Chapter 30: Nothing says “fun” like Celine Dion and Superwoman bedspreads.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking a big, tough basketball player like me would only listen to music as kickass as I am. You’re thinking I’d be into the kind of hard stuff Gerry likes, which was mostly crazy, screaming metal bands when he was in high school, and then way-too-explicit hip hop later on. Or you’d think that at least I’d listen to good, soulful black music — the Motown-ish tunes my mom always had playing in the house when I was growing up, singers like Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross and early-era Whitney Houston.
But my deep, dark secret is that I shared a room with Dutch until high school, okay? It wasn’t my fault. And what was Dutch into back then?
Mariah Carey. Alanis Morissette. Ace of Bass. That girl with the awful glasses and the guitar who sang about how she thought she’d live forever, but now she’s not so sure, and her boyfriend told her that she’s clever, but that won’t get him anyhow, or anywhere, with her.
(Those were song lyrics, by the way. You can look them up if you don’t believe me.)
And Celine Dion. Good God, Dutch went through this Celine Dion phase that seemed to last for fucking years.
And I hate to admit this, but there’s this part of me — this very small fucking part of me, mind you — that still kinda likes Celine Dion.
So when I walk back out of the bedroom where all the coats are and make my way to where Amy’s drinking in the corner, watching Mr. Sausage and leaning her back against the wall in measured, patient silence, I don’t even hear the bass-y electronic music or the squealing women. What I hear is
There were nights when the wind was so cold
That my body froze in bed if I just listened to it
Right outside the window
(Also fucking song lyrics.)
I reach an arm around Amy’s waist and accept the drink she hands me.
“Did you get lost in there?” she asks. “I thought I was going to have to send in a search party.”
I shake my head, hesitate, opt for honesty. “Jenny kinda cornered me,” I explain, glad that the volume of the dance music keeps my words just for Amy’s ears. I lean against the same wall she’s leaning on, slide down a little so that I don’t have to bend over to speak in her ear. “A little unexpected drama. But it’s fine.”
I finished crying in the instant that you left
Just then, Jenny walks out of the bedroom — she’d opted to go to the bathroom to clean her face up at the same time that I left to head back to Amy — and Amy spots her right away, leaving the same room I’d left only moments before, which makes me goddamned glad I decided to be honest about what had happened.
And I can’t remember where or when or how
“Anything I should know about?” Amy asks warily.
“No. Honestly, it’s fine. She just…”
And I banished every memory you and I had ever made
“… She’s had too much to drink, and she always gets weepy and nostalgic when she drinks. So she followed me in there, wanted to talk about our shitty past.”
Marty McFly appears on my other side, leans back against the same wall. “That’s not exactly what happened,” he says. “She also made a pass at you.”
But Amy nods like she’s satisfied by this, reaches a hand behind me and sticks it into the back pocket of my jeans. “Your jeans are still wet from the dock chair,” she comments.
I shrug. “They’re fine.”
“Did you bring another pair? We could get you out of these, put you into something dry.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Is it just me, or did you just suggest you want to take off my pants?”
She answers with a one-shouldered shrug. “Sounds like you’re choosing to interpret it that way.”
“You’re such a tease.”
She blushes, eyes falling away from mine. Hesitates a moment, and then says, “There’s another bedroom behind the kitchen. Technically a kids’ room, I guess. I’m sure we could get you out of your pants in there. Without anyone coming in.” She nods towards the knot of dancing women in front of them. “They’re all too busy and too drunk to notice if we disappear again for a while.”
I let the hand that’s on her waist drop a little lower, run it lightly over her round behind. “I think your pants might be a little wet, themselves.”
She grins. “I’m wet? That’s not from the dock.”
“See? Total tease.”
Amy pops an eyebrow up. “Really? I thought I was being pretty obvious that time.”
“Then maybe you’d better show me where that kids’ room is. Help me out of these wet, wet jeans.”
Her smile grows, and she takes me by the hand, leads me in the direction of the kitchen.
I must feel the eyes boring into my back, or else it’s some kind of psychic fucking twinge, leftover from the days when we completed each others’ sentences, because I look over my shoulder almost on instinct, and
But when you touch me like this
And you hold me like that
find Jenny watching us, brown eyes filled with sorrow and loss.
I just have to admit
That it’s all coming back to me
#
Amy doesn’t waste time. We aren’t even all the way inside the room when she practically fucking jumps me, fingers moving as fast as they can to undo the buttons of my shirt, pulling me down into a hungry kiss at the same time as her foot fumbles behind her, kicking distractedly at the door until it clicks shut.
She manages to get the final button undone, but instead of pulling the shirt off, she runs her hands up and down my bare skin, scratching at me lightly, stopping with both hands cupping my boobs.
“God,” she says. “I’ve wanted to rip your clothes off since the moment you touched me on that airplane.”
I try to remember touching her on the airplane and come up with the moment I chose comfort over politeness and gave her shoulder a reassuring pat.
Guess I didn’t know my own strength.
I answer with a kiss, pull back with a laugh when she bites my bottom lip a little too hard. “Tell me this isn’t a case of you just being some sort of weirdly obsessed basketball groupie.”
“I am a basketball groupie,” she says. “I’m not ashamed to admit it. I’ve been following you for years. But I didn’t get obsessed until you started telling me stories on that plane.”
“Seriously? Hearing about my parents’ getting together is what — ”
She pushes her fingers beneath the bottom seam of my sports bra. “Too much talking. Not enough ripping clothes off.”
I help her with my bra, then lift the fancy, cashmere sweater over her head. Under the sweater is only a black tank top, accentuating her curves. I go to take the tank off, too, but she grabs my hands, pulls them away.
“Not yet,” she breathes. “Please? I’m too self-conscious.”
I run my fingers under the bottom edge of the tank, but don’t try to take it off again. “I have a hard time imagining you being self-conscious about much of anything,” I say, but at the same time, my exploring fingertips hit something that feels like it might be scar tissue, and I wonder if I’ve found the source of Amy’s self-consciousness.
She grabs my wrists, pulls my hands to her backside, starts working at the button of my jeans while landing soft, open-mouthed kisses against my bare chest.
“I thought we said we needed to get you out of these jeans,” she says between kisses.
“Yeah, I think you might’ve mentioned — ” But I stop with a gasp when her hand slides into my underwear, squeezes, which of course sends all the blood in my body rushing out of my brain and into my nether regions, leaving me feeling lightheaded and weak-kneed.
Fingers tease through the wetness accumulating there, and Amy pushes me back until my legs hit the end of a bed. With her free hand, she shoves me lightly backward, and I oblige, lying back onto a Super Woman bedspread.
She climbs on top of me, straddles my stomach, gazes down at me for a moment before folding down onto my chest. She sucks on the same spot at the base of my throat where she already left a hickey. Her mouth moves up my neck, her slacks scratching my ribs as she wriggles up my long-ass body. She reaches the side of my face, takes an earlobe into her mouth for a long, agonizingly slow moment before breathing into my ear, “Tell me what you want.”
And because there’s still no blood in my brain, it takes a while to formulate coherent words.
“I think,” I start to say, but stop when lips curl around my earlobe again. I close my eyes. “I think you’re doing just fine without my help,” I manage at last, which is answered by a light rumble of laughter tickling my ear.
Her nails trail up my arms, down my sides.
“Is there anything I need to know about? You’d tell me if I was going to run the risk of catching anything from you, right? Because I’m about to mix a lot of bodily fluids together.”
I nod, and even though it’s somewhat embarrassing to admit, I tell her the truth: “It’s been more than a year for me. The rumors about all the nookie professional athletes are supposed to get turned out to be completely false. At least in my case.”
Her mouth moves from my ear to my neck, my neck to my jawline, my jawline to my mouth. When her kiss finishes, she runs her tongue slowly across her upper lip. “Good. Then I can have you all to myself.”
“The last time was with one of my teammates in Switzerland,” I tell her. She leans down, takes a nipple into her mouth. Sucks. “Cici — Rademaker,” I manage to gasp out. “Did you ever see her play? We dated on and off for a couple of years, but when she got an offer in Australia — ”
Amy lifts her head. “Anika. Seriously. Please stop talking.”
And with that, she’s traveling down my body again, pausing long enough to tease each nipple between her teeth, then trailing little kisses down the plane of my stomach, using her hands to tug the jeans off my narrow hips, down across long thighs and calves, off two enormous feet.
I’m expecting her to take my underwear when she takes my jeans, since that’s all I’ve got left now, but she doesn’t. Instead, that tongue of hers draws a light line from my ankle to my knee, my knee up the inside of my thigh, and when she reaches my hot, damp fucking Hanes Her Way black bikini briefs, she drags her bottom lip up the crotch, starts kissing me right through the goddamned cotton, and I swear I almost lose it right fucking there.
“God fucking dammit, Amy.”
My hips squirm up all on their own, and I tilt my head back, gripping the Super Woman bed spread in both fists and biting the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming. Amy laughs against me, tonguing the cotton between us, and I manage to force a ragged breath into air-starved lungs.
Her face still between my legs, she hooks both index fingers around the top of my underwear and starts to pull. Her tongue’s on my bare clit a moment later.
There were moments of gold and there were flashes of light
There were things I’d never do again
But then they’d always seemed right
There were nights of endless pleasure
It was more than any laws allow
Baby, baby…
And for the first time in almost nine years, I surprise myself by being with someone and not thinking of Jenny even once.