Page 80 of Just for Fun
She’s not impressed. “By making me skip work?”
“I had no idea you even skipped work until your brother just told me!” I can hear the frustration in my tone. “You should’ve called me that very first day. I would’ve helped you through it.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “I panicked, Kyle.”
Sighing, I pull her into my arms and just hold her, rocking her side to side, not sure how to tell her that her brother canmost likely hear everything that’s happening in here. We are not in a soundproof room.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, babe,” I assure her. “You just need a little break. And that’s normal.”
I surprise myself with all these words of wisdom. I am usually the guy people call to party with. No one has ever asked for my advice on any real life situation. You want to get drunk? I’m your guy. You want to figure out what your purpose in life is, I am most definitelynotyour guy.
But it’s all different with Zara. I want to help her through this. She might be an adult, but she’s been stuck in this routine where she never gave herself a chance to step outside the lines. In fact, I am shocked to the core that she wanted to have sex with me. I want to ask her what made her want to choose me as her first, but this is probably not a good time for this particular subject.
I run my hands up and down her back, loving the way she molds herself to the front of my body. I wish like hell that her brother didn’t sit out in the living room. But then I have to remind myself that I am out of condoms. I should probably buy a box and stash it at her house.
“How about you put some clothes on,” I suggest. “I’ll go keep your brother company. He was just telling me how you don’t drink coffee.”
Her head pops up. “Oh. Yeah, I don’t.”
“That’s something we’ll have to fix, babe,” I tease her. “I need my coffee, or else.”
She stares at me with innocent eyes. “Or else what?”
Realizing that she’s too tense to understand a joke, I just pull her in for a hard kiss. It should make her forget what she asked.
“Get dressed, okay?” She nods in agreement. “Then come out there and save me from your big badass brother.”
She gives me a nervous smile, but then she pulls her shoulders back and gets a determined look on her face.
“I have nothing to hide, and it is not my problem that Owen came here unannounced.”
I pull her into another hard kiss. “That’s my girl.”
She holds on to me just a tad longer when I want to let go of her. Despite her words, she is still a little nervous about facing her brother.
“I’ll be right there, waiting for you, okay?”
With a tentative smile, she finally lets go. She moves to the side to get the closet, leaving me with nothing else to do but to go out there and hang out with her brother. The man seems like a giant goofball. Since that’s my specialty, I shouldn’t have any trouble at all chatting him up. In fact, I should pick his brain on what it’s like to be a firefighter. I could develop a game around that. Why does it always have to be a military operation? Someone needs to also fight fires, right?
I feel good about this. And I feel good about a possible relationship with Zara. I’ll just have to tell her about it.
It should be interesting.
TWENTY-FIVE
Zara
My entire breaksinto a sweat as I walk out of the bedroom. I try to remember if I put any deodorant on, and whether it is antiperspirant, but I can’t think straight, so I don’t know. I mean, I’ve only been wearing the same deodorant for the last five years, why would I know, right?
Meanwhile, Kyle and Owen are having a grand ol’ time. They are talking up a storm, but I can’t say that I understand the topic of conversation.
I walk until I am closer to the couch where Owen is sitting. Kyle is in the chair opposite of him. He has a pen and paper in his hand, and he’s writing something. Actually, no, he’s drawing, not writing.
”Okay, so if the oxygen tank is here…” He points to a spot on the paper. “The rest of the equipment runs through here…”
”No, no, no,” my brother moves his arms around. “It’s the opposite.”
He grabs the pen and paper from Kyle, then tries to mark the spots he’s talking about, but when he turns the page around to show what he did, it’s just a bunch of scribbles, whereas Kyle’s drawing looks…
