by Billie Dale
The package sits on the counter. It’s ugly brown and fat. Too thick to contain contracts. I hold it to my ear. “Well, it’s not ticking,” I mumble. Could be toxic but I smell nothing, and when I squeeze it between my hands, it crinkles and squishes. There’s no address or writing on the front. A courier didn’t deliver it and I’m sure it is not from my office.
I flip it over, bend back the tabs, open the flap, and a bundle of colorful lace bulges out.
What the hell?
I dump out the contents discovering underwear. All the colors of the rainbow, every pattern and material, each pair in my size. One catches my eye, blue and full of holes with frays around the legs and the elastic stretched beyond repair. The very ones I wore the night I lost my virginity.
Oh my God. These are my stolen undies!
I run my hands through the pile when a deep Ahem coughs from outside. The sun blinds me, but I make out a bright red blob in the shape of a truck and the outline of a man. Shading my eyes, I inch forward with measured steps to the door.
Mazric leans, arms and feet crossed, wearing loose blue jeans with a T-shirt molded to his chest on the side of a cherry-red Chevy. The warm rays turn his hair to golden honey and a smirk pulls his dimples deep in his scruffy cheek. “It’s not a Porsche. Only a fool would drive one through those ruts but it’s red. Is that close enough?”
“I don’t understand?” My heart pounds, pulsing in my throat and head.
“Wait.” He ducks inside the truck, offering me a wonderful view of the denim cupping his ass. Squats have done this man’s body good. Drool pools on my tongue, thick enough I fear a dribble runs down my chin. He whips around, catching my admiration his grin turns sinful, matching the devious glint in his eyes. “It’s not your birthday but I brought cake too.” A yellow frosted cupcake sits on his open palm.
My bottom lip tips out and my forehead scrunches as the pieces click together. The panties, the red truck, the cake... “Sixteen Candles,” I whisper. A sob chokes me. I slap one hand to my mouth and the other to my stomach, holding myself together.
He swaggers forward handing me the tiny treat. My shaking hand struggles to not crush it as he drops to his knees. “I love you, Samantha Lee Gentry. I’m an ignorant idiot who’s lived the better part of the last decade with my head buried in my ass. But I learned something in the last six months. Where you and Mazzy Jae are is where I belong. See I’ve done stupid shit in my life; leaving you nine years ago was the first, but the biggest was doing it again. I thought my dream was playing in the NBA, and for a while I convinced myself I was content, until I spent three days with you and her. The last time I was genuinely happy was a handful of weeks spent with the most amazing girl in the world, a lifetime ago. But more than that I missed my best friend. I can’t promise we won’t hit speed bumps or fall in a few potholes, but I swear I’ll never leave again.”
Tears clog my throat “What about your career? The team?”
“We’ll work it out. As long as we agree to always be honest and never stay angry beyond the morning coffee, we can do this. Please give me one more chance.”
“You did return my panties.” I shrug with a watery laugh. “And I’ve been hiding my miserable for the better part of eight years. I guess it’s time to tear down a few walls.”
Frosting melts down my hand and I pull the cake up ready to take a lick when a sparkle buried in the sweetness catches in the sun. My lungs stop working, along with my fingers, as I fumble to dig it out. I fling blobs on the porch until I reveal a white gold band with a single jagged-edged flat onyx diamond set in the middle. It’s a replica of the skipping stone from the necklace he made me. My eyes widen to falling out of their sockets size.
He tugs my clenched fingers to his lips. Quick sweeps of his tongue clean the yellow stuck between the prongs. “You're freaking out.” Lick. “But I can’t risk you questioning how I feel ever again.” Suck. The warm wet tip swipes my index finger. On his knees, whiskey-flecked eyes blinking up at me, his mouth works sending lustful images into my already overloaded brain. I’m a mess of confusion and horny.
“Sammy Lee, will you spend the rest of your life with me?” he proposes, and even though I saw it coming, my head still whips and my stomach rolls like someone punched me. The photo book in my memory runs through our life together. All the fantasies I’ve imagined of this very moment, and the constant reminder of how much I love him every time I look in the dark-ringed brown eyes of our daughter.
So many happy memories, but I can’t keep the black aura of heartbreak and hurt from shadowing each one. The disgust and fear in his eyes when I told him I was pregnant. His drunken confession and harsh words. Women, partying, and his life splashed on the tabloids, while I navigate the waters of being a single mom. Mazzy’s first word and step, when she read a book at two years old: the milestones I wanted to share with him. Her first of many trips to the emergency room because she’s young and has no fear, but my heart sank to my stomach each time. Carrie Lynn, Daddy, Pappy Joe, Viv, and Hendrix held my hand, cheered, and supported through her entire life, but they weren’t him.
“Maz,” I whisper around a sigh. Running a hand through the soft top of his hair, my fingers trace the smooth skin at his temple before catching on the roughness of his jaw. Cupping his cheek, I lose myself in his caramel eyes. “Come, sit for a minute.” Hand wrapped in his, I tug him from the floor, leading him to the wooden swing.
I gnaw on the skin of my bottom lip, reeling though a bevy of emotions: excitement, joy, dread, resentment, and love. So much my heart hurts inside my rib cage.
He spins the ring between his fingers. “Splinter, spill your thoughts before you melt your gray matter. Give me all of it.”
“Which do you want first? Heart, brain, or normalcy?”
“I’ve always feared your big brain so hit me with the last one.”
“A normal man and woman in our places wouldn’t be tangled in a mess of the past. Common sense says the time we spent together so long ago shouldn’t have spun out. Statistics say we’d co-parent and move on with our lives. My heart is full of our friendship screaming for me to say yes, while cartwheeling in my chest to a chant of your name and threatening to kick my ass if I don’t accept.”
“I like your heart,” he interrupts, cocking his lips in a smirk. “Sounds like the brain is the tiebreaker so lay it on me.”
“We’re not normal. Our relationship, Mazzy, the past, the future; all throw new variables in the equation and each solution line shows a new outcome. The happy rise of the slope climbs to take us to better heights, but your job, life, and mine loom at the top as a tipping point because what goes up must come down. Being married to you is my dream come true, but there’s too much unsolvable and until the math works, I can’t risk losing you again. If saying no keeps you in my life in any capacity, while saying yes chases you away because we’re not those crazy in love kids anymore and adulting is hard, then...”
“After all this time your number lingo still baffles me, but if you’re questioning anything, know this ring isn’t a spur of the moment decision. I had this made with my signing bonus. Went to visit a jeweler to have a necklace special made for Ma but ordered this instead. Hadn’t seen you for years and played pretend with other women. I accused you of hiding here, but I was the one lying to myself. Instead of a house tucked at the end of a lane, I guarded myself with people I knew could never reach deep enough into my heart to hurt me.”
The swing rocks when he stands, steps in front, and lowers again to his knees. “It’s symbolic of what I want and what is meant to be. So instead of yes or no, how about we maybe?”
“From what I’ve seen and read, answering a proposal with maybe is the kiss of death to a relationship.”
“Good thing we don’t live in a book or movie then, huh?” He smiles, placing the ring in my palm then curling my fingers in a fist around it. “Let’s try. Dive headfirst in the murky waters of jobs, obligations, life as adult Sammy Lee and Mazric. If
we can come together and prove we work the way I think we will, then you slip that ring on your tiny finger and become my wife.”
“If we can’t?”
He recoils, holding his chest. “Your doubt wounds me.” I laugh, feeling the stress unwind from my spine. His thumb traces my knuckles while he stares off to the right. When our eyes meet the joking vanishes. “My soul doesn’t believe for one second this won’t work, but I swear if you and I decide as an us we suck, then I’ll resume my spot as your best friend.”
The jagged edge of the stone clenched in my fist cuts my palm. Pure terror blocks my throat but I want this, him, and my heart grows seeming too large for my chest. “Okay then, yes. Maybe.”
He jumps to his feet, shoves his shoulder in my stomach, slinging me over his back. “Then let’s start with our compatibility in bed.”
Fifty-Seven
MAZRIC
A GUSH OF LAUGHTER moves the fabric of my T-shirt as I push through the door, charging to her room. She giggles, breathless when I flop her on the pale peach comforter. I stand at the foot of the bed staring. Hairs pulled free from her tie frame her face; the ebony color shining blue in the sun peeking from the windows.
I’m waiting for her protest, her stop sign, because as much as my body is on board to reconnect with hers, this is crazy. But her wide green eyes crinkle with humor and when she bats her lashes up at me, I see my want mimicked in their depths. Her fresh meadow fragrance and everything Sammy hugs the air.
She kicks out of her shoes, toes off her socks, mirroring my want with each heated blink. Her hands reach for her tank top but stop. “Maybe we should wait.” She hesitates, averting her eyes.
I shift my erection, pushing stifling air through my nose, willing my body to calm. “Okay. Uh, mind if I settle in the guest room?”
“Tonight? Let’s do this when it’s not so bright in here.” Her brow furrows, looking around at all the daylight warming the room.
“Sammy, are we pausing because it’s too fast or because you’re regretting the decision to install an entire wall of windows in your bedroom?”
“Oh, uh...okay, yes I loved the thought of daybreak streaming in the mornings, but with you looming at the end of the bed, all hot and yummy, with muscles looking a million times better than the last time I saw you naked; I’m questioning why I never invested in room darkening drapes.”
I reach behind my head, fisting my shirt and dragging the material over my head before dropping it at my feet. Her hands twist in the hem of her tank, but her eyes devour my chest. The pink tip of her tongue sweeps her bottom lip as her eyes trail over my abs. My dick grows harder under her appreciative gaze, the buttons on my fly dig into the swollen tip.
“Urngh,” she groans, scooting to the edge of the mattress. “You’re beautiful.” Fingers splayed she scratches her nails through my chest hair.
I cup her cheek, angling her face until I meet a big, pupil-wide forest of deep green flecked with brown and gold surrounded by a black ring making them gleam. Her thumbs work the path above my low waistband. Back and forth through the divots, driving me mad. The soft skin of her cheek pushes on my palm; I add my other hand brushing her cheekbones. Slow, measured, I lower, loving the tiny brown dots spraying the bridge of her nose, which blur the closer I inch to her mouth. Holding her steady, I hover over her parted lips sharing the same air.
A nervous jitter somersaults my stomach. It’s been too long since I tasted her plump pink lips, and while I never shy away from the opposite sex, this is my Sammy. The girl whose body I knew better than a country road with my nimble young fingers, but she’s all woman now. Maybe she’s changed. Perhaps her predilections are more dominating than not. While I’m all for a little power play in bed not sure I could be her subservient.
Shit, those jitters are knotting ropes of insecurity. What if I can’t be what she wants or needs?
I huff out a breath. Funny how all these thoughts flood between blinks. A quick swallow shoves them down and my lips meet hers. Tentative at first, but then the softness and movements ignite a fuse inside. Rekindling the fireworks I only experience with her. Sparks shoot through my veins and before I realize, we’re a tangle of grinding limbs on the bed, devouring each other with tongues and nipping teeth. I roll, pulling her on top of me, allowing her to lead. She shifts and grinds, rocking on my length, the layers between us maddening.
She moans, chasing release with each push and pull. My hands grip her hips, slipping up under the hem of her shirt. Her hot soft flesh under the pads of my rough fingers feeds my need to see more. Kissing, rubbing, I inch up but reveal nothing. She meets me thrust for thrust, her lips keep rhythm and we’re in perfect sync but her hands hold mine, fighting my efforts to get my hands on her tits.
“You’re killing me, Splint,” I groan on the verge of coming in my pants like a pubescent teen. Her hard grinding rubs a raw patch on my shaft. She rises above me, her eyes rolling back in her head when she sits flush on my hips. Cheeks red, hair wild around her head, and kiss-fattened lips haloed in the light, she glows like a goddess on the throne of my dick. But when her eyes open half lidded, I see fear hidden in the jade.
My pansy freak-out before I kissed her flashes forward. Moments from our past where her surety faltered and the know-it-all questioned herself. “Talk,” I demand, willing my body to hold on, get to the heart of our issue then I’ll get inside her.
“It’s nothing. Just maybe leave my shirt on and keep your eyes closed?” her voice shakes.
“Woman, I haven’t seen you naked for almost a decade. I want to sample every inch of you and to do that I need you bare. The thought of unwrapping you makes me giddier than a kid on Christmas.”
“Mazric, I-I,” she stammers. “Fuck.” She flops off me, taking away her heat. The cooler air on my chest feels wrong like she yanked away a favorite blanket. “I had a baby, Maz.”
“Yes, my baby,” I respond.
“No, I mean, yes, but I don’t look like I did at sixteen.”
“Neither do I,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood.
“You got better. I stretched, tore, and sagged. Pregnancy doesn’t do a body good. I’m embarrassed. You were with a supermodel Playboy centerfold for Christsake. I want you more than my next breath, but I’m not pretty under these clothes.”
I move over, propping up on an elbow so I’m reading her eyes. “Did you see anyone in those pics over the years who you thought ‘she’s the one for him’?”
Her memory is better than any photo album. I watch her move through the women she’d seen. “No. Even the fiancée who shall not be named never gutted me. No one felt real.”
“Blondes, redheads, brunettes, bleached blondes...never one with raven hair. Blue eyes, brown eyes...fake boobs, hair extensions, pounds of makeup...none of them were you. Besides what you see in the magazines isn’t truth. Airbrushing works more magic than plastic surgery.”
“But I’m telling you, carrying Mazzy changed me. Late nights spent shoveling Double Stuf Oreos in my mouth while crying in my milk, and I don’t mean a few. I binge ate whole packages every other day. Skin stretches so far, then it breaks apart leaving it looking like a puckered asshole.” Her voice climbs and her word speed increases. “My baby had colic and I went from a hot-air balloon to an emaciated stick figure. On top of my stomach giving Google Maps a run for its money, gravity grabbed my milk-swelled boobs, turning them to rocks in socks with ugly purple lines. My ass needed its own ZIP Code. And let’s face it, the most exercise I get is walking the lane, so I never worked off this eff-ing poochie tummy.”
“Whoa.” I lay a finger on her lips. “This body you’re cutting to shreds and hatin’ on gave life to our daughter. Now get your ass back up here.” I grab her hips, lift, and set her astride my lap. Eyes locked on hers, I ease my fingers under her shirt lifting, shoving away her hands. I bunch it on her chest, revealing her stomach and the bottom of her bra. Her chest moves faster, her eyes squeeze shut, and her fingers curl to fists on my
chest. “Ah, Ah, Ah. Give me those big greens,” I demand.
She peeks open one lid, sinking her teeth in her lip. Long faded rucked-up lines form a circle around her bellybutton, as if she survived an attack from Wolverine and the skins scarred and healed. “This soft, warm patch of flesh grew to accommodate life, and while you see battle wounds, I see sexy as hell curves. Those marks tell a story of your strength, and I’m in awe of what your body did.”
Both her eyes open and the insecurity liquifies to a misty gloss. “Sammy, I missed you growing a human. You nurtured our daughter from a tiny bean to a screaming infant, and this pooch shows me where you kept her warm, safe, and loved. And the muffin top is the best part of the dessert.”
She giggles. I’m not done though. “Now, I will go higher, but first here is a classified, super hush-hush male secret. Men are visual creatures and we love nakedness. Tits are tits. Large, small, fake...even not so perky ones. If a poor schmuck is honored enough to garner the keys to the kingdom from a woman like you, he won’t give a damn how these look because you’re stunning.” I trace the lace and wire hiding her chest. “Bare boobs will distract any man.”
“What?” she snorts in disbelief.
“True story. Even the oldest of man will lose his train of thought if Grandma whips out her tits. When the breasts come out, our mind one-tracks to the different ways we can persuade her to allow us to fondle, lick, and fuck the treasure she’s revealed.”
“Even if you have to fish them out of my armpits first?”
I push her top up farther, rising to push it over her head. “Honey, I’ve got just the worm for this fishing trip.”
She laughs, mumbling about me needing wine for my cheese. But I prove my claim from earlier true.
Boobs, boobs...naked boobs. My mind blanks, my eyes fill with creamy freckled flesh and my watering mouth salivates over the mounds of glorious flesh bare before me.
