After You

by Sam Mariano

  “Here you go,” I tell Derek, kneeling in front of the couch and holding out my hand.

  “Thank you,” he murmurs, sitting up and taking the pills from my palm.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask, as he uncaps his water. “Still hurting?”

  “Yeah. I’ll survive,” he assures me, the corners of his mouth tugging up ever so slightly.

  Leaning in to whisper in his ear so Cassidy can’t hear me, I ask, “Do you think you’d be up for a car ride? Since I can’t really cook dinner and our groceries will probably have to be tossed when the power comes back, it would be easier to go out. Plus, air conditioning.”

  “Do you have time?” he asks, surprised.

  “I’ll make time. I’m here for you guys right now, not work. I’m struggling to remember that, it’s certainly not my norm, but… I’m trying.”

  Now his smile widens and his hand shoots out, catching the back of my neck and tugging me in so he can give me a kiss. “Your effort is much appreciated,” he murmurs against my lips.

  “Yeah?” I tease, sliding my arms around his neck and leaning closer.

  “Yeah.”

  As if I healed the power lines with my surrender, the power blinks back on.

  Cassidy leaps off the couch and jumps up and down. “Yay! The air works again!”

  “Think that was your mom, or mine?” Derek jokes.

  I roll my eyes. “I think there were no supernatural entities at work here, and the slow-ass men who have been working outside all morning finally earned their pay.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, it was probably mine,” he says, like I agreed with him. “Your mom would be like ‘let that little bastard’s back hurt. Take the bumpy road, too!’”

  I swat him in the stomach and he grunts, but I’m not even sorry. Getting to my feet, I tell him, “I’m going to check the food in the fridge and see if I have to go grocery shopping again.”

  ---

  After a relaxing day together, I let Derek convince me to go to bed early. I could have taken advantage of the quiet to work for a couple more hours, but the promise of pillow talk, cool bed sheets, and cuddling sounded much more pleasant.

  I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that I’m going to have to go without sleep all week to make up for coming here to take care of Derek. There’s nothing that can be done about it at this point. If I’m going to pay the price, I may as well enjoy myself while I’m here.

  “Bookstores,” Derek says, in answer to the question I just asked him.

  “Bookstores?” I ask, lifting my eyebrows. I’m lying half on top of him, since he can’t turn on his side to look at me tonight.

  He nods, his eyes on the ceiling instead of my face. “Since you left, I can’t step foot inside one. All I can think about is you playing hide and seek in the aisles, that job you were so excited to get back then, how I even fucked that up for you. I just can’t do it.”

  “Don’t you buy books for Cassidy?”

  “Other stores have books. Plus, you can order them online now and have ‘em shipped right to your door. The age of convenience.”

  “No kidding. I get boxes of books shipped to me all the time. Well, we should remedy that soon. Once your back is feeling better, we should all take a trip to a bookstore. I can’t handle the thought that Cassidy has never stepped foot inside one.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Definitely.”

  Turning his gaze back to me, he lightly runs his fingers across my shoulder. I’m wearing a thin cami top to sleep in with no bra underneath, so only a thin strap keeps my shoulder from complete bareness. “What about you? What’s one thing you can’t do since we split up?”

  Take chances. Offer my love to anyone else. Trust anyone.

  Those are probably too dreary, so I go with something a little lighter. “Read Wuthering Heights,” I answer. “Not that I have much time to read non-work-related books anymore anyway, but yeah, I can’t even look at that book without being transported back to your dad’s house, finding that letter.”

  Derek nods. “Makes sense.” Now it’s his turn to ask a question, so he does. “What’s one thing you wish you could have right now?”

  “Twenty more hours in every single day,” I answer without hesitation. Nodding firmly, I say, “Yes, definitely that. What about you?”

  “Mine’s a little more attainable than yours,” he says, smirking.

  “What is it, then?”

  “I want you on your knees, those pretty green eyes looking up at me as I caress your jaw. I want these soft lips,” he says slowly, running his thumb over my bottom lip, “opening wide, hungry for my cock.”

  His spontaneous dirty words fill my mind with visuals that I very much like. They’re so unexpected, they rob a little bit of breath from my lungs. I squeeze my thighs together, my tongue darting out to lick the bottom lip he was just touching. “Then what?”

  “Then I grab hold of your hair and thrust my cock inside your pretty mouth. I can see in your eyes how much you love it, but in case I couldn’t, your sexy little moan would tell me.”

  Fuck, now I’m turned on, and here he is with an injured back. Sighing, I ask, “Are we sure a blow job would hurt? I mean, really sure?”

  Derek smirks. “I know how hard it must be for you to keep your hands off me. I’m sorry.” Lifting his eyebrows in a knowing sort of way, he goes on, “But, you know, you don’t have to keep your hands off yourself.”

  I bite down on my bottom lip, mental images springing to mind. Naughty visions of lying beside him in bed, getting myself off, making him listen to my moans of pleasure. “Would it make you hard?”

  “So fucking hard, Nikki. Thinking of you always gets me hard.”

  Oh, God. I drop my head against his shoulder, silently cursing the incompetent asshole who injured him. Not for the first time, but definitely for more selfish reasons now. “This is torture.”

  “Just think how ready you’re going to be when my back’s better. We’re gonna need to get a babysitter,” he half-jokes.

  Now that he ignited the fire between my legs, it won’t stop. Arousal warms me all over, makes me more affectionate than I usually am. I adjust myself on Derek’s chest, pushing my fingers through his hair with one hand, using the other to cup his face. His lips are firm but soft. As soon as I kiss him, he takes control, even with me on top. I love it. I love him. That’s the worrying part, but I try not to think about it. I focus on the kisses, on how good they feel, how good he feels. This isn’t torment, it’s pleasure. I need to learn to tell the difference.

  His hand slides between my legs, his palm brushing my thigh. Having him so close to the hungriest part of me makes me more desperate, even needier. My lips seek his more eagerly, but since he knows he has me right where he wants me, he breaks away.

  “You want me to touch you, Nikki?” he murmurs against my lips.

  “Yes,” I whisper, before nibbling at his lips, trying to coax him to kiss me again. I want his hands on my body, his mouth devouring me, all of his Derek magic obliterating all my thoughts and concerns. I want a break, and Derek always gives me one.

  His fingers push up under my panties. Anticipation sends chills of pleasure dancing up my spine. I close my eyes, and brace for him to touch me.

  The room suddenly lights up with the glow of my phone on the headboard. That’s not unusual, I get notifications all the time, but the distracting buzz of the phone vibrating against wood is something new. That only happens when I’m getting a phone call.

  I’m not going to take the call, I just need to make sure it’s not a work emergency. I reach for it, tilt the screen, and freeze when I see Henry’s name flashing across the screen.

  The look on my face must be pretty telling. “Who is it?” Derek asks, like he already expects bad news.

  For a split second, I think about lying. Saying it’s nobody, it’s nothing, ignoring the call and going back to the moment. I don’t like lying though, and I have a feeling the moment is gone
whether I’m honest or not. Even if Derek doesn’t know who was calling, I will, and he’ll be able to tell I’m not in the moment like I was before.

  “Henry,” I answer, hearing the resignation in my own voice.

  Derek’s tone is dead, lacking any inflection whatsoever. “Henry.”

  I nod my head, putting the phone back down on the headboard and pushing the button on the side to dim the light so the room is dark again. “Yeah.”

  “What the hell is he doing calling you at this time of night? Or, I don’t know, at all?”

  His possessiveness rankles, even if it probably shouldn’t. It’s no secret that he wants me to agree to exclusivity, that he wants more than I’m prepared to give him. “I’m allowed to receive phone calls from anyone I want to receive phone calls from, Derek. Henry doesn’t usually call me anymore, for the record.”

  “So why is he now?” Absolutely correct suspicion leads him to the next question, “Who did you call earlier when you went outside, Nicole?”

  Oh shit. Unease tickles the back of my neck at his use of my given name. He only ever calls me Nikki, so he must be legitimately mad. “I called Bethany.” Then, in keeping with my intent to be honest, I add, “But before I called Bethany, I called Henry. He didn’t answer. He probably just left work, so he’s returning my call.”

  Anger burns in his blue eyes, but he keeps his cool, nodding. “And why did you call Henry?”

  I want to defend myself. I could, technically, because Derek and I are casual and I’ve made no commitment to him, because when he asked me to be exclusive, I said no. But it would only lead to an argument I don’t want to have, him pushing me again to agree to something I refuse to agree to. It’s hard that he’s pursuing things I want, but I’m too afraid to let us have.

  So, I summon some bravery and offer up the truth. “Because I’m out of my depths here, and I was looking for someone to tell me I would be right to self-sabotage. Henry is a workaholic like me, so he would have. Plus, you know… he hates your guts.”

  Unexpectedly, the corners of Derek’s lips curve up. “Damn right, he does. Suit-wearing prick.”

  “I like suits,” I offer, running a hand down his muscled chest. “I certainly liked seeing you in one at Alex’s wedding.”

  “Yeah?” he murmurs, reaching up and burying a hand in my hair. He pulls my face back down to his for a kiss, and I happily melt against him.

  “Yeah,” I answer softly, closing my eyes and kissing him back.

  It seems like we’ve sidestepped another fight, but when my phone vibrates again—probably alerting me to a new voice mail—Derek pulls back and meets my gaze.

  “I would appreciate if you would not pull shit like this going forward,” he states.

  “I wasn’t pulling any shit. I was calling someone I used to talk to on a daily basis because I needed advice.”

  “You were leaning on your crutch,” he says, immovably. “You don’t need a crutch, Nikki. I’m not gonna let you fall.”

  “You’re literally the ice patch I’m afraid of falling on,” I inform him.

  Derek nods, as if he understands that, then adds, “Thing is, Nikki, I haven’t given you any new reasons not to trust me. All the reasons you have are six years old. Can’t you give me a little credit here? I’ve grown up a lot since then. I’ve owned all my fuck-ups and I’m trying to make them right. I’m trying to make us right again.” Shaking his head, he says earnestly, “I don’t know what else I can do to prove myself, Nikki.”

  Even as he opens up and shares his extremely valid feelings with me, he pours ice water right over my head. Not intentionally, but by triggering the old fear—that feeling of when he was just about to slip away. The panic of standing on the precipice of losing him.

  All it makes me want to do is push him away so I can at least pretend I had some part in the decision.

  I don’t move off his chest yet, but I want to. I want to curl up in a protective ball in the corner and wait for the sky to fall. “You’re right,” I tell him, in the interest of fairness. “You’re giving it all you’ve got, and I’m not giving back enough for you. I understand that. But that’s where I’m at, and if I’m not moving fast enough for you, then… then I don’t know, because I can’t guarantee I’ll ever move past this place. So, if you’re not happy, then we should stop this now, because the longer we hang on, the harder it will be—”

  “Jesus, Nikki. Stop trying to break up with me.”

  “We’re not together,” I point out. “There’s no breaking up if you’re not together.”

  Derek covers his face with his hands and sighs. “Just forget it,” he murmurs.

  “I don’t want to forget it,” I tell him, now rolling off him. “I don’t want to do this again. I don’t want a long, drawn out attempt at hanging onto something that will never be enough. I told you in the first place we had to keep it light.”

  “And I told you I don’t fucking agree with you,” he throws back.

  “Well, you can’t overrule me on this,” I say, shrugging. “You can’t force me to date you. You don’t have any dirt on me this time.”

  “I did not force you to date me,” he states. “I may have slightly tricked you into dating me, but the only way to get past your walls is to sneak. Always has been. That sure hasn’t changed.”

  “That’s right, it hasn’t,” I say, fixing an annoyed stare on his ceiling. “And it probably won’t. This is who I am now. I like who I am, and if you don’t—”

  “Just stop, Nikki,” he says. “Just stop.”

  I turn my head to look at him, narrowing my eyes. “Stop what?”

  “This pushing me away bullshit. I’m not having it. You think I don’t know these moves? I invented these fucking moves. I’m not going anywhere, so you’re wasting your energy.”

  “Why?” I demand, legitimately wanting an answer. “Why are you so insistent on fixing this? Why are you so insistent on being with me when I make it so hard?”

  He sighs, staring at the ceiling, and I fill up with so many feelings. The worst is the helpless anger—at myself, for what I’m doing right now, at him, for teaching me to have this fear in the first place. I know I’m the one wrecking it this time. It’s not him. If I could be as open-hearted now as I was back then, this could work. He’s finally in the right place, and now I’m not.

  “Why won’t you forgive me?” he asks.

  Somewhere in the flood of helpless fear, my heart gives a little. Twinges with sympathy, because after everything, that’s not the problem anymore. “I have forgiven you, Derek. I just can’t forget.”

  “She’s not even in the picture anymore, Nikki.”

  “It isn’t about her,” I say, shaking my head. “I mean, I guess a small part of it is, but… it’s you. It’s the feeling that I can’t rely on you. Kayla didn’t hold a gun to your head and make you do the things you did, Derek. I’m not trying to bust your balls, I’m not trying to punish you, but… you jerked me around until I had whiplash, and you let me fight for you until my heart was in tatters, and then you let me lose. Why? Because it was too hard to hold onto me. There was no limit for me. I would have endured a million difficult things to have a life with you, and you weren’t there for me the same way. How do I unknow that, Derek? How do I trust you when you’ve already taught me that when it gets too hard, you bail?”

  “By acknowledging I’m not the same dumbass kid I was back then, Nikki. Look how hard you’re making things now. Do you see me bailing? You’re holding things against me that I did in another life. Fuck that life. Fuck what we could have had. We can have something now. I’m trying to show you that you can trust me, but I don’t know what else I can do.”

  “I don’t either,” I admit, shaking my head. “The thing is, it’s not like you’re doing a bad job, but the old insecurity you instilled in me is still there. Every time you want more than I can offer, every time we argue, I wonder if this is it. Is this the time he’ll give up on me? Is this the time he’ll quit
?”

  “But it’s not. I’m sorry that thought even crosses your mind, but the answer to that question is always no.”

  “Until it isn’t,” I offer, quietly. “This isn’t the first time you’ve wanted me back, Derek. This isn’t the first time you’ve chased me. I put my fears aside before, I took a chance on you, and when you fucked it up, I gave you a second chance—and it was the wrong choice. You fucked that one up, too. You swore to me back then that you would earn my trust back, Derek. I’ve heard all this before. And I do see that you’ve grown up since then, so I am trying to believe you, but I don’t think you understand the stakes. If I do this, that’s it for me. If I trust you again and I’m wrong again? Game over. Three strikes, I’m out. I’ll never trust another soul, Derek. Not ever. I still have the rest of my life to get through—would you really take that risk again, if you were me?”

  I expect the gravity of that to stay him. I know Derek can be selfish, but he’s not a monster. I know he’s never set out to destroy me, that was just an unintended side effect of his carelessness. I expect some of the light to go out of his beautiful blue eyes, because deep down, he has to know he’ll give up on me. Hell, he’s probably already close. He has to know the best thing he can really do for me at this point is to let me go now, instead of making me hang on only to lose him eventually anyway.

  At least, that’s what I figure until he turns over, gritting through the physical discomfort. He moves close, cups my face, and says fiercely, “Take the chance. Go all in for me one more time, Nikki. I won’t make you regret it this time. I promise.”

  Still shaking my head in faint exasperation, I ask, “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to be that guy. You act like I could walk away from this easier than you can, but you’re wrong. Seeing what I’ve done to you makes it worse. It makes it harder to leave, not easier. I don’t look at these scars I gave you as reasons to abandon you, I look at them as reasons not to. If I was the dumbass kid who taught you everyone will bail on you as soon as it gets hard, then I need to be the one to teach you a grown-ass man will stand by your side, even if it’s not always easy. You’re worth it, Nikki. You’ve always been worth it. I didn’t understand that back then, but I do now. If I wanted easy, I could have it. I wouldn’t have to work this hard for another woman, you and I both know that, but here I am. You are the only woman I want, on good days and bad days, when we’re laughing together and when we’re fighting. I don’t care about you any less just because you’re being a pain in the ass, same way you never cared about me any less when I was. You are the woman of my dreams, Nikki—you expect me to settle for less than the woman of my dreams?”