“Yeah. If he wasn’t a problem.”
He glanced in my direction. “Keep doing what I’m doing. Luis says prison’s no good. He said he’s never going back.”
“Well,” I said as I stood. “Listen to your abuela, and don’t become colorblind. And remember, things always have their own way of working out. Just give it a little more time. I’m sure everything will be fine.”
He stood, turned to face me, and wiped the wrinkles from the legs of his khakis. “Mr. Eagan?”
I reached for the empty bottle. “Yeah?”
“I’ll see you at four.”
I tossed the bottle into the trash. “See you at four.”
He walked to the door, pulled it open, and hesitated. As I pulled my mask over my mouth and grabbed the file, he peered over his shoulder. “Thank you.”
I nodded and waved.
As I watched him ride away on his bicycle, I pulled off my mask, laid the file on the bench, and placed the surfboard in the rack. One more day wouldn’t matter to the customer. One more day to Juan might change his life forever.
And I knew a little too much about altering the path of a child’s life.
***
I walked into the restaurant, surveyed the few patrons, and fixed my eyes on who I suspected was Big Lopez.
Sitting alone at a table eating, he was wearing khakis, a plaid button-down, and had a hat on top of his very large head with the word BIG embroidered across the front. By my guess, he weighed an easy three hundred pounds.
Soft mariachi music filled the air as I walked directly to the table, pulled out the chair across from him, and sat down.
Without looking up from his plate of tamales, he spoke. His thick accent was a complete contrast to Juan’s almost perfect English. “You lost?”
“You know,” I said. “Temptation’s a bitch.”
He pushed his chair away from the table slightly and studied me. “Something you need to say?”
“Juan Ramirez, Luis’ little brother. After Luis went to prison, I started looking after him. You know, like a big brother. And now I see my younger brother tempted to do something that I don’t agree with.”
I leaned forward, pressing my forearms into the edge of the table. “So, I’ve got to do what any big brother would do.”
He wiped the corner of his mouth with his napkin and widened his eyes as if feigning interest.
“I’ve got to step in and make sure he does what’s right,” I said.
“That’s what you’re doing?” he asked with a deep laugh. “Stepping in?”
I leaned away from the table and nodded. “I’ve stepped in.”
He pressed his thumb against the bill of his hat and lifted it slightly. “You think some guero throwing a buck-eighty at me is going to make me flinch?”
I glared back at him. “I look at Juan as my responsibility. He’s not coming to work for you. Not now. Not ever. My best advice to you is to avoid him at all costs.”
He glanced over each shoulder, fixed his eyes on mine, and grinned as he pulled his hat down tight against his head. “Hijo de la chingada. You got some balls, homie. Coming in here threatening me.”
I shook my head. “I haven’t threatened you. Yet.”
Almost hidden by the bill of his hat, his brown eyes narrowed.
I stood from my seat glared at him. “Ask yourself this. Is the risk worth the reward?”
He tilted his head back slightly and gazed back at me. “Depends, Guero. What’s my risk?”
Without responding, I turned and walked toward the door believing that some things were best left to the imagination.
And I had one hell of an imagination.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LIV
We walked along the beach no differently than we had a thousand times in the past, but to me, the experience was much more satisfying. I would have never guessed it to be possible, but I felt a deeper connection to Luke since we started having sex. I had convinced myself during my campaign to become fuck buddies that nothing between us would change, but things sure seemed to be different. The differences weren’t things I could identify or pinpoint, but I had become much more satisfied in his presence than I had ever been before.
“How was Black’s?” I asked, referring to his day of surfing at Black’s Beach.
“Racetrack lefts all day, but the offshore wind kept ‘em coming in, and I kept riding ‘em,” he said.
“Sounds like a good day.”
“It was.”
Lefts and rights were some of the types of waves, referencing whether or not the wave broke to the left or right. I understood very little of the terminology, but I knew enough to smile and nod if Luke was happy about his day of surfing.
“So,” he said. “Are you enjoying this new arrangement?”
I was enjoying it, but didn’t necessarily want him to fully understand just how much I was. At least not completely. I was afraid if he felt things were changing between us he would want to go back to the way things were. Personally, the thought of that ever happening was beginning to scare me.
“I am, are you?”
He nodded. “Strange, but I’m fucking loving it.”
Strange?
“Why strange?” I asked.
“I just never thought we’d end up here,” he said.
“Is that bad?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “It’s not bad, it’s just seems odd. I mean, we’ve been friends for almost twenty years, and here we are. Friends with benefits.”
I turned to him and grinned. “I like fuck buddies.”
He chuckled. “Okay. Fuck buddies.”
In the past, I often felt embarrassed when looking at Luke with his shirt off. Even at the beach, I felt a need to turn away after a quick glance, almost as if I didn’t have the right to admire him. After we started fucking, I felt differently, and now enjoyed gawking at him at length.
As we walked along the edge of where the ocean met the sand, I pressed my toes into the beach and twisted them as we walked, trailing slightly behind Luke. He walked in a steady pace, and never really goofed off, always seeming to be on a mission with a much deeper meaning. After falling behind by a considerable amount, I would run to catch up, admiring the form of the muscles in his back all along the way.
“I don’t want to sound like a weirdo,” I said as I ran up to his side. “But you seem bigger than normal. You know, more muscular.”
“Think so?” he asked.
“Uh huh,” I said. “I do.”
The San Diego sun was warm on my shoulders, but the breeze off the ocean was cool, as always. Luke seemed unaffected by the temperature changes, always wearing shorts and rarely wearing a shirt. He was a person who enjoyed nature much more than technology, and it seemed he felt a tighter connection to the earth the less clothing he wore.
“I may have gained a few pounds with all that you’ve been feeding me. That, and as much surfing as I’ve been doing. Carrying that board up and down to Black’s is a bitch.”
To the best of my knowledge, he didn’t own a scale, and probably had no idea of what he even weighed. I, on the other hand, weighed myself sometimes more than once a day, always worried I was on my way to becoming obese, although I really knew it would never happen.
“Do you have a scale?” I asked.
“A what?”
“A scale.”
“Like, to weigh myself?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure don’t. Can’t see much sense in it.”
I shrugged. “You’d know how much you weigh.”
He stopped walking and turned to face me. “And what good would that do me?”
I stopped and twisted my hips back and forth, grinding my feet into the wet sand. “Well, you could see if you’re gaining weight or losing it, and change your diet or whatever to try and be where you wanted to be. Just like everyone else who has one.”
He glared at me for a second and turned away as if I had just recommended he rob a b
ank. After he was ten or fifteen feet away, I shook my head and ran to catch up.
“I was just wondering if you’ve gained weight, don’t get all butt hurt.” I chuckled.
He paused and turned toward me. “When I’m hungry, I eat. When I’m full I stop. I exercise because I enjoy it and it provides me peace of mind. A scale isn’t going to change anything,” he said.
“Fine. But you look like you’ve gained weight,” I said.
“Good.” He grinned. “I guess.”
I liked how I could tell Luke he gained weight and he didn’t care. Women, on the other hand, would be in tears after hearing the exact same thing.
“So, are you hungry?” I asked.
He glanced toward the sun. “Actually, I am.”
Luke didn’t own a watch. He was the type of person to gauge the time of day based on where the sun was in the sky. If the sun was rising, it was morning. If it was in mid-sky, it was noon, and when the sun set, it was night time. His life, in that one respect at least, was pretty simple.
I shielded my eyes with my palm, glanced toward the sun, and turned toward him as I lowered my hand. “Me too. Looks like it’s about lunch time.”
He glanced up the beach toward the boardwalk. “Smart ass.”
Hand-in-hand we walked to Draft, a pub at the end of the boardwalk that faced the beach. We often held hands, something that started long before we began fucking. It was something I always admired about Luke. As masculine as he was, when it came to caring for those he loved, he knew no limits.
Luke’s parents divorced when he was twelve, and it seemed he changed considerably immediately following his mother’s departure from the family. I had the luxury of growing up with both parents, and as far-fetched as their separation was for me to imagine, it wasn’t difficult for me to envision the difficulties Luke was faced with at the time.
In the first year following his mother’s absence, not only did we become much closer as friends, but he and his younger brother became inseparable. It was then that we began holding hands in our walks to and from school, and I soon learned that Luke wasn’t one to be bullied into – or out of – anything.
A group of kids at school gave him a hard time for holding hands with me, and called him a sissy. His hair at the time was long, not much different than most of the girls in school, but Luke was no sissy. One day on the way home from school, he proved it by fighting the entire group of boys.
After that, they avoided us on our walks home.
For the most part, we held hands ever since.
“So, I was thinking,” I said.
“About?”
“Well, you said sex with you was going to be this big deal. Like it was going to turn me into a blubbering mess. I’m not complaining, but I’ve got to say so far I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“Do you remember me telling you I was going to take it slow and easy?”
“Uhhm. No, not really. We talked about a lot of stuff.”
“Well, I did.”
I bit the inside of my lip and gazed down at my menu, trying my best to think of the content of our many sexual conversations that followed my life altering Tinder date. I came up with nothing.
I shrugged. “I got nothing.”
“Doesn’t mean I didn’t say it. Okay, here. I’ll say it again,” he said.
“Liv, I’m a sexual deviant. I don’t think you’re going to be able to keep up with my sexual needs when it comes right down to it, but we can give it a try. If we decide sex isn’t working between us, we need to be sure we always remain friends. There, does that sound familiar?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“You have a shit memory.”
“You think things, and somehow you convince yourself when you think about it, we’ve talked about it. You’ve always been that way,” I said.
He picked up his menu, opened it, and began to scan the pages for lunch options.
“Well, back to what I was saying. If you’re wondering whether or not to turn up the heat, go right ahead. I’m good to go,” I said.
He peered over the top of his menu and chuckled. “Good to go?”
“Yep. Good to go.”
He shifted his eyes down to the menu. “We’ll see about that.”
“Sure will,” I said.
Fucking Luke was good for me. Not only was it sexually satisfying, convenient, and fun, it convinced me I was more sexually diverse than I thought I was. Some of the things we were doing weren’t things I ever would have done without him – and if asked by anyone, I probably would have declined. But with Luke, I felt no need to refuse, knowing I had nothing to lose if things went awry during one of our sexual romps.
I wasn’t just becoming extremely content fucking him, I was slowly falling into a more comfortable place with him, one stroke at a time.
And it was scaring me.
“You want my suggestion?” he asked.
My face still artificially buried in my menu, I responded in a carefree tone hinting at a lack of interest. “Sure.”
“Eat a light lunch,” he said.
“Oh really?”
“Yeah.” He folded his menu closed. “I don’t want you to barf later when we’re going at it.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said.
He brushed his hair away from his face and grinned. “Yeah, you’re good to go.”
I lowered my menu and glared at him. “What makes you think I’m not?”
“You may be, I don’t know. I haven’t got much experience to go on, but based on what I do know, we’ll reach a point where you give up.”
“What makes you so sure?”
He shrugged. “I’m a weirdo.”
“I don’t think so. So far, I’ve loved everything.”
He grinned a playful grin. “On a scale of one to ten, I’ve probably given you a three. My mind goes in weird places.”
“So, what is it that gets you off?”
He shrugged again and shifted his focus to the restaurant’s open wall that faced the beach. “I don’t know. Weird stuff. Thinking that you’re confused. Or suffering. Not suffering like you’d think, but mentally suffering. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.”
“What do you want to do to me? Can you tell me?”
“You know Valerie and I broke up over sex. She said I was too unpredictable. She said I liked knowing she was willing more than I actually liked her.”
“Well, we both know that’s not the case here,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you’ll agree to everything. Or that I won’t make you take a step back and say what the fuck were you thinking? That day’s gonna come, I’m sure of it. Fuck, I don’t know. Just know that whatever happens, I don’t want to do anything to make you uncomfortable, so if that day or that time comes, you let me know. I guess being friends with benefits has its perks, because when I do something stupid, we can sit back and talk about it, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“So, hell, it doesn’t even matter. If you decide I’m some weirdo, we’ll just quit, right?”
I tried to convince myself he was right, but regardless of how I looked at it, it did matter. As convinced as he was that he was a sexual deviant, I sure didn’t see it. I couldn’t help but wonder if his one and only love, Valerie, was just a prude.
She went to school with us, and as much as I hated her, Luke chose to date her through the end of school and until he was twenty years old. As hard as I tried, I could never imagine them lasting, and was actually quite relieved when they broke up. Personally, I thought she was a self-important bitch.
“So what if it isn’t you? What if you’re just adventurous, and Valerie was some prude?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
I shrugged. “Might be true.”
“Doubtful,” he said.
“What would be like, I don’t know, your perfect sexual experience?”
He gazed beyond me for a moment a
nd stared out at the beach. After a short time, he shifted his gaze to meet mine. “All kinds of things, especially something that confuses you or mixes you up. Like fucking you while you were trying to compose a really important email at your office. Or while you were on a deadline at work with a few minutes to spare. Or maybe while you were in a conference giving a speech or something.”
I squinted. “Fucking me while I’m in a meeting?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow. Yeah, that’s kind of weird. I mean, not like bad weird, but like weird, weird. Huh, that’s interesting.”
As we sat silently for a moment, I thought about what his sexual fantasies were. They all seemed to be with causing me to lose my focus on something critical or important.
“Why do you think you’re the way you are? You know, sexually?” I asked.
“It’s hard to say,” he said, his eyes falling to the floor. “I’m sure there’s a reason for it, though.”
For some reason, I felt like he knew why, but was embarrassed to say. I just had a feeling. Call it women’s intuition. Maybe it was because we were best friends for our entire life, and I knew him so well. Whatever the reason, I wasn’t convinced he was being completely truthful.
Regardless, I felt better about my being able to keep up with his sexual demands. His interest seemed to be fucking me into a state of confusion, and that would be a pretty simple task as far as I was concerned.
“Okay,” I said as I tossed the menu aside. “A light lunch it is. And when we get home, you can fuck me until I lose clarity.”
“Doubt that would take much,” he said dryly.
I flipped him my middle finger and grinned. “And I’ll think a little bit about the at work thing. Maybe, and I mean maybe, we’ll be able to do something with that.”
He shook his head as he waved toward the waitress. “In the meantime, I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
I was sure he would, and I hoped whatever he thought of included time for us to snuggle when we were done.
Although my sexual appetite was being fed, I felt my recovery from the sex was lacking. As caring as Luke was, I guessed if I mentioned it the next time we had sex, he’d agree. Hell, maybe he had a fetish for it and I just didn’t know about it.
Fuck Buddy Page 6
