Elise
It’d been a few days since that night, and we’d had sex again before I felt too sore. It was hard getting used to Aston’s…size. He was…well-endowed, to put it mildly. It was like pushing a piano through a golf hole those first couple times. Well, that was a shit example, but it was the only thing that came to mind in my koala head (and yeah, I was still ridiculously chill about everything). He didn’t push for it after I told him, and recent nights were spent talking and then exploring different ways to making each other feel good. I healed, and by day five, I was up and at it again, determined to get more of him.
On a particularly beautiful day, we took our bikes out of the garage and rode down the streets, taking trails through the parks and up winding mountain roads. We got beeped at a thousand times by drivers. Montley was infamous for its road rage and intolerance for bicyclists. For a place that was founded on so much religious drivel, there were an awful lot of mean people.
We parked our bikes along the fence of some dude’s massive house. Aston knocked on his door and asked if we could chain our bikes to it while we walked a popular trail that overlooked the town.
“You gotta pay for that privilege,” the old dude said.
Ugh, he couldn’t be serious. He lived in a gargantuan house, had four cars out front, and he was asking for money?
“Money for what, though?” Aston asked, his voice firm and challenging. “We just want to lock them against your chain link fence.”
“And what if a bear mauled them and took down my fence?”
“A bear won’t maul them, sir.”
“You can’t promise me that.”
“Aston,” I called out, “it’s fine. We can find somewhere else to hook them up.”
But Aston wasn’t listening to me. Not surprising. This was what men did, right? They got all personal about something small and easily fixable. Then it was all about who had bigger balls, and ew, I didn’t want to be thinking of the old dude’s balls, but a wrinkly looking sack of meat assaulted my mind and I dry heaved. Gross, Elise, what is wrong with you?
Aston had a full blown argument with the old dude. Then money was brought up and I cringed when Aston began pulling out his wallet from his pocket. Oh, God, he was seriously going to pay the man? It was like auction wars after that. They haggled over two bicycles attached to a fence that, now that I looked at it, wasn’t even all the way upright and stable.
Aston returned minutes later, and the old dude looked triumphant and smug as he slid his ten dollars in his pocket and disappeared inside his massive house.
I decided not to give Aston a hard time about it, but my stink eye couldn’t be tamed. He ignored the look and locked our bikes up. Then he took my hand in his and squeezed. It was a shocking moment for me, being held like this outside for the world to see. Well, not the world really, we were very isolated, but it was better than being isolated inside a dark bedroom.
We walked up the road until we saw the sign.
Mount Fern Trail
Difficulty: Intermediate
Time: 2.5 hours
Distance: 11.3 km
Elevation gain: 380metres
I hesitated. I wasn’t an intermediate climber. I wasn’t intermediate at anything, except kissing. Yeah, I’d grown really good at that as of late.
“You ready?” Aston asked me.
“No,” I answered, my eyes wide with fear. “What if we get mauled by bears? That old guy seemed totally convinced.”
“Then all you have to think about is outrunning me.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to die.”
*
To make a long story short, I didn’t die, but fuck, the trail had an incline of doom. My legs burned everywhere. I was short of breath, thirsty, and tired beyond belief.
“I thought dancers had good cardiovascular systems,” Aston remarked on a smile, handing me a bottle of water from his bag.
“They don’t eat quarter pounders after every session,” I replied, gulping it down.
We approached the lookout and rested our elbows on the crappy wooden fence. It was a gorgeous site of the valley. Montley didn’t look so depressing from this far. In all seriousness, I felt at peace, like being here wasn’t so bad.
“You gonna follow me after you’re finished?” Aston asked me sometime later, his voice quiet and solemn.
I turned my head to him. He was wearing board shorts and a blue tank top. His shoulders were burnt red and covered in new freckles. It suited him, those freckles. I wanted to own every single one of them. His eyes were squinted as he gazed out and still they sparkled in the sunlight. His blond man-bun sat messy at the top of his head. He looked like he was made to be a surfer on an island beach, not a nature outdoorsman in the pacific northwest.
“I want to,” I finally answered.
“I’ll take care of you, you know.”
“I kind of don’t want to be taken care of.”
“I didn’t mean it like you’d be dependent on me or anything, but that you can think of what you want to do at your own pace without feeling pressured.”
I grabbed at the end of my ponytail and nervously ran my fingers through the strands, contemplating his words. “I want to be a dancer.”
He turned his head to me and smiled brilliantly. “Yeah?”
I blushed at his intensity. “It sounds silly, though, doesn’t it?”
“No.”
“How would I even do it?”
“You want to perform or choreograph?”
“I don’t know, both? There are theatre programs in the city. I’ve looked some up, but they’re a bit intimidating. One of them expects you to have yoga classes under your belt, and all these weird criteria crap.”
“So? You got a year. You can do all that.”
“You think?”
He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me to him. My body pressed against his front. He looked down at me, the greens of his eyes mesmerizing. He leaned down and brushed his lips against mine. “You can do it,” he murmured, licking along the crease of my parted mouth. “I’ll be there with you.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
I smiled back at him and wrapped my arms around his neck. He lifted me up and rested my bum on the fence and crushed his mouth to mine. It was hot already, but I felt even hotter as he spread my legs wide and settled his hips against me. I felt drunk on love already, but lust was even more glorious. Lust sent ripples of need throughout my body.
“Aston,” I panted, kissing him feverishly.
He broke away and looked over his shoulder. His chest was heaving up and down, his need apparent and against me. “I want you,” he told me.
“Nobody’s here.”
He continued to look around, weighing our options. “I can’t risk it.”
Before my hopes could be dashed, he picked me up and led me off the trail and into the dense bush. All the while his lips remained moulded to mine. Metres from the trail, he dropped me slowly to the ground and kissed my neck, chest, and stomach. I was shaking when he started pulling my shorts down but not my underwear. He removed a condom from his wallet and covered his body over mine, passionately prolonging our touches until I was moaning out loud for him to hurry.
He had the corner of the condom packet in between his teeth when I heard heavy footsteps approaching. It’d come out of nowhere. My ears had been pumping so much blood, I didn’t know until whoever was there had reached us.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” barked a voice. “This is a public area! Kids walk this damn path all the time. Get up!”
Aston’s eyes spoke of horror and they mirrored my own. We recognized the voice. We knew who it was, and all my fears came to light.
We’d just been discovered by Dad’s partner, Adrian. What were the fucking chances?
Aston pulled away from me, but he kept his body in front of mine as he slowly turned around and looked up at Adrian. I caught a quick glimpse of the middle-aged man. He was so like my dad in so many ways, but he was softer and funny too. He wasn’t in his police uniform, so at least I knew Dad wasn’t anywhere around. He was in casual hiking clothes, and with his age pushing fifty, it was surprising how in shape he was.
“Aston?” The surprise was evident in his voice as he looked at him. “The hell, boy? What are you doing?”
Aston kept my upper body hidden as he replied, “I’m sorry, Adrian. Got a bit carried away.”
“Who are you with? Does the family know you’re in a relationship?”
“Not all of them.”
“Move aside. You’re both in for a lesson.”
I blinked hard, keeping the tears at bay. God, this was a nightmare. This was not how I wanted our relationship to be found out. Aston hesitated, not wanting to move, but then he finally did. He pushed down my body so that my bottom half was covered up and rested my shorts over my underwear.
What followed had to be the most awkward and uncomfortable moment of my life. My eyes connected to Adrian, and a myriad of expressions followed. Confusion. Surprise. Shock. And then…realization. He stared between the two of us, unsure of what to say. He was utterly speechless. Then he took a step back and left us there, hurrying like his ass was on fire.
I sat up and with trembling fingers I slipped into my shorts, staring at Aston’s grim face.
“Where did he go?” I whispered to him, worried.
“To the lookout,” he whispered back.
My heart battered inside my chest as I looked toward that direction. “Do you think he’s calling Dad?”
“Probably. I don’t know.”
“We-we can’t let that happen.”
Aston’s lips tightened. “We can’t stop him, either, El. This is bad.”
I stood up on wobbly legs and used the tree next to us for balance. I felt sick with worry. What would we go home to? Oh, God, how were they going to react to this?
“I can’t let that happen,” I said hastily. “I can’t.”
“El –”
I was already gone, marching in the direction of the lookout. When I emerged, I found Adrian standing where we had been minutes ago. He was staring out, rubbing at his face like he was stressed. I stopped beside him, my body turned to him. He didn’t acknowledge me, but he let out a long sigh, aware of my presence.
“Adrian,” I choked out, “please, don’t say a word.”
“About what?” he gruffly asked.
“About what you saw.”
“You mean you having a relationship with your adopted brother?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds worse than it really is. It’s kind of mean, Adrian.”
He looked at me briefly. “All I know, Elise, is you both have been thick as thieves since he was taken in. I never saw any looks exchanged in…that way. Both of you were so young, you grew up together as siblings. I thought it was completely innocent.”
“It was never innocent,” I argued, breathing erratically now. “I always loved him and I never looked at him as a brother.”
He raised a brow, studying me. “How long has this been going on?”
“Not long.”
“What do you think your parents are going to say when they find out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to tell them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know anything?”
I cringed. “I don’t know. Everything is a clusterfuck.”
“You can’t keep hiding this.”
“Then give us the chance to tell them.”
He laughed shortly; it wasn’t real, and I didn’t like hearing it. He turned to me, his brown eyes warming as they traced my face. “El, I’m your godfather. I knew you before you walked, before you talked, before you were even born. Do you really think I’m going to tell your parents?”
A tear fell from my eyes. I sniffed. “Not when you say it like that.”
He let out a long exhale. “Let this be a wake-up call then. Be careful of your actions. It might have been your father walking in on you both, and that would have been a terrible way for him to find out.”
I nodded urgently. “Okay, I agree.”
He touched my arm and squeezed it gently. Then he dropped it and walked back down the trail, disappearing from sight a minute later. I returned to Aston and found him in the exact same spot I left him. I sat down next to him and pressed my body against his side. He wrapped an arm around me and kissed the top of my head.
“He won’t say anything,” I told him.
He looked relieved for a moment, but then his face went hard again.
“I have to let them know,” he replied grimly. “We can’t hide this from them any longer, El. It could have been worse. What if it was Deck-chair or someone else you know? They’d have used this like arsenal and the town would have blown up with rumours within a week. They have to know.”
I swallowed hard, concerned. “But…you don’t think we should wait a little while longer, until I’m done school first? I don’t want to have to deal with them if it goes down badly.”
“Elise, it’s hard enough hiding it now and we’ve been at it a few weeks. Another year would be impossible.”
“I know, but then I think of Dad’s reaction, and… I’m just…scared.”
He sighed. “I know you are. I’m scared too. But it’s the right thing.”
“But…is it the right time?”
“There will never be a right time.”
I nodded stiffly. I was agreeing to something I was terrified of. “When are you going to do it then?”
“He’s been talking about going fishing for a while now. I’ll put a day aside and we’ll spend time together. I’ll have to open up to him then.”
“I should come with you.”
He shook his head. “No, El. Let me do that. We’ll break the news together to Mom, but…Dad is going to be a different matter. If it goes to shit, at least he won’t take it out on you.”
I nodded again, trying to suppress the dread that followed. I was petrified. My heart stretched and tightened over and over again, nerves conquering every inch of my being, as I wondered how our lives were going to change.
At the end of the day, I loved Aston. I had to have courage to face the unexpected. No matter what, we would be together.
That was all that mattered.