by Hope Stone
I drew her closer with my arm. Serenity descended on me like a heated comforter. “Of course.”
“It’s just last time you left,” Claire said.
She wasn’t whining or accusing. She just wanted to know where we stood. She was confirming that things had changed.
“I’m not going to leave tonight.” I wasn’t going to even let go of her for many hours.
First of all, because I fully intended to fuck her again, once we had both recovered. I was already dreaming up new positions.
Second, I knew it was going to be hard to sleep away from her, this night and in the future. I had gotten a taste of what it felt like to be with her sexually. I knew how it felt for her to sleep curled up against me. I was already addicted to her.
Claire let out a little sigh of contentment and nestled her head even closer to my neck.
“But if you sleep naked like this, you do know I won’t be able to resist, right?” I asked.
Claire placed one hand on my lower stomach, dangerously close to my crotch. “Oh, I’m counting on it.”
With a grin, I reached up to lift her chin, and I kissed her, once more. I was never going to be able to stop kissing her. I couldn’t stop touching her.
And the most shocking part: I didn’t even want to try and stop.
Twenty
Claire
I don’t often admit to making mistakes, but that’s because I don’t often mess up. When I do commit an error, though, I like to think I can own up to it.
I was positive I had made a mistake with Pin. I had thought I could use him for the case and then discard him. I had thought my attraction was run-of-the-mill lust, easily forgotten in a week or so.
I was wrong. I was not going to forget this night any time soon.
I couldn’t say when things had gotten more intense, but they had. Somewhere between the Chinese food and the barbecue, our relationship had taken a turn. It had gone from light and casual, no strings attached, to something far heavier.
It was strange though, I didn’t feel oppressed by the weight. In the past, when boyfriends made serious confessions or declared their emotions, I always felt burdened, as if now I had to lug around the weight of their feelings in a back around my neck.
I didn’t feel that way with Pin. I felt safe with his emotions. I was touched that he cared about me to break his old habits, and I found that I wanted to do the same for him.
It didn’t hurt that he was amazing in bed. His every touch sent flames of want rippling across my body. Even now, laying against him in the post-sex cuddling position, I was already wondering when he would be up for another round.
Before I could give in to drowning myself in the feeling of being with him, I rolled onto my back. He was dozing a bit, but he kept his solid arm across my torso. I had to think a few things through. The twinge of guilt I felt before the barbecue over using Pin had grown into a growling beast, clawing at the lining of my stomach.
I stared at the ceiling and asked myself if it was time to come clean. To my surprise, the answer was a definitive yes. There was no other option. I could not continue to lie to him. I cared about him too much.
Besides, he had been totally honest with me tonight. I had responded with some honesty, but not total honesty. I wanted to actually match him. I wanted to tell the truth. But how would he react?
I glanced over at him, my breath catching at the way his dark eyelashes brushed his cheeks with shadowy kisses. I didn’t want to lose him. I wanted him to come back and share my bed and take me on more rides. I wouldn’t get bored of him, and I would never hurt him.
Or I would never hurt him any more than I already had.
It was a frightening realization that I might not make it out of this with him. He might walk away and not return. It had taken a lot for him to let down his walls with me. I could tell when he was explaining his distrust of relationships.
I wanted to defend myself. I wanted to say that I hadn’t cheated on him. I would never do that. I had only lied to him. Just a little. Not even a lie really. I had just hung out with him in the hopes to uncover a drug ring within his beloved biker club.
Squeezed my eyes shut, I wondered if that was that worse than cheating? Possibly. I guess it didn’t matter which was worse. What mattered was that I had done it.
As I heaved a sigh, Pin stirred beside me and inched his hand up towards my breast. I turned to him and he kissed me, his eyes blinking out of their slumber. I melted into the kiss, and soon we were wrapped together again to the point I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.
He touched me again, gently easing me back into the land of pleasure, where I couldn’t think about my sins. Where I could only feel his hands and lips on me.
It didn’t take us long to reach a frantic state of desire once again. This time I climbed atop him and lowered myself onto his erection, savoring the fullness I felt as I took him as deep as I could. I gazed down at his body as his hands gripped my hips, and we found a rhythm. I gasped as my orgasm consumed me. He convulsed and cried out, letting me know that he was in the same state.
When we were done, I held him inside for a bit longer and lay down across his chest. He wrapped his arms around me, and I wanted to be held by him forever.
I rolled off and onto my side, but Pin pulled my back against his chest so he was spooning me. I closed my eyes, and tears trickled out. I let them roll in silence down my cheek. If Pin knew I was crying, he would hold me and comfort me and ask me to tell him what was wrong.
I couldn’t tell him right then, but I knew I had to tell him. I would tell him, once I let him sleep. Pin deserved a restful night. He had done nothing wrong.
Tomorrow, I told myself.
Tomorrow I will tell him, and try and explain it right. I would tell him that it was my job and I got assigned this case. I would admit that it had been wrong of me to text him to hang out just so I could gain access to the Outlaw Souls.
But I would also explain that I no longer suspected that the Outlaw Souls were involved. I had observed them, and I couldn’t fathom any one of those bikers seducing and manipulating a teenage girl or badgering a young teen boy into dealing drugs.
In fact, I could use Pin’s help with the case. If the Outlaw Souls weren’t the culprits, who were? Pin knew La Playa, he knew bikers, and he knew about the seedy side of the city. If I came clean and asked him for his help, he could be my biggest asset. He could break the case wide open.
Most importantly, I had to let Pin know that our connection was real. I hadn’t been faking anything. Even when we were just hanging out watching TV, I had been myself. I had just been trying to find extra information.
As for the barbecue and everything after, I hadn’t even been thinking about the case. I had just been falling for him. I just had to make him understand that, and maybe he wouldn’t drop me cold turkey. It wasn’t going to be an easy conversation, but I knew I had to try.
Things felt different with Pin. I no longer feared growing bored, but it wasn’t just because he was a biker and that boredom wasn’t part of his type or lifestyle. It was more than that. It was this strange knowledge that I could wake up morning after morning and just do the little things with Pin but not feel scared or annoyed. Pin wasn’t going to hold me back from adventure. He was an adventure. Loving him could be an amazing adventure.
I shivered to myself. I hadn’t dared to think the word “love” – not yet. It came so quickly to mind though, while in Pin’s arms. I took a breath to steady myself. I could consider the love question later. After I told Pin the truth.
I lay awake for a long time. I couldn’t fall asleep, and I didn’t really want to. I wanted the night to last forever. I wanted to stay frozen in this moment when I knew how much Pin cared for me. He thought I was wonderful and smart and beautiful. He didn’t know I was a sneak. He didn’t know I had suspected his family of doing horrible things. That I had gone to that barbecue like a snake in the grass.
I stopped the s
elf-flagellation after a while. I’ve never been the type to beat myself up. I reminded myself that I had just been doing my job. That lives were at risk. I hadn’t even known Pin that well when I accepted the assignment, and I would’ve been an idiot if I didn’t ask questions about Outlaw Souls when I knew two teenagers had gone missing after being linked to a local biker club.
Pin might be hurt, but he wasn’t stupid. He would listen to my side of the story. It could all work out. I wasn’t enough of a blind optimist to think it was definitely going to be ok, but I allowed for the possibility that we could move past this.
Tomorrow, I will tell him.
Tonight I would hang onto the possibility that he would forgive me.
Twenty-One
Pin
The sun streaking through the window woke me up, but had no effect on Claire. I grinned at the sight of her, out cold underneath the covers. It was what I had been hoping for. To make up for the time I had tip-toed out in the dead of night, I was going to let her sleep in while I cooked breakfast.
I knew my way around the kitchen because of the last time. As I took out a pan and some eggs, I decided that Claire should see my place too. I liked my privacy, but I didn’t want to be the type of guy who always showed up at the girl’s place and never allowed her into his space.
It was nice to imagine Claire curled up in my bed sheets or surveying my fridge’s contents. I would give her a drawer in my dresser so she could put some spare clothes, and maybe even some space in my bathroom cabinet.
It was foreign, this practice of thinking ahead. I had never considered stuff like making room for someone in my own apartment, and I had certainly never contemplated how a relationship would progress over time.
I had always thought people who thought like that were stupid. Relationships couldn’t grow or progress, they could only deteriorate. At best, I figured relationships might grow for a while, but then they inevitably hit a plateau that was so difficult and infuriating that someone eventually took a stick of dynamite and blew up the entire thing.
It was early days, I had to admit, but I couldn’t imagine Claire and I hitting a plateau. She was too full of life and too eager for adventure to ever get boring. And if things were difficult, I knew Claire well enough to know she would speak up. She would always tell it to me straight, and I would always be honest with her.
I wasn’t so far gone to consider myself an expert on relationships, but I figured if we started with honesty and kindness, that was a good thing.
I cracked a few eggs into a bowl and started to laugh to myself as I began to whisk them. How had I gone from the biggest anti-romantic on the West Coast to daydreaming about my perfect relationship, all while cooking breakfast for a woman?
It was Claire, plain and simple. She was unlike anyone I had ever met. I couldn’t quite describe it, but it was the way she seemed to be in constant motion. Raul had said her eyes moved fast, and he was right. But it was only because she was so eager to consume life. She wanted to see everything, meet everyone and take it all into her whirring mind.
The rest of her body moved fast as well, now that I thought about it. I had never seen Claire dilly-dally or walk slow. She moved from point A to point B with speed and a self-assured stride. That was probably why she enjoyed riding my bike so much. She relished in getting places fast.
I put the eggs on heat, and then moved to the coffee machine. I didn’t drink much coffee, but I knew Claire downed it like crazy. It probably contributed to her boundless energy. It wasn’t just her energy that drew me to her though.
There was something about her that matched me. I might not have realized it at first, or maybe I only recognized it subconsciously, but she understood me. She also had struggled with commitment and trusting that any relationship could be successful for the long-term. I knew she understood as soon as she explained her own past at the barbecue.
It was cheesy, but that kind of stuff must be what people mean when they talk about “soulmates” and all that other shit. Or at least, I used to think it was bullshit. Now everything had shifted. With the right person, I didn’t have to feel fear. History didn’t have to repeat itself. I wasn’t going to walk in and find Claire in someone else’s arms. It was true, she might hurt me in other ways, but she wasn’t the type of person to cheat. She wasn’t like that.
I would never cheat on her, and I would do everything I could to avoid hurting her. There was risk, of course. I knew there was always a risk, I hadn’t lost all my powers of reason and logic. I just now understood that the reward was worth the risk.
I was grateful for my mother and Sara, in a twisted sort of way. If they hadn’t shown me all the ways a relationship could get fucked up, if they hadn’t made me wary of committing, I might not have found Claire. I might have jumped into some lesser relationship and not been at the Blue Dog Saloon on that fateful night.
Now I was musing about things like fate and destiny. This truly was a bizarre turn of events. I didn’t care though. I was happy.
I remembered something my mother had once said to me, back after I watched the fourth or fifth guy leave her high and dry. I was a bit older then, almost out of high school, and I had started talking back to her.
She was sulking in the kitchen, downing a bottle of cheap wine and calling the guy over and over, leaving weepy voicemails. I could hear the spiraling through my bedroom wall. At last, I stormed into the kitchen.
“He’s not coming back,” I said. “Just like the last one, and the one before that.”
My mother didn’t even argue or respond. She just stared ahead in miserable silence.
“You’re weak,” I told her. “And you keep making the same mistakes – when will you learn your lesson?”
As soon as I said it, I felt bad. The anger trickled out of me, and I deflated. I didn’t apologize though. Everything I had said was true.
After a few moments of silence, when I was about to turn around and leave my mother to her agony, she spoke.
“You’ll understand someday,” she said. “You’ll understand when you meet someone who makes the very ground shift beneath your feet. After that, the whole world is different.”
I scoffed and returned to my room. I didn’t want to hear any more about whatever sappy movie my mother had gotten that line out of.
That was after Sara, and she certainly had not changed my worldview. Nothing earth-shaking about her, except for how she proved that love couldn’t be trusted. I doubted my mother even meant what she said. She couldn’t possibly want me to end up like her.
Now, as I finished the scrambled eggs for Claire, I thought I might see what my mother had been trying to say. It wasn’t just love or lust or even respect. There was something else with Claire, a way she seemed to make everything a brighter color when she was around. When I was with her, I saw an entirely different future for myself, and I liked it far better than anything else I had seen.
Quite simply, Claire had changed my worldview. The ground had moved, but it wasn’t caving in. There was no avalanche. It had shifted before I even realized it and resettled, and now I found myself on better footing. The earth was solid beneath me, but I could see everything better from my new vantage point.
There was an overwhelming urge to swing by to see my mom today. I wasn’t about to say that I was wrong about everything, or that she had made amazing decisions, but I was willing to at least sympathize with where she had been coming from. She must have experienced something like what I had with Claire at least once, and she had longed for it so much that she kept trying to get that feeling back.
Now that I knew what it was like to have someone who made you hope for a better life, I could see why she had rushed into relationships so fast. I didn’t know if I would be able to say all that, but I could at least smile at her. Ask how she was doing. Maybe even introduce her to Claire.
My mom would love to hear PI stories from Claire – she adored reality TV and soap operas. Claire would be happy to regale her wi
th some drama-filled anecdotes. We could even have dinner together, just us three. It would be the first quality time I had spent with my mother in a long while.
With the eggs done, I set to work on a few strips of bacon. While they cooked, I grabbed plates and utensils. I had to open and close a few cabinets before I found the right one. I felt a little bad touching Claire’s things without her there. Obviously, there was nothing scandalous in her kitchen, but I didn’t want to be a snoop.
It had been so long since I had spent any non-bedroom time in a woman’s apartment. I was unused to the rituals. But I could adapt. Claire and I would figure it out, one step at a time.
I put the eggs and bacon onto a plate, poured the coffee into a mug, and took a second to marvel at my handiwork. Who knew I would prove so good at love and relationships?
I froze, my hand holding the coffee pot suspended in mid-air. Was it love? Was I ready to call it that? I couldn’t say for certain. I knew I cared about Claire more than anyone I had ever met. I knew I wanted to try with her. Like I had told her at the barbecue, I wanted to attempt to find the real deal. The whole shebang.
I hadn’t said those words lightly. I hadn’t meant that I wanted to date seriously for a few months or years. I meant forever. What was the point of trying if it wasn’t forever?
Claire had understood that, I was certain. Even so, I didn’t know if I was ready to say love. That was another heavy word, one I might save for a later day. I was on my way there, though, that was for certain. And I was definitely in the fast lane.
Not today, but someday, I would tell her.
The thought didn’t terrify me. In fact, it made me smile.
I left the food on the counter and moved to clear her small kitchen table. I was excited to wake her up and watch her guzzle her coffee and just talk with her a bit.
I pushed a few books and newspapers to one side of the table and grabbed her big purse from a chair. I just planned to move it to the couch really quickly, but it was placed sideways on the chair. When I picked it up, a dark green notebook fell to the floor.
