by Naomi Niles
“Fuck you, man. I’m better.”
“We’ll see. Hit me up later, bro. I need to get to the office.”
“All right.”
I threw my shirt on and grabbed my bag from the locker as he walked away. I figured enough time had passed for me to text Hannah back without coming off like a giddy freshman who had just gotten his crush’s number for the first time. I erased my text three times before I finally sent something that I deemed appropriate. “Absolutely. I will see you later, and I promise we will read the script this time!”
Seconds later, she sent a response. “Thank God. I thought we were going to have sex or something.” My mouth hung open as I glared at my screen. Just as a smile began to stretch across my face, another text buzzed in. “Just kidding! What kind of girl do you think I am?”
“The one that likes to get men hard and then go home without finishing the job.”
“Bingo!”
I laughed out loud. “You are a mess. I will see you later.”
“For sure.”
I slipped my phone into my pocket, threw my bag over my shoulder, and made my way out of the gym. As soon as I got home, I hopped in the shower so that I would have enough time to straighten up a little bit before Hannah came by in a few hours. There was never much to clean because I wasn’t a messy guy. The only times that I had to put in extra work was when my boys came by. They had a knack for leaving their toys and clothes in every room of the house except theirs. As I walked down the hallway, I stopped and peeked inside of their room. Their walls were decorated with new-age Ninja Turtle and Power Ranger posters. Their PlayStation sat below their television set, and beside that, there was a small cabinet full of DVDs that they would watch on repeat. Tanner could quote the full LEGO movie by heart. I smiled at the thought as I closed the door behind me and made my way to the front room.
It was 6 o’clock when the doorbell rang. My heartbeat picked up as I stood and headed for the door. Before I opened it, I took a deep breath to calm the butterflies that had begun flapping their wings around inside of my stomach. I hated the feeling. “Hey, Ezra,” she said as I opened the door. She stood with her purse dangling from the fold of her arm as dark clouds covered the sky just above.
“Hey, Hannah. I see you brought the dark clouds with you as well. You should come on in before it starts raining… I mean, unless you don’t mind getting wet.”
“No,” she said as she stepped into my home, “I mind.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” I said under my breath as I closed the door behind her.
She laughed and propped her hands onto her waist. “Excuse me?!”
“Oh, you heard that?” I smiled. “I need to work on my inside voice.” I removed her jacket and hung it inside of the closet. “Well, here is my humble abode. If you want, I can show you around.”
“Lead the way.”
I escorted her to the kitchen, the dining room, the bathroom, and lastly, the two bedrooms. Once I opened the door to my son’s room, her eyes widened. “Yeah,” I said, “This is where my boys lay whenever their mother flies them over here on her broom.” She nudged me in the side as she stepped further into their room.
“I didn’t know you had sons.”
“Yeah,” I said as I followed behind her, “Two. Tanner and Nolan, 5 and 3, respectively.”
“Young tikes,” she said as she strolled around the room, admiring their things as if it was the first time she’d seen anything like it.
“Yeah.” I smiled like a proud father, recollecting on the memories I had of them inside of this room like they had passed away. That is what it seemed like, though, especially with the way Tanya was being such a bitch about me spending more time with them. “They are my heart, though. I’d do anything for my boys.”
“That is good, Ezra. That is how every father should be with their children.” She turned towards me. “So, I guess that you and the mother aren’t the best of friends?”
“Oh yeah, we are good friends. I want to kill her every time I see her, but we are good friends.”
“Um,” she responded with a side-eyed glance, “I um, I don’t know how to take that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said as I led her out of the room. “But, if she happens to end up dead, it is purely a coincidence. I don’t want you running to the police talking about you heard me saying that I wanted to kill her. As a matter of fact, just forget I said anything about that.”
She chuckled as we exited the room. “Um, sure thing, buddy. Sure thing.”
We arrived back in the front room and sat down on the couch with one cushion between us. She reached back and pulled her hair into a ponytail, then removed the thick script from her purse. “My God, this thing is like a dictionary. It’s like carrying around a bag of bricks when I have it in my purse.”
“Yeah, I know all about it. I mean, not the purse thing, but how thick it is.”
She laughed. The gloss on her lips glimmered beneath the living room lights. She licked her thumb and paged through the script as my eyes made a beeline right to her breasts. They were covered up well, but I was still able to see the top of the crease between and my imagination was strong enough to render her naked in my mind. “So,” she said, prompting me to grab my script, “I thought we could read over some of the lines in the umm,” she flipped through the pages. “Shoot, I don’t know what scene this is, but it is on page 27.”
As I turned to the page, I thought about the content of the book and wondered how much of it would translate into the movie. I knew that most movies had to leave certain things out because of time constraints, so I wasn’t sure what parts would be interjected into the script. But, knowing Hollywood these days, the raunchier the script, the better the movie, so I fully expected there to be a few explicit scenes to unfold before our eyes. “All right,” I said as I flipped open to the page. “So, I guess we should just start reading it.”
“OK. You’re up.”
I stood up and paced the room for a few seconds with the paper in my hand. I scanned the full page to get an understanding of what was going on so that I could get in the proper mindset for the scene. “I’m in here, babe.”
Hannah stood, “I’ve been calling you for the past few minutes. What were you doing?”
“I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t hear you.”
She rolled her eyes, “Whatever. Look, can you button this dress up?” She lifted her hair and turned her back towards me as I pretended to latch the buttons on her dress. She continued, “You know, I am going, to be honest. I hate going out with your sister and her boyfriend. I mean, your sister is fine, but that guy is just no good for her. At all.” She dropped her hair back to its place, then spun around to me.
“Yeah, I know, I feel the same thing. He is a fuckin’ loser, and I’ve tried to tell her about him, but you know how that goes. It does nothing but push her closer to him.”
“Maybe he just needs a little guidance, you know? I mean, he is kind of young.”
“Well, I’m not his father, so I hope you’re not suggesting that I step in and show him what he should have known already.”
“No, I’m not.” She paused, “OK, well maybe I am a little bit. He doesn’t even know the basics. Hold the door for her, pull out her chair, you know? That is basic. He should at least know the basic things.”
“You forgot one thing,” I said, stepping closer to her, “one thing I do without disappointment.”
She laughed and put her hand onto my chest. I could tell she allowed it to linger more than she wanted to. She glanced at her bare fingers, and upon realizing that she had left it there for much too long, she quickly removed it. “Oh,” she said, picking up her spot on the script, “here you go with that again. Babe, why do you always have to take it there when we aren’t even talking about anything remotely close to the topic?”
She turned away, but I gently grabbed her hand and pulled her back to me. “Oh, it is remotely close.” I put my hand on the sm
all of her back. “And you know you can’t deny it. The way you moan when I spread your legs–”
“Babe!” she said with an embarrassed smile, as if we were standing in front of a room of people. “Come on now, don’t start. We have to be there in an hour, and I am still not done getting ready.”
“–to the back of your head. How your thighs twitch as I rub against your clit with my finger.”
“Babe–” she said as if she were out of breath. I could only imagine what she thought as we stood inches apart from each other. Her smile faded into a passionate, longing desire for physical connection. I slid my hand to her putty-like backside, soft and molded with my touch. As I leaned in closer to her, she abruptly took a step back. “Um,” she said as she lowered her script. “Um, maybe we should have picked a different scene.”
It took me a few moments to calm down. The passion between us had already stirred me to the point of wanting more. “Yeah,” I said as I exhaled a gust of disappointed air from my lungs. “Maybe we should have.” I smiled and tossed the script onto the table.
“How about we try this again another day, but, we will pick up on a less, um, we will try a scene with less sexual tension.”
“Yeah, I think that would be best for now.”
She smiled, grabbed her things, and I walked her to the door. “Well, Hannah, it was good to finally go over the script a little bit.”
“Yeah, it was. It definitely was. But, um, we can try again Friday if you’d like? I’ll make sure we have a scene that won’t be as um, racy… if you’d like.”
“Either way is cool with me. Either way.”
We exchanged quiet smiles for a moment, as if we were both hiding things that we were too shy to say. Secrets dripping from the edges of our lips like honey. Something that I would have sucked off of hers in an instant. “Ok,” she said, breaking our silent exchange, “well, I guess I will see you Friday.”
“I will be looking forward to it.”
I watched her walk to her car as the thunder rumbled above us. The thick, dark clouds rolled in and didn’t drop an ounce of rain anywhere near us, but for some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about whether or not Hannah had still gotten wet in the process.
Chapter Twelve
Hannah
“Do not put that shit in my eggs, Carrie!”
She spun around with a bottle of beer in her hand as she wrinkled her eyebrows together. “What? This adds flavor, Hannah. Stop actin’ like that.”
She started to pour, but I jolted her, “Carrie! No! I do not want beer in my fucking eggs!”
She held the beer steady as she stood near the stove. The eggs crackled in the pan as I waited for what she was going to do next, although I already knew. Suddenly, she tipped the beer bottle over and poured it into the skillet with the eggs. “Oh, shut up, Hannah. You haven’t even tried it like this before. You see, that is your problem. You just say no to things before you give it a shot. This Corona will liven up the taste, I am telling you. Stop being so bougie!”
“I am not eating those eggs.”
“You will if I have to shove it down your pretty little throat!” She took a fork and pushed the eggs around in the skillet as the steam rose into the air above her like a soul being released from its body. “Speaking of shoving it down your throat, how did the thing go with the guy?”
“The thing with the guy?”
She turned off the eye of the stove and made eye contact with me. “The thing. The guy,” she said, snapping her fingers to help her recollect what she was trying to say. “Um, what’s his name? Hezma?”
“Ezra?”
She grabbed two plates from the cabinet. “Yeah, him. Didn’t you go over there the other day to read the script or something?” She sat the plates on the counter and scooped the eggs out, then loaded the rest of the plates with bacon and biscuits. We usually took turns cooking breakfast when we were both home, and right now, it was her turn. She slid the steaming plate of food in front of me, and then put a jar of jelly front and center on the table. Her housecoat was open down the middle, exposing the middle of her bra. She was so comfortable wearing little clothing, and I knew that I was going to have to find that same courage before we began shooting the movie.
“It went well,” I said as I glared at the eggs. “Um, I went to his house, and he showed me around. He has two young boys, and he apparently wants to kill their mother.” Her mouth hung open as she held a forkful of eggs just inches away from her mouth. “No, not literally. I guess I was exaggerating, but he just doesn’t like her. At all.”
She exhaled a sigh of relief, as if somebody’s life had just gotten saved. She shoved the eggs into her mouth and found a way to allow her words to escape the crowded space, “You know, most guys don’t like their children’s mother and vice versa. I’m sure she hates his fucking guts, too.”
“We didn’t get into that, though. He just showed me around,” I picked up a piece of bacon and snapped it in two, “and then we started reading the script.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Um…”
She lowered her eyes, “Spit it out, Hannah. You’ve already told me that the man is gorgeous. What? Did yall fuck?”
“No!” I said, tapping the table with my hand. “No! I just met him, Carrie. Geez, what do I look like?”
She rolled her eyes, “Oh, please. Grow up. Adults have sex with other people at the drop of a dime. It happens. It’s called being an adult and being able to make your own fucking decisions. If I see a guy and he is hot? And interested in me? Hell, I am going to approach him, I don’t give a damn. You only live once, and I’m not going to pass an opportunity to fuck a hot guy because of what somebody else might think of my actions. They are not in my fucking shoes, and they are not living my life, so I couldn’t care less what they think.”
There it is, I thought to myself. That boldness. That’s what I need. “Well, no, we didn’t have sex.” I slid the crispy piece of bacon into my mouth. The crunch seemed to reverberate throughout our home as if I were eating alone in a dark cave. “I mean, there was tension, though. A lot of sexual tension as we read over the parts.”
Carrie scooped a pile of jelly onto her plate. “Tension because of the script or because you two are hot for each other?”
“Um, if I had to guess, I would say… the latter?”
She swirled her biscuit around in the jelly. “Well,” she said, “there is only one way to find out for sure or not.”
“And what is that?”
She smiled as she chewed her food inside her mouth. She bounced her eyebrows onto her forehead like a basketball, and from there, I knew what she was thinking. “Fuck him,” she said after she swallowed her food. “Fuck him. Or let him fuck you. Either way, just make sure you’re fucked.”
“Really?”
“I am serious. That is the only way that you’ll know if there is real chemistry between you two. Hell,” she said, snapping a piece of bacon in two, “that is how I judge it. Besides, you know this movie has sex scenes in it. Now, I don’t know if you two will actually be having sex or not because there are ways to trick the camera, but if you two are really having sex, then umm… it might be a problem. You haven’t had sex in how long? You know your pussy gets tighter when you go so long without fucking, and that shit might hurt the first few times. Well,” she said with a smirk, “I guess it depends on the size of his dick.” She slid the other half of the bacon around the edge of her lips as her eyes drifted around the room.
I thought about what she said. Everything was happening so fast, and there was a reason I hadn’t had sex in so long. Mainly because I hadn’t found the right guy. I nervously tapped my foot on the ground beneath the table. Well, this can be considered work, I thought to myself. And besides that, he is attractive, and it seems like we have a little more going on between us because of the way we are connecting. I looked down at the eggs as they sat peacefully on my plate, more beige in color than the normal bright yellow I was accustome
d to seeing.
“Hannah, just try them. Damn it! You have to stop hiding behind that fucking shell and try new things! You just might like it!”
I thought about Ezra when she said that. Yeah, she is right. I just might like it. With him in mind, I scooped the eggs onto my fork, took a deep breath, and slid them into my mouth. I could taste the hint of Corona inside my mouth as I chewed. I smiled and nodded my head as if it wasn’t bad. “See,” Carrie said with a smile. “I told you that you just have to–” Suddenly, I spat the food out of my mouth and gagged from the little bit that I had swallowed. Carrie laughed, “Well,” she said, “Beer is an acquired taste. But at least you tried. At least you tried.”
Chapter Thirteen
Ezra
Friday came as a blur. I had spent all week in anticipation of seeing Hannah again. I was disappointed that things didn’t go a little further the last time she came over, and honestly, it was the first time that I had a woman over here and it we didn’t end up in my bed. Hannah was different, though, and I didn’t want to apply that kind of pressure to her because I didn’t know how she would react. On top of that, we still had to maintain a business relationship, and I didn’t want shit to be awkward between us because I came on too strong. If things were going to go further between us, then it was going to have to be a natural progression. As much as I didn’t want to, I knew that waiting was the name of this game.
I grabbed my phone and dialed her number. “Hello?”
“Hannah. Hey, Ezra here. I was just calling to see if you were still going to come by tonight so we could go over the lines.”
“Oh, yeah. Of course. I have a few errands to run and then I will head that way, around 7-ish?”
“That is fine. I’ll be looking forward to seeing you again. Did you get a chance to read through the script and find a scene a little less racy?”
“Um,” she said with hesitation, “yeah, I looked through it. I was just thinking, though… maybe… it wouldn’t hurt to graze over one of those scenes, you know? Go all the way through with it. I mean, one way or the other, it is going to happen, right? I figured that the best thing to do is just get myself used to it so that it doesn’t all hit me at once, you know?”
