by Erin Wright
“Of course not!” she said, shocked. “I…well…I just…”
She stumbled to a stop, not real sure of where to go from there.
“Shy folks think that they don’t have nothin’ to say that’s worth hearin’. Well, truth of the matter is, I do wanna hear it all. So, the next time that little voice in your head starts telling you some bullshit ‘bout how I don’t care, I want you to tell it to shut the hell up. Now, let’s get to colorin’ and while we do, I want you to tell me every borin’ story you can think of ‘bout your parents. I wanna hear ‘em all.” He pulled a chair out for her and then sat in the other one, dumping out the colored pencils on the table for them to grab, and picked a simple forest scene to work on while, ever so slowly, Hannah began telling him funny stories and sad stories and thought-provokin’ stories and…
As she talked, she nibbled her lower lip thoughtfully, adding shading to the shadows of the pine trees and Elijah listened to it all, enjoying every minute but also wondering just how slow was slow.
If she kept nibbling her lower lip like that, he weren’t gonna be able to take it slow much longer.
He shifted in his seat and told himself to behave.
He just shouldn’t look at her mouth no more.
Chapter 25
Hannah
February, 2019
“So then Juan raced across the finish line so far ahead of Dayton and Patrick,” Brooklyn said excitedly, the chocolate chip cookie dough forgotten in her hands for the moment as she recounted the story, “heck, they probably couldn’t even see him when he won,” she boasted. “The PE teacher said that that was the fastest anyone had ever run the 500-meter in her class, and so of course Dayton and Patrick pretended like they wasn’t even tryin’ to beat him but of course they was. I don’t know why they think it’s so bad to be Mexican.”
Hannah squished her rounded ball of dough down onto the greased baking sheet as a subtle reminder to Brooklyn to do likewise, but Brooklyn being Brooklyn, of course the diversionary tactic didn’t work. She kept her eyes pinned on Hannah while she dropped the ball of dough into place, the implied question hanging in the air.
Hannah squirmed a little inside, wishing that it was Elijah fielding this question. Racism was always a dicey topic, and then there was the fact that Hannah wasn’t actually Brooklyn’s mother, even though she felt like she was most days, and…
She glanced up to find that yup, Brooklyn was still staring at her, her gray-green eyes glued to her every movement. Elijah had run down to the Shop ‘N Go to get milk to dunk the cookies in, so for the moment, Hannah was it. They’d spent their Sunday together, the three of them, making cookies and playing Clue Jr. and even coloring some out of the gorgeous coloring book Elijah had given her over two months ago, but naturally, Brooklyn had waited until Elijah was gone to ask the hard questions.
Stalling for time, Hannah carefully slid the filled cookie sheet into the oven and started the timer, hoping inspiration would strike as she did.
“I know this is hard to keep in mind sometimes,” she finally said once there was nothing left to do but to turn back towards Brooklyn, “but Dayton and Patrick were taught by their parents to think like that. It doesn’t make it any easier to swallow because they’re being jerks and no one likes being around that, but it’s how they were raised. Hopefully, someday, they’ll realize that it isn’t right. In the meanwhile, the best thing you can do is be a good friend to Juan and stand up for him, but not by kicking Dayton in the shins when you do it.”
Brooklyn had the good graces to look a little ashamed at that. “He’s just such a jerk,” she mumbled around the licking of her fingers clean. “He likes being mean.”
The terrible part was, Brooklyn was spot on. Hannah couldn’t say that out loud, of course, but yeah, Dayton had a mean streak in him a mile wide. She’d had hopes at the beginning of the year of bringing the class together as a whole, but it was nearing into March and they were just as fractured as ever, with Dayton – and Patrick as his sidekick – being a big part of that. It was the hardest class she’d ever had, and those two were the cause of about 97.2% of that heartache.
She was saved by Elijah’s return just then, which thankfully kept her from having to come up with a suitable answer that didn’t include, “Dayton was born mean as a rattlesnake and his parents have only made it worse.”
She looked over at him coming through her front door and let out a little sigh of happiness. Not because she’d been saved from having to come up with some politically correct response to Brooklyn’s thoughts, but rather because seeing him come through the front door…
It just felt right. Like it had happened a thousand times already, and would happen a thousand times more and it was just meant to be.
Elijah slung the gallon of milk up onto the counter as he popped a kiss onto Brooklyn’s forehead, and then laid a kiss on Hannah that left her panting with lust by time he was done. They’d tried, in the beginning, to hide their relationship from Brooklyn, but…well, that had quickly died off. As Elijah had confessed to her one day, having Hannah in the same room as him and not kissing her was the purest form of torture God ever did create.
Elijah pulled back and cradled Hannah against his thighs, his arms wrapped around her waist as he stared down at her. “Hi honey, I’m home,” he whispered with a naughty grin. She couldn’t help it – she grinned back.
“I noticed,” she whispered.
The timer for the cookies went off just then, and Elijah looked positively delighted. “Perfect timing, as always. My nose knows when it’s time to eat. Brooksy, will you help a papa out by pulling them outta the oven?”
Together, they pulled the fat, golden cookies out of the oven and slid them onto the hot pads to protect the countertop, and then they all just breathed in deep.
“You’re the best teacher and the best momma,” Brooklyn said, her eyes shining bright with glee as she looked up at Hannah. The pain shot through her like a knife twisting through her heart. Having Brooklyn as her daughter would truly be a dream come true for her, but Sarah…?
Sarah would agree to that plan about the same time she agreed to chop off her right arm for funsies.
“Elijah—” Her voice broke from the pain and she cleared her throat and tried it again, pushing the pain down and burying it in her soul to be ignored like all of the other pain in her life. “Elijah, you want to pour us some milk while I dish out the cookies?”
She was bluntly sidestepping Brooklyn’s comment. She knew what she wanted to say, and knew what she should probably say, and since she couldn’t say the former and couldn’t bring herself to say the latter, nothing at all was what she settled on. Luckily, Brooklyn’s legendary attention span was no match against the tempting cookies in front of them, and she didn’t even seem to notice Hannah’s lack of an answer.
All too soon, it was time to drop Brooklyn off at home – another weekend together passing like a blur of fun and laughter and then always, the sadness at the end. Brooklyn threw her arms around Hannah’s waist.
“I don’t wanna go home,” she cried with the passion that ten-year-old girls seemed to keep pent up inside at all times. “I wanna stay here with you. You don’t never get drunk.”
Hannah knelt down and hugged her back, the pain at Brooklyn’s leaving ten times worse today because of those few words that said it all.
You don’t never get drunk.
Words no ten year old should ever have to say.
“I know, sweetie,” she whispered into Brooklyn’s soft, shiny hair, feeling the hot burn of tears in her eyes as she hugged the little girl close. “It’s hard. But we have to do what the courts say, at least for now. We’ll figure something out, I promise. Please be careful, though – you know the rule.”
“Don’t say nothin’ to Sarah ‘bout you except that you’re my teacher,” Brooklyn recited dully, snuffling as she pulled back and wiped the backs of her hands across her tear-stained cheeks.
“I’m so sorry to as
k you to do that,” Hannah whispered, stroking Brooklyn’s hair back out of her face. “I don’t like you having to keep things from your mom—”
“She ain’t my mom,” Brooklyn broke in, shaking her head violently. “You are.”
The sheer loyalty and love in her small form…she was Elijah’s mini-me all right.
Again, Hannah sidestepped Brooklyn’s words because it was her only choice, and what a terrible choice it was. “I love you, sweetie. I’ll see you in class tomorrow as just one of my students, okay?”
Brooklyn nodded dully and, taking Elijah’s hand, they left to do the bi-weekly drop-off at Sarah’s house, leaving Hannah behind of course. The goodbyes were growing harder by leaps and bounds, and a small part of Hannah – that was getting bigger by the moment – wanted to grab up Brooklyn and Elijah and make a run for the border. Anything to keep from living through this constant pain.
As she set about putting the kitchen to rights, it hit Hannah anew why Elijah had been willing to take a job at the school just to be near his daughter. Brooklyn wasn’t even Hannah’s biological child, and she’d be willing to do something equally as extreme. She’d taught and loved on many students throughout the years, but Brooklyn…
She was like no other.
She heard the front door open but wasn’t quick enough to wipe her tears away before Elijah spotted them. “Oh, Hannah,” he murmured as he hurried over to the kitchen island and leaned against it, pulling Hannah up to cradle her against his strong thighs. “We’ll figure somethin’ out,” he promised her, echoing the words she’d used to reassure Brooklyn just minutes before. “This school year will come to an end and then we don’t hafta sneak around so much. A judge will listen…we’ll be together as a family in no time at all.”
She nodded listlessly against Elijah’s chest, not able to find it in her to be more cheerful than that. Elijah tipped her chin up and smiled softly down at her, using the pad of his thumb to wipe her tears away. “Watchin’ you with Brooksy…this is what I’d wanted all along. I didn’t want to get married so early; I didn’t want Brooksy. But once she was in my life, I ain’t never looked back. I couldn’t look back. But I wanted somethin’ Sarah weren’t capable of, and it took us both a good long while to figure that out. But you and Brooksy…it’s like God’s givin’ me a second chance.”
Something broke inside of Hannah just then, listening to this man in front of her talk about how much he loved his daughter. It was Hannah’s weak spot – a man who loved children as much as she did. It almost seemed impossible.
And so she broke and she did what she’d been telling herself for months that she wouldn’t do – she threw herself at Elijah.
Not literally, of course – she was already standing in the circle of his arms. Throwing herself at him would be a little more violent than the situation really called for. But every bit of restraint she’d gathered around herself for the last several months, every bit of willpower…it simply disappeared like it had never existed.
For the first time in her 34 years on this earth, she was the aggressor. She rose up on her tiptoes and shoved her hands into his thick dark hair and pulled him down to her, her mouth eating him up hungrily. He stiffened from surprise and she wondered for a moment if she’d made a mistake – if he wasn’t attracted to her like she was to him.
But he began moaning with delight and lust as he nestled her closer against him, his penis quickly hardening against her belly, and she decided that for once, it’d been okay to take a chance.
Thinking became a really hard thing to do when he swung her up onto the counter, a wide graceful arc that had her shouting with surprise and laughter as he grinned naughtily at her. They were eye to eye now, which made the idea of saying no, of moving away and being a good little girl, all the more impossible to fathom. Yeah, maybe according to society, they shouldn’t be together. They certainly shouldn’t be doing what every fiber of Hannah’s being wanted them to do.
But she’d been breaking the rules all this time simply by dating Elijah, even if they hadn’t actually had sex, and nothing bad had happened. In fact, it had been the best months of Hannah’s life. So taking that next step and being together with the one man who set her world on fire…well, it didn’t seem like such a terrible thing to do anymore.
Either she’d actually become more defiant and brave because of Elijah, or lust was addling her brain to the point where it couldn’t figure out right from wrong. It could be either, really, and in that moment, Hannah found she didn’t care which it was.
And that was the strangest, most thrilling part of all.
Chapter 26
Elijah
He’d never seen Hannah like this before. Oh, he’d had dreams of her bein’ wild and free and tearing at his hair as she moaned with lust, but those was just dreams. He ain’t never expected to actually see her act like that.
But when she wrapped her thighs around him and was pleadin’ with him to make love to her, all of his good sense went flyin’ out the window. The last two months of his life – he thought he was gonna go plumb crazy. Seein’ her at school. Pullin’ in behind her house and parking in her backyard so as no one could see him comin’ over. Not bein’ able to claim her in public and walk down the street with her hand-in-hand…it had been a real test of his self-control and more than once, he was just sure he was gonna fail that test.
But now? He was failin’ spectacularly. He weren’t supposed to be pickin’ Hannah up and carryin’ her down the hallway to her bedroom and spreadin’ her out on the bed like a feast for the eyes.
He weren’t supposed to be, but he was anyway.
“Please, Elijah, please,” Hannah mumbled, her head tossin’ back and forth on the pillow, her dark red hair goin’ every which way. He slipped his fingers underneath the waistband of her yoga pants – her comfy weekend outfit, as she called it – but watchin’ her walk around in skintight pants, followin’ every curve of her body faithfully…
He were damn lucky he hadn’t gone blind with lust over the past two months. She had every curve a man could want or ever dream of. She’d done a real good job of hidin’ those curves the first 34 years of her life, underneath baggy clothes and tied-back hair and thick glasses, but he’d found the real her, and he weren’t gonna let her go.
He peeled her yoga pants off, revealing creamy white legs just beggin’ to be kissed, so kiss ‘em he did. He started down at her ankles and moved up the sexiest pair of legs he was ever lucky enough to touch; muscular from horse ridin’ but not in no weird bodybuilder way.
“Hannah, Hannah, Hannah,” he moaned senselessly, his whole world disappearin’ with only these gorgeous legs left. He got up to the top of her thighs and sighed with happiness. She had these bright red curls that he couldn’t help but nose and breathe in deep ‘cause damn did she smell good. The world was goin’ dark around the edges and she were moanin’ and tremblin’, and he were gonna bust a nut if he didn’t come real quick. He’d been waitin’ a real long time for this; he’d been enduring the longest dry spell any red-blooded male could stand before goin’ crazy, but finally, finally it was about to be over with.
He moved up over her, not sure if he was gonna lick her tits or move onto the grand finale and do a better job the second time ‘cause Lordy, he needed some relief—
Except she weren’t moaning and trembling ‘cause she were happy.
Not unless she had the world’s weirdest way of showin’ that she were happy.
“Hannah?” he whispered, tryin’ to figure out what in the hell was goin’ on. She had tears running down her cheeks and she was shakin’ like a leaf, her head tossin’ just like before but this time, she was murmuring, “No, no, no, no,” with her hands pushing at his shoulders, pushing him off her.
His lust-filled brain were havin’ a real hard time keepin’ up. She’d been lovin’ it.
Hadn’t she?
She had wanted this.
Right?
He felt like he were goin’ crazy.
“Hannah,” he whispered again, stroking her cheek, “what’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” He couldn’t figure how he woulda, considering he ain’t even been inside of her yet – something his dick was all too aware of – but maybe she were delicate in weird places or somethin’.
She shook her head violently, her hair mixin’ with her tears and everything sticking every which way across her face, making a tangled mess and hiding her from him. He reached out and tried to brush her hair away from her face but she flinched, yanking away from him with a tiny mangled cry. She curled up in a ball, her back to him, as she sobbed so quietly, he wouldn’t have known she was if he hadn’t been payin’ attention.
His dick, which’d been hard enough to jackhammer through concrete just minutes before, deflated as he stared at the curve of Hannah’s back. Her long red hair, all tangled and flowin’ this way and that, were a real pretty contrast to the cream of her skin, and were somethin’ he’d just stare at and enjoy…if she weren’t bawlin’ like a baby.
He scrambled back through his memory, tryin’ to think of a reason for the cryin’ – any reason at all. Maybe his toenails were too long, and he stuck her with ‘em. He looked down at his crooked toes, not a one of them going in a straight line, but nope, his toenails was all trimmed up. He’d just cut ‘em a couple of nights ago. Plus, she weren’t yelling, “Ow! You stabbed me with your crooked toes!” or grabbin’ her legs in pain.
If’n he had to make a guess – and to be honest, girl feelings were about as alien as New York City – he’d say her cryin’ were from emotional pain, not physical. He were pretty hot to trot there for a bit, but he were also real sure that he woulda noticed if he’d somehow skewered her with his toenails or put an elbow into her belly or somethin’. Plus, if’n she were hurt ‘cause he did somethin’ to her, she woulda at least gone, “Oomph!” or “Ouch!” or “Hey, shithead, that was my ribcage!” or something.
