by Teagan Kade
“I’m going,” he says. “The Captain said an hour. It’s been an hour.”
“But—”
“Cox, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” shouts the Captain, suddenly materializing from the edge of the quad.
“You said an hour,” Payton shouts back, standing with his chest out, his pecs and chiseled abs on full display.
The Captain comes right up to him, still shouting. “Did I say you could drop the fucking dummy, dummy?”
Payton points to me. “She’s going to contract hypothermia out here.”
The Captain looks to me before turning back to Payton, shaking his finger. “Showers. Both of you, and not another damn word.”
We watch the Captain storm off. I’m not exactly happy with Payton’s outburst either.
As soon as we place the dummies away from the quad, I head for the main building.
“Hey!” Payton calls, running to keep up with me. “What’s going on?”
“Figure it out,” I snap back, moving down the hall to my room.
I unlock the door and come in, swiping my towel off the hook. “Can you just leave me alone?”
I’m almost at the girls’ bathroom when he steps in front of me. “Seriously, what the hell did I do?”
I lean against the wall and exhale. “I can fight my own damn battles, you know. I’m not some poor damsel who has to be rescued all the time.”
He presses his hand against the wall next to my head, breathing deeply and doing his best not to stare at my chest and my diamond nipples. “Look, I’m sorry. I was only trying to help.”
I remain firm. “I know, and I’m telling you I can handle it. I don’t need anyone stepping in for me.”
He puts his hands out. “Absolutely. Understood. It won’t happen again.”
“Good.”
“Good.” He pauses there. “Are we still okay for the date?”
I can’t believe this guy. “You’re pushing your luck.”
He gets down on his knees, his hands pressed together and water continuing to drip from his chin. “I’ve never begged for anything in my life, but here I am, on my knees.”
I laugh. “I kind of like you there,” I say, suddenly realizing how sexually charged that sounds.
I know he senses it because he smiles, keeping the puppy-dog pout going. “P-p-please,” he begs. His eyes light up when he stands. “I’ll help you get over this claustrophobia thing. I swear to god. Mom’s a psychologist. I’ve picked up a few things over the years.”
“Did you just?” I reply, deliberately heavy on the sarcasm, but he’s weakening me. I have to give him points for persistence, and I do need help with this thing. If I can’t make it through the Maze and who knows what challenges are coming next, I’m done.
“Fine,” I relent, rolling my eyes. “One date. That is it. One date and you help me get over this thing.”
He stands smiling, his amber eyes hypnotic. “Agreed.”
I step away from the wall, pointing to the bathroom doorway. “Can I take a shower now?”
“Do you want some company?”
I shake my head walking through the doorway. “Now you’re really pushing it, partner.”
He backs away. “I jest.”
Fifteen minutes later and freshly showered, I dress and knock on his door.
He seems surprised to see me. “I thought we weren’t heading out for another half hour.”
“I thought you said you were going to help me get over my fear.”
“Now?”
I raise an eyebrow, shifting my weight onto one leg. “You’ve got something better to do?”
He opens the door wider. “In that case, come on in.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
PAYTON
One minute—that’s all Lacey can stand the closet for at first. It’s a small, tight space, even without clothes. Still, she goes in again and again, extending the time to one-and-half minutes, and then three.
I call an end to the session after fifteen minutes, careful not to overwhelm her or push her too hard. The exposure must be built up over time, otherwise you risk the phobia taking an even greater grip on the patient.
Lacey goes back to her room and I can’t believe I’ve just spent the last fifteen minutes locking her in the closet, but I’m a man of my word if nothing else. I want to see her succeed. I want to see her stick it to the Captain.
Five minutes later, dressed, I’m knocking on her door.
My cock almost explodes when Lacey opens it. She’s wearing a peach drop-waist dress showing off the perfect amount of cleavage, pale legs on show rising into Nirvana. A braid runs across her forehead. I don’t think she’s wearing makeup, but she doesn’t need it. She glows.
She’s perfect.
She takes in my leather jacket, collared shirt and jeans. “Well, well, don’t you scrub up nicely? No backwards cap or popped collar?”
I brush down my jacket. “My frat house days are behind me.”
She laughs, taking hold of a small purse. “Sure didn’t seem that way when you thrust your junk in my face on day one.”
“To be fair, it was the meet-and-greet.”
She slips past me, a waft of vanilla perfume following. “We going or are you too busy regaling me about how great you are?”
I take out my keys. “Let me show you to your chariot.”
She whistles when she sees my Dodge Ram.
She stops by the passenger door looking up. “My god. Does this thing have its own zip code?”
I reach up and pull the door open. “Just about. I could probably buy a small city given what it costs to run.”
She steps up onto the running board, the hem of her dress wavering in the breeze, allowing me the briefest view of her inner thigh.
Amen.
I run around to the driver’s side once she’s in and step up, swinging myself into the seat.
She sees the towels sitting on the console, lifting one up. “What are these for? If you think I’m here to lose my virginity in the backseat of your monster truck, you can think again.”
“You’re a virgin?” I ask, seizing on it.
She tries to play it off, but her face has ‘Oh, shit’ written all over it.
I nod. “You are, aren’t you?”
She waves her hand about. “Fine, so what if I am? Is it a crime?”
“At Brown, sure. Virgins are burnt at the stake.”
“Using kegs for fuel?”
I shove the key into the ignition. “So you have been to college.”
The truck grumbles to life, the idle settling, and we’re off down the highway.
Twenty minutes later we arrive at the Starlight Roadside Diner. I pull in. “So, short of driving another hundred miles, this is the best I can do.”
Lacey smiles, hands in her lap. “It’s fine.”
The first sign of trouble is the fact the diner is empty… on a Friday night.
We enter the diner-slash-tomb and take a seat by the window, the neon sign buzzing outside, casting the glass pink.
A waitress arrives and lays down two plastic menus. “Give me a holler when you’re ready.”
Lacey examines what appears to be a cigarette burn in the tabletop laminate. “Wow, you really do go all out, don’t you?”
I pick up a menu. “I like to take my dates to the best restaurant in town. I’m talking waitlists for months, valets, secret rooms… “
Lacey looks around. “And this was the best restaurant in town?”
“It’s the only restaurant in town,” I correct.
“Dante’s does snacks.”
“Nuts and a stale chips do not count.”
Lacey scans the menu. “Burgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese—it’s like the Menu of America or something. I guess I’ll go the grilled cheese and a Coke. I mean, you can’t screw up a grilled cheese, right?”
How wrong she is. When her grilled cheese arrives, it shows a blatant disregard for culinary presentation, the cheese a strange,
luminous yellow more aligned with a tennis ball. It does not look like something you’d want anywhere near your mouth.
Strike two, brother.
Thankfully, Lacey sees the funny side of it, holding the plate up. “Is that cheese or nuclear waste? What do you think?”
I look at my burger. It’s not good. “I think my chances of getting laid are slipping further and further away every second this date goes on.”
She picks up her grilled cheese and takes a bite, struggling to swallow it down, but she even manages to make this simple act look sexy. “You give up that easily? You’re telling me you weren’t King Jock at college?”
King Cock, maybe.
I laugh. “No, I was definitely the alpha. I played beer pong with my brothers, organized wet t-shirt competitions and pool parties. I wore around a shirt that said, ‘Get Off My Jock’—not kidding.”
“And you played football, I heard.”
I tighten. “Who did you hear that from?”
“Google’s a pushover. She’ll give up almost anything if you tickle her in the right places.”
“Do you?” I respond.
The corners of her mouth turn up. “I give nothing up easily, but come on, football. Tell me about it. I heard they called you the Dream Machine.” She tries another bite of the world’s worst grilled cheese before reaching for her Coke.
My burger lies half-eaten. I think it’s going to stay that way.
Make it or break it time, bud.
Although Dad had most of the articles relating to my ejection from Brown removed, I can’t be sure Lacey hasn’t read something. But it doesn’t matter either way. For once in my life I want to be completely up front and open with her.
In turn, maybe she’ll open up for me.
I push aside the image of her spreading her legs and reply, “You’re right. I played college ball. I was damn good at it, one of the best, but it fell apart.”
She wipes her mouth with a napkin. “What happened? Concussion give you a sudden moment of clarity?”
Just fucking say it. “I was kicked off the team for using steroids. I was kicked out of college, to be more specific.”
I gauge her reaction carefully, but she seems to be taking it okay. “Don’t those things make your balls shrivel?”
Good one. “You’ve seen them. Do they look shriveled to you?”
“They look like a matching pair of plums—weird, hairless plums, now I think of it. Do you shave down there?”
“I wax.”
She stands up and makes out like she’s leaving. “Well, that’s it… Thanks for the grilled cheese.”
I take hold of her arm and gently lower her back to her seat. “You’re not even going to tongue-lash me about the steroid thing?”
She shrugs, straightening out her dress. “People make mistakes, Payton. I get it. Clearly, you’ve smartened up.”
“How do you figure that?”
“You’re choosing to be a firefighter instead of a football star. You’re choosing to save lives instead of field goals. It’s honorable.”
She has a point.
She points to her temple. “You sure those steroids didn’t do any permanent damage up here, though?”
I smile. “Not enough to stop me taking ‘Top of Class’ come week sixteen.”
She laughs back, sliding her fork back and forth across the table with her finger. “The only thing you’ll be top of is the Captain’s shit list if you keep that up.”
“Like I’m not already. The guy’s got a hard-on for dishing out pain.”
Lacey looks under the table. “Beats having a hard-on, full stop,” I suppose.
She is. She’s actually flirting with me right now. Game on indeed. “I can’t help it I find you sexually attractive.”
She leans over the table, face held in her hands. “And what, pray tell, do you find so attractive?”
“Where to begin? would be the better question.”
There’s something between us, alright. I’m certain about that now.
She changes the topic. “Tell me about your family.”
I lean back. “There’s not much too tell. They’re filthy rich and I’ve never wanted for a thing. I grew up in a three-story apartment in New York the size of a baseball field. I went to a high school that cost more per semester than most people make in a year. I was a fucking brat and I’m not ashamed to admit it.”
She nods. “At least you’re honest. I grew up in a house the size of a dugout in a tiny town where the highlight is the historic clock in the town square. Dad didn’t have life insurance, so Mom lived day to day to support us. She still works, offered to help pay for any kind of education that didn’t involve firefighting, not that she has the money and not that I’d ever take it from her. She’s worked hard enough.”
I push the burger aside. “It sounds like we come from different worlds.”
“But they say opposites attract.”
We hold our gaze there, the neon sign buzzing, the grill sizzling in the back in preparation for tonight’s next lucky victims.
Lacey is the first to break. “Do you still play football?”
I shake my head. “I haven’t picked up a ball since they booted me from the Bears, and that’s probably for the best. Sometimes you just have to let dreams die.”
She reels back. “Whoa, way to put a downer on the evening.”
I motion at her plate. “Well, the food certainly isn’t doing me any favors, is it?”
Right on cue ‘Delores’ arrives to see if we want dessert.
I’d rather a triple bypass.
“Noooooo,” we reply in unison, struggling to contain our laughter.
Dolores looks genuinely puzzled. “Suit yourselves.”
It’s certainly the cheapest date I’ve been on, but there’s no pressure, no feigning something I’m not. I feel like I can be myself around Lacey, increasingly so.
I place down cash and a tip, going to stand. I put out my hand. “Shall we… unless you want to sample what kind of exotic virus makes for an aperitif around here.”
She laughs. “I think I’ll take my chances at the gas station.”
I stop the truck at the only gas station in town, returning with two ice cream sandwiches, handing one to Lacey as I get in. “It was either this or jerky, and you don’t strike me as a jerky kind of girl.”
She starts to unwarp her ice cream. “Maybe I’ve got a collection of guns at home, a boar’s head on the wall, a camo bedspread…”
“You’d look sexy in camo.”
“Really?” she smiles. “I hear it’s most unflattering.”
I turn to her as we pull out trying not to make a mess unwrapping my own sandwich. “’Unflattering’ is not a word that comes to mind when I look at you.”
She shrugs it off, but I can see her blushing, that bulletproof exterior starting to crack.
The way she’s licking at the end of her ice cream has me close to creaming my pants. I’m so fucking hard it’s outrageous, the top of my cock pressing against the bottom of the steering wheel. There’s no way I can hide it. It’d be like trying to force a bear trap back into position.
Lacey takes a gentle bite of the ice cream, her coral tongue flicking out to lick her lower lip. “I’m going to take a wild stab here and surmise this date isn’t going as well as you’d hoped?” she says.
“Was it the grilled cheese that resembled old chewing gum or the torn vinyl seating that did it?”
She laughs. “I’m not a fancy girl. Do you see my Louis Vuitton handbag or Tiffany earrings on display?”
“Tiffany earrings would look amazing on you.”
She rolls her head. “I mean, come on. I’m the only female at the Hot House. How many little girls do you know who want to be a firefighter when they grow up?”
“I can’t say I’ve seen any firefighter Barbies.”
She twists in the seat, the hem of her dress rising to expose the milky white of her thighs. “Actually, there was a firefi
ghting Barbie—1994 Career Collection. She even came with a hard hat.”
I catch on. “You’re serious? You’ve always wanted to be a firefighter.
“Is it really so hard to believe? I was too young to remember, but Mom says Dad used to bring one of the trucks home, take me down to the station. Apparently they were my second family down there.”
“You’re something else, Lacey Nelson.”
I see the turn-off and take a right. “Here we are.”
Lacey looks out the window at the bone-dry landscape passing by. “I think I saw this in Breaking Bad once.”
“You think I’m dragging you out into the middle of the desert to break your legs?”
She looks straight ahead. “Maybe you’re trying to get rid of the competition, take home that ‘Top of Class’ trophy for yourself.”
“That trophy is coming home with me.”
“Is that a fact?” She looks at me closely. “I see it now.”
“What’s that? My dashing good looks?”
“No, I see the big issue between us.”
“Which is?”
She’s looking at me through slitted eyelids. “We’re both competitive, desperate to prove ourselves.”
“Last I checked, that was a positive attribute to have. Besides, competition is a part of life. It’s just our evolutionary instincts coming out.”
“To be the big, bad alpha male,” she laughs, using her fingers to air-quote. “I guess that’s going to make you feel real silly when you get your ass handed to you by a ‘girl.’”
“Are you insinuating you’re not?” I lower my eyes to her chest. “Because from where I’m sitting it sure as hell looks like you’re of the female persuasion.”
“I guess you’ve never been to Thailand then.”
“Trust me,” I tell her, “I know a real girl when I see one. And let’s not forget I have seen you naked.”
I take the left and pull up, the sign for the thermal springs well-faded, a relic from the fifties.
Lacey whistles. “Wow, I’ve seen some horror film sets in my time, but this takes the cake.”
It’s not quite the desert paradise I was picturing, but there’s still hot water (hopefully) and a chance to get half-naked.
I help Lacey out of the car. She looks over at the rock pools. “Hot springs, out here? It wasn’t exactly well-posted.”
