“Ewww. No thank you. Pork rinds are a Southern thing I’ve never gotten behind,” she tells me.
I hold a plastic grocery bag open, and Cleo dumps her booty in. “This is going to be the yummiest sad day I’ve ever had.”
That makes me smile. I take the bag from her and set it on the counter, then I grab a stick of beef jerky from the refrigerator and peel it open.
“You refrigerate your beef jerky?”
“It’s the only way.”
“How about just not eating it?”
I shake my head and rip a bite off. “Protein,” I say between chewing.
“Eat an egg.” She wrinkles her nose. “Eat chicken.”
“I don’t do leftovers, Cleo baby. And I’m not up for cooking right now. Unless you want something?”
She shakes her head.
I finish off the jerky in three more bites and toss the wrapper. Then I grab a TwoCal out of the refrigerator, peel the aluminum top off, and dump it into a glass.
“That looks disgusting,” Cleo leans against the counter as I swallow the creamy liquid. Her eyes run over my navy blue Dr. Who t-shirt and my ragged ass jeans. “Is it for body building?”
I smirk. “You think I look like a body builder, Cleo baby?”
Her cheeks redden. “Stop calling me that.”
I sweep my eyes down myself. I know I’m looking pretty cut right now. Since May, I’ve been working out like a fiend and piling on the muscle mass. My body fat has got to be low as shit, and yeah—before I started dropping weight these last two weeks or so, my shirts had gotten tight as fuck tight around the chest and arms.
I can’t help a smug look. I toss back the TwoCal and set the glass in the sink, beside another empty one. Cleo peeks at them.
“You drank one of those earlier today, too? Like for breakfast?”
“You worrying over my diet, Cleo baby?”
She shoves me in the chest, and I wrap my hand around her thin, tanned wrist. I look down at her face—her teasing eyes, her playful smile—and all I want is to kiss those soft, full lips.
A heartbeat passes. Another as I try to bridle myself. Then I lean down, take her face in my hands, and kiss her like she’s the last thing I’ll ever taste. I kiss her with the power surging through my veins, with all the strength of my desire to protect her from this day. With all the want that’s burning through me—want of more than just her body. Want of days and nights, forgotten things like the weight of a woman’s body in my arms and the way the woods sound when the sun comes slanting through the trees like sheets of gold. Everything I long for, everything I can’t have, I pour into her mouth—and Cleo responds beautifully.
Her arms twine around my waist, pressing her soft belly against my bulge. I’m so damn hard, I just want to push myself against her until she spreads her legs and lets me in. Instead I slide my tongue into the softness of her mouth. Cleo gasps. It makes me smile around her lips, knowing that I can make my dirty girl gasp with just a slip of my tongue.
I explore her slowly, wrapping an arm around her back and cradling her head, so when I thrust my tongue into the hot, slick sanctuary of her mouth, she doesn’t have to work to stay upright.
I kiss her soft and slow, and longer, harder, until she’s gasping and my hand is squeezing her breast. Her back is pressed against the refrigerator, and I’m thrusting against her.
She’s rocking against me, too. She slides down the refrigerator door, and I take her in my arms and lay her on the floor. She’s panting. I can see her nipples poke out through her colorful t-shirt.
I kneel over her. “Do you want to be fucked on my kitchen floor?”
She starts to nod, and I crouch over her, pressing my lips against her temple even as I straddle her and rub my bulge against her softness.
“Know what I think would be better?” She blinks up at me, her eyes liquid and dreamy as I shift myself against her. “We’re going to do this sometime on the way there. I’m going to pick the spot.”
She pushes her pussy against my dick. “But it’s a—”
“A serious occasion?” I lift my hips off hers and work my hand into the elastic waistband of her leggings. “A sad one?” I ask, stroking her soft belly.
She nods. She looks down guiltily at my hand. My gaze rolls to her nipples, and when I don’t see their outline against her shirt, I help her up and lean her against the counter.
“Here...” I twist the top off the Snow Queen. I get a shot glass from the cabinet and fill it to the brim, then hold it out to Cleo. “I don’t think your sister would want you to have a shitty day. And you know what else I think?”
She takes the glass and shakes her head.
“I think you don’t have to feel like shit to commemorate someone who’s gone.” I think of Ly and his khakis and his button-up Polos with the sleeves rolled up over his forearms.
“You know why I ran for SGA, Cleo?”
She brings the vodka to her lips and holds it there. “No,” she whispers over the clear liquid.
“Because my brother loved rules and order. He was a dork who carried—” I swallow hard. “You know that calculator I had? That was his, and he loved that fucking thing. Our day school had a dress code, so we were all walking around like little CEOs but Lyon—he got off on that shit. He ironed his clothes and mine too, and Myra our housekeeper would always laugh at that. But he knew what he liked. He liked to feel like things were taken care of. He liked to be prepared. And when we started college he rushed, but he also went out for a spot on the USG Senate, because he loved that kind of shit. The boring shit? Lyon was all over that.”
She slams the shot back, then gives me a wide-eyed look, her lips caught somewhere between a sad smile and a surprised oval. “So you don’t like rules and order?”
I laugh. “Hell no, not those kinds of rules. I memorized Robert’s Rules of Order and it damn near killed me. That’s one of the things I did for Ly.”
“You ran for SGA for him.” Her lips tuck up, but it’s not a smile. It’s something more fragile.
I nod, and when I open my mouth to say something else, the words all lined up to come out are I’m more of a wood-chopping guy. Because—fuck me—I want her to fucking know.
For just this one dark moment in my spotless, stainless-and-granite kitchen, I want Cleo to know exactly who I am—and what my life is like. I want it so much I ache with it.
My jaw clamps shut, because I could never do that to her. I’ll do everything I can to ensure Cleo stays out of my sick mess. No one really earns this kind of hell on earth, but least of all Cleo.
Least of all Lyon.
I have to turn toward the sink so I don’t give myself away.
I suck a deep breath back and try to calm my racing pulse. Cleo must know because she doesn’t make a move toward me. She lets me have my space to mourn my brother, even though what I’m really doing is mourning her.
THE SECOND KELLAN AND I start down the stairs, a black cat streaks across the lawn, between the porch steps and Kellan’s Escalade. My first instinct is to lunge after it, because that’s the kind of spaz I am, but Kellan stops me with a squeeze of my fingers.
“Are you trying to catch her?” He grins.
“Possibly.” I giggle.
“Wait here.” He lets go of my hand and disappears into the house while I watch the yard for a black streak. I don’t see one, so when Kellan re-appears with a bowl of diced chicken and sets it on the corner of the porch, I sink down onto the top stair and figure we’re waiting for nothing.
That second, the cat pounces on my head.
I scream, tossing the cat off the porch, and Truman bounds out the front door and down the stairs.
“Shit.” Kellan’s hands rove over my face. “Are you okay?”
I laugh. “I think so.”
“Okay—wait here.”
He chases Truman down and hauls the dog back into the house. While the door is shut, the cat jumps back onto the porch beside the bowl of chicken and curls int
o a ball, blinking her green eyes at me.
“Helen—you pussy!” I smile at my own ridiculousness and crawl slowly over to her. She scoots back a little, but she’s not going to leave the bowl of chicken. I watch her bend over to eat, taking note of how thin she is. But she doesn’t look mangy.
I scoot a little closer to her, until I’m close enough to hold my hand over her back. She peeks over her shoulder at me, then keeps eating.
Kellan comes out the door. He slides a hand into his pocket and leans his shoulder against the door. God, he’s hot. At a glance, he almost seems lanky, but his shoulders are so wide. And that face. He’s giving me that gentle smile of his, the one that tilts up a little on one side and is always accompanied by a twinkle in his blue eyes. The world indulgent comes to mind. I look at the bowl of chicken and smile back at him. He is indulging me.
He indulges me for five or so more minutes, until Helen seems to’ve had her fill. She looks skeptically at me, and I just smile at her.
“Not going in for a rub?” Kellan teases.
I shake my head and hold my hand out. He pulls me to my feet, and I’m pleased to find the cat’s still watching us from the corner of the porch.
“I don’t want to scare her off. I’m playing the long game here.”
He squeezes my hand. “Let’s play it inside for a second.”
“Mm, and why is that?”
He leads me through a formal dining room to the right of the stairs, and into a small half-bath, where he opens a cabinet and produces a bottle of soap.
“Antimicrobial. Aren’t you special?” I tease. “Looks like you’re a germophobe like me.”
“Strays can carry diseases,” he says, squirting soap into my palm.
“Helen doesn’t.”
Kellan gets a laugh out of her name, even though I’ve told him my intentions before, and I force him to spend the first thirty minutes of our car ride determining plans for Helen.
“If she’s there when we get back, I want to take her to the vet tomorrow. I’ll get her a purple collar, possibly purple with a leopard print pattern—” Kellan snorts at that—“and we can start litter box training.”
Kellan just laughs at me, and after hearing all about my grand plans, he tells me he’s allergic to cats.
“What a pussy,” I joke, miming claws.
He does a hilariously realistic “meow,” and I get a good laugh out of that.
The next twenty minutes are more subdued. We listen to a bunch of random stuff on Kellan’s iPhone—none of it overly sentimental, thank God—and when he pulls over on a gravelly shoulder to let a police car fly past, he asks me to turn my back to him. He tucks a few stray strands of hair into my bun and plants a warm kiss on my nape, and after that, he takes my hand.
We talk about robots, and sex robots, and sex toys, and Kellan tells me I should get a job as a spokeswoman for LELO, which I tell him would be a dream come true. Driving through the miles of flat, hot farmland outside Albany makes it a little harder to keep things light, but Kellan starts quizzing me, asking me silly things like pie in the face or whipped cream up the ass.
We stop so I can use the restroom at the first gas station in town, and he has a shot of Snow Queen waiting for me when I climb back into my seat.
As it burns its way into my stomach, I feel an awful ache for “R.”
I think the universe is trying to send me a sign, a show of solidarity or something... because we’re driving past a bunch of businesses on the main drag when “Sea Ghost” by The Unicorns starts playing. My stomach does a back flip, the way it does when I’m riding a roller coaster with loops.
I can’t look at Kellan. I just squeeze his hand and try not to cry, and of course I’m almost sure I will. I torture myself by imagining pretty, curly-haired Olive at school, talking with her friends, and Olive at the DMV getting her license.
Just as the first tear falls, Kellan pulls over at the mall in front of Books-A-Million, cuts the Escalade’s ignition, and comes around to open my door.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
And I do see. I see that he’s a naughty, naughty boy. Instead of taking me into the store, he ushers me into the back of the Escalade, lets the seats down, and urges me onto my back. He pulls my shoes and leggings off and moves my limbs into a spread-eagle.
He teases my tears away by kissing up and down the inside of my thighs, and then he licks my slit so slowly, I wrap my leg around his shoulders and ram myself against his mouth.
He tenses his tongue so it’s firmer than before and drags it through my swollen lips. Then he laps at my clit, so softly and slowly that my ass comes off the floor.
“Oh God!”
“I’m right here,” he says in muffled tones. He drags his tongue from my clit down to the clenching, sopping core of me and, with no warning, he thrusts his tongue inside.
I lock my legs around his neck, tightening my thighs as I rub myself against his face.
“Oh God...” I shudder, and he twirls his tongue, stretching me gently.
“Kellan.” I tug his hair, surprised to find, “I want you... inside.”
He stops licking and smirks up at me. “What’s the magic word, Cleo baby?”
“Please!”
He takes his t-shirt off and slides it under my hips. He tugs his jeans down, freeing his enormous cock. It’s such a beautiful sight: a reminder of virility and life... I reach out and touch it, and he shuts his eyes.
He pushes two fingers into me, stroking his erection as he stretches me. I hear him rip a condom open—with his teeth—and open my eyes to watch him roll it over himself. Then he slides his fingers out of me, rubs his plump head through my slickness, shuts his eyes, and pushes deep inside.
He fills me so thoroughly my legs fall open. I lift my hips on instinct but he’s so deep, there’s nowhere else for him to go. He shifts his hips and settles snugly into me. I let out a cry they probably hear inside the bookstore.
He leans over me and laces his fingers through mine. His hips pump, making me moan at the deliciousness of being filled.
“You like it when I fuck your pussy, don’t you, Cleo baby?”
I nod, tightening my inner muscles around him. He grinds against me, burying himself deeper, so I gasp and arch up toward him.
“You like to have your nipples sucked,” he says. I feel my nipple tighten, then his lips find it. His thumb comes over my clit, stroking gently, and my pussy pulses as I buck my hips.
“God—you’re beautiful,” he murmurs.
He suckles my breast, then kisses up my chest, toward my neck. I nuzzle his head and find his mouth with mine. I slide my tongue in, taking charge of this one thing, even as he dominates the rest of me.
I nip at him and lick his lips. He’s so hungry, his kisses start to hurt. Our hips move in frenzied sync as he surges deeper. I tighten around him. I suck on his tongue and am rewarded with a sharp jerk of his hips. I feel his moan in my mouth... then inside me as he throbs with his release.
I tighten around him, coming in a violent rush. I’m still panting as he feathers kisses on my cheek. I peek up at him. His face is filled with soft intent; his big hand strokes my hair. And I feel cared for. Very cared for on this sad day.
“I think we might be soul mates,” I tell him as we drive toward the cemetery. It’s nestled in the middle of a well-off neighborhood, far from our family’s house, which is closer to the Flynt River.
His hand is in mine, his thumb stroking my knuckles. It goes still at the comment.
“What makes you think so?” he asks in a voice that’s too relaxed.
“Among other things, you just played a song I really like, one I usually play when I’m coming here. But other things too,” I add.
“What things?”
“Like you how tucked my hair back up, and how you made me drink the Snow Queen. My friend used to always say to drink before I come here.”
“Anything else?” He gives me a strange s
mile.
“I don’t know. I just... feel weird about you. Good weird. Like I know you, even though I know I really don’t.”
“You know me better than most,” he says. His fingers resume stroking mine.
“I have a feeling that’s still not very well.”
“Can’t argue that,” he says quietly. And that’s the end of such talk.
I leave Olive a tube of my favorite lipstick and a shot glass full of Snow Queen. I ignore the bouquet of sixteen roses lying against her headstone, and I don’t look at the card.
Kellan strokes his thumb over the seashells I left here several years ago. I look around the cemetery, searching for some sign, but there’s nothing. The sun is shining, the sky is ordinary blue, the grass yields no secrets for me. It’s neither dead nor particularly verdant. The trees sway in a breeze that’s no different from any other day. The only thing significant about today is Olive’s absence.
I don’t stay too long before Kellan wraps his arm around me and guides me back to the Escalade.
The whole way home, I talk about an article I read in TIME Magazine about how, years from now, no one will die. I keep it technical, and again we talk of robots. When we get back to Kellan’s house, Helen is waiting by the door.
KELLAN CARRIES ME TO THE windowed room. I assume he plans to pull the covers back and peel my clothes off, but instead he tucks me into bed and disappears, returning a few minutes later with a mug in hand. Steam wafts off the top. He sets it on the nightstand and leans against the mattress.
“Sit up a little,” he whispers, smiling softly down at me. I’ve got my head propped in my hand and I’m lying on my side, just looking out the windows and thinking. I drag my tired self up, and he plants a kiss on my forehead.
“Thanks.” I wrap an arm around his back, and for a blissful moment, his forehead is against my neck—and I have him. The weight of him. The smell of him. All his wonderful intentions, and my fantasies, which have only just begun to simmer.
Then he leans back, hands me the mug, and winks. “Try that.”
“What is it?”
“What does it smell like?” He smiles and tilts his head, watching as I take a tentative sip.