by Hawk, Maya
“My point, Lauryn, is that I blamed a lot of people for my own pain and suffering,” she says, still staring at the tranquil pool. She takes a slow sip of coffee and turns her body toward me. Her hand slides across the table, covering mine as if to tell me she’s about to say something important. “If we are unhappy in life, it is no one’s fault but our own. And that’s the God’s honest truth.”
I stare down at my empty plate.
“Are you happy, darling?” she asks. Her brows raise and her mouth curls into a half-smile. I’m torn between telling her the truth and telling her what she wants to hear. Her blue eyes sparkle and shine, something I missed for many years. It’s good to see it back. “You can be honest.”
Pulling in a deep breath, I declare, “I’m miserable, Mom.”
“Is it because of James? You miss him?”
“Oh, God, no.” I laugh. “Colette DuBois can have him. Good riddance.”
“In the end, Lauryn, it’s people who matter. Not awards. Not accomplishments. Not accolades and achievements. It’s relationships.” Mom pulls her hand back and offers a full smile. “Those should be the driving forces in your life. Don’t let someone go because you think you need to find yourself. You’ll always find yourself no matter what.”
It’s as if she knows about Sutton, but I know that would be impossible. She hasn’t spoken to him in years, nor has she spoke of Sandra and Dad. She couldn’t know.
I stand up, taking my plate to the kitchen. “I’m going to go on a run. Need to clear my head a bit.”
***
I’m glazed in sweat, my heart pounding. Thirty minutes of jogging the gated, tree-lined streets of my mother’s neighborhood and I’m almost as good as new. I’m gulping water and gasping for air, but my body will thank me later.
“Hey, Mom,” I call as I kick off my sneakers at the back door. I wipe my forehead against the sleeve of my running jacket and fan my cherry red cheeks. “Thinking of going to the farmer’s market after I shower. You want to come with?”
My mother doesn’t respond, but she could be anywhere. That big mansion of hers had a tendency to swallow people whole sometimes.
“Mom?” I call out.
I round the corner and peek my head into her office, the library, and inside her dressing room.
“Mom?” I yell at the top of my lungs, the way a kindergartener might.
“In here.” Her voice trails from the south end of the house, near the family room. I jog down the hall, stopping short the second I see she’s not alone. “There you are.”
My mother smiles, and my eyes land on the back of a man’s head. His hair is dark and shiny, perfectly combed. His shoulders are taut and familiar. He turns to face me and my breath catches in my throat. The room smells of his cologne. My mother’s house hasn’t smelled of ‘man’ in years.
“What are you doing here?” I fight a smile. A small part of me is happy to see him and the rest of me hates him for complicating everything. My travels to my mother’s face. I have to know she’s okay.
Mom smiles, giving me her silent blessing, and stands to leave without saying a single word.
“Hi, Lauryn,” Sutton says. He rises and motions for me to sit next to him. He’s wearing dark jeans and a fitted polo in an exotic shade of aquamarine. I’m not used to seeing him in much else but scrubs. He looks…ordinary in the best of ways. He’s not a doctor. He’s not my temporary colleague. He’s just Sutton Pierce.
“Why are you here? In Brentwood?”
“Had to get your mom’s permission,” he says with the kind of half-smirk a rebellious teenager might wear when up to no good.
“Permission for what?” My arms cross.
“To relentlessly pursue you.” He says it like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
I haven’t moved. I’m still standing in the doorway. He comes to me, placing his hand against the side of my rosy cheek. I’m still flushed and hot from my jog, and standing in his presence, I’m now fifty degrees hotter. Just when I gain my breath, I lose it all over again.
“I’m not giving up on you this time, Lauryn,” he says. “I’m not letting you walk out of my life for another ten years.”
Our eyes catch. I’m not sure what to say.
“We’re not getting any younger.” He traces the side of his thumb across my lips, and I can feel the weight of his on them. I shut my eyes, breathing him in, basking in this moment and trying to comprehend if it feels amazing or terrifying or a little of both. “We could’ve had a life together these last ten years. We could’ve been jumping from airplanes, backpacking through Europe, scaling Everest. Shit, I don’t know. But instead you stayed hidden away, and I buried myself in my career. Thought I could make a life without you but I’m not happy without you.”
I release a captured breath and open my eyes. He’s concentrating on my face.
“You push, I’ll pull even harder,” he says. He lowers his mouth to mine, but he doesn’t kiss me. “And that’s a promise.” His lips hover over mine. “Kind of the way it’s always been, right?”
I nod. “You don’t know when to stop.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Everything.” I bite my lip. “But mostly you.”
TWENTY-TWO – SUTTON
I pull my mouth from hers and eye the backyard, where a sparkling pool sits pretty. There’s something so calming about water, and it’s why I’m a huge advocate for water births. I’m not entirely unconvinced that water can be healing, magic almost. You place a woman in it and her emotions go from tight and terse to fluid and malleable.
“Let’s go outside.” My hand leaves Lauryn’s face and trails down her arm until it finds her clenched fist. I work my fingers into hers and pull her out toward the infinity pool that sits beneath a fence of palm trees. We crouch down along the edge, dipping our feet in. Lauryn reaches in and glides her palm along top of the still water, causing a mini wave of ripples. The water is perfectly warm and a light breeze ruffles her black curls. She’s more at ease now.
“Remember when you pushed me in here, fully clothed?” she says with an annoyed grin.
“You were wearing a white dress that night. I was sixteen. I had ulterior movies.”
“You liked me then?”
“Fuck, Lauryn.” I rake my hand through the side of my head. “I liked you long before that.”
Her head drops and her hair hides her face, but I’m willing to bet she’s smiling. “Should’ve said something sooner. Before that summer.”
She’s right. “Guess I always thought we had more time.”
If I’m being honest, I thought we had our whole lives ahead of us. Together. Me and her.
“So what’d you talk to my mom about?” she turns to face me, her eyes squinting under the daylight. “Was she okay seeing you and everything?”
Lauryn’s always been so protective of her mom, especially after her father left. I can’t say that I blame her, but sometimes it’s a little much.
“Your mom is a smart, strong woman, Lauryn. We’ve actually been talking for the last week or two. I reached out to her when you said you were coming back here.”
“You did?” She leans away, scrunching her nose. “Why’d you do that?”
“Because I want to be in your life, and if you’re moving here, I have to make things right with your mom,” I say. “Come to find out, she doesn’t blame me for any of it.” I kick my feet leisurely, back and forth, pushing water with my calves. “Spent all those years thinking she hated me just as much as you did. Guess it wasn’t the case at all.”
“She’s been in therapy for a while,” Lauryn says softly. “I think we’re finally seeing the results of that.”
“She gave me her blessing,” I say, leaning my shoulder into hers.
“Blessing for what?”
“I’m not proposing or anything.” I chuckle at the look on her face, the one that tells me she’s completely petrified of what I’m about to say. “She just said that she’s
cool if, you know, we wanted to be together.”
She breathes heavily, saying nothing for a moment. “I don’t know why you’re doing this. I told you. I’m moving back home to figure things out. You’re making this a lot more complicated than it needs to be.”
“You can’t figure yourself out back in Miami?”
“I hate Miami. You know that.”
“Okay, then I’ll relocate. There’s job security being an OB-GYN. I can find work anywhere. People can’t stop reproducing. It’s kind of a global epidemic.”
“You hate California,” she mutters. “Unless that’s changed in the last ten years.”
“It hasn’t changed, but I’m willing to compromise.” I slip my hand into hers. “Stop fighting this, Lauryn. You’re looking for every reason you can find that it’s not going to work. Stop it.”
She faces away from me, and I miss her face instantly.
“I’ll get us a house in the ‘burbs if that’s what you want. You want a quiet, simple life? I’ll give it to you. You want every day to feel like vacation? Done. You want to fly out to Cabo on the weekends? You got it. Or, shit, I’ll work weekend packages and you can have me all to yourself five days a week. We’ll figure out this stupid life shit together.”
“You make it sound so simple.” She still won’t look at me.
“Because it is simple.” I reach for her face, drawing it back until our eyes meet. She’s crying, blinking away tears as fast as they appear. “Why are you so afraid? Tell me so I can understand.”
“You were the only constant in my life,” she says, her voice wavering. “Growing up, it was always you. You were home. You were my family. You were my brother. My best friend. My first love. My first…everything. And then I lost you. I couldn’t acknowledge my feelings for you without hurting my mom. And I was upset with you. I blamed you for not speaking up, and I know now that that was wrong. You were just a kid. But these feelings, Sut, they’ve hardened over the years. It’s not as easy as you think to let them go, to dissolve them. And on top of that? What if I lose you again? I don’t think I could come back from that. I don’t think I could handle losing you again.”
My hand guides her mouth to mine, and I graze her lips before depositing a long, slow kiss on them. “You don’t know me at all, do you?”
She pulls away. “Excuse me?”
“You know me better than anyone ever has, and you think I wouldn’t be a man of my word? You think I’d chase you all over the world, convince you to be with me, and then bail when things get stale or hard or-”
“-no, no,” she says. Her eyes search mine. “Life happens. People have good intentions and then things get in the way. Promises are broken. Priorities shift.”
“That’s fucking life, Lauryn.” My hand still holds her face. “There are no guarantees.”
She pulls away from me. I should be more sensitive to her given what recently transpired with James, but I’m not in that frame of mind right now. I just flew across the country to convince her to give me a chance, and I’m not about to concede anytime soon.
“You can take that risk with someone else or you can take it with me.” I stand up. She gazes up at me, her hand cupped above her eyes. In this moment, I can either take her hand and fight harder. Or I can walk away.
I’ve come all this way.
I’m not giving up this easily.
“Give me your hand.” My lips are pursed, and I release a deep breath.
“Why?”
“Because I told you to. Because I know what’s best for you. Because I know your heart.”
TWENTY-THREE – LAURYN
“Everything okay out here?” My mom always had perfect timing, and it seems she still does. She pops her head out of the sliding glass door and smiles in a way that makes me think she’s happy seeing us together again.
“Everything’s fine, Mom,” I call back. Turning back to Sut, I see his hand is still outstretched for mine. Waiting. Mom is watching. I place my hand in his, and he pulls me to a standing position.
“We were just heading back inside,” Sut says. “Sky looks a little dark over the hills.”
“Huh,” Mom says, placing a finger against her crimson lips and flashing a delicate smile. The rain makes her happy, and living in Southern California, she doesn’t see enough of it. Born and raised in Seattle, the rain reminds her of home, of simple times, and of fond memories. “Think I’ll sit outside and wait for the storm to roll in.”
Sut leads me back into the house, and we leave a trail of wet footprints along the hand-scraped walnut floors. The air conditioning coats my wet legs like a blanket of ice, and I shiver uncontrollably.
Or maybe it’s my emotions.
Everything comes to the surface at once, and the only thing I know is that I feel better the second Sutton wraps his arms around me. I’m safe. Warm. Loved. Protected. He leads me to the family room, the place we spent the majority of our youth hanging out, and we crash on the sofa. Sut grabs a throw blanket and wraps it around my damp legs before slipping an arm around my back and pulling me into him. I breathe his scent, cologne and fabric softener, and shut my eyes.
I’m still for the first time in years. My fear, my hatred, my confusion…it’s dissolving as if it were never there all along.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper against his chest.
“For what?”
“For blaming you. For hating you when I should’ve been loving you.” My voice cracks and fades, echoing softly off the cotton of his shirt. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I was the asshole all along.”
“Nah.” He shakes his head, his chin brushing the top of my hair. “You were a young girl, taking care of her mom. Your biggest strength was your greatest weakness.”
“And what was that?”
“Your loyalty. Your love. Your compassion.” His arms squeeze me tight, as if we wants to hold me as close as humanly possible. “Can you do me a favor, Lauryn?”
I nod.
“Can you trust me?”
His hand cups my chin and lifts it up until our mouths meet. I crave his taste. I crave his voice, his smell, his touch. Sut’s lips crush mine, and my mouth parts to let him in. He sucks my tongue softly, sending a tingle down my spine. He’s kissing me the way he did that last summer we shared.
“Fuck, Lauryn,” he moans into my mouth as he pulls me over his lap. A hardness rubs against my inner thighs, and my core melts with liquid heat. “I need you right now in the worst fucking way, but your mom is outside.”
I laugh. It feels like high school all over again. I bury my head in his neck, stealing kisses all the while, and smiling as I recall all the places we snuck in quickies and hand jobs and any other type of action a couple of teenagers might find exhilarating.
“It’s Tuesday,” I say. “She has bridge club tonight. We’ll have the place to ourselves for a few hours.”
Sutton moans, his head falling back against the couch. I’m quite sure he’s aching for me right now, but he’s not alone. I want to feel him inside, me; his giant cock filling my tight space, his metal piercing rubbing my g-spot, his body weight pinning me exactly where he wants me.
“Tonight,” I whisper, taking his earlobe between my teeth. “Tonight, you can have me.”
***
“I left a twenty on the counter if you two want to order some pizza,” my mom calls from the foyer. Her heels click against the white marble floors, the sound growing louder as she makes her way to where we sit in the study, perusing her library of collectable books and rare Hollywood oddities. She flashes a wide, red-lipped smile. “Just teasing. You’re both adults. You can afford your own pizza now.”
Sut laughs. “I’m starving. I plan on feasting tonight. Probably going to gorge myself. Know of any good all you can eat buffets?”
I elbow him, my cheeks blushing scarlet, and pray my mom doesn’t pick up on his catastrophically cheesy innuendos. He used to do the same exact thing when we were younger, but they never seemed to register with
my mom. At least…she never acted like they did.
Oh, God. She was probably acting all along.
“All right, kids, be good,” she says the way she used to. There’s a bit more color in her face and a bit more shine in her blue eyes. She’s happy seeing us together. Her heels click across the floor until the front door opens and shuts, and the headlights of her Mercedes convertible shine through the windows.
“About fucking time,” Sut growls as his hands grip my hips. He spins me to face him, his lips curling into a devilish smirk. We spent all day hanging out, rifling through photos and biding our time while silently counting down the hours until we’d have the place to ourselves. I like to think the anticipation is going to make this all the more worth the wait.
He leans down and kisses me, his hands gliding down the sides of my hips until he cups my ass. Sut lifts me up, and I wrap my legs around him, peppering kisses into his neck and breathing him in as if he’s the only oxygen I’ll ever need. He carries me out of the study and toward the stairs, climbing them carefully until we reach the top. He remembers where my room is – the last one of the left.
Nothing has changed. A full-sized canopy bed with white linens and a whole mess of blankets and pillows sits center-stage in my childhood bedroom. Posters and photos are unchanged, my mother never allowing her decorator to touch my room or change a thing. My bedroom was a moment in time captured for eternity and staged like some sort of museum exhibit.
His hand works its way up my shirt and under my bra, massaging my full breasts until my nipples wake. His breath tastes like the cinnamon candy he snuck from the study. It’s hot and intense and sweet all at once, not unlike him.
