Erik

by Sawyer Bennett

  “Not always,” she corrects me, and that surprises me as well. “But most of the time, sure. I know it’s a lot to ask of you.”

  “Blue…I get it. And it’s not a problem.”

  She brings a hand to my face, traces my bottom lip with her thumb. Her gaze follows the path for a moment before focusing attention back on me. “Thank you for saying that. That means a lot.”

  And I’m glad I can give that to her.

  Chapter 15

  Blue

  Erik’s house is unbelievable. I’d left him in bed a good half hour ago and set out to explore. I easily found the kitchen with its gorgeous farmhouse cream cupboards, black granite counter tops and copper accents. Erik is a coffee drinker so I expected a coffee pot. Instead, I found a fancy coffee/espresso maker that I couldn’t figure out so I left it behind.

  I wandered through the living room, marveling at the sumptuous feel of his leather couches, unlike any leather I’d ever felt before. He has a billiard room with dark-paneled walls and thick forest-green carpet that my toes sink into. The theater room is amazing and through immense curiosity, I find out the seats recline. There’s even an old-fashioned popcorn maker in there.

  I can tell the den on the other side of the billiard room is where Erik spends his time. He’s got a pair of his shoes on the floor by a recliner and there’s a monstrous TV, larger than any I’ve ever seen. Several sporting magazines cover the coffee table and there’s even a pile of mail there that had been opened and sorted, but then looks like it was promptly forgotten about.

  From the den I step out onto the back patio and gaze out over the lushest, greenest grass I’d ever seen in my life. Well, probably not but living here in the brown of the desert, it stands out in contrast. Just off the patio is a rectangular pool surrounded by expensive-looking stone pavers, and the entire backyard has a stucco and brick privacy fence at least six feet tall.

  I walk to the edge of the pool and dip my toe in. Satisfied with its temperature, I plop down on the edge and stick my feet in the water, swishing them back and forth as I take in the lush landscaping that makes this area seem like a tropical paradise.

  “Feel free to jump in,” Erik says from the patio behind me and I almost fall in, it scares me so bad. He laughs as he walks over to join me, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs. I stare speechless at him as he sits next to me, those powerful legs coming to rest right beside mine. His bare chest is hard to turn away from. His muscles are powerful yet he’s sleek at the same time.

  “You look cute in my T-shirt,” he says as he takes me in.

  “I didn’t think you’d mind.” I’d nosily poked around his dresser drawers for one while he snored away the earliest of the early-morning hours.

  “Of course not,” he says with a playful smile and then trails a finger across my thigh. “I like you better out of clothes, though.”

  God, I like him better out of clothes too. Last night was amazing.

  I’m still not quite sure how to reconcile in my mind how fast things have moved between us. Just a few weeks ago, I couldn’t stand him and now I sort of want to crawl onto his lap and just snuggle in for the long haul. Erik has definitely done all the right things and there’s no doubt in my mind he’s not the same man I briefly knew all those years ago.

  “You look tired,” Erik says, drawing me out of my musings. His finger slides gently along the skin under one eye, perhaps tracing a dark circle there. “You should sleep some more.”

  “I can’t,” I tell him with a laugh. “I’m one of those people that once I’m up, I’m up.”

  “Want some coffee?”

  “Sure,” I say and put my hands to the pavers to push myself up. His hand clasps warm on my thigh to stop me. “Relax. I’ll get it. How do you take it?”

  “Black.”

  He puts his hand over the center of his chest and shoots me an adoring look. “A woman after my own heart.”

  I watch Erik until he disappears into the house, smiling on both the inside and out. I’m not quite sure what I did to deserve what’s going on between us right now. In fact, sometimes I still get stuck in the mind-set that I don’t deserve something this good. Not after I’d abandoned my family for riches and fame in LA.

  It’s an old guilt that just won’t seem to go away.

  Erik returns a few minutes later with two steaming cups of fragrant black coffee. He hands me a cup and then carefully sits back down beside me with his own. I inhale before taking a tiny sip of the hot liquid. “Wow, that’s good.”

  Erik smiles and nods. “So we didn’t get a chance to talk much the last few days…how was the trip to Chicago?”

  I wrinkle my nose. “It’s twenty-four hours I’d rather forget. A bunch of rich old men who liked to pat my ass every time I walked by.”

  “What the fuck?” Erik growls so fiercely I jerk back with wide eyes. “They touched you?”

  “It’s part of the territory doing these private charters for men so rich, they can do whatever they want.”

  “No, fuck they can’t,” he says angrily. “Does that happen all the time?”

  “Not all the time,” I admit slowly, but it happens often enough.

  “You can’t work at a job like that,” he says adamantly.

  “Well, unless I can find something else that pays that well as a part-time job, I’m afraid I will work at a job like that.” I keep my tone pleasant, though, because I can see this is upsetting him. I lean over and give him a playful nudge on the shoulder. “Look…if they did anything more than that, I’d slap ’em hard. I wouldn’t ever let anyone cross a wider line than that.”

  “I don’t like it,” he mutters.

  “You’re cute when you’re jealous,” I tease him with another nudge to his shoulder.

  “That’s not jealousy, Blue,” he corrects as he leans his face in close to me. “That’s protecting what’s mine.”

  “Oh,” I murmur, the possessiveness in his tone hitting me right between the legs. We stare at each other a moment, and I consider what it would be like to have sex in his pool.

  Erik finally leans back into his space and says, “I met the flamingo lady.”

  I blink at him repetitively, trying to get my brain to move from pool sex to flamingos. “What?” I ask in confusion.

  “The woman who put the flamingos out Halloween night at Legend’s,” he clarifies.

  “Oh, yeah…right,” I say with a laugh as it comes back to me. “And?”

  “She is a serious freaking trip,” he replies and then goes on to tell me about how kooky and fun she seems to be, and how much Legend was really annoyed by her. Based on what he describes, I like her a lot already but then again, anyone that can dance around to Cindi Lauper has got to be a blast to hang around.

  “He likes her,” I tell Erik when he finishes.

  “Legend?” he asks with surprise.

  I nod my head. “It’s the classic pulling on the girl’s pigtails, not because you don’t like her, but because he wants her to notice him.”

  “No way,” Erik says with a shake of his head. “Legend was like turning red he was so annoyed with her.”

  “Mark my words,” I say wagging a finger at him playfully.

  “Doesn’t matter. She and Dax hit it off and she gave him her phone number.”

  “Perfect,” I whisper conspiratorially to him. “That will make Legend mad with jealousy.”

  “You are one twisted woman,” Erik says with a laugh. “Listen to us gossiping about other people. We’re like an old married couple already. And we’ve only been dating a week.”

  “Yeah, but we’ve really known each other five years,” I reply with a grin.

  Erik’s laugh is hearty and he leans over to kiss me. It’s a soft, quick kiss but as he starts to pull away, I lean into him to deepen it. We both groan as ou
r coffee flavored tongues meet for a moment.

  It’s Erik who pulls back, shaking his head at me in amusement. “I’m guessing you wouldn’t be interested in staying in bed with me all day today?”

  “All day, huh?” I ask with a laugh, noting that the concept has some merit.

  “Every day,” he returns huskily.

  There’s something about his words—maybe his tone—that makes me feel uneasy. The way I feel about Erik is indescribable but I have doubts in myself that I’m even worthy of that level of care and desire on such a permanent basis.

  My gaze drops to the pool water, rippling with silver streaks from the rays of sun hitting it.

  “What’s wrong?” Erik asks, using his fingers under my chin to lift my head and maneuver it so I’m looking at him again.

  I never planned on having this conversation with Erik, but things just seem very serious all of a sudden and I feel like he needs to know the ugly side to me. He can’t remember the woman he met five years ago, but I feel like he needs to know her. No matter how much I’ve changed, she’s still a part of me.

  “When I turned eighteen and moved to LA, I was searching for something. I had grandiose ideas of becoming famous and wealthy. And when I got there and found out that it just doesn’t happen like that, I was satisfied with just surrounding myself with others that had fame and money. It was so stupid of me to even be mad at you for what you did to me, because I got exactly what I asked for. You weren’t the first to blow me off like that, and you weren’t the last either. I put myself in those situations, looking in all the wrong places for all the wrong things.”

  Erik’s face clouds slightly. “Why are you telling me this?”

  I shrug. “Full disclosure, I guess. I wasn’t some innocent that was taken advantage of by you. In fact, I’d say our hookup was probably par for the course at that point in my life.”

  There’s a slight hesitation before he says, “I appreciate you telling me that, but I guess I still don’t get what that has to do with us right now. I get it. You changed. I changed. We’re different people than who we used to be. You accepted my apology and you don’t hold that shit against me. Why would it matter to me how you were back then?”

  “Because I want you to know that I’m flawed, just like most people are,” I say with frustration. “I don’t want you to put me on a pedestal or anything. And you’ve just done so much to make me fall for you, that I just want you to make sure the effort is worth it.”

  Erik reaches out, tucks my hair behind me ear. His voice is filled with wonder. “You’re a first for me, Blue. I’m not ashamed to admit I’m crazy about you, flaws and all.”

  My return smile is wan and doesn’t quite reach my eyes. He sees it right away but before he can ask, I tell him, “I have a lot to make up for with Billy.”

  His brow furrows deeply in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  I look away from him and stare out over the backyard for a moment. When I turn back to him, I say, “I mean, I didn’t just go to LA seeking something. I was running.”

  “Running?”

  “Away from Billy,” I admit shamefully.

  “I don’t understand.” There’s no condescension in his voice. Only curiosity and a desire in his eyes to learn more. He takes my hand in his—engulfs it, actually—and rests the clasped pair on top of my thigh. It’s such a comforting move that I push forward.

  “I love my brother,” I tell him.

  “I know that.”

  “But I resented him a lot when I was growing up. I was six years older and some of the burden of caring for him was put on me, whether that was right or wrong, by my parents. My dad worked full time and my mom part time. It was up to me and her to take care of him with some nominal help from an aide that would come in a few times a week to give us a break more than anything.”

  Erik lifts our joined hands, pulls them to his mouth, and kisses the skin above my wrist. “So Billy lived at home then?”

  “Yeah. And it was more than manageable. We had a motorized lift to help us get him from the bed to the wheelchair or into the tub as he grew bigger. We had a van that could transport him around. Mom and I as a team together handled him just fine.”

  “That’s a lot of responsibility to put on your shoulders as a child,” he says carefully, not wanting to malign my parents, I’m sure.

  “It wasn’t a lot until I got older and had the strength and maturity to really help. But still, my years as a teenager and all the fun things associated with it often took a backseat to Billy. If both my parents were working, it was up to me to watch him or drive him to therapy. Billy always came first and as much as I loved him, it made me resent him.”

  “I would have to think that was a completely natural feeling to have, particularly at that age,” Erik tells me.

  “I know,” I tell him with a long sigh. “I tell myself that all the time, but it doesn’t make me feel any better about myself.”

  Erik releases my hand and puts his arm around me, pulling me in close to him. I have to hold my coffee cup out to the side so it doesn’t spill. He hugs me into his side tight and kisses the top of my head.

  “At any rate,” I continue on. “I abandoned Billy when I went to LA. Left my parents high and dry, and by the time Billy got to his teens, he became too big and heavy for my mom to handle on her own. Of course, there were some benefits to the home, as Billy got a lot more socialization, but still…it’s hard to let go of your son like that, you know?”

  “You were allowed to try to make your own way in the world, Blue.” I pull back from Erik so I can look him in the eyes at such a brash assertion. “Billy was your parents’ responsibility, not yours.”

  “Rationally, I know that. In my heart, it’s hard to accept. Especially since they ended up moving him to a group home because my mother couldn’t handle it anymore on her own. And when I left, I hardly ever came back to visit. I loved my newfound freedom so much, I only came home at Christmas. I was too busy with the glitz and glamour—the false sense of belonging that I had out there—that I turned my back on my brother. And I’m not talking about caring for him physically…I’m talking about as a sister, I wasn’t there for him.”

  I thought I’d be able to get all that out without crying but my nose stings and wetness fills my eyes. Erik looks at me solemnly, making no move to try to stop me from crying. He rests a hand on the stone paver under his hip, leaning in toward me. “What did you hope to accomplish by telling me that?”

  I bite at my lip for a brief moment. “I just needed you to know why Billy is so important to me, now more than ever. I have a lot to make up to him, and like it or not, he’s my sole responsibility now.”

  Erik doesn’t answer me. He just sets his coffee cup down before taking mine from my hand. He places it next to his and then leans into me for a kiss. I’m immediately consumed, wanting to put behind me the unpleasantness of what I just told him.

  But I’m glad I did it. My heart already feels lighter even as I start to get pulled under from the magic of his mouth.

  I let go and just feel him.

  Chapter 16

  Erik

  I’ve never been to Dave & Buster’s before today but I’m sure as shit coming back. Any place that serves beer and has life-size, Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots is my kind of hangout. We had an afternoon game today against Detroit and it sucked donkey balls because we lost 2–1.

  However, I will say the day is shaping up to be a lot better.

  The van I’d arranged to transport Billy to his first hockey game picked up Blue at her house, and then they went to the Cresson. Blue had told me that Billy was completely recovered from the flu bug and was beyond excited about the game. I gave her a jersey for Billy to wear and hoped he didn’t think it was too cocky that it’s one of my jerseys.

  At the arena, I’d had a dedicated usher
waiting to escort them to their seats on the first level. The handicapped area is really some of the best viewing in my opinion. There’s ample space for wheelchairs and scooters, as well as regular seating. Blue knew all of this ahead of time, but what she didn’t know was that I arranged for the usher to bring her and Billy down to the ice level through the team elevators so they could watch us warm up from the Zamboni alley. I can’t say that I was performing at my best during the pregame skate, as I couldn’t stop looking over at Billy and Blue—mostly Blue watching Billy smile and cheer.

  I’d even managed to sneak over there before we went to the locker room to give Billy a hockey puck and Blue a kiss, to which she whispered in my ear, “You are so getting lucky tonight.”

  I liked hearing that. It’s not why I wanted to do this for Billy, but it was a perk I was not going to pass up.

  Right now, I’m once again a little transfixed as I watch Blue with her brother. And weirdly…Tacker, as they play some videogames across the large, cavernous arcade.

  After the game, plans were made in the locker room to head over to the Sneaky Saguaro for an afternoon of Saturday drinking. I’d declined and told them I was taking Blue and Billy to Dave & Buster’s which would be far more fun for Billy. Next thing I know, Bishop, Brooke, Dax, Legend, and Tacker were inviting themselves along. Dax had asked Pepper to the game, and she’s also here with us. Currently, she and Dax are battling the robots against each other while Legend stands beside me at the bar shooting them sour looks.

  I try to get his mind off his wily neighbor and the fact that Dax seems to like her. Giving Legend a nudge and then nodding in Blue, Billy, and Tacker’s direction, I say, “Can’t believe Tacker actually accepted an invitation to come out with us.”

  Legend’s gaze slides across the arcade where Tacker is currently leaning over Billy’s chair, showing him how to play Galaga Assault, an updated version of the old game. I found that Billy actually does quite well with joystick-type games as evidenced by him whipping my ass at Pac-Man Battle Royale earlier.