We both stared at each other with blank expressions.
“I like him.” I took off toward Jiles, and Matt followed closely behind.
We walked in and I looked around at the room. A giant wooden guitar hung suspended from the ceiling. It had to be at least fifty feet long.
“What’s up with the guitar?” I glanced to Jiles.
“It was a backdrop. Like a prop. From a big concert at the fair.”
“Whose concert?” Matt walked next to Jiles and stared up at it.
“Eric Clapton.” Jiles waggled his eyebrows.
“Holy shit,” I said.
“Oh, you wanna see some holy shit there, Miss Martin? I got some holy shit for you.” Jiles took off like a flash again.
I started to follow suit and Matt snagged me around the waist and pulled my back against his chest. “Sorry, can’t help myself.” One of his hands slid around and cupped my breast.
“You’re going to get us in trouble.”
Matt tweaked my nipple. “You know talking music makes me want to fuck you.”
“He’s going to come looking for us.”
“Okay. We can go. But it’s going to happen.” He playfully smacked me on the ass over my jeans. “Soon.” He squeezed my ass as he whispered the last word in my ear, and then released me.
Tingling sensations ran up and down my arms, and heat rushed between my legs. “Jesus.” I took off in the direction where Jiles had practically run, with Matt walking behind him.
Jiles took us around and showed us all kinds of stuff. He knew every story about every piece in the place. Matt and I nodded and laughed at his quirky mannerisms and jokes.
After we’d been by nearly half the exhibits, Jiles spun around. “How about we take a fifteen minute intermission? I need to use the restroom and grab a cup of coffee.”
Jesus, like he needs to speed up. He already runs everywhere.
Matt flashed me his devilish grin. “Sounds good, Jiles.”
“Alrighty, then.” Jiles took off at his usual power-walk pace.
Matt looked me up and down from head to toe.
I clenched my thighs together. We’d yet to do anything out in public. I’d never done anything like that in my life, well, besides the time on the phone with him.
“I’m going to have to make quick work of you.” Matt smirked.
“What makes you think I’m going to go along with this?” I folded my arms across my chest and tried to fake a serious gaze.
The sound of a door closing echoed through the room.
“Come on!” Matt grabbed me by the arm and we took off running to the other side of the museum, the farthest away from where Jiles had gone.
Everything was a blur. We ran so fast we didn’t even pay attention to what was around us. Before I knew it Matt had me up against a wall and my jeans were pulled down to the middle of my thighs.
“God, you have the best ass I’ve ever seen in my life.” His head was next to mine and his mouth right in my ear.
He gave me a quick little smack on my right ass cheek, careful not to make too much noise. I moaned against the wall.
“Jesus.” The word carried on a breathy exhale. “We have to hurry.”
The clanging of his belt buckle rang in my ears and I waited for his cock to press against me, which it soon did. Matt pulled my lacy black panties down to where my jeans were. It was a pain trying to wear sexy panties every day of the week, but I had to be prepared for situations like this, so it finally paid some dividends.
The head of his cock pressed against my hot, wet pussy and he teased around the edge.
“Hey, you guys want something? Guys?” Jiles’s voice boomed with a loud echo through the empty building.
Completely startled, Matt flew back away from me.
Bam!
A huge crashing sound.
“Holy shit. Matt, are you okay?” I yanked up my panties and jeans as I flipped around.
Matt tugged at his jeans, too, trying to shove his huge, stiff cock inside them.
Chalk up a point for having girl parts in times like these.
“I’m fine. If I can get my fucking dick back in my pants,” he whisper-screamed.
I looked behind him, trying not to laugh, and then I froze up.
What in the ever-loving fuck?
I clapped a hand over my mouth and stared at the floor behind Matt.
He had his eyes closed, whispering to himself over and over. “Don’t zip up your dick. Don’t zip up your dick.”
“Guys? Where’d ya go?” Jiles was nearing us, fast. “I heard something. Y’all okay?”
“Hey!” I stared at Matt.
He stopped what he was doing and glared at me. “What? I’m kinda having issues here if you didn’t notice.”
“Well, hurry that shit up, There’s Something About Mary. We have a fucking problem.”
Matt winced as he zipped up his jeans. I noticed his dick bulging horizontally across them.
“What’s the problem?”
Apparently he’d been so focused on not hurting his dick he’d forgotten about the large crash. I nodded behind him.
He whipped around and then turned back and mouthed, “What the fuck?” right at me.
“I don’t know, but we have to fix it.”
I ran around to one end and he bent down near the other. In the middle of being startled, Matt had flown back into a full-size casket and knocked it off its display. It crashed to the ground and rolled to its side, but didn’t open.
We both tried to lift. Matt’s end obviously came off the ground. Mine did not.
“Mister Stallworth? You back here?” Jiles called out.
“Fuck.” Matt set his end down and stared at the problem at hand.
“I’m sorry. I can’t pick this thing up. It has to weigh five hundred pounds.” I glanced at him.
Matt stood there shaking his head with his hands on his hips. “This isn’t good.”
“Do you think there’s a body in it?” I grinned.
Matt glared at me, though it looked like he, maybe, found it a little humorous. “Seriously? I didn’t take you on a date to a fucking cemetery!” His whispers grew louder.
We both had to keep our voices down so Jiles wouldn’t hear us.
“Mister Stallworth!” Jiles’s voice boomed. He was right around the corner, maybe fifty feet away, but another row of display cases blocked his view of us. He mumbled, “Probably off fucking somewhere.”
I clapped a hand over my mouth so that I didn’t burst into laughter. Laughing was how I dealt with serious situations.
“Fuck, shit, fuck. Ethan’s going to shit if he finds out about this.”
“About what?” I had barely gotten the words out and Matt was in front of the coffin that he’d knocked over in the middle of a museum.
“What in the—?”
Matt bent down and grunted. His whole body tightened and his muscles and veins bulged. He lifted the casket, on his own, and set it down back on the display case perfectly.
“Holy. Shit.” I almost fainted from a hormone overload.
Matt’s veins snaked all over his arms and bulged from his neck as his chest heaved up and down. I was pretty sure my panties just disintegrated. The Led Zeppelin tee looked like it was painted on. Abs upon abs, and his chest—God, he was so going to get laid, very soon.
Jiles turned the corner and looked at Matt. “Damn, there y’all are. Thought maybe ya left early. Want something to drink?”
“We’re good.” Matt practically growled the answer.
I didn’t even think it registered with Jiles. He marched to his own cadence. “Oh, you guys found the coolest thing in the place.”
“We sure did, Jiles.” I grinned and then smiled really big at Matt.
When Jiles walked in front of him, Matt lifted his hand and shot me the bird where Jiles couldn’t see.
I almost doubled over in laughter and it got a smile out of Matt.
“You guys remember the day
the music died?”
“Of course.” Matt walked over as if nothing had just happened. “Holly, Valens, and The Big Bopper died in a plane crash.”
“That’s right.” Jiles held a finger up in the air. “And this casket belonged to The Big Bopper.”
My eyes vaulted open as wide as they could go. “You mean he’s inside? Like he’s in that casket?”
Jiles belted out a laugh that reverberated around the room and made it sound ten times as loud.
Matt and I glanced to each other, still in shock and unsure what his laugh meant. At the same time, we both did the “phony laugh along” bit, all while keeping our eyes glued on each other.
“Oh no. They had to move his remains. He was buried in this after the plane crash, but once a casket is unsealed, the body must be moved to a new resting place.”
“Oh thank fuck.” Matt stared up at the ceiling and let out a huge sigh.
“What’s that, son?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all, sir.” Matt took a step to get closer to the exhibit.
Jiles took off to the next place he wanted to show us and we followed behind.
I reached up to Matt’s biceps and squeezed around them—well, partially around them. Adrenaline was still shooting through his body. I’d never been a muscle girl in my life, but I’d be damned if Matt hadn’t changed that in a hurry. I think it was just because it was Matt. I’d have been enamored with him no matter what size his arms were, but at that moment, I wanted nothing more than for him to channel all of that raw energy into having his way with me.
“I have no idea how you did that back there. But it was fucking hot. I never in my life thought watching a man pick up a casket by himself would make me wet, but you definitely succeeded in that, Matthew.” I added on his full first name because I knew it turned him on even more.
“I don’t know, either.” He stopped and grabbed me by each shoulder, gently. His half-hooded eyes fueled the need between my legs even higher, but his face held concern. “Nobody can know I did that. If I’d injured myself I’d be in a huge amount of trouble.”
I hadn’t even thought about that. Professional ballplayers—I’d learned—had all kinds of insurance policies and stipulations in their contracts on certain things. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize the position that put you in.”
“You don’t have to apologize. My big clumsy ass knocked it over. We just can’t let anyone find out about it. Ethan would rip me a new asshole.”
“My lips are sealed.”
“Thank you.”
“For now.”
One of Matt’s eyebrows rose. “What?”
I leaned over into his ear. “I’ll have to open them later to fit this cock in my mouth.” I ran my fingers across the length of his still-hard dick. “But then I’ll seal them again—around it.” I gave him a wink and walked in front of him, rocking my hips back and forth to give him a nice view of my ass.
Matt groaned behind me.
We made it through the rest of the museum and thanked Jiles for his time. Matt eyed me like a prisoner on death row staring at his last meal. We didn’t even make it out of the parking lot. He fucked my brains out in the backseat of the Mercedes.
—
Another two weeks passed, and Matt and I were officially dating. Well, officially between the two of us. We hadn’t made a public announcement because Matt didn’t want the press following me around, although a couple pictures of me had popped up on a few Internet sites.
I’d caught Matt on the phone with his attorney a few times, pissed off and demanding that they get them taken down. I’d admired his tenacity to protect me from the “vultures” as he called them, but part of it didn’t sit all that well, either. Something strange had been happening with him. It was subtle, but it seemed like he’d slowly grown more on edge and was easily agitated.
I stood in the middle of the empty record store, cataloging albums as usual. Twilight strolled in at 9:20 A.M. The store had opened at 8.
He toted a big box of donuts in one hand, the other was shoveling one of them into his mouth.
“Good morning.”
“Blessed spirits to you.” His eyes were already bloodshot.
“Herbal breakfast?” I laughed and continued sorting the albums.
“Is there any other kind?” He twirled and danced his way in true hippie fashion toward the sound system. “No tunage? What the hell?”
“I prefer the quiet sometimes. It’s serene in the mornings.”
Twilight sashayed around a display and set the donuts down, then waved his arms as if conducting a symphony. “The silence—is a melody unto itself.” He stopped and froze, but not before holding up a finger at me and then pressing it to his lips. He kissed the middle of his index finger. “In silence we can find truth and harmony.”
Jesus Christ.
“Yep, you’re right. That’s it exactly.”
He whirled around to the volume knob and turned it. “But there is truth in music, as well.”
He turned up the volume and went to search for a record to put on. As he danced by, his hip bumped against the AM button on the stereo and voices blared through the speakers. It was some kind of radio talk show.
“God, be careful, will you?” I ran over to turn the volume down.
When I’d almost reached the receiver the name Stallworth caught my attention.
Twilight danced his way back over with an album, but I snatched it away from him. “Hold on.” I adjusted the volume.
“The deadline is nearing soon and nobody has heard from his agent or legal personnel.”
“That’s right, John. It’s the question we all want the answer to: Will Stallworth stay with the Rangers, or will he be headed to New York in the spring?”
My heart dropped into my stomach. I clicked the radio off and it felt like I was being stabbed in my gut repeatedly with a butcher knife.
Twilight ran over. “Kelsey, you okay?”
“I-I-I don’t know.” My body started to tremble and heat rushed into my face. I knew tears were about to follow and I refused to cry in the middle of the store.
“What happened?” He rested a hand on my shoulder.
“It-it’s nothing. Probably nothing. I’m so sorry, but I need to go.”
“Sure, sure. Whatever you need, sweetie.”
“Thank you.” I sniffled and stood up on my feet. Twilight tried to approach, but I backed away with a hand over my face. Tears streamed from the corners of my eyes and I ran out of the store before he could say anything else.
Chapter 15
“Insane in the membrane.”
—Cypress Hill
Matt Stallworth
I pulled into a parking space in front of Twilight Records. A few large raindrops pelted the windshield and streamed down to the hood. I glanced out the window at the blackened sky.
Fucking great.
Nothing seemed to be going right the past few weeks, professionally. The Rangers and the Yankees had me in a pressure cooker, and it tore me apart on the inside. I’d fully intended to wait until Kelsey got home from work, and then I was going to tell her everything. I couldn’t go another day keeping it from her and I didn’t know if it was the contract situation weighing me down, or the fact that I’d withheld the information from her for so long. It had started to make it impossible to enjoy any time with her.
Sitting at home by myself, without her there—it played out over and over in my mind until an hour had gone by and I found myself sitting in the car. Maybe if she forgave me for keeping it from her, we could deal with it together.
I opened my door and headed up toward the entrance of the record store. The very place where everything started was potentially going to be where it ended. Telling her at work wasn’t a good idea, but I couldn’t wait until she got home. Nerves riddled my body—unrelenting anxiety. I’d never felt this way in my life.
I walked between two trees that grew up from square cutouts of dirt in the sidewalk. They lin
ed the street on both sides and towered above. I’d made up my mind that if Kelsey was all-in, I’d stay. If she couldn’t forgive me, I’d be a Yankee next year, because I didn’t know how I’d still live knowing she was merely miles away and I couldn’t be with her.
I walked along the sidewalk and was roughly fifteen feet from the door when a lightning bolt streaked across the sky above me. Thunder rumbled overhead and shook the ground beneath my feet. I looked up at the sky and a sheet of water cascaded down upon the city.
I stood there and shook my head as the rain soaked me from head to toe. “What a nice fucking omen.”
I yanked the door open and sauntered in with less than one percent of the confidence I’d had the first time I went through the same door. Some bells chimed as it closed behind me and I stared around at the empty store.
“Kelsey?”
Crickets.
What the fuck?
The old man who owned the place walked from the back more slowly than I’d ever seen any person move in my life.
Our eyes locked, his much redder than mine. I’d seen him twice and waved in the past, but had never actually spoken to him. It was always in passing, once when Kelsey got off work, and the other time I’d dropped her off before heading by Ethan’s.
“Oh. It’s you.” He said the last part as if I were some vile creature from a fantasy novel.
“Excuse me?”
“The ballplayer. That’s you. Right, sonny?”
“Yeah, hey, look, is Kelsey here?” I wiped my shoes on the hemp rug in the doorway.
“She hath exited on the winds of scorn.”
I stood there, dumbfounded. “Huh?”
“I said she is not currently present, though her spirit-child always remains here and is ingrained in this oasis of artistic integrity, sir.”
No wonder she always complained about not understanding this quack-job. “So she’s gone?”
“That’s what I already told you—twice.” He walked across the store to a box of donuts and opened it up. “Care for the nectar of the gods?” He held up a glazed donut at me.
“Umm, no. I mean, no, thank you.” I canted my head slightly. “Do you know why she’s not here? She doesn’t usually leave work, right?”
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