Until the Stars Fall From the Sky

by Mary Crawford

  “So, you don’t blame me for Donda’s stuff either?” I ask, needing to hear the affirmation once and for all.

  “Heavens no!” my mom exclaims. “Where did you get such a stupid idea? Never mind — Donda is a big girl and has to take responsibility for her own choices. You have been nothing but admirable. You didn’t make her starve herself or do drugs. “

  “I should have been able to fix her,” I argue, only to be interrupted by my mom.

  “You and I both, but we couldn’t. That’s between Donda and God. Her battles are not our battles. We’re just the cheerleaders.”

  That’s the missing puzzle piece for me. I don’t have to fix everything. I can just be still and live my life.

  “Thanks Mom!” I say barely able to contain my relief, “You’re a lifesaver.”

  “But, I didn’t do anything,” my mom protests.

  “Yes, you did. Someday soon, we’ll have coffee, and I’ll explain it all. But, you’ve just given me a second shot at life. I love you. Bye,” I reply in a rush to conclude the conversation.

  “Goodbye Jeff. For the record, I think you should keep this Kiera around. It’s not like you to pay attention to anyone outside of your books,” she comments wryly.

  “I’m trying Mom. I’m really trying,” I confess softly. I press END.

  I send Kiera a text message.

  You were right. I’m so sorry for being a jerk.

  I am a Boy Scout, even when I don’t need 2 be.

  There is a reason I don’t like pancakes. Who knew?

  ?? What’s the story?

  Too long 4 text.

  Can I have a do-over sleepover where I don’t act like a butterfly?

  Sure. Does this Tuesday work?

  Must bring vanilla ice cream + Red Box Movie + calculator

  Unfortunately, math tutoring may be involved. :-(

  Kissing is much preferred, but not required for Masters Degree.

  OK, I can be there by 5:00.

  It’s orientation for 1L’s this week, and I’m helping out.

  I’ll bring dinner too, just for blatant brownie points

  LOL <3

  <3 SWAK <3 :-)

  I throw a fist pump in the air. That involved far less groveling than I had expected. Maybe it won’t be so bad. One can only hope for small miracles.

  ~*~

  As I head over to Kiera’s house, I’m a nervous wreck. Who knew that something as simple as vanilla ice cream could be so complicated. I finally elected to bring French vanilla, vanilla bean and plain old vanilla. Panera’s is going to be an easier stop because she mentioned to me on our coffee date which soup she preferred. I also know that she likes the peach smoothies.

  As I’m standing outside of my truck in Kiera’s driveway, I examine the growing pile surrounding my feet and laugh out loud. I have brought so much stuff that it seriously looks like I’m moving into Kiera’s house. I find a large cardboard box in the back of my truck and carefully stack all of the items in the box, delicately placing one last treasure on the top. I wipe my suddenly damp hands on my jeans, knock on her door and wait anxiously.

  As I’m about to knock on the door again, the door abruptly opens, and I come face-to-face with Kiera. Her eyes light up, and a smile flashes across her face as she sees me. “Did you bring your dog?” She asks looking around my legs to see if she can find Lucky.

  “I see where I rate! No, I didn’t bring him this time because I didn’t know the policy of your homeowner’s association. Lucky is really well behaved, and he would have been a bomb detection dog except he failed his hearing test. I’ll bring him next time if you don’t think it will be a problem.” I answer, still holding one of her presents behind my back.

  “Everyone is pretty cool with animals as long as they don’t destroy property. Actually, that’s pretty much the policy about two legged guests too. You’re not planning to do anything to destroy my house are you?” Kiera looks up at me with a smirk on her face. It is then that she notices the odd placement of my arm. It’s quite adorable; she looks like a child who just discovered Santa Claus. “Is that for me?” I bow slightly at the waist and present her with a bouquet of flowers.

  Kiera takes them from me with an expression of awe and reverence on her face. I wish my mom was here to see this because of the meticulous care she took putting the bouquet together. Kiera is wiping tears from her eyes as she says, “Oh My Gosh! I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my whole life. I love them!” She is gently tracing the lavender and silver ribbons that are trailing from the bouquet. “I probably need to find a vase for these,” she muses.

  “No, I’ve got that covered,” I reply as I pull out a frosted glass vase from the box behind me. “Allow me to explain the flowers, please. The purple roses are for love at first sight. The pink roses are for everlasting love and the purple hyacinth are to show that I’m sorry — for very obvious reasons. I know that flowers can't undo what I said to you or how I made you feel, but hopefully they’ll brighten your day every time you see them and remind you how I feel about you and that I’m sorry.”

  “I had no idea there was such an art to flower giving. That’s amazing!” Kiera exclaims as she grabs my necktie to angle my face down for a kiss. I take the flowers from her and lay them on the kitchen counter. I kneel beside her chair and cup her cheek as I gently return her kisses and subtly turn up the heat during each kiss. Kiera is matching me kiss for kiss. “Thank you. You may consider your apology accepted,” Kiera murmurs between kisses.

  Suddenly, my stomach growls rudely, completely foiling my efforts at seduction. “Excuse me,” I mumble. At first, I’m embarrassed, but the humor of it all soon strikes me, and I start to laugh at my predicament.

  Kiera chortles in surprise, and covers her mouth at her outburst, “Geez PC, have you had anything to eat all week besides the rubber chicken we had the other night?” she asks, her brow creasing with concern.

  “Lucky for you I’m like an honorary Boy Scout and I brought food,” I say as I dig the Panera’s bags out of the box.

  “It’s official, you have now been elevated to hero status,” Kiera states emphatically as she inhales the rich aroma of the soup. “I’m impressed. You even remembered the smoothie.”

  “Well, they don’t carry peach anymore, so I had to go with mango. That was actually the easiest thing in the order to remember,” I confess.

  “Why?” Kiera asks, her brow creasing in confusion.

  I run my hand through her hair, bring a handful to my nose, and draw in a deep breath. “You always smell like a warm, spicy peach pie,” I clarify. “I never thought comfort food could be sexy, but you totally turn me on.”

  “I’m so glad to hear that,” Kiera says coyly, “because if you agree to be slightly bad, I have a surprise for you.”

  I smirk and raise my eyebrow, “What exactly are you hoping to accomplish here tonight, Ms. Ashley?”

  “Why, Mr. Whitaker, how do you think I got to my last semester of graduate school without spectacular math avoidance skills?” she asks, her eyes sparkling with mirth.

  “Maybe I should change the incentive package?” I suggest as I kiss her on her lips and then on the end of her nose. “No kisses unless you do your math?”

  “No!” she exclaims loudly. “That would be cruel and unusual punishment.”

  “I see your point,” I concede graciously. “We’ll just have to operate on the reward system then. If you get your homework done, we can soak in your hot tub and I’ll give you a massage. After we finish, we can watch a movie if you’d like.”

  Kiera’s shoulders slump as she whines, “You have no idea what you’re up against. There goes the date; we’ll be up all night doing homework.”

  “Hey now! Where is your positive attitude, Pip?” I gently tease her.

  “I am pretty positive this is going to suck,” she grouses.

  An hour and a half later, I’ve come to the conclusion that Kiera’s issues with math stem from two sources. She has
generalized panic when she encounters numbers and letters in the same equation. However, even a larger issue appears to be that someone taught her to solve equations from right to left. No wonder math has always frustrated her! I decide that she’s made great progress and deserves to be rewarded.

  “I’ll get the hot tub ready,” I propose. “We had one in the Frat. So, I know where all the settings are.”

  “Okay, that sounds wonderful.” Kiera replies, rolling her shoulders to relieve the tension.

  I turn the hot tub on to dissipate some of the chemical smell and throw in some vanilla anti foaming fragrance beads while I light the tea candles around the edge. I place Kiera’s phone in the docking station and turn the stereo on. A song I’m not familiar with starts to play. It’s apparently called Everything Has Changed. I stop, transfixed by the lyrics. They could have been plucked right out of my brain, right down to Kiera’s green eyes and red hair. It’s freaking spooky. I’m a nerdy, science guy. I don’t wax poetic; I’m not the type, or at least I wasn’t until Pip.

  “Isn’t this a perfect song for us?” Kiera asks as she enters the rustic gazebo, “It sounds like Taylor is singing about us.”

  “You’re right, it does,” I acknowledge. “I may actually be an accidental Taylor Swift fan. This is the third song I’ve heard in a week that I really like.” I turn around to face Kiera, and I’m delighted to see that she has emerged as Pippi in her tie-dyed bikini.

  “As much as I love the formal version of you, there’s a whole lot to be said for this version too.”

  Kiera wrinkles her nose and shrugs her shoulders, as she glances down at herself. “You must be the only person to see it then, because I think I look like a dork. No one besides you has ever paid any attention to me,” she reveals as she adjusts the hair band on her pigtail.

  “Well, I can’t speak for the intelligence of the other guys, but I’ve noticed a hundred little things about you every since I first laid eyes on you,” I respond as I kiss her forehead. “For example, when you’re trying to figure something out, you get a line between your eyebrows that looks like a perfect exclamation point and when you laugh, you get a dimple that looks like a period.” I lift her up to the edge of the hot tub and tenderly kiss the place where her dimple appears. I turn her face slightly to the side as I briefly touch my lips to the sensitive spot behind her ear. Kiera shivers and arches her back. “You have three freckles here that form a perfect triangle and some more freckles on your shoulder that form Orion’s belt”

  Kiera laughs self-consciously, as she mumbles, “Okay, that’s either the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me or the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard. Because of your reputation as a Boy Scout, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and go with sweet.”

  “That’s good because I haven’t even started on the things I’ve noticed about your amazing hair, imminently kissable lips and perfect breasts,” I gush, stopping and lavishing attention on each location as I name them off like a tourist on vacation.

  “Stop!” Kiera shrieks, snorting with laughter. Reflexively, I jump back and raise my hands in the air to show her that I am no longer touching her. “No, no,” she quickly explains, “I just want you to stop describing me like I belong in some Victoria Secret catalog. I’m sure it’s not true and it really borders on TMI.”

  There is a funky wooden ring between her breasts and I notice that it perfectly frames a heart-shaped mole. I stop to softly target a kiss there as I lift her into the hot tub. “Pip, I wish you could see yourself like I see you,” I reply as I hold her in an embrace, her legs now around my waist. “For me, you define sexy. You are everything I’m not. Vivacious and funny, friendly and fearless in the face of bullies. Physically, you turn me on like no woman ever, but what I feel for you goes so far beyond that level, I can’t even find the right words to tell you. Pip, I hate to tell you, those models have got nothing on you. Not. One. Dandelion. Thing.” I kiss her with each pause to underscore my words.

  “Whew,” she whispers huskily, “for a shy guy, you wield words like a magic wand. I’m not really sure what to say except that I hope you’re not disappointed when you figure out that I’m not really all that and a bag of chips.”

  “Umm, I’m not really Miss Manners, but I think the appropriate response here is ‘Thank you, Jeff’ or if you want to be all southern about it ‘Why, I do declare Mr. Whitaker, what a lovely compliment. Thank you so much.’ Whichever you prefer is fine by me,” I tease.

  I watch in fascination as a blush creeps up her body, obvious in her bikini. She gives a sharp bark of laughter. “Fine, Mr. Smarty-Pants, let’s see how comfortable you are when you’re in the hot-seat, shall we?” Kiera retorts as she tries to push me toward the corner seat. I oblige and sink down into the bubbles as she perches on a higher ledge. She rakes her eyes over me as she puts a fingertip to her lips and creases her brow in concentration. “Hmm, let’s see… Should I start at the top of your hunky head and go down or maybe I should start at your sexy feet and go up?”

  All I can say is that it’s a good thing I’m sitting down and covered by the roiling, frothy activity of the hot tub because the vivid image her words conjured up has me instantly hard. If I imagine her kissing her way up my body from my toes and pausing anywhere along the way with her long hair draping over my body like a silk curtain, I’m likely to lose it before she even has an opportunity to touch me. “Lady’s choice,” I manage to croak.

  “Given the positively predatory expression on your face at the moment, I’m going to opt for the safer option and start from the top,” she replies. “Jeffery Whitaker is an uncommonly handsome man with soft black curly hair that is so shiny that you have to touch it just to see if it’s wet. His eyes are the color of my favorite dark chocolate and just as yummy. He clearly believes in judicious manscaping as evidenced by the lack of a uni-brow and unsightly nose and ear hair. A fact I greatly appreciate. He has adorable dimples and a cleft in his chin. His shoulders are wide and his waist narrow. His tattoos are sexy and meaningful without being garish. You could do the neighborhood’s wash on his abs because they are so defined. Even his feet are sensual because they are neat and clean without hair or warts and stuff.” Kiera pauses to blatantly peruse me. “Still, as attractive as all the packaging is, those aren’t the things I like most about you.

  “I like that you care deeply about doing every job you have the right way, not just the easy way. That speaks volumes about you. I like that your family means enough to you that you deferred your dreams to help them. I love that you asked your mom to make me that gorgeous flower arrangement knowing the flowers themselves spelled out a clear apology. I especially love that you were fanciful enough to find Orion’s Belt on my shoulder, yet geeky enough to know what you were looking at. Do you want to know the thing I love most of all?” Kiera asks quietly.

  I nod, trying not to hold my breath. This is much tougher than I had imagined.

  Kiera smiles coyly. “I love that you forget to be shy around me. I get a version of Jeff that is witty and fun, somewhat snarky and an outrageous flirt. In fact, you’re almost bold when you’re not overcome with your inner Boy Scout.” She winks before continuing, “I feel honored that you trust me enough to let me see beyond the polite facade.”

  “It’s you, Pip. You give me the courage to open up and be my true self. I’ve never been emotionally forthcoming or bold. But, if bold is what you need from me, I’m happy to provide it. Is that the theme of the night, Pip?” I ask as I scoop her up into a loose embrace, trapping her arms against my chest. When she nods, every nerve ending in my body goes on high alert.

  I kiss her deeply, running my tongue across the seam of her lips, seeking entry into her warm wet mouth. As I run my tongue along hers in a silent duel of passion, she begins to suck on mine with rhythmic suction. My knees buckle as desire floods my body, raw and sizzling. I know she can feel me pulsing against her because I’m so aroused that the slightly rough texture of the lining of the su
it feels like sandpaper against me. I envision wrapping myself in her sumptuous hair instead. As the thought crosses my consciousness, my pelvic region decides to do its own Gangnam dance independent from the rest of my body, without regard to my potential embarrassment or the awkwardness of the situation.

  Even as I try to freeze in place to avoid making matters worse, Kiera grabs my waistband and pulls me closer. Her hips are undulating against mine in subtle figure eight patterns as she continues to rain kisses on my face and neck. She wraps her legs around my waist again. This time it seems much more intimate, since she can literally feel the evidence of my desire twitching against her. Only two thin suits stand in the way of pure bliss. What? I’m not that guy and Kiera’s definitely not that kind of woman. Bold or not, I didn’t come here tonight to take her virginity in a hot tub.

  “Kiera, we’ve been in here a while, we probably need to go cool down,” I suggest, looking toward the side.

  “I guess you’re right. I didn’t realize that we had been in here so long. Let me take a cool shower to help lower my body temperature.” Kiera replies, “Yet, you do realize that my inability to regulate my body temperature is just a side effect of the autonomic dysreflexia, right? The hot tub doesn’t technically cause an episode.”

  “Kiera, it’s dangerous for anyone to be in the hot-tub for too long. My frat brothers used to call me the ‘Hall Monitor’ because I used to ride them so much.” I just can’t help myself. I have to lighten the mood so I smirk as I quip, “Well, I kind of need a cold shower too, but for entirely different reasons.”

  Kiera smirks right back “Did I ever claim that my shower doesn’t have a dual purpose, PC? I’ll be right out,” she says with a wink over her shoulder as she disappears into the bathroom.

  When I finished with my shower, I come into the kitchen to find pie and the vanilla ice cream that I brought waiting for me, along with freshly made iced tea. Kiera is sitting at the breakfast nook braiding her hair into a thick ponytail. Gently, I move her hands aside, and I pick up her hairbrush. “Pip, your hair is absolutely breathtaking. The colors are like a tropical sunset, and it’s so soft that I want to get lost in it.” I spend a couple of minutes, brushing the tangles out starting at the roots and moving toward the ends.