Between the Lines (3 page)

“They
have excellent schools.” But they are in the one state I never want to set foot
into again.

“So, why
aren’t you there?”

“Have you
ever tried to live in a big desert? I want seasons. Four of them.”

“Seasons,”
he says slowly, shaking his head as if he doesn’t really believe me.

Gabe – 3

There’s
got to be more to it than that, but before I can ask her anything else the
doorbell rings.

“I’ll get
it.” Ellen jumps up from her seat and grabs her billfold.

“I
already paid and tipped,” I call after her but I’m not sure she hears me.

I do have
to admit that when she said she was going to change into something more
comfortable, my thoughts went to something a little more revealing than what
she has on. I know it was wishful thinking, but hey, I’m a healthy guy, with a
healthy appetite for beautiful women. It doesn’t help that I haven’t dated
anyone since before my last surgery, which was more than a year ago. Then I had
a long recovery and then had to look for a job. But when she showed up wearing a
cute, red crop top, white sweater and dark capris that hug her ass and legs the
way my hands are itching to it got suddenly warm in here. She might need the
fire, but I sure as hell don’t.

Ellen
West may be thin and not exactly endowed, but she has curves in all the right
places. With those high-waist paints and short shirt, she looks like she just
stepped out of a1960’s beach movie with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. 

She’s
also wearing red flats, like she was earlier. If she were in heels, she’d almost
look me in the eye. I like that. No awkward and uncomfortable bending if I want
to kiss her. Not that I plan on kissing her, sitting or standing. This isn’t a
date, though that doesn’t mean there isn’t potential for one in the future.

Ellen
returns with the bags of food, grinning.  “I’ll put the dessert in the fridge
and food on the plates.”

I push up
from the couch. “I’ll help.”

“Don’t
you dare,” she dismisses me. “Rest your football injury.”

I should
help her, but I kind of like sitting here, my leg propped up while she gets our
food ready in the kitchen. Not that I’m the kind of guy who thinks that is
where a woman belongs; I just like watching her ass.

I have to
adjust my junk because it’s all too aware of Ellen’s ass and I just met her.
“Down boy.” I whisper and pull a pillow onto my lap.

“Do you
want to eat at the table or in there?”

I glance
at the fire, the thick rug on the floor in front of it. “In here.” Just because
we just met doesn’t mean this can’t turn into something a bit romantic.

She
brings the plates in, along with utensils then grabs our glasses to refill them
with wine. I get on the floor and situate the pillows just right and hope to
God my knee doesn’t betray me and I need her help getting up after dinner. That
would be fucking humiliating.

Ellen
plops down next to me and cuts into her chicken parmesan. She moans almost
immediately. “Oh. My. God. This is so good.”

I chuckle
and cut off a piece of my lasagna. She’s right, it is good, but my appetite
isn’t exactly whetted for Italian. A hot, sexy blonde, yes.  Too bad I just met
her, otherwise, this night could end with many appetites being sated.

She
hardly looks at me and savors her food. Her back is straight, legs bent, and
toes pointed. I can’t image she’s comfortable in such a position, but it
doesn’t seem to bother her. In fact, in the short time I’ve known her, Ellen
has perfect posture and moves with a gentle grace I haven’t witnessed in other
women. It adds another layer of desire and curiosity about her.

We barely
speak as we eat. I was hungrier than I thought and we silently eat, sip wine
and look into the fire, when we aren’t casting looks at each other. When Ellen
has eaten about half of her chicken, pasta, salad and bread she puts the plate
aside. “I’m stuffed.”

“What about
dessert?”

Her brown
eyes darken with desire and I hope it isn’t because she’s thinking about the tiramisu.
“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

She pulls
herself to her feet, taking her plate.

“Let me
help you.”

“No, you
stay there. Keep my place warm.” She winks before taking my plate to the
kitchen where she puts our food back into the carryout containers and sticks
them in the fridge with Mateo’s dinner. I sure as hell hope he doesn’t come
home anytime soon.

She
brings back the bottle of wine, emptying it into our glasses. I’m just glad we
had such a starch filled meal, or I’d be tipsy. I don’t drink wine all that
often. Then again, I am in my own home and she just has to go up the stairs to
her apartment, if she leaves at all, so being tipsy isn’t so bad. Besides, I am
on spring break and could be doing a lot worse.

I add
more logs to the fire and plump the pillows behind us.

Ellen
leans back, her legs out in front of her. At one point she lost her shoes and
her toenails are painted a pretty pink color. It suits her. There is something
so girly about her that I adore. Not like the silly cheerleaders I was always
around, but the girly, feminine, all soft and yummy kind of girly.

“Have you
always lived around here?” she asks.

“No. I
spent the better part of my youth in Illinois. Dad was laid off when I was
around fourteen and we moved to Rochester.”

She nods
and sips. “Did you really hurt your knee playing football?”

“Yep, in
college.”

She looks
up at me with concern. “And you still have trouble with it.”

I chuckle.
“It’s a long story.” One I don’t want to discuss or relive right now.
Especially when Ellen and I could be talking about much more pleasant topics.

“Did you
play any other sports?”

“Baseball,
ran track and basketball.”

“Wow, you
must have been a great athlete.”

I laugh
again. “Not really. I just wanted to play football. Dad is the one who wanted
me in sports year round.” If I didn’t love football so much, I would have quit
them all because he made me hate the others. “You know that dick of a Dad who
is always at the sidelines yelling at his kid.”

“Yes.”
She groans and peeks up at me with worry.

“That was
my dad, and why I had to play every sport he approved of.” Just once it would
have been nice if he was like the other parents, who encouraged their kids, or
told them not to be too hard on themselves if they lost, but just try better.
Nope, my dad was the Dick Dad and everyone hated him.

“What
didn’t he approve of?”

“Soccer.
It’s for sissies.”

She
chokes on her wine. “You’re serious?”

“Clearly
the man never tried playing the sport or he would’ve changed his opinion and I
would have been playing that too.”

“He
must’ve been proud.” There’s a sadness in her voice that I don’t get. It
bothers me.

“I’m sure
your parents were proud of you too.”

She
snorts. “Let’s not talk about our families.”

Is she
estranged from her family too? That sucks, but it does give us one thing in
common, besides living in the same house.

I don’t
want to talk about my family either. I only talked to my dad when I go home for
holidays and I only do that because of Mom. Dad and I spend most of that time
trying to be civil to each other, only because of Mom, but he never lets me
forget how disappointed he is that I wasn’t going to have any more surgeries so
I could return to football. Besides, there’s no guarantee another surgery would
work and I wasn’t going to put myself through the misery. I disappointed him
more that day than at any other time, and there were a lot of disappointments,
each time I came in second, missed a basket, was struck out, or fumbled the
ball.

I glance
down at Ellen. She’s all soft, warm and cuddly. “I don’t know what brought you
here, Ellen West, but I’m glad that whatever it is, did.”

“Me too.”
She smiles up at me and sets her glass on the table behind us. I do the same
before lowering my lips to hers.

Ellen

I’m about
to make out with a man I didn’t know six hours ago. It seems so wrong, but so
right at the same time. There’s something about Gabe that draws me to him. I’ve
wanted to know how he kisses since the moment I met him, and it is so not a
disappointment. Firm, strong, kind, gentle with an underlying passion, as if
he’s holding himself back. He doesn’t need to. I’ll take whatever he can give.

His
tongue caresses and then delves, and heat ignites in my veins. He probes then
tangles his tongue with mine as I fall further back into the pillows. He’s over
me, but not crushing me. He’s done nothing and already I’m growing damp. Is it
because it’s been too damn long, or is it him?

Before
the question can finish forming in my brain, I know its Gabe. He does something
to me that I can’t understand or begin to put words to. He isn’t touching me,
just kissing, but I want him. My bra’s suddenly too tight and my nipples ache,
and I want to take it off so badly, to feel his hands and lips on my breast,
but his hands are pressed against the floor on either side of me, supporting
him.

Gabe
shifts, and I roll with him, until he is once again over me, but this time,
he’s pressed between my thighs and I know he wants me as much as I want him.
His thick, hard length is pressed against me and I wish to hell I would have
left my skirt on. It would have been so easy to lift it, remove the panties,
free his cock, and then have him inside me. I’m getting so wet that there’s probably
a spot on my pants by now, but I don’t care. Why the hell won’t he touch me?

I slide
my hands up his chest, caressing the muscles before moving onto his shoulders
and then threading my fingers through his soft hair. Why doesn’t he take the
hint? I want to do a hell of a lot more than kiss in front of the fire.

“Man,
that was brutal,” Mateo is staying as he comes in the door opens.

Gabe and
I still and then look up.

Mateo’s
face flushes and he takes a step back. “Um. Sorry.”

Gabe
rolls away from me and sits up, taking a pillow with him. I push my fingers
through my hair and roll to my side.

“Hey,
there’s dinner in the fridge.” Gabe nods toward me, but his tone was more of a
warning than friendliness.

What’s up
with that? And Mateo looks surprised to see me. Of course, I have been here for
a long time and he probably wasn’t expecting to find me on the floor beneath
his roommate. It is a bit embarrassing.

“I can
come back,” Mateo is saying as he backs further into the foyer.

“No
need,” Gabe insists. 

I have to
agree. Whatever passion was building has been thoroughly doused.

“What was
brutal?” Had he been at Baxter this entire time? Not that they know that I know
that’s where he went, since he never really said. I glance at the clock. It’s
nearly nine. Where did the time go?

I know
it’s a boarding school, one of the things I have been able to learn, but still,
for a counselor to be there this late. What kind of problem could they have
had? A kid being upset because his college admission was declined by their
school of choice?

“Paperwork,”
he says and flops into a chair. “I forgot to get the reports required by the
State completed.” He turns to Gabe. “Then I ran into Kian and Cole, and we
talked for a while.”

My
instincts are on alert. What isn’t he saying? His voice isn’t exactly
conversational, but I can’t put my finger on it. It’s as if he’s telling Gabe
more than he’s actually saying. Paperwork doesn’t make sense either. Offices
are closed and he could easily do that tomorrow, break or no. Damn, I wish I know
what was going on at that school. Since I overheard the complaints at the
hospital, I haven’t been able to learn much of anything else. Except, they do
have more than their fair share of emergency calls, but since it always
involves a minor, most of the information is redacted, or sealed.

Something
is not right at Baxter and something wasn’t right tonight. “Are Kian and Cole
friends of yours?”

“Yep,”
Gabe answers. “Kian’s dating an art teacher and Cole is seeing another
counselor.”

Maybe I’m
just letting my imagination run away with me. It sounds innocent enough, though
why would he run into them at the school, at this time of night? Of course, he
didn’t say that’s where he saw them. I’m just assuming, which I must stop
doing. I deal in facts, not assumptions, even if they do lead to very good
questions.

There is
a current running between the two men and I want to know what it’s about. They
are saying a lot without saying anything.