Rachel

 

I wanted to die. 

I wanted to drop dead right there in the library.  I had been seconds away from finally losing my virginity to Ren Parker, and my mother was interrupting us like I was a stupid teenage girl. 

Could a person literally die of shame?  They could, right?

I whipped around until my back was to Ren and threw my bra on.  I raked the straps up my arms.  “Can you do me up?”

Ren fumbled at the hooks as my mother’s voice, muffled but clearly understandable, screeched through the door.  “Rachel!  I know you’re in there.  Open the door.  Why are you ignoring me?  I’ve been waiting fifteen minutes for you!”

“Hurry!”  I muttered.

“Sorry, sweetheart, I’m better at unhooking these.”  His voice held more than a hint of laughter in it.

“This is not funny.”

“It’s kind of funny.”  He finished doing up my bra and I grabbed my shirt as my mother pounded on the door again.

This time I could hear the panic in her voice.  “Rachel?  This isn’t funny, young lady!  I’m about thirty seconds away from calling the police.  Do you hear me?”

“Fuck!”  I yanked my shirt on and buttoned it as Ren tucked away his penis and buttoned his jeans.

“What’s she doing here?”  He asked.

“Her car is in the shop, so she borrowed mine and said she would pick me up after work.  I completely forgot.”

I pushed my feet into my shoes and hurried toward the front door, straightening my shirt and my skirt compulsively as Ren followed me.  I was trying to think of an excuse for why Ren was in the library with me, but I was barely thinking straight.  Ren had just eaten my pussy until I had the best orgasm of my life.  Ren had almost fucked me.  Would be fucking me if it hadn’t been for my…

Oh shit.

I stopped with my hand on the lock and gave Ren a frantic look.  “My panties.  Where are they?”

I kept my voice pitched low, but my mother had the hearing of a hawk.  She immediately pounded on the door again.  “Rachel?  Is that you?  Open the door right this minute!”

Ren winked at me and pulled a bit of my panties out of his pocket.  “I’ve got them right here.”

“Give them to me.”  I held out my hand, glaring at him when he shoved them back into his pocket.

“No time, sweetheart.”

“Ren, I need -”

“Rachel!  Open the door!”

Groaning inwardly, I smoothed my hair and reached for the door.  “Don’t say a word.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Why did he have to be so friggin’ sexy?

I unlocked the door and pulled it open, blocking the doorway with my chubby body.  My mother glared at me.  “What are you doing?”

“Just closing up, Mom.  I’m running a little late, but I won’t be much longer.  Give me five minutes and I’ll meet you in the car.”

“I’ll wait for you in here.”  She shoved past me and looked me up and down.  “You look awful today.  How many times have I told you not to wear your hair down, Rachel?  It makes your face look even fatter and your -”

“I think she looks beautiful.”

My mother screeched and swung around to stare at Ren.  “Who – what are you doing here?”

“Mom, this is Ren Parker.  He owns Ren’s Bar.  He’s looking for a book.”

Please don’t insult him.  Please don’t insult him.

“Since when do bartenders read?”

“Mom!  Stop it.”

“What?  Bartenders don’t read, Rachel.”

“How many bartenders do you know, Mrs. Banks?”  Ren’s voice was polite, but I could see the anger brewing on his face.

“None.”  She sniffed.  “We don’t associate with your type of people.”

“Enough, Mom.”  I took my mother’s arm and tugged her away.  “You’re being rude.”

“Who cares?  He’s below us and -”

“Stop it.”  I shook her roughly, and she yanked her arm from my grip.

“What is going on with you?  Are you forgetting all that I’ve sacrificed for you?”

“No,” I said in a low voice.  “But Ren is – is a customer at the library and I’m not letting you insult him.  Do you want me to lose my job?  Is that it?”

“You concentrate way too much on your job.  You don’t have the looks to catch a man, so you need to work on your personality.  If you would spend less time working extra shifts at the library, and more time working on your social skills, you might not be single and alone.  You need -”

I walked away before she could finish her sentence.  I had no desire for Ren to hear all about my boring personality and awkward social behaviour.  I stopped in front of Ren and gave him a please-get-the-hell-out-of-here look.  “Mr. Parker, if you give me a couple of days, I’ll see if I can find that book you’re looking for at one of the other libraries and have it transferred.”

Ren studied me for a moment before nodding.  “Sure.  Thank you, Rachel.”

“You’re welcome.”

He leaned forward and for one pulse-pounding moment I thought he was going to kiss me right there in front of my mother.  Instead, he picked away an invisible piece of lint from my shirt sleeve and gave me a boyish grin.  “Bye.”

He turned and opened the library door.  Before he could step outside, my mother’s voice rang out.

“What is that in your pocket?”

My heart stopped.  Just gave up for an entire three seconds before clanging back to life in my chest.  I wheezed in a breath as I tried to think of a plausible explanation for why Ren had my panties in his pocket.

“Why do you have those in your back pocket?”  My mother demanded.

Ren pulled the two sets of sticks from his pocket and studied them before holding them out to me.  “Right, I almost forgot to give these to you.”

My hand was shaking so bad, I almost dropped them.  Ren curled his hand around mine, keeping the sticks in my palm.  “You okay, sweetheart?”

“Sweetheart?”  My mother’s voice was high enough to make dogs howl.

I pulled my hand away from Ren’s and stepped back.  “Yes, Mr. Parker, thank you.  Have a good evening.”

Hurt flickered across his face, but he smoothed it out, nodded and left the library.  I closed and locked the door behind him before staring at the sticks in my hand.  Why were Ren’s feelings hurt?  And why did it bother me that I hurt his feelings?

“Rachel, what is going on with you and that man?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me.  He called you ‘sweetheart’ and he had your hair sticks in his pocket.”

I pushed past her and headed toward the front desk.  “He’s just a flirt and I dropped the sticks at his bar the other night.  He was being nice and was returning them to me.”

“Why were you even at the bar?  Nice girls don’t go to the bar.  Were you with Madison again?  You know how I feel about that girl.  She’s a total slut, and if you aren’t careful, she’s going to drag you down with her.  Why, just the other day, Eleanor Rochen told me that she thinks Jacob is sleeping with Madison.  Can you believe that?  He’s twice her age and was her father’s best friend.  What kind of man sleeps with a child?”

“Madison isn’t a child and Jacob isn’t twice her age.  He’s a nice man,” I said.

“He’s a sicko.  I don’t want you hanging out with Madison anymore if she’s going to be sleeping with a sick man like that.  Oh, and did you hear that Lydia Davis is coming back to town?  Our idiot mayor is giving her the key to the town.  And for what?  Because she won some kind of acting award?”

“She won an Emmy, Mom.  It’s kind of a big deal.”

“Well, call me when she wins an Oscar.”  My mother sniffed.  “She was always so stuck up.  Her sister isn’t much better, you know.  I swear, she deliberately gives me the wrong coffee every time I stop at Mugs.  I ran into Michelle at the gym the other day and she said…”

As my mother droned on about the people in our small town, I smiled and nodded and pretended to listen while I closed down my computer.  I hated listening to my mother’s mean-spirited and petty gossip about the town, but at least she wasn’t asking me any more questions about what exactly Ren was doing with me in the library.

 

* * *

 

“Wait,” Madison tucked her legs under her and settled back on the couch, “so, did you and Ren have sex last night in the library or not?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“How can you not know,” Madison said with a grin.  “Either he put his dick in you or he didn’t.”

“I told you, he started to, but we were interrupted.”

“How much did you get?”  Madison took a sip of wine.

“What?”

“How much of his dick did you get?  If you got the whole thing even just once, then your cherry’s been officially popped and I’m opening up a second bottle of wine.”

“Uh, I don’t think it was the whole thing,” I said.  “I mean, I know he put the, uh, head in, but I think that’s all he got in.”

“If it was just the tip, it doesn’t count,” Madison said as Jacob strolled into the living room.

“Just the tip of what?”  He leaned down and pressed a kiss against her mouth.

I turned a truly hellish shade of red as Jacob nodded to me.  “Hey, Rachel.”

“Hi.” 

He studied my red cheeks before turning back to Madison.  “What are you two talking about?”

“Girl stuff.”

“Okay.  Well, I’m gonna have a quick shower and then I’ll start the steaks.”

“Thanks, honey.”

He left, and I said, “So, are you two officially living together now?”

“He’s basically living here, but he hasn’t sold his place and moved his stuff in yet.”

“Is he going to?”

She nodded.  “If he knows what’s good for him, he will.”

I laughed.  “I’m happy for you, Mads.  You know that right?”

“Thanks, sweetie.  But don’t change the subject.  I’m making my ruling and,” she pounded out a drum beat on the arm of the couch, “congratulations, Rachel Banks, you are still a virgin.”

“Thanks.”  I drained my glass of wine and jumped up to pour myself another from the bottle sitting on the coffee table.  “Did I mention it hurt a little?  Maybe he did pop it and -”

“Were you bleeding after?”

“No, but I did a lot of horseback riding when I was a teen.  My actual hymen is probably long gone.”

“Good point.  Well, unless Ren was in balls-deep, I don’t think it counts.”

My cheeks were still boiling hot and Madison grinned at me.  “It’s adorable how talking about sex makes you blush.  Once Ren takes your virginity, I’m gonna miss how flustered you get when we talk sex.”

I drank more wine.  “He’s not going to take my virginity.  Not after my mother interrupted us.  God, it was so humiliating, Mads.  One, to be interrupted like I’m some damn teenager, and two, she was so rude to him.  She said mean things and -”

“Your mom is a bitch.”  Madison poured herself more wine.  “Scratch that, she’s not a bitch, she’s a full on Disney villain.  She’s Cruella da Ville…no, she’s Ursula from The Little Mermaid.  If she was a character in a book, she’d be Hannibal Lecter.  Minus the cannibalism.”

She paused and gave me a suspicious look.  “Minus the cannibalism, right, Rach?”

“I dunno.  Does eating my self-esteem for breakfast every morning from when I was eleven until I moved out at nineteen, count as cannibalism?”

Madison scowled.  “All jokes aside, I hate what that woman has done to you.”

“She’s still my mother.”

“Only by blood.  I have never met a less mom-like woman in my life, and I grew up without a mother.  You need to cut off contact with her, Rach.  She’s bad for you.”

I sighed and stared into my wine glass.  I’d had this conversation off and on for years with Madison.  She wasn’t wrong, my mother was toxic, but she was still my mother.  She sometimes said hurtful things only because she wanted what was best for me.

Does she, though?  Because it comes off a lot like hatred.

The red in my cheeks faded and the wine sloshed in my belly until I felt nauseous.  My mother didn’t hate me.  Mothers didn’t hate their children.

“Rachel?  You okay?”

“Yes.  Just a little too much wine and not enough food.”

Madison stood and took my hand.  “Come into the kitchen.  We’ll munch on the veggies while we wait for my man to cook us some meat.”

I smiled and squeezed her hand.  “Thank you, Mads.  I love you.  You know that, right?”

“I do,” she said.  “But, really – who doesn’t love me?”