Collide

  Or not asleep.

  Chapter 20

  I turned in a bed, tangled in sheets that weren’t mine. I heard the sound of a toilet flush, the pad of bare feet, and in moments Johnny slid into bed beside me. Naked. I was naked, too.

  “You awake?” Johnny ran a hand down my body.

  I rolled toward him. “Yes.”

  “You thinking again?”

  “Again?” I laughed softly, snuggling in closer. “Always.”

  “Whatcha thinking about?”

  “You,” I said. “This. Us. Everything.”

  His hand rested flat on my belly. “What about us? This and everything?

  “Just that…” I sighed and rolled to face him. I slid my thigh between his to press us as close together as possible. “I don’t know how long it will last. That’s all.”

  “You can never be sure anything will last.”

  “That’s the sort of thing you find easy to say in the dark,” I told him.

  Johnny laughed. “It is dark. And it’s true. What, do you want it to end? This, us, everything?”

  “I don’t want it to. But it does. It will.”

  “Then we’ll just have to make the most of it, won’t we?”

  As his cock nudged between us, my laugh turned to a sigh. “Yeah. I guess we will.”

  He kissed me, and I blinked. I ran my hands over his body, over broad shoulders, down a smooth chest. Over his ass, which was no longer naked but covered in soft cotton. “Johnny?”

  “Yeah, babe.” It was Johnny-now talking to me. I could tell by the rougher timbre of his voice.

  “I thought you said…” I didn’t want to cry—I wasn’t sad, but my breath hitched in my chest. “I thought you said you didn’t want to…”

  “Oh, Emm.” His hands slid over my body, beneath the hem of my T-shirt, over my bare flesh. “How could you ever think I don’t want this?”

  He moved over me, pressing me into the mattress. He took my hands, moved them over my head, our fingers linked, to hold me still. I wasn’t trying to move, but I liked when he did that, anyway.

  We kissed for a long time. Soft and slow. The kisses got deeper and more desperate, but never sloppy. Johnny wasn’t a sloppy kisser. He moved his mouth over my face, my throat. He let go of my hands to push up my shirt over my head. He kissed my breasts, sucking gently at my nipples until I couldn’t breathe. Then down over my belly, the rough hint of his stubble scratching at my thighs.

  When he kissed between my legs, I gasped and put my hand on top of his head. He paused. The bed shifted.

  “This is how you like it,” Johnny murmured against my skin.

  He was right.

  He made love to me with his mouth, tongue and lips moving over all the secret parts of me. His fingers slipped inside, stroking. I tilted my hips, giving him access.

  My first orgasm rolled over me in slow, shuddering waves. When he kissed me, I tasted myself on him. I pulled him down close, feeling his cock thick and hard through his briefs. My mind mushy with passion, I whispered in his ear, “Condoms in the drawer.”

  He paused and pushed himself up on his hands to look down into my face. I had a sudden worry he’d protest the use of a rubber—and how disappointed I’d be if we couldn’t make love because he refused. But Johnny only shook his head a little and reached into the nightstand for the box of condoms I couldn’t even be sure hadn’t expired.

  We wriggled together, moving, taking off his briefs. Putting on the condom. He got on his knees, getting ready to push inside me, but I put a hand on his chest.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  Johnny kissed me. “I’m sure.”

  Then he slid inside me, all the way, and we moved together until I came again, this time with a gasp and a cry. He followed me, saying my name over and over again.

  This time, when I closed my eyes, I didn’t open them until morning.

  “Morning,” Johnny said from my doorway. He was already showered and dressed. His hair looked good slicked back from his face. He hadn’t shaved, but he still looked good. He wore different clothes. “What time do you have to leave for work?”

  I scrubbed at my face, sitting. “I have to be there by nine. Leave by eight-thirty. What’d you do, go home and come back?”

  “Time for breakfast, then.”

  I looked at him and laughed. “You did the walk of shame.”

  “How else was I supposed to get something else to wear?”

  “You woke up early, though. Got up in the dark?” I laughed again and got out of bed. He didn’t pull away when I stood on my toes to kiss him. “You were embarrassed.”

  “I always get up that early.”

  “You didn’t used to,” I said, not sure where that came from.

  “I used to go to bed a lot later.” His hands settled on my hips. “Don’t you think you should get dressed?”

  “Are you going to make me breakfast?”

  “Do you want me to?” He laughed. “No. I’m a fucking bad cook.”

  “Then you’d better take me to the Mocha,” I said.

  It was a test. I half thought he’d fail it. But Johnny only nodded and looked me up and down.

  “You’d better hurry it up, then. So you’re not late for work.”

  I showered and dressed and put on my makeup, but when I thought to twist up my hair and secure it with the leather clip I’d bought, I couldn’t find it, though I searched through my jumbled drawer of hair ties and bobby pins.

  “Emm! C’mon!”

  “Coming!” I left it, putting my hair in a braid instead and skipping out to follow him.

  When we walked into the Mocha together, it was a little like being the prom king and queen entering the gym. Everyone looked. Everyone stared. And Johnny took my hand, our fingers shielded by gloves but still linking tight.

  “Hey,” he said to Carlos, who hadn’t yet set up his laptop. “How’s it going?”

  “Morning, Carlos.” I beamed. It sort of felt triumphant, maybe a little catty, but I didn’t care.

  Carlos nodded at both of us. “They got pumpkin spice lattes on the board today. They’re good.”

  “I know what I’m getting,” I said.

  Johnny squeezed me next to him. “Yeah. Me, too.”

  He drove me to work and it felt a little strange, but not too much. He kissed me in the parking lot and told me to call him half an hour before I needed to leave work.

  And that was how it started.

  That. Us. Everything.

  And it was good. Really good. Johnny was a man, not a boy, just like I’d told my mother.

  He did what he said he was going to do. If Johnny told me he’d be there to pick me up from work, he wasn’t late. If he promised to pick up something for dinner, he did that, too. Because he worked his own hours, he had more flexibility than I did, which worked out well in my favor, since he insisted I either go to the doctor or voluntarily give up my driving privileges. I accepted his offer to be my chauffeur.

  We didn’t talk about the fugues, and I was glad for that. If sometimes I caught him looking at me with a curious expression, I ignored it. What we had was good, and real, and it worked.

  Johnny’s daughter, Kimmy, was a different story. As he’d warned me, she wasn’t exactly welcoming. She was, I thought, her mother’s daughter, even if I only had my imagination to tell me what her mother was like.

  It was Johnny’s day to take his grandson, Charlie, who ran through the front door and into Johnny’s arms in a whirlwind of small boy, then ran off again just as fast into the TV room to play with the Wii on the big screen. Kimmy stayed in the doorway like she needed to be invited in, something I knew wasn’t true.

  “Emm, I want you to meet my daughter, Kimmy. Kimmy, this is Emm. I told you about her.”

  Kimmy looked me up and down with a sniff, then said to her father, right in front of me, “They keep getting younger, Dad.”

  “Maybe you’re just getting older.” It probably wasn’t the best res
ponse I could’ve made, but instead of hauling off and punching me in the teeth, Kimmy actually smiled.

  “She speaks. Imagine that.”

  “Kimmy,” Johnny said with a sigh, but made no apologies for her. “Christ, lay off, will ya?”

  I liked that he wasn’t trying to make us into best friends. Not that I’d have minded being friendly with Johnny’s daughter, who my mind insisted on remembering clad in a dirty onesie and stinking diaper. Just that I didn’t need to kiss her ass to feel important.

  “My father,” Kimmy said, “has a history of dating dumb blondes. I mean really dumb. Like dirt-dumb.”

  “I’m not blonde,” I said, not pointing out that she, in fact, was.

  “Not dumb, either,” Kimmy said grudgingly with another sweep of her gaze up and down over me. “Any kids?”

  “Kimmy, Jesus,” Johnny said.

  “Not yet,” I told her. “You worried about losing your place in Daddy’s affections?”

  “No.” She smiled grudgingly. “I guess he didn’t tell you he’s been fixed.”

  Johnny slapped a hand over his eyes with a groan. “For fuck’s sake.”

  We hadn’t ever discussed anything remotely like marriage or children, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t thought about it. “I didn’t know he was broken.”

  Kimmy laughed. “Dad, God, you should’ve warned her you’ve had all the kids you need. Right? Isn’t that what you said? You do know he has other kids, right? There’s me, I’m the oldest. Then there’s Mitchell and what’s the other one’s name?”

  “Logan,” Johnny said.

  “At least that one’s younger than you are,” Kimmy offered, like that was a prize.

  “I know about Johnny’s kids.” The internet, of course.

  He looked at me, faintly surprised but only for a second. “Give it a rest, Kimmy. Seriously.”

  “Grampa!” Charlie appeared in the hall, waving a Wii remote. “This one doesn’t work. It needs new batteries.”

  Johnny looked back and forth between us and put up his hands. “I gotta take care of the kid. Emm, toss her out on her ass if she gets mouthy.”

  My brows rose as he went after Charlie and they both disappeared into the living room. I faced Kimmy. “You know, he’s not a bone we have to fight over. I’m not interested in getting in between you or anything. And I have my own daddy, so really, this isn’t about that. You should chill out and back off.”

  To my surprise, she backed down. She actually laughed. “I’m just warning you what you’re getting into. You’re young, Emm. He’s old, that’s all.”

  “I guess that’s my business. Are you as kind to warn off all his other girlfriends?”

  Kimmy shook her head. “Seeing as how none of them ever lasted more than a couple of months, I didn’t have to.”

  “Huh.” I studied her. “We’ve only been seeing each other for a couple of weeks. Yet I get the special treatment.”

  She looked at me, hard. “You’re the first girlfriend he’s ever had around Charlie. I told him a long time ago that he wasn’t allowed to trot his part-time fucks through my kid’s life. And he never has.”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek for a second, finding compassion for her. True, I didn’t really know her mother but I had read about her on some of those fan sites, and Johnny had alluded to the way Kimmy had been raised. “I have no intention of getting between Johnny and Charlie, either.”

  “No. My dad’s been an asshole in the past, but I trust him with my kid. If you’re important enough to him to share Charlie with you, that means something.” She looked me up and down again. “You’re really not his usual type at all.”

  I laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Kimmy gave me a grudging grin. “It should be.”

  “I’m not going to try to be your stepmother.”

  She rolled her eyes. “As if you could. And please, for the love of God, call me Kim.”

  We both laughed at that, and from the living room came the sounds of cheering. She looked that way, then back at me. “He’s good with Charlie. Really good. Sometimes I’m jealous that my son gets to experience my dad in a way I never did.”

  “I can understand that.”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, well, I’m also a grown woman who needs to get over it. And besides, when Charlie’s with my dad, that gives me some peace and quiet.”

  “I can understand that, too.”

  She nodded slowly. “So long as you know what you’re getting into. That’s all.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” I said, rolling my eyes in imitation of her. “But I’m also a grown woman. I’m okay.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You are.”

  With Kimmy out of the way—sort of—the next hurdle to cross was my parents. Of course I had to tell my mom that we’d started seeing each other. Even though she wasn’t calling me every day the way she used to, there was no way for me to hide my new relationship from her. And no reason. I knew she wasn’t thrilled about the age difference, but I suspected my dad would be the one less likely to accept Johnny as his daughter’s boyfriend. After all, they were close enough in age to be brothers.

  A dinner party seemed like a great idea. I could show off my new place to my parents, impress them with my independence and introduce them to my new boyfriend, his daughter and her son all at the same time. I also invited Jen and her new boyfriend, Jared—it was official now!

  “Why did I offer to do this?” I groaned, up to my elbows in lasagna that didn’t want to congeal and a chocolate cake that had fallen in the center. “This is madness!”

  “At least it ain’t Sparta,” Johnny said from his seat at the island, where he was scooping homemade guacamole onto tortilla chips and downing them like they were going out of style.

  “Very funny. You don’t think your precious Kimmy isn’t going to be noting what a crappy cook I am?”

  Johnny laughed. “Do you care what Kimmy thinks of your cooking? She’s coming, isn’t she? If she really didn’t like you, she’d have said, ‘Fuck you,’ to the invitation. That’s more Kimmy’s style.”

  “Yeah, she is more an in-your-face kinda gal, isn’t she?” I put the liquidy lasagna back in the oven and washed my hands.

  Johnny came up behind me to put his arms around me, fingers linked over my belly. “What, you think I’m not nervous about meeting your folks?”

  I leaned against him. “You think my dad’s going to try and kick your ass?”

  “I guess I have to let him if he does, huh?” Johnny nuzzled against my ear, sending shivers all through me. “Just to keep the peace.”

  I turned in his arms and linked my hands behind his neck. “My dad isn’t going to be thrilled, but my parents will both like you.”

  “You sure about that?”

  I stood on my toes to kiss him thoroughly. “Sure. They’re good parents. They want me to be happy. That’s what’s important to them.”

  Johnny looked down into my eyes. “Are you?”

  “Happy?” I asked, wondering how he could possibly think anything else. “Deliriously.”

  He might’ve kissed me then if the doorbell hadn’t rung. We pulled apart with a laugh, and Johnny swatted my ass as I headed for the front door. I looked over my shoulder at him, standing there so naturally in my kitchen, and took an extra couple of seconds just to admire him and marvel at how lucky I was before the bell rang again.

  Jen and Jared arrived first, bearing a loaf of crusty Italian bread and a bottle of wine. Kimmy and Charlie came a few minutes later, bringing some dessert and a hand-drawn picture Charlie had made specifically for my fridge. I put it in a place of honor with magnets advertising a local pizza shop and caught Kimmy’s approving glance as Charlie took his grandpa’s hand and started chattering a mile a minute. My parents came last, laden with shopping bags and full of hugs and kisses. I held my breath as Johnny let go of Charlie’s small hand to shake my father’s.

  “Nice to meetcha,” Johnny said without a
trace of the nervousness he’d earlier claimed.

  “You, too,” my dad said, then, “How about those Eagles?”

  “Robbed,” Johnny said, like he knew what he was talking about, and I was glad he did, because I had no clue. “Absolutely robbed.”

  And that was that.

  Charlie charmed my mother, while Kimmy warmed to Jen and Jared for reasons I couldn’t discern. She warmed to me, too, after a glass of wine. My dad and Johnny talked sports and politics, two subjects that could easily have led to an argument, but they both seemed to agree on everything.

  The lasagna didn’t look pretty, but it tasted fantastic, and sitting around my dining room table with all the people in my life who were important, I was glad I’d decided on the dinner party, after all. Every now and then, Johnny would slide a casual arm behind me, give me a squeeze, hold my hand for half a minute. Small, casual touches that made it clear we were a couple. And nobody seemed to mind at all.

  “He’s nice,” my mother said in the kitchen as I dished leftover lasagna into plastic containers and set the pan to soak. “Very nice.”

  “I know, Mom. Johnny’s…great.” I turned to look at the sound of her chuckle. “What?”

  “I’ve never seen you like that about a man before, that’s all.”

  I shrugged. “He’s different.”

  “I can see that. Oh, listen here. I brought you some things. Where did Daddy put the bags? Oh, here they are.” My mom answered her own question. “Laundry detergent, some cleaning spray…”

  “Mom, I do go to the store myself.”

  “I know, I know, but your dad likes to shop at Costco, and it’s too much for us now that you’re not home. I just brought you some extra. Look at these cleaning wipes.” She held them up. “Antibacterial!”

  My hands covered in suds, I turned with a laugh to shake my head at her gift. “Great. Thanks.”

  Citrus-scented, antibacterial cleaning wipes, just what I needed.