Overflow: The Carpino Series

by Asher, Brynne

  “My mom was amazing,” I say with a small smile. Jude comes closer to me as I go on, “She taught math at my high school, I guess that’s why I’m good with numbers. She was always quizzing me on something. She was petite, light blonde and fair but I have her eyes. She grew up in Georgia and was southern through and through. She made sure she instilled all her southern manners and hospitality in me, that’s for sure. My parents met at Baylor in Waco and the way my mom always explained it, they fell in love instantly. She said she had to love him to leave the south. She always gave him a hard time about winters in Nebraska, but she would have moved anywhere for him.”

  “She was pretty,” he simply said.

  “I think so,” what else was there to say?

  “I’ve seen pictures around your house. You look like your mom, but you got your dad’s coloring. Your mom’s pretty, Gabby, but you got the best of both your parents, which makes you fucking beautiful.”

  “What?” I whisper.

  “And it’s not just your hair or bright eyes or your gorgeous face,” he says and my eyes get big as I try and take a small step back, but he grabs my waist and pulls me into him tight, both of his arms going around my back, one high and the other low. “It’s the way you are with your family, the little kids and your parents stuff. It’s that you’re so funny it’s cute because you don’t mean to be funny. It’s that you’re an accountant, but you’re not, you’re a decorator and that’s just ridiculous. It’s the way you talk about the people you care about, especially your parents and how you’re strong and manage what life has handed you by yourself.”

  “I’m not by myself, Jude,” I lie. I feel so alone some days I’m overflowing with it.

  “No. You’re not,” he affirms with a squeeze of his arms and a meaning so deep I can’t even think about how many ways he means it. “But what you are is beautiful and it’s a beauty I haven’t experienced in a really long time.”

  And with that, he pulls me up to him, his mouth is on mine with his tongue plunging instantly into my mouth and my arms quickly round his shoulders trying to get as close as I can. There had been kisses since our first, but this felt different. It was out of control instantly and his hands go to my ass, hefting me up so I immediately wrap my legs around his waist letting my hands tangle in his hair. With my head tilted down now, I hope I’m giving as good as I’m getting. I feel him moving and then all of a sudden we’re going down. Jude sits on a piece of my sectional that is taken apart and strewn across the basement, me in his lap straddling his waist. His big warm hands dip under the back of my Baylor Bears green tank and move up the bare skin of my back. Losing all control I’ve been holding onto the last couple days, forgetting that I’m scared and freaked out by Jude’s invasion in my life, I grab the hem of his t-shirt giving it a pull. He lets go of me to round his back putting his arms up for me to yank his shirt off. I toss the tee aside, sit back and look down at him and my eyes go straight to a tattoo over his left peck.

  “Holy shit,” I mutter. My fingers reach out and I finally get to touch his big muscular chest, skin to skin, he’s warm and he feels so good. He has a smattering of chest hair, but not too much and I can feel solid muscles under smooth skin. I run my fingers over his tat, some type of wings, like airplane wings with a crest in the middle. My eyes go back to his face and he’s staring at me, heated, his eyes almost searing into me. I find myself breathing hard, but also at a loss for words, so of course I say the first thing that comes to my mind, “It’s not ridiculous that I’m a decorator.”

  His eyes flare at me and his mouth barely tips up at the corners and he mutters, “Fuck.” Then he grabs the hem of my ribbed tank and it’s gone before I know it. His hands go to my armpits and we are both up, off the sofa, turned and I’m down on my back in mere seconds, his mouth on mine again. Returning his kiss, my hands roam his strong hard back and I spread my legs for his hips to fall between. I can feel him excited and hard pressing, no, grinding between my legs where it feels amazing. I haven’t had this in a long time, but even when I had this with James, I don’t remember it feeling this exciting and good. His lips leave my mouth and move down my jaw and neck, heading straight for the swell of my breasts above my pink lace bra. I start getting lost in it all feeling the wetness between my legs, I arch my back in hopes to get even closer to him as his tongue snakes out and traces my breasts above my bra. His hand comes up to cup my other breast and he runs the pad of his thumb over the lace covering my nipple making me gasp. Then I feel a thumb and a finger come together with just enough pressure for a delicious roll. It feels so good I lift my hips to get more contact between my legs where I want it most.

  But cutting into all the goodness, a voice yells, “Gabby!” from upstairs. His head comes up to look down at me and we both still immediately. “Gabby!” I hear Tony yelling for me again.

  “Holy shit,” I whisper repeat, at the same time he whisper repeats, “Fuck!”

  Jude, looking pissed off, puts his hands on each side of me and performs a push up from the sectional, grabbing my hand to yank me up with him. Standing here in my shorts and pink bra, he tosses me my tank as he tags his shirt.

  “Gabby, where are you?” Tony yells again.

  “Down,” my voice scrapes out, having to clear my throat I repeat, “down here!” I pull my tank over my head and try to right my clothes and fix my pony tail. “We’re moving stuff around!”

  Jude comes closer to me looking straight in my eyes and leans down to kiss me softly and just as softly rasps the word, “Beautiful.”

  “Ohmygoodness,” I whisper as I hear Tony tromping down my stairs.

  I take a step back and try and get my wits together at the same time I hear Tony saying, getting louder with each step, “It’s Monday Night Football, even though it’s preseason the first couple of quarters are still good, I figured Jude would be around again so I thought we could watch the game here.”

  He said the last word as he took the last step, stills and stares at us. I don’t know what he saw, but I feel like I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar, but a million times worse. He looks at me and then he looks at Jude standing behind me. He looks back at me and says, “Or I could go watch it with dad.”

  That’s when I feel an arm snake around me going across my upper chest and I am jerked back into Jude’s hard one where he holds me tight. My eyes get big, looking at Tony, not really knowing what to say, so I go with, “I’ll make popcorn!” Tony grins at me at the same time I feel Jude’s arm tighten around me.

  “Really, I can go,” Tony repeats.

  “No, no!” I exclaim. “I just made homemade salsa and I have chips left. Popcorn, salsa and chips! And I’ve got beer!”

  I twist my neck as best I can and fake smile up to Jude. He narrows his eyes at me and shakes his head no, but says, “Sounds good, sugar.”

  I turn back to Tony and say, “See? I’ll go get the beer!” I try my best to get out of Jude’s ironman hold, but he doesn’t let me go until he leans down and kisses the side of my head. I close my eyes, only to find Tony staring us both when I open them. Giving him a small smile as Jude finally lets me go, I hightail my ass up the stairs as fast as I can to set about making popcorn and getting everyone a beer. I hope beer and popcorn are a special potion for making weird situations less weird.

  A few moments later, I hear Tony and Jude tromping up the stairs as I pull the popcorn off the burner, Tony saying, “We’re gonna have to watch up here, it’s a mess down there.”

  “Good idea,” I agree, as if I’m going to argue. I really don’t want to sit with my favorite cousin and my…well, whatever Jude is…on the same sectional that I was just almost half naked on with Jude. That would bring things to a whole new level of weird. I get everyone fitted with beer, popcorn, laid the chips and salsa out on my super cool and very beat up coffee table. Tony settles in the club chair putting his feet up on the ottoman and Jude collapses in the corner of his sofa, pulling me down right next to him. He slouches wa
y down, lifting his feet up on my cool coffee table, puts an arm around my shoulders and tucks me in tight next to him. I almost start to argue but it’s seriously comfortable, so I just sigh, take a swig of my beer and settle in to watch preseason football that I don’t give one care about.

  My thoughts come back to present time and I look over at Reagan, telling her about my previous evening. She’s sitting there with her mouth hanging open. I say, “I know, right? And now as one of my best friends in the universe, you know all there is to know.”

  “So what happened after football?” she asks.

  “I fell asleep around half time, Tony said goodbye and Jude told me to go to bed, slept on my sofa again.”

  “Is he coming back tonight?” she keeps on with the questions.

  “I don’t know! That’s the thing, we never make plans, he just comes back every evening and leaves the next morning. I assume he goes home, showers, changes, goes to work, and does whatever else he does and then he’s back again!”

  “What does his tattoo mean?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I’m dying to find out! I’ll let you know!” I say with a smile and wiggle my eyebrows at her! “I think I’m done. There’s really no drying with the wax, so you’re good to go! It’s so pretty!” I say, letting myself admire my handiwork.

  “Gabby, you’re awesome! It’s beautiful and just what I envisioned!”

  “Go buy your table, Reagan. It’ll look great in here!”

  “We’re going this weekend! I can’t wait!” she says with excitement.

  I gather all my stuff up, pull my phone out to text Jude. This is the newest thing he’s been bossy about. He’s still concerned about Trevor Harper and said they don’t have any leads on him, although they haven’t heard much more about me on the wiretaps, which is a really good thing. He said he wants to know where I am all the time, so now I have to text him when I leave somewhere and when I arrive at my next destination. He really wants me to go and hang out at my uncles offices or with one of my aunts at home, but I refuse to sit around telling him I have work to do, so texting was as good as he was going to get.

  “I’ll see you soon, Reagan, we need to find a time to go out when John isn’t on call.” I say.

  “I can’t wait, I haven’t been out in for-e-ver! I’ll call Lilly and Leigh and we’ll set up a girls night!” She says and I lean down and kiss baby Ben on his soft little head that smells like yummy baby.

  “Perfect, bye!” I turn and head to my car.

  It’s early afternoon, so I head to Target to grab some groceries. I have only been here for twenty minutes when my phone rings and when I see the caller, I sigh. “Hey, Lilly.”

  “Tonight!” she exclaims, planning my evening again. “Reagan just called. You’ve obviously had a busy few days and there’s shit I need to know. Leigh can’t go, that jackwad of a husband has other plans for them. I’m worried about her, but until we can get Leigh figured out we've gotta figure you out! Bonefish at seven and you can share over Raspberry Vodka Collins! Lots of them!” she says with enthusiasm. “It’ll be great! John’s not on call, so he’s gonna take us and we can share a taxi home. Okay?”

  “I don’t know, Lilly, I might have plans tonight,” I say thinking about what my plans might be for tonight after last night. I stop my cart dead in the middle of the cereal aisle and it occurs to me that Jude might have plans for me tonight that include lulling me into a Jude coma that always makes me okay with his plans. I change my mind immediately and say, “You know what? I’m hungry for the Salmon Asparagus Salad and I could use a couple of those drinks. Sounds like fun to me!”

  “Yay!” she cheers. “Be ready at six forty five, the minivan will be by to pick you up!”

  “Okay, see you then,” I say hanging up. Then I look down at my phone and decide to do something I’ve never done before. I’ve been texting Jude on a normal basis, but for some reason calling seems different, more familiar. I hit call and put the phone to my ear, half praying I get his voice mail.

  Of course I do not. He answers on the second ring and simply rasps, “Sugar.” Hearing his voice over the phone calling me sugar makes me freeze up. His voice over the phone sounds great. I hesitate a couple beats and hear him again, this time biting out, “Gabby, are you there? Are you okay?”

  “I’m here. Sorry. Fine. I’m fine,” I ramble on. “I got distracted for a second. Um, I’m at Target and got a call from Lilly who got a call from Reagan and they’ve planned a girl’s night tonight. See, Lilly is pretty persistent, but I can still say no to her. But Reagan has a baby and her husband is on call a lot, so it’s harder for her to get out, but she can go tonight. I don’t know what…I mean if we had plans…well, if you had plans…” I pull in a big breath and try to finish strong, “anyway, I’ve got girls night tonight?”

  Damn. I totally did not finish strong.

  “Sounds good, Gabby, I’ll wait on you,” he returns quickly.

  “You’ll wait on me?”

  “Yeah, at your house. You still shouldn’t stay alone and I’d like to see you even if it’s late. Is that okay?”

  “Um, sure.”

  “Works out, I think we have a few leads on Harper. I might be working late tonight,” he informs me.

  “Okay. Well, you know how to get in and everything right? I mean if you get home…well, to my house before me?” I stammer on.

  “Yeah, babe. I know how to get in. You go and have fun.”

  “Okay, Jude. Thanks.”

  “See you tonight, sugar, but keep texting me. Call if you need something.”

  “Oh, okay,” and I hear him disconnect.

  As I stand next to the Fruit Loops staring at my phone, I realize that it’s getting less scary all the time. Shaking off my latest Jude trance, thinking that they are so powerful they even work over the phone in the middle of Target, I head to the granola. I have an evening out to get ready for, so smiling to myself, I make my way through Target quicker than normal to get myself home and start my getting ready to go out routine. Happy, excited and a little nervous, I didn’t realize until later that as I drove home, parked my car, got my things in, finally let Mia do her thing that my chest never tightened like it usually does coming home. I reset my alarm, texted Jude that I was home and skipped off to my shower to get ready for girls night!

  Chapter 7 - If He Sang Everything He Said

  “Its last call ladies, we’re already closed but the bartender stayed late for you. So this is it, one more round?”

  This came from our super cute and young waiter, Cody. I bet he’s barely old enough to serve us our drinks. He’s been flirting with us all night, telling us about his muscle car he’s rebuilding and how it’s going be a chick magnet. Not surprisingly the longer we’re here, the three of us agree more than ever that yes, indeed, his muscle car is definitely going to win him a boat load of chicks!

  “One more round! I’m pumping and dumping tonight!” Reagan announces to little Cody, who probably has no idea what pumping and dumping means.

  Lilly leans over so far she’s in danger of toppling out of the booth and whispers super loud, “She’s nursing, like, her baby! And we all want her baby to be smart when he grows up so he can drive muscle cars like you, Cody, and nail hot chicks because of his hot car. So she has to ‘pump and dump,’” Lilly uses her fingers to make air quotes, “so he’s smart and not stupid because she fed him Raspberry Vodka Collins when he was a baby!” Lilly, happy with her explanation, smiles like she’s just explained the meaning of life to young Cody. Then all of a sudden Lilly has an epiphany, “We should get two rounds since they’re closing!”

  Not knowing where my reasoning is coming from since I was way past my normal level of imbibing, I say, “I think one more’s enough for me!” slurring my words a bit. “How bout we get four and share the last one?”

  “Perfect! We’ll take four!” Reagan agrees and Cody heads to the bar. He’s not quite as friendly now that we explained how breasts are used for feedin
g small human beings and not just for the pleasure of the male population.

  “I can’t believe we couldn’t find his tattoo on the internet,” I almost whine. Looking down at our brown paper tablecloth, I see scribbles all over it drawn by me trying to replicate Jude’s tattoo to share with my girlies. Then, even though they have never laid eyes on Jude’s tattoo, Lilly and Reagan try to correct me and start to draw their own imaginary replicas. We’ve Googled it, taken pictures with our phones and have even tried to upload it to some ‘Name That Tattoo’ website that Reagan was sure she thought existed because she saw an infomercial for it in the middle of the night when she was up nursing Ben. But, nada! Not one clue to his super cool winged tattoo!

  “Give it up on the tattoo, Gabby,” Lilly says. And then she continues with a sly smile, “Maybe you’ll figure it out when you get to lick it!”

  “Shut up, Lilly!” I say smiling, beyond being embarrassed about anything at this point. “But, I bet it tastes really good!” Lilly and Reagan agree with sage looking faces.

  “Here are your drinks, ladies, and I’m tabbing you out,” Cody says. “You’re calling a cab, right? I mean, I don’t want to have to wrestle you three down for your keys,” he says, back to flirting.

  “We’re callin’ a taxi!” I exclaim. And then my phone which is sitting on the table since it was being used as a Tattoo Recognition Device starts crankin out “All Summer Long” by Kid Rock. We’ve all decided my iPhone, from this time forward, will always be referred to as a Tattoo Recognition Device. I look down at my Tattoo Recognition Device, also known as the TRD, and it says Jude Ortiz Calling.

  “Oh shit! It’s Jude Ortiz!” I say, reading the screen of my TRD! “He’s never called me before!” I go on, sitting here staring at my TRD.

  “Well he’s had his tongue down your throat and your shirt on the floor, you’re gonna miss the call, answer the freakin TRD!!!” Reagan pleads!

  I slide my thumb across my TRD and say in a voice way too high to be my own, “Hi!”