by Daisy Jane
Then I would try to think back to being twenty years old. The world at your feet, nothing but fun ahead. But Britta’s not like the average girl her age. She’s taken care of a sick person most of her life, she’s sacrificed her dreams and given up her savings in the name of love, for family. And she was still a ray of light. And now she’d given me a second chance after I’d disappointed her, broken her trust. It’s nearly impossible to have such a forgiving, sweet, pure person around and not fall in love with her.
If it was possible, I wasn’t capable.
We’d agreed to no touching, keeping it focused on establishing open communication—we had to give legs to whatever beast we had in the bedroom, together. Occasionally she’d run her finger down the center of my chest as she anxiously awaited my taste-test response and that slight physical contact had me ready for sex. I did a lot of adjusting, shifting from foot to foot, handling my dick when she had her back to me. Just tasting her cookies had my heart fucking pounding, my cock standing at attention. She is the only one to bring me to life like that. I love how she does that to me.
The last six weeks had been a cocktail of beautiful and torturous. I’d fallen in love with her, utterly, and it scared me to my fucking core. Going one million in on a business with a shady past was less terrifying than falling in love with a beautiful, sweet, young woman like Britta. And the fact that we’d agreed not to be physical was destroying me.
She’d text me when she woke up, to say good morning, and I swear I got hard just from that. Sometimes she’d send a photo of herself blowing a kiss or waving hello, and though she never let the camera dip below her face, the photos always made me rock-hard. I loved that sweet dimple in her cheek when she smiled authentically, the rose hue of her lips and how gently they curled into a smile when she was feeling shy. Her long tangle of dirty blonde hair and that cake scent that still drove me fucking wild—everything about her was so good. For me, it was now her or no one.
“Good morning,” she purrs into the phone, my cock lifting from its sleepy spot on my thigh. He knows her voice now, too.
“Good morning,” I refrained from using any pet names, though the desire to call her by something just for us had been growing to an undeniable size. She could be Britta to everyone. I wanted something just for me. I wanted her just for me.
“Today’s the day,” her voice turned glum and my cock slumped over. If she wasn’t happy, I couldn’t be happy. In the last six weeks, my happiness had been irrevocably intertwined with her existence and I hoped that she felt the same way.
“Can I pick you up after you say goodbye?” I ask, hoping she’d say yes.
I’d planned an entire day for her.
“We don’t usually see each other on the weekends,” she reminded me.
How could I forget. I spent most of my weekends with my fist wrapped around my cock, spraying the shower walls, panting out her name.
“I thought we could change the rules now, if you’re ready.”
Have seconds always felt so long?
I love her. I know that I do. But I don’t say it yet. I won’t say it over the phone, like it’s not special.
“Okay.” It’s the second time that word floors me, pedal to ground, a rush of blood to my brain sending excitement through my core.
“Maybe you could come get me at my place? I’m saying bye to Mel and Donny here. They’ll be on the road by three,” she adds.
“I’ll be there by three,” I glance at my watch and see I’ve got around six hours to finish putting the plans for the day into motion. “I’ve got some work to do but I will see you Britta. Not soon enough, but I’ll see you.”
“Okay,” she smiles into the phone, “I’ll see you later.”
Scrolling through my phone, I find the number I’m looking for, and hit the green call button. It rings a few times and I feel the frustration build, thinking he won’t pick up but fortunately, just in time, he answers.
“Mr. Bennett, how are you this morning?” his voice is saccharine but in the money business, you get used to people pouring syrup on their words before serving them to you.
“Fine,” I say, sitting up in bed. Everything had become to strikingly obvious lately—I was in love with Britta, and I needed her in my life.
“The documents you’ve requested are ready and I have a messenger going out with them now,” he promises, and I can hear him snapping to someone in the distance.
“When will they be here?”
I’m impatient. For what I pay this douchebag, there should be very little waiting. But despite his annoying persona, he gets me what I need with little notice. Though this time, I’d given him notice.
“No later than noon,” he promises.
“Will it be everything I need, or just the paperwork?” I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, silently planning the rest of the day.
“Yes, sir, everything!” he says, satisfied.
I simply hang up. I have a one-track mind right now and without my coffee or even another hint of Britta’s voice, the niceties just aren’t going to happen.
Today is a big day and I only hope Britta is ready for it.
Also, Melody is moving.
20
Britta
“He wants to see me today, after you guys leave,” I’m pulling a comb through my wet hair as Melody sits on my couch, listening, watching. We’re soaking up the last hours of one another and though I’ve kept my happy face on for her future, I’m thoroughly sad she’s leaving.
“Yeah?” she asks, her dark hair down, those same hoop earrings wiggling between strands of wild hair. Her usual black cat-eye liner is missing and her face droops with exhaustion. She yawns and leans back, eyes fluttering shut as I continue to detangle. I’d kept Melody in on things since I’d come clean with her—she knew I’d been seeing Brooks. And though I never spoke the words, she also could see how I felt about him.
“Now that it’s been a few weeks, how do you feel about the Darcy stuff?” she asked and it hit me that this would be our last in-person girl talk for a while.
“Six weeks,” I correct her, knowing exactly the number of days it has been since I’ve been seeing Brooks and not having sex with him. Once you had sex with a man like Brooks, you didn’t forget. And I hadn’t. Every night when I laid down on the old leather, I remembered his mouth against me, traces of me on his chin and lips. I remembered how he drove into me so deep that I nearly gasped for air. I remembered the way my body needed to adjust to his size. I remembered everything. And my body remembered. Too many nights after dinner with Brooks, I came home and let my fingers wander, playing at my lips pretending it was him. I’d pull up the limited photos I had on my phone that he sent me and stare into his dark eyes, remember the way his scruff felt between my thighs as I made myself come, his name on my lips.
“I think he was embarrassed that he used the service,” I tell her, remembering the conversation with Brooks on the phone weeks and weeks ago. “And more than that, I think he was embarrassed that he couldn’t meet someone.” I still won’t ever understand it, but I do believe Brooks was starting to wonder what exactly was wrong with him.
Melody nods, but I can see she’s still deciding if she accepts this as an answer but her response surprises me. “Men like Brooks, I kind of get them,” she pushes herself up on the couch and rests her chin on her knuckles, body swaying gently. “You never know if someone wants you for you, or for your money.” She tilts her head, a curtain of dark hair falling in front of her face before she tucks it back. “For us, we never know if someone’s interested and legit or just trying to fuck us.”
I’d never thought about that parallel but she’s right. The way that Brooks had been skeptical of women when he dated was the same way I’d been skeptical of him.
“Yeah, huh, you’re right,” I said, going to the kitchen where I’d stashed a fresh batch of cookies for her, for the road. I toss her the bag and she grins before tearing it open. “They’re for the drive but girl t
alk seems just as good of a time as the drive.”
“So,” she says, eyes rolling closed as the center of the pistachio flavored macaron made it to her tongue. “Oh, this is just like the first we ever made together,” she flicked the remainder of the cookie into her mouth and brought her hands to her chest, thoughtfully.
“That’s why I made them. They make me think of you. Well, us,” I will not let myself get teary. I will visit her. Not much will change, I promise myself.
“You’ll be there with me soon,” she smiles, and I can see she feels bad that I’m stuck in this shit hole while she moves on.
“It may be a few years,” I shrug, not wanting to talk about this. Not now.
“Okay so, back to Brooks Bennett,” she lowers her head and raises her eyebrows in a sinister expression. “What do you think is going to happen today?”
He flashes before me, that coifed hair and that towering build, strong and lean. My body tingles and my thighs tighten, a mind of their own. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I know I want to fuck him so bad.”
“Britta Monroe Moore! I have never heard you say anything like that before!” Melody’s cheeks go red and it makes my expression match hers, flush and embarrassed. But I don’t care. I want Brooks and I’ve resigned myself to being honest with Melody all the time now.
Another simple shrug rolls off my shoulders. “I do.”
She giggles again before growing serious. “Will you start hooking up with him again, without any reassurances?”
She’s asking if I’m going to hand him over my trust and love as is, if the last six weeks have been enough, if I’m ready to give up trust in the hopes of gaining more.
“I trust Brooks,” I say, “and I don’t need a label. Before I just wanted to know if he wanted me or if I was just a thrill, a cheap conquest. But dating me for six weeks without so much as our hands grazing? Why would he do that just for sex? He could go back to Darcy. Money isn’t an issue.”
“I know,” Melody adds, then her eyes snap to mine. “That house, Brit. Man, it’s beautiful. You get to just like, hang out in it now, too. Lucky.”
I smile, knowing exactly what she means. Brooks’ house was always our favorite. And being in it still doesn’t feel real. I feel like I’m living someone else’s life when I’m with him, quite frankly.
“I’m very lucky,” heat crawls up my insides while I say it, thinking of Brooks and his chiseled jaw, that wide smile, the smell of his skin.
“That’s why he’s lucky,” Melody says, dipping her hand into the bag for another cookie. “You call yourself lucky, despite your situation.” She takes two bites before the cookie is gone. “That’s why I love you, Brit. You’re always so positive.”
I shrug. There’s never been an alternative for me. Lose myself in the dark side of reality or persevere with happiness.
“I’m really happy for you and Donny. And you’re going to do so great in culinary school,” I join her on the couch and wrap my arm up around her shoulders and squeeze, resting my cheek on her.
“I wouldn’t be going if it weren’t for you. I never would have start baking if it weren’t for you, Britta.”
“I guess we can thank our mothers for having some serious parenting problems and definite substance abuse issues,” I laugh without humor, “without them, we’d have no reason to hide behind a bowl and spoon.”
“You did good, you know? I know this place sucks but you’ll be out of here in no time.”
She sighs and the weight of her body next to mine brings me calmness. I wish I could bottle it up and take a dose of it later, when she’s gone and I’m without this moment and missing her.
“Thanks,” I say and on cue like normal, Donny pushes through the front door without knocking or warning.
“Hey, you gotta tell the driver where you want the stuff to go in the truck,” he nods at me, “what’s up Britta.”
I feel Melody’s body tense against mine before she stands, motioning for me to rise. We share a hug, tight and hard but short.
“I’ll text you when we’re actually going to pull out. I gotta go take care of the moving truck because apparently Donny can’t do it.”
She rolls her eyes and Donny attempts to grab at her hips as she pushes past him in the doorway. Before he trails after her, he speaks to me. It is rare when Donny speaks to me when Melody isn’t around.
“Your dude,” he says, fingers drumming annoyingly on the inside of the frame, his untied sneaker pressing against the door to keep it open. “I seen him in the paper today.”
A laugh escapes me before I can hold it in.
“Donny, you read the paper?” I don’t say it cruelly but I see his eyes deflate a little.
“I take it from the restaurant downstairs every morning,” he says with a guilty look on his face. “I watch stocks and read the sports section. Gives me something to do while I’m taking a shit.”
“Okay,” we’ve officially had our longest conversation ever and so far, it’s covered shit and theft. Wonderful.
“He bought property in Connecticut with his bro. Not far from where we’re going to be. Maybe you two can visit.” He raps against the door frame with his knuckles then gives me a hand signal that I’m assuming is some sort of bro way of saying goodbye, then he’s gone.
Brooks had started telling me more and more about his investment opportunities over the last six weeks and while we never made work a serious topic of conversation, I think I’d remember him telling me about Connecticut. Maybe it wasn’t a business he was passionate about. Maybe it was last minute. Maybe it was to immediately sell off.
He’d be here soon and if our date was going to go how I hoped, we probably wouldn’t get a chance to talk about it.
21
Brooks
I did a big thing. I made a big leap. Took a big jump. Put my neck on the line. Whatever the fuck you’d call it, I took a risk and I knew there was a chance it wouldn’t pan out, it’d bite me in the ass, backfire, whatever. Ever since Lucy, I realized I’d been so afraid of finding and losing love again that I’d stopped trying, stopped living. Using a prostitute who couldn’t reject me? It didn’t take a shrink to know that I was being a complete pussy. The darkness inside me expanded as I grew lonelier, but Darcy or no Darcy, I had it.
Single or dating, either way, I had it - the big black dip inside me. Even if I skirted around it for years, it was still there. After meeting Britta, I knew I had to stop being scared. If she rejected me, still, it would still all have been worth it. Trying for more had to be better than staying stagnant.
Her fingers trace purposefully behind my neck, up into my hair, and the sensation is that of an explosive being detonated. I wrap my arms behind her, tight against the small of her back and she rises to her toes to kiss me.
“I’ve missed you this way so much,” she whispers on a gentle moan as my lips work at the side of her neck, kissing her, tasting her.
“And hello to you, too,” she nuzzles into me as I continue kissing her, reminding myself we are in the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant downtown, not the bedroom of my home like I wished.
“Hello,” I kiss her temple, the top of her head, then lean down over her lips, soft and slow. “God you taste so good.” The way I remembered her tasting, sweet and fresh. I didn’t want to stop kissing her, but I knew there were some things I needed to get through first.
“I’ve been eating cookies,” she whispered against my lips, taking one last peck before lowering herself down on her feet, smoothing her hair. A flash of that hair strewn across my pillow and I’m shifting, adjusting myself in that parking lot, out in the open. She has me acting twenty and I can’t say that I hate it.
“What kind?” I asked, thinking I tasted something nutty.
“Pistachio,” she replied, and I licked my lips to renew the flavor of her and the cookie. “You’re early.”
Kissing her casually, greeting her with a tight embrace—I hadn’t realized how much I needed
and wanted it.
“I thought maybe we could have an early dinner uptown before going to back to the house,” I offered, realizing if she put too much thought into my plan she’d get suspicious. Then Donny and Melody were there, having crawled out of the back of white moving truck.
“What’s up bro,” Donny nodded to me, and I nodded in return because in the limited time I’d spent around him, I’d learned he wasn’t much of a handshake guy.
“Hello Mr. Bennett,” Melody greeted me formally though I knew she was aware of my relationship with Britta. I’d hoped to get to know her better but with her moving, I knew it would have to happen long-distance.
“Hello Melody, Donny,” and their eyes almost immediately go to my hand, where Britta’s is wrapped around mind. I had noticed she did that as we kissed and it gave me a hard on that I’d already tucked up into my belt.
“Can we say goodbye alone?” Melody pulls Britta from me and Donny leans in, offering me a cigarette, which I decline.
