Steel & Ice (11 page)

We got a pint of Cuervo. Not my favorite
tequila, but it was the only one available by the pint. I asked for
a bottle of lime juice too.

“
Get in the Suburban. Tinted
windows.” J instructed. I climbed in, coming down from my winning
high. I took the first swig of the Cuervo to make room for the lime
juice. After I squeezed as much lime juice as I could fit, I capped
the bottle and shook, reopened it and took another swig. Much
better. I passed it to J.

J took a big gulp out of the bottle and
raised his eye brows. “So I’m guessing you’ve also done this
before?” referring to the lime juice I put in the tequila
bottle.

“
Once or twice,” I shrugged
with a slow smile forming on my face. We continued passing the
bottle back and forth.

“
Let’s save some,” J said
when the bottle was half full. “I need to win back my
honor.”

“
Best of luck soldier,” I
laughed and saluted, jumping out of the Suburban.

We played some skee-ball. J won. We played
Wack-a-Mole. I won (and cheated). We amassed a ton of tickets on
Plinko. Through it all we both had smiles plastered across our
faces like junior high kids. I hadn’t laughed this much with
someone besides Chris and Aaron in who knew how long. It was easy
being with him. Dinner and a movie were my worst nightmare. Sitting
across from someone trying to make up conversation. Then sitting
through a movie neither person was watching because you were both
so nervous about what was going to happen at the end of the date.
With J at the arcade, we were free, just like junior high kids,
free of life’s responsibilities, even if only for a moment. That’s
why I came to Tilt, for these moments of freedom from the drudgery
and pain life often provided.

There was one more token left in the cup.
“Ready to finish that pint?” J asked.

“
You don’t want to use the
last token?”

“
Nah,” he said putting it in
his pocket. “What do you want with all those tickets?” he asked
looking at the strips of them in my hand. We took them up to Brian
and got plastic snakes, a candy necklace, two blow pop suckers, and
some fuzzy dice. As I walked back to J’s car, a blow pop in my
mouth, I felt like skipping.

J opened the back door to the Suburban and
ushered me in following behind me. I rewrapped the sucker and put
it in my pocket. He drank from the Cuervo bottle and passed it to
me. “I had a great time. Thanks for bringing me here Elle.”

“
I’m glad you had fun. No
one ever wants to go to the arcade with me.”

“
You haven’t come here with
boyfriends before?”

“
I’ve never been here with
anyone except my dad.” I quickly changed the subject from my
family, “And I don’t really have boyfriends.” Maybe that wasn’t the
best conversation changer.

“
Why not?” he asked, passing
me the bottle. He held up a joint as if to ask me if I wanted to
smoke it. I nodded, but held my thumb and forefinger apart an inch
to indicate just a little bit. I wasn’t sure how drunk I was, and
smoking weed for the first time in a day while drunk inevitably
lead to the spins, and then vomiting. Barfing seemed like it would
put a damper on the entire engagement.

“
I don’t know. It’s easier
to keep things casual I suppose. No one gets their feelings
hurt.”

J passed me the joint and I passed him the
bottle. “I would think you’d have guys lined up to date you.”

“
I don’t know,” I shrugged
puffing the joint. We were moving into dangerous waters. I wasn’t
prepared to tell him that my longest relationship was three months,
and usually three weeks was my limit. I was quiet for a
moment.

I puffed the joint and held it up to J,
silently asking where to tap the ashes. He held out his hand. I
tapped the ashes into his palm and puffed it again. We swapped; I
gave over the joint and he gave me the bottle of Cuervo to finish
off. I sunk into thought, temporarily forgetting where I was. As my
thoughts came together, I looked up to see J watching me, with a
calm but intent expression on his face. It was a nice change from
some of the chatty mother fuckers who pushed me for information.
Maybe it was J doing the opposite that made me speak up.

“
Like ogres and onions, I
have layers. Many. It’s hard to ramble them off to someone, which
is what most people seem to want me to do. I can’t lay myself out
in twenty words or less. You just have to go along for the ride and
find out.” I struggled to hold his gaze, feeling as if his eyes
were looking deep into me, glimpsing the fire beneath the icy
exterior. I felt the ice cracking a bit. I passed him the Cuervo
bottle. He gingerly tapped the ashes from the joint into his hand,
then poured them all into the empty Cuervo bottle.

“
Do you want this roach?” J
asked indicating the tail end of the joint. I shrugged. “Otherwise
I’ll toss it. No sense getting busted for a roach in the car.” I
appreciated his forethought. I tried not to carry weed on me
anymore than what I planned to smoke. I held out my hand and J put
the roach in it. I gathered some spit in my mouth and swallowed the
tiny bit of the joint that was left.

“
You just swallowed that?” J
looked at me incredulously.

“
No evidence and no
waste.”

“
Ogres, onions, and Elle,” J
muttered, shaking his head. His eyes were pitch black pools looking
into my gold tinted, brown eyes. His look he gave me spoke volumes,
but he only uttered one sentence. “I look forward to the
ride.”

I was both terrified and turned on
simultaneously. I just spent an incredible afternoon with this man.
He asked me questions, but didn’t push for answers when he saw I
was uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure what was supposed to come next.
The silence wasn’t weird, but it would be if something didn’t
happen soon. J felt the same, as he edged closer to me on the bench
seat. He reached his hands under my arms and up over my shoulders,
pulling me towards him. The movement made my head fall back, and
his lips were instantly on my neck. Soft kisses and tiny licks up
to my ear and back down to my collar bone sent a shiver through me.
Someone moaned. I think it was me. He was so gentle and sensual,
unlike the forceful kiss we shared inside the arcade.

I reached around his waist and put my hands
under his hoodie, running my hands over the smooth skin on his
back. It seemed like there was so much skin to cover, and I had
only just begun. I wanted to touch every inch of his skin and have
it touch every inch of mine. He pulled me on top of him, straddling
his lap. I reached up higher under his shirt, my hands continuing
the exploration of his stomach, his chest, his back, all of it rock
hard, yet covered in the smoothest skin I’d ever felt. My head was
hazy from the Cuervo and joint. Everything felt heady and erotic as
his kisses intensified, his lips finding mine, and gently pushing
them open. He licked his tongue around, exploring inside of my
mouth. I realized I was grinding my hips into him. Someone moaned
again. This time I knew it was me.

“
Fuck,” I
whispered.

“
What?” He pulled back,
concern written all over his face.

“
I just wanna—fuck. I don’t
wanna stop, but I’m not trynna fuck you in a car outside the
arcade. I don’t want this day to end, but I don’t know what happens
next.” I leaned into his neck muttering fuck a few more times. I
felt like a dumb ass.

“
Can you trust me and come
to my house? Nothing creepy. I have beer and pasta, and a great
view. The sun is about to set. No pressure. No weirdness. We can
just kick back, and if at any time you feel weird, just speak up.
You can say no, but I really hope you don’t. I’m not ready for this
day to end either.” He lifted my chin up, forcing me to look him in
the eye.

I smiled. “Can we have a safe word?”

His eyes got big. “Now who’s going fifty
shades? What are you planning to do to me that I would need a safe
word?”

I threw my head back and laughed, snorting a
few times. “No, more like an ‘I’m feeling weird, please make it not
weird’ safe word,” I said, playfully shoving his shoulder.

“
An ‘it’s getting weird’
safe word. OK. What’s the word?”

“
Um, starfish?”

He looked me right in the eye. My heart
started to pound in my chest. Did he think I was a total dork? Had
I ruined this perfect day? Fuck, I felt like the freak in high
school all over again. I waited for him to reply. It felt like the
theme to Jeopardy was playing in the background.

A smile spread across his face. “Starfish it
is. You OK to follow me?” I exhaled. He seemed to just go with
whatever I threw at him. Damn. I was smitten.

“
Yeah.” I smiled, glancing
up at him for a second before looking down at my hands. “Thanks,” I
murmured.

“
For what?”

I looked him in the eye, something that was
hard for me to do. “For being cool. For today. For starfish.”

“
No problem, Elle. It’s part
of the ride, right?” He took my hand, and kissed the palm. He
spoke, his lips against my hand, “I’ll wait for you to pull up
behind me.”

I wrapped the hand he was holding around his
cheek, cupping his face. “Yeah.” I smiled, nodded, and hopped out
of his car before it turned into starfish time. He could be so
fierce, yet so compassionate. How could one man encompass the
virility of Apollo, the strength of Atlas, and kind heartedness of
Artemis?

I got in my car and ran my
hands over my lips, remembering all the things J had done with
them, and done
to
them. I couldn’t help smiling. I shook my head and chuckled a
bit. This day had gone better than I could have ever expected.
These things didn’t happen to me. Before I could over think it, I
threw the car into DRIVE.

I followed J’s Suburban back to his place.
It wasn’t far from the arcade. The house was small, but it sat on
what looked like a little over an acre of land. There was a pond
behind the house. The sun would be setting over it soon. He was
right, he had a great view.

I parked my car behind his in the driveway.
He came to my door and opened it, again holding his arm out for me.
I couldn’t help my crooked smile as I reached out and took hold. He
led me up to the front door, unlocking it and ushering me
inside.

“
It’s not much. Living
room,” he said motioning to the room we walked into. It was sparse
with a brown leather couch and matching recliner facing a mounted
flat screen TV.

“
Is that recliner command
central?” I teased.

“
During the playoffs it is.”
He smiled. “There’s two bedrooms upstairs and this is the kitchen,”
he said, leading me into a smallish room. Plenty for a bachelor
though. I was sort of a connoisseur of kitchens as I spent forty
plus hours a week in one, but I kept my mouth shut. “This is the
best part,” he said, grabbing my hand and walking us into a sun
porch off the kitchen that overlooked the pond. “It wasn’t heated
originally. I had a friend swap the screens for windows, and
insulate it for all four seasons so I could sit out here and watch
the sunset in December as well as June.”

“
Oh wow. This is the shit.”
I ran my hand over the brown leather love seat that must have gone
with the set in the living room. There was a wooden coffee table
that sat in front of the loveseat. The base was made out of wood.
It had an eagle perched on a bear’s shoulder carved into it and a
sheet of glass lay on top of it.

The entire wall opposite the loveseat was
fitted with a giant picture window. The pond sat at what was
probably the end of his property line. Behind the pond was an
expanse of open land that ended in a line of trees. The view was
breath taking.

He let me stare for a minute before asking,
“Pasta, wine, beer? What can I get you?”

“
What kind of
wine?”

“
Red.”

“
What kind of red?” I
asked.

“
Picky much,” he said
smiling at me. “I think it’s a Merlot. Someone gave it to me. I’m a
beer kind of guy.”

“
Merlot sounds great.” I
followed him into the kitchen as he opened the wine and grabbed a
wine glass. “Can you put it in a rocks glass?”

“
You mean not in a wine
glass?”

I smiled sheepishly. “Although I’m impressed
with your stemware, I’m a spiller.” I’d learned the hard way after
ruining a few dozen shirts with red wine stains.

J turned from the cabinets to look at me. “A
spiller?”

“
I spill shit on myself a
lot.”

“
Rocks glass it is.” He
poured some Merlot into a glass that read ‘World’s Greatest Dad’
and passed it to me.

“
You have kids?” I asked.
Please say no. Please say no. Please say no.

“
No.” Yes! “I got it for my
dad when I was a kid. I kept it after he passed.”

“
Were you guys
close?”

“
Yeah, sorta. My mom left us
when I was nine. So my dad and grandpa raised me. Gramps was full
blooded Lakota. What about you? Your parents still
around?”

“
Unfortunately,” I
groaned.

J was lifting his beer to take a sip when I
said this. He stopped mid-way and gave me the eye brow arch. “You
don’t seem happy about that. Shitty childhood?”

“
No. And Yes. My parents are
still around and surprisingly still married. I think my dad
would’ve left her a long time ago had he not been raised Catholic.
My mom is, how shall I say, a handful.”