by Ashley Lyn
“Thank you for letting me pluck your weird unicorn hair.”
“You’re welcome.”
I’m mildly disappointed when it doesn’t go further than this. That is, until he leans down and brushes his lips across mine.
Smiling against his lips, he rolls off me and to the side, so his back runs along the back of the couch. He puts his arm around my middle and pulls me close.
Baby steps, and a boatload of hope.
I’m walking out of the shower, towel around my waist, drying my hair with another towel, when I see a gift on the bed.
When I get closer, I see that the wrapping paper is covered in little dicks.
“What the hell?” Shaking my head, I pick it up and stick my head out the door. “Savannah?”
“Yes, dear?”
“What the fuck is this?”
“Did you open it?” She runs in my room and leaps on my bed, landing on her back.
“Sorry about the paper. That was the only wrapping paper that Ali had.”
Her eyes keep darting to the towel, so I grab some jeans from my dresser. Giving her my back, I drop the towel. Her strangled groan and subsequent coughing fit makes me grin.
“Warn a girl before you fry her synapsis with that fine, bare, white ass. I choked on my own spit!”
I jerk my jeans up, going commando, and hear another groan. Once I’m finished, I sit on the bed and open the present.
I stare at them for a bit, glance at Savannah, then back at the item in my hand, not quite believing what I’m seeing.
“Boobies,” Savannah says, giggling. “They’re stress balls. I figured since I’m leaving in a couple days, you might miss seeing my boobies bouncing and be all stressed.”
My lips quirk and I shake my head at her. She leans in and kisses my cheek. “I have to go back and keep an eye on dinner so it doesn’t burn.”
I watch her ass bouncing as she skips out the door. I open the package and hold them in my hands. These are the weirdest fucking things ever. I pinch the nipples, and they’re surprisingly lifelike.
It’s then that the thought crosses my mind. I’m sure girls have the same thoughts about what it’s like having a cock and balls between their legs. I wonder what it would be like to have boobs. These feel way more real than I expected, so I do the only logical thing.
I grab a T-shirt and go in the bathroom. Putting them under my shirt, I laugh at myself. I look ridiculous, with little tiny boobies. The hard nipples on these things are obscene.
The click of a camera and the flash has me spinning around. One boob droops a bit, and I look at Savannah in horror. She’s literally doing the pee pee dance, she’s laughing so hard.
“Savannah, delete it!” I yell at her.
She must see my intent because she shoves the phone in her bra and takes off running through the house. I chase her down the hallway, both boobs falling out of my shirt. I barely manage to catch her before she shuts and locks the bathroom door.
I hook my arms around her hips, pulling her back from the door, then lean down and throw her over my shoulder. She’s laughing so hard, she starts coughing, and if I’m honest, I’m embarrassed, but that shit was funny.
I throw her on my bed and pounce. Sitting on her legs, I take both her wrists in one of my hands and use the other one to tickle her sides. I witnessed Luke doing this to her a couple weeks ago. The shriek that explodes out of her mouth has me laughing my ass off. She’s doing her best to buck me off, but I’m holding on.
Sliding my hand under her shirt, I tickle her side again, then slide my hand up and over her breast, taking time to pinch her nipple. Her back arches in a silent request for more. I pull the phone out of her bra and run for the bathroom.
“You bastard!”
I get the phone unlocked, since I know her code, and delete the picture, just as the door opens. I look at her, shocked. I know I locked it. She holds up a credit card and grins at me, and it’s then that the fire alarm starts going off.
Her face pales and she runs off. I’m hot on her heels, and when I get to the kitchen, I find her standing there, staring in the sink, crying. Smoke is billowing up, and the hiss from the water hitting the pan steams everything up.
She looks so sad, so I pull her into my arms, where she buries her face in my chest. “Why are you crying?”
“Dinner is ruined!” she mumbles into my chest. “It was this fancy pork chop recipe that my sister makes. She laughed at me when I called to ask for it. I just wanted to make you a nice dinner before I left.”
I rub her back. “We can go out to Thelma’s, and then go to Bailey’s for some dancing as a send-off.”
She sniffles as she pulls back. “Are you going to dance with me?”
My lips twitch. “Yes, dear.” I kiss her forehead and turn her toward the stairs. “Come on, sniffles. Go get dressed.”
I fluff my hair and look in the mirror. I love this shirt, which says “Sassy, Classy, and a bit Smart-Assy.” My skintight, dark blue skinny jeans hug every curve. I left my hair down and went with subtle makeup, because this is Spartan, after all.
Shamus has been working out with Luke, drinking protein shakes and eating like a horse, and he’s put on weight. I must say, he was shit hot before, but now that he’s filled out? He gives me shivers in my pretty lace panties.
Tonight, he has on light jeans with rips and holes. They look thin as hell, and tight where they should be. The black T-shirt he has on is tighter across his chest and arms than it was last time he wore it.
He looks at my shirt and cracks up laughing. “That’s the truth.” I wink at him and we get in the car and head to Thelma’s.
Why we drove when we could have just walked the four blocks is beyond me. We’re there too quick for my liking, considering Shamus grabbed my hand and held it during the short, thirty second drive. He’s touched me more in the last week than he did the first three weeks. It’s been fucking bliss.
Sliding into the booth, Thelma is right there, taking our order.
“You want to tell me why you’ve been quiet today?” he asks me.
“I don’t want to go home. I’ve been considering moving to Spartan for a while now, and this trip just cemented that thought in my brain. I don’t have any girlfriends at home, really. All the girls I grew up with in school scattered like rats after graduation, literally all over the world. Aside from my job, I don’t really do anything except work, go home, have dinner at Mom and Dad’s, and go to Boondock’s, alone.”
“What is Boondock’s?”
I laugh. “Go karts, laser tag, and an arcade.” My cheeks pink up in embarrassment. It sounds more childish than I thought it would. “I worked there all through high school, and I think I’m addicted.”
“Will you take me when I come down?”
My jaw drops and I start clapping. “Really?”
“Sure. It sounds like a blast.”
Thelma sets our food down and we dig in. It was a busy day at the house, and I’m freaking starved.
“I think I would like it if you moved here,” he whispers. My fork stops inches from my mouth.
“Really?”
“I like you, Savannah, more than I thought I would. Not that I wouldn’t like you personally, but dipping my toes into the dating thing? I thought it would be difficult. I still don’t think that I’m ready for sex just yet, and you make it damn hard, by the way. Sex for me has never been a casual thing, ya know? So much has changed in my life in such a short period of time, and so has a part of me, a big part. I’m struggling to cope emotionally. Pamela is helping a lot. She told me that I needed to take things slow. I’m dreading you leaving. It’s been nice having you in the house. I’m going to miss our late-night movie binges and your pajamas.” He winks at me. I’m working hard to keep the tears from falling, but it’s a close thing.
I lift my glass, and he clinks it with his.
He pays the ticket, and when we get to Bailey’s, it’s freaking hopping. They have the big roll up doo
rs open, and music is pouring out of the building. I’m bouncing in my seat. This is my favorite thing about Spartan; there’s always a party, either at Baylee’s or Willa’s, or even Ali’s house.
Shamus walks around the front of the car and I jump on his back. My legs are wrapped around his hips, and my arms around his neck. When we walk into the bar, the whole bar erupts into cheers.
I peek around Shamus and look at his face. His complexion is pale, and it’s very easy to see that he’s blushing. “Respect” by Aretha Franklin is blasting out of the jukebox. I slide off Shamus’s back and shake my ass all the way to the dance floor to swing dance with Bruce.
I track Shamus as he makes his way across the dance floor, and he shocks me silly when he cuts in on Bruce, and picks the dance right up. My hair flies out as he spins me in a perfect turn. He dips me, then kisses me. “And the crowd goes wild!” I say, and burst out laughing.
“When I was a kid, my mother loved to dance, and every time it rained, she would turn on the music and we would dance in the rain. It’s one of my favorite memories,” he tells me when the song slows down, and he steers me to the bar.
When we get up to the bar, the tension in the air strums along my nerve endings. Cleo takes her hands and smacks the bar and pushes away. She smiles at Shamus and me, but it’s so forced, it looks brittle as fuck.
She stomps her way out the front door, and I look back at Margo in shock. She looks beyond pissed. I raise an eyebrow at her, and she blows out a breath.
“Shamus, your usual?” He shakes his head no and asks for a water.
“What about you, sugar?” I tap the bar top, thinking. “I’ll take a cranberry and vodka.” I hand over my purse and she puts it behind the bar before making my drink.
I jump when the bar erupts. “Bruce! Bruce! Bruce!” People are banging their drinks on the tables and hollering. I look just in time to see Bruce rip his shirt off his head, or attempt to, because it gets stuck. He’s doing his best to pull it off, but it’s twisted.
Luke walks up and untwists the back and helps him get it the rest of the way off. He turns around, hands on his hips, displaying his pierced nipples. And to make matters worse, he has massive nipple rings in, reminiscent of the Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl fiasco.
Shamus and I both burst out laughing when he starts shaking his torso, old man boobies flapping side to side. AC/DC’s “Big Balls” starts playing, and he starts thrusting his hips. I feel like I’m going to choke from laughing so hard.
Shamus sits down on the stool and pulls me back. My ass is in his lap, cradled between his thighs. I’m certain I’ve died and gone to heaven.
He leans forward and brushes a kiss on my neck. “I’m going to miss you when you go home tomorrow.”
Shivers break out and race across my skin.
“Me, too.” I feel a sense of rightness—right time, right place, right person—and I’m leaving it all behind to go home. My gut clenches as worry and doubt take up residence. Absence makes the heart grow fonder is a pile of horseshit. Everyone in my life leaves me, except for my family, who are biologically required to keep me. I’m worried after I leave, Shamus will realize that I’m not all I crack myself up to be.
I squeeze his hands that are wrapped around my waist and take a deep breath, blowing out the negative, and inhale the positive atmosphere. Bruce is twerking, while Luke’s doing the sprinkler, and Shelly has Willa bent over and is spanking her on the ass.
It really doesn’t get any better than this.
It’s been eight, very long weeks, since my world was flipped on its ass.
“We have the location of your children,” Tristan had said.
Those words punched a hole clear through the walls of grief and anger surrounding my heart. The unbelievable joy at hearing that my children are not only alive, but that they’ve been found, brought me straight to my knees.
Panic set in and I excused myself. I went to the bathroom and stood there, staring at my reflection in the mirror, and felt like punching it. I looked and felt like ran over shit. I’d lost damn near forty pounds of muscle, and although I buzzed my head and trimmed my beard, I resembled a strung-out crack addict.
My life was a fucking mess.
I hadn’t worked in years, and my house was in shambles. Years of neglect and a man’s housecleaning left it a disaster. I quit my job in construction to devote all my time to finding my children, living off the money I made on the sale of our old home, and the life insurance money.
My incredible high at hearing that news was then fucking body slammed when I really stepped back and looked at my life. Overwhelming didn’t even begin to cover it. I not only had to somehow find a job and make repairs on my house, I also had to figure out how to find me again.
Enter the sexy as fuck Savannah.
Like a bullet train of determination, sunshine, and positivity, she blew into my life and gave me the push and confidence I needed to get my shit together.
She dragged me off the floor of the bathroom, threw my ass on an airplane, and immediately began to organize the troops, so to speak. By the time we landed, the fog was cleared from my head, and in its place was the same positive attitude that Savannah had. There’s no way I will ever be able to repay her for lending me that strength.
Parker was there at the airport to pick us up, and the very first thing he did when we pulled up to my house was hand me the business card of a counselor.
Best fucking thing I ever did.
Pam Meeks has been a godsend. I’ve been meeting with her weekly, and just being able to talk to an impartial party has alleviated so much guilt. It’s been a relief to be able to share all the shit inside that I was too ashamed to tell anyone else. When a person thinks of having an epiphany, it’s a moment of happiness, but mine fucking hurt. My painful epiphany was that I must let my wife go. I will always love Jenny, and I could never forget her. She is, and always will be, a part of me. Over the last eight weeks, I’ve come to realize that to make forward progress in my life, I must relax the stranglehold I have on the past, and unfortunately, that includes her. It was painful as fuck to realize that, but I can’t move forward and be the dad my kids deserve while drowning in the past.
The next four weeks were some of the best weeks of my life.
Savannah, holy shit. My feelings for her went from lust to love in about ten seconds flat. She’s so easy to be around. One might call her a breath of fresh air, liberally fragranced laced with lust and arousal.
I thought the head of my dick was going to pop off, I was hard so fucking often. Hours upon hours of blood engorging my cock left me feeling like my dick was an overinflated balloon. At the same time, I never wanted her to leave. I wanted her in my bed, dancing in my kitchen, watching her brush her teeth, and looking like a rabid dog.
I laugh thinking about her, toothpaste covering her lips, most of her chin, and even some up her nostrils. Singing “Hood Rat” by 2 Live Crew, shaking that sexy ass like she was trying shake the last drop of ketchup out of a Heinz bottle.
Fucking intoxicating.
It’s both heaven and hell.
Wanting, but not wanting to want. That statement only makes sense to drunks and crack heads. And yet, here I’m, wanting her so bad, I feel like my dick has taken on a life of its own, but she scares the ever-living shit out of me.
It’s the night before I leave for Denver, to wait for the day I can pick up my children. The renovations to both myself and my house are done; the bedrooms are clean, new carpet and paint throughout the house. Every resident, from young to old, has been over here, helping me get the house ready for when they come home, and every inch screams Savannah. The paint colors, flooring, and the funky pictures along the walls. The couch she fell asleep on in the fucking store. I shake my head, trying to rattle thoughts of Savannah out of my brain.
I’ve filed all the paperwork to start my own construction company, and I wince a little, thinking about the small loan I got from Amy to get my business setup and
to get the house ready.
I keep saying kids, or children. I feel like if I refer to them by their names, that my heart will settle and hope will spring eternal, or some shit like that. After so many setbacks and failures over the years, I don’t think I can handle it if it all came crashing down.
I walk down the hallway, fresh from a shower, and stop at the freshly painted door with a C and A painted on the door. I wipe my damp palms on my black boxer briefs and nudge the door open. I take two steps into the room and slide down the wall. Brining my knees up, I rest my arms and put my head back on the wall. Closing my eyes, I whisper to the empty room.
“Chloe Marie McAllister.” My heart cracks just a hair. I take a deep breath, and my chest shakes.
“Aiden Sean McAllister.” The damn breaks, and the tears I’ve been desperately trying to hold in for months breaks loose. Not with grief, but happiness. Happiness so pure and clean, my soul has no clue how to handle this emotion. After years of anger and pain, the pure joy is foreign, and feels alien somehow.
Laughter bubbles up. Getting up, I get the sheets and bedding in the laundry baskets and make both beds. Placing the stuffed animals that Jenny had picked out on their pillows, I smile.
Next, I move on to the clothes that I had Margo and Cleo help me pick out. I fold each piece and place them in the dressers. I hang every tiny shirt and frilly dress, and I line up the tiny shoes, crying through my smiles.
I line all the creams and lotions on the little shelf. I get the hammer and nails and start hanging the pictures and sticking these zoo animal wall decals that Ali got on the walls. Stepping back, I realize the sun is peeking through the curtains. Looking around, I find there’s just one thing missing.
I open the box that I have sitting on Chloe’s bed. I carefully open it and move the tissue. Pulling out the two framed pictures, one for each of them, my finger traces Jenny’s face, and a different kind of cry comes out. This one hurts, but is so very necessary; I need to say goodbye. As much as I want to hold onto every breath and memory I have of her, I can’t keep holding on.
