Summer at the Shore Leave Cafe (14 page)

“Me, too,” he said, his voice full of feeling. “So much. See you tomorrow, sweetheart.”

June was getting hotter and more humid
as it melted towards July. I spent the days helping at the café, trying to not to drown in the deep blue of Blythe's eyes as he worked behind the scenes, bandana in place, his shoulders huge and strong beneath the Shore Leave t-shirt. I watched him as constantly and inconspicuously as possible, but the one person who would have really noticed was distracted with her own lovesickness these days. Justin and Dodge were frequently in the café, especially for breakfast, and I found myself scrutinizing the younger Mr. Miller. He did watch Jillian, intently, but was so subtle about it that I would have missed it if not for our conversation on the way to Bemidji. His dark eyes would seek her, and she seemed to know it every time; I would peek at my sister and watch her indigo eyes flash to him, just as hotly as his sought her, to see Justin look quickly away. I vowed to find a way to get them together; if only I could enlist help, but I couldn't betray Jilly's confidence.

Blythe and I had not been able to concoct an excuse to go anywhere together since the evening of the bonfire at Liz's. The next evening he'd found me behind the café, as the sun was setting, and pulled me around to the far edge of the garage. There we'd clung like rain-drenched leaves, kissing with all of the pent-up desire that raged beneath the surface after working all day within the same space and being unable to touch.

“I dream about this all day,” he said against my hair, clutching my waist and holding my hips flush against his.

I curled my hands around his neck and let his words sink into me like a sensual perfume, one I hadn't let touch my body in far too long. I felt heady, like a teenager, and reveled in that feeling in these moments, conveniently shutting out the very real responsibilities that filled my world. Constantly my mind would be shrieking at me,
it's just for a moment, it's just for a moment…this can't last…

To shut out that voice I lined his jaw with my hands and pulled his lips back to mine, where we kissed and kissed, rich, deep, stroking kisses. My breath was coming in gasps as he opened his lips in small, suckling kisses along my neck. He made a hot spot on my collarbone with his tongue just as the screen door slammed twenty yards away, and the sound of Clint and Tish thumping along the porch boards penetrated the haze surrounding us.

I pulled back, reluctance dulling my every move. Blythe understood and set me away from him with one last, sweet kiss.

“Later,” he whispered, and smiled into my eyes as my heart reverberated hard enough to send ripples over the lake.

I dreamed about him every night, the kind of dreams where I'd wake near dawn in the middle of an orgasm, sweating and disoriented, back in my twin bed instead of his arms. In my rational moments I understood exactly what was happening, how I was overwhelmed with the incredible wealth of his attention, his desirability. I still couldn't believe he felt this way about me; if I had considered myself attractive (which I honestly had at several points in my life) the last few years was not one of those times. Blythe brought out the Joelle who had been hiding, deep down, for way too long. The worst part was, I knew she had to get crushed back inside of me, because she was not conducive to the responsible mother figure that I must be—there was no choice there—and then I would curl up like a cooked shrimp, cradling my stomach, dreading that day.

Four days passed, during which we stole moments as we could and my guilt grew to alarming proportions. It was not, however, large enough to prevent me from being with him. Finally, on the fifth day since we'd danced in the old campground clearing, he caught me after the dinner rush and said, low, “Tonight, I'll call you. Can you sneak out?”

My face was hot as I concentrated on rolling silverware. Casually, as though we were discussing the weather, I nodded. His answering grin set my heart clubbing, and I worked hard not to return it, as Jillian was headed our way with her own arms full of silverware.

“See you,” Blythe told me with impressive nonchalance, but I couldn't look up at him for fear of betraying everything I was feeling.

“Have a good night, Bly,” Jilly told him as she swung into the seat across from me.

“That's the plan,” he said, again with admirable innocence, and I prayed Jilly couldn't hear my heart clanging. Surely she would see how flushed and hot my cheeks were, and I swung my hair around my face as bit more closely.

Blythe made his graceful way out the screen door onto the porch; I forced my eyes to remain on the napkin I was rolling around a set of flatware, though it was almost painful to do so. My hands were shaking and to cover my nerves, I asked my sister, “So how's it going with Justin?”

Jillian sighed, sounding as though she wished she had a cigarette. “Shitty,” she responded, and my gaze flashed up to her to find her own fixed winsomely out the window. I studied her dear, familiar face, her pretty lips that had so much natural pigment they appeared rose-tinted, her deep blue eyes with long thick lashes.

“Why?” I asked softly.

“God, Jo,” she said, and her voice trembled slightly. I dropped the napkin I was holding and reached over to clasp her right hand tightly. She closed her eyes, drew a breath through her nose, and whispered, “Fuck it, I love him. I fucking love him.”

“Jill,” I whispered. She was serious. All around us the noise of the café receded, and I sensed the vulnerability and sincerity and truth of her words. Mom and Aunt Ellen, both laughing at the bar with some regulars, seemed a million miles away. The kids, who I knew were running around down by the lake, might have been on a distant planet. It was just Jilly and me. Her eyes came back to find mine, and I was struck for the countless time in my life just how much I loved my sister, and wanted her to be happy.

“But I can't make him see,” she whispered, and her throat sounded tight with pain.

“Jillian, he loves you too, I'm sure of it,” I told her, and I was. “You should see how he watches you when he's here. He totally loves you, but he's acting like a big fat chicken.”

I got a smile from her at that, a slight one, and she squeezed my hand in return. She said, “I feel like this is one of those schemes we'd cook up when we were kids, remember? Like after watching ‘The Parent Trap'.”

I giggled a little, recalling well those long, golden summer days. “We thought we could plot and plan everything into working out.”

“I still have Hayley Mills' haircut,” Jillian joked, messing with her hair.

“Jills, yours is way sexier than that,” I told her, managing to keep a straight face.

She tossed a napkin at me.

“What he needs is a little kick in the ass,” I went on. “A catalyst.”

“Grace Sorenson is getting remarried in two weeks,” Jillian said then, her voice speculative. Grace was Eddie's youngest daughter, who'd been a grade ahead of me in school.

“Ask him to go with you,” I told her, resuming silverware rolling at my usual pace.

“I thought I might ask Blythe and then make Justin super jealous,” my sister said, and my hands absolutely froze. I felt a sluice of angst cut through my entire being. Then she said, her tone sizzling with knowing, “Gotcha. Seriously, Jo, you didn't think I would notice? You thought I was too distracted, admit it.”

I looked up and into her eyes, and saw there a mixture of certainty and dismay.

“Dammit,” I muttered, giving up all pretenses.

“I'm worried for you, Joelle,” she said. “I see you getting hurt.”

“Dammit,” I said again, more resentfully this time. And then I turned a little mean, asking, “Well it's not really your business anyway, is it?”

Unruffled, Jillian allowed, “You're right it's not mine, but it is theirs,” and indicated my children, coming up the steps of the porch, full of laughter, Clint bringing up the rear with a volleyball in his hands.

She had me there, smashed against the hard place. I closed my eyes for a moment, then said, my voice a tightly controlled whisper, “I know it won't last, Jillian, and I won't get hurt.”

I felt her hand squeeze mine, and she whispered back, “You've always been a bad, bad liar, Jo.”

It was silent
in our house, and still, just after one in the morning. I was disguising sexy lingerie beneath my old pajama t-shirt, waiting breathless and yet riddled with doubt for Blythe to call, as he did every night. But tonight my period was done and I had committed to meeting him…and I was terrified by how much I longed to go. Longing saturated my soul, weighted my limbs and turned my stomach into a butterfly garden. I had spent an hour in the tub, soaking in bubble bath called Riotous Rose. I shaved my legs with extra care, then smoothed peach-scented lotion, my perennial favorite, over their newly-satiny length. I brushed my hair until it hung like slippery silk over my shoulders, slipped into my favorite bra and panty combo (a soft, almost sheer set that was as purple as wisteria blossoms). And now I lay waiting, in a twin bed a few feet from my snoozing grandmother. It would be any moment now…

Blythe's cell number flashed on my phone's screen just before it began to silently vibrate on my nightstand, and I snapped it open, fast, my voice breathless as I said, “Hello?”

“Meet me outside by the lake in five minutes,” he commanded; I could hear the grin in his voice, and pictured his lips, his dimples, the way his eyes were turning smoky blue from desire.

“I'll be there,” I said, my stomach soaring. And my heart…I could feel it, throbbing and pulsing all through my body. My hands trembling, I hung up and slipped from bed, stumbling over the edge of it in my haste. Five feet away, Gran shifted and stopped snoring; I froze in the act of drawing shorts over my hips, but she didn't wake up, and I hurried from the room on silent bare feet, flying over the floor and then the dew-damp grass, all doubt erased. I ran, breathless, and then he was coming across the parking lot from the direction of the lake road, and we met near the edge of the grass. I jumped into his wide-open arms and he caught me hard and close, crushing me against his huge chest. I felt his nose against my hair, and he murmured, “You smell good, baby.”

I loved how he called me baby, loved it to my core. I smiled, pressing my face to his right shoulder and breathing him in, then commandeering his jaw in both hands and bringing his lips to mine for a deep, wonderful kiss. My mostly-bare legs fit around his waist, and he cupped his hands around my hips, kissing me deeply. I could never get enough of kissing him, clutching his face in my hands, tipping his head as I would, drawing his full lower lip into my mouth to gently close my teeth around it. I felt drunk, the blood in my veins molten.

“Blythe,” I said against his mouth, curling my fingers into his hair.

His eyes were closed and I reveled in that for a moment, kissing his chin, his neck, then back to his lips to savor him again.

“Joelle,” he whispered, and my heartbeat increased again.

“Where can we go?” I asked him, and his eyes opened and flashed fire into mine.

“My truck,” he said, and let me slide down his chest to the ground, then captured my hand and hauled me along behind him, a man on a mission.

Inside the cab, he turned the key, shifted into gear and then pulled me against his side, where I went willingly, biting his earlobe, letting my hands seek and slip under his t-shirt as he was so fond of slipping under mine, caressing his flat, hard belly and the planes of his incredible chest.

“That feels so good,” he told me, and I smiled against his neck, moving lower and finding him through his jeans, my heart beating almost ferociously as I imagined what was to come.

Minutes later he'd parked in what I had come to think of as our clearing, and wasted no time in hauling me against him, kissing me with an urgency that took my breath away. I lifted my arms as he worked swiftly to remove my clothes, trembling now, totally ready for him. In the meager light he looked alarmingly gorgeous, almost slightly menacing, his eyes so intense that I felt an electric desire slicing through my body. I made wordless sounds of pleasure as he pulled his jeans and shirt off, running my hands over his chest again, but then he captured my wrists in his huge hands, lightly, and lay me back on the bench seat, moving over me and bracing on his forearms. I was shaking, wanting to beg him to make love to me until I couldn't walk…but there was more than just desire humming between us. I could tell he felt it too, by the way he stared into my eyes, his beautiful mouth somber, his eyebrows drawn slightly together.

“Please,” I whispered, before I lost my nerve, and then he grinned at me and nipped my chin, arranged himself between my legs, still wearing his boxers.

“You got it,” he whispered back, teasing me a little now, licking along my neck in tiny strokes. He released my wrists and I immediately curled my arms around his neck and untied the band holding his ponytail. He had thick, waving hair and I buried my hands in it, marveling at how fucking incredibly good-looking he was; his loose hair gave him the impression of a pirate. I was flat on the bench seat now, and Blythe moved his hands beneath my back to lift me towards his mouth. I moaned, my head tipped back as he kissed my breasts with wide-open lips, stroking sensuously with his tongue. I held him there with my hands in his hair, pressing my hips against him, feeling the sleek wetness of desire between my legs. He moved lower, slowly, his mouth on my belly, trailing kisses until he was breathing against my most sensitive place, and I stifled cries against my forearm as he traced his tongue around and around, clutching my hips in both hands.

“Blythe, oh my God,” I moaned, writhing against him.

He was breathing hard now, and moved back above me, his boxers gone. I reached and gripped his huge length in my right hand, and he shuddered and whispered, his voice hoarse, “You feel so good.” He leaned to one elbow and reached into the glove compartment; I realized he was getting a condom, which he had in place with record speed. If I hadn't been so desperate to take him inside of myself, I would have been moved by the gesture; I was ashamed to think that a condom had been the last thing on my mind at the moment.