“Emma was pretty sure Meg liked you,” Claire says, smiling at me after telling Sam.
“An older woman,” Sam muses. “She might even be able to teach me a few new tricks.”
At that, we all bust out laughing. Somehow I don’t think Sam needs to be taught too many new tricks, but it’s always possible.
“You guys take my bed,” he says after he lets us into his apartment. “I even washed all the sheets and stuff for you.”
“We couldn’t,” Claire tells him. “You shouldn’t have to give up your bed.”
If it were up to me, I’d have easily accepted. This would be the first time Claire and I would actually be able to spend an entire night in the same bed together.
“It’s not a big deal.” He turns on the hall light, and I close the door behind us.
“No, she’s right,” I say after Claire gives me a look, like she doesn’t want to impose on Sam. “We can, uh, make our own bed on the couch or something.”
He laughs. “Fine… have it your way. I’ll grab some blankets if you want to make something do, but my couch and loveseat aren’t the most comfortable.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Claire says.
“So, you don’t want to be in the same bed with me, huh?” I ask her while Sam is grabbing the blankets, trying to sound amused and not like I’m worried she doesn’t want to spend an entire night in bed with me.
“I do… I really, really do, but it doesn’t seem right to take your friend’s, and what if we had sex on it? Wouldn’t that be kind of weird?”
I raise my brows. I’d thought about us having sex here—of course I had—but I wasn’t going to go and ask her. “So, what, we do it on the living room floor?”
She shrugs and gives me an innocent smile. “Maybe.”
Sam drops some blankets on the couch for us, then says, “Well, I’m done in—see you guys in the morning.” He gives me a thumbs up before he disappears, like he knows just what Claire and I might get up to out here.
“Good night,” Claire and I both say to him before be closes himself up in his room.
We move the small coffee table in front of the couch out of the way, and with several extra blankets and pillows, we create a fairly comfortable bed using the couch as our headboard and the thick rug on the floor as our mattress. Claire changes into a set of cotton shorts and a tank while I strip down to my boxers and snuggle with her under the blankets, no longer feeling like I have to hide all my scars around her.
“Thanks for going over there with me,” she says. “I know it was a lot to meet all those people, but I figure it’s good to have friends here.”
“Yeah, of course. John was really cool. I think he and Sam might go to a game together.”
After being quiet for a few moments, she says, “What did you think of Sam’s offer?”
For just as many moments, I’m not sure what she’s alluding to. “Oh… you mean to move in with him?”
“Yeah.” She turns and places her palm on my bare chest. “I mean, even if you don’t get into U-Dub, do you think you’d consider community college or something?”
While I’d been thinking about this very issue ever since Claire got her acceptance letter, I’d yet to come to a firm decision on what I’d be doing for the fall. My options had only gotten more confusing when, a week after Claire got her news from UW, I’d received an acceptance letter of my own from the University of Colorado. And while Laney was no longer reason enough to go there, I’d since found myself worrying that if I didn’t at least go to a four-year school that I wouldn’t measure up to everything Claire was about to accomplish in her life. Would going to community college or just getting a job in Seattle be enough to keep Claire interested in me? Or would she be pulled into a different world, one populated with deep thinkers and future doctors, a world I wouldn’t fit into, one that would pull us further apart?
“I could do that,” I say, hearing my own voice and knowing how unconvincing I sound.
“I don’t want you to settle for less, though. You should be able to go to the school you want to.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to be away from you,” I tell her, trying to edge around giving a firm answer. “Remember the tickets in October, right?”
“Yeah, I remember,” she says, her voice deflating like a tire.
“Hey, I’ll figure something out.” I lift her chin.
“It’s not just on you. It’s up to both of us. I know what I’m asking of you isn’t really fair.”
“Fair? I love you, you realize.”
“But I wouldn’t want you to hold it against me, that I’m not willing to switch schools.”
“I’m not asking you to,” I remind her. “We have months to figure this stuff out. We’ll find a way.”
I know I haven’t convinced her, even though she gives me a hopeful smile. And I hate that I don’t seem to possess the ability to put any of her fears at bay because she’s been everything to me. She’s made me feel like a man again, like I shouldn’t be ashamed that I’m not perfect. That is, of course, only part of why I love her. Her accepting what Laney had so much trouble with doesn’t make Claire my first choice by default—she’ll always be first choice, even if my body wasn’t scarred, even if she’d not had to deal with that extra complication at the front end of our relationship. Deep in my bones, I know I’ll fight to be with this girl, no matter what it takes, but I want to do this thing right because I want it to last—I want her and I to last forever.
Claire dragging her fingers across my jaw line pushes the heavy thoughts out of my head. When her lips touch mine, I’m done for. My thickness reacts just like it should, and I’m grateful for that, will always be grateful that even if the doctors had to stitch me back up like some torn up rag doll, that I’m still capable of stiffening and exciting and feeling, more so with Claire than I’d ever felt before.
Without any direction from me, she climbs over me, my back up against the couch and her crotch over mine. Tonight, she’s taking control, like she’s not ready to cede any to me quite yet. With her lips still on mine, she tugs at the band of my boxers, and I lift myself—and her—in hopes of shedding myself of the material as quickly as possible. Smoothly, she’s pulling her tank top off and then jumping up to pull down her shorts and panties before she’s right back on top of me. I drag my hands down her arms, then along the smooth curves of her sides until I’m holding firm to her now naked hips. With a lift of her rear, she positions herself and slides down over my stiffness, making me see stars.
She muffles her cries, for Sam’s benefit I suppose, but her half-closed eyes, fluttering eyelashes and gleefully relaxed face would betray her pleasure even if I couldn’t feel it with my own. With her hands gripping my shoulders, she starts to ride me, slowly at first, every imperfect inch of my hardness pushing slowly into her warm, inviting depths. Unlike her, I have to keep my eyes fully open, not wanting to miss her beautiful form rising up and down over me, the curves, the breasts, the look of pleasure on her gorgeous face when she reaches her own climax.
And then it’s my turn, and it’s fireworks all over again, my pulse speeding like a freight train until I nuzzle my face into her breasts, catching my breath and settling down, settling into her.
“And now we can cuddle,” she whispers with a teasing note to her voice.
“I’m all for that,” I say, easing down into our impromptu bed and holding her close to me, grateful to have her, grateful for tonight, and refusing to think of tomorrow or any day beyond that when it might be possible for me to fuck this whole thing up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CLAIRE
April
“This is heaven,” Nina says, the first one to spread a blanket on the beach at Basin Lake, strip down to her bathing suit and start soaking up the sun.
“It won’t be if you get skin cancer,” I remind her, plunking a bottle of sun block next to her. It’s the end of April, and we’ve hit an early heat wave with four days in a
row where it’s been over eighty degrees. Thankfully it’s the Saturday before spring break, so there is very little homework and no other obligations after I’d worked at the nursing home every day last week—finally a chance to cool off and unwind.
“Let her get burnt to a crisp,” McKenzie says, wearing an oversized AC/DC shirt over really short shorts.
“I heard that,” Nina retorts while remaining completely still on her blanket.
“What did you hear?” Nick is the first of the guys to walk up in board shorts and a Star Wars T-shirt.
“These bitches are plotting my demise is what,” Nina says without any hint that’s she’s kidding, but she totally is.
“Wow, they’re finally getting around to it, huh?” he asks her before sitting down, bending toward her and giving her a kiss.
“You’re lucky I love you,” she tells him.
“Is there a reason we had to pick this spot?” James asks, Tyler right at his side, both of them in board shorts, sneakers and light tees.
“We wanted to get away from the masses,” I say, which isn’t a total lie. Tyler still isn’t comfortable at the beach around too many people, and honestly I don’t mind the extra walk to have some peace and quiet either.
“Are you complaining?” McKenzie asks him while doing a quick roll of her eyes.
She and James hit a rough patch when she decided to take her dad up on his offer to secure her a place at Well’s Creek College in North Carolina. He’d said she was deserting him while she argued it would only be for a year and that if they couldn’t make it long distance for one year, then maybe they had no business being together.
He’d relented, but he’s been moodier ever since.
“Not complaining. I guess it’s okay we cave to the ladies,” he says, nudging Tyler just as he’s catching my eye.
“Ah, I’d say they’re worth it.” He gives me that smile of his that I feel so grateful for, one that I’m not sure what I’ll do without if he doesn’t end up with me in Seattle.
“You are such a suck up,” McKenzie teases him.
“I’d take that over this boy’s dirty mouth,” Nina says of Nick.
“You love my dirty mouth.” He barely gets that out before he’s kissing her again.
“Gross!” McKenzie says. “If I knew the two of you would be making out every chance you got, I never would have encouraged your relationship—I would have burned that stupid valentine!”
“You can’t fight chemistry. It’s science,” Nick says with a smirk once he’s pulled his lips from Nina’s.
“Okay, man,” Tyler says, patting his friend on the back before stepping to the shore and pulling his shirt off.
The first thing I think as Tyler separates the material of his shirt from his body is how gorgeous he is, how in shape, how toned and how lucky I am to be able to touch him whenever I want. The scars are secondary to me even if they played a major role in his life, even if they led to ridicule and a sense that he had to hide himself.
But here, he doesn’t.
Not long after we’d gotten back from Seattle, he told me he wanted to take a risk this summer.
“I don’t want to have to hide out before everyone goes their separate ways. But I don’t want everyone to know either… just a few people.”
I was proud of him and considered what he was saying to be pretty huge because it meant he was growing comfortable enough around our group of friends to share that part of himself and trusting all of us enough to not feel embarrassed.
So, with his permission, I’d recently told McKenzie and Nina about his scars while he’d explained it to Nick and James in his own way. And the timing had been perfect considering the record highs that the month of April had brought.
“I’ll see you in there,” Tyler yells to me, kicking his shoes off, running into the water and taking his time in submerging himself.
“I’m going in too,” James tells McKenzie before tossing his shirt off and heading in.
Nick and Nina are too focused on one another, so they don’t really notice Tyler, but McKenzie had been staring before he’d hit the water, had kept her eyes locked on the cluster of angry looking scars, over his stomach, his sides and even around to his back where that powerful dog had torn into him. There are scars on his thighs too, but those, as well as the scars he has been most embarrassed of, are hidden by his board shorts.
“McKenzie,” I whisper, her eyes still lingering in the water.
“Huh?” It takes her a moment to actually look at me.
“You were kind of staring.”
“Was I?” It’s hard to see if she’s blushing or if it’s just the hot sun pinking her up.
“You were,” I say, not wanting to sound judgey or to focus too heavily on something Tyler just wishes would fade away.
“I’m sorry,” she says, her eyes on mine. “It’s just… god… it must have been awful. Those scars are really bad.”
“It was pretty awful. It means a lot that he’s willing to show them to you guys though.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry. It’s not like it grossed me out or anything. It’s just—”
“I get it,” I tell her, not wanting her to feel like she has to explain. “It’s something that makes you want to ask questions, and I’ve asked plenty. But he doesn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him, me most of all.”
“We both know that’s not why you’re with him. He doesn’t think that, does he?”
I shake my head. “I hope not. I mean, maybe it’s part of why I’m attracted to him, only because I think him going through that has made him more sensitive.”
“That makes sense. Maybe James needs a good mauling to increase his sensitivity level.”
I look at her sideways.
“Inappropriate verbiage, huh?”
I shrug. “Honestly, I wouldn’t worry about being overly sensitive around him. As long as you don’t call him names under the guise of teasing him, we should be fine.”
Nina and Nick continue to be in their own world with Nick now slathering sun block on his girlfriend’s shoulders.
“I would never,” McKenzie says, standing up.
“But people have. He’s told me a few of them.” I get up with her and slip out of the sundress I’d worn over my bathing suit.
“People suck,” she says, wiggling out of her shorts and shirt.
“Yes, they do,” I agree.
We head into the water, and it’s still cold, like really cold, but it feels good on such a hot day, and it doesn’t take all that long to get acclimated. I climb up onto Tyler’s broad shoulders, but James, for whatever reason, refuses to let McKenzie on his. An argument seems to be brewing, and it most definitely graduates to a full on fight when James swims his way out further and further toward the middle of the very big lake, McKenzie yelling after him, screaming that he’s a dumbass one minute and the next pleading that he’s scaring the shit out of her and that he better swim back in.
“Trouble in paradise,” Tyler says once I’m off his shoulders and bobbing up and down in the water next to him, McKenzie a good forty or fifty feet away from us now.
“Tyler, you realize they haven’t been in paradise for quite a while, right?”
“Yeah,” he says, like he doesn’t want to admit it, like he might be just as sad as I am that two people who have become his friends are going through a tough time. “Should I do something?”
“I don’t want you swimming out there,” I tell him as McKenzie yells again for James to come back before she adds, “You’re going to get run over by a boat you asshole!”
“Yeah, but—”
“Tyler, all I’ll do is worry if you swim out.”
“Fine,” he says, wiping the wetness off of my brow. “I don’t want to worry you.”
It dawns on me that I worry about Tyler all the time, not the kind of debilitating worry that some people get for people they love, but the kind that reminds me I love him, that he’s important to me and that he will alwa
ys be in my thoughts no matter what. And I’m so tempted right now to just stay here in the water next to him and stare up into his beautiful face, but McKenzie needs me because her present worry for James is very real.
“I’m just going to swim over to McKenzie and try to calm her down, okay?” I kiss him softly on his wet lips.
“Okay,” he says, “but if you’re gone too long, I’m coming after you.”
I smile at that, then kick off and swim over to my friend who seems to keep drifting further away.
“Why don’t we go in and dry off?” I offer once I reach her. “Maybe if you’re out of the water, he’ll swim back to shore.”
“I feel like he’s going to kill himself just to spite me,” McKenzie says, near tears.
I’m not sure what to tell her or how to make it better, so I turn to Tyler who seems to know that I need him, and he swims right over.
“I really think we should just head to shore and relax a little,” I tell McKenzie again, looking to Tyler for backup.
“Claire’s right. I’ll stay here and keep an eye out. I’ll wait until he swims back in, okay?”
“If he comes back in,” McKenzie cries, her worry overpowering her.
“He will,” Tyler and I assure her, and then, after giving Tyler one more thankful kiss, I nudge McKenzie with a quick brush to her submerged arm.
“Come on. Let’s head in.”
As if she’s having to leave a beloved cat that has climbed high into a tree and can’t get down, she begrudgingly swims in with me until we’re in shallow enough water to walk the rest of the way, dripping wet and making our way onto the beach.
“What’s the drama?” Nina is lying back against Nick’s chest, cradled between his legs, his arms wrapped around her.
“He’s just being a dick. Trying to scare me or something.” It’s hard to tell because our faces are still wet, but I’m pretty sure McKenzie is shedding some tears.
“So don’t go to fucking North Carolina then, and maybe he’ll stop,” Nina says.
“Not helping,” I tell her.
“He’s being more reactive than I would have ever pegged him for,” Nick offers.
Between the Girls (The Basin Lake Series Book 3) Page 28
