Keeping Claudia (Toby & Claudia Book 2)

by Suzanne McKenna Link

  “Oh, yeah?” I examined her profile, her high cheekbones, long eyelashes, and full lips, swollen from our kiss. I was in no position to judge her, but I was glad when we’d met again she’d still been the innocent girl of my memory. “Who would you have had sex with? Would you have picked some random guy and told him it was his lucky day?”

  Her gaze darted back to me. “Hey, don't dis me because I don't have your expansive dating history.”

  “Weren't you curious about sex? Didn't you ever want to know what it would feel like?” I asked genuinely curious.

  “Sure, I suppose, but I was in honors and AP classes, involved with student government and about a half a dozen clubs. I never had the time nor opportunity to build that kind of relationship with anyone.” I watched her lips as she spoke. “Maybe I didn't have sex, but there were a couple of guys in high school and college I flirted with.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Just flirting?”

  She smiled, puckish. “Generally. My first kiss left a poor impression. All tongue.”

  She made a gagging noise, but a snip of jealousy rattled in my chest. I wanted names and details, but I resisted asking and tamped it down. I ran my fingers down the smooth skin of her bare arm. “Tell me about the first time you let a guy kiss you. I want to know how the lucky bastard got to kiss my girl when I could only dream about it.”

  She rested her hip against the railing. “I was in eighth grade. Our honors science class was given group projects. Jodi Bannon and I were paired up with two guys. We met at my house to work on the project, and we did for a while. But we ended up playing truth or dare. When I wouldn't answer the question about who I had a crush on, I was dared to spend seven minutes with the one guy up in my room—with the door shut.”

  I vaguely remembered Jodi and couldn't recall the guys she hung out with.

  “I got my first kiss, and it left a strong impression on me—that boys are gross.”

  Intrigued, I leaned in. “What happened?”

  “He practically performed an endoscopy on me with his tongue, and his hands were everywhere. I was so busy fighting him off I didn't hear the footsteps before my bedroom door burst open.” She paused to take a breath.

  “Oh, no.” I squinted at her, unable to believe I'd never heard this story before.

  “Oh, yes. My father found me, the boy on top of me and his hands up my shirt.” She plucked at the fabric at the front of her dress, peeking up at me. “He literally picked the kid up by the scuff of the neck and dragged him downstairs. He held the kid’s arm while he called the parents and threatened them with a sexual assault charge. Needless to say, I never hung out with him or played those games again. I was grounded for almost two months.”

  “Whoa. Your parents were a smidge uptight. Is that why they sent you to St. John's the following year, to get you away from us horny public school guys?”

  “I'm sure it was more about the academics,” she said. “But I'd hedge to guess, safeguarding my previously untainted virtue was a strong consideration.”

  “Who was the kid? I want his name.” My hands were clammy.

  Her brows drew together. “Why?”

  Because she wasn’t like other girls. She didn’t flirt or dress provocatively. She was just smart and pretty in the way you wanted her to notice you, to have that smile shine on you. It had taken me so long to draw that attention my way; it pissed me off that some asshole would try to take it from her forcefully.

  “Tell me, Claude,” I snapped, nettled by my own compulsion to know. “If I ever see the overeager fuck, I’ll—”

  “You'll nothing. That’s why I’m not going to tell you.” She touched my arm. “It doesn’t matter who it was. It was a very long time ago. We were only kids.”

  Going down this road wasn't going to be good, but I was anxious to know more. “Who else were you with?”

  “In high school, no one worth mentioning.” Her gaze shifted from me to the yard. “Things with my parents came to a head right about then. It was a mess. Dad was so angry, I felt like I had to protect my mom. I was too busy playing peacekeeper to worry about my social life. Besides, I wasn't allowed to date until college.”

  “So just one guy in college?” I reached out to trace the edge of her neckline, forcing my fingers to go slow as I attempted to resist showing too much attention in her answer.

  “Yes, in my freshman year at Stony Brook. Only for a few weeks.” She lifted her shoulders. “My sexual history was pretty much a blank page until you came along.” She poked me in the ribs.

  Almost two years ago, on a humid night out in her backyard, I’d taken what she could only give once.

  “Are you sorry it happened?” I asked, hoping she wasn’t. That night was one of my greatest memories.

  “No, not at all.” She leaned into me and pressed her lips to mine. “Now it’s your turn to share. Tell me about your first girl.”

  I rested my hands on her waist, thinking. I had stories, but not ones I wanted to share with her. I was a kid my first time, with an older girl, and it hadn’t been sweet or romantic. As early as middle school, I'd gotten familiar with the enticing contours of the female body. Claudia wouldn’t understand. For her, sex and love were bound. One shouldn’t happen without the other. She would never get, much less accept, my past experiences and my casual indifference to the girls and women I'd been with over the years. She'd lived too virtuous a life, and she'd be surprised, and most likely disgusted, to learn how easy it was to persuade a girl to give me head years before I'd actually gone all the way. Through most of high school, sex was a recreational diversion, one of my favorites. The other was fighting. Both took me out of my head and smoothed the sharp edge of my anger.

  Sensing my hesitation, Claudia's expression softened as her fingers swept over my forehead, pushing my hair away from my eyes. “It’s all right. You can tell me.”

  I scooped an arm around her and pulled her close; her chest mashed up against mine. Heat rocketed through me. “When I was in middle school, I was hot for this super smart Italian girl with sky blue eyes.”

  She smiled. “Do I know this girl?”

  “I hope so. She's had my heart wrapped around her little finger ever since I kissed her in the doorway two years ago,” I said, relieved that she didn’t push for more. “We had finished planting a garden for my mother.”

  “Mmm.” She inhaled, her fingertips trailing over my face. “That was some kiss.”

  “Yeah, it about knocked me on my ass. Above all things in my screwed up existence, chasing you down and forcing a kiss on you was the one thing I did right. I'd never felt that way about someone before.”

  The last two years had been a journey, a long, complicated process, to reassemble the jumbled pieces of my life and understand why I’d been resistant to tell Claudia I loved her. The signs were there; the feelings were strong. Sessions spent with my therapist, pulling apart the layers of my life, gave me some clarity on my childhood and how the anger started and grew. It also helped me understand how my mother had selflessly loved my father despite his many flaws and weaknesses. When you loved someone that much, it's like they're stitched into your soul, and even when the threads became tattered and frayed, the sense of them being sewn into you never completely disappeared.

  “I love you,” I said fearlessly, because Claudia Chiametti was stitched into my soul. She was the first and only one to fully have my heart.

  She bit her lip, her eyes telling me she knew how much it took for me to say those three words. I’d worked hard to be open for her. She was the reward for my bravery. I didn’t believe in happily-ever-afters. I’d never seen evidence that such a thing existed, but it was impossible to hold Claudia in my arms and not wish for one.

  Chapter 6 • Claudia

  I awoke with my stomach afloat, an unmistakable telltale of the day ahead of me. It was the first day of my internship. I showered and dressed with care, ready for Toby long before he arrived. He waited for me to join him curbside, toolbox
in one hand and lunchbox in the other. Though he was dressed in jeans, work boots, and T-shirt like the other workers who crossed the bay every day, he appeared freshly scrubbed, and he smelled heavenly.

  “Let me carry your lunchbox.” I reached around to take it.

  “No. I got it.”

  “How will you hold my hand then?”

  With a grin, he passed me the handled lunchbox and took my hand.

  A warm breeze ruffled my hair, and birds chirped from densely leafed trees, filling the neighborhood with their chatter. The morning air with its dewy scent of freshly mowed grass smelled of promise.

  We walked in comfortable silence and reached the ferry terminal within minutes. As was usual for summer mornings, the terminal was a bustle of activity—deliveries and day workers getting dropped off to make the trek across the bay, the air tinged with the slightly acrid smell of diesel fuel.

  We stopped before the paved entrance into the Pines terminal. Bones, looking more asleep than awake, waved to us from across the way. Toby put down his toolbox and put his arms around my waist.

  I rose up on tiptoe to kiss him. My fingers in his hair coaxed an immediate groan from his lips. With arms tight around me, he pressed me closer until I felt the hard lines of his indisputably all-male body through my clothes.

  Toby tipped his forehead to mine, his breath raspy. “Claude, when you kiss me like that, you make me lose my mind. This waiting to have sex arrangement needs to have its parameters redefined.”

  He’d been so patient and hadn’t pushed, but I knew he wanted more from me. It wasn’t like I was an expert on relationships—far from it—but I had insisted on waiting. It would be up to me to determine when our arrangement was ready for renegotiation. He’d done everything I asked. Maybe it was time.

  “What did you have in mind?” I ran a hand over the light stubble on his jaw.

  “I can think of a few options we’d both enjoy.”

  My face warmed with the thought. “I’m sure you can. We can talk more about it after work.”

  “Immediately after work. I’m holding you to that.” The glow in his opalescent eyes remained hopeful. “First you have an internship to conquer. Ready to wow them?”

  Other than Toby, part of my reason for coming back to Long Island and not staying at USC for my graduate work was a paid intern at Sterling Senior Care.

  “I am, but I’m getting nervous jitters.”

  “You are? Why?” he asked.

  “I worry that I’ll mess up, that I won’t get everything right. I want them to like me.”

  “It’s an internship. You’ll be learning.”

  “Maybe worried isn’t the right word. Let’s call it nervous anticipation,” I said. “You know, the tense feeling you get when you start at a new job?”

  “Not really,” he said, shrugging.

  My mind reeled. “You’ve never been nervous? Not even when you interviewed with Delfino Brothers?”

  “Nope. I figure if something doesn’t work out, there’s always another job, probably a better one, somewhere else.”

  “Jeez. Nerves of steel. That’s so not fair. I think I might hate you a little right now.”

  “Oh, relax, uptight one.” He laughed. “A company should want to impress you as much as you want to impress them. And really, what’s not to like? You’re perfect.”

  Smiling, I planted one on his lips.

  “Has anyone ever told you how incredibly sweet you are?”

  “No, because I’m not sweet. I’m bad. Very, very bad.” He swatted my backside as if to prove his point.

  “Well, I’m going to take a page out of the Very, Very Bad Toby Faye Guide to Life Handbook and not overthink my first day.” Fidgeting, I forced myself to look up. “But it won’t be easy.”

  “I have a very, very bad idea that might make you less nervous. Want to hear it?” Not waiting for me to answer, he lowered his voice. “Don’t wear any underwear to work.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him. “And exactly how would that make me less nervous?”

  “You’ll spend your day thinking of me thinking of you without any panties on,” he said.

  A docked ferry bellowed its early morning boarding call.

  “Oh, my God, stop.” My cheeks heated, but still, I laughed. “I’m not going commando on my first day of work around my new co-workers. Nuh-uh. That’s an über bad idea. Uncomfortable and not to mention unsanitary.”

  He chuckled, too. “Well, even if you don’t, what’s the harm in me thinking about it?”

  “Enjoy spending your days all wound up, do you?”

  “No worries. There are ways to relieve the pressure.”

  “How? …ohhh.” My naiveté folded into understanding, but embarrassment yielded to curiosity. “What do you think about when you do that?”

  His eyes dilated, and with a positively wicked grin, he pulled me up against him. “I think of you. Always you.”

  Yes, it was definitely time to renegotiate.

  I waited until the ferry reached the jetty before walking home, my relationship with Toby on my mind. I was aware how much he craved that physical connection. Not that I knew any of the girls who’d gone before me or even how many there had been, but Toby had an experienced past, and I didn’t want him to think of me as just another girl in his life. I wanted our intimacy to have meaning. Holding back heightened its value, but I couldn’t hold out for too long. Sooner or later, I would have to make good on my promise.

  As nervous as I was about my first day at Sterling, it was difficult to put Toby’s parting words out of my head until I was standing in the office opposite an unfamiliar face. I’d spent a few years volunteering at Sterling before I’d transferred to USC. I’d been close with the executive director, Bill Ramsey, and was familiar with almost all the staff, but I’d never met the woman who now sat at the office manager’s desk.

  The woman rose from her office chair, meeting my gaze with warm, cocoa eyes. Low black heels clicked on the office’s linoleum floor as she stepped around her desk to shake my hand, her petite one warm in mine. “I’m Liz McCaffrey, the office secretary. Mr. Ramsey is sorry he isn’t here to greet you personally. Bill’s away with his family for the week, but he asked me to welcome you aboard.”

  Liz carried herself with the confidence of an older woman. Her shoulder-length dark ginger hair was void of any grays, and there were no obvious wrinkles puckering her small heart-shaped face. I found it difficult to estimate Liz’s age. I guessed she was in her forties. Her dark blue blazer, coordinating skirt, and pale blue blouse outlined her petite feminine shape but didn’t diminish the air of authority.

  “Please, sit.” She motioned to the chair in front of her desk. Instead of sitting behind her desk, she sat in the chair next to mine. There was a gold band on her ring finger, and I found myself wondering if her husband had ever asked her to go to work without underwear on.

  “I understand you used to volunteer here a few years ago?” She picked up a folder from the edge of her desk.

  I steered my thoughts away from underwear. “Yes, as a junior activities coordinator.”

  “You made a strong impression on Mr. Ramsey. I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about you. He’s excited to have you back.”

  “Oh, well… I always loved it here.” Surprise interspersed with pride in my chest. “I’m curious why we’ve never met before.”

  “I came on board shortly after you left. I was an at-home mom, but with kids in school all day, I decided it was time to return to work.” Liz slipped on a pair of stylish, tortoiseshell-framed eyeglasses and scanned the papers inside the folder, including my internship documents. “I see from your application that you have some grant proposal background.”

  “I’ve taken a course in program proposals. It covered expense analysis.” I’d aced it, but it had been one of my least favorite classes. I crossed my legs and willed myself to smile.

  “Terrific. With the many annual grants we apply for, that will
come in handy.”

  Back when I volunteered for Sterling, I had worked exclusively with the residents. Being around the seniors spurred me to pursue a degree in gerontology. On accepting this internship, I knew my duties wouldn’t be the same. I’d be expected to take on more responsibilities, of course, but I had hoped the majority would include working with the seniors and not in the office.

  “Let’s get you reacquainted with the facility.” Liz stood, and motioned to the door.

  The corridors were painted in a new coat of pale yellow, and some of the artwork had been updated. However, much of the building looked the same as I remembered.

  Near the cafeteria I spotted a familiar face.

  “Everyone’s excited to have you back, kiddo.” Vito Ricci, one of the long-time residents, tucked me into a hug.

  As Liz and I traveled through the halls of the facility, we ran into several nurses and other staff members who I’d worked with before, all of whom welcomed me back. It truly felt like returning home.

  “Have you met our temporary resident physician, Dr. Berger?” Liz asked.

  “No. I wasn’t aware Dr. Meyer had left.”

  “He retired,” Liz said. “Dr. Berger agreed to fill in until we find a permanent replacement.”

  I was both happy and sad to hear the news. Dr. Meyer was like a stereotypical country doctor. He was kind and soft-spoken and never without an amusing story or a silly joke to share. I remembered feeling like he truly cared about the patients he cared for.

  “Um, did Mr. Ramsey mention anything else about my duties?” I asked as we passed through a set of double doors that led to the facility’s small medical wing. I didn’t want her to think me pushy or overeager to impress her, but I was desperate for her to be aware of my potential capabilities—capabilities that would best be utilized among Sterling’s senior citizens. “I sent him a fairly comprehensive outline that summarized a few new programs I’d like to try out with the residents—ones with exciting activities regiments and food menus. Pending the approval and guidance of the current wellness director, of course.”