Someone to Love (19 page)

“I’m naked,” she whispers as if alerting me
to some shameful secret. I pull the covers over the two of us and
nestle her bare bottom into my stomach.

“I won’t tell if you won’t.” I twist my hips
away from her in the event I accidentally introduce her to my
hard-on and send her running for weaponry. She’s got to know I’ve
got one, right?

“So now what?” She eases into me until her
back fuses against my chest.

I close my eyes and drink down her warmth,
her amazingly fucking soft skin—the way her bare chest rests on my
arm and sears me with pleasure.

“You make the next move, Kenny.” I trace out
her ear with my lips. God, I hope she moves in the right
direction.

She spins around and takes a deep breath. Her
hands land over my chest, and she moves her fingers in soft smooth
circles.

“Show me what to do,” she whispers. “I’ll do
whatever you want.”

Whatever I want.

I swallow hard as I pull her in, and this
time my bodily protrusion greets her by gliding against her thigh.
Kenny’s dark hair stains the room like a shadow, and her pale
features glow, soft and luminescent like a tissue-covered lamp.

“You’re so beautiful.” I press a kiss over
her cheek and linger. Kenny would do anything I wanted. I could
have her right now. I could burry myself inside her, put an end to
this aggressive build-up brewing inside me once and for all and
explode with relief from the pressure. But Kenny deserves to have
someone say those magic words to her, one of which is the very word
she declared war against in class this morning. I suppose I’m a big
enough asshole to take her anyway, screw good morals and integrity
but I can’t—not Kenny.

“I think tonight’s lesson is snuggling,” I
say, gently rolling her into me until we’re spooning again.

“Snuggling?” She burrows her hair into my
neck, scented with flowers and vanilla, and her skin burns an
erotic hole right through me. I close my eyes, taking in the
ecstasy and the misery as if she were writing a poem over me with
her flesh.

I let out a dull moan and feel the vibrations
hum through her body as if we were the perfect conduits.

“Snuggling,” I whisper in her ear. “Once you
have your way with all those hundreds of guys, you might want to
catch a breather after. Maybe catch some Z’s.” Just the thought of
her bare skin touching anyone else’s is enough to send me in a
rage.

“Oh, right.” There’s a marked disappointment
in her voice. Like maybe she wanted me to take advantage of her,
but was too shy to ask.

Tonight’s endeavors are entirely up to her.
If she wants, she could still turn this ship around, navigate my
dick into the harbor it so desperately longs to dock in. I have a
condom at the ready. God knows my entire existence is crying out,
screaming at every cell in her body to want me as bad as I want
her.

But Kenny doesn’t make a move.

And neither do I.

I hold Kenny all through the night, watching
as the moon radiates its beams over her like a love song. I would
spend every night like this if she let me. If I’m lucky, the mice
will breed, and she’ll never want to be two feet away from me. But
I don’t want our first time to be the result of manipulation on my
part.

In fact, I want to put it off until after I
tell her exactly how I feel.

And hopefully, she’ll feel the same way,
too.

The next afternoon at the gym, I decide to
share a few details with Cal without consulting my better
judgment.

“You let
her
decide what to do, and
she laid there like a limp rag?” Cal extends his hands, and the
weights shift to the left. “Sorry.”

“No—she let
me
decide. And I decided
not to. Besides, that isn’t what she wants.”

“Of course it’s not what she wants. That’s
precisely why she didn’t ask for it. She’s probably gay. Face it,
you’ve got the wrong anatomy.”

“She’s not gay. She’s just young, sweet, and
innocent. She needs to be in a committed relationship.”

“You tell her how you feel?”

“Not yet.”

“What the hell are you waiting for? Those
three little words have been uttered time and memoriam in order to
secure young, sweet, ‘innocent’ ass.” He takes the weights and
hoists them onto the bracket. “Man up already, would you? I’m
getting frustrated listening from the sexually deprived sidelines.
If I wanted to experience a dry season, I would focus on my own sex
life.”

“Maybe I will man up.” I pluck the towel that
perpetually hangs from his neck and wipe the sweat off my face.

“Guess who came in yesterday and purchased a
membership for the year?” Cal sits on the bench across from me with
that I’m-not-shitting-around expression he gets during tax
season.

I don’t need to play twenty questions to know
its Blair. “What the hell is the deal with her? She’s at Garrison,
too.”

“She told Lauren things didn’t work out with
her and lover boy. She says she’s back for the long haul—that she
wishes she never left. Rumor has it she’s got her sights set on a
familiar old boyfriend—or was it fiancé?”

“Nope, not fiancé.” I get up and head out of
the room. “She didn’t say yes.”

And, after meeting Kenny, I’ve never been
happier.

Kendall

A Dozen Long-Stemmed Heartaches

On the Sunday before I bare far more than my
mortal soul in art class, I decide to brave the snow and grab some
coffee with Lauren and Ally.

Lauren called, said there was some kind of
relational emergency and that she needed a hot brunette with a
great body ASAP. To be honest, I didn’t like the sound of it.

Cruise has been helping his mother with
repairs all weekend at both the hair salon and bed and breakfast.
I’m not sure how he magically morphs into a handyman once he leaves
the house, and yet the heater remains mysteriously irreparable.
Although I’m not complaining. I’ve spent the last week lying naked
in his arms with his protruding affection jammed firm against my
thigh, and, well, okay, it might have slipped in a more intimate
location a time or two, but he was quick to reposition himself.

I’m sure he’s long given up trying to have
his way with me. He probably thinks I’m asexual, that I’m not even
remotely interested in him or men in general. But the truth is, I’m
ready to cave. I’m one heated breath away from turning around in
the middle of the night and diving into his delicious dimples. I
don’t care if he impales me with that power line between his legs
or if it manages to jet right out of my throat in the process.
Everything in me cries for his body. I’m not sure what I’m waiting
for. But God knows I’m waiting for something.

Per rules of the universe Starbucks is packed
wall-to-wall with bodies. You’d think the only working heater in
all of Massachusetts was right here in this shop, and if Cruise’s
home, and the classrooms at Garrison are any indication, it just
might be.

The thick scent of coffee seduces me with its
slightly burnt aroma, and I inhale deeply as I get in line.

“Kendall!” A loud, rather abrasive woman’s
voice hails me from the front. I spot Aunt Jackie waving and head
on over.

“Guess who I talked to today?” she asks,
offering me a big rocking hug. Her perfume and hairspray launch an
assault on my senses and for a moment I lose the ability to
breathe.

“Pen?” I haven’t seen Pennington since our
botched double date. I can’t believe he had the nerve to bumble his
way to second base while in a public establishment. Of course, I
had the nerve to molest Cruise’s hand while on a date with Pen, so
I guess we’re sort of even.

“No, silly.” She flicks her wrist, and her
diamond-encrusted tennis bracelet threatens to fall off. There’s
something about the way Jackie presents herself that scares me a
little. Maybe it’s her obvious fake lashes. I’ve been known to don
falsies on occasion myself, but these in particular look like she
plucked the wings off some poor unsuspecting butterfly, way too
transvestite for this early in the afternoon. Or maybe it’s the
heavily penciled eyebrows that give her that perpetual look of
surprise, or the thick black outline of her lips—a look I thought
was canceled along with Baywatch. Nevertheless, the fifties are
calling. They want their go-go boots back. “I talked to your
mother!” She beams. “You’ll never guess what she said.”

“She’s getting married.” If that’s the case,
I think I’ll skip the nuptials and cheer from the sidelines once
the dissolution is on the horizon. A heavy feeling overcomes me at
the thought of her racking up another tally mark in divorce court.
I hate the thought of Mom getting her heart broken once again.

“Bitter much?” She puts in her order, and I
wave at Ally. “Make it two!” She turns back to me. “I’ve got this,”
she whispers without even asking if I wanted a double espresso. But
I’m more than thankful. At the rate I’ve been mismanaging my anemic
funds, I might have to familiarize myself with the local soup
kitchen in less than a week.

“So what’s the big secret?”

“The girl is lonely.” Jackie makes a face.
“She got that stewardess friend of hers to get her a ticket. So
she’ll be out for a visit.” She punctuates it by tapping me on the
nose.

Lauren breezes in and trots on over. Her dark
hair is whisked across her forehead and her mascara looks smudged
as if she’s been crying.

“I’m so glad you came.” She pulls me in by
the elbow. “We desperately need to talk.”

“Um…” I look back at Aunt Jackie. “It’ll just
be a minute.”

“Take all the time you need. I’m leaving,”
Jackie insists. “She’ll be coming out in a couple weeks, so you
might want to make arrangements.”

“Isn’t she staying with you?” I ask as she
heads toward the door.

“I’m having the house painted. She’s all
yours, hon. We’ll do dinner!” And with that, she walks out into the
snow-covered world. A younger man with a goatee takes her by the
waist and gets her settled in the passenger seat of his dated Monte
Carlo.

“Who the hell is that guy?” I whisper mostly
to myself. “And who paints their house during blizzard conditions
with no end in sight?”

“Who cares?” Lauren pulls me off to the
corner. “I think my boyfriend might be seeing someone else.” It
speeds out of her. Her glassy eyes blink in quick succession as her
cheeks explode a bright shade of pink.

Ally comes up from behind. “That two-timing
asshole!”

“Shh!” She hops up and down in a heightened
state of panic. “He’s on his way.”

“Perfect,” Ally snipes. “I feel an accident
coming on with a boiling pot of coffee. We’ll fry his balls and see
how far that gets him with the ladies.”

“No!” Lauren darts a finger in the air. “No
frying of the balls. Get back behind that counter. I’m going to
have Kendall hit on him and see how he responds.”

“What?” Now it’s my turn to jump out of my
skin. “I’m not
hitting
on anybody. I don’t even know how to
do it.” True story. I tried to “hit” on Cruise, and now I’m
sleeping naked next to him in hopes to trick him into liking me.
God only knows where I’ll end up with her boyfriend.

“Pretend he’s Cruise and flirt,” Lauren
instructs. “Just be your cute little self, and he’ll fall all over
you.” Her face crumbles at the thought.

“Then what?” I clutch at my chest in horror.
I suspect third degree burns will be called for in the event he
falls for our poorly hatched plan.

“Then”—Ally twitches—“I scald him and make
sure his future endeavors in procreation are physiologically
futile. We burn the bastard.”

Knew it.

“I don’t even know what he looks like.” Shit.
I’m nowhere near ready to pick up strays at coffee holes. By
definition, Cruise is doing a lousy job of directing me in all
things “hookup.”