“Wait, what do hips have to do with pancakes?” he asked, really not understanding at all.
“Pageant girl, remember? Everything was about caloric intake. How many were coming in, and how many was I burning off,” I explained, giving my hip a squeeze, something I couldn’t have done even two months ago. “I’ve gained at least ten pounds since I’ve moved up here, thanks in part to the pudding hoard in there.”
“That’s crazy,” he said, shaking his head.
“You’ve seen the pudding.”
“No I mean, the whole girls-not-having-hips thing. You’re supposed to have hips. That’s all there is to it. Otherwise, what would we boys have to hang on to?” he said, winking at me over his pancake.
“So it’s an evolutionary thing? Hips exist solely for your hands?” I asked, remembering exactly the way he’d done just that, holding my hips, pushing and pulling me back and forth on top of him. I blushed at the very recent memory.
“I’m a doctor, Chloe. I know what I’m talking about,” he said very seriously.
“So I should defer to you on this one, should I?” I laughed, getting up to make some more pancakes.
“You should. All my patients do.”
“Well, if the poodles trust you, I suppose I should too.” I grabbed the mixing bowl and gave it another whisk as he chased one last bite around his plate. And as I watched him, I realized that this, this very thing, was what I wanted to do for the foreseeable future. Walk around my kitchen in one of his shirts, bare beneath, cooking for him while he watched me do it. Talk about poodles and hips and all manner of things. I was struck by the simplicity of it all; how easy and how perfect it was. And I smiled at him. “You want some more?”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” he said.
“Lucas?”
“Yep?”
“You gave me three orgasms in less than thirty minutes. Pretty sure that justifies a few more pancakes, don’t you think?”
His face was pure male satisfaction, with a hint of mischief. “Are you having any more?”
“Three was pretty fantastic,” I chuckled, ladling a few more circles on the griddle. Warm hands suddenly slipped around my waist from behind, pulling me snugly back against him. His hands found my shirt buttons and started unbuttoning them one at a time.
“Hey, I can’t be naked and cook you pancakes,” I protested, slapping at his hands. If by protested you mean using the least amount of energy to remove those gorgeous hands from my still humming body, then protest I did.
“You sure about that?” he whispered all hot and bothered in my ear.
“I’m gonna burn your pancakes,” I warned.
“I’m gonna watch you burn my pancakes,” he warned back, now sweeping my hair up and kissing my shoulders.
“I’m gonna hit you with this whisk,” I threatened.
“I’m gonna bend you over this counter.”
Pancakes were burned. An orange Formica counter was defiled.
“Am I hurting you?”
“Depends. Can you feel me breathing?”
“I think so.”
“Then I’m good.”
“I’d say you were more than good.”
“Well, of course you’d say it. You’re still inside me.”
“Dirty girl.”
“I’m not, though. Seriously, this is so unlike me.”
“Apparently not.”
“According to my track record, it is very unlike me. Official Chloe never gets to have sex in the kitchen.”
“Well, I don’t know who this official Chloe is, but I’m enjoying the shit out of unofficial Chloe.” Lucas punctuated this sentence with a kiss in the middle of my back. I was facedown on the counter, my shirt up around my shoulders. He had, in fact, bent me over the counter. And he had made it so very good. He was slumped across me, resting most of his weight on me, and I felt covered, cuddly, and content.
“Midnight-snack pancakes are my new favorite meal,” he murmured from somewhere just above my bum.
“Quarter-to-three pancakes, if you want to get technical,” I giggled, stretching my arms over my head and lengthening my spine.
“Isn’t that a song?”
“There’s a song called quarter-to-three pancakes?”
“Quarter to three,” he sang under this breath, “There’s no one in the place, except, you and me . . .” He placed a kiss in exactly the small of my back. “. . . and pancakes . . .”
“Oh, man.” I laughed, harder still when he bit me on the bottom. Quarter to three, what a long day this had been. Wait, it was tomorrow already. Which meant that he was leaving . . . Fudge. He was leaving for Belize the next day. For three months.
And that’s why we’d decided not to start anything. Well, there goes that bright idea. I moved a bit, just enough that he got the hint and stood up, pulling me with him. I hastened to pull my shirt down, my skin still flushed with the excitement he’d coaxed forth.
He sensed the change, and caught my hand. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I answered, resisting the pull for a second. But one look at that messy hair and I fell against his chest. There was no frenzy, no frantic now. I rested my head on him as he leaned against the counter, running his hands up and down my spine. I listened to him breathing, and even though it seemed blasphemous in the face of what had just happened, all I could think about was how I used to fall asleep to Charles’ sounds. First deep sighs as he settled in. Then tiny quick breaths as he found the best spot on the pillow. Then finally the slow, lingering exhales as he’d begin to nod off. And when I knew he was asleep, that’s when I’d nod off.
It’s funny that when something is over, it’s not just the big occasions, like anniversaries and birthdays, that bring up emotions. It’s also the little things. The shows recorded on the DVR that he loved to binge watch. It’s the sandwiches cut in triangles, never in half. It’s the breathing patterns you know so well you can tell the instant they begin to dream.
When I’d started this new life in Monterey, one of the things I’d looked forward to most of all was being patternless. For the first time in my life, I could be patternless. Untethered. No one would know when I came and went, no one would know or critique what I ate for breakfast. No one would know if I peed with the bathroom door open or closed. The answer is closed, by the way.
The thing is, Lucas did know. He knew when I came and went, he knew what time I usually woke up because of the dogs. He knew what I liked for breakfast, he knew where the backup chocolate pudding hoard was stashed, he knew what it meant when Dino was on the hi-fi instead of Sinatra (that I was extra tired), and he knew that I always peed with the door closed. Because my God . . . who would pee with the door open?
I might have come here patternless, but I had set down roots almost immediately. I could see myself living here forever. Without knowing I was doing it, I’d tethered myself to the one man in town who knew what it was like to have his heart broken by the woman he loved. Though we’d joked about rebounding, that’s not what had happened.
I might love this particular tether. And he was leaving in less then twenty-four hours. And he’d be gone for twelve weeks. Which in the grand scheme of things? Was nothing. One grain of sand in the huge hourglass in the sky. But as the woman currently wrapped around this big piece of wonderful, I wanted these new patterns. I wanted to learn whether he wanted his love every night before sleep, or if he was the kind of guy who’d wake up needing me. Did he shower in the morning, or after work? But . . . maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to talk about this right before his trip.
After all, we’d just gotten out of long-term relationships. And everyone says that your rebound is the guy you mess around with, have a great time with, before meeting the next real relationship. Could two rebounds cancel each other out? Or would they be double disaster?
I cuddled up to Lucas, his warm arms wrapped solidly around me, and we breathed together. And before I knew it, the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest lulled me out of my
head and into a slow, drowsy peace.
“Should I go?” he asked, his voice low and molasses thick.
“You better not,” I warned, burrowing deeper into his arms. And those arms picked me up, and carried me to bed.
He tugged the sheets back with me still clinging to him, pressing my nose into his shoulder, inhaling deeply. “You smell amazing, you know that?”
“I’m surprised, considering I didn’t get to finish my shower.” He chuckled, trying to set me down, but I didn’t want to let him go. He gave in, slipping under the covers with me and turning the light off. I craved him, craved his scent and his touch, and I continued to run my hands along his skin, dancing kiss after kiss along his shoulder as I wrapped myself around him once more. Had it really been so long that I’d been without contact like this? Was I just skin drunk?
Nah. I was Lucas drunk. He was the perfect cocktail.
I yawned, and it almost took my head off. “I’m so tired, but I kind of don’t want to close my eyes.”
He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You thinking about tomorrow?”
“Yes.” I laid my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. It was literally like a lullaby. “I forgot to tell you—on the news, I saw something terrible about Belize.”
“You did?”
“Yes. It sank.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”
“Chloe?”
“Hmm?”
“Belize isn’t an island.”
“It broke off first and then it sank.”
“You’re right. I am surprised I didn’t catch that on the news.”
“I guess you better stay stateside, then.” I sighed, snaking my leg over his.
“Can’t do that.”
“I know.”
We both sighed.
But it was naked sighing, so there’s that.
There’s something to be said for being the little spoon. You’re tucked in, you’re cozy, you’re warm and content. Someone is wrapped around you all night, not protecting you, necessarily, but if a zombie were to come in through the window, the chances are the big spoon gets it first, right?
Charles always liked to be spooned, but he didn’t like to be the spooner. Lucas was a great spooner. When I woke up the next morning, I had one giant hand nestled against my belly, the other curled around my shoulder and casually wrapped around one lucky breast. I’d slept like a rock and woke up with a smile on my face. My body felt rested, yet sore in a way it hadn’t in a long time. Or really, never had been. Not quite this way.
I turned in his arms, snuggling into his warm chest, and let my eyes linger on the face I knew so well: the dip above his lip, the long, dark lashes that no boy should ever get to have, the sprinkling of freckles across his nose, that thoroughly messed-up hair. He rocked the bed head, that’s for sure. I blushed slightly as I remembered how those silky strands felt between my fingertips as he pushed into me that first time.
“Oh, it’ll fit,” he murmured.
I bit my lip, a pumpkin grin spreading across my face. Cautiously, I reached out to touch his face. His sleeping gave me the courage to drink him in, explore every contour and nuance of his face without getting caught doing so. I feathered my fingertips across his cheekbone, down to his strong jaw, showing the beginning of a light beard. I ghosted across his eyebrows, his closed eyelids, taking in the palest of lavender veins. His eyes moved under my fingers; was he dreaming? What was he dreaming about? I’d love to know.
I ran my fingers across his sweet lips, lips that I now knew were capable of kissing me like no one else ever had. No one had even come close. Also very capable at the dirty talk, something I’d had no idea I’d respond to. Oh, my, I responded.
“There’s my dirty girl,” he whispered.
I blushed once more thinking about those lips all over my skin, his soft sighs and quiet groans as he urged me on, telling me what he liked and what he loved about my body.
I listened to his heartbeat again.
Tha-wump. Tha-wump. Tha-wump.
As I listened, my brain got involved and changed it to:
Re-bound. Re-bound. Re-bound.
Ugh. I thought about what we’d said last night about the sex changing things, meaning the friendship. Which was more important? Neither us could afford to get hurt again. But this now meant too much to be just a rebound thing. There was no way he could ever be just some transitional guy.
And there was another factor here. I needed to come clean with him.
I’d been less than honest about the canceling of my wedding. I’d let him think, for too long maybe, that Charles and I had to come to that decision mutually. Lucas went through hell because of what Julie did to him. I didn’t want him finding out somewhere, way down the line, that I’d essentially done the same thing to Charles. Different circumstances, yes. Different outcomes, for sure yes. Charles was more about the wedding and the formality of it all than the actual marriage. But Lucas was an all-in kind of guy, and his breakup had wrecked him. So he needed to know from me how I’d really arrived in Monterey. It was time to own this.
I was still musing and muddling this over when his heartbeat sped up, and his breathing lightened. He was waking up. Just as I pasted a smile on, he opened his eyes.
“Hi,” I whispered.
He grinned. “Hey there, chickie baby,” he whispered back, wrapping his arms around me and cuddling me close. Warm. Sleep rumpled. Divine. “How’d you sleep?”
“Like a rock. You?”
“Pretty good, even through the snoring.” He smirked, and I dug into his calves with my toes.
“I don’t snore,” I protested.
“Says everyone who snores.” He laughed, flipping me over and kissing the exact center of my tummy before kissing a path on up to my neck. “You snore, Chlo.”
I pushed on his shoulders, weakly. Because why would anyone stop this? “Shush.”
“Funny, that’s what I was saying about four thirty this morning.”
“Really, shush.” I laughed, wrapping my arms around his neck as he continued to kiss on me. Goose bumps broke out across my skin and my heart fluttered, so full this morning. Then he nudged his way between my legs and nudged against me, making not just my heart flutter.
I bit down on my lip, my body wanting to stop the words I needed to say. But before this went further, it was going to go from playful to primal in no time. I needed to say some things.
“Lucas,” I said, trying to pull him up toward me.
“Mmm?” he replied, his lips tickling and sweet.
“We need to talk about a few things, before you leave tomorrow.”
“You want to talk”—he pressed against me with a very specific part of his anatomy—“now?”
“Oh, boy . . . ohhh, yes . . . Wait—yes, we need to talk,” I said, leaning up on my elbows so I could see him. I traced a hand across his face, running my thumb over his lips. “And then hopefully we can go right back to this right here,” I said, lifting my hips slightly and bumping him right back.
“Talk fast, woman,” he said, rolling off of me and resting his head on his elbow. His other hand, however, continued to roam.
Now I had the floor, and I didn’t know where to start. Was I making too big of a deal of this? Should I just rip off the Band-Aid?
“Last night was . . . wow. I don’t even have words for last night.”
“You said some words last night,” he murmured, his hand dipping just below the sheet and cupping my breast. My toes pointed. Literally. Reflex. He did it again, and the same thing happened. So much so that the sheets rustled. Lucas looked down toward the bottom of the bed, and touched me once more. Toe point. The scientist in him was delighted. Boob. Toe. Boob. Toe.
“This is an interesting phenomenon,” he mused.
Meanwhile, I was coming out of my skin. “Could you—and I promise I will never say these words again—please stop touching me? It’s hard to think strai
ght when you do that.”
He was a scientist, yes, but a boy first, so he touched me once more, then moved his hand safely above the sheets. “Best behavior, I promise.”
“Anyway, so, yeah. Last night, amazing. And I’m hoping, I mean, when you get back from Belize, that there’ll be more nights like that?”
“Um. Yeah,” he said, grinning so big I thought his head was going to split.
Band-Aid. Pull off the Band-Aid so you can get back to the boobs and toes.
“I left Charles the morning of our wedding,” I said in a rush, instantly feeling better for saying it. Looking down at my hands, I continued. “I had this sudden moment of clarity, and I panicked at the thought of getting married to someone I wasn’t in love with, not truly crazy-in-love with, and I panicked and I ran. He never made it to the church, he was still on the golf course with his groomsmen when I ran, but I did in fact run.”
I chanced a look up, saw that his smile had dimmed, and pressed on. “And then when I met you, I realized, holy fudge, we have so much in common, but holy fudge, Julie just did almost the same thing to you that I did to Charles, and there was no way I could tell you what I’d done. And it was all so new and fresh and raw, and I was just figuring out what I wanted to do up here, and if I could truly stay and live here, and then you and I started spending so much time together, and holy fudge, Lucas, you’re the best, and we were spending so much time together and then my mom and dad were here, and I was so afraid something was going to come up about the wedding and you’d find out that way, and I knew it would be better coming from me and—”
“Better coming from you?” he asked, his voice quiet. The smile had twisted into a grimace.
“Yes. That I should be the one to tell you that I—”
“Left a guy at the altar,” he finished, his voice rough.
“Not technically, but . . . yeah. Yeah, I did.” I sighed, ashamed that I’d kept this from him for so long.
“So rather than tell me this, something that probably had a fairly logical explanation—I mean, people do break up all the time. I should know, right? But rather than tell me the truth, you let me go on about Julie and what she’d done to me?”
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