Page 51 of Seven Year Itch
I shift up to try and relieve the pressure, but the ache building inside me is too strong. I slam back down on him, and the tensionshifts from a burn to a pulse that ripples through my body and needles that spot inside of me that’s been deprived far too long.
I undulate over him, my wetness dampening his length and making things a bit more bearable. His hands are bruising on my hips as he tries to slow me down, but I’m beyond reproach. I’m taking what I asked for... what he crawled on his hands and knees to offer me. I am not just breaking my dry spell, I’m blowing the fucking roof off it.
In mere moments, I’m cresting, my insides exploding into a warmth of erotic ecstasy as I climax over top of him. Calder calls out my name over and over, thrusting up into me as he prolongs my pleasure, dragging out my orgasm as he chases his own.
When I feel him rupture inside of me, I fall over top of him, completely overstimulated and out of breath as I lay in the warmth of him, feeling strangely comforted by his scent. Quite a change for where we started this trip.
When I roll off, I feel Calder’s eyes burning a hole in me, so I look over with a frown. “What?”
“Care to answer for your crimes?”
I pull a strand of hair off my lips and dab at the sweat on my brow. “I don’t like asking for things twice. I thought you would have known that about me.”
We fall into a comfortable, satiated silence, and I feel myself drifting to sleep with a smile on my face. Let’s hope I can keep this sense of satisfaction when we head back to the real world tomorrow, because it feels good for a change.
And it’s a real punch to the gut to admit that of all the people in my life, it was Calder Fletcher to help get me there.
Chapter 16
Put That on a T-shirt
Dakota
My smile feels permanent as I walk the three city blocks from my old Victorian house to my old 1950s historic downtown store. I catch a glimpse of my retro signage before cutting down the back alley to enter through the back.
“The T-shirt Shop” isn’t the most original name for a business, but I was twenty-two when I came up with it and thought it was gloriously meta of me. It’s located in downtown Boulder near the Pearl Street Mall area, which is a redbrick pedestrian-only thoroughfare. The storefront is on the back side in one of the original redbrick shops so the foot traffic is decent but not crazy busy.
I unlock the back door and set about my daily routine. Make coffee, water plants, check to make sure the online sales have all been fulfilled, and rearrange anything that isn’t quite up to my standards. I’m always rearranging in my store. No matter how I display my T-shirts, I can never seem to find the perfect layout for everything, and the employees I hire to work here when I’m busy don’t quite have the eye that I do when it comes to displays. Plus, I’m always getting new shipments in, so just when I find a display I like, I have to change it to make room for more.
My store has an artsy and eclectic vibe, different from the stuff on the main roads. It even has the original creaky wood flooring and retro lighting to match the decade the property was built. A lot of my T-shirt designs have a vintage feel to them, so it all fits really well together.
I really do have my dream job. And the only reason I even scored this incredible location was because of a grant I receivedfrom the city of Boulder years ago. I was fresh out of college, and the city was trying to revitalize its downtown area. One of my graphic design professors showed me an application where you can receive a three-year grant for a storefront downtown. So I put together a pitch, complete with logos and expense-and-income projections, and I gave a presentation on the value a T-shirt shop would provide to the city of Boulder. And how it won’t be just a T-shirt shop but a timeless boutique shopping experience with a casual, more approachable aesthetic.
Next thing I knew, I was a twenty-two-year-old business owner.
The store has grown tremendously in the past decade, from offering basic Colorado-love shirts to hoodies, thermals, and even a super popular knitwear line. The majority of my product is made locally by a factory in northern Colorado too, which is an important part of my branding. Made local, sold local.
And I have a huge online store presence, thanks in part to my college bestie, Tatianna. She’s a high-end designer out of Aspen who specializes in plus-size formal wear, but she has a line of graphic T-shirts here that keeps my online store booming. So much so, I had to pay for a fulfilment center in Denver to manage it all. It’s like I have my own little workhorse over there that continues chugging along without me doing the heavy lifting.
Here in Boulder, it’s a much more chill vibe. There are three college student employees that rotate in and out when I need time off, but otherwise I can run the business almost entirely on my own. It’s busy but manageable. And then, because I just can’t help myself, a few years after I opened, I expanded my back room to offer tie-dye classes. The T-shirt Shop is a popular spot for birthday parties, bachelorette parties, day cares, and preschools. It’s a nice boost of income that helped me purchase my own home before I got married... which isn’t easy to do as a single person.
This store is my baby and feels like the one thing I did right in this world. I work hard for it, and I love what I do, which is not something many people can say in their careers. And the fact thatI opened the store and purchased my house before I met Randal makes me even more bitter over the fact that he tried to take half of it in the divorce.Triedbeing the operative word, thank God. Though he still came out smelling like a rose when it was all said and done.
I shake away those negative thoughts because I told myself on the plane ride home that I was going to hang on to this post-vacation, post-sex high I’m on. I do not need to let the negative vibes continue to drag me down.
I shuffle through my mail, and my eyes zero in on an envelope from the Best of Boulder Business Bureau, and I frown curiously as I open it. I’m a member of all sorts of business groups around town and I get mail from them all the time... but this isn’t one of them, so I’m curious what they might be contacting me about. My jaw drops as the letter that starts off with...
Dear Ms. Schaefer,
The Best of Boulder Business Bureau has hand-selected you as this year’s winner for outstanding service and contribution to the city of Boulder. With over 40,000 businesses in Boulder County and 8,000 businesses in the city of Boulder, this is a prestigious award that we want to honor you for...
My eyes gloss over as I read about the selection process and an award gala they want me to RSVP to. I’ve heard about this award, but never expected my little T-shirt shop to ever be considered, let alone win. Holy shit! This is so unexpected.
My phone starts ringing from the desk, and I see a FaceTime call coming in from my friend Tatianna. I prop it up and sit down at my desk, attempting to collect myself before accepting the video call.
“Oh my God, you had sex!” Tatianna squeals as she jumps on the video chat for our monthly meeting.
“Wait... wait... what??” I shake my head, my mind on information overload right now. “Why would you say that?”
