by Anthology
I relax my grip on the chair and speak in a low, calm voice. “Funny thing, Bran. Humiliation has a way of echoing for decades in a small town.”
His eyes flash briefly. Shame? Regret? Neither one makes a difference to me, not at this point. He looks down. “I always made sure I came out looking worse than you did. You know that.”
“Yes, that was enormously comforting to me when I was the object of widespread pity and scorn. It was a riot being known as the jilted bride of Hickey.”
My answer is silence and an inscrutable blue-eyed stare. At least he’s not defending the indefensible. But then, he didn’t even do that seven years ago so there’s no reason to think he’ll start making excuses now.
“That’s why I left, you know,” I tell him quietly, just in case he’s suffered too much sun exposure on his Middle East deployments and doesn’t recall that my exodus was completely his fault. The fact that I’d always wanted to leave Hickey is beside the point. Once we went nuclear I felt like I didn’t have a choice.
He’s still watching me. “It was a long time ago, Cricket. I’m more sorry than I can say. I was an asshole kid, not a man.”
This whole conversation is taking me places I never really wanted to go again. It’s a big reason I was so relieved when my mother finally pulled herself together and moved to Florida once my brother graduated from high school. There’s no reason anymore for me to return to old Hickey and shuffle through the holidays, avoiding eye contact with everyone. No matter how much time passes, I know what I’ll always be remembered for.
Bran is leaning over with his forearms resting on his thighs. He might be thinking about the ways he massively fucked up once upon a time. Or he might just be counting the dots in the spotted linoleum. Either way, there’s still a little piece of business we need to lay out on the table.
“Bran, did you know I was here or not?”
He raises his head, scans the room. “I knew.”
I cross my arms over my chest and refuse to notice that the way his tense posture highlights the thick muscles in his arms. I tear my eyes away and look at the vending machine instead, tossing my hair over my shoulder in a huff. “I figured.”
He swivels slightly to look at me head on. “Did you also figure that if I was actually interested in seeing you then I would have knocked on your door?”
Well, that kind of shuts me up.
Classes started two weeks ago. If Bran was living in the same building and managed to remain unseen by me all this time then it must be because that was his goal.
But…SHIT! Who the hell is he to avoid me?
I’m the one who has every right to avoid him.
I’m the one who was hurt. He’s just fine. All you need to do to understand that is just look at him, sitting there all hot and hulking.
I realize my maturity level has taken a distinct backward slide in the two hours since Cinnamon’s agonized screaming ripped me away from my financial modeling textbook.
Bran returns to his magazine while I search my mind for something smart to say. However, there are simply no smart comebacks waiting to be used up right now.
Then a nurse marches from behind the triage curtains and asks if there is anyone waiting for Cinnamon Rolle.
I’m relieved to have a reason to jump out of the chair and get a few feet away from Bran.
“She’s being admitted,” says the nurse, whose bland nametag identifies her as Becky Walker, RN. “Room 213 but I’m afraid visiting hours are over. Her surgery is scheduled for eight a.m.”
Becky Walker, RN is too busy to await my response. She just spins on her heel and heads back into triage.
Bran is already on his feet when I turn around. For a split second I see that he was in the process of checking out my ass. I’m vain enough to be relieved that I was lounging around in sleek black yoga pants rather than ratty flannels when Cinnamon took her little concrete plunge.
Maybe I won’t offer him a ride. He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. Perhaps the designer socialites still ogling him from twenty feet away will come through and offer to bring him anywhere he’d like to go. I’d really rather not have him sitting beside me for the ten minute drive back to campus because...I just wouldn’t. Still, he did play his cards gallantly tonight, carrying an injured girl to safety. Since no one else had stepped up, there would have been no choice but to call the paramedics. That would have meant a pile of administrative university paperwork that I’d rather not deal with.
Before I can decide between mature generosity and childish wrath, Bran saves me the trouble. He stretches his impressive arms and yawns.
“You know what? Think I’ll go for a run back to campus.”
I try to avert my eyes from his flexing muscles. “That’s got to be eight miles.”
“Closer to ten. Luckily I’m in good shape.”
Yes, I can see that. The longer he stands there the more I notice it. But only because I’m staring.
“Oh. What about your knee?”
He breaks into a smile. “Aw, listen to you all worried and stuff.”
“I’m not worried!”
He just keeps talking. “As for the knee, it can’t take a sack hit but it can jog double time pretty well. Had to do a lot of that in the Army, after all.” He pauses en route to the exit and looks me up and down. “Unless you’d rather have my company?”
“No. Jog away, Bran.”
“Fine. I’ll be seeing you, Cricket.”
I don’t know if that’s a promise or a threat.
He stops at the glass door, holds it open briefly for a lady in a walker, and then takes off into the night without looking back. If it weren’t for the fact that my hands are shaking and I can’t quite breathe clearly I wouldn’t have believed he was ever there.
Instead, the peaceful cocoon I’ve wrapped myself in ever since leaving Hickey is slowly unraveling. That’s unfortunate, since I spent a long time weaving it, working myself raw for three years in Pittsburg before finally getting together enough resources for a real fresh start far away, where I wouldn’t be apt to run into anyone from Hickey. I even disdained social media as much as possible and only kept in close contact with my mother, my brother, and my old friend Hallie. In one final gesture of transformation, I started going by my middle name as opposed to the one I was given at birth.
When I was a kid I used to love my name. Cricket. It seemed to fit me. Unusual, quirky. Then it just turned into something I wanted to escape. And I managed all right. I managed for a long time until now.
By the time I head outside, Bran is nowhere in sight, probably jogging his silly, well-defined ass off back to the university.
I’m relieved. Mostly. Some small part of me also feels acutely miserable, utterly out of sync. Now that Bran is here, I wonder how long I’d be able to ignore that part. I’m afraid it won’t be very long.
Chapter Four
Apparently when Bran said he would have knocked on my door if he was interested in seeing me, he meant it. A week passes and there is no trace of him.
Once I chased after Dorritt on the way to my Commercialism in Western Society class and tried to weasel a rundown of all the guys on her floor. She was suspicious, especially when I refused to say why I was asking. Her wariness probably had something to do with whatever her Root Beer Boy deal was but I didn’t feel like telling her she was free to keep that one to herself. I dropped the subject and didn’t ask anyone else.
I was starting to think either Bran was lying about where he lived, or his entire presence was a pathological hallucination on my part. It seems far more likely that Bran’s still somewhere on the other side of the world, or if not, somewhere in the middle of Hickey, getting an armchair blowjob while watching Sunday afternoon football and swallowing a gallon of beer.
It’s Thursday around 6 o’clock when I hear a knock at my door. It’s one of those staccato joke knocks and I’m thinking it’s probably someone who’s looking for a dining hall buddy for dinner.
> Even though I’m not too excited to head down to the dirty cafeteria for chicken fried steak and hush puppies, I sigh and open the door, willing to keep Maura or one of the other lonely freshman company for an hour.
Instead, it’s him. Bran. Just when I finally start to relax and stop searching for him around every corner, he just materializes at my door.
He gives me a casual nod. “Hey.”
Today was my assigned slot for a presentation in my marketing class so I’m dressed in adult clothes for a change. Bran on the other hand appears to be very much the sloppy college student in a faded green tee, shabby jeans and scruffy sneakers. He looks so nauseatingly good I’m pretty sure my mouth falls right open before I can check myself. I dig my fingernails into my palms and try to snap back to reality.
“Well, this is a treat. What brings you down to the first floor?”
He lets out a sigh and leans against the doorframe. “I was trying to give you some space but figured it was time we talked.”
I stare at him. He stares back.
“Cricket, aren’t you going to let me in?”
As an answer I leave the door open and cross to the other side of the room. I’m glad I’m wearing heels. Black stilettos make me feel like a bitch to be reckoned with.
Bran follows me into the room, closes the door behind him and looks around.
“The institutional look, huh?”
My jaw clenches. If he’s going to start with the sarcasm right off the bat this is going to be a short conversation. “I don’t have much use for decorating.”
“I see that. ”
“The kids can do what they want with their posters of mixed drink recipes, Salvador Dali and marijuana worship. I’d rather not be distracted.”
He’s giving me a weird look. He looks around again and shrugs. It’s irritating.
“If you have something to say then say it,” I snap.
“It’s not important. I’m just surprised that it’s so bland in here. You were always such a colorful girl.”
“I’m not a girl anymore, Bran.”
He nods, exhaling. A few empty seconds pass before he starts talking again. “Look, Cricket, you need to hear that I didn’t come here to fuck with your head.”
“Okay. What did you come here to fuck?”
Oh, god. The words just escaped. They should have been served up with a dose of mocking irony. Instead they just sounded…hopeful. Plus, my eyes happen to latch onto his crotch the instant the last syllable leaves my mouth.
Bran notices. Something changes in his posture. He relaxes and his eyes fill with the spark of pure amusement. I think about how satisfying it would feel to carve them out of his skull with a blunt object.
“Cricket,” he starts to say, advancing with a smile.
I shake my head and take a step back, colliding with the cinderblock wall. “I go by Constance now.”
He’s startled. “What the hell are you talking about? That’s not your name.”
“It’s my middle name. Didn’t you know? If seems if you’re married to someone for even a brief period of time you ought to know her middle name. Cricket has a rather tumultuous history and it was time to move on.”
“I don’t get it. You changed your name because of me?”
“No! Well, perhaps in a way. I wanted a fresh start.”
“Well bullshit on that. You can’t just erase the past by declaring that you have a new name.”
“You still lack listening skills. I told you to call me Constance now.”
He crosses his arms. “No.”
I feel my face wrinkling into a scowl. It’s probably not pretty but I don’t need to be pretty for Matthew Branson. He lost that respect a long time ago. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
He snorts. “Nobody who asks a question like that really wants an answer. I’m not gonna call you anything but Cricket because that’s your name. It was your name twenty years ago when we met. You don’t get to have a temper tantrum and announce I have to start calling you something else.”
“Then I’d prefer you don’t call me anything.”
“Too late.”
“You know,” I shake my head, “There’s still no damn point in talking to you. There are only a handful of things you understand and most of them are carnal.”
“Is that so?” He gets right up in my face and seizes my left wrist. Not hard, just enough to keep me where he wants me. “So that’s all you think we were ever about? A lengthy fuck fest?”
I try to hold his gaze without blinking but it doesn’t work. I also try not to look down at his body but I can’t avoid doing that either. His breathing grows thick and fast. If I dare to zoom in his dick I know what I’ll see.
I’m not even trying to get away from Bran and he runs a finger over my arm, slowly, seductively. There shouldn’t be anything seductive about a forearm but at Bran’s touch its stock goes way the hell up. He smells like peppermint and cigars, a sensual combination that really ought to be bottled. I shift slightly, trying to quiet the sudden flare between my legs. My tongue exercises a will of its own, darting out and wetting my lips.
Bran evidently decides I’ve just issued an invitation. He might be right. He brushes his thumb across my bottom lip and gets closer.
“Doesn’t matter,” he says in a low voice filled with erotic currents. “There were a few things we always did better than talking, Crick. You remember some of them, right?” His leans in and his unshaven jaw brushes against my cheek, the rough bristle scraping against my skin and translating to a shudder of arousal that careens through my body. “It’s no hassle to remind you.”
This was once Bran’s greatest talent; the skill of getting my panties sopping wet just by walking too close. Apparently he’s still quite talented.
He’s still got one of his bear claws around my wrist but his grip is teasing, light. He’s playing with me. I could squirm away with ease if I wanted to, if the musky smell of his body and the heat of his skin wasn’t turning me into a batch of legless, brainless, voiceless dough.
“No,” I insist, very weakly. “I don’t remember.”
That high-pitched little bleat, no more than a mouse squeak, wouldn’t convince anyone. It doesn’t even convince me. History can go fuck itself. I’m ready to pitch tits first into his hard chest.
Bran releases my arm but it’s not a pity move. It’s only so he can switch to spreading both palms across my ass, squeezing with just enough pressure to make me dizzy. Of course my ass, traitor that it is, perks up in response to the attention, clenching its muscles together and urging me closer to give him better access. The rest of my body decides it’s jealous of aforementioned ass and moves forward with a will of its own.
Meanwhile, my mind clings to some wisps of reason. Actually, the poor thing is in a state of panic and screeching all kinds of warnings about rubbing skin with Matthew Branson; former high school king/sex god/man candy/ex-husband who has spent seven years being a cautionary tale.
Mind says, “You can’t be serious, Constance! Keep your legs closed and your common sense intact.”
Body answers, “I wanna be naked with him.”
Mind is really yelling now. “It’s Matthew goddamn Branson!”
Body says, “I wanna be naked with him and sweaty.”
Mind is horrified. “You slut! I can’t believe you are going to totally screw me over for a few minutes of careless cock riding.”
Body tells Mind to shut the hell up or it won’t even use a condom.
Bran runs his lips along my neck, in the tender spot just above the collarbone. He sucks lightly at first, then harder. It’s driving me crazy. My arms are around his broad shoulders and everything below my neck is in a fire to get handled by his hands, his tongue, his cock, whatever he wants to give me.
Then he pulls his mouth away and grinds against my body. Bran’s blue eyes, always so startling against his black hair, are watching me with a mix of amusement and raw lust.
“You rem
ember now?” he rumbles, backing me into a wall and getting his knee between my legs while somehow my skirt sneaks up over my hips.
I won’t admit it out loud. But the way I start riding his leg like a rutting dog probably speaks for itself. Suddenly there’s nothing more important than finding a way to ease the delicious ache.
Bran chuckles and then starts running his lips along my jawline in a way that makes me tremble as hard now as it did years ago. He knows what makes me tick. He always did. My hands start clawing at his shirt, in a fever to get it off. I’ll start clawing lower next.
Bran leans back a few inches, grins, and does me a favor by yanking his own shirt off. I’m grateful. The shirt should be too, since I was about three seconds away from tearing it off his body. Speaking of his body, he’s about three times as ripped as he was in high school. If you knew him in high school, you’d know that’s really saying something. No, I don’t mean that he’s bulging with cartoonish Mr. Universe muscle. I mean he’s a motherfucking chiseled masterpiece. There’s nothing even slightly boyish about this cut monument, complete with six-pack, nipple rings and a patchwork of thick tribal tattoos that curl around his rock hard abdomen like erotic snakes.
I know I’m staring. I also know I can’t stop myself unless I get rid of my eyes.
He raises an eyebrow. “You scared of muscles now?”
“No. But you’ve got a few more hiding under there than you used to.”
“Under where.”
I point. “Under there.”
“No, Crick. Underwear. Get it off now. Nice and slow. You remember how.”
When I hesitate he loses patience, shoves his hands under my gray pencil skirt and jerks it all the way up until it’s sloppily bunched around my waist. He looks down and lets out a low whistle, slipping one thick finger into my lacy black thong. He slides it down until the tip grazes my throbbing clit and almost ruins me. Then he smiles, removes his finger and looks me over long and good.
“Goddamn, honey,” he swears as he admires the view, “you still know how to get me turned on like no one’s business.”
