Nine
It was the night before I started at University.
I was a little nervous, sure. I didn’t know these kids. I didn’t know the school.
Having so many older siblings, I knew the layout of East well before I was a student there. I grew up with the kids I went to school with. And while University wasn’t cities away, it was still a different school with different kids.
I knew Coach Max, but knowing my hockey coach wasn’t exactly a selling point.
The biggest change, though, would be not seeing Mo day in and day out.
My brothers hadn’t been kidding the other day.
Mo and I had been good friends for many years, more than the ‘friends with benefits’ thing we had going on through high school. And now that I called her my girlfriend, I wanted to see her more.
Go figure. I finally finished the pay-back for Dad, opening up a little more free time, and I end up going to a different school.
We were sitting in the heated enclosed gazebo in her backyard, our backs to one of the benches that lined the walls. We were shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, thigh to thigh, and her hand was in mine. With her head on my shoulder, we simply sat there, the only lights coming from high strung round bulbs decorating the ceiling.
I had a feeling my being in a different school was going to be just as hard on her as it was on me.
“Do you have your hockey schedule yet?” she finally asked, breaking the silence.
“University practices for two hours after school every day there’s not a game. And they have mandatory meetings and gym time on Saturdays.”
“Am I going to see you ever?”
I looked down at her and while she didn’t look up at me, I could see that she pulled her brows down in a frown. I lowered my head so I could press my lips to her hair.
“We’ll find time.”
“It’s like long-distance even though you’ll still live right here.”
“Hey, we can consider it practice for when you go to college.”
She laughed lightly, but I could tell the laugh was forced. “Sure, Porter.”
“C’mon, cheer up,” I said, moving away from her only to tug on her leg, pulling her to lay down. This elicited a real laugh from her.
Smiling, I crawled up beside her and put an arm on either side of her shoulders.
“I love your smile,” I told her. The yellow bulbs reflected in her eyes.
“I bet I love yours more,” she whispered before reaching up to trace her finger down the dimple all Prescott guys had.
I leaned down to press my lips to hers, but Mo wasted no time in moving this along. Her hands were on my shirt, tugging upward until I helped pull it off. When my shirt cleared my head, Mo pushed on my shoulder so I would lie on my back, reversing our positions. I chuckled, allowing her to do her thing.
For now.
She touched her lips to mine once before moving down to press them against my sternum. Her hands were between us, her fingers unbuttoning my jeans, as she kept pressing kisses lower. She stopped though, right above my belly button.
I groaned.
So close.
“Porter…” Her voice was low and confused. I lifted my head to look at her. “Seriously, Porter?”
It wasn’t an ohmigod yay ‘seriously,’ but it wasn’t a pissed ‘seriously’ either. It was a ‘seriously’ said with awed confusion, and I knew what she found.
“Yeah, seriously, Mo.”
She lifted a finger to trace the scripted ‘Mo’ on my ribs, on the side of my body where biology class taught us was where your heart sat closest to your chest wall.
Now that she was distracted, I pushed her onto her back again, leaning over her once more.
“You like it?”
“Yeah, I like it,” she whispered, a small smile on her face.
“Wherever life brings us, you’ve been a part of mine for a long time. You mean a lot to me.”
“I love you, Porter Prescott.” Her voice was quiet, the sound of her voice hardly cracking through the whispered tones in the dark. I leaned down and pressed my lips against hers, resting my hand on her stomach over her shirt.
When her hands threaded into my hair, holding my face to hers, her tongue pushing and pressing against mine, I let my hand slip down under the top of her jeans, under her panties, and into her wet folds.
She separated her legs to give my fingers more access, but the movement tightened her jeans against my hand.
No big. I didn’t need my wrist.
I let my fingers play over her sensitive nub, rubbing circles over her as her mouth frantically fought against mine.
We may not get as much time together during the day starting tomorrow, but I knew Mo would take what time I could give her.
This was how our relationship had always worked.
It would continue to work this way, I was sure of it.