by RC Boldt
“Ready to make out in a gas station, Ben?” she winked at him, smiling widely.
He laughed. “I’m totally ready.”
He got into her car as she slid in on her side, each of them closing the doors and turning to face one another. Facing him, Raine felt her courage falter a bit. Ben leaned closer to her, one arm across the back of her seat and the other reaching to cup the side of her face. She felt her focus drift to his lips and then back to his dark eyes. Regaining her confidence, she leaned in until her lips were a breath away from his.
“Get ready to redeem yourself,” she whispered, her lips brushing against his as she spoke.
As soon as she spoke the last word, Ben’s lips were on hers, brushing back and forth several times before he began the soft, deliberate motions of sipping at her lips. Wanting more, she tilted her head and tentatively slid her tongue against his lower lip.
She heard a nearly indecipherable groan from him before he opened his mouth and took the kiss deeper, meeting her tongue with his own. He slid his tongue against hers before pulling back to place tiny, smaller kisses on her lips. He sighed and leaned his forehead against hers, eyes closed, his breathing harsh like hers in the small car.
“That was . . . pretty darn good,” she sighed.
This drew a chuckle from him. “Indeed it was, Raine.” Sitting back in the car, he gazed at her for a moment. “I can honestly say I’ve never made out with a girl in a gas station before.”
“You’ll have to cross that one off your bucket list, now,” she winked at him.
Laughing, he said, “That I will.” He leaned in and gave her one more quick kiss.
“Goodnight, Raine.” He turned, opened the door and exited the car, pushing the door closed after him.
Raine watched Ben walk to his truck with a smile still on her face.
Well. Maybe the dating gods were finally showing her some mercy after all.
RAINE KNEW THAT Laney was chomping at the bit for details on how her date went with Ben last night. She knew this because Laney had sent her no fewer than what seemed like five hundred text messages.
As she walked up the stairs to the second floor where her classroom was located, she saw that Mac was already in his room. She popped her head in to give a quick morning greeting.
“Morning, Mac,” she called out.
“Morning, Raine,” his deep voice returned as she turned to head across the hall to her classroom.
“How’d the date go?” His question startled her.
She turned back to answer. “Um, it went really well, actually.”
“Was it considerably better than,” he paused to lower his voice, “the masturbating guy?”
Raine looked at him with raised eyebrows. “How do you know about that?”
As if realizing the answer, she put up a hand to stop him from responding. “Wait. Nevermind. I forgot this was, like, the Six Degrees of Laney Kavanaugh,” referring to how Laney seemed to know everyone and vice versa. “To answer your question, though, yes. He was considerably better and more normal,” she finished.
“Good,” he nodded.
“What’s good? Are we talking bow-chica-wow-wow kind of good?” Laney barged into the conversation.
Turning to her friend, she hissed, “We are at a school, Laney! And do you really think I would do that on a first date?
“Is that where we are, Raine? I had no idea!” Turning to Mac, Laney stage-whispered, “Did you know that we were at a school, Mac?”
Turning to Mac, Raine said dryly, “Remind me again why I’m friends with her.”
Laney waved her arms around to take in the empty hallways as it was still considerably early in the morning. “No one else is around, Raine. Now, dish.”
Startled, Raine darted a look toward Mac since they were still in his doorway. “Um, why don’t we go to my room and I’ll tell you.” Surely Mac didn’t want to be bored to death hearing about her date.
“Mac doesn’t care, do you, Mac?”
“Not at all,” he answered, giving her a curious smile.
Damn you, Laney.
Raine didn’t know why it made her uncomfortable to have Mac listen in on her date recap. It just did. In front of Lawson, Zach or even Foster, she wouldn’t care. They would end up talking about sports stats or something halfway through, anyway.
With a resigned sigh, she closed the door behind her and began the recap of her date with Ben.
MAC DIDN’T KNOW why he was torturing himself like this. When was the last time he had ever asked about someone’s date? That would be a solid never.
So what was with the morbid curiosity about Raine’s date? Was it because he could see she had that happy glow this morning? Was it because he was a bit bothered by the fact that some random guy had put that on her face?
Why the hell did he think it was a good idea to offer to listen to a date Raine went on that she clearly enjoyed?
He was a masochist. That must be it. It shouldn’t bother him that Raine had hit it off with this Ben guy. Raine was clearly a sweetheart and deserved to meet someone nice.
It shouldn’t make him want to throw up in his mouth to hear about the whole kiss thing with this guy. Even worse was the evidence that she had clearly liked it.
He was so screwed.
AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER passed by quickly and soon they were into October. Mac had quickly been adopted by their group and he and Raine had forged a friendship. He would go running with her after work and on the weekends when she wasn’t with Ben.
Ben’s MBA classes were in full swing now and taking up most of his time aside from every other Friday and Sundays. Raine missed being able to spend time with Ben as much as they had during most of August but she understood the demands of grad school, especially when one was working full-time.
Mac turned out to be a great help and they would often hang out and work on their lesson plans together. He didn’t end up chatting or getting distracted easily like Laney so that was a plus. Raine almost thought of him as another girlfriend since she could talk to him about her progressing relationship with Ben. If it weren’t for that occasional zing of awareness when he smiled at her with that dimple of his, she wouldn’t even remember that he was a guy.
Ben had classes nearly all day on Saturdays and he allocated that particular night as his time to catch up on any studying or to complete projects. It made Raine more thankful to have Mac around.
Her friend had become her go-to dance partner or he would intervene when she had one of those guys get up in her personal space and dance suggestively on her. He’d walk up and stand tall with his six foot three muscular frame and casually guide her his way on the dance floor.
And, okay, so maybe she felt a tiny flutter in her chest when he held her close to him, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that he had become one of her best friends and that meant more to her than a tiny flutter any day.
She and Mac had fallen into a routine of rescuing one another if someone got too clingy at the bar where they had a long-standing group outing on Saturday nights. So it was no big deal when Raine saw the 911 text from Mac as she was running late getting to Shenanigans to meet everyone for their karaoke night. She was about to walk through the doors when she reached for her phone which had just vibrated in her wrist purse to read the text.
Mac: 911! Please hurry!
Chuckling to herself, she made her way through the main bar to enter the karaoke bar and nearly stopped in her tracks at the view.
A seemingly emaciated redhead, with two inches of black hair at her roots, was pressed against Mac’s side, her chair next to his. The redhead was toying with the collar of his polo and running her red lacquered nails—she got credit for the attempt at color coordination—down his chest in what Raine assumed she thought was a seductive manner. He appeared to be speaking to her as his body seemed to lean away from her, but the redhead just smiled, oblivious to Mac’s body language.
Striding on over to the table, she walked rig
ht up to the pair, laid a hand on Mac’s shoulder and exclaimed dramatically, “Thank goodness I found you!”
Two heads whipped around to look at her; one in blatant relief and the other in annoyance. She could tell the redhead was cataloguing her outfit and looks to see if it added up enough to warrant putting her in the category of “competition.” Raine didn’t care, though. She was there on a mission she now aptly named Operation Skank No More.
Pretending to be out of breath with urgency, Raine pulled a loose chair over and sat on the other side of Mac and his succubus-wannabe. “Okay, so listen to what the pharmacist told me before I forget it all.”
As if just now seeing Red, she acted surprised. “Oh, excuse me. Where are my manners? I’m Raine.” She held out her hand and, shocker, it was a limp handshake. And clammy. Raine wasn’t sure how she managed to hold in the wince at the grossness of the handshake, but she had more pressing issues at hand.
She turned her attention back to Mac. “The pharmacist told me when I picked up the prescription for you that you need to make sure to cover everything with the ointment and,” she paused, looking around as if to be sure no one was listening, but didn’t lower her voice. “You should abstain from any sexual activity until all the crabs are completely gone.”
Lawson had just chosen to take a drink of his beer and proceeded to cough-choke, his beer spraying out of his mouth. Raine could hear Zach mock-scolding him, “We just can’t take you anywhere, Laws.” He turned around to face the bar. “Bartender,” he called out, “This one needs to be cut off.” More laughter rang out from the group.
Red had finally caught on to the conversation and had been leaning farther and farther away from Mac’s lap. She kept glancing down at his crotch as if expecting to see something crawling about.
The redhead abruptly pushed her chair back away from him. “Uh, I forgot that I have to meet my friends in the other bar.” She slid off the chair, picked up her purse and ran off.
Slow claps proceeded Red’s exit and Raine turned to see her friends all looking at her, applauding. “That might just be the best performance, yet, Raine.” Laney nodded, looking impressed.
“Raine.”
Oops.
Maybe there was one person who might not be so impressed with her right now.
She tilted her head to the side and gave him an innocent smile. “Mac?”
He simply stared at her and she refused to look away until finally she saw his tell. The corners of his mouth twitched ever so slightly and that was when she knew she had him.
He finally caved, shaking his head at her. “Crabs? Really? Couldn’t you have chosen something a little less disturbing?”
“What, like, a bumpy rash on your man meat or something?”
He shot her a horrified stare. “Did you just say the words man meat?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Lawson, Laney, Tate and Zach leaning in closer to better observe what was going down.
“What would you rather I call it?”
“The greatest penis known to woman,” he answered without missing a beat.
Raine shot him a pitying look. “You see, I’d like to agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.”
Shaking his head at her, he reached for his beer. “You’re funny sometimes, Raine.” He threw her a cocky grin. “Not right now, but sometimes you are.”
It was official. He was an ass.
AFTER A LONG WEEK filled with conferences with parents who were suddenly worried about their kid’s grades since midterm reports had just gone home, Raine was ready for the weekend. It was December, for crying out loud, and Raine had been sending home correspondence to parents on a biweekly basis. Parents had been signing that they had seen their child’s grade reports but now they were wanting to know how their child was doing so poorly.
Along with that irritation came the announcement from the district that there was a good chance funding would be cut for the Science Lab. This meant Raine’s students would not be able to benefit from having Science Lab for a full hour, allowing them the ability to have the time to delve into concepts they were learning and perform lab experiments.
Mr. Pratt had called her into his office at the end of the day to give her the news. Her principal had told her that he would do whatever he could to maintain the Science Lab for the students because they had witnessed gains, especially with regards to their performance on benchmark tests. He said he had high hopes that mentioning the key word, ‘testing,’ would give them leverage since “that was all those jackasses downtown ever worried about anyway.” Raine felt lucky to have an administrator who was supportive and willing to go to bat for not only her, but for the students.
After leaving his office after their talk that Friday afternoon, Raine had felt absolutely drained. The school had cleared out, which was typical for a Friday afternoon. Her go-to group had already left long ago; no Laney, no Tate, and no Mac. Only the janitors remained, going about cleaning each of the classrooms.
Gah.
She was stressed and just needed to talk to Mac.
Wait . . . no, she scolded herself. She needed her boyfriend. Ben. That’s the person she needed to talk to first. Gathering her bag and placing her planner and her water thermos inside with her small purse, she locked her classroom door behind her and began to pull up Ben’s number on her phone. She dialed and it went straight to his voicemail.
Darn it. It was Friday but she couldn’t for the life of her remember whether this Friday was an off day from his classes or not. She texted him quickly, asking if he had class and if they might be able to meet up for a bit.
Looking at the time and seeing it was well after four fifteen, she decided that she would make the drive over to Ben’s house. No, it wasn’t like her to show up unannounced, but they had been dating exclusively for nearly four months, now. She figured a time like this would be acceptable.
As she made the drive over, cursing the traffic along the interstate, she mulled over her discussion with Mr. Pratt. Sure, it would be really disappointing to not be able to give her fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students that hour of Science Lab one to three times a week, depending on their week and which rotating schedule they were assigned. But, it wasn’t the end of the world to go back to teaching Fourth grade.
Feeling better about the situation she faced but still wanting affirmation from Ben, she turned onto his street and found herself startled to see his truck and another car parked behind it in his driveway. Then, shrugging mentally, she told herself that maybe one of his coworkers or friends had stopped over after work.
Parking alongside the curb, she checked her appearance in the rearview mirror. After touching up with some powder and a dab of lip balm, she got out and pressed her key fob to lock her car.
Walking up to Ben’s front door, she tried to shake off the tinge of apprehension that was nagging at the edge of her mind. Taking a deep breath, she pressed her finger to his doorbell and heard it ring on the other side. It seemed like a minute had passed with no one coming to answer the door. Just when Raine was about to press the doorbell again, the door flew open and she couldn’t quite tell who was more surprised. Her or the blonde standing before her.
The blonde was wearing what was clearly not her shirt along with a pair of men’s boxers. As if this weren’t bad enough, she had a serious case of JBF -just been fucked- hair.
Suddenly, Raine realized stopping by unannounced had not been one of her better ideas.
The blonde stared at her in shock for a moment until recovering with a little laugh. “Uh, sorry! I thought you were the pizza delivery guy.”
Raine opened her mouth to respond that she was most certainly not delivering their pizza when she was interrupted by a familiar voice.
“Babe, who is it?” Raine heard Ben’s bare feet pad across the hardwood floors to the door where they stood.
Babe? Oh, hell no.
Raine nearly laughed when Ben saw who was at his door. His initial deer in
the headlights look mixed in with a bit of terror was comical. He quickly schooled his expression and his eyes took on a cool glare.
“What are you doing here, Raine?”
Her head tilted to the side thoughtfully, she tapped a finger against her lips. “What am I doing here? Hmmm. I was coming over to surprise my boyfriend.”
Raine shifted her gaze to the blonde. “Just remember one thing, honey. He cheated on me with you. Be careful.”
When she was about to turn to walk away, the blonde snickered. “He cheated on you, honey, because he obviously found something better.”
Oh, so this was how blondie was going to play? Bring it on.
Raine gave a quick nod. “Right. Well, you two have a good night.” Then, ever so casually, she tossed over her shoulder as she began walking away, “Don’t forget to tell her how you like it up the ass, Benny.”
Turns out that one night he had joined her up in Fernandina on a karaoke night, he had gotten a wee bit drunk on the famous Pirate’s Punch and disclosed some interesting details later on when she had gotten him back to her place. Details which included an ex-fiancé using certain kitchen utensils to please him anally. Ewww. The thought still made Raine shudder. That in itself should have been a warning sign that Ben wasn’t the one for her.
The blonde’s screech at Raine’s insult nearly drowned out Ben’s response. Nearly, but not quite.
“At least I got a chick with a full set of tits.”
She felt her body jolt with the harsh comment but forced herself to hold her head high as she returned to her car.
Asshole.
It made her grateful that she hadn’t slept with him. It may seem odd to others as she and Ben had been dating for about four months, but for the bulk of that time he had been unavailable for more than a quick dinner here and there. It just hadn’t seemed right.
