by Liz Crowe
“So, son, I guess you and that Melinda have a contingency plan?” She focused on her mending, a familiar maternal diversion tool he well knew.
“I really would love it if you would stop prefacing her name with ‘that,’” he said, unsure where the comment had come from. “Please, ma’am,” he added by way of softening his criticism.
“All right,” she said, softly, not taking her eyes from his. “My apologies.”
“No problem.” A moment of awkward silence fell between them. “And actually no, she doesn’t know yet. I have to tell her. Today.”
“Oh, well, you’d best be on your way then.” She plucked the bottle out of his grip so fast he hardly saw her do it. “You and that...um, you and your fiancée have things you need to discuss as adults, and sober.” She plunked the bottle down on the goofy round table with the floor lamp sticking out of its middle that had occupied the space at her left elbow for as long as he could remember. He focused on it, dredging thoughts of simpler times from his memory banks.
“It is pretty young.” He attempted to shift the conversation, reluctant to leave while unwilling to stay. “The whiskey.”
“Yes, ’tis.” Lindsay kept her gaze on her mending. “Dominic said we needed a darker room, a warmer space, better barrels, I’m not sure. There were plenty of excuses but for the life of me I don’t know why he thinks it won’t sell.” She stopped and joined him in his study of the bottle next to her. “That boy is as stubborn as my daddy’s mule.”
“I know, Mama.” Kieran slipped into his role as soother-in-chief as if pulling on a worn and comfortable robe. He patted her knee, alarmed at how flimsy she felt under his palm. Lindsay Love had never been a large woman, but she’d been strong enough to help move kegs, hold two screaming, sturdy toddlers at once, or help shove a truck out of a ditch. The harsh realization, that for all intents and purposes she would be making her way out of his life forever, made his head spin. He tried to look away but she snagged his chin and yanked his head around.
“Listen to me now, son. I realize things haven’t really gone your way in the last few years—”
He snorted and tried to jerk out of her reach, but her thin fingers held him tight, painful, but in a way familiar enough to comfort him.
“I get it, son. Truly I do. Your daddy and I put way too many of your eggs into the athlete basket and we know that now, trust me. We did you a disservice in a way, getting swept up in all that ridiculous recruiting nonsense.” She shook her head and let go of him, leaving him hovering, his neck stuck out over the coffee table while she gazed out the picture window. “It’s so hard. Trying to enable your children to be or do what they want only to see them fall.”
“Mama, it’s fine. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” His ingrained urge to soothe her overpowered him. He’d spent too many years doing that very thing on late nights after loud and alarming fights with his brothers or sister or father.
When she looked at him, her eyes shimmered. But thanks to all the tears she’d allowed him to see her shed, he had no fear or dread of female emotion. A clear memory flashed through his brain, when he’d once admitted to her: When you cry it scares me something fierce. To which she’d replied: Oh my sweet, sweet boy, a woman’s tears water the garden of the universe. Without them, everything would just dry up and blow away. And then where would you all boys be?
But today, now, facing his final failure and her frailty, his gut clenched at the sight of her crying. Her cool, rough hand alongside his cheek did calm him this time.
“My sweet love, my Kieran,” she murmured. “You always were a bullshitter, but I appreciate how hard you work to keep me in the dark about things, truly I do.” She grabbed the bottle, pulled the cork stopper, and took a drink from the neck of it.
Shocked to his core, not by her consumption of brown liquor straight from the bottle but by her cursing, he wondered if the woman could have early-onset Alzheimer’s. She’d always set such a store by keeping their language clean, their butts in church pews on Sunday, their public selves as polite as polite could be. That sort of coarse language out of her mouth made his chest tight with anxiety. She smacked her lips, grinned at him, and stuck the stopper in before he asked for a slug.
“My daddy always did say a shot of whiskey set your mind straight. Too bad he died of liver failure.” She marched over to the liquor cabinet without a limp in sight, and he exhaled in relief. When she turned to him, jaw set in a way he understood it gave him a jolt of resolve. “Go on now, son. Go to your...woman. Talk it out. Y’all will figure it out. God knows your daddy and I always did.”
He got to his feet, wishing he could just lie down on the couch and sleep. “Okay.”
“Wait, don’t be going to that...to her looking like something a cat coughed up. There’s plenty of ironed clothes down in the laundry room. Go find a shirt with a collar, at least.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, making his way to the steps. When he glanced over at her, catching her gripping the edges of the sideboard, her face contorted in pain, he ran around the couch to grab her arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Get on, now. I’m fine. Sometimes this old hip cries out then it gets quiet again. Stop hoverin’.” She shoved him away. He backed up slowly then headed down to the basement laundry for a shirt with a collar at least his heart heavy and his mouth watering for more brown liquor. As he tugged the shirt over his head, he framed the explanation to Melinda. And every time he figured a new way to say it, she found a new way to be pissed off at him, at least in his imagination.
Chapter Eight
Cara rolled over and bumped into a warm expanse of skin. She blinked and rubbed her nose, trying to sort out the strange, lumpy bed. Kent never slept at her place, and the few times she’d stayed in Louisville at his small, hyper-organized condo she’d felt like a serious interloper.
Still half-asleep, she curled around his warm, nude body, letting her arm drape over his hip. He smelled warm and familiar. It comforted her, and she allowed herself to float in and out of a strange dream state. Right when Mickey Mouse gave her a basket of laundry to hang, Kent shifted and her palm landed on something warm and hard. Her own body tingled in anticipation by the time he flipped onto his back and pulled her over so she straddled him.
His hot, urgent flesh found hers, responding in a primal way, requiring him inside her so badly it hurt. “Yes,” she gasped when he gripped her hips and thrust with little preamble, his fingers dug deep into her thighs. He yanked her down so her hair curtained their faces.
“Kiss me,” he croaked out, and tilted his hips, providing her with exquisite friction. She met his movements, grinding down on him as she slanted her lips over his, needy in a way she didn’t comprehend but couldn’t control. Their bodies joined, moving together with the sort of rhythm they’d never found before.
She broke from his lips then propped her hands on either side of his head. He sucked her nipple into his mouth so hard she cried out and the orgasm burst across her nerve endings, shutting out light and sound, everything but the sensation of her man, making love to her.
Slowing her movements, thinking he’d come with her, she realized the sight of his red, sweaty face didn’t bode well for that assumption. She kept moving with him, well past her own release, attempting to recreate the moment, to perhaps find another orgasm somewhere in all the wet-sounding grunting.
“Roll over,” he said, pulling out of her, his face a mask of frustration. He still had a rock-hard erection. She lifted off and dropped onto the bed, smiling and pulling him to her.
“No. Roll all the way over.”
Willing to do anything at that point to get him off so she could shower and go home, she obliged. Her mind drifted to her to-do list, and to how she needed to regroup and think about Kieran, and Kent and....
“Oh, Jesus,” she gasped when he yanked her hips and rammed into her over and over. She grabbed onto the brass headboard to keep from hitting her head on the wall and held on for dear life, arching
her back, hoping the angle would help.
He draped over her and bit down on her shoulder, reaching around to rub out a small climax for her at the same moment he groaned and shuddered. She stayed still, hoping he could finish, shivering, confused by how she felt and why her own body clamored for so much sex. The bizarre realization that she wanted to throw him down and do it all over again made her dizzy.
Finally, he pulled out and flopped down on the bed. She fell the other way onto her side. He stayed still, holding onto his dick, glaring up at the ceiling. Replaying all the sex they’d had lately, outnumbered by all the times they’d tried and failed thanks to his recent problem, she studied his profile.
Finally, she reached out and put her palm on his chest, making him flinch as a strange, unknown expression flickered across his face. Unsure and suddenly very uneasy, she moved away, but he lunged for her, pinning her underneath him, her arms over her head. His gaze darkened. She bit her lip, trying to decide what to do next while he glared down at her, his breathing heavy, his angular handsome face sweat-slicked.
It filled her vision then he slanted his lips over hers, probing, teasing, gentle, yet sexy at the same time. She tugged at her arms, wanting to hang onto him but he pressed down on her wrists, grinding his still-hard cock against her body as their tongues tangled and wet skin slapped together.
When she wrapped her legs around his waist, angling her hips so he slipped into her body, it hurt a little but that got drowned out by her body’s strange, urgent, and suddenly revived clamor for connection.
“Holy hell,” he sighed into her neck.
“I love you,” she said. They moved faster, their bodies fulfilling a raw, primal purpose. She arched and he latched onto her nipple. When the orgasm gripped her, tears streamed down her face as she clung to Kent’s sweaty shoulders, her ankles locked around his waist, whispering in his ear. “Come, baby, please, please....”
He groaned and gave one last thrust. Her tears wouldn’t stop. She sobbed while he shivered then pulled out of her, alarm clear on his face.
“Oh, Cara, honey, did I hurt you?”
She shook her head but couldn’t stop crying. He held her close, stroking her arm, making soothing sounds until all she had left were hiccups and a distinct dampness between her legs. Still sniffling, she pushed her hair off her face and sat. Kent lay there, arms behind his head, looking satisfied and sleepy at the same time.
“Lord have mercy, woman,” he said around a jaw-cracking yawn. “What did you drop in my drink?”
Without replying she swung her legs around and put her feet on the wood floor, head spinning as if she were drunk. She needed space, and very likely a morning-after pill, since coming to grips that the transition phase from her monthly pill cycle to a three-month regimen demanded use of alternative birth control. Something she’d skipped now, two days in a row—with two different men.
She ran for the bathroom, slamming the door then leaning her head against its cool surface, hot tears rolling down her face.
“What’s wrong in there?” The puzzlement was clear in Kent’s voice. It had been weeks since they’d been able to have anything remotely like a normal sex life, for reasons that escaped them both. But he’d recovered now it seemed, with a real vengeance, and something about that had her both relieved and sad at the same time.
“Nothing, babe. I’m...sore.” Wincing, she jerked the shower nozzle on, hoping to drown out any further conversation. The soreness was a real thing, but her body tingled all over, juiced up in some kind of bizarre hormonal overdrive. She sat on the toilet, willing Kent to go away and leave her alone.
The door creaked open. Kent smiled at her, arms crossed over his chest, his huge dick half-soft, nestled against his thigh. It seemed…smug.
Ridiculous.
She hoped that being pregnant would not make her insane and delusional.
Oh Jesus Lord Almighty, help me. I am pregnant, right now as I sit here. But damn me if I know whose kid it is.
Forcing her face into a semblance of a smile when Kent pulled her to her feet, she pressed her face to his chest, sucking in deep breaths of him. Suppressing the infernal tears she flicked her tongue across his nipple, which made him shiver and, unbelievably, his cock stir against her belly.
“No way, mister. I’m done for a few—”
“Hours?” He grinned and pulled her close again.
“Did you take something? Seriously? I mean, you know. Not that I’m complaining.” She sighed as he teased her nipple and nibbled her neck. “Stop.” But it came out an unconvincing whisper.
“I don’t know what it is about you today my love, but I wanna fuck you three more times, take a nap, and start all over again. Mmmm....” He flipped around so she could brace herself on the tiny sink. Thinking she’d humor him, Cara acknowledged she was just as revved and ready as she’d been hours before.
Chapter Nine
As he drove the twenty or so miles from his parents’ house into town Kieran’s head began to clear. The windows were down and the tunes cranked. The sun shone. Signs of summer—his favorite season—were all around him. Parks packed with families, all the basketball courts and swimming pools overflowing. The sight of a gaggle of boys on bikes riding alongside him for a while, singing along with whatever random, crappy rap song currently polluted the airwaves had him smiling.
“Hey, it’s Kieran Love!” one of the punks shouted after a few blocks. “Can you come over and shoot a few with us?”
He waved and drove on, the sound of their cheerful unhappiness at his refusal filling his ears, taking the stretch of the four-lane road at seventy miles an hour, pressing the gas pedal to the floor, the throaty, powerful roar of the car’s engine revving him from head to toe.
It would be all right because he and Melinda loved each other. They had from the moment they’d met. He passed some grandpa in a Toyota, as the deep-green fields surrounded by picturesque white fences and dotted with horses filled both sides of his vision.
He’d been home and recuperating from radical knee surgery with the best prognosis he could hope for after such a nasty break, to walk normally, much less play the occasional pickup game. His depression had been deep, wide, and terrifying. He’d woken every day at his parents’ house, unwilling even to get out of bed, not that he could without help for the first few weeks.
Antony had tossed a laptop computer at him one day when he’d been sulking, unshaven, and eating an entire bag of potato chips, something he’d not done since the age of ten when his fate—bound for basketball fame and fortune—had been determined.
“Here, find a job, find a date, find somethin’,” his brother said before yanking the empty chip bag away and smacking Kieran’s head hard enough to make his ears ring.
“Ow. Leave me alone, asshole. I’m grievously fuckin’ injured,” Kieran said, not caring about the swear-free zone he inhabited.
“That’s three dollars young man,” his mother called out from the kitchen.
“You live with this, jerk, and see how you feel about finding ‘a date.’” He’d hooked his fingers around the words, heart in his throat at how badly he’d wanted to call Cara right then.
But by the next weekend he was limping and caning his way toward the door to some faux-fancy Italian restaurant in Lexington, rubbing his freshly shaved face and trying not to sweat through his dress shirt. The woman from the internet site sat at the bar, twirling an olive-laden swizzle stick in her martini glass, long, slim, bare legs crossed, feet encased in sky-high, patent leather heels. He’d exhaled, beyond relieved that he’d not been cat-fished by some troll, or a dude.
Then he’d hesitated, something in him telling him to turn around and leave, fast. But at that moment, she’d flashed him the whitest, most-perfect smile he’d ever seen and he’d been hooked. He still didn’t know how. They’d gone out for three weeks before she let him kiss her. It’d been another three weeks before he got anywhere near her tits. It had been a solid four months before he rounde
d home plate, but that encounter had been, in a word, epic.
Melinda liked to talk dirty, and wear heels and a garter belt while he fucked her. Loved doing it with all the lights on and in semi-public places. She gave head like a pro at first, before he’d given her an engagement ring.
Her bitchiness had come across as extreme decisiveness, sort of hot in a way, he’d admit, since he tended toward the spontaneous and unplanned—wishy washy as he now understood it thanks to Melinda’s re-categorization of his personality. Her tight grip on her emotions and her surroundings, the OCD way she ordered her life did grate on him at times, but he figured she tolerated his innate sloppiness and willingness to wake on a Sunday without a plan in place for the rest of the day. When he realized he sat across from her at some overpriced restaurant near her office after going out with her for eight months, ready to present her with a ring he could barely afford, it had shocked him without seeming to even faze her.
“Well, of course I’ll marry you, but you’ve got to find a better job,” she’d drawled as she sipped her champagne.
“A new job?” He’d gotten the teaching gig at his old high school and couldn’t imagine any job he’d want or like better. She made six figures for Christ’s sake, at least he thought she did.
Elated, drunk with lust and achievement, he’d tried to get his long legs adjusted under the small table jammed between all the others and covered with small plates of tapas which, best he could tell, were appetizers only twice the price and half the helpings.
“I’ll do anything you want, Melinda. You saved me, honest to God you did.”
She’d fluttered her inky-black lashes and gazed at him with an expression that convinced him he’d made the drastic move for the right reasons. The following year had been a combination of frustration, anger, and high school-level blue balls. The double drama Antony and Aiden had foisted on the Love family during that time hadn’t helped but it had distracted him. He’d taught his classes, helped out with the basketball team pro bono without telling Melinda, and had been happier than he’d ever been as a pro athlete.
