by Tia Lewis
Funny thing, memories. One of them could bring up so many others. As I walked, I remembered what it felt like to know I didn’t have the same sort of life the rest of the kids had. I was a pretty mature kid—that came from raising myself, or maybe I raised myself because I was mature. Either way, I figured it out pretty early on that my parents weren’t like other parents. None of the kids in town had it made, of course. We were all on the lower side of middle class, with a few exceptions. Only most of the other kids had two parents, and those who didn’t at least felt like the parent they had cared about them. I never felt that way—maybe it was because Mom was always so tired. The woman had worked two or three jobs for as long as I could remember. Maybe it was because she was so sad. She had lost so many babies. She had a husband who couldn’t be bothered to act like one. He couldn’t be bothered to be a father, either. That sort of life would’ve made anybody sad. I couldn’t even blame her.
I remembered meeting Craig in the third grade. He was sick a lot when he was very little—asthma, weak lungs. His mom had homeschooled him back when homeschooled kids were considered weirdos, until the doctor decided he was strong enough to go to school with other kids. I didn’t think he was a weirdo. I thought the sensitive, bright, compassionate boy who shared his apple slices with me at lunch that first day was the nicest boy I had ever met. Even nicer than Dawson, who I had known since kindergarten. I introduced them in the schoolyard on the first day, and that was it. The rest was history.
I used to wonder if it was that early childhood illness that drew Craig to medicine. He had especially loved working with kids. His explanation was that they never argued his diagnoses and very, very rarely had anything to do with their illness or injury. Sure, he’d get the tomboy or rough houser who had bounced off the bed or fallen out of a tree and broken something. But he didn’t meet the chronic smokers and drinkers who had done everything in their power to kill themselves. It wasn’t their fault. He could identify with the really sick ones, too. He never told me that part, but I knew him well enough to know he saw himself in them.
I shivered and noticed the way my breath hung in the air. It had been a fairly warm day for November, but once the sun set the air had turned cold. I pulled up the collar of my coat and walked a little faster. I couldn’t walk fast enough to escape the incessant pull of my past. It was like semi-set concrete, making my legs feel like lead as I strode purposefully toward the school. The lights were blazing, and there were a handful of people standing around the doors to the gym. I saw the little glowing dots of their cigarettes, saw the cloud of smoke hanging over their heads. There were a lot of smokers still living there, I’d noticed. I remembered how cool I’d felt as a kid, smoking outside of school when the teachers weren’t watching. Even when it made me feel sick, I’d do it anyway.
I walked the length of the chain link fence separating the sidewalk from the outdoor basketball court, then the parking lot, and finally came to the entrance. It was dark and getting darker all the time, but there was no missing Dawson in the crowd. He was a head taller than the rest of the men and had maybe fifty pounds of muscle on all of them, too. He was laughing over something with Jake, who scooped me up in a big hug as soon as he saw me coming.
“Girl, I was just tellin’ Shana today how good it would be to see you!” He put me on my feet and took two steps back, then looked me up and down. “Damn, honey; New York’s been good to you.”
I smacked his arm with a disapproving smirk. “I hope you say sweet things like that to your wife, Jake Jackson.”
“I sure do. How do you think we got those three kids of ours?” He winked at me, and I gave him another hug. He looked pretty much the same, except his blonde curls were thinning a little along the top of his head. He smelled like smoke, so I guessed he hadn’t kicked the habit. I had shared my first cigarette with him when we were twelve years old.
“Hey. I’m sorry about Craig.” For once, he was serious. He touched my arm and looked at the ground. “It’s a shame it took something like this to get you back to town. It would’ve been awesome to hang out again, all of us. He was always the funniest person I ever knew.”
“Me, too.” I managed to smile.
“And hey, he’s the one who talked me into going to nursing school. Imagine that. Me, a male nurse.”
“It’s the twenty-first century, Jake. Men can do almost all the things women can do now.” I stuck my tongue out when I saw the look on his face.
“Speaking of which, we better get back inside to my woman and kids. The game’ll be starting any minute now.” He took off in front of me, while I hung back to finally say hello to Dawson.
He leaned in to give me a one-arm hug. “Looking nice tonight,” he whispered, and I tried to ignore the way his breath tickled the hair on the back of my neck. It was a no use. My nerves sizzled at his nearness. We walked in together, and I tried to ignore the amused looks around us—the whole town thought they were playing matchmaker, it seemed.
There wasn’t any room on the same row with the Jacksons, so we waved and continued climbing until we reached the top row. There was plenty of room up there, but that was about all the empty space we could find. It shouldn’t have amazed me the way it did that so many people came out for the high school basketball game, since there was so little else to do. And it was nice; I admitted to myself as I sat down, seeing everybody banding together to support the kids. It was a way for everybody to get together, too. There was nothing wrong with that. I could just imagine the way my friends in New York would laugh if they knew what I was doing just then. What were they doing, my coworkers and brunch buddies? Probably eating sushi and drinking overpriced martinis somewhere. Just like I had been doing the night before Craig died at my so-called book club meeting.
And I didn’t miss them. That was the worst part. If I never saw any of them again, it wouldn’t matter. The thought startled me, maybe because it felt so sudden and true. Not one of them had reached out yet to see where I had disappeared to. What did that say? What did it say that I hadn’t reached out to them, either? I used to tell myself our careers kept us busy as an excuse for not seeing each other very frequently, but that wasn’t entirely true. Did I have any real friends there?
The game started, which gave me something else to focus on. I spotted Jake and Shana’s son, Jake Junior, out on the court. A freshman playing Varsity. I could see why as soon as the game really got moving. He was one of the tallest kids on the team, so that was a plus, and the second he got his hands on the ball it looked like he’d been practicing his entire life. If Shana’s obstetrician told me the kid had come out with a basketball in his hands, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“He’s amazing!” I said to Dawson over the roar of the crowd after Jake Junior scored his third three-point shot.
“He is. Loves it, too. You can tell.” He pointed to the boy with the big smile on his face. Yes, he loved it. I could just imagine how proud Jake and Shana were—especially Jake, since he was always athletic in spite of his smoking.
I looked around at the other people in the stands and saw too many familiar faces to count. Just being there in the gym was a blast from the past. But instead of Jake and Shana holding hands or making out, they were wrangling two of their kids while cheering for the third. And they weren’t the only ones. We were the older generation all of a sudden.
We went outside during halftime, at which point the home team was up twenty-seven points thanks in no small part to Jake Junior. “No wonder he plays Varsity already,” I said in amazement. Jake came out, all smiles, and lit a cigarette. We let him play the proud papa for a while.
I hardly noticed when Dawson took my hand. One second it wasn’t there, and the next it was. I didn’t pull away. It felt natural, like I had stepped into some parallel universe in which I hadn’t left town, and we were together as a couple watching our friend’s kid play basketball, the way we did every weekend during the season. Maybe we would have some kids of our own, too.
If anybody thought it was strange that we were holding hands, they didn’t give me any indication. It might have been that they didn’t dare, since it would mean challenging Dawson’s right to take my hand that way.
His touch was comforting and electric at the same time. I felt more alive than I had in years when my hand was in his. Every so often, his thumb would run over my knuckles. The most elementary and innocent of caresses, but one which made me glow from the inside out. My heart raced double time, even as I did my best to stay casual.
The game was about to start up again, and everybody filed back inside. There was talk of going out afterward to one of the bars nearby. I turned to Dawson with a smile. “Did you want to go hang out after the game?”
He surprised me by shaking his head. “Honestly, I would rather not even go back inside now. I spend all day surrounded by noise.”
I turned to him. “What do you want to do instead?”
We were alone. Everybody else was inside. My hand was still in his. He took my chin in his other hand and pulled me in for a slow, lingering kiss that left no question as to what he would rather be doing. I sighed a little and pulled his arm around my waist, our hands still clasped behind my back. He took the cue and held me close to him. I felt his heart racing just the way mine was.
Too soon, he pulled back. “Does that answer your question?” His forehead touched mine, and we stood there, breathing hard. “All I could think about in there was how bad I want to get you home and take your clothes off.”
“Yeah?” I whispered between gasps for air.
“Except the boots. The boots can stay.”
I giggled. “We’ll see what I can do about that.”
12
Dawson
I wished we hadn’t both walked to the school, since the sooner I got her behind closed doors, the better. Craig’s was closer than my house, so we walked there. A light snow was falling by the time we reached the block in question, and there were snowflakes in her hair and eyelashes when she turned to me with a small, nervous smile. She looked like a teenager again.
“How do you think the game will finish out?” Amanda murmured as we walked up the front steps.
I couldn’t have cared less just then, but I replied, “I think the odds are in our favor. I’ll hear all about it tomorrow morning.”
“Do you think they’ll care that we cut out early?” she breathed as she opened the door.
“I don’t care.” I pushed her into the house and closed, then locked the door behind me. She didn’t have time to cry out in surprise before my mouth was on hers. I muffled her cry as I thrust my tongue into her mouth and swept around the inside. I had to explore her. I wanted to know her again, every bit of her. Every last part. Everything I had missed for so long.
She whimpered and writhed against the wall I’d pinned her against. I gripped the collar of her coat with both hands, holding her as close as I could, before unbuttoning it and pushing it back from her shoulders. It fell to the floor before I took off my own coat. Then I took her wrists and pinned them over her head.
I pulled away just long enough to catch a breath. And I wanted to look at her. Her eyes were closed, her lips open and a little swollen from my rough kiss. She panted through them. She had the look of a woman ready to give herself over to abandon. Good. That was what I wanted from her. I wanted to feel her giving herself over to me and the pleasure I was about to provide.
I went in for another kiss, catching her off guard. There was no way she could escape the grip I had on her, but then she didn’t try. She loved it. I could tell from the way her nipples hardened against my chest—I could feel them rubbing against me through her bra, her shirt, and my shirt. She was that hot for me just after one or two kisses. Blood surged to my cock and had it standing straight up in no time. I was almost painfully hard, straining against my zipper every time she gasped or whimpered or groaned into my mouth. We were both breathless by the time I broke away again, and my cock skewered her hip.
“You like that?” I whispered, then caught her bottom lip between my teeth and bit down just enough to make her draw in a sharp breath. I sucked it then, relishing the firm sweetness between my lips before biting down again. She moaned, and I just about burst through my jeans. Jesus, she had no idea how hot she was. She would never know how it turned me on to listen to her getting off.
She was so familiar, every inch of her. I held her wrists with one hand and used the other to trace her curves. She was fuller but just as firm as ever. I squeezed her tits through her top, and we both sighed, then I let my hand slide down her side and around her hip to her round, tight ass.
“Oh, God,” she moaned between kisses. I could agree with that. She was the closest thing to heaven I had touched in years. Twenty years, to be exact.
I let go of her wrists so I could touch more of her. I wanted her to touch me, too. I was aching to feel her hands on me again. She slid them over my shoulders and raked her nails across the back of my neck as I kissed my way from her earlobe to the hollow at the base of her throat. Her heart raced under my lips. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes. More.”
I gave her more. I cupped her ass and lifted until her legs were around my waist, then walked up the stairs with her in my arms. She pointed the way to the bedroom she was staying in, where I set her on her feet and went about taking off her clothes.
“Come here,” I growled. I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her between my open thighs. She slid the cardigan over her shoulders while I slid my hands under the tight tank she wore with it. Her skin was so smooth and soft, and the muscles beneath it fluttered at my touch. She ran her hands over my arms and shoulders, over my neck and my head. Her nails raked over my skin, and I almost wished she would mark me up. I wanted her to mark me as much as I wanted to mark her. We belonged to each other. The world needed to know that.
“Up,” I ordered, and she lifted her arms for me to take off her tank. Her bra was black, lacy, and in the way. Sure, it lifted her tits up like they were a gift on a platter, but it hid them from me. When it was gone, I saw that her tits were just as full and ripe as ever. Her nipples were hard and just begging to be sucked. I swiped my tongue over one of them, then the other, before closing my lips around one while playing with the other.
“Oh, yes!” She pulled my head closer until I was about ready to smother, but I didn’t try to pull away. I glanced up to see her closed eyes, her open mouth, the way her chest heaved up and down as I feasted on her. She was so sweet, smooth, perfect. I wanted to give her all the pleasure she could stand.
“I thought you wanted me to keep these on,” she breathed as I leaned down to unzip her boots.
“Yeah, but I need your jeans off more.” I threw her onto the bed on her back, where she splayed out for me and pulled the boots free. Then I took her by the ankles and yanked hard until her ass was at the edge of the bed. Right in front of me.
“Let me see you,” she breathed. I pulled my shirt over my head. She sat up and ran her hands over my chest and abs, over my arms and shoulders. It felt so good, the feeling of her hands on me again. My cock twitched as she dragged her nails down my torso…then went lower, over my denim-covered cock.
“Fuck, yes.” She worked at my belt and fly, then wasted no time pulling me from my jeans and shorts so she could take me into her mouth. Heaven. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back while she bobbed up and down. She remembered just what I liked, too, and her tongue pressed against the underside of my shaft as she twisted her head from side to side. I reached down to play with her tits while she worked me.
But that could only last so long before I came. I needed to be inside her again when I did. I pulled her away and pushed her down again, this time taking off her jeans. Her legs were long, lean, and I rested them against my chest as I worked her panties off. She was hot, wet, and just the scent of her was enough to drive me crazy. I tossed the panties aside and slid my fingers through her slick folds. She cried out and humped my hand hard
and fast as I rubbed her clit. When I rammed two fingers up into her tight sheath, she bucked like a wild animal and clenched down as she came.
She was still coming down from that by the time I pulled out a condom and was ready to go. She opened her legs and nodded, holding her arms out, welcoming me. I leaned my hands on the mattress, and she positioned me. One sharp, deep thrust and I was home.
“Yes!” Her gasp filled my ears. I groaned and adjusted to her tightness—she was still pulsing and quivering, and I waited until she finished before I drew back and slammed forward again.
“I can’t go slow,” I warned. I was about ready to explode. I had to take her hard, as hard as I could, until she broke against me and screamed my name.
“I don’t want you to go slow.”
That was all I needed to hear to start pummeling her with thrusts that made her grunt every time our bodies slapped together. Her head rolled from side to side as I fucked her mercilessly, and her tits bounced in time. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to hold on as long as I could—it was so good, almost too good, and her walls tightened around me and tried to milk me dry. But I wanted her to come again. I wanted her to scream and beg for more before I let myself go.
“Yes!” she shrieked. The sting of her nails on my back was enough to help me hold on longer. She started to tighten even more, and I clenched my jaw and let myself feel her shudder as another orgasm, stronger than the first one, overtook her. “So good! Dawson, yes!”
It was too much. I let go and practically roared as my balls released. I drove forward once, twice. Then I half-collapsed on top of her, and the both of us were slick with sweat.
“Oh, holy crap,” she gasped. I could identify with that, and I chuckled against her shoulder. Yeah. Holy crap. That was only the most intense sex of my life.
