A Field Guide To Catching Crickets: ( a sexy second chance tearjerker romance )

by Unknown

  A blazing bubble indeed.

  We saunter into the tepid water, both of us holding an icy bottle of beer in one hand, with the fingers of our other hands entwined. We linger hip-deep under the full moon, making out like teenagers who’ve just sneaked out of their bedroom windows for the night. The lake’s heady scent along with the country noises of toads and a wind that wrestles through the treetops makes our reunion perfect. Memory-filled and future-expectant.

  Home. I made it back. Finally.

  “You’re even sexier now, all grown up,” Hawke says.

  “Yeah?” I answer, letting out a satisfied sigh. “You too. I gotta say, the man version of you is rather, manly.”

  “That’s all you’ve got? Manly?” He drops his head back, laughing.

  “Well, I mean. You really know what the hell you’re doing. And watching you do it… Shit. No wonder.”

  He wraps his arms around me. “No wonder what?”

  His damp chest hair tickles my face as I fall onto him and breathe in his scent. How can someone you haven’t seen in a decade feel so familiar? Maybe we never really did leave each other. Can someone leave you physically but not emotionally? Yes.

  “No wonder women like watching you.”

  “Does that embarrass you?”

  I shrug and nod.

  “Why’s that?” he asks as he pokes my ribs with a finger, making me laugh.

  “I don’t know. Women getting off to you. It’s interesting.”

  “Kind of bothers you?”

  “It’s odd for sure. Next week, you’ll be doing those sorts of things and then what about us? I’m just not quite sure how to process all of it. Too selfish?”

  “Nah. I get it. Don’t worry about next week, okay? I have nothing to film, no one to fuck but you, gorgeous. Everything is going to be fine. I feel selfish right now. Gonna feel that way all night.”

  Hawke silences my thoughts with a kiss that says he understands, or so I think, until seconds later he tries to find me.

  “What happened to you anyway?” he asks against my mouth.

  I take a long pull from my beer and marry it with a deep sigh. “I grew up.” I’m not ready to give more, though not willing to hide completely. I have to give him something, not that he’ll be pleased with that bumper-sticker answer. “You might be looking for a different girl, one who doesn’t exist anymore.”

  The torn-up look on her face as she studies me says she thinks I’m insulated from her pain. Don’t know a thing of her guilt, won’t be able to live in the depths of her angst.

  And maybe that’s true. But I’m going to find a way to get it out of her and help her heal. Whatever it is she went through. Truth, they say, can set you free. Will that be the case with us?

  “Well, while I’m looking for my girl, promise me you’ll stay and keep my bed warm. I might even find her there if I’m lucky.”

  She gazes at me as if she may spill something, but nothing comes of it besides a heavy sigh.

  “Hey, don’t do that.” I rub my palm along her thigh. “Don’t make me miss you while you’re in my arms.”

  “Sorry. It’s just…um…” Her eyes fill with tears, visible through the veil of her half-mast lashes.

  “Hey, it’s me.” I see everything on her face, but not deeper.

  She narrows her eyes. “Hey, you. You might be living in a fool’s paradise.”

  “So, no utopian dreams for you?”

  “I’m not overly fond of illusions.”

  “Could have fooled me.” With two fingers under her chin, I still her wandering gaze on my face. “I’m not gonna take that personally or assume you’re talking about us? I want to strip you down to your thoughts, want to hear your naked words. I want your heart exposed and defenseless. But here’s the thing.” I cluck my tongue. “I need you to help me do this, help me undress you. Think you can do that?”

  “Want to go snuggle and get some moon burn on the beach?” Sloan asks, avoiding my question. Her voice—which sounds as though it’s hiding in a shadow—and her eyes—which, even when lit by the moon, are telling me things. Don’t push me. Love me now, and maybe, when I’m ready to talk, you’ll love me later too.

  She’s a contest I have no rules for but need to win; she’s a mountain to climb with whatever equipment I can dig up inside me; she’s a test worth taking even though I have no idea what sorts of questions I’ll discover. Somewhere inside Sloan, beyond the miles of upheaval and confusion she’s wrestling with, sits a beautiful soul at ease.

  “Yeah, my cock wants to snuggle in your pussy again.”

  She laughs. Thank God. She’s not a Southern belle like her mother, but she has that kind of charm.

  We head to the sand, and I stoke the fire and add more wood as Sloan cracks open two more beers for us. She sits cross-legged on the quilt, and I lie down, propped up on my elbow.

  “True confessions,” she says with a hint of mystery in her voice as she cringes. “After I took my shower earlier, I went to your website.”

  “And?” I waggle my eyebrows.

  “I was, well…let’s just say—”

  “Turned on?”

  “Well, yeah.” She licks her lips. “Very sexy, Mr. Slater. I can’t believe you’re a porn star.” She squeals and covers her face with her hands. “I really only watched a little. It did make me wonder, have you had girlfriends since you’ve become such big stuff?”

  I knock back a mouthful of beer. “A few. All in the industry. One for a little longer.”

  She wrinkles her face. “Still work with her?”

  “You mean do I still have sex with her?” I grab Sloan’s wrist and pull her over to me for a kiss.

  She nods as her shoulders tense. “Do you?”

  “No.”

  She says nothing to my answer as she slumps onto her side facing me. Her mouth pulls up in a twist after she takes a sip of beer. “So who’s Samantha?”

  “Did you hear me talking to her?” I ask as I tug at her earlobe.

  She lowers her gaze. “Sorry, that was kind of stalkerish of me.”

  “It’s okay. She’s my agent and a friend. And yes, the woman I dated. There’s nothing between us but business.”

  She snorts out a sarcastic laugh as she rolls her eyes and clinks her beer to mine. “The business of fucking!”

  “The business of fucking is what I do.” I clench my jaw, all my muscles rigid. “It’s a big thorn, isn’t it?”

  She purses her lips, while staring at my jaw. “Put yourself in my position. A part of me isn’t sure how we’ll do this.”

  I take her fingers in mine. “We’ll do it any way that makes you feel comfortable.”

  “Right.” She drops my hand and presses a knuckle to her temple, then robotically says, “Hi, Hawke. I’m home. It’s been ten years. Now, please change everything in your life for me!” She scrunches up her face, swiping tears with her thumb. “Not like you’ll end up resenting me or anything.”

  “I don’t think you get me. You were a fucking phantom limb. I’d change everything to have you in my life.”

  Sloan bites her bottom lip then looks me in the eye while cocking her head. “Are you even the slightest bit concerned I might be someone else now? I mean, you’re someone else. A man that’s become…well, we’re not teenagers anymore.” Her hand grips the neck of her beer as if she’s strangling it. One finger tapping a steady beat.

  “We’re grownups.” I take her free hand, entwine our fingers, and lock them together. “We have choices now that we didn’t have then. We can do anything we want. I know what my choice will be. And yes, I’m concerned about you. Of course I am. I know nothing, but I’m sensing big stuff.”

  “Yeah, big stuff.” She flops onto her back and throws her forearm over her face.

  “What about you?” I tap her chest with one finger and watch her nipples pebble. Fuck if that doesn’t make me hard again. “Boyfriends?”

  She lifts her arm for a peek. “Can we not talk about me?”
/>
  “Why would we not talk about you?” I ask, holding her arm hostage. Why won’t she tell me anything? “You’ve asked me lots of questions. I want to understand you.”

  “You will soon enough, can we leave it at that?” she whispers in a cracked voice as she looks down to the quilt and plays with a loose thread, wrapping it around one finger until it breaks.

  “What’s with all the mystery? You and your family. It’s like I’m a foreigner around you people and every time I ask for directions to you, I’m kicked in the nuts.”

  “That’s a little unfair.” She shoots up, sitting on her ass, and wraps the quilt around her body. Then she lets out an annoyed-sounding groan.

  “Unfair? You might as well have died. That’s how out of my life you were. Now that would be considered unfair by most sane people. I’m asking you about your past; we just made love after not saying one word about all those impossible years. You want me to keep going? Want me to continue to dissect the unfair parts of us? Whatever us is. Let me tell you something, you are all I think of when I’m on set shooting. That’s how I get hard. I imagine you. How’s that for unfair.” I drag a hand down my face. “Tell me. Does it feel to you like we’ve never been apart? Because it sure as hell does to me. Maybe because I want to think we have a shot at more. Maybe a future? Or is that where these questions are coming from. You aren’t sure we do?”

  I knew coming home wouldn’t be without complications. You don’t walk off the face of the earth one day, then a decade later, show up and assume nothing’s changed. I didn’t expect so many complications in our relationship, though, besides the ones I was bringing to the table. I thought I’d come home, find him, find us. Then, as time went by and we became us again, I’d tell him my story. Then I’d pray that he’d still want me. Naïve? Yes. Hopeful? Always. Is there any other choice?

  I lived seven of my ten years overseas in a hopeful bubble. Most days, it was the only way I made it through what was happening to me. Two experiences that formed an intersection between hell and love. Seems like an odd junction, but it was exactly that. I didn’t expect Hawke to have a story of his own. How audacious of me.

  “I’m sorry,” I say softly.

  “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out as we go.” Hawke answers as if the words are dying in his throat.

  For a long time, as we lie in silence together under the moon, I forget what I did. I push it out of my mind. It’s good not to regret or justify, but, rather, to just feel. Everything. His breath hitting my skin. The simpleness of it, the predictability. It’s hypnotizing. The pattern and rhythm. The scent of it: a sweet tang of bitter laced with hops from the beer. His throat rises and falls as his full lips open, his tongue resting near the edge of his bottom lip. I have the urge to lick it, that lovely tongue that made me come so beautifully tonight—multiple times. That lovely tongue, the way it licked me everywhere, from the hollow between my collarbone to the peaks of my breasts and the softness between my thighs like a storm across my sex. I wonder how, after so many years, he could know my body like this. How could every ounce of this man be so perceptive?

  He’s out cold; I’m wide awake. Nighttime is the worst for me; it’s when everything happened, when I relive. Oh, how I hate reliving things I’ve already gone through too many times. Instead, I usually stay up and edit films or create a new entry in my video journal. After some minor waffling and ogling of Hawke’s handsome body, I cover him with a quilt and head into my cabin to meet up with Soul Sister for an entry. Stopping first at the fridge for some wine, I then pad over to peek in on the little butterball. I smile, thinking how I love having a tiny thing to take care of. After grabbing my robe and my laptop, I settle in to create my entry. What a day to recount…

  “Dear Soul Sister, this is a big day. A rite of passage. I wasn’t sure who I’d be running into this weekend, who Hawke would be, what sort of man he’d become.” I sip my wine and stare into my smiling reflection. Content with a layer of question. “He’s all sorts of things, things I don’t even know if I have words for yet. But I can say this: He’s more than I ever thought he would be. He still loves me.” I shake my head and chuckle. “Loves the hell out of me. I’m sure I scare the shit out of him. Based on the questions he’s asking. I feel bad about it. I don’t want to scare him off. I can’t do that. Shit! Thanks to my family, he’s even more curious about things. Too soon for me. But he’s gentle about it. I’m not ready to tell him yet. It’s too early. I need more time. I could really… Oh my God…I could scare him away and I—”

  “You think so, huh?”

  I shriek as I look up at Hawke standing outside the screen door. Terror shoots through me. What has he heard?

  “You scared the shit out of me!” I slam my laptop closed. “Are you eavesdropping?”

  “Yes, I am, and let me tell you something. The middle of the night is not for worrying if you scare the shit out of me. Which, by the way, you do not. I told you. We’ll figure us out.”

  The screen door creaks as he opens it then closes behind him in a quiet thud. His foot catches it before the slap of wood meeting wood. He strolls over to me—naked. I’m not sure how it happened, but he’s managed to get even sexier since I was out there lying next to him. Sexy grows on him by the second.

  He stands in front of me. A cocky smirk falls across his face as he grips himself. His thumb slides through the bead of liquid resting at the tip of his erection. My mouth waters as he works his hand up and down his veined, hard length.

  “Now, what’s it gonna be? Nighttime is for playing, touching, and other like things. A world apart from worrying.” He grins. “You want me to tuck you in? Or fuck you in?” A deep chuckle that’s filled with all sorts of meaning rolls out of him.

  Sexy, we-have-all-night-and-we’re-going-to-use-every-damn-minute-of-it meaning.

  “I want you again,” he says, stepping closer.

  I drop my head back and look up at him towering over me. He’s magnificent.

  “Want you. Breathless.”

  Please let this be my reality for the rest of my life, I pray to my nonexistent God. I stare past him to the ceiling, thinking a star might fall through it right this very second. Then I chuckle as I drop to my knees, my mouth open, and mutter silently, If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

  “What’re you chuckling about?” Hawke says as I cup his fleshy balls in my hands. “You think it’s going to taste like chicken?”

  I snort out a laugh. How will I ever give him a blow job again without thinking that?

  “No, frog legs.” I grab his thick root and lick a path up to his crown. Then I circle it with my tongue.

  “Sloan,” he groans out, dropping his head back as I take him into my throat.

  I might put myself in the category of smallest gag reflex ever. Too bad I can’t breathe through my ears.

  “New skill set?” he says as he grabs the back of my head. His dark curls falling across his forehead.

  I like this too much. All of it. My nerves stand on edge with the powerful feeling I have, knowing I can make him feel this way, and the delectable act of doing it.

  “Am I making you feel good?”

  “I already told you, only you could make me feel this way, only you ever have.”

  Did I say powerful? Well, what I meant to say is, I feel like a goddess. A phoenix force. I stop thinking at all, and I love him up. I’m sure he’s not thinking anymore, either. But he’s feeling, and to hear him growl like an animal as I bring him to orgasm, well… That has me feeling too. Feeling good. Real good.

  Hawke picks me up, swooping one hand under my arms, the other beneath my knees in a bride-over-the-threshold move. I love how I feel in his arms. Protected.

  “You still film everything?” He walks us into my bedroom and lays me on the bed.

  “Yeah. I like seeing the world through a lens. I’ve made a lot of films I’d like to show you. Docus and stuff. I guess we’re both filmmakers. How about that.”

  “How a
bout that. I always liked seeing the world through your eyes.”

  I roll onto my side and light three candles, adding a bit more oomph to the moonlight streaking through the window.

  “I’m gonna watch your films next week, okay?” He kisses my forehead. “I want to see what your creative mind has been up to all these years.”

  I swallow my panic down. “I’d like that.”

  He rolls away from me as the words leave my lips.

  “Where are you going?” I ask as he throws his legs off the side of the bed and jumps up.

  “I’m gonna run next door—I have something I want to give you.”

  “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Damn right you’re not. And don’t fall asleep.” He walks backward out of the bedroom. Oh brother, he sure is comfortable naked.

  I guess that bodes well for me. I picture myself following him as if I’m filming his every move. Following him like I did during most of my youth.

  My childhood was me walking around with my face glued against a video camera viewfinder. The original GoPro. Unfortunately for the rest of my family, everything they did was documented. Our home was filled with boys twenty-four seven, on average six or eight of them. I knew early on I was the enemy—my filming of everything those boys did got them in more trouble than they cared for. Luckily for them, my folks weren’t the grounding types. The boys did end up having to shovel a hell of a lot of cow shit for the trouble though. And I filmed all of that as well. Them cussing, shoveling, pissing on the manure pile. Them getting in even more trouble because of it.

  I wasn’t so much a tattletale, just a documenter who liked to share my findings. Watching them piss was what got me thinking about Hawke as more than just another boy. His beautiful body, though young, was always strong and breathtaking to watch. No matter what he was doing, Hawke made it seem like an art form. His shirt always seemed to be off, and he was constantly sweaty. His body evolved from a boy’s to a man’s right before my eyes. All of him changing.

  His penis became the object of my affection, obsession, and fascination. I didn’t think much of it early on, as I saw plenty of penises, being the only sister of four boys. Mostly, I didn’t like penises. Nasty things that were always spraying me. One-eyed vomit rods. That’s what Coco, Quinn, and I called penises. We’d heard that unique term on a late-night talk show and it stuck.