Connor

“A bunch of us are thinking of hitting up Tobacco Road tonight,” Quinn said. “Some decent bands are playing. Alternative-style stuff, but it should be good.”

“Yeah,” I replied, not really paying attention. I was studying for my end-of-summer-term exams in a small coffee shop not far from the university.

“So, you wanna go with me?”

I looked up from my calculus textbook and into Quinn’s light-brown eyes. “Sure.”

She smiled. “Sweet. I gotta get going. I have class in a half hour. I’ll call you later about tonight.”

“Sounds good.”

Quinn and I were just friends. We’d run into each other a few days after we had drunk sex, and she’d been real cool about me not remembering her name. I’d told her I was sorry I bailed on her like I had, but I was in love with someone back home, and it had been a mistake.

She’d said she understood, that it was just a one-nighter. “But please don’t hesitate if you ever change your mind. That was some of the best sex I’d ever had.”

We’d been friends ever since. She was fun, smart, just an all-around good person. She was going to UM to become a teacher, loved working with kids.

I hadn’t touched another woman besides Alys since. It wasn’t like it was a hardship. I was devoted to Alys, to the few times a year we could steal time to be together. No other woman made me feel the way Alys did, so there was no point in having mediocre sex with strangers when I could have mind-blowing sex during holidays.

Alys had told me she wanted us to date other people, and I would go out with chicks here and there but never more than that. It was all right, meeting interesting women, but none of them attracted me enough to want more with them.

I wanted Alys. I needed my Sunshine. I wasn’t gonna settle for less.

It wouldn’t be long anyway. I had only the fall term to get through, and then I would be graduating. I couldn’t wait to go home to New Orleans. I missed the city. I missed my friends and family. I liked Miami, but it would never be home to me.

Having learned my lesson about drinking too damn much, I hadn’t gotten wasted at Tobacco Road with my friends. It had been a fun night; the bands had been really good.

But that didn’t mean I was a happy motherfucker to be woken up on a fucking Saturday morning by my phone ringing.

“What?” I answered, grumpy and unable to check it.

“Connor?”

It was Mama Sally, Alys’s mom, and she sounded like she’d been crying. Panic spiked, waking my ass up real quick.

“Yeah? Is everything okay? Is Alys—”

“Alys is fine. The girls are fine. It’s Grandma Betty.”

“What happened?”

“She passed away in her sleep last night. Do you think you can come home?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course,” I replied, getting out of bed and searching for my clothes. “I’ll see if I can get a flight out or something. Is Kenna okay?”

“As okay as can be expected. But the girls need their brother home with them.”

Brother. Are they all so blind to what’s been going on between Alys and me?

“What’s Da doing?” I asked. “Is he home?”

“He had a haul, but he’s on his way home now. He’ll be back on Monday.”

“Good. Have you talked to my mom?”

“She had the late shift last night and should be home soon. She asked that I let you know.”

“Okay.”

“Love you, sweetheart.”

“Love you, too, Mama.”

I was able to find a flight back home that evening, but my parents had to pay for the ticket. I worked in a music shop, selling guitars and shit, and didn’t make enough for spontaneous travel expenses. It kept me in funds for food and all that, so I wouldn’t have to mooch off my parents for that sort of crap.

Da drove big rigs, and my mom worked at a nursing home. They busted their asses, and sending me to the University of Miami wasn’t cheap. Even with my scholarships and student loans, they were hard-strapped. But the music program was worth it, and I’d promised to get top grades if they sent me.

Music was…everything. I constantly felt the beats and rhythms of the world. My brain was forever churning out melodies and harmonies to accompany the pulses around me. Always, I heard the low beat of the earth’s heart, a soft bass tune. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

I supposed it was a gamble. Da didn’t think I’d do more with my education than teach kids the bluidy recorder, and until I landed my dream job of playing in or producing huge bands, I just might have to do that.

Mom was working another night shift at the nursing home, so she wouldn’t be able to pick me up from the airport. As I made my way through the terminal to baggage claim, I spotted Alys—just Alys—standing in Arrivals.

She smiled and gave me a little wave, but I saw her eyes were red from weeping. Grandma Betty had been a grandmother to all of us, not just Kenna and me. I hadn’t really let myself think about Betty’s passing yet, but seeing the pain etched all over my Sunshine’s face, it hit me hard.

I made my way toward her. “Hey. Is it just you here?”

“Yeah,” she replied.

I dropped my bag to the ground and hauled her into my arms. She felt so good, so right. Having her with me loosened up the tension I’d been carrying in my chest since Mama Sally called me, and in a rush of relief, my grief poured out of me.

Alys held on, absorbing my pain, letting me cry in her hair.

She sniffed. “Come on,” she whispered. “Let’s go home.”

As Alys dressed herself, I lay back on the bed, watching, loving how she moved, the way she pulled her jeans up over her ass.

“I finished ‘Liquid Sunshine,’” I told her.

Delight shone from her eyes as she turned to look at me. “Really?”

I nodded. “Want to hear it?”

“I’d love to.”

I got out of bed and threw on my cargo shorts. Then, I grabbed my old bass from a corner in my childhood bedroom. Since we were alone, Alys and I had taken advantage of the situation. We didn’t know if we’d have the chance again before I left.

Sitting on the edge of my bed, I plugged the bass into the small speaker, tuned it up, and began to play the two-minute solo that I’d written for my only love. It was voluptuous, just like Alys, sleek and curvy with strong tones of a soaking undercurrent. It wasn’t something that inspired only joy. There were hints of loneliness and darkness.

It was as beautiful as my own Sunshine, sweet and tortured with want.

“Wow,” she breathed as the final note throbbed. “It’s beautiful, Connor. You’re absolutely brilliant.”

Smiling, I looked over at her. “It’s you, made to music.”

Her hazel eyes filled with tears, and she sniffled. “Damn.”

“There’s only you, Alys. Don’t you know that? All this time, with all the miles between us, it’s only ever been you.”

“So, you still want us to be together?”

“Always.”

She smiled, making my heart trip. “You’ve had my heart all these years.”

I didn’t ask about her body though. We’d agreed that whatever we did while we were apart would stay where it was—in the past. We lived for the moments we had together. If she had gotten hammered one night—or several—and hooked up with some random asshole, I didn’t want to know about it.

“You’ve had mine my whole life, Sunshine.”

Beside me to my left sat Kenna, delicately sniffing back tears, as Mama Sally read Grandma Betty’s eulogy.

Six years ago, my sister had been a tight ball of furious energy as the Buddhist monk read Laurie’s eulogy. Today, I felt only the sadness inside her.

I was so proud of her. Kenna had been driven to the brink of madness from the pain of losing Mom, but she’d harnessed it and used it to help her focus, and at the age of twenty-three, she was a freaking licensed MD.

After Grandma Betty’s funeral, we all headed out to dinner. It was driving me insane that I had to spend all this time with my family when all I wanted was to be alone with Alys. I was hurting, she was hurting—fuck, we all were. But I only needed her to make me feel better.

“I’m dropping Kenna off at Brian’s,” Alys whispered to me after Da and Papa David paid for the food and were heading out to the parking lot. “Can you come over tonight?”

“Try and stop me,” I replied.

I borrowed Mom’s car and parked it along the dirt road on the side of Grandma Betty’s house. The light in Alys’s bedroom was on. I climbed up the tree next to her window.

She was sitting at her computer desk, looking tired and sexy and wonderful.

“Hey,” I said softly through the open window.

Her head swiveled, and she broke out into an irresistible grin. She stood up, wearing only a plain white T-shirt that barely covered her ass, her rosy nipples poking through.

I launched myself into her room, onto her bed below the window.

Alys was on me in a flash, tearing at my clothes. “God, Connor, I’ve missed you so much.”

I ripped her shirt over her head. “Me, too. Fuck, get my pants off.”

Her laughter tinkled like little silver bells as she popped open the fly on my cargo shorts.

When we were both naked, I tossed her facedown onto the bed and spread her thighs wide with my knees. “I just want to fuck you stupid first and then make sweet love to you.”

She busted out laughing again. “Yeah, all right.”

Pulling her up onto her knees, I touched her hot pussy, finding her already ridiculously wet. “Damn.”

“I’ve been fantasizing about you,” she whispered.

I groaned as I pushed my dick all the way to the end of her, her tight grip sucking me in. “Oh, fuuuck.”

I wasn’t gentle, and Alys didn’t want me to be. I rode her hard, smacking her ass and pulling her hair, until she came like a fucking freight train all the fuck over me, making me come with a roar muffled by the delicate flesh of her neck.

After our breathing calmed, our bodies cooling in a spooning position, Alys giggled.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s just…every time we get together, it’s mind-blowing. I mean, really, how is it possible?”

I smiled into her hair. “Yeah, it is. It’s because we’re meant to be together.”

She snuggled into me even more. “We are.”

Alys.

All night long, we’d lost ourselves in each other. Now that dawn lightened the sky outside, it seemed she didn’t want to find herself just yet.

I didn’t want to find myself either. I needed to stay here with her for the rest of our lives.

She rose above me, a sweet smirk on her face, her lips wet and swollen from working me into a mindless need. I panted beneath her, aching to feel her glove me.

“My Sunshine…” I breathed, reaching out to grasp her hips as she straddled me.

“The sun to your moon,” she joked.

Taking me in her hand, she guided me to the one place I never doubted I belonged. Hot, soaking flesh encased me, and I felt it all the fuck over.

The pain in my heart and head, the loss I’d been feeling in my chest—it all melted away with her touch. Looking into the soft gold, green, and brown of her eyes, I could see that I gave her the same relief. A temporary healing, one that would linger after I returned to Miami.

It would always be temporary until I could call her mine in truth.

She slid down the length of me, the root of my cock buzzing with the sensation. Nothing, no one, could compare to being inside my only love.

“What do you hear?” she asked.

“You,” I replied.

“What do I sound like this time?”

I closed my eyes, paying attention to the slight nuances and vibrations coming from her body. “Deep flutes,” I whispered. “Wind chimes. A harp…”

I guided her up and down in time with the beat in my head. Slow, steady, eternal. She picked up on it, as she always did, and I moved my hands to her breasts, pinching her nipples.

As I knew her, she knew me—what I needed, what I loved. She rolled her hips just so that she squeezed me as she drew up my length. Trusting me, she leaned into my hands, counting on me to hold her up. She didn’t support herself but gave herself up to the rhythmic tide, knowing I wouldn’t let her slip.

“Fuck,” I breathed. “You feel too good, woman.”

“Make me come, Connor.”

My right hand went from her breast to her thigh, my thumb pressing into her clit and rubbing. Her hips undulated faster, taking me harder, and it was all I could do not to come before her. Her cunt bore down on me, increasing the friction, as our skin slipped and pulled each other into the paradise only we two could create.

“Fuck, I’m not going to last. You feel too fucking good.”

I punched into her as hard as she rode me, and I felt it; she was so close, right there, teetering on the edge.

“Now,” she whispered, her head dropping back, her hands slamming into my chest to hold herself up as she took and took and took me with her into a soul-shattering orgasm.

Neither of us cried out. Our sex was usually silent, so no one else in the house could hear us.

A day will come when she will scream my name, and I will roar into the cosmos every time I pour myself into her.

But not today. Not in the predawn light where, like thieves, we stole what time we could with each other. It wasn’t right, but it was all we had.

She collapsed on top of me, and my arms wrapped around her, holding her to my thundering heart. My semen was leaking out of her, coating my balls.

Alys and I never used protection.

She sighed, her breath stirring across my skin. “I don’t want you to go.”

My arms tightened around her. “Me either.”

Pushing herself up, she looked into my eyes—well sated and, for the moment, happy. “Less than four months to go.”

“What are we waiting for, Alys? Let’s just tell everyone now.”

She tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “We’ve waited this long. What’s a few more months? It’s not going to change the situation. You still have to go back to Miami.”

“But I can go back as your man.”

“We should wait,” she said. “I don’t want to tell everyone and you not be here, okay? With you in Miami, I’ll have to deal with the shit from everyone. It would be better if we were together. I don’t think I can face Kenna and certainly not Lili without having you here.”

“What a load of shit,” I snapped. “What would the fucking difference be? We’ve been together for eight years.”

“And, the last four, you’ve been living the fast life in Miami.”

“That means nothing! We said we wouldn’t commit until we were ready. Well, I’ve been ready this whole time. I only went out with other chicks because you’d fucking told me to. It’s not like I fuck them. I have no problem being faithful. Do you?”

“Of course not. But I just think it would be best if we told everyone when you were actually here for me to have a relationship with.”

Angry, I pushed her off. She landed to the side of me in the bed, and I rolled out, looking for my clothes.

“Connor—”

“Just admit that you’re fucking scared, Alys. You always have been. You care more about what my fucking sister thinks than how I feel.”

“That’s not true!”

I pulled up my boxers and grabbed my pants. “It is. If it wasn’t, you would’ve told everyone the day I fucked you in the tent at the festival that I was your man.”

“You were fourteen, Connor!” she hissed. “While you were underage, I could’ve gotten into serious fucking trouble!”

“Bullshit,” I scoffed. “Just another excuse to keep shit secret. Our parents wouldn’t have cared. You were worried about what our friends would think about you fucking someone younger than you.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this to me.”

Her big eyes spilled over with her tears, and while I felt a twinge of regret, I was too pissed, too self-righteous. She had spent too much of her teen years fighting to be accepted by her peers. The bullying she and my sister had dealt with was fierce, but it never should have clouded her judgment with us.

“Really? I’ve been begging you for years to let us come clean. I’m fucking done, Alys.”

The blood drained from her face. Strange, how only five minutes ago, I had gazed upon her, and she was filled with love and happiness, filled with me.

“It’s just a few more months.”

“It’s a few months too fucking long,” I snarled.

Tugging my shirt over my head, I stormed out of her room, slamming the door, not giving a shit if I woke Lili. If I did, then Alys would have to explain why I was leaving her bedroom before fucking dawn.

I wasn’t sneaking out anymore. I wasn’t ashamed of how I felt about her. But I sure as shit was ashamed I’d let this crap go on like it did.

And maybe…I was ashamed that Alys didn’t really love me enough to show the world.