The Code to His Phone
Izzy
IT WAS ME that switched it up.
It was me who made him let me take over.
I didn’t know why I did it. I didn’t know that I had it in me to do it. I didn’t even think about any of this stuff.
I just did it.
The night before, Johnny had dragged, pulled, shifted, hauled and anything else he wanted to do to get me where he wanted me to be. On my back. On my knees. On his face.
That morning, it started out the same way. It started out like it had continued after the first time the night before.
The first time being fast and hungry and urgent and spectacular.
The rest of it was slow and hot and unhurried and spectacular.
That morning, it was the second kind.
Until I switched it up.
Until I took over.
It was when I was naked and he was naked.
It was when I was sopping wet and he was rock hard.
It was when every inch of me buzzed, and that buzz shimmered deeper from anything he did—a touch, a kiss, a lick, a nip—but also just looking at him, the harshness of sex set in his face, the dilation of his black eyes taking them from bright to blazing.
It was then I pushed him to his back, and at first he allowed it since I could tell he wanted it, because he was willing, for that moment, to go with my flow in order to move me into his new flow.
But when I held his shoulders down, straddled him, feeling his hard cock graze the damp curls between my legs, and I looked into his face, he stilled.
I did not.
I bent to him, sweeping my lips from his neck down to his collarbone up to his shoulder, thrilling in the warm silken skin over hard muscle my lips encountered.
I found his hand, laced my fingers in his and pulled it away from his body. After that, I trailed my lips down his arm, stopping to kiss the bulge of his biceps, moving on to lightly nip the skin at the inside juncture of his elbow.
Then I sat up abruptly, taking his hand with me.
I unlaced our fingers so I could flatten his hand against my chest, my eyes locked to his. Slowly, I drew his hand down my chest, between my breasts, over my belly.
And he held my eyes.
He didn’t look at his hand. My body.
He looked into my eyes.
God, I loved it that he kept looking into my eyes.
At my final destination, I twisted our hands, curled them in. My middle finger over his, both of them I took inside.
My head fell back.
His hips jerked.
“Izzy,” he growled.
My eyes were closed and I didn’t open them when his other hand curved around my breast, his calloused thumb rough as he dragged it across my nipple.
I started panting, feeling his finger move both of ours inside me, lifting my other hand to cover his at my breast to feel his movements there as he engaged his finger with his thumb and started rolling.
“God,” I breathed, rocking into our fingers, feeling the back of my hand slide over the underside of his hard cock.
“Look at me,” he ordered gruffly.
I didn’t look at him.
It felt so good, everything, I arched into his hand at my breast as I rode his finger inside me.
He stopped rolling with one, thrusting with the other, and I heard, “Eliza, look at me.”
I tipped my head down and slowly opened my eyes.
“I’m inside you, Iz, any way I can be inside you, you look at me,” he demanded thickly.
“Okay, Johnny,” I forced out.
“Ride it,” he commanded. “Show me.”
I rode it. I showed him. I helped him fuck me with his finger and tug at my nipple until the beauty it was causing had me whimpering, my movements desperate, my eyes floating closed.
He drove deep with our fingers, planted them there, and my eyes shot open.
“Eyes on me,” he growled.
“Yes,” I whispered, swaying into him when his finger moved again, the desperation turning to violence, urging him to fuck me brutally with our fingers, something he did, slamming my clit into the apple of his hand.
“Christ, sweet, shy Izzy, skittish as a cat, hides the wild of a sex kitten,” he murmured.
“I’m a prude,” I pushed out nonsensically.
I was barely able (but I did it, mostly because each and every one of them were exactly that good) to catch the flash of the white of his now seriously sexy smile before he replied, “Remind me of that so I can laugh when my dick’s not about to explode watching you take yourself there on my finger.”
I caught that too, just barely, not nearly enough to be embarrassed by it because I’d taken myself there on his finger.
I arched. I cried out. I ground into our fingers panting and whimpering.
In the middle of it, I lost them and was on my back in the bed.
I heard a drawer open, the wrinkling of foil, then I got him back.
Not his fingers.
His cock.
The first time the night before had been fast and hungry and urgent and spectacular.
This time we had started out slow and hot and unhurried and spectacular.
But right then, it was burning and rough and savage and totally uncontrolled.
And spectacular.
Circling my wrists with his hands and yanking them straight over my head, pinning them to the bed with his weight to hold me down at the same time giving himself leverage, Johnny hammered into me. Drilled into me. Crashing the base of his cock into my clit, pushing me over the edge yet again so I had no choice but to clutch him with everything I had available, hold on for dear life, and chant his name at the same time begging him not to stop, never to stop.
And I did this while my orgasm carried on and on, until it completely overwhelmed me and I couldn’t speak at all. I could just hold on and feel the magnificence of the climax engulfing me—us—as he groaned into my neck and powered through the jolts of his final thrusts.
When mine was waning and his was done, he collapsed on me, all his weight, his fingers manacles on my wrists, still pinning them to the bed.
And I didn’t mind.
I took his weight, his heat, his captivity because he was a man who had a great smile. Who had a way with interior design that was masculine and confident, interesting and cool. Who had a water wheel. Who opened the door on his truck to let me in and closed me in after. Who didn’t look at pretty girls who passed our barstools while he listened to me. Who made me feel sexy. Who made me feel pretty. Who made me feel so unencumbered by all the weight I carried that I’d be moved to take over, to slide his finger inside me and ride it while he watched. Who let me take over and draw him inside and ride him while he watched. And who got off on that so intensely, he’d been moved to take me rough, pinning me to his bed.
I was that girl with him.
That girl who could flirt with a handsome man and set him to scoring through four condoms. That girl he couldn’t even let her take a sip of coffee before he had to kiss her and whisk her back to his bed.
I was free and I was easy and I was sexual and I was desirable and I was funny and I was worth something.
I wasn’t Eliza Forrester, the straitlaced daughter of a hippie, the prim and proper and responsible older sister of a wild child.
I was Izzy Forrester, free and easy and sexual and desirable, who could hook up with a handsome man with a fabulous house in the woods who couldn’t get enough of her, and after one night chatting in a bar over margaritas and beer, they were starting something.
As I gloried in all of this, it slowly became clear that he wasn’t moving.
This was strange, and in a flash of panic I thought it was just my luck that I would kill the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen, much less slept with, after intense, amazing, pounding sex.
Did I give him a heart attack?
“Johnny?” I called tentatively, and a little wispily, seeing as I was accommodating his weight.
Instantly, he moved. Not letting go of my wrists but shifting them down so my elbows were bent, the position more comfortable, at the same time taking his weight out of his hands and also miraculously some of it off me.
His face was in my neck but he moved his lips to my ear where he asked, “You okay?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
He finally lifted his head and I liked that the harshness of sex was gone, the laziness of satisfaction had taken its place, but he still had an expression of concern.
“Rode you hard, baby,” he murmured.
“Yes,” I agreed.
His gaze scanned my face.
“I’m good,” I said quietly and then gave him a small smile at the same time I gave him a hug the only way I could, tightening my legs where I had them wrapped around his thighs.
I didn’t know him, at all—well, biblically, one could say I knew him relatively well—but otherwise I didn’t know him. Still, I could swear I saw the flash of unease in his eyes before he muttered, “Gonna take care of this condom.”
After that, he slid out, let go of my wrists, disengaged, and with no further ado, got off me, out of the bed and walked naked toward the hall.
No kiss.
No cuddling.
No tender caresses and soft murmurs.
I lay in bed staring after him and continuing to stare after he disappeared into the bathroom feeling a hint of frost come. It came like in the movies, when the bad things come and the chill comes with them, at first invading a corner of a window, starting slow but then moving quickly, covering and crackling over the window, the whole house.
Except this frost swept over my body.
It took but seconds to realize that I might not have tons of experience but I did have enough to know it didn’t take years for a man to dispose of a condom.
And for this reason, I shot to sitting in bed, searching for something to cover me.
I saw my panties on one side of the bed, on the other his T-shirt, sweats, and the rest of our clothes from last night.
I didn’t have time to fully dress so I rolled toward the clothes, grabbing up his T-shirt and tugging it on at the same time dashing around the bed to snatch up my panties.
I was settling them on my hips when Johnny appeared back in the hall.
He went right to his sweats, and I tried to take it as good he glanced at me as he did, not avoiding me, my presence or even eye contact.
He nabbed them and yanked them up as he asked, “You like eggs and bacon?”
“My mother was a vegan.”
He stopped in the process of tying the drawstring under his navel and stared at me.
His hair was even messier now, falling over his forehead and nearly into his eyes.
It made him look disheveled and more handsome than ever, especially my firsthand knowledge of and participation in how it got that way.
“I’m not,” I went on.
He kept staring at me.
“A vegan that is,” I shared. “I tried. About seven times. Even vegetarianism didn’t stick. So uh . . . yes. I like eggs and bacon.”
He slowly finished tying the drawstring on his sweats as he asked, “There a story behind all that information?”
“No, just, my mother wasn’t a vegan. She was a militant vegan,” I told him.
“Ah,” was all he said in reply, but he did it lifting his chin.
“And my sister was a vegetarian for years and years, until she met a guy who thought that was stupid and he introduced her to cheeseburgers.” I shrugged. “The rest is history. I had long since been a lost cause, but my mother never got over that.”
I was blathering and doing it mostly because I was beside myself with relief that he asked me if I liked bacon and eggs, which meant whatever strangeness I felt after we finished didn’t mean he was going to ask me to take off his shirt and put on my clothes so he could take me back to town and be rid of me.
“Not sure there’s a vegetable in this house, unless you count a bag of frozen corn,” he said.
I couldn’t stop myself from looking alarmed.
Johnny of course didn’t miss it and any of the cold I had left at the strangeness of how he left me in bed melted away when he burst out laughing.
I’d heard him chuckle. It was throaty and rich and lovely.
His laughter was that times a thousand.
But still, there was something about it that sounded . . .
Rusty.
“I’ll get the mugs,” I said in order not to do something stupid, like watch him laugh like a besotted teenager seeing her first boyband crush in concert.
I turned to the doors but turned back when he called, “Iz.”
My eyes met his.
“You eat a lot of vegetables?” he asked.
“Three quarters of your plate should be vegetables,” I answered.
“She eats a lot of vegetables,” he murmured through a white smile.
“I really need coffee,” I blurted.
“Then get our mugs, babe. I’ll get cracking on breakfast.”
He moved toward the kitchen.
I moved toward the deck.
I came back with the mugs and he was at the stove, but I knew he heard me enter when he ordered toward the stove, “Dump that out, we’ll get fresh.”
His cup maybe only had one last mouthful in it. I hadn’t even taken a sip.
“I’ll nuke mine,” I told him.
“Dump it out,” he returned.
“It’s okay. I nuke coffee all the time.”
And I did. I nuked coffee. I found creative ways to use leftovers. I slammed my lotion bottles on countertops to force down the last dregs.
What I didn’t do was waste, and I didn’t waste partially because I was an environmentalist but mostly because I grew up with government cheese in the refrigerator. When you didn’t have a lot, you not ever wasted what you had.
“It’s been sitting outside for almost an hour,” he stated.
“It’s still good,” I replied.
I made it to the kitchen, seeing he had a fancy drawer microwave in his island.
I was heading there when I stopped because I was divested of the mugs in my hands.
I watched Johnny go to the sink and dump both cups. He rinsed them, shook them out and then went to the coffeemaker.
“How do you take yours?” he asked.
“Just cream.”
“Little, lots or in between?” he asked.
“Little,” I answered.
He poured coffee while I watched. He then turned and put both cups by the stove. After that, he turned again, came to me, put his hands to my waist and shifted me around, then backward. Finally, I had to bite back a surprised cry when he lifted me up (without even a grunt of effort) and planted my behind on the counter next to the mugs, but removed from the stove where there was already a clump of strips of bacon cooking in a skillet.
Once he had me settled, he nabbed my cup and handed it to me.
He then grabbed his, took a sip and set it back down on the countertop. He went to a drawer, took out a fork and moved to the skillet in order to separate and straighten the bacon.
I guessed I was drinking fresh coffee.
And I guessed I was doing it sitting on the counter while he cooked, keeping him company.
“You put your panties back on,” he noted while I was swallowing my first sip.
“Uh . . .” I mumbled, not saying anything more.
His mouth hitched in the direction of the skillet before he put the fork down and went to the fridge.
I took another sip of coffee and looked around his room.
It was then I noticed that the massive TV hanging on the wall hung on the wall opposite the bed, but the couch, oblong coffee table and two flanking armchairs had their backs to the TV.
I guessed he watched TV in bed.
Or not much at all, considering the number of books practically falling out the many bookshelves and covering the table by the chair in the corner with the fabulous tripod floor lamp beside it.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
The utter silence this question received made my shoulders instantly tense and my gaze move directly to Johnny.
He had eggs out and was taking down a bowl from some shelves over where he was working.
What it appeared he wasn’t going to do was answer what I thought was a non-intrusive question.
It then came to mind our conversation last night at the bar.
A conversation that I hadn’t noticed until right then, thinking back on it, was one-sided.
I was new to town. I had to move there for reasons I didn’t like to think about. But I’d moved there because Deanna was there, she’d moved there years before, right after she married Charlie, and she was always talking about how fabulous it was. How friendly. How community minded. Added to that, property values were way cheaper than in the city. You could get so much more for so much less.
The one downside was that the commute was long and could be horrific if traffic got backed up. But I’d learned in the two months I’d been there that it was worth an hour’s (and often longer) commute every day.
That said, Deanna and Charlie were the only people I knew in town and I’d decided, with spring turning to summer, it was time to be more social, get to know my neighbors.
So I went to the one and only local bar, On My Way Home, known as Home. It was a drinking establishment like any other, with a rectangular bar in the middle, tables around, TVs all over the place. I’d heard they sometimes had bands but most times it was just a quiet place to catch a game or meet up with friends, have a chat and throw some back.
I’d actually seen Johnny pulling into the lot at the back when I’d finished parking. I’d glimpsed his magnificence through the cab of his truck. I’d even heard his car door close as I was walking in the back door of the bar.
And I’d barely sat down when Johnny had come up beside me.
He didn’t look at me, just slid into the space between me and the stool beside me.
He’d received instant attention from the female bartender whereupon he’d said, “Usual, Sally, and whatever she’s having.”
It was not the most original pick up line ever.
But it was the best one ever used on me, only because Johnny used it.
Thus ensued him sitting next to me and asking my name.
“Eliza. I’m Eliza Forrester. But everyone calls me Iz or Izzy.”
Sharing that got me my first grin.
And for the next couple of hours, I shared a lot.
Johnny had asked questions as I did. But when I’d done the same with him, he deflected them, bringing the conversation back to me.
Sitting on his counter in his kitchen after having sex with him four times in eleven hours, it occurred to me very belatedly I didn’t know a thing about him but his name, he drove a truck, he lived in a house with a water wheel in the middle of some woods and he was an exceptional lover.
Uncomfortably, I sipped my coffee, casting my mind frantically out for a conversational gambit that might actually work.
In the midst of failing at that, he answered, “Three years.”
I looked to him not because he answered but because it sounded torn from him.
“It’s a great place, Johnny,” I said quietly.
“Been in the family generations,” he shared, cracking eggs into the bowl. “Dad kept it up so folks who came to visit us had their own space. Wasn’t like this though. When I moved in, cleaned it up, fixed it up, updated some shit. Now it’s home.”
“It’s very attractive,” I told him. “And peaceful.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“The water wheel is cool,” I remarked.
“Yeah,” he repeated.
“Is it still being used for something?” I asked.
“Place was a gristmill. Now it’s not,” he answered in a way that was that and there would be no more.
Time to try something else.
“You don’t have pets,” I noted.
“Nope.”
And that was that too.
He turned the bacon. Got out another skillet. Put it on a burner. Walked to the double door pantry at the edge of the kitchen and got out a loaf of bread.
He brought that to me and set it by my thigh on the opposite side of the counter from his mug. He pulled a toaster from the wall.
“You wanna be in charge of toast?” he asked, his gaze finally coming back to me.
I nodded. “I think I can manage that.”
His head tilted to the side. “You know how to cook?”
“I was a latchkey kid. My mom worked and I was the oldest. So yeah, I know how to cook.” I smiled at him. “And I definitely can make toast.”
His impassive face softened before he reached up beside me and pulled down a plate.
He gave me a knife and the butter.
I grabbed the bread.
“How many pieces do you want?” I asked.
“Two,” he answered.
He reached across me to grab the butter, shoved a huge pat of it in the empty skillet, then reached back across me to replace the butter.
I slid the lever down on the first two slices of toast just as a cell phone rang from somewhere in the vicinity of his bed.
“That’s my tone,” I said.
“Mine too.”
Another sliver of information about Johnny, he had an iPhone.
He moved into the room and I watched him toss his jeans aside and come back with my purse, which was ringing.
He handed it to me.
I dug out my phone.
He took the purse from me and set it on the island as I took the call and he went back to the stove.
The call was from Deanna.
“Hey there,” I answered.
“Where are you?” she replied.
“I’m, well . . . still with, uh . . . Johnny,” I stammered.
“Okay, then, just so you know, went by your place and took care of your menagerie. All fed and watered, including Serengeti and Amaretto.”
Serengeti and Amaretto, my palomino and bay horses, respectively.
“I’m still here,” she went on. “Letting the dogs have a good roam. I’ll bring them back in before I go, but could you call me when you get home?”
I suspected, since this was not my done thing, and she’d lived through my last nightmare with me (and others besides), she just wanted to make sure I was not only okay right then, but that I got home okay.
“Sure,” I replied. “And thanks.”
“Not a problem, babe. Later,” she said then rung off, which I found a little odd.
I mean, she knew I was there with Johnny so she couldn’t have a girlie gab at that particular moment about my hookup, but she seemed matter of fact to the point of being blunt.
Maybe it was a problem I asked her on a Sunday morning to go look after my babies.
I made a mental note to bring over some treats as a show of gratitude some time that week and definitely call her when I got home as I brought the phone down and saw the notifications had come up after the call.
Three texts from Deanna that came in unnoticed sometime during the activities last night (or this morning).
Call me.
Babe, call me.
As soon as you can, call me.
Oh God, maybe she really couldn’t look after my babies but had to because she hadn’t heard from me.
I engaged my texts, typed in, I’m so sorry. I didn’t get your texts. If it was an inconvenience to look after my zoo, I apologize. I got caught up in things. It means the world you took care of them anyway, I can’t thank you enough and I’ll totally make it up to you.
I sent the text with a whoosh and Johnny asked, “All cool?”
“I think so,” I answered uncertainly.
“What’s the thinking part of that?” he queried.
“I don’t know, but it might be that Deanna had something on and I didn’t get her texts after I’d texted last night so she went over, but still, it seems like something’s up.”
My phone binged and I immediately looked down to see Deanna’s response of, No, no, it’s cool. Totes cool. All good. No worries. Just call me when you get home. No biggie. Just want to chat.
I relaxed.
“Okay?” Johnny asked.
I looked at him and nodded. “Read it wrong. She’s cool.”
“Good,” he muttered, turning his attention to pouring the eggs in the skillet.
The toast popped up.
Johnny finished up the eggs and bacon and I finished up the toast. He served up and I hopped off the counter to toss my phone in my bag and warm up our coffee. He took the plates to a small, round dining room table with highly polished wood that radiated out beautifully from a center circle and space-age angled legs that had four scoop-backed chairs around it.
My mind screamed when he didn’t get a placemat before he put the plates down on that wood but I kept my mouth shut. I brought the mugs over. He returned to the kitchen and came back with the toast, a bottle of ketchup and a jar of grape jelly.
“Sit,” he ordered, putting all that on the table and going back to the kitchen.
He’d set the plates on the curve next to each other and he’d dished up equally, so I just picked a seat and sat.
“No, Iz, other plate,” he said, coming back with cutlery.
“Sorry,” I muttered self-consciously, shifting to the other chair.
“Better view, baby,” Johnny murmured close to my ear as he set a fork and knife next to my white plate.
I looked from the flatware to the room to see I was positioned facing it, and the windows, so he was right.
It was a better view.
I felt my chest warm as he took his seat.
Johnny grabbed the ketchup and squirted it all over his eggs.
I picked up my fork and stuck in.
I ate, alternately looking to my plate to get food and chewing it while staring out at the lush leaves dappled in sunlight beyond his wall of windows.
“Quiet,” he remarked suddenly and softly.
I looked to Johnny.
“Sorry?”
“You’re being quiet,” he noted.
“These are good eggs,” I told him.
His lips hitched. “Eggs are eggs, babe.”
I nodded, though they were actually good. Fluffy and light and well-seasoned.
Then I said, “Thanks for letting me have the chair with the view.”
“I got a chair with a view too,” he replied, his eyes on me telling me what his view was. “And mine’s better.”
I felt warmth in my cheeks and looked to my plate.
“Watched you walk into Home last night, no . . . giving you the honesty, watched your ass walk into Home last night, my plans of havin’ a few and relaxing after the week went up in smoke. Got up next to you, you looked at me, thought you were gonna bolt. Shocked the shit outta me you told me your name when I asked it,” he declared while I turned my attention back to him. “Maybe margarita courage that kept you where you were, just you in the beginning though. Now you’re here, you keep putting on your panties when you know I’m just gonna take ’em off, which means you gotta know I’m into you but you still can’t take a compliment for shit.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He shook his head slowly, not taking his eyes off me.
“It’s your thing and you got no clue, and I seriously don’t know if I should give you one but I’m gonna. You work it, Izzy, so don’t apologize for it.”
I ducked my head and grabbed a slice of toast.
Johnny chuckled.
“Yeah, it’s your thing,” he muttered.
I tore a bite of toast off, eyes to the table, chewed it, swallowed and announced, “I used your toothpaste.”
“Seeing as I kissed you after you did it, that kinda wasn’t lost on me.”
My gaze flitted to his to see him taking a bite of his bacon. “I didn’t use your toothbrush, though.”
He swallowed before he stated, “Iz, you’ve spent time sitting on my face. Do you think I give a shit you use my toothbrush?”
I was somewhat appalled. “That’s kind of gross.”
“Sitting on my face?” he asked, though I could tell by the sparkle in his eyes he was teasing.
“No,” I said swiftly.
“Since you didn’t use it, I don’t have to be grossed out by it.”
“True,” I mumbled, putting my toast on my plate and picking up some bacon.
“I understand,” he said quietly and I looked again to him while I chewed bacon. “You had to go through my stuff to find toothpaste. You don’t want me to think you got nosy. But I got nothing to hide, Izzy.”
I nodded.
This all seemed very weird, complicated with a good deal of it contradictory, but at least that was good to know.
“Your bathroom is really nice,” I observed and it came again.
He turned off, looked at his plate.
Shut me out.
The Izzy I was normally would ignore it, find some way to move around it, but something made me ask, “Sorry, I . . . you . . . am I stepping where I shouldn’t?”
His black eyes came direct to me and they weren’t entirely impassive. There was something in their depths. I just couldn’t read it.
But surprisingly, he gave it to me.
“Left my old place, sold the place I grew up, fixed up this place and moved in after my dad died.”
“Oh God, Johnny, I’m so sorry.”
“There’s shit in my life I’m not big on talking about. Was tight with my dad. So that’s some of it.”
I nodded. “Of course, sorry. So sorry.”
He nabbed another slice of bacon. “You didn’t know so no need to apologize.”
“Right. Okay,” I replied quickly.
But even though this was an explanation, something niggled at me because I found it odd if he was still so deeply affected by his father’s passing, why he’d chosen to be in a place that daily, hourly, each second he was in it, reminded him of that in such a way it clearly bothered him.
I knew what it was like to lose a parent because I’d lost both. How that came about, I’d had no choice but to let them go and I’d lost each in entirely different, but not equally agonizing, ways.
I knew how hard it was. I knew how painful. No matter what way you lost them.
I also knew escaping anything that brought additional pain was a good coping mechanism.
So I wondered, no matter how fabulous this space was, why he didn’t find his way to that.
I did not ask this as it became clear even if I’d asked, he more than likely would not tell me.
This made something else clear.
This was not a getting-to-know-you date.
This wasn’t a date at all.
This was a hookup.
This was not something beginning.
This was something else.
Not just sex, as such.
But something I’d never encountered.
And as handsome as he was, as nice as it was that he gave me the best seat (and all the rest), even if I wanted that to be the type of girl I was (and I actually did), that wasn’t the type of girl I was.
I always wanted more.
Sitting there I realized with more pain than it should cause, I wanted this maybe especially from Johnny.
“Baby.”
That came gently and I turned my attention to him.
“Not sure I like the look on your face. It seems a lifetime ago but also like yesterday. Most the time, I just live with it. But sometimes I have bad days. This is one of those days.”
This was one of those days.
A sunny early summer morning in his house . . . with me.
“My mom died of cancer, Johnny, so I get that.”
He stared at me.
“Ate her up. She was dead in six months,” I shared.
He blinked.
“I miss her every day, and if I let it in, I miss her every second.”
“Iz,” he whispered, a wealth of meaning and understanding and a lot more in his saying my name, all of it, for his sake on a bad day where I was sharing that day with him thus him having that understanding didn’t make me feel real great.
I didn’t focus on that.
“But that wasn’t the meaning behind the look on my face,” I told him, surprising myself at my candor.
“What was the meaning?” he asked.
I didn’t know what was happening. What this was. Where it led.
I just knew I liked him a whole lot for a whole lot of reasons, the most recent him being thoughtful enough to give me the seat at the dining room table in his own home that had the best view.
But it seemed he liked me mostly because he could have sex with me and I amused him with my shy ways in the midst of me having lots of sex with him.
He let me talk about myself, and he listened, because that was easier than sharing about himself, something it had become clear he didn’t intend to do. Or at least not without a goodly amount of effort on my part and with little elaboration when he gave me something.
He shared his body and his talents in bed without a problem though.
So I might not have a lot of experience with a hookup, but one and one were equaling one in this equation, not the path to there maybe being a two.
“I need to go home. Deanna took care of my animals but I have things to do today,” I declared.
This was somewhat a lie. I had one thing to do, which would take me ten minutes.
He put his fork to his plate and sat back in his seat, eyes on me.
“So do you mind, after I help you clean up, taking me back to my car?” I asked.
He studied me pensively as he answered, “You don’t have to help me clean up.”
“I don’t want to be rude.”
He didn’t respond to that.
He tipped his chin down to my plate and asked, “You get enough to eat?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You ready to go now?” he queried, even though neither of us had cleaned our plates and that so went against the grain for me, it was difficult to give him my answer.
But I did.
“Yes, that probably would be best.”
“Right, Eliza,” he said on a curt nod. “I’ll get this soaking. You get dressed.”
“I can help,” I offered.
His eyes came to me. “Get dressed.”
That hurt. It shouldn’t. It was me putting an end to this.
But it did.
I got up and went to gather my clothes. I took them to the bathroom and got dressed.
By the time I came out, the dishes were cleared, soaking in the sink, jelly and ketchup still on the table.
“Be out in a second,” Johnny muttered, moving by me to go down the hall.
He disappeared in the bathroom.
I felt the sudden need to cry.
Instead, I went to his wall of windows, leaned a shoulder against one and looked out.
It was then I knew why he didn’t give up this place that reminded him of his dad.
The creek was wide and meandered slowly. Some of the trees grew straight out of it, their wide trunks serving as banks. Even that early in the summer, there was so much foliage, the sun struggled to get through but the power of it was such it cast streaks of bright against leaves and trunks and glimmered in the clear water and stone creek bed, making it appear magical.
I could stand out there with coffee every morning for fifteen minutes, half an hour, ages, just letting the peace of it and the gently turning water wheel calm me.
I wouldn’t have that opportunity, then or ever.
Johnny called from behind me, “Ready?”
I pushed away and looked to him to see him in another T-shirt and a different pair of jeans, wondering inanely (knowledge I’d never get either), where he got his clothes from, and I nodded.
I went to the island to get my purse, made sure my phone was in it, then followed him out the door.
He didn’t lock it behind him.
I moved at his back toward the truck, feeling a melancholy steal over me when he walked right to the passenger side door.
He opened it.
I started to shift around him to get in position to climb in but stopped when he slammed the door and turned to me. Hooking an arm around my waist, he pulled me around, put his hand to my stomach and pushed me against the truck.
My heart started beating hard as I tipped my head back to look up at him.
“You just got your fill or what?” he asked coldly.
“Sorry?” I whispered anxiously.
“Is that your play?” he demanded to know, the ice still in his tone.
“My . . . play?”
“Cut the crap, Eliza. What the fuck?”
I stared up at him.
“I don’t know. I’m not a woman,” he went on. “Only know the different reasons a man goes alone to a bar. The reason I hit Home last night was not the way it turned out to be. But I figure, one of the reasons men go alone is one of the reasons women go alone. So is that it? You went to find yourself some cock. Found it, got your fill, now you’re done?”
I felt my eyes get wide.
“You don’t owe me dick,” he continued. “I got it good so I’m not complaining. But assuage my curiosity. What the fuck?”
“I’ve never . . . not ever . . .” I trailed off, not knowing if I was offended, hurt, angry or all three.
“You’ve never what?” he pushed tersely.
“This,” I said, throwing out an arm to my side.
His heavy brows shot together. “You tryin’ to tell me you were a virgin?”
“Of course not,” I answered fast.
“Then what?” he pressed.
“Hooked up,” I told him.
“You’ve never hooked up,” he stated, making it clear he didn’t believe me.
“Well, I’ve hooked up but not hooked up hooked up. Like, you know, what we did. Meet a guy, and then, you know, leave with him and then, well . . . what came next.”
He glowered down at me.
“I don’t know the protocol,” I blurted.
The glower wavered as he asked, “The protocol?”
“I don’t know how to act. What to do. I mean, what do you do when a hookup is obviously coming to an end?”
“Jesus,” he whispered, now staring at me like he’d never seen a woman in his life.
“I . . . in there . . . you were . . . you’ve been . . .” I stuttered then changed courses, “This isn’t like a get-to-know-you date. I know how to do those. This, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You want some insight?” he inquired.
By the look on his face, what I knew was I did not.
Even though I didn’t, I tentatively nodded, such was the only response I could give due to that look on his face.
I was wrong, that hooded brow with those thick eyebrows could be ominous.
“When the man you’ve outstandingly fucked four times opens up enough to tell you he’s havin’ a rough time because his dad died three years earlier, on this day, this being the reason he went out to get a few drinks the night before, you don’t immediately set about scraping him off so you can get on with your day.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he shot back.
“I didn’t know,” I pointed out gently (and it must be said, since that look was still on his face, carefully).
“And that makes it okay?” he asked.
“Well, um . . . no. But, in my defense—”
“You’ve never hooked up and don’t know the protocol,” he finished for me.
Right then, that totally sounded weak.
I pressed my lips together.
He studied me a few seconds before he asked, “Honest to Christ, you’ve never picked a guy up and fucked him before?”
I shook my head slowly.
“You’re a prude,” he stated.
“Well, not recently, but, um . . . yes,” I confirmed. “My mom wasn’t and my sister really wasn’t, so someone had to be around, you know, to feed the dogs and get in the car and pick them up when they got in situations and, uh . . . other stuff. Though, that said, it really just comes naturally, until, like I said but you already know since you were there, recently.”
“Why am I pissed at you and still wanna laugh my ass off?” he asked curiously.
“Because I’m being an idiot?” I asked back in answer.
“Yeah, that’s why,” he agreed.
I fell silent.
Johnny didn’t break the silence.
I couldn’t take the silence so I surged ahead.
“I can cook, like I told you, but, I don’t want to brag, I’m actually really good at it. So, to make up for being an idiot, if you want, you can take me to my car and I’ll get stuff sorted to make you dinner and you can come over later. Meet the babies. I’ll feed you and then maybe do some other, you know, stuff, to um . . . make up for being an idiot when you’re having a rough day.”
“So what you’re saying is you’ll feed me, introduce me to your pets and then fuck my brains out.”
I got a becoming-familiar trill down my spine, looked to his throat and muttered, “Something like that.”
“Iz.”
I looked into his eyes.
“I got a tradition for tonight that I do by myself. But tomorrow, I’ll be over.”
My heart skipped a beat and my lips formed the word, “Really?”
He hooked me at the waist again, pulled me from his truck, opened the door, and after I climbed inside, he tossed his phone at me.
I bobbled it but caught hold of it while he said, “Code, eight, nine, one, two. Program you in. Call yourself. Program me in. I’ll call you later.”
Then he slammed the door and started around the hood.
I didn’t know what he did for a living.
But I did know the code to his phone.
I bent my head to it making the herculean effort not to do it smiling so big, I broke my own face.
He climbed in beside me, roared the truck to life and I looked up from programming myself in his phone in order to catch him put an arm around my seat so he could twist to see where we were going as he reversed in a big arc in the huge space beside his house.
Johnny Gamble then set us on our way to my car.
We were well down the dirt road, I was done with all my programming, when I said softly into the cab, “I’m sorry I messed up so big over eggs.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he replied.
“I lost my mom so I know—”
His fingers curled tight around my knee and he cut me off. “Put it out of your head. Only things I want in your head are you getting inspired about what you’re gonna feed me tomorrow night and what you’re gonna give me after.”
“Do you like chicken enchiladas?”
“Yup.”
“Do you like olives?”
“Yup.”
“Do you like sour cream?”
“Yup.”
“On a scale of a little bit of cheese goes a long way to cheese fanatic, where do you sit?”
“Fanatic.”
We had something in common.
“Do you want beer or wine or something else?”
“Beer.”
“Well, that’s dinner sorted,” I muttered.
He burst out laughing, slid his hand up my thigh and kept it resting there.
I let out a relieved breath.
Johnny stopped, checked, then pulled out of the dirt road onto the paved road.
And he took me to my car.