by Fields, MJ
Never was confused after that, but boy, did I like to make her scowl.
I did everything under the sun to piss her off, but nothing worked like paying attention to her sister. Pretty fucked up, considering my past, and I tried to make it go away, but it was what it was.
I kick open the gate leading to the guest house that I bought, thinking Mags, the woman who’s been like a grandmother to me most of my life, could enjoy it. And when she wasn’t using it, after Katy and I were good and shacked up at the house that I made her mine … finally, her parents, my parents, anyone really could come and chill.
The Steel family rented this place every year on Labor Day weekend as long as I can remember, so it just made sense.
Doesn’t anymore.
Katy Steel is fucking pregnant and, apparently, she’s a promiscuous little piece of ass, too.
Yeah, it was stupid to buy a place when she wasn’t answering my messages and had blocked me … fucking everywhere. But seriously, what fucking story gets told with just a beginning and an end?
Apparently, ours.
But I’m not buying the fact that there isn’t even the slightest possibility that the kid she’s carrying isn’t mine. Although, she did say she was on the pill. Didn’t take her for a fucking liar. And considering my past, she’s fucking with the wrong man when she thinks she can just skate on this.
I flop down on the double chaise that I had delivered because, again, I’m a fucking idiot and thought a double would give us more room when we had a place that wasn’t surrounded by the possibilities of getting caught and she seemed to not like the whole beach idea, which was a fucking girls’ fairy tale setting.
Let’s be honest here, our first go was not what I had playing out in my head when I jerked my meat while looking at the obscene amount of pictures I’d snapped of her over the years, or the screenshots I’d taken of her posts on social media. I wasn’t prepared to go in raw, either. Not sure I could have prepared for that, or would have felt like a one-pump chump, if it was even really one pump—I wasn’t even in all the way!—but round two, three, four … all the ones after that would have been better.
I pull my phone out and look at the shattered screen, caused by one too many times throwing it at the wall when she ghosted me or replied with some little dig to see if she’s played her little game and unblocked me.
Christ, until tonight, I got hard when she played her little piss pot games. But now, knowing what I do …
“Fuck her!” I scream, and my voice echoes in the night. “Fuck. Her!”
* * *
I wake up, head a little bit hurting, to Patrick shaking me. I open my eyes.
“She agreed to two minutes.”
“Two minutes?”
“Yeah. Uncle Jase is suspicious, because you’re a fucking idiot. You wanna be with her, be her man. Even though she’s knocked up, you need to chill.” He steps back and looks at me. “Dude, did you fuck my cousin?”
“Not sure I’d call it—”
A jab catches my left eye.
“What the fuck, man? I thought you needed my help to get her attention, make her like you,” Patrick says as he draws back his fist again.
“You got one, you won’t get two,” I warn.
He gets me with a left. Fucker’s quick.
“You got two.” I shrug. “Might as well keep going.” I hold my hands up and leave myself wide open for the next shot. It doesn’t come.
“The first was for her. The second, from me, for lying to me.”
“What was I supposed to say? Your little nymph cousin begged for my dick and I couldn’t deny her?”
I catch his next throw.
“At least I actually liked her, wanted something with her. Did all the others? I don’t see them lining up down the shore.”
And the next.
“Stop throwing punches, Tricks!”
“Then shut your fucking mouth!”
I let go of his hands. “Fair enough. Send her over.”
“Not sure I should,” he snaps.
“If you don’t, I’ll go over there.”
“You treat her like shit, I’m coming back with fucking Jase.”
“Noted,” I say then walk inside.
I piss, brush my teeth, and look in the mirror for apparently the first time in weeks. I look at my shirt, Carlin’s Bar, the first time I remember seeing her. The time I sang to her sister, and the little badass sang to me. That video … I have watched far too many times, trying to figure out how I overlooked her.
I wanna tear the shirt off and burn it, then invite Patrick over here to beat the shit out of me, because I’m clearly a masochistic little bitch.
When I walk out, I see her pacing outside the sliding glass doors, wrapped in some sort of knitted throw blanket. She stops and looks in, like she senses me, because she fucking does.
I walk to the door and slide it open. “Come in.”
“No,” she says and sits down on the chaise.
I feel blood that has been boiling start to move south.
Get a fucking grip, I scold my turncoat cock.
“Shouldn’t have expected an adult conversation with someone who’s dead set on acting like a child.” I walk out and fight the inner battle to scoop her little ass up and carry her kicking and screaming inside, but I do leave the door open … options.
I pull up a chair so I’m as close as I can get without touching her, and she slowly scoots back until she’s sitting back against the cushion. Then she pulls her phone out, hits a few buttons, and sets it in front of her.
I look down to see she set a two-minute timer.
“You serious right now?”
“Sure am.” She pulls her knees up and hugs them.
“It’s cold out; warmer inside.” Plus, I can lock your ass in there until I know the fucking truth.
“You’re wasting your time on several different levels,” she sighs and rolls her eyes.
“Fine, could the baby be mine?”
She looks shocked.
“You have me on a two-minute timer, Katy. You want me to use some fucking charm, turn that shit off. Otherwise, you’re getting what you asked for.”
“Fine, sure. You did bust it inside me.” She lifts her delicate little hand and snaps her finger while rolling her eyes. “I mean, barely inside, but yeah, I suppose.”
“Had condoms and a nice little setup on the beach, but you were begging for it”—I snap my damn fingers back at her—“right then. You told me you were on the pill.”
She looks away and shrugs. “I was, but shit happens.”
“How many others will be joining us on the Springer stage to find the paternity?”
She physically turns away from me—her whole body, not just her head—and while she’s distracted, I tap the pause button on her fucking timer.
After a few seconds, she looks back at me and scowls.
“Fair question, isn’t it?”
She looks away again.
“You have me on a timer, and by the balls here, Katy, so cut the shit. Grow up. You’re an adult and gonna be a mother, so lay it out for me.”
As soon as I finish my fucking rant, her shoulders slump, and I want to kick my own ass.
“Look, I was an idiot. I thought, because of our past, we were somehow destined to be together. I thought somehow we were celestially aligned in choices we made leading up to when you were finally legal.”
She looks back, clearly confused.
“Jesus Christ, Katy, I thought we were meant to be together, okay? I thought—”
“Regardless of the paternity of this baby, and before you dig any deeper inside your woo wagon, you and I will never be together.”
Her words sting worse than the jabs I took from Patrick.
“Until this baby is born, you need to leave me alone so that, when that day happens, I’ll have had enough time to come to peace and, God-willing, find someone who can give me more than a thirty-second fucking before I push this over
sized human out of my vag.”
“First, you’d have gotten more than thirty seconds if you weren’t begging and so fucking wet. Second, I’m glad I know what a pussy feels like around my cock, and not just a mouth. I’ll be better prepared now.” I stand. “Would have given you the world, Katy, but you just fucked that in the ass.”
“Oh, please.” She stands. “Don’t play the V-card as an excuse as to why you squirted your swimmers all over me before even busting my cherry. We both know what made you blow.”
I don’t know whether to be relieved or disgusted. “So it is mine.”
“Congratulations, Brandon Falcon, you and God Himself are the only beings in history to have impregnated a virgin.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. There’s no one else then? This is about the fact that I came too quick? I was a fucking virgin, too.”
She stands up and grabs her phone. “Your two minutes was up five minutes ago.”
“You’re just gonna leave after dropping that bomb?”
“I should have given you thirty seconds.” She starts to walk away.
I grab her arm and stop her. “Don’t give a fuck. That thirty seconds granted me a lifetime. Destined, Katy girl, so you don’t get to walk away. You need to sit here so we can work this out.”
She pulls her arm away and bats away a tear. Then I watch as her mouth opens and closes a few times before her lips purse together.
“Come on, Katy girl; why are we fighting this?”
“Fine.” She bats away another tear. “But you have to make me a promise.”
“I’m not walking away—”
“I’m not asking you to.” She shakes her head. “I’m asking you to give me time to process—”
“We can do that together.”
“I hope we can be parents together, but you and I, never.” She bats away more tears.
“Katy …” I reach for her, but she steps back.
“Promise me when I tell you why, you’ll leave me alone.”
I shake my head as my heart begins to beat in my throat now.
“Then fuck you.”
She starts to walk away, and my eyes begin to burn. “Fine.”
“No!”
“Katy, dammit!”
When lights turn on at the main house, my fucking house, she looks back. “Please don’t.”
After I watch her walk up the back stairs to the main level and see her parents walk out on the deck and hug her, I know she’s okay … sort of.
I’m going to be a father. My child’s mother is the girl I always pictured playing that very role … someday.
I have four days to … What the fuck did she say? Something about a woo wagon? Whatever. I am gonna woo her, and I’m gonna give her more than thirty seconds … Seriously though, it was longer than that … I think. Then I will hit the road, and for the second time in the two years I’ve been doing this, I don’t want to leave here.
Twenty minutes later, I get a text. The name Katherine Anne Steel (someday Falcon) pops up.
Katy: I have not, nor will I ever, tell a soul why you and I won’t EVER be together, and you better not either. It’s humiliating. But when you came, you did it saying the wrong sister’s name … player.
Oh, fuck no.
I don’t even bother replying.
Black and Blue Friday
Katherine
I wake to the smell of bacon. And so does my now sour stomach. I jump off the couch, run to the bathroom, and make it just in time to barf. Then I hear footsteps and feel my hair being pulled back, and I barf … again.
“Thanks,” I grumble when I stand up.
“Part of my job.”
Brand.
“As if my day didn’t start out bad enough,” I whisper, but make sure it’s loud enough so he hears.
“So, bacon’s a no-go?” he says in a very chill tone as he leans in, reaches around me, brushing against me, and flushes my vomit.
He smells amazing, looks even better, with his facial hair trimmed and his eyes are not bloodshot … they’re black and blue. Not sure why that brings me joy, but it does.
His eyes narrow, and his thick as hell lips turn up slightly as he moves slowly away. “You’re smiling at me today.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m smiling at your eyes.”
“Like those, huh?” He smiles now.
Perfect fucking teeth.
“Gonna assume Dad got to you.” I walk to the sink, smiling like a … little bitch.
“Patrick did, last night. You didn’t see it because you wouldn’t look at me. Your dad told me that I have the day to fix this shit or I’m going to be shark bait.”
“I call bullshit,” I say as I pull my hair back, bend down, and rinse my mouth out.
“Brandon, are you still there, son?”
Shocked, I look up and see him smirking behind me. “Yeah, Momma Joe. Just helping out our Katy.” He winks then walks out.
I hear my grandmother ask, “She okay?”
“Bacon’s a no-go for the Frittata Florentine, pretty lady,” he says with all the charm, charisma, and obvious flirtation he naturally possesses.
“Add more spinach then. Our Katherine needs more iron, but make sure you add apricots to her diet; she may get constipated.”
Oh. My. God.
“Well, then.” He chuckles. “Anything else I need to know—”
“No!” I yell as I run into the kitchen.
“Good morning, Katherine.” Momma Joe smiles from the shattered screen of Brandon’s phone.
“Hi.” I wave awkwardly.
“I should have guessed it was Brandon Falcon who—”
“Yeah, well, wine and too much sun.”
“Katherine Anne,” she tsks.
“It’s fine, Momma Joe. It’ll all work out by the time little Wyatt or Wynona come into this world.”
“I will never name my child some hillbilly—”
“Katherine,” Momma Joe tsks me again.
“Oh my God.” I throw my hands in the air. “You two have fun, I’m going to shower.”
“Need some help?” Brandon calls after me, and Momma Joe laughs.
I flip him off over my head.
Momma Joe laughs again. “She’s like her father, that one. Life will never be dull. She’ll challenge you daily, maybe hourly.”
“Wouldn’t want her any other way.”
Once around the corner, I stop and eavesdrop.
“Do you love my granddaughter, Brandon?”
“To me, love is only real when it goes both ways.”
“That’s very elusive, Brandon.”
“Gotta protect my heart,” he says.
“For now, maybe that’s true, but when she’s holding it, you’ll never have to worry about it again.”
“I know that, Momma Joe. It’s been written in the stars since day one. Until then, I apparently have a woo wagon to unload.”
* * *
After my shower, I don’t bother with makeup or even drying my hair. I put on sweatpants and a hoodie, and then I walk back into the kitchen where he’s singing along to Journey.
“Hiding somewhere in the night …”
When the guitar solo starts, the wooden spoon suddenly becomes a guitar.
He starts singing again, no country twang present.
I hate him even more because of it.
Fucking perfect.
When the song ends, he turns quickly and catches me staring. No sense in hiding it.
Smiling, he asks, “Did you like what you saw?”
I motion up and down my obviously understated attire. “Do you?”
“Yeah, I do.” The timer goes off, and he grabs an oven mitt. “Liked you when you were going through that awkward stage, too.”
I feel my face begin to flush with embarrassment.
“Still have a picture of you in my phone when you just sprouted boobies.”
“Did you just say boobies?”
He laughs as he sets the Fritta
ta Florentine on the counter. “Well, they weren’t tits back then.”
Great, way to turn it sexual, Katy, I scold myself.
“Better use a hot plate. You burn the counter, Dad’s gonna have to pay for the damages.”
“Counter needs an update anyway.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Tell me you love this kitchen.” He shakes his head.
I walk over and open a couple drawers, looking for a hot plate and not answering.
“Whatcha looking for?” he asks.
“A hot plate, so Dad doesn’t have to replace the countertop. Do you not listen? I just said that.”
“Listened but still waiting for the answer. What would you do differently to the kitchen?”
“Oh my God, who cares?” I grab the hand towel and fold it. “Lift the pan.”
He does so, laughing.
“Turn off the charm, Brand. Save it for my grandma.”
To that, he laughs harder.
I scowl at him. “Move.” Then I push him out of the way.
Reaching down to grab the knife, I notice he’s … hard.
I look up at him. “Really?”
He looks down. “Yeah, well, you’ll have to get used to it—happens when you’re around. First hard-on I ever got was when you were scowling at me. Stood waist-deep in the water, trying to figure out what was going on. Your fault, Katy girl, so get used to it.”
“Twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven, —”
“Would go off real quick if you maybe tell me you aren’t sucking it … again.”
“You know, bringing up that night isn’t really going to make things friendly between us.”
He takes the spatula out of my hand, scoops out some of my favorite breakfast food, and sets it on my plate. “At the very least, put this in your mouth, shut up, and listen to me for two minutes.”
“Set a timer.”
He grabs his phone off the recipe stand and sets a two-minute timer.
“What happened to your screen?”
“Bounced off a few walls over the past couple months. Didn’t know I had a temper, but apparently, when you’re drinking Jack, trying to forget about being blocked by the only girl you ever jerked-off to or pictured yourself trusting enough to be real with you always, it happens.”
