Crave: Part One

  And today . . .

  Today, I see hope in the color of amber.

  Adaline and I never made it to dinner last night. We never made it out of this room—this bed.

  There’s a slit between the drapes where a blade of morning sunlight slices through the room, highlighting a sliver of her soft face as she sleeps in my arms. I think about the only other time we shared a bed and the misery of having to lock myself away from her in the bathroom for hours. But last night was different. Finally, after us having to deal with all my bullshit, I was able to give her what she’s been patiently waiting for.

  It’s hope . . .

  Because she’s hope.

  She understands me when I don’t even understand myself. She’s forgiving when I refuse to forgive the things I’ve done. And she gives me hope in the eye of hopelessness.

  Being able to give myself to her and have her give herself to me is more than what I could imagine. Never in my life have I felt the way she made me feel last night. It was soul-consuming to be inside her as tears slipped down her face while she clung to me. Seeing her need me as much as I need her gives me even more certainty in us.

  And I need that certainty, because there’s been so much unease inside me since we got back together, knowing how badly I broke her trust. On top of that, opening up to her about all the shit in my life, I often feel like our relationship is walking the thin line of a tightrope and any minute we’re going to slip. I wouldn’t blame her for faltering with all the baggage I come with when all I strive to be is the strong man she deserves. But it’s hard to feel strong when I’ve exposed so many of my weaknesses to her.

  She’s taken everything with love and acceptance, and while I would never give her up, a part of me still feels undeserving.

  As I push my fingers through her mussed up hair, her body stirs and she tangles her legs with mine. I shift in the bed when I feel the initial constricting of my dick as it begins to harden.

  Bless the effects of alcohol, because I had absolutely no issues keeping myself hard last night. I was finally able to relax, and once we finished and I had more confidence on my side, we were able to go for a second time in the middle of the night. And now, I’m ready again even though there’s a morsel of hesitation when I think about how she’s going to react with my need for more.

  She knows how much I get myself off every day, but now that we’ve crossed over into new territory with sex, it’s all I could do last night not to wake her up more than just that one time. And even after that, I hated that I had to sneak out of bed after she had fallen asleep to rub one out in the bathroom.

  With her arm draped across my stomach, she runs her foot along my leg and giggles lightly under her breath when her knee grazes my hard-on.

  “I thought you were sleeping.”

  With the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen, she nuzzles into me.

  “What’s so funny?”

  She lowers her arm and runs her hand over my dick with a playful, “This.”

  I grab her wrist with one hand and her hip with another as I pull her on top of me. “You shouldn’t laugh at that,” I tease, feigning seriousness.

  Her smile fades into captivation, and when I reach up to hold her face in my hands, she asks so sweetly, “Can we lock ourselves away in here all day?”

  Her request hits me like a drug blazing through my veins. Still naked, I lift off my back and gently suck her nipple into my mouth, feeling it harden against my tongue. Her arms circle tightly around my neck as she holds me against her chest.

  Needy to be with her, I reach down to guide myself inside her at the same time I feel her body shift, wanting me to be on top. I wrap my free arm around her waist to keep her in place, saying, “I want you like this.”

  She blushes innocently with uncertainty in her eyes before dipping her head down.

  “What is it?”

  With reluctance, she admits shyly, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  I kiss her, which is a feeble attempt to soothe her insecurities, considering my body is straining for hers. “I’ll show you.” I breathe the words against her lips.

  She parts her mouth from mine and stares into my eyes, speaking to me with words unsaid but felt within a mutual understanding of her self-consciousness. She has nothing to be unsure about because there’s nothing this girl could do that wouldn’t be perfection.

  Scooting up, I lean my back against the headboard. When she timidly lifts on her knees, I slip myself between her lips, find her opening, and slowly lower her onto me. Breathless, her head falls into the crook of my neck, and she hugs me close. I have to take a second to keep myself from getting too worked up with how insanely good she feels, but when I can’t take her stillness for another second, I slide my hands around her hips and begin to guide her up and down. She’s tight around me, tugging me as I move her, and I force myself to make this slow so I don’t come too soon.

  Her breathing picks up, heating my neck, and eventually turning into tiny ragged whimpers of pleasure. As times fades between us, she loosens her grip around me when she becomes more comfortable. She starts to move on her own, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen as I sit back and watch her. Everything about Adaline . . . each little piece from the inside out, has taken me wholly. I’ve never felt as much peace in my life as I do when I’m with her.

  It’s a quietude that never leaves us as our week in paradise goes on. Our connection grows deeper and more powerful with each passing day as we savor this time together. But too soon, we’re forced to step onto the plane that will take us back to Tampa.

  Amid the chaos of the seniors who are on our flight, we’re able to tune everyone out. With her tucked under my arm, she sneaks kisses whenever she can, giggling and cuddling against me. Everything feels different when we get off the plane, this week forever changing our trajectory as a couple, bonding us in a way I never could’ve predicted.

  When we walk out of the airport, Cheryl is already there, waiting for us with a big smile. When Adaline exchanges my arms for her mother’s, I load our luggage into the back of the car.

  We kept up on our promise to call her twice every day to remind her we were still alive and well. Adaline even called my mom a couple of times to tell her about all the fun things we were doing, which I thought was incredibly sweet.

  Cheryl catches me a little off guard when I walk around the side of the car and she pulls me into the same motherly hug she gave Adaline. I hug her back, grateful that I have someone like her in my life that accepts me as unconditionally as her daughter does, to help fill in the gaps that are left behind by my own mother. My mom is a caring woman, but there’s always been distance between us.

  “Did you have a good time?”

  “The best,” I tell her before we all climb into the SUV. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you giving me that trip.”

  She smiles as she pulls away from the curb. “I’m glad you had fun, but I have one more thing I think you’ll be excited about.”

  I glance over in curiosity.

  “I found out a few days ago, but I wanted to tell you in person.”

  “You’re killing me here.”

  She laughs and then tells me, “I got you an assistant job at the firm I work for.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “You’ll be assisting my senior legal analyst full-time this summer, and then I’ll drop you to part-time when fall semester begins. It doesn’t pay much, but I’m sure it’s more than you earn cleaning pools. At least this will give you a good idea if law is something you want to move forward with.”

  I sit, speechless that she would arrange this job for me. Adaline leans forward and gives my arm an excited squeeze as I stare at her mother. “I don’t even know what to say.”

  “If you’re good with me being your boss, all you have to say is yes, and the job is yours.”

  “Yes,” I practically exclaim, blown away by the opportunity she’s giving me, which isn’
t something I would’ve had if it weren’t for Cheryl. I always thought, even though I’ve worked my ass off to get into college, that most of my aspirations would wind up being nothing more than pipe dreams. But with everything lining up the way it has been, I’m starting to see even more glimmers of hope in the familiar color of amber that only Adaline can make me see when I turn my head and kiss her.

  My mother’s eyes overflow with somberness when she walks into my bedroom and hands Kason a few more folded down boxes. I watch her from over my shoulder as I grab an armful of clothes from inside my closet. She takes a slow scan of the room, which is already halfway packed, and turns her head to me. A tear wells up and spills down her face.

  “Mom . . .”

  “This is too hard to watch,” she murmurs before walking out of the room.

  I take my clothes and lay them on the bed next to where Kason is unfolding the boxes and taping the bottoms shut.

  “She’s acting like I’m moving to the other side of the world.”

  “I think this is a lot of change for her all at once,” he says, and when I eye him suspiciously, he reveals, “It might have come up during lunch the other day.”

  “I don’t know how I feel about you two working together.” I snicker as I drop a stack of clothes into one of the boxes. “What else is she saying about me?”

  “It isn’t like we sit around and talk about you. It was lunch. She was asking questions about the semester starting and happened to mention how she felt.”

  “Did you tell her to relax a bit? That I’m only going to be a thirty-minute drive away?”

  “She’s my boss.” He chuckles while putting together another box. “I’m not about to tell her shit like that.”

  I go back into my closet to grab more clothes, amazed by how quickly time has passed. After our senior trip, graduation came and went all too fast. Before I knew it, we were getting our diplomas and heading into our last summer before college starts. With Kason now working full-time for my mother, I wound up spending most of the days with Micah and Trent.

  In between, I made sure to stop by and visit with Sharon. The doctors say that her liver is failing her, but she seems to be doing better. I admire Kason for taking care of her and making sure she’s getting to all of her doctor appointments. I know it takes a toll on him.

  Molly never came out this summer, but that didn’t come as a surprise. We’ve sort of grown apart. Maybe that’s what distance does to a relationship, or maybe it’s the fact that I’ve changed. I’m not the same girl I was when I was living back in Texas. It always used to be the two of us and boys were in the background. That isn’t the case anymore. I’m happily lost in love with Kason while Molly is doing her thing, having fun with all of her girlfriends. Last I heard, she got accepted to Baylor University.

  And now here I am, packing my room and getting ready to move into the dorms that my mother insisted I stay in. She wanted me to get the “full college experience,” which she even said using obnoxious air quotes. I would think that since moving out was all her idea, she wouldn’t be quite so upset about my no longer living here, but that clearly isn’t the case. Truthfully, it makes me sad, too. I don’t like the thought of her coming home to an empty house every night. A big chunk of my heart worries that she’s going to get lonely.

  I asked her a couple months ago if she was ever going to start dating, but she laughed it off.

  “I don’t have time to date,” she told me.

  I hate that she’s been alone for the last five years when my father has already moved on, remarried, and had a new baby. She deserves happiness and someone to love her. She deserves it more than my father.

  I stop what I’m doing when I come across a stack of pictures that are tucked in the back of one of my dresser drawers. I stare at the photos that I never reframed after they were shattered in the burglary last year.

  At the top of the stack is me with that purple bow in my hair, sitting on my dad’s knee, and it makes my heart twinge to look at it. It’s been almost a year and a half since we last spoke. He never bothered to call or send a card when I graduated. He’s made no attempt to reach out at all. I think he’s officially given up on me and has moved on with his life with his new family.

  Kason’s warm hands cover my shoulders when he steps behind me and looks at the picture I hold. My heart hangs heavily in my chest, the way it always does when I think about my dad, which is why I hid these photos in the first place.

  Abandonment is a hurt that doesn’t go away easily.

  “Do you think he still loves me?”

  I set the pictures aside and turn to face Kason as I lean back against the dresser.

  “It’s hard for me to believe that a person could find you unlovable.”

  “It’s weird, you know? That so much time has passed. That I have a sister who I don’t even know.” I grip my hands on the edge of the dresser and hang my head.

  “I know it’s not easy.” He runs his hands up the length of my arms to the sides of my neck where he cradles me. “One thing I’ve learned the hard way is that we only have so much say over our lives, and the rest is out of our control.”

  “It’s hard to deal with. The fact that my whole world is changing so fast and he has no idea. He doesn’t know that I’m moving out, where I’m going to college, that I fell in love.”

  “What if you reached out to him?”

  I press my head to his chest, and he gathers me in his arms, my place of safety and comfort. “I can’t handle being rejected again.”

  He plants a kiss to the top of my head and continues to hold me, and after a moment passes, I ask, “What about you? Have you ever thought about finding your dad?”

  “No.”

  “Does it bother you that you don’t know who he is?”

  “In a way, yeah. I sometimes wonder how my life would’ve been different if he had been in the picture, but I try not to let my mind go there. It stirs up too much shit for me.”

  I lift up on my toes and give him a kiss, and with all the changes taking place in our lives, I hang on to the anchor he provides me. He’s the constant I can depend on, and I don’t know what I would do without him.

  “I don’t ever want to lose you.” The words spill out before I even think about speaking them aloud. “I’m sorry. That sounded really needy.”

  “It’s okay to be needy. I need you, too,” he says, taking my face in his hands. “I don’t want to imagine a life without you.”

  After a few more hours, most of my room is packed in boxes and loaded in the back of my mother’s SUV. She sheds tears, and Kason gives us the evening to ourselves. She calls in dinner, and we sit out by the pool. We eat and talk about school, Kason, life. When the moon meets its peak and I’m alone in bed in my half empty room, it finally hits me.

  Nothing will ever be the same when I move out tomorrow.

  I pick up my cell phone and call Kason.

  “I’m not good with change.”

  “You’re a pro at it,” he tells me.

  “I still don’t like it.”

  “You have nothing to worry about, babe. I’ll be right there with you.”

  I spend the last night in my bed the way I’ve spent nearly every night—talking with my love until I fall asleep.

  When morning comes, my mom follows me in her car as I drive over to the university. There’s an energy in the air when I step out of the car. Students scurry about after picking up their room assignments and keys. Once I’ve checked in at the resident advisor’s table, my mom and I begin unloading boxes.

  “You girls need help?” a guy wearing a fraternity shirt asks when he approaches the SUV with a large dolly.

  “Saved by the frat boy,” my mother says with a tinge of salaciousness.

  There’s no controlling my eyes when they roll back. “Forgive her. Please.”

  The guy laughs and holds out his hand. “I’m Liam.”

  “Ady,” I introduce.

  “Freshman?”
>
  “Was my parental chaperone too much of a giveaway?”

  “Pretty much,” he says lightly before reaching into the back of the SUV and grabbing a box. “Well, let’s get you moved in, Ady.”

  He loads more boxes onto the dolly, and when I tell him my dorm number, he leads the way, asking, “You from around here?”

  “Hyde Park.”

  “South Tampa girl,” he exclaims. “Where did you graduate from?”

  “South Shore High.”

  “I was a Tampa Prep brat, myself. Don’t hold it against me,” he jokes before we round the corner. “Here we are. Home sweet home.”

  I unlock the door to find that half the room has already been moved in to.

  My mother drops her purse onto the empty twin bed, and a part of me already misses home.

  Liam unloads the boxes and stacks them along the wall near the window as I take in the small room.

  “Why the long face, dear?”

  I give my mother a shrug. “You know . . . change.”

  “That about does it,” Liam announces as he stacks the last box.

  “Thank you. You saved us a lot of time and sweat,” my mom says.

  “Not a problem.” He then turns to me. “So, Ady. You plan on rushing?”

  “Rushing?”

  “Greek life.”

  “Oh,” I stammer with a shake of my head. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “You’re missing out. It’s legacy night tonight for all the chapters. You should stop by.”

  “I’m not a legacy.”

  He shoots a wink with a sly, “Lucky for you, I’m good at keeping secrets.”

  He grabs the dolly and heads out. “I’m a Kappa Sig, by the way,” he adds, and when I shut the door behind him, I turn to my mom with my jaw nearly on the floor. “Oh my god! Was he flirting with me?”

  “What I wouldn’t give to go back in time to my freshman year.”

  “Seriously, Mom?”

  “I’m just saying.” She walks over and opens the first box. “These years are going to be some of the best years of your life.”