Delia Bay

by Lauren Cooper

  “Can we go and hang out at the cabin?” Luna chirps, her too cheery voice rings in my ears.

  “Luna...” my voice cracks, the harsh reality of my life hitting me hard as I drop my hand away from her cheek.

  “Yes?” she flutters her long lashes along her high cheeks, the skin there flushing a beautiful soft pink.

  “Why do you want to hang out with me?” I frown, my hair falling across my eyes just slightly.

  “Because” she shrugs, “I like being alone too you know. We can be alone together”

  “You know that makes no sense, right?” I huff.

  “I never make much sense” she smiles and shrugs again, those delicate shoulders of hers rising in her sun-bright yellow coat.

  I look away, needing to before I force her onto her back on this wet boardwalk and take her like the animal she knows I really am. Fuck the people of Delia and their big mouths, that’s what Luna does to me, she drives me fucking crazy and I hardly even know her.

  The air around us heavy with heat and need as her eyes search my face for something I don’t know that she will find.

  “Fine. Let’s go” I get to my feet watching as she mirrors my movements,

  I keep my eyes on her as she comes to her feet, reaching for Aurora. I stop myself from grabbing onto her wrist and yanking her off my baby but the calm feeling in my gut has me stopping and trusting her.

  Should I be trusting someone who’s as good as a stranger to me? The same person I’ve already been balls deep inside?

  Yes.

  Luna isn’t some random chick I picked up at the bar. No, she’s so much more than that. Even after one night together I know Luna is different. This whole time she’s been breaking me in two, her kind words and don’t give a shit attitude is something I haven’t experienced in so long. I know earlier in the shop she was trying her best not to show her pity for me, but the mere fact that she tried almost had my heart ripping out of my chest, it’s as if she’s putting me back together again. Bit by shredded bit.

  It’s a ridiculous thought, but somehow, it’s my life right now.

  I don’t want sympathy. Not now. What good was it anyway? Would sympathy bring my girls back to me? Bring my hard-working father back to life? No.

  It would do fuck all but make me feel even shittier. The only thing I felt these days was immortal. Almost as if life was playing a trick on me, forcing me to live and breathe each day on my own. Only as we walked back towards the cabin did I feel like that weight was lifted a little. Just a smidge because Luna was here, with me. Walking beside me and easing the burden of my loss just a tad. For some sick reason it made me feel worse. Worse because I was still alive and living these precious moments whilst Aurora was buried beneath me. That girl was supposed to be it for me. The one I kissed behind the bleachers, the one I fucked for the first time in the bed of my pick-up. The one I took to prom and asked to marry me. The one who had my babies and the one I lived happily ever after with. Instead I had a grave marker.

  It was all ripped away from me as quickly as one would rip off a band aid. Life is really that cruel.

  “I’m so jealous that you get to live up here” Luna spins around, her rubber-duck yellow raincoat swirling out around her.

  “It’s pretty neat” I smile as I dig in my jeans for my keys. The small trickle of water can be heard from the lake out back but other than that, it’s just us and the chirping crickets.

  I unlock the front door to a wall of heat from the log burner I’d lit earlier this morning, Luna groans appreciatively. I smirk as I make room for her to come into my not so humble abode before I shut the door behind her.

  “It’s a beautiful cabin Reid” Luna says as she shrugs out of her coat, handing it to me to hang on the hook next to the door.

  “It’s perfect for me” I say quietly, pulling my still damp denim off and hanging it next to hers. Something as simple as two coats hanging next to each other is enough to tear open an old scar within you. Enough to make you realize your life could have been so much more. There should be three coats hanging up there right now. Instead there’s one. Plus, a guest.

  Sighing I turn towards the kitchen, watching as Luna delicately places Aurora on the couch.

  “Drink?”

  “Sure” she smiles that all-consuming grin that almost always reaches her cheeks.

  “Alcohol....” I open the fridge, bending to view its contents. “Or milk?” I swivel to face her, her beautiful features straining hard not to laugh.

  “I’ll take the alcohol” she laughs, folding her arms in front of her and accentuating her breasts even more in the thin tank top she has on. My tongue grows in my mouth as the taste of her skin flushes my senses, the way she’d moved against my body, writhing with need as I plunged deeply into her core.

  “Coming up” I manage to croak as I rip two beers from their cardboard home in my fridge. It was probably the only constant in my life, beer and Aurora. Anything else was a bonus. I need to go and grab some groceries but that isn’t exactly high on my list of priorities right now.

  I’d grown a thick skin over the years, I didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of me. I was just here. Until the day finally came when I would no longer be here.

  Someone was always supposed to miss you, no matter who you were in life. Someone, somewhere should always be missing you, wondering where in the world you are. I didn’t have that someone. Not anymore. I wasn’t strong enough to admit that I wasn’t okay. I was hurting, even years later. They say that time heals wounds but that’s total and utter bullshit. It doesn’t get any easier, not even a smidgen. You suffer until the day you die, and I was hoping and praying that day would come sooner rather than later.

  You constantly hear of these poor souls getting run over, murdered, freak accidents...why could that never be me? Take me instead of an innocent father or husband. I’d gladly take their place.

  Just stop the fucking world. This is my stop.

  I pop the tops off the two beers and hand one to Luna as I round the wooden island into the living room.

  “Thanks” she smiles, taking the bottle from me and shoving her spare hand into the pocket of her shorts.

  “This is so cozy” she says before taking a seat on my couch next to Aurora and tucking her legs up beneath her. It’s a strange sensation when she makes herself at home, one I don’t resent for a change. I never took anyone back to my place in the city, it wasn’t a place I was overly proud of. Besides, I didn’t particularly like having anyone in my space, but Luna didn’t make me feel like that.

  “So, you draw?” she asks, nodding towards my pad and pen on the coffee table.

  “Yep” Is all I manage as I stand awkwardly in the living room.

  “Will you draw me?” she asks, stunning me stupid but igniting a fireball in my belly.

  “Draw me like one of your French girls” Luna chuckles, her eyes trained on the drawings I have pinned to the wall already. They vary from the countryside to some of Gus at the bar, to Aurora to my parents, ones I’d had to draw from memory or from mere fantasy. It would depend on my mood that day and what I was up to delving into. Tonight, it was Luna. My fingers twitched as I grabbed the pen from the table, placing my bottle of beer on the floor next to me. I couldn’t have said no to her; my tongue wouldn’t form the words I’d so easily said to a million other people over the past few years but couldn’t to her.

  “Do you want me to move?” she asks tentatively, her gorgeous body flexing on the cotton of my couch.

  “No” I shake my head and take the cap off the pen.

  “Shall we put some music or something on?”

  “Sure. Chuck my phone on if you want” I shrug, throwing the worthless contraption on the table. Luna swiftly grabs it, her small fingers wrapping around it as she searches the never-ending stream of depressing music I have stored on it.

  Settling in on some back-ground noise she plonks herself back down on the couch and tucks her feet back underneath her. The
twitch in my chest has me swallowing, reminded that I haven’t drawn any other girl since Aurora, but the itch to draw Luna turns into an all-out burn the second the pen touches the paper.

  Ice Creams & Fuck Up’s

  I COULD SENSE IT WHEN Reid left the bar. The air around me changed and I’d left Austin with Cash to continue their boring as fuck chat about the recent soccer game, when I went in search for the sexy brooding man who’d wormed his way into my heart and head.

  The rain had eased off and I’d found Reid next to the Ice-cream shop on the boardwalk, his trusted guitar sat next to him.

  I’m not going to lie and say I hadn’t got a little bit school-girlishly happy when he agreed we go back to his cabin and hang out. I foolishly told myself I wanted to hang out at the cabin because I loved it up there, it was beautiful, even more so with Reid’s all-male scent clutching to its walls.

  I’d had a snoop when I’d brought his milk and eggs up the other day, but it didn’t seem as cozy then. I figured it must be the man sat on his floor opposite me, his dark mop falling a little over his eyes every time he turns his attention back to the paper in his lap.

  I couldn’t believe it when he didn’t say something similar to his sarcastic self when I’d told him to draw me. I was expecting a huff, a roll of his gorgeous green eyes or at least a firm fuck no. Instead here I was, sat on his couch drinking beer and being sketched by the handsome blackbird.

  “When did you learn to draw?” I ask over the music. I don’t recognize the track, but I’d stuck his Recently Played playlist on with the hopes of learning a little more about him.

  “When I was around ten I think. I had a kit for Christmas and sorta got addicted” he glances up at the other drawings he’s pinned to his walls and I find my eyes following his.

  All ink sketches of a gorgeous dark-haired woman in various positions and poses, a couple of another older looking woman and an older man.

  “Do you ever draw in color?”

  “No”

  His deep voice has me flicking a glance his way, but he doesn’t return the gesture, instead concentrating on his growing drawing of me.

  “The girl is really pretty” my eyes drawn back to the mystery woman on his wall. Luscious locks of shiny black hair fall down her back in one image, her back curved as she lies naked on a bed, the comforter just barely covering her breasts.

  “That’s Aurora” Reid’s voice sounds distant, but he hasn’t moved. I stare at the photo for a little longer, noting every tiny detail that Reid has captured. The way she’s smiling softly up at him, her young sparkling eyes filled with nothing but love and adoration.

  “She’s beautiful”

  “Was”

  I turn my head back to him, his green eyes shining with emotion as he glares at the picture.

  “I’m sorry”

  “Anyway, tell me more about you” he shrugs, his eyes flicking across my face before he turns back to the paper.

  “What do you want to know?” I huff, swallowing past the need that arises in a person when we want to know more information about a certain situation. It’s a small-town thing I’m sure, the nosy trait.

  “There really isn’t much to know about me. I was born and raised here”

  “Didn’t you go to college?”

  “Nope. My grandmother died a year or so before I was supposed to start applying, she left me some money and I bought Moonbeam”

  “That’s nice” Reid’s words don’t match his tone.

  “How about you?”

  “I was seventeen when my parents died, I didn’t have any money to go to college”

  I gather then that he must have been only a teenager when Aurora died. Along with the baby. My heart aches for such an innocent, young person to go through such pain. It’s hard enough dealing with teenage hormones as it is but to have your entire world turned on its head...Unimaginable.

  “Oh? What did you do instead?”

  “Lived on the street” he laughs, his mouth curving up into a genuine smile.

  “Shit Reid” I shake my head, my brows scrunching in the middle.

  “Don’t pity me” he trains his eyes on me, silently daring me but also shutting my mouth for me.

  “What happened after your parents died?”

  “The house went into foreclosure. My parents had me later in life and I had no other family to go to. I was considered too old for the system and basically shoved out on my own”

  “How did you find Gus?” I decide to change the subject a little, knowing full well that I can’t keep the string of questions that are sitting right on the tip of my tongue from spilling out.

  “I was rummaging through his dumpster out the back of his bar. Old man took me in”

  “That’s sweet” I smile genuinely. Gus seems like a nice man. The way he’d spoken to Reid earlier in the bar made me think that he saw him more like a Son than a friend.

  “What about your family? Your Mama’s sure sweet” he smiles softly, obviously remembering the way she’d stripped him of his wet clothes and made him a hot chocolate.

  “She’s a pain in the ass” I laugh “but she’s alright” I shift in my seat, bringing my legs down from underneath me. Reid’s eyes glance up briefly, his stare lingering on my toned calves.

  “Do you surf?”

  “Never tried. I’m more of a cliff diving person”

  “Really? I tried last year, broke my arm” I hold the offending bone on my left arm, twisting it around as the crunch of my old broken bone rattles around inside my skin.

  “Tried again since?” he huffs, brushing the pen in feather light strokes across the paper.

  “Nope” I laugh that stupid girlish giggle that comes out whenever I’m not paying enough attention to what I’m actually doing.

  We fall into a comfortable silence, Reid drawing whilst I sat watching him perfect his talent. The music and the beer flowing nicely until finally he shows me the finished product.

  “Jesus Reid, I don’t look that good in real life” I laugh, taking the pad from him our fingers brush slightly and I don’t miss the sharp intake of breath from him.

  He’s drawn me exactly how I was sitting with his couch beneath me. My messy up do is perfect down to each tiny strand of fly-away hair. A sweet smile is drawn on my lips, my eyes shining as I stare right at him.

  “You’re beautiful, Luna” his wispy voice washes over my shoulder as he shifts behind me, the soft air blowing on the tiny hairs and sending a spark of lust right to the tips of my toes.

  “It’s beautiful. Thank you” I smile handing him back his drawing. Ignoring the need clawing at my belly to jump into his arms and kiss him stupid. I know he isn’t in the right frame of mind right now and I can’t put my heart in the way of that. I’ll be his friend, but I won’t be his emotional punching bag.

  “You ready for the wall of fame?” he smirks, ripping the page from the pad and tacking it to the wall next to his others.

  “I’m honored” I say truthfully. I can’t imagine how much those drawings of Aurora mean to Reid.

  “Those are your parents?” I move to stand next to him pointing at the image of the woman who I’m guessing is in the kitchen owing to the floral pinafore wrapped around her small midriff, in the next drawing the man is stood next to a car.

  “Yep. This is all I have left of them. I only have one family photo” he runs his finger across the picture softly. Turning his face towards me I can’t look away from him when his warm breath hits my cheek.

  “I should get going” I mumble, my eyes falling to his lips.

  “You can’t walk home in the dark” he whispers, stepping closer to me and drowning me in his all-male scent.

  “Oh?” I ask stupidly, my voice quiet and hushed when he leans closer and closer until the tip of his nose hits mine. Such a small movement has me hitching a breath while gooseflesh spreads across every inch of my skin. My core throbs with memories and the flittering thought that I’m about to fuck the same man for t
he second time within twenty-four hours has me reaching up on my tip toes, closing the small distance left between us.

  His lips are softer tonight, thick and gentle against my own. Bringing his hands to my cheeks he grasps my face between his palms, tilting my head in the opposite direction as he deepens our kiss by darting his tongue between my lips.

  The coils in my stomach twist faster, generating an animalistic moan to leave my lips. Reid’s responsive growl has my belly fluttering with need. Seemingly, Reid feels the same because suddenly his hands are gone from my face and I’m hauled up against his hardness. My legs wrap around his waist instinctively, my lips never leaving his as he walks me through the cabin.

  “Reid” I groan as he takes us through a doorway to what I’m only assuming is his bedroom. The hardness growing between his legs rubs harshly onto my denim covered pussy, taunting and teasing at the same time.

  “Tell me to stop” he tugs my bottom lip between his teeth.

  “No” I gasp before slamming my mouth back down on his.

  I’m breathless by the time he throws me on the bed, my ass bouncing slightly on the mattress beneath me. Excitement and need mix together like a delicious drug in my system, my eyes never leave the gorgeous man in front of me as he rips his t-shirt over his head. My eyes unashamedly rake over every inch of his skin, glazing over his tattoos and that heart wrenching one on his hip.

  Leaning over me, Reid rests his hands beside my head on the mattress, his eyes searching mine as if he’s still not sure I want this. Flash backs from last night swim around my brain, the way he’d kissed me, the way his lips felt against my skin was enough to make any woman burst into flames. Tonight, he’s different, there’s no urgency in his movement. Taking his time, Reid peels me out of my clothes, depositing them on the floor behind him and further torturing me by just glancing at my now naked body. Darting his tongue out he licks at his bottom lip, the same one I so desperately want to bite down on, he leans his head closer to mine until our foreheads are touching and his long hair tangles with mine.