by J. C. Allen
Simon may have been a smart kid, but he was still just a kid. Leaving him alone wasn’t a good idea because he was incredibly curious. We would be in a shopping mall and he would just dart right into a store without telling me. I had to have eyes on him all the time. If his door could lock from the outside…
I dressed quickly into gray leggings and long pink tee shirt after my shower. Everything else was nicely packed, and I didn’t want to ruin it, at least not right away.
“Okay, I’m back—”
Michael was gone.
I clutched my chest dramatically as I flew down the stairs to find him.
Well, I found him. I found him with Simon… and they were both… laughing?
“Mommy, Bob the Builder has a real motorcycle!”
Michael jumped up and ran my way, wrapping his little arms around my leg as he jumped up and down.
“What?”
I stared down at him confused until I glanced up at Simon. With his tool belt on, working on the floor boards, I guess he did look like Bob the Builder. I laughed just to make him feel better, but I was still a bit of a nervous wreck about this encounter.
“Oh, nice,” I said, moving him away from Simon. “Go back upstairs, okay? It’s dangerous down here.”
He pouted but eventually shuffled off to his room and bounded up the stairs. I turned back to Simon, who eyed me suspiciously.
“You’ve got a weird kid.”
“Excuse me?”
He shrugged his shoulder and laughed under his breath. I wanted to be mad at him, and yet, standing here before him, seeing his laugh, remembering how he laughed eight years ago…
“Sorry about that,” I said after a silence fell. “He gets curious and doesn’t really have boundaries.”
“It’s fine,” Simon said, dusting his hands. “I caught him just before he started messing around with the nail gun.”
I looked around to the gnarly looking nail gun on the ground and my body went cold. I felt like a clam. My eyes burned with tears at the thought of Michael hurting himself.
There were many things I could joke about, but that… that outcome…
It was too painful to even contemplate.
“Uh, Ella?”
I glanced at Simon and quickly turned away before he could see me cry. I darted over to the stairs and sat on the bottom step.
It all came flooding in at once. If my father knew of this spot, he would kill me. He was close to it when he found out I was pregnant; it was why he arranged a match within his circle so I wouldn’t be an embarrassment to him. I knew Simon would care, and it would only put him in more danger against my father. He never knew anything about him.
In fact, I told him he was dead when we met. It was easier than saying he was a gangster—a rival gangster at that.
“Ella… what’s wrong?”
The step creaked when Simon joined me on it. His body was so close, I could feel his heat. His thigh brushed mine. I was afraid to uncover my face because then I might have wound up seeing him. If I looked into his eyes, I would have no self-resolve.
“What did I say?”
“Nothing, I just…”
I wiped my eyes and sucedk in my sniffles.
“I can’t even take a shower without worrying about Michael hurting himself. I’m a horrible parent.”
“Ella, that’s a little extreme—”
“No it isn’t. I’ve uprooted his life and moved him into a house that can’t even stand on it’s own.”
Among other things. I had also put him in danger, and even though I knew my father wouldn’t hurt him, I knew he would use him.
“Come on, don’t be too hard on yourself. And I was mostly joking anyway, he was a good few feet from the nail gun.”
I scrunched my brows up and finally turned to look at him. It wasn’t a funny joke…
But the smirk on Simon’s face made that all go away. It felt like it used to when we would joke around and nab at each other. Except this time, he doesn’t know everything…
“I hate you Simon.”
“Yeah right.”
He grinned again, licking his lips. I inhaled sharply, catching his manly scent. His cologne and sweat have mixed together to make an irresistible scent.
And then he got serious.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
His calloused thumb reached out and brushed over my cheek as he drew his face closer to mine. The tension grew between us, casting a glow around us. I could feel it seeping into my skin, but I forced myself to have a clear head before I spill all my secrets.
“I can’t—I couldn’t.”
That response didn’t go over well.
“What the fuck? Why?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t answer.
“Simon… please don’t ask me.”
“Why did you come back? To torture me again?”
“No! I’m not… please just trust me, Simon.”
He clenched his jaw, forming a ridge there. Honestly, I could kiss him there all day, but I couldn’t. It would only bring on something that I can’t handle. There was no way I could bring myself to do such a thing.
Except Simon did it for me.
His lips were on mine in seconds. I still couldn’t believe that his passion and fire was for me.
The onslaught of his lips quickly took over me. My whole body responded to him, dying for his touch. I grasped his arms, hard and muscled and still slick from his sweat. I inhaled his scent hard as the kiss deepened.
His tongue swirled around mine, tasting me, drawing me into him. His heated, rough hands moved from my face to my hips, where one drew me closer and the other slipped right between my legs. I gasped into the kiss, my body coming alive as my pussy clenched for him.
Not here… my baby…
“Simon,” I said through deep gasps. “We can’t do this here.”
“We’re not doing anything.”
Not really, not yet, I suppose.
He lay beside me, hovering over to kiss me again. His hand between my legs started to grind against me, the bridge of his palm finding my aching clit and pressing. I grinded against him in the right way, right where I needed him. Suddenly, I needed it badly, more than anything else.
Every other consequence left from my memory, and I could only focus on him.
He knew my body so well. Every shudder brought me closer to orgasm, as did every twitch of my lips as he kissed me.
He pulled back just in time just to look at me and watch my climax. I orgasmed so hard my back bent, and I saw stars as I looked into his eyes.
“God, you’re fucking perfect Ella.”
He kissed my cheek and then my lips again.
But then, he pulled away too soon. I sat back up and leaned against him.
“Why did you do that?”
His answer startled me.
“Because you needed to fucking relax.”
5
Simon
I could still taste Ella on my tongue, could still feel her against me.
I’ve missed her. I just wished I knew why she was back. It was what kept me up at night and what drove me more than crazy.
It all, honestly, sent me right back to being deeply in love with her.
I suppose that had never changed, but it was more like it just went to sleep. Now, it had woken up again, and I had no idea how to tame it. I’m not even sure that I want to.
She was the same person… but she felt different. More unsure, more… afraid. I knew it wasn’t me given the way she looked at me and the way she came from me.
And today, all I wanted to do when I saw her was be inside of her.
But I couldn’t. Not while she was keeping secrets from me. I told myself I wouldn’t touch her until I got the truth out of her… and then, that shit went right out the window.
Even after we moved from the steps, after we finished our little downstairs adventure, I tried to finish my work. Not surprisingly, though, my head just wasn’t in it.
How could it have been with her upstairs, laughing with her son? I tried not to think about him, but when I did, it just raised a whole shitload more of questions, none of them making me more interested in pursuing something with her.
Is that where she had been? Did she have a husband out there secretly? A boyfriend? Was I the only one that she had banged in the past couple of weeks, or were there more?
I drove myself crazy thinking about it until I left. That should have been the end of the crazy day, except to leave the house meant to endure yet another task for the night.
Dinner with my family.
Also known as dinner with all the crazy whackos I have for brothers and my loving mother.
This should be fun. Especially if I drop that Ella is back in the picture.
I got home, showered, and dressed in respectable dinner clothes before I head out. When I walked into Mom’s house, it smelled like something baked and fried—like home. I walked through the halls, and it all came back to me—being here with dad, even bringing Ella in sometimes, joking around with my brothers.
The good days. Before you got left behind.
I rounded the corner and found everyone in the living room and kitchen. Jaxson was on the couch with Isabelle on his lap, both of them nursing beers. The others were in the kitchen hanging around Mom, laughing.
“Hey Mom,” I said, hugging her to my side.
“Hi Simon, you look beat.”
Is it that obvious? Still, I wasn’t going to bring it up here if I could help it. I had enough drama in my life, and besides, I wasn’t sure my family really needed to know about all the shit that I was going through at the time.
“I’m fine Mom,” I said, smiling to deflect her concern. “What’d you make?”
“My favorite,” Zeke said with a laugh.
Then he dropped the smile, but for what he saw was a good reason. Matthew and Jaxson also saw me, and their serious expressions turned to small grins shortly after.
I was wearing my cut for one of the first times in recent memory.
“You look dope,” Matthew said, clasping my shoulder.
“Yeah, sick,” Zeke said, fist bumping.
“Not bad,” Jaxson said.
It pretty much aligned with how I imagined all three of them would react.
“He does look good, but boys, it’s time to help me set the table,” Mom said, interrupting the moment. “You know the drill.”
I took a swig of my beer and turned to move, but Mom stopped me. Her hand tightened around my wrist as I began to wonder just what I was in trouble for.
“What’s up?”
She squared her jaw as she narrowed her eyes.
“I see Rosella every day at work, you know.”
Ah shit. Really? And I tried so hard to not bring this up. Well, technically, I didn’t, but…
“Yeah, I know that she’s back.”
My response was a bit cliche and open-ended, hopefully enough so that Mom dropped the subject.
“You’ve seen her?”
It didn’t work.
“Yeah, Mom, you want the details?” I said with irritation.
But I wasn’t going to get out of this so easily, it seemed. Mom had a way of knowing when we were hiding things, and this case was more than proving the point.
“No. But I see her son every day too.”
If there was any sliver of a doubt before…
“So?” I said, my exterior expression much more relaxed than the one in my head.
“So, you know she has a son?”
“Yes. I’m working on their house actually.”
She let me go and shook her head to herself. I was not surprised to see her upset with me, but I was surprised that she was doing it right before dinner, when such a conversation could have cast a pall over dinner.
“What is it, Mom?” I said, trying to be warm to her.
She, however, kept her distance, looking up at me with sad eyes. Shit…
“I just don’t want you to get hurt again?”
“Me?” I said. “Why am I getting hurt?”
I didn’t know why I was continuing to deflect Mom’s statements—well, that wasn’t true. It was because I didn’t want to talk about it with her. Some things were for my brain only; not even my mother needed to know.
“Her son is eight, Simon.” Mom said.
I swallowed, trying to ignore the implication of the math. I couldn’t introduce that realization without some serious pain and betrayal flooding through along with it. Just considering the thought…
“And… he reminds me of you when you were young.”
Her lip trembled as she struggled to hold her composure. I went to hug her, but she was still pushing me away. Now I, too, was beginning to feel hurt for completely different reasons.
“Mom, come on, don’t you think she would have told me?”
She shook her head.
“She left out of the blue for a reason.”
“Mom, Ella ain’t like that. We loved each other.”
“Do you still love each other?”
I frowned. That was the last question I thought she would ask me, and it felt like I’d been punched in the gut. It was a question I had tried so hard to avoid asking myself—that I had to face it from my Mom was indescribably brutal.
“I don’t know, Mom,” I said, which was the absolute truth. “I haven’t even really talked to her. And Michael… she would have told me.”
On the one hand, I saw Ella’s eyes. I saw how she looked at me. I felt her.
But… on the other, I’d spent so much time with her son, Michael, and he had never said anything. Kids that age had a tendency to blurt things out—and yet he didn’t seem to have a word about it.
Neither possibility was promising, which probably said a lot about me getting back into it with her. Mom, for her part, just shook her head in disbelief.
“You never know. Did you expect her to leave before she did?”
I clenched my fists in anger. I was reaching my breaking point where my voice would raise to the point that my brothers would get involved.
“I do not want to talk about this, Mom. Not tonight. Please.”
She sighed. I knew she wanted to say something else but, thankfully, she respected my wishes.
“Fine. Get the casserole out of the oven.”
Dinner was a muddle of conversations and laughter, which was pretty standard for Kinsmen dinners. The only difference was that I couldn’t focus on it because my mind was in a million different places. Well, one.
Ella.
Everything that Mom had said about us ran around in my head—talking about her son and why she might have come back. Ella had never been like that, she had never been dishonest, and I knew that she never used me.
But…
I just wanted to know the truth now, about why she was back, and why she had left in the first place. But I didn’t think I was strong enough to ask her about it.
“Mom, you didn’t make dessert?” Zeke said.
“How about you ask nicely, kid?” Matthew said.
Jaxson just rolled his eyes. I was spacing out too much to give a shit about their little rivalry and feud.
“Hush boys. There’s a lemon pie in the freezer.”
Mom got up and started to clear the plates. Isabelle stood and helped too until Mom pushed her away. Jaxson’s eyes never left his newly-wedded wife.
Now, I knew why Jaxson had been so different. He used to always be this troubled, bothered guy; it was why we fought a lot growing up.
But Isabelle definitely tamed him. She definitely had some sort of spell over the president of the Kinsmen. It was… well, it wasn’t enough to make me jealous.
I was pretty sure, at least.
Mom came back with the pie and plates, and we all got one round before it was gone. We said our thanks and then all helped to clean up; it was an assembly line of wash, dry, and store. It was a pretty efficient routine, honestly.
&n
bsp; But before I left, I had to get Mom alone. If I didn’t, I was going to hear it on a phone call later.
“Look don’t worry about me, okay Mom? Everything is going to be fine.”
She stopped by the front door and looked up at me with a sad smile. I hated to see that expression, but given it involved Ella, there just wasn’t much I could do.
“I know, you always are. It’s getting there that I’m worried about. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Mom, you’ve got three other sons to worry about. Especially Zeke.”
I grinned at the joke because it made her smile, a much needed sight compared to how she was earlier in the day. She smoothed out my jacket with a blissful sigh as she traced the cut. Hopefully she stays this cheerful.
“Zeke is different, you know. He can laugh at anything. He was the only one cheering people up after your father died. The only one that could… but you, Simon? Take this as motherly advice. But you brood too much, alone, and it isn’t healthy.”
I frowned and looked away from the trap of her honest eyes. I hated that she was right almost all the time. Well, all the time.
“I know, I’ll do better Mom. I promise.”
Perhaps they were empty words. But to my mother, there was sincerity and honesty behind them.
“You’ll talk to Rosella?”
I laughed once and shook my head, easily avoiding the question by hugging her and kissing her cheek tonight. I may have wanted to make my mother happy, but that didn’t mean I had to subject myself to torture in the process.
“Goodnight, Mom. Thank you for dinner.”
I took my leave before she could start asking me any more questions. I rounded the short street corner, only to run into Jaxson leaning on the end of my truck with Isabelle. I didn’t see them at first.
“Jesus, what the fuck are you doing?”
I combed my hair back as I caught my breath as they both still laughed.
“I didn’t take you for the easily spooked.” Jaxson said.
“Yeah well, you brought it out of me. When did you guys leave?”
