by Jen Andrews
That fucking little bitch. My mouth dropped open slightly, and he looked disgusted. “Go on,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Of course, I told her no, that I have a girlfriend, and I wasn’t interested. She said something like, ‘your loss’ and walked off. About twenty minutes later, I’m standing at the bar with Jeremy’s friend, John, waiting for a beer, and she comes up behind me, reaches around and grabs my—”
I didn’t let him finish what he was saying, because I started laughing hysterically.
An expression of amused confusion washed over his face. “You’re not mad at me?”
“Why would I be mad at you? Of course, I’m mad, because she grabbed my man’s junk, but I told you before that I know how she is. What you’re saying is no surprise to me. She has gone through my brother and his friends at least twice that I know of. You are fresh meat to her. Besides, look at you. You’re gorgeous, and that accent of yours is hot as hell.”
I laughed again at the shocked expression on his face. “Looks like I’ve got some competition.”
He shook his head and smiled. “No way, Zoey, there is no competition. All I want is you, not some man-crazy chick who goes around grabbing your ‘man’s junk,’ as you so fondly called my dick,” he laughed.
Where did this man come from? Most men would’ve taken her to the bathroom like she wanted and never thought twice about it. In fact, I know several have.
Jokingly, I cupped my hand around my ear, pretending I hadn’t heard him. “I’m sorry, Sexy. You want your junk fondled, is that what you said?”
He began laughing so hard his eyes started watering. “As long as it’s you doing the fondling, then the answer is yes!”
He stopped laughing and became serious.
“Zoey, Jeremy saw what happened.” Shit. “He asked me if I was trying to hook up with her. I told him no, but he was still mad.”
Oh, fuck.
“What happened next?” I asked.
He took a breath. “I tried to explain to him what she did, but I’m not sure if he believed me or not. He was pretty shit-faced.”
Sounds like Jeremy.
“Are you sure I’m worth all this crap you have to put up with?” I asked him, only half-joking.
“I know you are. You mean everything to me.” He gently cupped my face in his hands and kissed me, pulling me over on top of him when he leaned back against the pillows.
After a nice long make-out session, I rolled off him and pulled my cell from my purse to call Jeremy. I didn’t give a damn what time it was or what he might be in the middle of doing.
He answered after the fifth ring, “Huhllooo,” he slurred, obviously still out drinking with his friends.
“Jeremy, it’s Zoey. You need to sober the fuck up for a few minutes, so I can have a word with you.”
“Zoey!” he yelled into the phone, and a second later, I heard his friends echo “Zoey!” in the background. They sure liked to go out and have a good time, like a bunch of fucking jackasses.
“Jeremy, I need to talk about what happened with Andy at the bar.” Silence. “Jeremy? I wanted to let you know Andy and I talked about what happened at the bar with Nicole. You had no reason to be a dick to him. He’s a good guy.”
Silence.
“Jer, did you hear me?” I asked, wondering if he’d fallen asleep or passed out.
“Yeah, Z, I heard you. John was with him and told me the same thing Andy did. I feel like an ass now. I was only trying to protect you after the issues with that douchebag, Rob. I don’t want to see you get hurt again. I’m sorry. Please forgive me?”
“Sure thing, dumb-fuck. All is forgiven. Just don’t let it happen again.”
He let out chuckle. “Thanks, Z. By the way, I’ve never seen Nicole so pissed that he turned her down. She actually left with Rob when he showed up after Andy left.”
Wonderful. “Goodnight, Jer. See you tomorrow at dinner.”
“Well?” Andy asked after my call ended.
“It’s all good. With as much as he’s been drinking, he will probably forget all about it by tomorrow. I’m sorry he did that though. He’s a little protective of me.”
I tossed my phone back inside my purse. I was exhausted, so I slid down into the bed. Andy turned off his lamp and laid down with me, pulling the covers over us.
“Get some sleep. I’ll make you a nice breakfast in the morning,” I told him.
“I love you, Zoey,” he whispered.
I could really get used to hearing that. I gave him a long, tender kiss, “I love you, too,” I replied and closed my eyes.
A minute later, I heard Andy chuckling quietly.
“What’s so funny over there?”
He slid closer to me. “Can you fondle my junk now, please?”
After we stopped laughing, we fondled each other until we fell asleep.
Surprisingly, the next morning, I woke before Andy, and I was craving French toast. I showered and dressed, and then went into the kitchen to start breakfast. I was whisking the eggs when I heard the shower turn on in my bedroom.
I wanted to repay Andy somehow for what he did the previous day, when he had gone to my apartment and gathered all the things I needed to get ready for the day. I was certain he didn’t want to smell like a girl from using my shampoo and soap.
I took his keys and jogged across the courtyard to his apartment. I went in and found everything he would need, and then started back over to my place.
When I stepped off the bottom stair, I heard a high-pitched cry of some sort. Unsure if I was hearing things, I stopped and listened. Then I heard it again. It was coming from over by Andy’s car trailer.
As soon as I got closer to the trailer, I saw a tiny orange colored fluff ball huddled behind the tire. A kitten! I knelt down and picked it up. It was still crying and shivering from being so cold.
“Where did you come from, little baby?”
It was so tiny. I looked around for a mama cat, but didn’t find one. I pulled off my hoody, wrapped the kitty in it to warm it up, and took it back to my apartment.
Andy was still in the shower, so I went into the bathroom. “Hey, look what I found,” I called out.
He pulled the shower curtain back and stuck his head out to see. “Is that a cat?” he asked, his face wet and soapy.
“Yes, it was under your car trailer. I went to get your soap and shampoo for your shower and heard it crying.”
He held his hand out, so I handed his soap and shampoo to him. “Finish up in there and come help me. I don’t know what to do with it.”
I went to the laundry room and put the kitten, still wrapped in my hoody, into an empty laundry basket and took it to the kitchen with me. It crawled around the basket crying for a few minutes, and then curled up and went to sleep.
I washed my hands and went back to making breakfast. Andy came into the kitchen dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He was barefoot, as usual.
“Can you possibly get any sexier?” I asked him, giving him a once over.
“I could ask the same of you,” he replied. Coming over to where I was at the stove, he wrapped his arms around my waist. Resting his stubbly chin on my shoulder, he watched as I soaked a slice of bread in egg wash and dropped it in the pan with some melted butter.
“That smells good,” he said. “You smell good, too. Where’d your new little friend go?”
“Over in the laundry basket,” I motioned toward the dining room entrance.
He sat down on the floor next to the basket, picked up the kitten, then wrapped it safely back in my hoody. “What are you going to do with it?” He began scratching the sleeping kitten behind its ears.
Good question. I had thought about getting a cat, but decided against it because I pictured myself as a crazy spinster cat lady. I had a man in my life now, so that wasn’t going to happen. However, if he did leave me, I would already have a cat to begin my spinsterhood.
Either way, it sounded like a win-win situation for the kitten.
“I guess I should keep it.” Just in case…
“We’ll need to get it some food soon, Zoey. It’s probably starving.”
I slid the French toast onto two plates, drizzled them with melted butter, and dusted them with powdered sugar. “Eat your breakfast, and then we’ll run to the pet store when we’re done.”
He carefully laid the kitten back in the basket and washed his hands to eat breakfast. I fixed his coffee the way he liked it, and then poured a cup for myself, adding Hazelnut creamer and sugar. As I stirred my coffee, he dug into his French toast with enthusiasm.
“Jesus, Zoey. This is good. I’ve never had it fixed this way before. It’s always drowning in syrup. I like it this way better.”
I smiled over at him. “Thank you. It’s so bad, I put a ton of melted butter on it, then lots of powdered sugar, then squish the powdered sugar down into the butter until it turns in to a yellow, sugary, buttery paste on top of the toast. Then I’ll eat it.”
He took the last piece of his French toast and did just that. He popped a bite into his mouth and chewed for a few seconds, then closed his eyes, savoring the taste. “Mmm, you’re right. It’s so much better this way.”
While I was eating my breakfast, and Andy was making himself more French toast, we talked and decided to keep the kitten.
We headed over to the pet store with the little ball of orange fur to buy it some food and anything else it would need. Between Andy and me, neither of us had owned a pet before. We knew nothing about cats, other than to feed them.
The manager at the pet store guessed the kitten was around eight weeks old and could eat solid food with no issues. He also told us it was a boy and needed a flea bath. We bought everything we would need for our new kitten and went home.
Home. That had a nice ring to it. We took him home and fed him, then ran warm water in the sink to bathe and rid him of the fleas.
“Poor little baby,” I said sadly. “What if I hadn’t found him?”
I wrapped him in a towel to warm and dry his skinny, water-soaked body. I rubbed his fur with the towel to dry him off, and he started purring loudly and seemed to fall asleep.
“He sounds like a tiny car motor,” I said quietly, so I didn’t wake him.
Andy chuckled and agreed. “What should we name him?” he asked.
We each tossed out a bunch of names, but nothing seemed to fit. I thought he needed a human name, and not some lame pet name like Whiskers or Sassy.
I remembered Andy’s middle initial was J. “What’s your middle name, Andy?” I asked, trying to think of boy names because my mind was drawing a complete blank.
His face brightened with an idea. “That’s perfect, Zoey. It’s James. We’ll call him James,” he said and then started laughing.
Too funny, my last name and his middle name were the same.
“James it is!” We gave each other a high-five.
We got James settled in his new temporary home in the laundry room. As soon as he was old enough, I would give him full run of the apartment, of course, but he would need a bit of training first. I already knew he was going to be spoiled. He had a new bed, toys, treats, and two people who cared about him.
“I feel like we adopted a kid,” I laughed and turned to Andy. “Wait, that didn’t sound the way it was supposed to. What I mean is, this poor little baby was abandoned, and we took him in and gave him a home. We even named him James. It kinda reminds me of…me. I was abandoned, and the James family took me in.”
Andy watched me intently as I rambled. “Okay, I’m gonna shut up now,” I said as I closed the door to the laundry room.
“I know what you meant, Zoey.”
Of course he did. He got me.
Over the next week, Andy and I continued our daily routines. We both worked, I went to therapy and class. We ate dinner together nightly and slept at either his place or mine.
Aside from the time we had to spend apart because of class and work, we were inseparable. It was perfect. What made it even better was we hadn’t heard a peep out of Rob.
The police finally called me back, saying they found no evidence to charge him with throwing the brick through the door of my store. I was fine with it honestly, because I didn’t want to deal with him ever again.
For the first time in years, I was happy, and it was because of Andy. The addition of our kitten, James, also gave us a welcome distraction.
Andy and I still hadn’t had sex. We did many other things, but it was getting harder to stop ourselves.
It’s not that I didn’t want to make love with him, because I sure as hell did…but I still needed to wait a bit longer. We had already moved so fast in our relationship, I just didn’t want to rush that part. I wanted to take pleasure in everything with him, take our time.
Thank God he agreed with me. It made it easier to endure. For now.
We spent our evenings, when I wasn’t at dance class, watching movies and playing with James. Most of the time, when we were trying to watch a movie, we spent our time exploring each other’s bodies instead. I knew he would be a generous lover, as I would be to him.
I decided to make love to him before I went to Mexico. I would be gone a month, and I didn’t want to go a whole month without touching him, but I didn’t have a choice. I wanted to make it special for us, but I had less than two weeks until my vacation.
I woke the day of my dance class, and the first thing I noticed was Andy. He was gone. Again. Even though I frequently woke without him in bed, I always heard him somewhere in the apartment.
This day felt different, and a sinking feeling rose in the pit of my stomach. I knew it was my own insecurities playing with my mind, but I still became a little panicked. A lifetime of people leaving me, and sending me away to new foster homes when they grew tired of me, messed with my head. I slipped out of bed and searched for him.
He was definitely not there and hadn’t left a note. I looked out the window, and his truck was gone too. I brushed my teeth and washed my face, trying to keep busy, when all I wanted to do was get back in bed and pull the covers over my head.
As I walked back to my bed, I picked up my iPod from the nightstand and put in my ear buds. It was going to be one of those days. I laid there for a while, wondering if I’d done something wrong. I hated feeling like that, but it was inevitable some days. Fortunately, I had therapy later that day, and it would help to talk to Dr. Jensen.
My favorite song came on, and I let the tears roll freely from my eyes.
What if I really screwed things up? What if he was tired of my insecurities? I would never forgive myself if I lost him because of my lame shit. I took in a deep, unsteady breath and let it out, then wiped the tears off my cheek. Maybe I just needed a good cry. I had days like that. What woman didn’t? I closed my eyes and listened to my music.
A few songs later, I felt something touch my hair. When I opened my eyes, Andy was kneeling at the side of my bed, trying to wake me up. I pulled out my ear buds. “I thought you left,” I whispered.
“I did, but only to go get us coffee.” He set two large Dutch Bros. cups on my nightstand. “Wait, what do you mean, you thought I left? As in never coming back, left?”
I nodded.
He pulled the covers off me and crawled, fully clothed, into bed beside me. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me now. I said I loved you, Zoey. Please never doubt that.”
I leaned forward and kissed him, needing to feel our connection with each other. Our kiss quickly turned into more. I let my hands wander over his broad chest, up his neck, and into his hair. He kept his hair short, so there wasn’t much for me to run my fingers through.
They didn’t stay there long anyway. There were far better parts of my man’s body to touch than his hair. My hands began roaming elsewhere, and mine weren’t the only hands roaming.
I was still wearing my pajamas, which consisted of a tank top and boxers. He trailed his hand up my leg, where it rested under my shorts. I broke our kiss and gently bit his
bottom lip, and then ran my tongue across where I had bitten.
Andy removed his hand from under my shorts and slid it under my tank top to cup my bare breast, rubbing his thumb over my nipple. I let out a quiet hum in response to his touch. I kissed him again, and then trailed kisses down his neck.
He was definitely aroused too. He was hard and hot, pressing against me. Suddenly, I didn’t want to wait anymore.
While we kissed, I moved my hand down his stomach and undid the button and zipper on his jeans. As I slipped my hand inside his boxers and wrapped my fingers around him, he broke our kiss.
“Zoey, wait,” he growled, clearly regretting his decision to stop. “As much as I really want to do this right now, we can’t. I need to be to work soon, and boss lady might fire me if I am late.”
Shit, he was right. Well, not about the firing part, but he did have to be at work soon. “Glad one of us was thinking,” I sighed. “Just so you know, boss lady really isn’t your boss. Her dad is. I work there just the same as you do.”
He grinned deviously. “I know, but I like calling you boss lady. Makes me feel kinda naughty when I do it.”
Of course, I had to laugh. “You like me bossing you around, Andy? Do you want me to keep you under control too?”
I started giggling and trying to tickle him in the ribs. He swatted at my hands, and then pinned me down with my hands over my head. He finally let go of my hands and rolled to his back after he kissed me long and hard.
He wrapped his arm over me and pulled me on top of him, resting his big hands on my hips. He was still hard, and my body was pressed exquisitely against him in all the right places. I kissed him again, and as I did, I rocked my hips forward slightly, rubbing myself against his erection. He squeezed my hips to stop me.
“Fuck, you’re killing me, Zoey.”
“Sorry, Sexy,” I whispered in his ear before I licked the side of his neck and nipped his earlobe with my teeth. I ground my hips onto him again. I was sooo not sorry for that!
