If Only...

by Beckie Stevenson

  Stuart stumbles from his seat, grabs my glass and salutes me as he goes in search for something to add to my vodka. I start to giggle because he’s just a little bit stupid and I never realised how weirdly funny he was before. Lorna sits next to Stuart at work and she’s always telling me that all he does is make her laugh, but I didn’t believe her. Stuart is very quiet and mysterious at work.

  “I think you’ve had enough to drink,” Cole says from somewhere behind me.

  I slump back in my chair. “Well I think I haven’t.” I lean down, grab the vodka and swig straight from the bottle.

  “Stop acting like a petulant child,” he hisses.

  “Go away.”

  “Hey, it’s Cole, isn’t it?” Stuart places our glasses on our table and holds his hand out for Cole to shake.

  “Yeah.” Cole shakes Stuart’s hand and then nods towards me. “Evie wants to go home, and since I live near her, I said we’d share a taxi.”

  No, I didn’t. Did I?

  “Oh,” says Stuart, frowning at me. “But I just got her a fresh drink.”

  “Which I’m going to drink,” I say, grabbing it.

  “No, you’re not,” Cole tells me as he takes the glass out of my hand just as the rim touches my lips. “Get up, Evie. We’re leaving.”

  “We’re not leaving. You are.”

  His fingers curl in the crook of my elbow and then I’m out of the chair and stumbling into him, feeling how safe and warm he is. I sigh and lean my head back against his shoulder.

  “Let’s go,” he whispers.

  I think I let him take me. I think we say goodbye to Gerard on our way out, but I’m not sure. I’m in that blissfully happy drunk phase where everything looks soft and cuddly and I feel as light as a feather.

  “Fucking dinosaurs.”

  “What?” I sit up, realising we’re sat side by side in the back of a black cab and look at Cole. Shit, I must have fallen asleep.

  “Who the fuck talks about dinosaurs when they’re trying to pull?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  His eyes snap onto mine, and I watch as they fall all the way down my dress and legs. “Stuart,” he says. “And the way he was making his move.”

  I laugh out loud and shake my head. “Stuart wasn’t making moves. We were just talking.”

  “Evie,” he snaps. “I might have spent six years in prison, but I know when a man is trying to seduce a woman.”

  Trying to seduce me? That’s hilarious. “I think you’re wrong,” I huff, pulling my clutch onto my lap.

  We ride in silence until we pull up at the kerb in front of my apartment. I want to ask him how he knows where I live, but I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that I’m wondering about him.

  I don’t bother offering to pay for the taxi, and I don’t offer Cole any other words.

  “Goodnight, Evie,” he calls out the window as I stumble up to the front door of my building. I know I’m going to hate this in the morning when I wake up with a stinking headache, but I also know that I had no other choice but to drink after Cole told me not to. He’d pissed me off, and I reacted badly by doing the exact opposite of what he’d said. What the doctors had said too.

  Cole

  I stand outside the college cafe and pull my hood up to keep the cold autumn rain off my face.

  I smile when I notice Evie in the distance with her backpack over her head as she darts from the gym to the main building.

  “Have you nailed her yet, Cole?”

  I turn around and glare at Joe. “It’s none of your business,” I snap.

  He laughs. “You haven’t, have you? Man, you must have the worst case of blue balls ever.”

  I ignore him. The truth is she turned sixteen a few months ago, but with her dad dying, it just hasn’t felt like something we need to do or talk about. Evie has been struggling and I haven’t even thought about doing it with her, if I’m honest with myself. I’ve just wanted her to feel better—happier. I think the conversation we had two months ago in her bedroom was a turning point for her, but she’s still not my Evie.

  “Shut it,” I hiss.

  “You’ve got to ask yourself why she’s not letting you near her. Maybe it’s because she’s frigid and you’re a fag.”

  “Alright,” says Trent. “That’s enough, Joe.”

  “She’s got an amazing little arse on her,” Joe continues. “I bet she screams like a fat pig when you finally drill her.”

  You’ll be screaming like a fat pig when I beat the shit out of you. Without thinking, I grab Joe around the scruff of his neck and head-butt him. Blood explodes out of his nose and squirts all over me.

  “You fucking dickhead,” he grunts, holding his nose.

  Anger is coursing through my veins, but I’m hoping just head-butting him will be enough. I promised Evie nine months ago that I wouldn’t get into a fight again. “Don’t you ever fucking say anything about Evie again,” I tell him. “You hear?”

  He laughs. Then his mates start windmilling me and Trent jumps in and so does everyone else who was in our group. The thrill of fighting immediately takes over, and I forget all about the promises I made and how much I’ve been trying to be good. I blindly grab at whoever is nearest and punch them or kick them until they quit trying to get me back. We do this for at least ten minutes until the lecturers pull us all apart.

  I slam my front door shut and stomp up the stairs. I’ve been suspended from college for two weeks. Joan and Simon will go nuts, but it’s not really them that I’m bothered about. It’s Evie and how pissed off she’s going to be with me.

  I throw open the bathroom door, flick the shower on as I walk past it and then stare at myself in the mirror over the sink. A few of the guys caught me just right and I’ve got a black eye coming. There’s also a small cut above my eyebrow and I’ve got a split lip. Somehow I don’t think that I can brush this off as just a little scuffle.

  I lean forward and spit blood into the sink. When I look back up, I see Evie in the reflection of the mirror standing in the doorway with her mouth hanging open.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, hanging my head.

  She drops her wet bag onto the floor and strides towards me. “You promised me,” she says, and I hate how disappointed she sounds. It’s worse than her yelling at me.

  “I know.”

  She places her hands on my shoulders and turns me around so I’m facing her. “I don’t believe that you did this just to have a fight,” she whispers. “Tell me why it happened. I’ve already been told that you threw the first punch, so don’t even try and wriggle out of it by saying it was self-defence.”

  I nod. “I did throw the first punch and he fucking deserved it, but I’m not telling you why.” I don’t want her knowing that people talk about her like that.

  “Cole,” she says, lifting my chin with her fingers. “Do you remember when we sat under that tree out there less than a year ago and agreed that we’d never have secrets?”

  “I remember,” I say.

  “Have you been smoking weed again?”

  “What?” I shake my head. “No, why would you think that?”

  “Have you been doing any other type of drugs?”

  “Evie,” I say, feeling annoyed. I’ve only smoked pot a couple of times and munched on a few mushrooms, but I’ve never touched anything else. Why is she on about drugs? “No drugs.”

  She nods. “Good, because some of those boys that you hang around with do drugs. And don’t tell me they don’t, because I know they do.”

  “How do—?”

  “Never mind how I know,” she interrupts, holding up her hand. “Right now, I’m asking you why you punched Joe Thornberry in the face . . . and I want the truth.”

  I look into her green eyes and sigh. “He was talking shit,” I say.

  “About who?”

  “You.”

  She flinches. “What was he saying?”

  “You don’t need to know the details,”
I huff. “Just that he was saying things—disrespectful things—and he crossed a line.”

  She doesn’t loosen her grip and she doesn’t break eye contact. “Tell. Me.”

  “No.”

  “Tell me, Cole Hughes. Tell me right now.”

  “Fine,” I huff.

  I tell her word for word what Joe said. I don’t leave anything out, and I don’t sugarcoat it for her. I gave her a chance to not hear, but she demanded to listen to it anyway.

  When I’m done, she lets go of my shoulders and stands stock-still. “Do boys really talk like that?”

  Sometimes she’s so innocent that I want to wrap her up in cotton wool and keep her safe from the horrible world for the rest of my life. “Yes, Evie.”

  “All the time?”

  I shrug. “Most of the time.”

  “Do they always tell each other when they’ve been with girls and stuff?”

  I can’t stop the smile that creeps over my face. “They do.”

  “Have you told them what we’ve done?”

  We haven’t really done much to tell. “No.”

  Her eyes twinkle at me and I can’t help but wonder what is going through her head. “Have you really got blue balls?”

  “Why do we always seem to be talking about my balls?” I ask, smiling at her.

  She shrugs, but I can tell I’m forgiven. “Well, have you?”

  “A little, but it’s nothing a good wank doesn’t sort out.”

  “Cole!” she admonishes. Then she laughs and covers her mouth as if she’s ashamed to find something like that funny. “And how often do you do that?”

  My mouth twitches. I’m enjoying seeing her a little uncomfortable. “Sometimes it’s once a week, and sometimes it’s four or five times a day. Depends on what sort of mood I’m in.”

  Her eyes widen. “Really?”

  I laugh and reach out to her, but she sidesteps me. “I’m a sixteen-year-old guy with a really hot girlfriend. I’ve got testosterone pumping all through my body. Of course I’m wanking. All sixteen-year-old guys are wanking—all of the time.”

  “Why?” she breathes.

  “Haven’t you ever?” I ask, ignoring her question.

  She shakes her head. “Never.”

  “Really?” I ask. “Even though you know how good it feels?”

  “No,” she whispers. “I guess girls just aren’t the same as guys.”

  We stare at each for a while until she takes a deep breath and pushes me to the side. I sit on the edge of the bath, the spray from the shower soaking my back, and watch as she fills the sink up with warm water. “What’re you doing?” I ask.

  “Cleaning your cuts,” she says, opening the bathroom cabinet. She pulls out some cotton wool and starts to dip it into the warm water. When she stands in front of me and starts to clean my face, I can’t help but put my hands on her hips. She smells incredible, and even though it’s the middle of November, she still smells like summer. “You smell amazing.”

  After she’s fixed me up, she places her hands on either side of my face and looks down into my eyes. “I’m proud of you,” she whispers, “and of the man you’re becoming.”

  I freeze as my breath catches in my throat. No one has ever said anything like that to me in all my life.

  “You’re so strong and thoughtful and kind, and I know you’d do absolutely anything for me.”

  I nod. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her.

  “I know you’ve had a tough childhood and you’d have the perfect excuse for going off the rails and being a bit of a shit, but you haven’t, and it’s because you’re an incredible human being. I love you,” she whispers.

  She steps back and pulls her top over her head, and I feel my mouth drop open at her unusual act of confidence. She pushes her hands behind her and unfastens her bra before letting it drop to the floor. “I want you to show me how much you love me.”

  I slowly pull her towards me, her eyes never leaving mine, until she’s pressed against me. I cover her nipple with my mouth and my other hand roams all over her soft skin. Her fingers glide through my hair, causing tingles to shoot down the back of my neck and spine. I kiss my way over her breasts and up to her face until our lips connect, then my world ignites into flames of fire.

  Evie steps back and pulls me to my feet. Her fingers find the bottom of my shirt and she begins pushing it up my body, but she’s too short to get it over my head so I yank it off myself. She touches my stomach likes she’s done before, but this time it’s different. This time she’s touching it as part of foreplay, and I’m instantly hard. I’m so hard that my cock pushes against my jeans and it hurts as the fabric stretches across it.

  I grab her hand and place it over my cock. “This is what you do to me,” I tell her. “I never get this hard on my own.”

  Her breaths gush out of her mouth and dance across my chest. She brushes her fingers gently against my skin as she trails them down to my jeans. She quickly undoes the button and zip then pushes her hand inside my boxers. I groan and lean my head back, closing my eyes as I concentrate on the feeling of her hand on me.

  Without warning, she drops to her knees, pulling my boxers and jeans right down with her, and pushes her mouth down onto me. My eyes snap open at the new sensation, and I immediately know why all the guys bang on about getting a blowjob. Fuck, this feels amazing.

  “Evie,” I breathe, putting my hand on the back of her head. She sucks and licks and flicks her tongue at all the right times and in all the right places. She’s so good at it that it feels like she’s done it before, but I know she hasn’t. When I feel her teeth graze the head of my cock, I have to stop her before I come.

  “What?” she asks as I pull her up to her feet. “Was I doing something wrong?”

  I shake my head and push my fingers into her hair. “It was perfect. You were gonna make me come and I don’t want to yet.”

  “Oh.”

  I kick my jeans and boxers off before I pull Evie’s leggings and knickers down her legs too. I flick my hand under the shower to check if the temperature is okay and then pick her up, pulling her into the shower with me. She leans back, letting the water soak her hair, and smiles up at me. “I’ve always wanted to shower together.”

  “Me too,” I say as I drop to my knees. I kiss along her stomach and then her thighs until she starts wriggling. The water sprinkles down on the top of my head and runs all down my face as I push my finger inside of her. She groans and places her hand on the wall for support.

  “I’ve missed this,” she says.

  I push another finger into her and then softly flick my tongue over her clit. It’s smooth and small, and I only do it the once but Evie bucks as if I’ve burned her. I look up at her to find her gazing down at me in wonderment. “Do that again,” she orders.

  I flick my tongue over her clit again and watch as her mouth drops open and her eyes close. “You’re beautiful,” I tell her.

  She starts to pant and moan the more I do it. I move my fingers faster and continue kissing and sucking her clit until she cries out my name and orgasms around my hand.

  “Jesus,” she gasps. “That was . . . that was something else.”

  My ego loves her right now. I stand up and quickly rinse my face under the water and then kiss her. She grins at me as I reach around her to grab the shower gel. I smile back and then wash myself while I watch her soapy hands move all over her body.

  After we’re washed and rinsed clean, she steps towards me and puts her hand on the side of my face. “I want to do it,” she says. “I’m ready.”

  I swallow and turn the shower off. I don’t want to do it in here. “You’re sure?”

  She nods. “Yes.”

  I grab a towel from off the rail and wrap it around her, then carry her into my bedroom. I gently lower her onto the bed and climb over her.

  Then I kiss her like I’ve never kissed her before. I kiss her like it’s our last kiss. I want her to forget that we’re about to do
something big—something that can’t be undone. I touch every part of her skin as gently as I can, and I tell her how beautiful I think she is. How she’s the first thing I think of in the morning and the last at night.

  When I can’t take any more and I’m physically shaking from wanting her, I lean over and grab a condom from my drawer. I know she’s dying to ask me how long I’ve had those in there, but she doesn’t. I tear it open and roll it over me.

  “This is definitely what you want?” I ask, just to make sure.

  She lifts her head and nods quickly. I lean forward and place myself right at her entrance. I’ve heard it can be painful for girls, but I’m not sure how to make it hurt less. The guys have said different things . . . some say do it quick to get it over with, while others have said it’s best doing it slow so the girl can adjust to it.

  “Just do it,” she whispers.

  I smile at how unromantic that sounded and kiss her lips. “I love you,” I tell her.

  She relaxes and brushes her hands up my back. “I love you too,” she says.

  I push inside her gently but quickly until I feel something give, and then I continue pushing until I’m all the way inside her. She gasps and squeezes her face as if I’ve hurt her, but she doesn’t tell me to stop. I have to pause to get used to the feeling of being completely encased by her. Then I start to move slowly.

  The feeling is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Not even my best wank has come anywhere near close to this. I feel like going crazy. Like I want to go wild and just pump myself until I come, because then I can pull out and do it all over again. But I don’t.

  Instead, I shower her in kisses. I push my hands through her hair until I feel her legs relaxing. When I hear her groan from pleasure and not pain, I can’t stop myself any longer. I lean back a fraction and thrust my hips a couple of times before I collapse on top of her.

  I’m panting and I know I need to get off her, but I can’t move. I feel lightheaded and dizzy.

  “I love you,” she whispers, and it sounds like she’s crying.

  I lift up and look at her. “Did I hurt you?” I ask, feeling like a bastard.