Chapter Nine
Charlene
I was swaying my hips to the country song on the radio, singing along with the part of the lyrics I knew, which was mostly the chorus and mostly a repeat of the words, “I got this.”
The cake I was working on was another birthday cake with a princess theme.
“I got this,” I hummed and moved the piping-tip slowly to create lacey-looking white lines. “I got this,” I repeated, and stepped back to survey the creation in front of me. I’d pushed the top of a Barbie-doll into a dome-shaped cake which I’d covered with a thin layer of fondant to make it look like a skirt. It was a design I’d found on the internet when Maddie Alvarez’ cousin had asked for a princess cake, and I’d decided to give it a go. It looked surprisingly good, and I only had some more thin lines of white frosting and some store-bought flowers made out of sugar to add.
“I got this,” I finished singing, and wiped off my hands as I took a step back to look at the cake.
“If you don’t cut it out with the smugness, Lee, I will fire you,” Jenny said calmly from her place over by the pots and pans where she was plating food.
I grinned at her and wiggled my brows.
“What can I say?” I asked with a shrug.
“Preferably nothing,” she retorted, but I saw the grin on her face before she turned away to sprinkle parsley on top of two plates filled with mashed potato and her famous pulled brisket.
She’d picked them up when her phone started ringing, but I moved toward her.
“My back hurts, so I need a break,” I said. “Let me take the plates out, and you can answer that.”
“Thanks,” she said and looked at the phone. “Couple at the end of the counter.”
I heard her talking quietly on the phone as I walked out to hand a sweet elderly couple their lunches. I ended up chatting with the woman for a while, about where they could find gifts to bring home and how lovely the area was this time of the year. Officially, I wasn’t a waitress, but in the past weeks, I’d sort of slid into the hustle and bustle of the diner, and somewhere between Jenny and me we just seemed to do whatever had to be done. The place was busy, and we really needed another waitress, or even more – another cook. Jenny was working too long hours, I thought.
“Okay, sure, I’ll do that. Yeah, you take care too,” I heard her say when I got back into the kitchen.
She was frowning, but there was a hint of worry on her face too.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “Maybe nothing at all, but –” she paused and sighed. “Maybe it’s nothing, Lee, but do you remember when you first got here? My other part-timer had just left – Joanie?”
I nodded. The cake-decorateur who had split during the night, leaving Jenny in a lurch with my first cake.
“That was her mom. She wondered if I could ask Joanie to get in touch. They haven’t heard from her and didn’t even know she left Wilhelmine.”
“Really?” I murmured. “That’s a month ago, almost.”
“Yeah,” Jenny said. “Joanie called them every week. Every Sunday, when they got back from church. They’re worried.”
“Can you call her?”
“I will. She didn’t pick up after disappearing in the night, and I left some pretty angry messages for her, but I’ll try again.”
“I hope nothing has happened to her.”
“Me too,” Jenny said. “She wasn’t too happy. Day didn’t give her the attention she was delusional enough to think she deserved, and then he simply upped and left. Joanie said she’d go after him, tell him to fuck himself.” She paused and sighed again. “Guess I’ll call him too, just to see if she did.”
“Okay,” I said and started to box up the cake. “What’s he like?”
“Day?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’ll like him,” she said. “Joanie was a goddamned fool to chase him like she did, but it wasn’t a surprise. He’s like the other guys.”
“A badass,” I concluded.
“That too, but I meant hot. Red hair, red beard. Tall. Built.”
I tried to remember him from the group of men I’d seen laughing in the ski resort, but I’d only really looked at Gibson so I couldn’t recall what he’d looked like.
“They must have been something back when you were all in High School,” I said instead.
“Yup,” she said. “Paddy broke most hearts, closely followed by Gib. Mac was kind of scraggly back then, and Day was always such a nerd, but they both made their rounds around the girls.”
“Joke?”
“I try really hard to not think about my brother doing anything with the ladies,” she said dryly.
I pursed my mouth and thought about the tall, solid man with his blonde hair in a pony-tail. “I think he’s cute,” I said, thinking that this was a massive understatement, and she chuckled.
“Bet he’d love to hear that,” she muttered, and added, “Bet Gibson would love to hear it too.”
I giggled, thinking about how Gibson would react.
“Gib keeps me, um… busy,” I said and wiggled my brows as I grinned at her. “He knows I have absolutely no energy to look at other men.”
“Yeah?” she said and grinned back at me.
“I suspect enthusiastic is his middle name,” I said to the cake in front of me before closing the lid and taping the box shut.
I felt heat creep up my cheeks, but it was too good to not share with her and it was who we were anyway. I hadn’t known women our age could be friends the way we were becoming. My friends from before my divorce had been pleasant women who I’d had lunch with, or met at dinner parties, and we’d talked about their children, or pets, and our homes. I hadn’t known you could be friends in the same way you were as a teenager when you were fifty. That you could giggle and share your secrets. Or talk about sex.
“Just how much enthusiasm are we talking about?” she asked. “It’s new, so I’m guessing it’s still every night-enthusiastic, hm?”
“And every morning,” I whispered, and glanced up at her. “And that first night, Jenny… Wow. Just wow.”
“Really?”
I slowly raised one hand and wiggled three fingers.
“Well, good for you,” she said with a grin.
I winked and told her, “Oh, that was him.”
Her eyes widened, and her mouth fell open.
“Really?” she repeated. “You?”
I heard the bell on the counter jingle, so I wiped a bit of frosting off my fingers, and just as I was exiting the kitchen, I put both hands behind my back, one fully open and the other pointing with my thumb and index finger.
Her hoots followed me through the door, and I greeted Maddie and her cousin with a happy smile on my face.
***
Gibson
“You have got to stop, man.”
Gibson turned his gaze from his dog who was running around like a fool looking for a ball he still held in his left hand.
“What?”
“I’m gonna puke,” Joke muttered.
“I repeat, what?” Gibson said with a grin and threw the ball far into Mac’s backyard.
Then he sat down and looked at his friends.
“I might hurl too,” Paddy said.
“Uh-huh,” Mac added and nodded.
Gibson knew what they meant, but he kept his gaze calmly on the men in front of him.
“It’s gonna destroy your rep if you don’t wipe that fucking smile off your face,” Mac said.
“Is it illegal to grin?” Gibson asked innocently.
“It is not a grin.”
“Or even a smug smirk,” Paddy added, humor in his dark brown eyes.
“Nope. It’s a goddamned smile,” Joke concluded. “Fucking girly if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you,” Gibson pointed out.
He knew he smiled and he didn’t give a flying fuck. His friends would rib him about it, though. It was mandatory behavior, and he would have done the same, so he’d just let them.
“You have to stop,” Joke repeated.
“Maybe getting some on a regular basis –”
“And now it went smug,” Paddy interrupted.
They all chuckled and leaned back in their chairs, enjoying the warm sun and the unusual fact that they all had very little to do for the rest of the afternoon.
“One thing, Gib,” Joke said. “I overheard Lee and Jenny at the bar. Shouldn’t have listened but they had me running over with tequila so often it was impossible to not hear what they talked about.”
Gibson raised a brow and looked at his friend, guessing he knew what the women had talked about.
“So, what’s this shit about being fuck-buddies?” Joke asked.
Paddy and Mac burst out laughing when Joke explained in a few terse sentences about the agreement he’d heard Lee and his sister discuss.
“Not sure I like this, Gib. She’s not –”
“I know what she fucking isn’t,” Gibson barked, angry at the tone of his voice and what he implied. “Don’t give me that shit.”
Joke’s face hardened, and they glared at each other.
“Joke,” Paddy said calmly. “Stand down. Gibson. Explain.”
The motorcycle clubs all thought Paddy was their president in the same way their own hierarchies worked, and this was the kind of order they would have expected from him. They didn’t realize Gibson and the others had given Paddy the title because he’d always been like that anyway, even when they were kids. Not their leader, but still leading them. Calm, rational and infuriatingly often delivering sense and reason, when and how it was needed.
“Fuck it,” Joke said quietly.
“You gonna push me on this?” Gibson asked quietly.
“You know I won’t,” Joke said. “Don’t want her the way you do, but she has no one, so I’m having her back, that’s all.”
“Brotherly feelings, Joke?” Gibson sneered.
“Gibson,” Paddy snapped, and he was right again.
There was no need to rub anything in Joke’s face.
“Sorry,” Gibson grunted. “That was uncalled for, man.”
“I don’t get it,” Mac cut in. “You’re walking around looking like a fairy blew sunshine up your ass. Because you got yourself a fuck-buddy?”
Gibson looked at him, wondering if the look on his face was as exasperated as he felt. It probably was.
“She doesn’t want to get involved in a relationship.”
“Okay,” Mac said.
“And yet, here we are. Good friends, who fuck, who don’t see others while we do that, who don’t keep it a secret, and who also spend time together doing normal everyday shit. Who practically live together, at least temporarily.”
Understanding lit in their eyes and Gibson grinned with them, thinking that yeah. He totally deserved to feel as smug as he felt.
“You’re totally in a relationship,” Paddy said.
“Yup.”
“And she has no clue.”
“Nope.”
Mac barked out short laugh, and said with a nod, “You’re good.”
“I am.”
“What will you do when she figures it out? She’ll not be happy.”
“Guess I’ll have to man up and fuck the unhappiness out of her.”
Rowdy laughter echoed, but Gibson looked at Joke. He’d known the man wanted an in with Lee, but he’d thought it was just because of how she looked. They’d have problems if the other man wanted something more because Gibson was sure as hell not giving Lee up.
“We’re good, man,” Joke said. “She’s nice to look at, that’s all.”
Gibson nodded but didn’t say anything because what was there to say? She’d suddenly just been there, fitting into the group like a missing piece as she worked with Jenny or laughed with them at Oak. The week before, they’d all gone over to Paddy’s secretary Edna’s home to help the older pair replace the fence around their backyard, and it had been as if she’d lived in the town all her life. She’d laughed with the others as they worked, helped out with dinner and played with the children. A woman like Lee didn’t move to their small town often, so it wasn’t a stretch to think Joke would have had ideas about getting his hands on her.
“Seriously,” Joke added, smiling his usual happy grin. “She’s hot for an old broad, but I’m not looking to have anything up my ass.”
He wiggled his brows, and Gibson snorted out laughter, thinking to himself that having something up someone’s ass was in no way a bad idea. At all. It wouldn’t be his, though.
“Let’s go to Jenny’s for lunch,” he said.
“I wonder what we’ll find at the restaurant…” Mac said teasingly.
Jesus. Lee was there, sure, but had they all reverted to fifteen-year-olds?
“We’ll find that today’s special is pulled brisket.”
That got their attention. Jenny’s pulled brisket burgers were a favorite treat, and they’d have to get going if they wanted to actually get some. On the way over, Paddy called Day to tell him where they were heading and laughed when he apparently got a long string of curse words in response. He closed the call chuckling, and as they sat down, he told them Day was making his way back.
“A week or two, he said, but you know him. Could be a month,” Paddy murmured and turned toward Jenny who came marching from the kitchen.
The look on her face made Gibson’s brows rise.
Was she angry? Or laughing? Or both?
To his surprise and embarrassment, she marched right up to him, put her hands on his cheeks and gave him a hard kiss straight on the mouth. It wasn’t at all unusual for them to hug, or touch each other affectionately, but kissing on the mouth? That never happened.
“What are you doing?” Paddy asked what Gibson also wanted to know.
Jenny leaned down and put her forehead against Gibson’s.
“That was for putting a smile on Lee’s face. It’s smug, and she’s killing me with the humming and dancing, but I like.” She moved back and smiled at him. “I like a lot.”
Then she started grinning and added, “I should have taken you up on your offer, Gib.”
Well, shit.
“What offer?” Joke asked slowly.
“If you do seven now, what would you have done back then?” she said with a cheeky wink.
Jesus. Did they talk about everything?
“Jen –”
“And that thing with the pillows?”
Yep. They talked about everything.
“What offer?” Paddy growled.
Jenny had been like a little sister to them, but Paddy’s sudden anger surprised Gib. So what if he’d tried to get it on with Jenny Tucker? He’d been twenty-something fucking years old, for Christ’s sake.
“Nothing happened, and it was way back. We were drunk,” Gibson muttered.
“This is true,” Jenny conceded. “But if I’d had an inkling that what I thought were highly exaggerated promises of pleasure were actually true, who knows what I would have done…”
“You tried to hook up with my sister?” Joke barked.
“With Jenny?” Paddy echoed.
“I’ll send Lee out with your burgers,” Jenny said with a smug grin.
Then she sashayed away, knowing well what she’d done, and probably enjoying it a little too much for his taste. Gibson turned his eyes from the tall, curvy woman and faced his friends.
“What I want to know,” Mac drawled, “Is what the hell you do with the pillows.”
***
Charlene
“God, please,” I whimpered and pushed back against his thighs.
I was on my hands and knees, and Gibson was behind me, holding my hips and gliding in and out at a pace that was infuriatingly slow.
“Love your ass, Lee,” he murmured, and I knew he did.
He’d told me before, and I’d discovered he really liked taking me from behind, letting his hands move over me while he did.
“Gibson,” I moaned. “Faster.”
“Had anyone here, baby?” he murmured and pressed his thumb against my back entrance.
I stopped moving. And breathing.
My deepest, darkest secret.
I hadn’t had anyone back there, but I’d thought about it.
“Baby?” he murmured and leaned over me, turning my head so he could look at my face. “What?”
“No, I haven’t,” I said.
He kept pumping in and out as he watched me.
“I’m gonna take you there one day,” he murmured, and I felt my breath hitch and my insides quiver. “Oh, yeah,” he went on. “And I think my girl would like that.”
“Um,” I mumbled and turned my head forward.
“Have you been thinking about it, Lee?” he said as he straightened. Then I felt his thumb pressing in again, breaching the outer ring, but just barely.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“But not had someone?”
“No.”
He grunted and increased the pace, starting to push into me harder. Deeper.
“Have you touched yourself there?” he murmured, and I wasn’t thinking clearly anymore, so I answered him without hesitation.
“Yes.”
“With your fingers.”
“And my vibrator.”
There was definite pounding now, and I felt it building, rushing over me, hard and fast.
“Your vibrator?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus,” he grunted. “Wanna watch, Lee. God, baby, come for me, I –”
Suddenly, both his hands were on my hips and he drove into me, coming with a hoarse shout, which pushed me over the edge and I came too, moaning as I fell forward into the bed.
He moved us until we were on our sides, him behind me and still inside me, and we breathed together as we came down.
“I think we’ll have to take a look at those toys of yours,” he said suddenly, and I felt his smile against my neck.
“Okay,” I agreed breathily, part nervous but part excited about the thought of doing that.
That’s when he started laughing softly, and with his lips still against my neck, he murmured, “The things you do to me, Lee.”
I twisted my torso around to look into his still laughing face, and then he leaned forward and kissed me.