by Imani King
"Oh my God, Kaden!" I said sharply, freaking out a little because I'd never seen him like that before. "Just give me two-"
"My mom got into a car accident," he blurted out suddenly, covering his face with his hands as the tears started to fall. "They don't think she's going to make it."
There wasn't a single part of me that, in that moment, wanted to do anything other than provide comfort. Nothing else mattered. Not my broken heart, not the passing of time, not my own fragile sense of purpose in a life I had already accepted would not have Kaden in it. The only thing I was focused on was him. He needed me.
"Nat!"
I turned around to see Jennifer walking towards me with my bag in her hand. "Here. Ed says it's OK if you leave. Call me tonight, OK?"
I took the bag and gave my friend a hug. She didn't need an explanation, she could see that the situation was serious.
"Yes, I will," I told her. "Thanks, Jen."
I turned back to Kaden.
"Let's go," he said. "I don't want to be standing out here - anyone could be taking pictures."
Of course. He was on the verge of real stardom. He had to think about things like people taking pictures in public.
"Where are we going?" I asked when we were inside the Audi. Kaden would tell me the details of what was going on in his own time.
"My parent's house," he said. "They're not home. My dad is at the hospital with my-"
I reached out and touched Kaden's arm as he lowered his head again. "Hey. Kaden, let me drive."
So we stopped the car and switched seats. And as I drove, he told me what was going on in a halting, cracking voice.
"Someone hit my mother on the highway, a drunk driver. She's in a coma with swelling on the brain and the doctors told us this morning that she's probably not going to make it. I'm so - Tasha - I'm so sorry to show up at your work like that but I didn't have a choice. I'm falling apart here. I don't know what to do."
"Don't worry about that," I told him. "It doesn't matter."
We got to his parents' house a few minutes later. Once we were inside, we went into the kitchen.
"Do you want something?" He asked, opening the fridge. "Uh, a drink?"
"No, I'm good."
He turned around and bent down over the kitchen island, holding his head in his hands for a few seconds before looking up at me. His eyes looked haunted, it was awful seeing him like that.
"I don't know what to do, Tasha," he said. "I don't even know what to say to you. I told you all there is to tell. I just don't want to be alone right now."
"I know," I soothed him, walking around to where he was standing and rubbing his back. "It's OK Kaden. I'm here. You don't have to do or say anything. I'm here. Alright?"
"Thank you, Tasha." He whispered through his hands. "Just, thank you."
"It's OK," I told him, because it was. "It's OK."
We stayed in the kitchen for a few minutes while Kaden tried to get himself together.
"I need a drink," he said, finally. "Are you sure you don't want one?"
"Well, why not? Sure, I'll have one."
I wasn't sure what he meant by 'a drink' but it soon became clear when he took out a bottle of whiskey.
"Please don't say anything," he told me, pouring about a shot's worth into two glasses. "I know this isn't the way to handle things. But I'm losing it, Tasha. I think I'm really losing it. There's nothing to do . I've been waiting for three days now, ever since my dad called me at Brooks. I feel like jumping out of my own skin. I want to fix this. I want to help my dad. But there's nothing I can do. There's nothing and it's driving me fucking crazy."
I watched as he downed the shot in one gulp and poured another. I took a small sip of my own. "You're here," I told him. "That's helping. You and your dad need to be together right now, to help each other - and your mom - get through this."
Kaden looked at me forlornly. "I hope you're right."
When he poured the third shot I took the bottle out of his hands and suggested we go sit outside on the back deck. Those little bits of tree fluff that get released over a two or three-day period around that time of year were floating through the air. I reached up and grabbed one, examining the tiny seed before releasing it again.
"It doesn't feel like two years, does it?" Kaden asked, watching me. "It doesn't feel like any time at all."
I wanted to go to him, sit on his lap, put my arms around him, kiss the top of his head. Whatever it was that had been there between us in high school was still there, a current of electricity snapping between us that I wasn't in any way sure I would be able to resist. So I stayed where I was, watching the seeds flit by.
"It doesn't," I agreed. "It's actually kind of scary, huh?"
I could see him out of the corner of my eye, but I was almost too afraid to look at him. He was still the same person he'd been but there were small differences. He was less gangly - not that Kaden was ever gangly, but he was even more muscular, more solid - and his face had hardened a little, settled into the angles and lines of adult masculinity in a way it hadn't quite finished doing when we were still at Reinhardt together. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with 'Brooks Football' in faded lettering across the chest.
"It feels so strange to be sitting here with you. But at the same time it feels like we've been sitting here for ages, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," I said, nodding in agreement. "How's college going?"
Kaden managed a small smile. "If you'd asked me that question four days ago I could have talked your ears off. Don't feel bad, it probably would have been pretty boring for you. But now, I don't know, it just doesn't seem to matter much."
"The draft is next month, isn't it?" I asked, thinking maybe distraction would be a good idea. Get his mind off the present.
He nodded and I made the mistake of looking at him. He was leaning back in the lawn chair, which looked comically tiny holding up his huge frame and it hit me in a sudden blast of undeniable truth that nothing about the way my body reacted to Kaden Barlow had changed. Nothing. I quickly looked away again, feeling a little ashamed of myself for even having feelings like that when things were so messed up for him. The glass of whiskey was still in my hand so I took another sip.
"Do you like that?" He asked.
I laughed as the whiskey burned a trail of fire down my throat. "Not really."
"It's my dad's. He used to lock that stuff up when I still lived here. It still feels like I'm doing something really wrong drinking their liquor."
We sat out on the back porch for a couple of hours, until I realized it was getting close to time for me to go home.
"Don't go," Kaden said, when I brought it up. "I'll pay for delivery. Please, Tasha..."
I had had another small glass of whiskey by then and the mood between Kaden and I had changed a little, softened up. I knew it wasn't a good idea to stay.
"Rosa has allergies," I told him. "Delivery won't work." I paused, fighting with myself. Then I looked down at Kaden and told him not to worry, that I would come back over after I'd gone home to make dinner.
"Will you?" He asked. We were standing at the front door waiting for the taxi he'd called to show up.
"Yeah. I'm not trying to get out of anything, Kaden. It's just my job to make dinner - don't you remember?"
He smiled. "Yeah, I do remember. You were a damn good cook in high school, Tasha - you're probably an even better one now."
I glanced outside. Still no taxi. We were standing very close to each other.
"Are you going to be OK until I get back?" I asked, reaching out and grabbing the bottom of his t-shirt without thinking about it. We both looked down at the same time, watching as I snatched my hand away, embarrassed. "Sorry," I said, looking up to see him looking right at me, not smiling. I knew that look.
"Kaden," I whispered, warning myself as well as him. He put his hands on me at the exact same moment the taxi honked its horn and the surprise at hearing it was the only thing that allowed me to pull away from h
im, quickly, because I knew if I tried any other way it wouldn't have worked.
"I've got to go," I said breathlessly, already on my way out the door. "I'll see you in a couple of hours, OK?"
Chapter 23: Natasha
Alisha was already working on dinner when I got in. My mom was sitting at the kitchen table, chatting with her. They both looked up when they saw me and my mom tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes.
"What's that look on your face, Tash?" She asked in that whispery, husky voice of hers.
"What?" I asked, turning the tap on to wash my hands. "What do you mean?" Alisha was looking at me strangely by then, too. Dammit. "What're we making?" I asked her, hoping a distraction would put them off the scent.
"Rice and beans with braised pork. Now tell us why you look like you've just seen a ghost, Tash."
Both of them were looking at me expectantly. I wasn't going to be able to brush them off. "Kaden Barlow is back in town," I told them, pretending to be busy drying my hands so I wouldn't have to meet their eyes. "His mom was in a really serious car accident and she might not make it. Kaden came to see me at work today, and he's really upset."
Out of the corner of my eyes I could see Alisha and my mom exchanging a look.
"I'm sorry to hear that, Tash." My mom said. "Tell him I'll be praying for Mrs. Barlow."
"I will, mom."
They were both dying to question me further but I think the sad circumstances put a damper on that. It was one thing for Kaden to be back in town. It was quite another for him to be back in town for the tragic reason he was.
We ate dinner - all of us except Ray, who was still working late hours - together and when it was finished and I got up to get started on the dishes Alisha came up to me and waved me off.
"I got this, Tash. You can go. Just, uh, just give me a sec, OK?"
She disappeared upstairs while I put my shoes on and grabbed the car keys. When she came back down I could see she had something in her hand, which she held out to me. I took it. It was two condoms.
"I don't need these," I said, embarrassed.
"Just take them."
"No, Alisha. I really don't need these. He - it's just about his mom, OK? It's not - it's not like what you're thinking."
But she kept pressing them into my hand. "Tash, don't get defensive, I'm not implying anything. I just know how men are. Even when they're sad. I know how easy it is to fall back into old patterns when things get emotional-"
"No," I said, more forcefully than I intended, handing the condoms back to Alisha. "I don't need these."
She stood there for a few seconds, just looking at me. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, Alisha, I'm sure."
"OK, then." She said, her voice sounding slightly doubtful.
I drove to Kaden's house annoyed with Alisha and her presumptuousness. Of course, she ended up being entirely right. I remember that drive in the rickety old Toyota we used as a back-up when Ray was using the main car - a slightly less-rickety Ford. The evening was tinged with pink light and the feeling of the impending summer was in the air. The only thing on my mind, after I'd gotten over being irritated with Alisha, was Kaden and his mother. A deep wish that she was going to pull through somehow combined with dread at the possibility that she might not - and what that would do to Kaden. No part of me sensed that that night was going to change my life forever.
"Hey," I smiled when Kaden answered the front door. "How are you doing? Have you heard anything?"
He shook his head. "No. My dad called but only to tell me that there was no news. I'm going to go to the hospital first thing in the morning."
"That's good," I told him, following him into the living room, desperately searching my mind for something meaningful to say, something comforting. "Do you think you'll-"
I was cut off by Kaden suddenly turning around and grabbing my shoulders. The second I looked up our eyes locked. I could feel that both of us were bursting with things we wanted to say and a thousand reasons we couldn't say them.
Before I could do anything he bent down and kissed me. I didn't pull away. I was perfectly aware that I should have, but I couldn't. Kaden always had a way of kissing me that just seemed to wipe all rational thought in my mind. Nothing had changed. Well, something was different. Alongside all of that insistent, demanding maleness that I had always found it impossible to resist there was something else that time. Vulnerability, need. I could taste it in his kisses and I knew, standing there in front of him as he turned my knees to Jello, that there was nothing I could say that would comfort him. There were no words. What he needed wasn't words.
And I couldn't turn him away. I didn't even want to. It wasn't a fight between two halves of myself at all. It was just my body answering his, my soul sensing the depth of his need and deciding, in an instant, that nothing else mattered.
"Kaden-" I gasped as he moved down to my neck, kissing me like he wanted to devour me whole.
"Tasha," he breathed, his words muffled against my flesh. "I missed you. I missed you so much...oh my God."
His hands were all over me, clutching at my body, yanking me against him. Maybe if he'd gone slower I would have had time to think? Maybe. But he didn't go slowly. And the feeling of his body - his fit, warm, muscular body towering over me - made it so I couldn't think about anything but getting more of it.
I took a step back, afraid I was going to topple over Kaden was pushing so hard, and ran into the sofa, falling backward onto it and reaching up for him blindly, barely able to breathe with need.
When he settled his body between my legs and thrust down against me, so I could feel exactly how much he wanted me, my back arched up sharply and my head rolled back at the jolt of pleasure that sang through my body. I took his head in my hands and pulled him down to me, opening my mouth for his tongue, completely helpless in the face of him.
Neither of us was in control of ourselves and there's something strange about being a person who isn't familiar with that state of being. Most of the time, it terrifies me. It's why I don't do drugs or allow myself to get too drunk. It's why I hate the idea of flying. But sometimes, under the right circumstances, it's the greatest relief in the world. I don't remember ever deciding that I was just going to let myself go, it wasn't a decision in any way. It was an inevitability and there's something to be said for getting lost in your own lack of control, your own craving.
I knew I wanted Kaden inside me as soon as I felt him through our clothes, rock hard against my thigh. I frantically pulled my shirt off over my head and closed my eyes, sighing, when he did the same and I felt the thing I'd been missing - his skin against mine.
"Kaden," I moaned as he yanked my bra down, exposing my breasts. "Kaden-"
All I could do was say his name, I didn't have it in me to speak in full sentences. And the presence of fabric between us was becoming untenable. I reached down between our bodies and unbuttoned his jeans. As soon as he realized what I was doing he sat up a little and unzipped himself the rest of the way. When his cock sprang free, completely hard, the head shiny with pre-cum, I felt myself exhaling heavily. That was it. That was the only thing in the world I wanted.
At that moment, everything became a desperate rush. We tore at each other's clothes clumsily, in a frenzy to get where we were going. Did it cross my mind to use a condom? No. Maybe. A vague memory of Alisha pushing them on me, perhaps. But it was, truthfully, the last thing I wanted. What I wanted was Kaden. What I wanted was absolutely nothing between us. When he put his hand on my bare thigh and pushed himself into me, finishing the movement with a powerful thrust, I turned my face into a pillow and moaned.
Perfection. He was perfection. Our bodies locked together like that was perfection.
"Can you feel me?" I asked, needing to know that Kaden could feel what he'd done to me - how wet and soft and needy he'd made me.
"Yes, Tasha," he breathed, his lower lip twitching slightly as he pushed himself into me again. "I can feel you, baby, my sweet girl
, oh God..."
Our words weren't articulate, but we didn't need them. The look in his eyes - dark and animalistic and full of the only kind of satisfaction that mattered - was more than enough to tell me what he was feeling.
I was lifting my hips up off the sofa, meeting his thrusts as that feeling came back, the one I remembered from the first time, the itch that got worse every time it was scratched.
"Oh my God," I moaned, my voice high-pitched and helpless, "you're going to make me come, Kaden. Oh my God, you're gonna make me, ohh-"
"Am I?" He growled, speeding up, pushing himself into me harder, until each thrust was forcing the air out of my lungs. "I want you to come, Tasha. I want to feel you coming on my cock."
It was going to happen. I could sense it building with each kiss, each sweet movement of Kaden's body against mine. When it was very close, to the point where I was inhaling in quick, short little bursts and every cell in my body felt like it was doing the same thing, I said something I didn't mean to say. I don't even remember saying it - Kaden only told me afterwards that I had.
"Come inside me," I whispered, burying my face into the hard muscle where his shoulder met his neck. "Please, Kaden. Please come in me."
And before the word 'me' had even slipped fully from my tongue the rollercoaster ticked over the very peak of the hill and a rush of blissful oblivion seized my body. I clawed at Kaden's back, pulling him against me, driven by an absolute need to have him as far inside me, as close to me as possible. I could feel my sex pulsing around him, each tightening better than the one before it, until his breath was ragged and his body was stiffening.
"Tasha," he groaned, digging his fingers into the flesh of my hip just before he jerked his hips down one more time and stayed there, all the way inside me, emptying himself of what felt like everything.
"Wait," he said, holding me down when I shifted my body slightly. "Wait."
He wasn't finished. I angled my hips up and smiled at him as our eyes met again and he thrust into me a few more times, his face creasing into a grimace as he shuddered the last of his orgasm away.
