It’s probably only this good because I’ve not been with a guy in almost a year. Yep, that’s all it is.
He pulls back first and places his forehead on mine, as we both try to catch our breath. There are people clapping, and someone yells for us to get a room, but neither of us moves.
I can feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he speaks. “That good for you?”
I nod, then curse myself. I wasn’t going to admit how great it was.
He nods once, now staring at my mouth. "I knew it’d be amazing, but holy shit. If your mouth is any indication of what the rest of you feels like…" He pauses looking for the right words. After a shake of his head, he says, “You should probably put a lock on your bedroom door."
Then with his cheesy wink, he turns and walks away, leaving me with wet panties, and a gaping Robert. It’s then I realize that Adrian is a tornado, threatening to tear through my stable life.
Robert, not one for subtly, begins fanning himself with a book. “Girl, that kiss made me horny, so I can guess what it did to you.”
Looking in the direction Adrian went, I consider fanning myself too. “Who woulda thought a dipshit like Adrian Elliot could kiss like that?”
Robert groans. “Just think, if he’s that good with his mouth, he’s probably that good with his other parts.”
With a great sigh, I begin walking. “This is going to be a problem.”
“Problem?” Robert scoffs. “You’re practically roommates with a hot ass guy who kisses like a porn star, and he’s obviously interested in showing you the rest of his porn star moves. I’m not seeing the problem, sweetie.”
“Let me fill you in,” I say, holding up one finger. “First, he’s interested in games, and I don’t do games. Second, he’s not at all my type. I mean, the only qualification he meets is that he’s male.”
“Riiight,” Robert mutters, sounding more than skeptical. "Well what I saw, didn't look like you were lacking any attraction to him."
Am I attracted to him, or am I just horny? I shake my head and hitch my bag up my shoulder. "What you saw, was a girl who hasn't had sex in almost a year. I was having flashbacks, that’s all."
As we leave the building, the sun’s so bright we both shield our eyes with one hand. Robert stops and begins digging around in his messenger bag. He pulls out two pairs of sunglasses and holds one out for me. I look at him questioningly.
"You keep two pairs of sunglasses in your bag?"
"Of course,” he says, pointing to my face, “I refuse to get those nasty wrinkles on my forehead from squinting."
I put the sunglasses on, then link my arm through his. "Of course. Forehead wrinkles are something every twenty-year-old guy should be concerned with."
Shaking his head, Robert corrects me. “No, just twenty-one-year-old guys who are trying to attract other twenty-one-year-old guys."
***
Adrian
I’m crossing the quad when my phone rings. Pulling it out of my pocket, my body tenses when I see it’s my dad.
“Hello,” I answer, sounding as disgusted as I am.
“Don’t use that tone with me. I’m still your father and you need to respect me.”
Right, because you’ve totally earned that respect.
“What can I help you with, father,” I ask, trying the passive aggressive approach.
My dad clears his throat. “I’m calling to remind you of how important it is that your behaviors reflect positively on me.”
How could I possibly forget when I get this reminder call at least once a week? Man, would I love to tell him to fuck off.
“To motivate you to try harder to not humiliate me this year,” my asshole dad goes on, “I’ve made a decision.”
This oughta be good.
“If I receive one more report of your childish behavior affecting your placement at the school, or, God forbid, another arrest, then I will be taking back custody of the boys.”
I stop walking and clench the phone, as the anger furls in my stomach. “You can’t do that.”
My dad scoffs. “I can and I will. You’re making me look like I have no control over my own children. So, I’ll let you ruin your life, and Brandon can ruin his with some lame military career, but the other three will come back to live with me.”
And suffer daily emotional and physical abuse? No fucking way.
Chapter 12
Cake Makes Everything Better
I decide that avoiding Adrian is the best way to keep my hormones, and sanity, in check. I certainly don’t want to find myself on my knees in front of him, begging him to kiss me again. Or, offering to do other things while I’m on my knees.
A few days later, I discover I didn't need to strategize how to avoid him because he's doing an awesome job being invisible. I don't see him for the rest of that week and he’s MIA for the entire weekend. I don’t ask his roommates where he is because I don’t care. Well, that’s what I’m working on believing.
Gemma, Shy, Robert and I hang at home Friday night, not feeling into the bar scene. Saturday I try to get some studying done, but I'm in a funk. Knowing it's not my best idea, I decide to go volunteer. I try not to go on days like these, but sometimes I can’t stop myself. Or I can, I just don’t.
After the loss of my own child, I thought helping other families in the neonatal intensive care unit, could be a way to help me heal. Instead, it’s become a place I go to when I’m feeling guilty about his death.
"Where you going?" Gemma asks, catching me trying to sneak out without telling her.
I avert my eyes, not wanting to see the disappointment on her face. "To the hospital." I grab my keys and open the door hoping I can escape before her lecture begins.
"Keegan." Her voice is surprisingly soothing, not that sharp edge of judgment I'm used to during this conversation. I turn to meet her gaze.
"You should think about going to the barn with Shy. She's doing some great work with Isaac, maybe it could help you work through some stuff too.”
She’s talking about Isaac, one of the foster boys she works with. He’s been hanging out at the barn with Shyanne, working with abused horses, and apparently getting better therapy than he’s gotten with any therapist.
I give her a half smile, but no commitment, and she doesn’t push it. This is a wagon we’ve circled for three years now, no major change, or insight is happening tonight.
After several hours surrounded by grieving families, pulling me deeper into my funk, I decide to spend the evening with my mom. There are some positives and negatives to attending a college twenty minutes from home.
I'm extremely close with my mom. We’ve been through a lot together. We've had some rough times, financially and emotionally. After my dad left, she had to pick up a second job for a long time. She may have been dealt a shit hand, but I rarely ever heard her complain. She does what needs to be done because that's life. This is not a trait I inherited.
I grew up about two hours east of the college, but after high school graduation, we moved to a small town twenty minutes from the college. Because I was still going to go to college, after I had the baby, we knew we needed to live closer—since most colleges don’t allow babies in dorms, I’d planned on commuting. My younger brother, Christopher, was not happy that he had to change schools the summer before his junior year, but he adjusted.
I push through the front door and I'm not surprised to see her in the kitchen, with the mixer running. My mom loves to bake and she often makes goodies to take to the café where she works. The smell of cake fills the air, and I immediately wonder if she has any cake batter left. Sitting at the counter, licking the beaters, and anything left in the bowl is where we had some of our greatest bonding moments.
Mom wipes the flower from her face as I cross the room to give her a hug. "Hey sweetie, I didn't expect to see you again so soon."
"I was at the hospital and thought I’d come hang out with my mom for the night." I may as well get the hospital information o
ut there now so we can get the circling-the-wagon routine out of the way.
As expected, mom looks at me disapprovingly. "Keegan honey, you have to stop torturing yourself."
I sigh. “Let's not do this again, please. Besides I told you it's not about me, I'm there to volunteer… to help others."
"And I told you that you can't help others through something you've not yet overcome yourself. Every time you go there you're reliving your own trauma, and that's preventing you from healing."
There it is, the old “You’ve got to take care of yourself first” lecture. I’ve heard this so many times, from both her and Gemma, that I recite it in my head while they’re saying it. It lost its intended effect after the first seven or eight times. They need to get some new material if they expect me to learn anything from these talks.
"What smell's so good?" I ask, skirting around her and the conversation. I lean on the counter across from her, hoping we can move past this.
She studies my face for a few seconds then closes her eyes. When she opens them, she manages a weak smile, indicating she would let it go.
"Well, I’m not sure I want to tell you what I'm making."
I crease my forehead. “Because…” I hedge.
"Well,” she says, placing the measuring cups and spoons in the sink, “I’m making it for Julie, at work. Her birthday is tomorrow so I'm making her a cake."
I glance around the counter and see a can of crushed pineapple.
"Pig lickin’ cake?" I practically squeal, feeling like a kid.
My grandpa, mom’s dad, used to love pig lickin’ cake, so my grandma made it for him at least once a month. My brother was like a dog on the hunt anytime we went their house, searching to find any indication that a cake was somewhere in the house. When he’d find one, grandpa would tease us, every time, for at least ten minutes, before he’d let us have a piece. All the other food in the house was fair game, but we always knew that was his cake. He would even cut it and serve it to use. I remember thinking it was cute the way he wanted to give it to us, but now I think it was because he wanted to make sure we didn’t take too much.
Mom grimaces. "Yes, but like I said it's for Julie. I can't exactly cut a piece out for you and take it to her, missing a slice."
"You made a pig lickin’ cake and you didn't make enough for me?" I give her my biggest most pitiful, puppy dog eyes.
She sighs, exasperated. ”If we run to the store and get more Cool Whip, I have everything else we need to make another one." She says this like she's trying to appease a five-year-old.
I push off the counter and march toward the door. "Let's go."
I hear her laugh behind me, which makes me smile. Since I've graduated, and let's be honest, matured a bit, she has much less stress. So, coming back home, and having these moments where we simply enjoy being together, are some of my greatest memories.
Chapter 13
Mom’s Wisdom
In the car, on the way to the store I ask her something I've been thinking about lately. "Do you ever wish that you'd never married him?"
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see my mom snap her head around.
"Who? Your dad?"
I laugh. "Was there someone else you married I didn't know about?"
Now she laughs. "Good point, you just surprised me. You rarely ever want to talk about him."
This is true. My dad, after cheating on my mom for years, filed for divorce and left when I was six. After that, I only saw him a few times a year. He didn't move far, actually just the next town over from where we lived, but apparently he’d divorced our whole family. I remember when I was younger I used to ask about him all the time. When he would come, for one of his rare visits, mom would be left answering questions for the next couple weeks. Seeing him would remind me that I had a dad and that my dad never wanted to see me. It probably would’ve been better if he would’ve stopped coming around completely.
As I got older, I stopped asking questions. I could say I didn't care where he was and why he never came to see us, but the truth is, it hurt too much to think about those answers, especially as a teenager.
“Of course not,” my mom says, answering my question. "I got you and your brothers from him, so no, I don't regret marrying him.”
When she mentions my brothers, I can hear the catch in her throat
Christopher, who is two years younger than me, is off at college in Seattle. He and I were never close, and after Tyler died, he distanced himself further from my mom and me.
My brother, Tyler, was a great older brother… until he started using drugs. He was five years older than me, so I was in the eighth grade when he was a senior. He was a normal teenager. He would drink and smoked pot on the weekends with his friends. Then one night at a party, he was offered cocaine. That night he took the next step which would eventually take his life.
One really good high, lead to a year and a half of chasing that high. When he realized he wasn't going to get that same high with coke, he took another step.
The first time I walked in on my brother shooting heroin, I ran to him, ripping the needle from his arm. I yelled and cried, and begged him to stop. The next morning he admitted himself to rehab. After one week inside, he thought he could do it on his own. It wasn't two months later before I was, again, begging him to stop using drugs. One more trip into rehab, this time he stayed for two months, but he didn't make the necessary changes when he got out, so he fell right back into old habits.
By the time I was fifteen, he was strung out all the time. One day, during one of his rare sober moments I pleaded with him—I literally fell to my knees with racking sobs begging him to choose me, his baby sister, over the drugs. He sat holding me, and crying with me for an hour and promised that the next morning he would go back to rehab. This time we would have a plan for when he got out.
That night, he shot up with the rest of the heroine he had, thinking he would get that one last high.
The next morning I went to wake him, excited for this new beginning. I hadn't told my mom about his latest promise because I wanted to surprise her. I rushed into his room and came to a sudden stop when I saw his cold, dead eyes staring at me. I yelled for my mom, then climbed into bed with him, wrapping my arms around him. I sobbed, holding him like that until the ambulance arrived to take him away.
I swallow back the lump in my throat. "But that's just it. If you'd never married him, and you'd never had us, you would've never lost Tyler."
Although it's been six years, I still have to fight back the tears when I think of him.
My mom reaches over, squeezing my arm. "Have you never heard the phrase ‘It's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all’?"
I snort. "Yeah, but I think that's the biggest load of crap. Seriously, some guy, who has never loved and never had a broken heart, is the one who made that up. It certainly wasn't some girl, curled and crying in the fetal position, listening to I Will Always Love You, spewing that shit."
My mom laughs. "You sure have a way with words."
Smiling, I say, "I know, thanks."
I pull into the parking lot and find a spot. I turn off the car then face my mom.
"I guess my view on men is pretty jaded. I've never had one stay, or make me a priority." I shrug. "I just don't think I want to ever give that power to another man."
She gives me a sad smile. "I'm sorry you feel that way. Loving people and losing people is all part of life. I'm sure you’ll fall in love again someday, and hopefully this one will stay, but if he doesn't, you won't be broken. It'll hurt, but we always heal. We're definitely not the same after, but changing is part of life too."
I shake my head. "You’re always so freakin' positive. Where’d I get my foul mouth and negative attitude?"
She pulls me in for a hug. "Keegan, you’ve always made your own way, been your own person. And the guy who will make you a priority will be the guy who loves that most about you. He’ll recognize it as your best quality, a
nd he’ll do anything to make sure he doesn’t lose you… anything.”
I smile, giving her hand a little squeeze, before climbing out of the car. She’s right, I am my own person, and I’ll never change that for anyone.
Chapter 14
Devils Plastic
Monday after class, Robert and I check our mail at the student center. I find my new purchase, which I ordered last week and had express delivered. I practically squeal with excitement then make Robert drive me home because I don’t have the patience to walk all the way across campus without opening it.
“What is it, a blow-up boyfriend?” Robert asks, curious about what would cause me to act like a teenager.
I smile big. “Better.”
He holds up his hand, stopping me from sharing. “I don’t want to know. I’m still having nightmares from that horror movie you made me watch.”
Horror movie? The only time I’ve watched a movie with him was this past Friday night. “We watched Bridesmaids,” I remind him.
He shivers. “Anytime I have to watch four women shit themselves, it’s a horror movie.”
I laugh, remembering how he buried his face in the pillows and screamed for us to turn it off. The rest of us were struggling to breathe, and wiping at tears, from laughing so hard. Then we rewound it, told him we’d turned it off, and pushed play when Robert came out from hiding. He started gagging, and that started all the laughter over again.
I sigh. “Good times.”
“Maybe for you,” he scoffs, then instantly skips topics. “Hey, wanna go to lunch?”
I wrinkle my nose. “Girls shitting themselves makes you think of lunch?”
“Ew, no, my stomach growling makes me think of lunch.”
I do need to eat before my next class, but I need to check my purchase first. “Take me home first then we’ll go. You know I’m always up for food.”
He gives me a sad smile as he parks in my drive. “I know honey, that’s why your jeans are getting too tight.”
I backhand him across the chest. He’s giving me a complex. I’m gonna have to start weighing myself. I climb out of the car, expecting him to wait while I drop off my stuff, but he climbs out too.
Our Kinda Love Page 5
