My Favorite Mistake

Copyright 2013 Elizabeth Carlos

Kindle Version

New Adult Contemporary (Erotic) Romance: 3,500 words

Recommended for ages 18+ due to strong language and sexual
content.

Also by Elizabeth Carlos

Falling For You

Wishes

For my sister, who had no choice but to listen to my
earliest stories when we were children.

My past caught up
to me on my grandma’s front porch.

“Hey,” said Rick
Jensen, my first serious boyfriend, the one I grew to hate as much as I loved
him. We were the perfect high school couple: he was the quarterback and captain
of the football team; I was the captain of the cheerleading squad. His auburn
hair and gray eyes contrasted nicely with my blonde hair and brown eyes.

We were both only
children. His parents (who adored me) and my grandma lived down the road from
each other. I’d lived with Grandma ever since I could remember. My parents died
in a car accident, and so Grandma raised me. It was the two of us against the
world, at least until I fell in love with Rick. Then there were three.

Our high school
epic romance ended the summer we graduated, when Rick decided to believe his
best friend, Jeff, over me. Jeff, Douchebag #1, said that he saw me swapping
spit with a guy from a rival school. Actually, he accused me of a lot more
gymnastically, shall we say, with that guy, and a couple others, too.
Supposedly there were pictures.

Rick, Douchebag
#2, who was always the impetuous sort, screamed at me that I’d betrayed him and
with one of our school enemies (how that could possibly make the situation any
worse, I have no idea). He yelled we were through. I yelled that he was a
jackass for believing all of Jeff’s crap. Then he showed me the pictures of me
and the others. “Not bad,” I told him, “but my boobs are a lot bigger. Come see
me when Jeff learns how to use Photoshop better.”

Four years down
the tube because of some badly edited pictures and a jealous best friend, who
hadn’t come out of the closet yet. Oh, and a boyfriend’s complete lack of trust
in his girlfriend. That was the biggie.

After we broke up,
I had to watch him for most of the summer go around town with all of the girls
who’d had crushes on him for years. Then, somehow, Jeff slipped up. I don’t
know what happened, but its result was that Jeff had a broken nose and Rick had
a black eye. That’s also when the phone calls, texts, and visits to my house
started.

I ignored the
calls, deleted the unopened texts, and refused to come to the door. Rick upped
his game. There were bouquets of flowers, boxes of candy, serious jewelry, and
a marriage proposal written in the yard with rolls of toilet paper. I gave the
flowers and candy to my friends, and left the jewelry on Rick’s front porch
after I rolled his yard. Even better, Rick had to clean up the mess. Oh, and
did I mention it had rained?

Finally the calls
and texts ceased, mainly due to my grandma telling him that if he set foot on
her property again, that she’d shoot him for disappointing her and hurting her
girl. Rick knew she’d do it, too, whether or not she liked him and his family,
so he left me alone. He went to Vanderbilt, while I went to Western Kentucky.

It was a pretty
successful two years, and I even managed to convince myself I’d stopped loving
him. We’d seen each other sporadically over the years. It was hard to ignore a
neighbor, especially when his parents and Grandma were still friends. But we
stayed out of each other’s way. That’s why I was surprised to see him trying to
press the doorbell again when I wrenched the heavy door open to see him greet
me.

“Hey,” I answered
back. “What’re you doing here?”

“I was visiting
Mom and Dad and they heard you’re getting married.”

“So, what? Come to
save me from the dreadful mistake I was about to make with my life? No need,
Prince Charming, they heard wrong. So, you can go home now.” I moved to shut
the door on him, but the stupid boy stuck his foot in the door.

“Wait!”

“What?”

“I made it up! My
parents didn’t say anything about you getting married! That was the only thing
I could think of to get you to talk to me!”

“Do you ever think
before you act, Rick?” I shook my head. Some things never changed. I just
decided to quit trying to keep him out and opened the door wide.

“Thank you,” he
told me.

I shrugged. “It’s
your funeral. Grandma’s been stocking up on ammo.” He swallowed, but followed
me into the tiny formal living room just to the right.

“We’re not going
to the family room?”

“No. I thought
since you weren’t going to be here long, there was no need for you to get
comfortable.”

I smoothed out my
sundress as I sat in the middle of the loveseat. There was no room left next to
me, so Rick was forced to take one of the velvet-covered chairs adjacent to the
loveseat. He sat down gingerly, and tried to get comfortable. I gave up on
trying to get comfortable myself, since my knees were wedged in behind the
ornate cherry coffee table. Grandma had a ceramic tea set and tray sitting on
it, and I looked like I was about to offer to play tea party with Rick.

“So what on earth
would you like to talk about, since we’ve established that you are a liar and I
am not about to get hitched?”

“How is school
going?” Okay, apparently we were going to have some small talk.

“Good. Keeping
good grades, um, I rushed a sorority, you know, college stuff. You?”

“Same. I mean, I
rushed a fraternity, but you know…” he trailed off miserably.

“Yeah.”

We sat in
uncomfortable silence until he blurted out, “Are you seeing anyone?”

“No. Not right
now.” Rick’s knee started bouncing.

I couldn’t help
it, I wanted to know. “You?”

“No. No one.”

Silence again. I
looked for nonexistent loose strings on my dress to pull. When I glanced up
again, Rick had leaned forward.

“I want to
apologize to you, in case you didn’t get mine from before. I made a horrible
mistake, believing Jeff, when I knew deep down you would never do that to
anyone, let alone me. I’m so incredibly sorry, Faith, and I hope you can
forgive me someday. I was a jackass.”

“Douchebag,” I
corrected. “I’ll admit, I hated your guts for a long time, but…I’ve had two
years to get over it.” Over you, I said silently. “Besides, I’m all too aware
that life’s too short to keep anger in your heart. So basically, yes, I forgive
you.”

“Thank you,” he
said fervently.

“You’re welcome.
Now that that’s settled, you can go on home.”

“No!” At my raised
eyebrow, Rick blushed, and then said in a quieter voice, “Please, just a little
longer.”

I waved him on.
“Okay, but Grandma gets home in another hour or so, so you might want to move
things along here.” I knew Grandma had forgiven him, too, especially since our
preacher’s sermons for the past month had been about forgiveness. However,
she’d also been dealing with one of the elders’ wives today, for their card
ministry. Grandma always got a migraine after dealing for a few hours with
“that woman who couldn’t get along with Jesus Himself.” I worried Grandma might
momentarily forget all about that forgiveness if she saw Rick with me today.

Rick had a
stubborn, determined look on his face. I really hoped I wasn’t going to have to
roll his yard again. I also hoped I wouldn’t be visiting him in the emergency
room and Grandma in a jail cell before the day was out.

“Could you ever
see yourself with me again?”

I tried not to
laugh. “Rick, come on!”

He shook his head.
“I’m dead serious. I still love you. Even when I hated you, I still loved you.
I hope that you can give me a second chance. I’ve changed, Faith. I won’t make
that same mistake twice.”

His declarations
made me nervous. “I don’t know what to say.” I really didn’t.

“Say that you’ll
be willing to try. I’ve missed you so much. Have…have you missed me?”

I looked at his
anxious face for a few moments before I sighed. “Yeah, I’ve missed you.” I
pressed my hand to his chest. “But don’t expect me to say I love you.”

“I don’t,” he said
hurriedly. “I’m just grateful you’re speaking to me at all.”

“What are we then?
Friends?” We’d been friends first, before anything else. It seemed right that
we should start there again.

“We are whatever
you feel comfortable being. I will tell you that I hope we’ll become more.” I
had to give Rick credit for going for what he wanted. He never had been the
bashful type. That self-confidence had been one of the things that drew me to
him in the first place. It was the impetuous side of his personality that I
found both charming and exasperating.

“We’ll have to
see. I can’t make you any promises right now.”

“I understand. So
can a friend give another friend a hug?”

I cleared my
throat. “Maybe.”

We both stood up,
and after an awkward attempt, we wrapped our arms around each other, Rick
bending down over me because he was taller, his face in my neck. He started
crying, this boy who never, ever cried. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Shh,” I said, my
arms tightening around his back. My eyes started watering, and I knew there’d
be a stain on his tee shirt when I released him. I knew I still loved him if I
wanted to cry with him over our relationship. “Everything’s going to be okay.
You’ll see.”

Rick raised his
head and I did the same. We stared at each other for a moment, and then we
moved towards each other. I have no idea who initiated the kiss. Regardless, it
was like a match thrown on dry kindling, because there was absolutely no way we
could have stopped. We devoured each other’s mouths, as our hands groped each
other’s bodies. We ended up collapsing on the small empty floor space, Rick on
top of me. His weight felt good and right, especially when he pushed my skirt
out of the way as he settled between my thighs. We never stopped kissing the
entire time.

I wrapped my legs
around Rick’s waist, my full skirt bunching up between us. The fabric would be
horribly wrinkled, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I could feel the
scratchy carpet against my shoulder blades, the rough denim of his jeans
against my lower body.

I wanted him.

Rick’s erection
pushed against my soaked panties. His jeans must be getting damp, I idly
thought, as he kissed me again, harder this time, his tongue tangling with
mine, as if we would consume each other.

Rick’s hands
cupped my breasts. A whimper caught in the back of my throat. It attracted his
attention. He moved his mouth down my neck, tracing his tongue along the path.
“Did you like that, Faith?”

I moaned; complete
wanton that I was. I felt his lips curve against my neck. “I’d say you do,” he
murmured, before sucking gently on my skin. I arched against him, grinding my
pelvis into his, bringing him even closer. I wanted to rip our clothes off,
wanted us to be hot and sweaty and naked.

If you had told me
this morning that I’d be trying to lose my virginity to Rick Jensen, I would
have laughed in your face.

Instead, I reached
down between our bodies and cupped his length. He was hard, and I remembered
how I had always loved feeling him aroused by me. There was no telling how many
girls he’d been with since we’d broken up, since I knew we’d both been sexually
frustrated the whole time we’d been together. But at this moment, I didn’t care
enough about how I might not compare to the others.

Rick’s gasp made
me feel better. I wasn’t the only one suffering. “Did you like that, Rick?” I
asked, upset that my voice was so breathless.

“Faith, you talk
too much,” he informed me, as he raised his head up and stared at me. Then he
captured my mouth again, grabbed both my hands, and pushed them, our fingers
interlaced, into the carpet on either side of my head. He angled his hips so
that his erection hit my center, causing me to gasp into his mouth.

After several
thrusts, Rick released my hands as he tried to pull down my dress’ spaghetti
straps. The stupid things barely budged. At his frustrated growl, I reached
behind me, and in some weird contortionist move that surely we would appreciate
at some point, I unhooked the dress and yanked the zipper down just enough. I
wriggled out of the top of the dress, until my breasts were exposed. I loved
those built-in bras, and by the look of awe in Rick’s eyes, he did, too. He
murmured, “So pretty,” before he started licking around the nipple of my right
breast before sucking it deep, while kneading my other one. As wonderful as it
felt, I needed more.