Off-Season Stud

by Abby Knox

  Gretchen

  What the hell was going on between these two? Was she going to get out her measuring tape to see who had the bigger cock?

  She took Nicholas’s hand and led him away toward Regina’s fire pit. Her mind flashed to the scene on the boat earlier today when she got a good look at Matthew and his wet board shorts, appearing slightly aroused. There was no question in her mind who had the bigger cock. She found herself smirking a bit.

  Good grief, woman, she said to herself. Who are you with, exactly?

  An hour later, she had nothing to smirk about.

  Both Nicholas and Matthew had had a few beers in them. Nicholas was clearly the one less able to hold his beer, as he had only partaken of a veggie patty.

  He was slurring his words and pawing her ass by the fire, and it seemed to Gretchen like he was throwing it in Matthew’s face.

  “All I’m saying is, you folks who are of retirement age might want to consider putting your savings in rental properties with me. I have an ace in the hole when it comes to my property management company. You’ll be paying back your 401Ks with interest come next year. You all don’t know what you’re missing.”

  George finally had to put an end to this hugely boring and somewhat shady conversation that Nicholas was having with nobody in particular.

  “It seems you’re missing quite a bit there, young man. All of us on Sandy Lane are richer than your wildest dreams.”

  Nicholas laughed. “You don’t know the half of it. My company is buying up everything that comes up for sale along the riverfront, and your property values are about to go way up. That means your taxes are going to go up as well. If you’re smart, you’ll invest with me now and reap the benefits of a huge mixed-use development that is set to attract more tourists than even Mackinac Island.”

  Gretchen sucked in her breath. “Nicholas, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard. Nobody here wants that.”

  “Everything is about money. When you have enough, you don’t need to worry about it. Which is something your little friend Matthew knows about. Did she tell all of you how much money he threw at her so he could rent two cabins for the month? “

  “Stop it, please,” she urged.

  “No, tell them,” he said, puffing his chest out in Matthew’s direction.

  Matthew, who had more to drink than Nicholas but had wisely started off with a hefty serving of venison, making sure to compliment the chef, said, “It’s pretty tacky of you to be talking about your girlfriend’s private ledgers to her friends.”

  Nicholas let go of Gretchen’s ass and approached Matthew. He got close to his face. A little too close.

  “You want to know what’s tacky? What’s tacky is taking a boat ride with another man’s woman. What’s tacky is paying her any amount of money to make sure you were the only renter on the premises for an entire month. What did you do? Stalk her on Facebook? Is that how you found this place? Found a pretty girl alone and just had to move in?”

  Gretchen was hissing at him to stop.

  Matthew said, “The only reason she’s been alone is because you’re a pretty lousy boyfriend.”

  This elicited a murmur from others around the campfire.

  A couple of the residents shooed their children off to bed, realizing things were about to get ugly.

  Gretchen stepped in between the two men. First, she looked at her boyfriend. “Nicholas, go to bed. You’re drunk. I’ll not have you acting this way on my resort. I don’t care if you are my boyfriend. And if you don’t trust me, then that’s something we can discuss in the morning after you’ve sobered up.”

  Then she turned to face Matthew, who had the smartass smirk that she couldn’t decide if she wanted to smack off or kiss off. She knew what she had to do. “Matthew, I don’t know what you’re implying to my boyfriend, but I’m going to have to ask you to go back to your cabin now and cool off. I don’t want this to devolve into a fistfight.”

  Matthew looked at her with smoldering eyes. He was communicating with her without any words. The vibe he gave off was one that told her the truth. He knew she was lying through her teeth. She was interested, but he also knew she wasn’t going to act on those feelings, because of Nicholas.

  14

  Matthew

  She was a decent person, and he couldn’t fault her for that.

  Matthew acquiesced and tossed his empty beer bottle into the fire. He thanked everyone for the delicious food and made his way toward the cabin.

  But not before deliberately edging Nicholas out of the way with a shoulder bump.

  That was it.

  Triggered, Nicholas threw down his bottle and swung around. He shoved Matthew from behind with a forceful grunt, causing him to stumble forward.

  Getting attacked from behind was unexpected, but then, so was Matthew’s haymaker

  As he turned around and let his fist fly, it connected with Nicholas’s jaw. Nicholas stumbled back. The crowd around the fire shouted. A couple of the men grabbed Nicholas to prevent him from retaliating, and Gretchen stood in front of Matthew, her hands in the air.

  “Enough. That’s enough.”

  Matthew was breathing heavily and staring down Nicholas.

  The next morning, Matthew went for his early morning run. Only slightly hungover, he thought about what to do.

  He decided he would take the day and head into town. The small city of St. Eustace was 15 miles away and was supposed to be full of things to do. He could visit the locks where the freighters pass through at the choke point between two of the Great Lakes. He could buy some gourmet local chocolates, maybe a tee-shirt. Walk through the park. Find a coffee shop with WiFi. All would be right with the world.

  He figured it would be best to stay away for a while and let Gretchen and Nicholas sort things out. Maybe the universe would smile on him and she would break up with him.

  When he returned from his run, though, he couldn’t help but knock on her door.

  To his chagrin, Nicholas answered.

  He was dressed in nothing but a towel.

  “The nutty professor,” he said, pointing at him as if he couldn’t recall his name from last night.

  Matthew’s mind raced. Of course they hadn’t broken up. Of course they had spent the night together.

  “Did you need something?” Nicholas asked. “Because Gretchen is waiting for me. In bed.”

  It seemed to Matthew that a real man would not kiss and tell. But then, Nicholas was hardly a man. He was a little boy waiting to get his claws into Gretchen’s assets.

  “Oh really?”

  “Yeah, really. Popped her cherry last night. Proposed. She said yes. It’s a done deal. So, did you need something? If not, then you can scurry on back to your cabin, write your Unabomber manifesto, or whatever it is you’re doing in there.”

  Nicholas had more to say, but the force of Matthew’s fist against his jawbone prevented any more insipid words from oozing out.

  15

  Gretchen

  Waking to the sounds of cussing and an open screen door batting violently against the wood siding was not how she thought this day would begin.

  Gretchen flew out the door, angrily shouting before she even laid eyes on the two men fighting. She didn’t need to assess what was happening. Nicholas and Matthew were at it again.

  Punching, shoving, hurling.

  “Stop it! Just fucking stop it, both of you!!”

  The two grown men rolling around in the dirt, pummeling each other, did not seem to hear her. Or they were ignoring her.

  Gretchen stomped off, grabbed a length of green garden hose from the side of the A-frame, and turned on the faucet.

  She didn’t care who started what. These boys were getting the hose.

  And it worked.

  A surprised Matthew sprang off of Nicholas and was on his feet with the dexterity of a trained Special Ops man. He looked like he had barely exerted himself in the fight. Nicholas lay on the ground, breathless. His lip was bleeding and h
e was favoring one shoulder.

  “Now, will one of you imbeciles tell me what happened? Nicholas, you go first.”

  Nicholas gingerly got to his feet, wincing the whole way. “I don’t know, babe. He just came at me.”

  To her surprise, Matthew went charging at Nicholas again, his finger pointing in his face. “Tell her the truth, asshole!”

  “Whoa!” Gretchen exclaimed. “Matthew, speak to me, not to him.”

  Matthew turned to her, his eyes blazing with fury. Yet, he spoke calmly. “You’re really going to marry a guy who goes around bragging the second he takes your virginity?”

  Gretchen recoiled. She took a moment to process those words. And all this before she’d even had her coffee.

  “First of all, my virginity is not a subject of discussion for either of you. But since it’s been brought up... Nicholas, what the fuck is he talking about?”

  Nicholas put his hands up in fake surrender.

  “Babe. I was going to surprise you with a proposal later. I didn’t mean for you to hear that. The virginity thing? It was just locker room talk. You know, to get this weirdo to back off. Leave you alone. You know how guys talk. We gotta mark our territory.”

  Gretchen looked at Nicholas. For the first time since they met, she finally had the full picture of who he was.

  He was too interested in money. He was always talking about buying up land in the area. He’d offended all of her friends and neighbors last night by talking about real estate developing with the help of their land and their hard-earned savings to boot. And now he was telling lies about her and trying to play it off as endearing.

  “Well, the surprise worked,” she said with a smile. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Matthew’s shoulders droop slightly in defeat.

  “So, you can go now.”

  Nicholas turned smugly back to Matthew. “Hear that? You can go now, big guy.”

  Gretchen cleared her throat.

  “No, I mean, you can go now, Nicholas. How dare you talk about me like that? Honestly? Fuck you.”

  “Babe, come on! It’s guy talk!”

  Her arms crossed and she approached him. Her small frame was no match for Nicholas, but her aura was pushing him off the porch without her even having to use her hands. “I’ll tell you how it is. You can pack your bag and get the hell out. We’re done.”

  “Seriously?” Nicholas looked incredulous.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Seriously.”

  Matthew tried not to look too elated, but he couldn’t help the sensation inside that made him want to jump for joy.

  He had known it wasn’t true about the proposal. Or that they had had sex. He gazed at her. She did not have the flush of someone who had recently been ravished by a man. Matthew would know; he’d fantasized about it more than once.

  But then he saw the flush in Gretchen’s cheeks and the tears welling in her eyes. And he felt like a complete asshole for sizing up whether she was recently bedded.

  Nicholas huffed and puffed while grabbing his things.

  Matthew was going to offer to take her to coffee into town, but before he could, she looked at him with an equal amount of anger. “I need to be alone with my thoughts today. OK?”

  Matthew watched a colossal steamship make its way slowly through the locks, amazed at the marvel of human engineering.

  He visited a chocolate shop. He bought homemade ice cream. He sampled craft beer and even shopped for kayaks at a local outfitter.

  But rather than enjoying all the sights of St. Eustace, he found himself wishing he had company.

  The company of one particular woman.

  But how could it be possible to start something with Gretchen? Oh, he knew how it could be possible. They were into each other. He wanted her, without a doubt.

  But there was no way to make it work, not with the nature of his true profession.

  He could not take her away from this place, and he could not bear to leave her alone while he did the work he would soon be expected to do. And there was no place for him here.

  He decided before he headed back to the river to pick up a coffee for her.

  But when he arrived back at River Rocks, Gretchen was nowhere to be found. The office door was locked. She must be upset. Maybe she’s swimming, he thought.

  He took his coffee out to the dock and sat down on the swing.

  He heard a freighter in the distance and sipped his coffee, enjoying the sunshine.

  He looked across the river and saw George’s cabin on Ferris Island, then looked down toward Crescent Bay and saw something odd in the water.

  It was a jet ski, but someone was pulling it. Swimming and pulling a jet ski, what a ridiculous idea!

  And then he squinted and saw what it was. It was Gretchen. Her old jet ski had died and she was pulling it across the channel. Toward shore.

  But, she was in the middle of the channel and she looked like she was getting tired.

  Meanwhile, a freighter was on its way down the river.

  It wasn’t bearing down on her, but he didn’t like this.

  In fact, Matthew had a really bad feeling about all of this.

  He dropped his coffee and flew into Gretchen’s boat, remembering what she’d said about how to not flood the engine.

  16

  Gretchen

  Needing to clear her head of thoughts of the men in her life, Gretchen tried her usual ritual of coffee on the dock swing. When that didn't work, she immersed herself in a project.

  Getting that old jet ski up and running was as good an idea as any.

  As she opened it up and looked at the engine parts that needed fixing, she thought about Nicholas. Boy, she had been wrong all along. And her father had been right. It ate away at her that she didn’t trust her father’s judgment. These days, maybe because she missed him so much, her father’s judgment seemed to be in line with her still, small voice.

  A part of her wanted to run back to the office and call him immediately to brighten her day. He surely would be pleased to hear that Nicholas was out of the picture.

  But on the other hand, she guessed that somehow, he already knew.

  All these phone calls to Dad had to stop. She didn’t need rescuing. She would figure things out on her own, just like this jet ski in front of her.

  And then there was the Matthew problem.

  What the hell. He was incredibly good looking, jacked, strong, smart, slow to speak. Mysterious.

  But then she’d thought Nicholas was mysterious and it turned out he tried to swindle her friends of their savings.

  The still, small voice inside told her what she already knew.

  Matthew was a decent guy. He had a lot of money. A crap ton, evidently. And he didn’t care one bit about it. Actually, he seemed to hate it.

  He certainly wasn’t good at managing it.

  Maybe he deserved a chance?

  There was no denying he heated up her shorts like a volcano fire. Just thinking of his icy stare and his bare shoulders. The way she caught him glancing at her breasts and then shyly looking away, chastising himself internally.

  He was into her.

  Wires reconnected, oil applied and fuel lines cleaned, she reassembled the jet ski’s engine casing and wiped her hands clean on an oil rag in the garage.

  She wished someone would tell her what to do. Besides her tingling pussy. That part of her could not be trusted.

  It was time to take the toy for a trial run.

  Donning her life vest, she pulled it into the water. When she was at a safe depth, she hopped on and revved the engine. It came to life and she was overjoyed.

  Checking the channel and the general traffic of the area, she took off toward the channel and hightailed it down river in the direction of the wide open lake.

  She had the urge to crash through a few waves to try this baby out.

  The lake was breezy that day. The sky was crystal clear and the sun was shining. The breeze was making gentle waves that tested the jet ski’s mo
bility. It was an old machine and wasn’t going to do anything impressive, but it sure was fun.

  Zipping up and down the lake, her hair whipping, the waves sending her up and down with a force, she left the unpleasantness of the morning behind her.

  Pretty soon, she was starting to get hungry. And thirsty from being under the sun. There had been no way to bring along a water bottle for this little mini-adventure, so she figured it was time to head back home. These old toys didn’t have cup holders like the fancy new ones.

  She turned the jet ski around and headed back toward the mouth of the river. But when she was just about there, in sight of Ferris Island, the jet ski’s motor made a sickening sound, like a drowning goat.

  “Oh crap,” she said, peeved.

  She checked the gas level, which was fine. So it had to be an engine malfunction. Which meant she had to jump ship and walk the jet ski back home.

  At the moment, though, she was close to the north side of the river, which would come out on the opposite side of the channel from the resort. She knew that if she swam with the vehicle to the other side of the river mouth, she’d catch the natural spillway and risk drowning. Even though she’d be able to touch ground there, she decided it was safer to aim toward the Ferris Island side of the river, then swim directly across the channel, the shortest distance to home.

  Trouble was, as she swam, she realized her she was getting tired. The sky, to her chagrin, was also starting to darken.

  What she thought had been the safest option was turning into the least safe option.

  She considered abandoning the jet ski and heading toward George’s house on Ferris Island, but his boat was not there. If there was a storm coming up, who knows how long she’d have to wait outside for him to come help her tow the jet ski home?

  She soldiered on. Swimming, taking breaks to catch her breath. Growing thirstier. Hungrier. More tired.

  She had finally gone far enough that she needed to take a break in earnest. She decided to tread water for a bit, relax, and focus on getting home. She was not quite directly across from her dock. Her location was diagonal from it across the channel. She could see her own dock, but it was about a half a mile swim from where she was.