Hard Love: A Bad Boy Fighter Romance (6 page)

Kurt ran his thumbs on the underside of the
sport coat’s collar and looked at his reflection in the mirror. This was
definitely not how he was used to dressing, but he saw nothing wrong in giving
his mother the small joy of seeing her only son in the coat she had so kindly
bought for him with the party in mind. After all, she was the only person in
the world who would put so much thought and effort into welcoming him home.

Kurt sighed. Maybe it was time to think about
visiting her more often. He had his independence, but maybe it was too much to
pull away from his mother so much.

After opting to keep the sports coat open, he
walked out of the bedroom and went downstairs to find his mom. She was busy in
the kitchen making sure everything was ready before setting it out on the long
table with a solid hunter green table cloth. It was in the formal dining room;
soon to be covered in finger foods and drinks. She turned to see Kurt leaning
against the archway that led from the hall to the kitchen and she smiled, eyes
shining.

“Oh, Kurt honey,” she said softly as she took a
step forward to survey him closer, “You look so handsome.” She looked at him
with a lot of pride before turning to look at all the food and then instructed
him to help her set it out. By the time they were done, the first couple of
guests had arrived.

They were two old friends from high school,
Jason and Tim, who had apparently remained best friends even until now. Jason
filled Kurt in on how he had been the first of the two to marry.

“But, you know, Tim with his competitive spirit
didn’t take that lying down.” Then he chuckled and added, with a wink, “Or,
rather he did and that’s why his wife got pregnant before mine!” The two men
burst into laughter. Kurt felt rather like an oaf forcefully chuckling along to
such an elementary and crude joke, but he didn’t want to be rude. Just then,
the front door opened and a family piled in.

Kurt side stepped the two men to greet whoever
had just entered, but it wasn’t long until he recognized them.

 
“Aunt
Madge!” Kurt called out with a boom. He held his arms wide open to hug her and
then looked down at her with a smile. “I didn't expect to see you!” It was
true. It had been countless years since he had spoken to his aunt Madge. She
had moved out of the state during his final year of high school. That in
combination with him leaving home and rarely returning meant it had been almost
a whole decade since he had last seen her. This struck him even more when he
saw her husband, his uncle Bob, holding the hand of a little girl that appeared
to be about eight years old.

Kurt crouched down to be closer to eye level
with her. She looked just like his aunt Madge. “Hi there,” he said in a gentle
voice, much like the one he used with his mother. “I'm Kurt,” he smiled.

Much to his surprise the little girl broke out
into a grin and stuck out her hand. He took her hand and gave it a shake.

“I'm Midge,” she barked out in a slightly
high-pitched voice. “I know who you are! Mommy has shown me pictures. You're a
soldier.” She looked at him with admiration and Kurt felt something he could
only describe as his heart fluttering. Little Midge would be the closest he
would get to having a niece and she already seemed like a delight. Plus, it was
sweet to know his aunt Madge still held him in high enough esteem to dedicate
time talking about him to her.

Kurt stood up and rubbed his hand over her hair
to give it a playful ruffle before reaching out to finally greet his uncle Bob
with a handshake. Just as he was about to comment on how odd it was that they
had a child about eight years old that he was only meeting just now, the front
door opened up once again. It was another aunt of his, one he wasn’t as close
to and had seen much more recently.

Nonetheless he greeted her warmly before going
around to give the appearance he was mingling without actually doing so. His
mother was a fan of these kinds of events. She was very much the type to think
big celebrations with family and friends were the best and warmest things in
life. Kurt, of course, was much more of a loner. As much as he liked to be in
control and make his own choices, he generally chose to make his mother happy
with these small gatherings because he loved seeing her filled with joy. Plus,
it didn’t exactly hurt to see family and old friends from years back.

As he reached for one of his favorite finger
foods, his mother’s specialty triangle-shaped ham sandwiches, the door opened
yet again. Kurt stopped, hand hovering over the sandwich platter.

There she was.

 
She
stood in front of the door with the sunlight gently falling around her like a
glow. Her long, auburn hair fell in waves over her shoulder and ended just
below her large, but perky breasts. She looked tall even though she was wearing
flat shoes and her tan looked especially pretty around her shining, hazel eyes.

It was
Claradeene
, who everyone always just called Claire. And she
had actually come to his party
. Kurt
gulped. Never had he fallen for another woman the way he had fallen for Claire.

It all started senior year of high school when
the two of them started to grow closer. The more they talked and spent time
together, the harder he fell for her. But then she got with Tyler and
completely extinguished any thoughts Kurt had of romance between them. Still,
even after so many years, Kurt found himself mesmerized by the very sight of her.
She was even more beautiful now. Quickly, he looked over her shoulder, but
Tyler was nowhere in sight.

“
Claradeene
,” he said
as he walked up to her with a smile he was working to control.

She grimaced. “Since when do you call me that,
Kurt?”

He chuckled and shrugged. “Didn't know if you
preferred the formal version of your name now.”

She scoffed. “As if I'd ever choose being
called
Claradeene
over Claire! Come one now, I know
you know better than that. It doesn't matter how many years have passed.”

“And how have they passed? Last I heard, you
were engaged to Tyler.” His eyes instinctively flicked up to look over her
shoulder again even though the front door had long since closed behind her.
Even saying the words about her being engaged still made his stomach churn. He
didn’t want to think of her actually married to the guy, but that was
inevitable given how much time had elapsed since he had heard the news of their
engagement.

He saw her face fall slightly, but she tried to
play it off.

“We were engaged,” she mumbled. Kurt could tell
the past tense was because it had been broken off and not because it had turned
into a marriage. He was eager to know more, but thought it would be tactless to
pry further. Despite her sadness he couldn’t help but feel something akin to
excitement inside. It was knowing she was no longer tied down to Tyler that
made him feel it because, after all this time, he still felt a draw to her that
he had never felt with another woman. Not even his ex-girlfriend, the girl he had
been in a relationship with for three years. Not even she ever elicited such a
reaction from him. He had loved her, but was never
in
love and that was part of the reason he decided to end things.

“Oh,” he said somberly.

He knew the standard was to say he was sorry to
hear that, but that would have been a blatant lie. He was only sorry she was
hurting from it. He wanted to reach out and pat her on the shoulder, but then
figured that would probably end up being more awkward than comforting. He
cleared his throat and asked, “Are you hungry?”

Claire nodded. He made a sweeping motion with
his hand toward the table covered out in drinks and finger foods, stepping in
line to walk behind her as she made her way to it.

Kurt watched as she reached for a paper plate
and then looked at all the options in front of her. The first thing she reached
for was one of the ham sandwiches.

“Excuse me,” he said sternly, “Those are mine.”

Claire glared at him and snatched it up
quickly. “They're here with all the other food so I think they're fair game.”
She smirked and stuck her arm out as if she were going to reach for another ham
sandwich triangle. Kurt frowned at her and narrowed his eyes, trying to look as
seriously threatening as possible, but this only made her giggle.

And her giggle made his stomach clench. It was
a charming sound. It was even better than he remembered it being. What else
about her had only become more charming and likeable with age? That was
something he really wanted to find out. He reached out to grab a paper plate of
his own and swiftly took up a couple of the small ham sandwich triangles before
looking over what else his mother had prepared. The two of them fixed their
plates in silence and grabbed a drink, before turning to look at each other. It
was somewhat awkward but there was a look in Claire’s eyes that was reeling him
in and making him wonder what it meant.

“Why are you being weird? It’s making this
awkward,” she said suddenly. Her tone was light, but he knew she was being
serious.

Kurt gulped. This was unlike him. Despite the
fact that he preferred smaller gatherings or even being alone, he was great at
talking to people and entertaining. He never had trouble talking to women. But
there was something about Claire that put a bit of a kink in that system and
made him run like an old sputtering car.

“Just been a while,” he replied simply. He
nodded toward the kitchen where he knew the breakfast table was unoccupied save
for a small vase of flowers his mother had set in the middle in case someone
went in there.

 
“Want to
eat at the table in the breakfast nook?”

“Sure,” she said before turning around and
heading straight toward it. Kurt watched her ample hips sway from side to side
as she walked. She was wearing a simple thigh-length sundress that was loose
fitting, but clung to her attractive curves. He admired her long, toned legs as
she walked and the way she looked when she sat down. At first he thought it
would be best if she didn’t catch him staring, but then he figured it might be
okay.

He wanted to see her again after the party. He
wanted to explore avenues with her he hadn’t been able to do back when he was
in love with her. Setting aside, he had no clue how long ago she had actually
broken up with Tyler or if she was even single. Not to mention, the fact
remained that he lived far from this place now. Whatever happened between them
would have to be a passing thing.

As he sat across her and chewed on his ham
sandwich triangle as she chatted about her job, he wondered how she would feel
about it.
 

And if he was honest with himself, a small part
of him wanted to stay in his hometown, just so he could be with her.

“Oh, honey, why don’t you wear something a bit
more dressy
?” Kurt’s mother asked as he walked across the
hall from his bedroom to the bathroom. He groaned. He knew his mom was going to
say something about his outfit, but he saw absolutely nothing wrong with it. He
was going somewhere casual, after all, and he didn’t want to seem like he was
trying too hard to impress someone.

 
His
mother, on the other hand, knew exactly who he was going out with and why. That
made her inclined to think he should look a bit more ‘fixed up’ for her no
matter how much he pointed out he was only going out with Claire as old friends
catching up.

“This is fine,” he told her casually as he ran
his fingers through his hair and fixed a few strays before deciding he was
ready to go pick her up. His stomach clenched at the thought of what she might
be wearing and how she would look. He knew he would find her beautiful and
attractive no matter what, but he was also aware of the fact that this would be
the first time they would be hanging out as adults.

 
Kurt
turned to look at is mother and placed his hands on her shoulders, looking her
right in the eyes. “Really.” His mother sighed and turned around to walk
downstairs. He swiped his keys and wallet from the dresser in his bedroom and
called out to his mom before walking out the front door.

He climbed into his rental car, something his
father said was unnecessary, and pulled out of the driveway to drive over to
Claire’s house.

As he pulled up in front of it a mere ten
minutes later he smiled. It looked just the way he remembered it. The little
wooden swing still hung from the branches of the tree in front and the old
swinging bench was still on the porch, only now it had been reupholstered and
some more modern looking throw pillows rested at its corners. He remembered the
times he had sat on that swing with her. His mind couldn’t help but ponder on
the handful of times he had decided to make a move, only to be interrupted
right at the moment.

One of those interruptions had been by Tyler
just days before he got with Claire. Kurt sighed. If only he had been as
courageous back then as he was now, things might have gone differently. But
then he had to wonder how that would have affected his life. This was
definitely not the place he wanted to stay long term, much less for the rest of
his life.

He called Claire and she was outside in less
than a few minutes. As she approached the passenger door, Kurt was too caught
up in admiring how stunning she looked to even think about stepping out to open
the door for her. She was wearing a casual dress, only this one was much
tighter than the one she had worn to the party.

It was a soft pink color with thick straps and
a square neckline that did a great job of showing a good amount cleavage. Her
breasts, tanned like the rest of her, looked especially alluring against the
soft pink fabric of the dress. It hugged the curves of her small waist and
ample hips. Being a bit shorter than the dress she had worn to his party, it
revealed even more of her long, toned legs. It was a plain dress made of
cotton, but
damn
did she look hot in
it. And she had paired it with simple white wedge sandals.

When Claire opened the door and leaned forward
to place her purse in the space between the driver’s seat and passenger’s seat
it took all Kurt’s self-control not to keep his eyes glued to her breasts, and
her legs, and every other part of her. She gave him a wide smile before
slipping in the passenger’s seat.

“Nice ride,” she said with a giggle. His
stomach churned.

He started driving toward the town’s biggest
square. He knew it was the best bet for them to find something to do. Plus, he
hadn’t been there in years so he figured it would be fun to take a stroll
around the area with Claire. He parked the square’s central parking lot and met
her at the front of the car. He looked into her eyes and chuckled somewhat
nervously.

“What’s up?” she asked.

The smile hadn’t disappeared from her face
since she had gotten in the car, but he still wasn’t that used to seeing it.
She was absolutely stunning from head to toe and he kept recalling old times
and how much fun they had together.

It was no surprise he had fallen in love,
really.

“It’s just weird. It’s weird to be here with
you,” Kurt said, eyes quickly glancing down.

“I hope only because it had been so many
years?” Kurt nodded and ruffled the hair at the back of his head. She reached
out and placed her hand on his forearm.

“Just think of it like old times!” she said
enthusiastically.

His stomach tightened as soon as the soft skin
of her fingers made contact with his arm. He chuckled and turned to start
walking aimlessly, but his mind was stuck on the same spot. It wasn’t as easy
for him to think of it like old times.

He had been in love with her and that had made
everything more difficult. Old times together were much different from his
perspective than they were from hers.

“Kurt, why
has
it been so long?”

“I don’t know,” it was an automatic response.
It was almost as if he was running on autopilot when that sort of question came
up, something that had happened more than a few times at his party.

“I like where I live. I like what I do. I don’t
know why, but I don’t much like coming back here,” he said. Then he turned to
look at her, hair gleaming under the glow of the streetlamps. “At least I
didn’t,” he added as his eyes remained fixed on her. Claire turned to look up
at him and their eyes met. There was electricity between them for a brief
second before she turned away and kept looking forward.

“I see,” she muttered.

Kurt could tell she was wrapped up in her own
thoughts. He wanted to ask what she was thinking, but decided against it. There
were still other lingering questions he hadn’t asked her at the party. Maybe
they weren’t the best questions to ask, but he couldn’t stop his curiosity
enough to ignore them.

“Claire,” he started. He could feel her turn to
look at him as he stared at the ground. “Can I- I mean; would you mind if I ask
you something?”

“About Tyler?”

Kurt turned to look at her surprised. She gave a
single laugh and shrugged. “First of all, you didn’t say or ask anything when
you found out. Second of all, I can’t even begin to tell you how many times
people have started off like that.”

“Sorry,” he said, genuinely feeling like he
should have waited or at least started in a better way. He couldn’t even
imagine how tiring it must have been to answer an endless sea of questions
after things ended with Tyler, especially since they were actually
engaged.
   

“It’s okay,” she said. “
You
can ask me pretty much anything.”

He stopped walking for a second before quickly
starting up again. He didn’t understand why she emphasized the word ‘you’ or
what she could even mean by doing so. He let it go.

“When did it end?”

“I’ll give you the basics,” she said, but then
she stopped talking. She also stopped walking. Kurt turned around to face her
with an eyebrow raised in question. Claire reached out and grabbed his hand to
pull him in to a little park area with benches they had been walking by. There
was nobody there. She pulled him onto a bench and he felt her knee knock
against his before she moved away just a couple inches and turned to face him,
one of her legs draped over the other.

“You know we were together since senior year.
Well, it was after five years of being together that he proposed. We had
fights, of course, but nothing major. We loved each other and that was the
direction our relationship was heading. It all made
sense
.” She paused and looked at Kurt before neatly placing one of
her hands over the other and resting them on her thigh. “But, I don’t know,
after some time it started to make sense that was about all there was to it.
And I wanted more out of life.”

“What do you mean that was all there was to
it?”

“You know, like it was what made sense so we
were doing it. We loved each other, but there was no intensity, no craving. It
sometimes didn’t feel like I was
in love
,
at least not after the first year. It just felt like we got used to each other,
cared for one another, had really good sex… It was like two really close
friends who had gone intimate and weren’t sure how to go back? So we just kept
going. Neither of us were
un
happy,
but I don’t think we were entirely happy either. We were just going through the
motions.”

“Oh,” Kurt said, trying to push the idea of her
enjoying sex with Tyler as far out of his mind as possible. “Did he feel the
same way?”

“I think so,” she said, “Only he didn’t realize
it until after the breakup so.”

“So he was a bit more torn up about it when it
happened?” Kurt felt excitement course through his veins. If they had been
broken up for a while, she had ended things, and she had really felt the ways
he was describing now then it was perhaps really okay for him to make a move.
He got the feeling she was single. He wanted to ask, but since they were
talking about Tyler, he figured that could wait.

“I mean, we were both torn up but yes, he took
it a bit harder initially. That happened a little over a year ago, though, and
we’re okay now. We still talk casually, but hang out rarely. I guess that’s
just the way these things go.”

Kurt cleared his throat and placed his hand on
his knee. His finger twitched. He wanted to reach out and snatch up Claire’s
hand to feel her slender hand swallowed by his. He looked into her eyes before
his gaze drifted down to her pretty, pink lips which she applied a light coat
of gloss too.

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to do things
with her he had always dreamt of doing. But he doubted if she felt the same
way, particularly given there was no way it could actually amount to anything.
And that was something that tugged on him a bit too. He had been so madly in
love with her that he didn’t know if he could just have sex with her and skip
town without some kind of lingering desire to explore an actual relationship
with her. But as his gaze moved back up to look into her hazel eyes and he
remembered the way her cleavage had looked as she started leaning forward in
the car, he felt a slight stirring in his pants. He cleared his throat again
and shifted in his seat.

“Well, I’m glad it wasn’t anything terribly
heart-wrenching. I know it hurt, but you know what I mean.”

“What? Like Tyler cheating on me? I forgave him
for that years ago,” she responded coolly.

“
What
?”
Kurt looked at her with wide eyes.

Claire giggled and scooted closer to him to
bump her shoulder against his. “I’m
kidding
,”
she told him. Then she stopped giggling and stared into his eyes.

Kurt could feel his heart slowly thudding
faster and faster, like a train picking up speed. His breathing slowed and
suddenly everything around them went quiet. If ever there was a moment he felt
was the perfect time to kiss her, it was right then. The way she was looking at
him made it hard for him not to lean in, so he did, but only slightly. As soon
as he did he realized what was happening and he turned to pretend he was
scratching an itch on his shoulder on the opposite side. He shut his eyes and
exhaled. As much as he wanted to kiss her he didn’t know if the moment for it
was right after talking about her ex, that very one who had taken his chance
from having a relationship with her.

Now that he had the courage the timing was off.

But when he turned around to face her again he
found that she hadn’t moved an inch and she was still staring him down in the
same way. It was almost as if she were challenging him.

He took the bait.

He did what he had wanted to do all night, what
he had wanted to do since she walked into the party at his house. In fact, it
was what he had wanted to do from his teen years in his final year of high
school.

He leaned forward and placed his hand on her
cheek before gently pressing his lips against hers.