food trucks. The farm is filled every year with the entire town having fun and celebrating another harvest for my family.

  I’m not just excited because I miss home. The butterflies flapping around in my stomach right now are because I want Baker there. I want him to see where I grew up, I want him to meet the most important people in my life, and I want him to really know me. Who I am, and where I come from. I’m not going to make the entire long weekend sad, and depressing, and snot all over everything, feeling sorry for myself when I have to leave. I’m going to enjoy the time I have there, and then come back here, where I have other things I can enjoy that make me equally as happy.

  Looking down at my dirty T-shirt and old, ratty jean shorts, I quickly put foil over top of the mac and cheese before running down the hallway to my bedroom. On the way, I stop to quickly poke my head in Lincoln’s room right across from mine.

  “Everything good?”

  Lincoln nods, sitting in a beanbag chair in the middle of his room, with Ron Jeremy curled up on his stomach, watching a movie on his iPad.

  “I’m going to take a quick shower. Knock if you need anything,” I tell him.

  He replies with a thumbs-up, and I back out of his doorway and race across the hall. Yanking my T-shirt off my body and flinging it on the end of the bed as I go, I pull open my closet door and stare at the mess inside.

  Might as well put in a little effort if I’m going to convince Baker to come home with me. Can’t really show off a lot of boob with my son in the house. Ass, the next best thing. Smiling when I see exactly what I’m looking for, I yank both items out of my closet and run into the bathroom to take a quick shower.

  Who needs horse tranquilizers when I’ve got the same outfit I wore in my Facebook profile picture?

  “Are you trying to kill me?” Baker mutters a soon as I open the front door, happy that I chose the correct outfit for this evening.

  “Just thought you should jerk off to the real thing instead of a picture on your phone,” I tell him cheekily, slowly turning around in the open doorway.

  My smile is cut off when he immediately joins me in the doorway as soon as I finish my turn, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me up and against the front of his body. With the cropped tank top I’m wearing, I can feel his warm hand pressed flat against the skin of my lower back, and I let out a little shiver when I feel it slowly start creeping down to my ass.

  “With this ass, in those jeans, I’m going to be jerking off all over your—”

  “Mom! When’s dinner?” Lincoln shouts.

  At the sound of my son’s voice, Baker launches himself off me so quickly his back slams into the opposite side of the small entryway. I laugh when I see him holding both of his hands up in the air like someone just threatened him with a gun, a plastic grocery bag I didn’t even notice before hanging off of one elbow.

  “He’s an eight-year-old, not the sheriff of my virtue,” I whisper to Baker with another laugh, when he finally drops his arms as we hear footsteps pounding through the house.

  “You just keep that ass over there, far away from me,” Baker whispers back, pointing at me to emphasize his point. “Christ, I should have changed into jeans before I left work.”

  Baker shakes his head as he looks down at himself, and I already know why he’s annoyed. I felt it poking into my stomach when he yanked me against him. I can’t stop licking my
lips and looking at him in those slim, black athletic pants with a white stripe down the side, and fitted white T-shirt, knowing Baker is annoyed, because those pants don’t provide as much hugging support as a pair of jeans. I’m not annoyed in the least that the snake in his pants is just going to be swinging around in there, with easy access for it to be set free, into the wild. No buttons to unbutton, no zippers to slide down. I can just reach my hand in there and—

  “Mom! When are we eating?” Lincoln asks again when he flies around the corner.

  I jump when I hear his voice, snapping my eyes up from the crotch of Baker’s pants to find him smirking at me. Lincoln steps between us, and I quickly look away from Baker to smile down at my son.

  “We’re eating as soon as you wash your hands and put Ron Jeremy back in his cage,” I tell him as he waves at Baker before focusing on me again.

  “Why are your neck and your cheeks all red? Are you sick?”

  I hear Baker snort from behind Lincoln, and I refuse to look up at him over my son’s head to give him any kind of satisfaction that those athletic pants have trumped my stupid jeans.

  “Just… go wash your hands,” I mutter.

  “Hey, Baker, can we play hide-and-seek with Ron Jeremy later?” Lincoln asks him before walking away from us.

  Baker pushes away from his side of the wall, walking up to Lincoln while he pulls a small box out of the grocery bag he brought with him.

  “Since your mom made dinner and dessert, I brought drinks,” Baker tells him, handing Lincoln a box of Capri Suns. “We can play hide-and-seek after we clean up from dinner.”

  Lincoln lets out a cheer, and I grab his arm to stop him before he can go racing past me.

  “You’re not drinking the whole box,” I tell him, glancing down at the box he’s hugging to his chest.

  “Okay, how about five?” Lincoln counters.

  “Two.”

  “Twelve!” he shouts.

  “That’s not how negotiating works. Two, and that’s my final answer.”

  “Ugghh, fine.” Lincoln rolls his eyes before dramatically stomping away from us.

  I hear him drop the box on the counter as he passes through the kitchen, and then his footsteps get faster as he runs back to his bedroom to get Ron Jeremy.

  Baker finally steps back over to me, pulling a bottle out of his grocery bag and handing it to me.

  “This bottle of gin says Hedgehog on it.” I smile up at him.

  “This bottle of gin also has a dashing picture of Ron Jeremy on a motorcycle,” Baker points out. “Our boy has his own line of gin called Hedgehog. It brings a tear to your eyes, doesn’t it? Knowing that little R.J. is named after such a great man with big dick, boozy dreams?”

  Hugging the bottle of clear liquid to my chest with one hand, I step closer to Baker and push up on my toes, pressing my other hand against his chest as I lean up and kiss him. It’s just a few little pecks, but then he pulls my bottom lip through his teeth during one. And then I run my tongue along his bottom lip during another. And then Baker’s hand is cupping my cheek during the next. And then Baker groans my name under his breath after the last, and then my mouth opens for him, because I need this. I need this quiet, stolen, naughty moment in my entryway, his tongue lazily swirling around mine, telling me nothing has changed since the night at the aquarium a week ago. That there’s still this spark of electricity between us that neither one of us can control.

  My hand is now clutching his T-shirt in my fist, and I’m pulling him closer, letting him kiss me deeper, and longer, breathing into him and getting lost in every swipe of his tongue against mine. Baker moans into my mouth, and his arm is suddenly banded tightly around me, trying to bring me closer, but I’m still holding this goddamn bottle of hedgehog booze between us. He sucks my tongue into his mouth, and I whimper for more, clutching the bottle of gin tighter, preparing to launch it across the room so I can feel him against me, and relieve some of this ache this mouth of his has created.

  “Mom! Ron Jeremy pooped in the hallway!”

  Baker is suddenly laughing into my mouth, and we have to break the kiss before one of us chokes. This time, he doesn’t fly away from me as soon as he hears Lincoln’s voice shouting from the hallway. Lincoln is far enough away, and there’s no pounding of footsteps, so I know he’s going to stay far enough away for the time being. Baker is a fast learner. His body is still pressed against mine, arm is still wrapped firmly around my waist, and his hand is still cupping my cheek.

  “I’ll be there in a minute!” I shout, my eyes never leaving Baker’s, my fist loosening its hold on the front of his shirt. “Welcome to Friday night with a single mom, where we’ll spend the evening breaking apart every time he comes in the room, and you’ll think back and remember the good old days, when you could have spontaneous kitchen sex on the counter whenever you wanted, and you’ll never love the word bedtime more. Until you find out bedtime can last anywhere from five minutes to two hours, depending on how many demands are made and arguments are had with the tiny human who rules this house, and then the only thing you’ll want to do in the kitchen is sleep.”

  Baker leans forward and gives me a quick kiss when I finally finish word-vomiting, before pulling back again with a smile, his thumb rubbing back and forth against my cheek that he still holds in his hand.

  “Tell me more about this spontaneous kitchen sex. Can I use a spatula? More importantly, can you use a spatula?” Baker asks, a serious, questioning look on his face.

  All I can do is shake my head at him and laugh, because he’s ridiculous. And because I have no fucking clue what the rules are for spontaneous kitchen sex. Brandon didn’t do out-of-the-bedroom sex, and after we had Lincoln, he didn’t do it at any time other than before bed. He didn’t do spontaneity, either. The last time I had sex when it wasn’t scheduled or squeezed in really quick at the end of a long day before we both passed out from exhaustion was… high school.

  Which is why my only knowledge of sex as a mom is that of an exhausted one at the end of a long day, who just spent thirty minutes arguing with her son about the fact that it was bedtime, and then had to remind him five times to brush his teeth before telling him to go back and do it again when there was still a mysterious film on them. Then, another hour will go by when her son suddenly remembers as soon as his head hits the pillow that he forgot to do something for homework. She wanted sex earlier before that entire shit-show happened, but now she just really wants to fall asleep reading a book.

  “Hey, look at me.”

  I pull my eyes away from the spot on Baker’s shirt I had been staring at, to look up at him. His other arm comes around me then, sliding around my lower back and pulling me closer.

  “I haven’t even been here fifteen minutes yet, and I’m already loving Friday night with a single mom. I don’t care where or when. I don’t care if we have to sneak away and be quiet, or if you want to be alone and scream your head off. I’m game for the kitchen, the roof, or across the street in the fucking neighbor’s yard,” Baker tells me. “I came over here, because I wanted to be with you, not just to have sex with you. I don’t care if it’s next week, or a month from now.”

  Baker’s head leans down, sliding his cheek against mine until his mouth is right by my ear.

  “Whenever, and however it happens,” he speaks in a low voice, “I’m gonna be inside you, and you’re damn well gonna know it, Tink.”

  Judging by the heavy pulsing between my thighs, and the wetness in my underwear right now, it was definitely a wonderful idea to change Baker’s name in my phone to Tiny Dick Nubbin.

  I’ve never known what it’s like to want someone so much you don’t know if you’ll be able to wait until you’re completely alone to have them, and you just say “fuck it” and get creative, because you can’t wait. But I do now. Jesus God, I do now.

  “I’m gonna be inside you, and you’re damn well gonna know it, Tink.”

  Baker drops his hand from my cheek and his arm from arou
nd my waist, kissing the top of my head before he turns and starts walking away.

  “I’ll handle the hallway poop. You put the food on the table,” Baker says over his shoulder, his voice getting louder as he disappears around the corner. “And you know I meant that in a ‘You did a wonderful job preparing it and I don’t want to get in your way of setting it out’ way, and not in a chauvinistic, ‘Get in the kitchen and fix me my dinner’ way, so don’t poison my food. Kisses!”

  I’m still laughing as I carry the warm pan of mac and cheese to the kitchen table a few minutes later. And I’m still turned on. Baker said he didn’t care if we waited a week, or a month, and I know he meant it. Even if we did wait, I’d still be a mom. I’d still have interruptions, and obligations, and I’d still have someone else living under the same roof as me.

  Fuck waiting. I’ve been unintentionally celibate for long enough. I like Baker. I more than like Baker. And I want him to screw my brains out immediately. So what if we have to be creative and sneaky?

  Yep, it’s official. Looks like Baker’s original plans for us tonight are back on. Time for some creative, hurry-so-we-don’t-get-caught funny business.

  CHAPTER 24

  Ember

  Assless Chaps and a Cattle Prod

  “This is absurd. Get him off the table.”

  Both Baker and my son completely ignore me, their unblinking, wide eyes glued to the same spot—the empty place setting at my small kitchen nook table for four, where there is now a tiny table, and a tiny chair. And a tiny Ron Jeremy, sitting on that tiny chair, at the tiny table, at his own goddamn place setting.

  “I will do no such thing,” Baker states quietly, his voice in awe as he continues staring at Ron Jeremy eating little cut-up pieces of watermelon, apple, and carrots. “Look at how majestic he is, sitting there at that table.”