Bed Buddies

by St. Klaire, Stephanie

  “With a new dream?” Jace asked.

  “New dream?” Kinley’s face twisted in confusion. “I don’t think I know how to dream anymore.” She paused. “I think I’m just learning the new me and how to be.”

  “Well, if it’s any consolation, I think you’re doing a pretty good job at that,” Jace said as he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer.

  Kinley leaned in, appreciating their proximity. “Oh, yeah? How’s that, Doc?”

  “You’re pretty terrific.” He dropped small, teasing kisses between his words. “I think you’re nailing this new you thing.”

  “Ehhh,” Kinley responded as Jace peppered kisses down her neck. “New me isn’t as good as New York me. She lacks…purpose.”

  “Oh, I think you have plenty of purpose,” he went on, “and you don’t give yourself enough credit.”

  Jace’s hands drifted under Kinley’s shirt, massaging her skin as he found her chest. Reaching behind her, he unhooked her bra before laying her back on the couch.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, lifting her sweatshirt to gain access to her ample breasts. “You’re kind.” Jace took one breast at a time, causing her to arch.

  “Yeah?” she moaned.

  “Yeah, and you’re funny. Really funny.” His deep, throaty chuckle vibrated against her sensitive hardened nipples. Combined with the light scratching of his day-old scruff, he had her humming. “You’re smart…really smart.”

  “How’s…” she started in a breathy whisper and heavy hooded lids, “that, Doc?”

  Jace dipped his hand below the waistband of Kinley’s yoga pants. “I’m a doctor,” he said stroking her and lapping at her breasts between words. “I know these things.”

  Kinley couldn’t speak. Jace had her quick to the edge, taking every ounce of pleasure he was offering. His touch was intoxicating, his words moving. Jace Detweiler said and did everything right, and that had Kinley concerned. She was falling for this guy a little bit, and not just because his mouth was magic. Reeling in her thoughts, she saved the war between mind and heart for another time. She was going to bask in glory of an epic building orgasm on Doc’s couch.

  “Dad!” JT’s voice from the bedroom was the cold shower reminder they weren’t alone. “Dad?”

  “Coming, JT,” Jace hollered back, dropping his head against Kinley’s.

  “Is he okay?’ Kinley said, more concerned than Jace.

  “I’m sure he’s fine — probably just a bad dream,” he answered. “He snuck in and watched an R-rated movie with his older cousins a few weeks back at his grandparents house…still paying for it.”

  “Poor guy,” she sympathized.

  Jace pulled her shirt down and stood. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Oh, I think that’s my cue, Doc,” she said while rehooking her bra. “It’s getting late anyway.”

  “You sure?”

  “Oh, I’m sure.” She laughed. “Busy day tomorrow, and I’d never forgive myself if JT learned about grown up stuff because he saw his dad and the dance teacher on the couch.”

  “I understand. I guess this is new territory for me.” Jace chuckled. “I thought we’d had all of our firsts. Note to self, make out in the bedroom with the door locked…or get a sitter.”

  Kinley stepped up for one more kiss, a toe-curling lip lock to remember her by.

  “Daaad? Are you coming?”

  Kinley chuckled as she swatted Jace on the ass. “I’ll see myself out, Doc.”

  “I’ll make it up to you,” he replied with a matching ass smack.

  She offered a sultry smile and wink. “You better.”

  Kinley bit her bottom lip before turning to make her way to the door — that added sexy swagger of hers in play.

  Jace was screwed…and he needed a cold shower.

  Chapter 10

  Spaghetti dinner with Doc and the little one the night before went as well as could be expected. Kinley didn’t hate it. She actually enjoyed it, albeit reluctantly. JT was a cute kid, and his dad even cuter with him. This wasn’t what she signed up for, though — definitely more than a fling with a kid involved — but it wasn’t awful and there was something sweet about Jace being a dad.

  She wasn’t sold on other kids, though, especially today while helping her friend, Hannah Owens, teach her Pintsized Picassos class to three to six-year-olds at her shop. The Kid Kabin, Pine Valley’s one-stop, all-things-kid store where Hannah was manager and resident artist, hosted several art related classes a week. Today was all things paint, glitter, and glue and anything else you could toss at a canvas. First an ice cream gelato truck with annoying music and a mean old man, now snot-nosed kids and all things sticky and messy. Kinley was noticing a pattern. Kids just weren’t her thing.

  “Thanks for helping out, Kinley. You’re a lifesaver! This is a two-man job and Becky getting sick made this a survival of the fittest kind of gig until you got here,” Hannah joked, relieved her friend was able to fill in.

  “I don’t know, Hannah, the kids seem pretty mellow. You’re a rock star at this! You’re like super woman with this stuff,” Kinley admitted, looking around the class, each student engrossed in the canvases resting on their easels, calm as can be.

  “Oh, Kinley, Kinley, Kinley…” Hannah said, shaking her head at her naïve friend, “it’s not what you see, it’s what you don’t see with this crowd. Look again. Quiet means there’s trouble.”

  “Excuse me?” Confused by Hannah’s admission, Kinley scanned the crowd of runts again. “I don’t see any…”

  Hannah giggled. “Boom, you found it, didn’t you?”

  “You have got to be kidding me! Is he eating…oh my God, that’s…glitter!” Kinley said in disgust. “She just did too!”

  “That means they already ate the glue. Man, they’re good!” Hannah sighed.

  “Ate glue? What? Why?” Kinley followed Hannah to the group at the back-corner table. Kinley’s nephew, Cooper, and JT were among the group. She hoped and prayed the only two tykes she liked weren’t part of the glitter and glue crew.

  “Danielle?” Hannah started with one of the girls, hoping to get an honest answer. “Want to tell me why the glue and glitter are going in your belly instead of on the canvas?”

  A little boy next to Danielle laughed when Danielle’s eyes dropped to the floor, so he answered for her, “Unicorn poop!”

  Hand to mouth, Kinley gasped in shock, horror strewn across her face. “What did you say? Tell me you didn’t just say that!”

  The group giggled, gaining the attention of the other kids at surrounding tables. Hannah joined them, fully aware of what the kids were trying to accomplish. Hannah decided to let Kinley find out on her own…since she asked.

  Danielle’s glance met Kinley’s eyes, her rosy cheeks revealing her embarrassment. “We’re making unicorn poop. Unicorns poop glitter and…and…you have to eat the glue and make it in your belly.”

  “Eat the…” Kinley looked at Hannah, who shrugged her shoulders, holding back a laugh, “glue doesn’t make unicorn poop. Glue is just…glue.”

  JT tugged at Kinley’s shirt, trying to get her attention. “Miss. Kinley, you eat the glue so the glitter sticks, but I don’t eat it and Coop doesn’t eat it. My dad said it’s only good for a tummy ache and not good for unicorn poop because we’re not unicorns.”

  “I think I’m still missing something here. You all really ate glue and glitter?” She scanned the table, noting sparkly lips all around, with the exceptions being JT and Cooper. These kids were really eating the glitter! Ewww!

  “Um, Ms. Kinley? If you eat the glue first, the glitter sticks. So, when you poop, it sparkles — unicorn poop!”

  “Surely you know you don’t need to eat glue for glitter to stick to your…” Palm to face, Kinley realized what she was saying and quickly diverted the conversation. She was not about to discuss unicorn poop, or poop of any kind for that matter, with the six and unders. “Look, you can’t eat glue, and you can’t eat glitt
er. It’s gross. Really gross, and JT is right. You’re just going to get belly aches. You’re not…unicorns!”

  The little boy next to Danielle chimed in again, crossing his arms, not satisfied with such an absolute. “Then how do we get unicorn poop?”

  “Are you for…” Kinley turned to Hannah again, redirecting her question. “Are they for real? Like, this is real? They really want…that? I can’t even believe I’m…”

  Kinley let out a deep sigh, closing her eyes as she collected her cool, trying to find a solution and way out of this conversation. Never in her wildest dreams had she seen unicorn poop conversations as part of her life’s resume. Nonetheless, here she was, and she needed a solution. She glanced around the table at the various supplies she had access to. There had to be an answer among the Crayola crowd and their safety scissor gear.

  Her face lit up. She wasn’t sure if this was brilliant or completely absurd, but it remedied the immediate need for unicorn…stuff. Kinley grabbed a container of Play-Doh from the center of the table, pulling out one of the tot sized chairs and taking a seat. The Crayola crowd began to circle her table, skeptical of the pile she was placing in front of her.

  “Purple! Perfect!” she said, opening the first can. “And pink! Hey, kid…hand me that yellow one!”

  Opening each can, she scooped the bright, squishy dough, setting it on the table in front of her one container at a time. Digging in to the final container, an air pocket combined with sliding the clay like matter out of the plastic made an awkward gas like sound.

  “Ms. Kinley farted!” The group of littles became lost to laughter.

  JT’s hands went to his hips and he puffed out his chest, ready to defend her ghastly honor. “That’s not a fart! She’s a lady…it’s a toot!”

  Being the dutiful nephew, Cooper joined his best friend. “Yeah! My Aunt Kinley just toots a lot! Be nice, Charlie!”

  “Whoa, whoa, boys, thanks, but I got this,” she said to her two tiny heroes before addressing the group. “Drop the toot and fart talk, got it? You’re actin’ like a bunch of monkeys. You want unicorn poop or not?”

  With a quick cheer from the crowd, she nodded her head and went to work. Grabbing a small handful of playdoh from each color, she worked them together before rolling them in the bowl of glitter, working it in. “Now, when it’s all pretty and sparkly, you have to make it a shape. Hearts! Unicorns…well, they do…you know…their business in heart shapes!”

  Wiping her hands over the bowl, she took to her feet, confidently resting her hands on her hips, proud of her glitter hearts. “Now, you guys don’t have to eat glue and glitter. This is the real deal, gang! Oh, and I didn’t fart…or toot. It was the container…it does that.”

  Hannah clapped her hands for her friend as Kinley walked off, ready to clean up for the day and ready the kids for parent pick-up.

  An hour later, JT was the only child left due to Jace’s last appointment running late. He walked in to see Kinley squatting down to JT’s level, helping him with his jacket zipper.

  “Ms. Kinley?” he asked.

  “What’s up, dude?” she replied, ruffling the boy’s dark hair.

  “I didn’t like it when Charlie said that about your farts.” Kinley snickered at Jace’s reaction to the F word. “’Cause you are the best teacher ever and I like being your dude.”

  “Well, thanks, dude. You were pretty awesome too. Thanks for having my back, buddy.”

  Her own sparkly heart melted when he wrapped his tiny arms around her neck and gave her a squeeze. The real kicker was the sweet little kiss he planted on her cheek. Kinley was falling for the kid as much as she was his dad.

  Jace thought he and his son needed to stop at the bakery on the way home so JT could get two of everything.

  Score for team Detweiler.

  Chapter 11

  Evelyn strikes again…and again…and…again. It started with pictures of Kinley finding out about JT in the park — of course there was a snarky caption to go with them.

  Secrets already? Or awkward meeting? Either way, the dancer looks ready to twirl her way out of there.

  Kinley was red-faced angry. So what if it was true? JT was a surprise to her, but only in that moment when the pictures were taken. It wasn’t Evelyn’s place to discuss — especially publicly. To make matters worse, JT was pictured. Who does that? He’s a kid and totally off limits. This just wasn’t funny anymore.

  Kinley tried to fight back with a give ’em something to talk about approach, granting Evelyn extensive access to Facebook opportunities with the assumption it would make Evelyn look like the fool. That failed miserably. Kinley couldn’t be certain why she thought walking around with Evelyn’s spotlight on her served as any kind of lesson — at the time, it had seemed brilliant.

  In the back of her mind and forefront of her heart, Kinley was starting to admit it was all just a guise, a ruse, a façade. It didn’t make sense because it wasn’t a plan or strategy for anything other than giving herself an excuse to spend time with Jace. Her fling wasn’t much of a fling. Kinley knew it for what it was — a freakin’ relationship. She still couldn’t quite voice it, or completely own it, though.

  What Kinley could do, however, was recognize Jace and JT were important to her — and that evil Evelyn was an asshole. While Kinley continued to sort through her emotions and reconcile her thoughts about all that she was and wasn’t interested in, she decided to engage in some can’t beat ’em so join ’em. Evelyn wanted to document Kinley’s every move, so Kinley would do her one better and post the pics and snarky captions herself and tag Evelyn. Every. Single. Time.

  The next several weeks were spent with her boys, enjoying various activities around town and the surrounding areas. Their adventures documented on Facebook for all of Pine Valley to see, including Evelyn Shirley. Kinley’s nights, however, were her own and spent in the throes of passion with Doc McSteamy and not rated for Facebook. Her plan hadn’t ended there, however — no, that was just the beginning.

  Harvest season, in wine country, brought in crowds by the hundreds of thousands, including some of the world’s biggest and most respected wine brokers and collectors. Showcasing in the Drunk and Dirty Days Crawl was for the most elite winemakers, and was a highly sought-after position to be in. To participate, however, you had to participate in the Pick ’Til You Drop relay race where teams had to pick and carry grapes — those who placed there were in the Drunk and Dirty Days Crawl, and how they ranked in the relay determined their booth location in the Crawl.

  Pine Valley boasted some of the oldest wine country traditions in the area, these events, this time of year, being the most treasured. By day, it was all about sampling local wines, spirits, brews, and foods. By night, it was all about the town hosted dance — The Fall Fling. The Fall Fling was Kinley’s master plan, and where she planned to really sock it to the old woman, Evelyn Shirley.

  Evelyn was used to winning at everything. She won blue ribbons just for thinking about winning, she was that good. From the garden club, to knitting club, the D & D Days Crawl Pie bake-off, and even the pinochle club…Evelyn was always the winner.

  The Fall Flings reigning champion, ten years in a row, was about to go down, though. Oh yes, Evelyn Shirley was going to wish she stuck to her winning cherry pie and left her well-timed foxtrot at home. As Evelyn said, it took two to tango, and Kinley planned to cha-cha her way right to The Fall Fling Championship Cup. Game on, or in this case, dance on.

  It took several late nights, and a couple weekends of diehard practice to get Jace up to speed, but to Kinley’s surprise, he was a quick study. Dance came somewhat natural with his athletic abilities and she took it as a sign — they were going to win this thing, stick it to the old busy body, and wipe the dance floor with her! Kinley had an end-of-dance, fancy, twirling lift as her secret weapon.

  The highly anticipated events were finally in full swing. Jace and Kinley spent the day with JT at the Crawl, enjoying food, drink, and family-oriented viney
ard shenanigans. It was a warm fall day. Everything was perfect, and Kinley was enjoying herself to no end. Outings together, the three of them, felt natural — Kinley even looked forward to them — and today was no exception.

  As the day retired to evening, they returned home where a babysitter was waiting for JT, and a sexy red dress awaited Kinley. JT had grown tired from a long day of shenanigans and had fallen asleep by the time they got back to Jace’s home. The babysitter was in for a laid-back night with a sleeping tot, and Kinley’s dress was in for the dance of all dances. It was time for Kinley to make her mark on this little town as the new Fall Fling Champ and hand Evelyn a proverbial ass kicking while she was at it.

  Dancing had always been Kinley’s passion, but tonight, her passion was the handsome man on her arm leading her into The Fall Fling like he was the lucky one. Kinley felt like the lucky one. Though she still was on the fence about relationships and emotional baggage claiming, she couldn’t help but fall a little more for Jace Detweiler every single day. He made recovering from the fall of grace and New York bearable. In fact, she barely remembered she was supposed to feel bitter and scorned.

  Jace’s beaming smile led the way into the ballroom of Pine Valley Grand Hotel where The Fall Fling was hosted. Already in full swing, they made a quick round, saying their hellos and feeling out the competition on the dance floor. Jace Detweiler was as cool, calm, and collected as they came. He was also just as confident and competitive as his leading lady. They were ready to crush it.

  Their strategy was simple: mingle, a little wine, light hors d’oeuvres, and some mild dancing. Leave the competition none the wiser. They took to the dance floor here and there, keeping their muscles warm so they could avoid an embarrassing session of stretching before the big event — three rounds of dancing leading to the final competition.

  Staying on top of their game without revealing their final hand, the two forgot they were even competing. They were enjoying each other, being close, moving in sync, feeling each other’s body move against their own and the heat they were generating. It was like being in bed together, intimate and perfectly matched — like they were making the music everyone was dancing to.