SWOLLEN: A Secret Baby Sports Romance (41 page)

“
Or a drive.”

Landon squeezes my knee and I can’t help it shooting up uncontrollably and banging against the table. Marvin looks up from his book.

“
What was that?”

“
Nothing”, I say, hoping I’m not going red, a squeeze of retribution doing nothing to Landon’s casual exterior. He should go and sit on his sofa, or outside, or in the jacuzzi, or anywhere else but next to me because sooner or later someone’s going to catch us. They can already probably see my heart beating wildly in my chest.

“
Why don’t you go and sit somewhere else?”

I can’t even say it in a bitchy way now.

“
I’m alright here, thanks. I’m still eating.”

“
I’ve never seen anyone eat so much in my life. It must be all that exercise you’re doing.”

Thanks Mom, now I’m definitely going red.

“
I think it must be, Rachel. Just sharing a room with Tilly is an exercise alone. An exercise in patience and control.”

Mom can’t help but laugh.

“
She’s a bit demanding isn’t she?”

“
Mom?!”

“
Are you, Tilly? I don’t think I’ve seen that side yet.”

This is too much to bear. I’m either going to turn the color of a beetroot or fall into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. I move to Landon’s couch to join Marvin in the living room, just to try and avoid it.

“
It’s a shame you have to stay here.”

“
Doctor’s orders.”

Landon swings around on his chair.

“
What about a picnic, Tilly? We could drive up into the hills we saw on the other side of the lake, lay a rug out, sit down, eat. I could do with getting out of the house a bit today.”

Or a lot today.

“
That sounds lovely”, Mom says. “The weather is perfect for it.”

“
You don’t mind?”

“
If we could come with you, we would.”

“
I feel well enough to go.”

“
You’re doing nothing but relaxing today, Marvin.”

“
I have to agree, Dad. The last thing I want to do is carry you down from the hills and drive you back to New York.”

“
I can’t tell you how pleased I am that you two are getting along. I was so worried that you’d be fighting all the time, but no, Marvin and I were saying only yesterday when you were out how proud we are of you both.”

“
Thick as thieves”, Marvin says, without lifting his eyes from the page of his book. The way he says it makes me wonder if there’s subtext buried without the statement, but if there is, I don’t want to dwell on what it might mean. I shake it off.

“
It’s not like I’ve got much choice who I socialize with.”

“
You might get reception on your cell phone up in the hills”, Landon says. “You can find out what your real friends are up to. If you have any.”

I mouth the word ass-hole to him and I swear Mom sees it even though she doesn’t mention it. I guess she’s too busy trying to find out if I could leave the whole of the twenty first century behind should I need to.

“
Have you missed it?”

“
Have I missed what?”

“
Your cell phone, Tilly. The internet. Facebook, instagram, linkedin, your entire social life in one handy little device.”

What kind of a question is that? That’s like saying, have you missed the real world? I’d prefer to be back at home on a permanent basis, rather than here for a long period of time, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t enjoyed the freedom of being away from it all for a while. Especially with Landon thrown into the mix.

Our surroundings are obviously extremely beautiful here, but the most naturally beautiful thing I’ve seen hasn’t been from here at all. It’s sat there at the table smiling at me, and if I close my eyes and can still see it.

“
I could live without it I suppose, if I had to, but only for a little while.”

“
So you’d come back?”

“
Here? With everyone?”

“
With the whole family, all of us. Now that we know each other, we could make this a yearly thing.”

Landon and I share a glance. He mouths something at me that looks like fuck but I can’t quite make it out. A yearly fuck fest here with Landon. Of course, by this time next year, we might be official. But then again,  if we aren’t still together, it might be incredibly awkward.

“
Why has everyone gone quiet? What do you say, Landon?”

“
I think it’s a great idea.”

“
You two can share the same room again, now that Tilly has got over her pride, or we could always go somewhere different.”

“
No, here’s good.”

I realize I’ve answered quickly and because of that, everyone is staring at me. I have to backtrack a little. “I mean, if Landon doesn’t snore. It’s nice here. I like the decking and the garden, it’s peaceful.”

“
Even without a cell phone signal?”

Landon is looking at me quizzically.

“
It’s not the only thing we can do to pass the time, I suppose.”

“
That’s the spirit, Tilly. I knew you’d come around in the end. We managed just fine when I was growing up without cell phones and internet. Just ask Marvin.”

“
Dad still doesn’t use one.”

Cell phones, internet, condoms, unprotected sex, mind-blowing, multiple orgasms, even projectile vomit. There’s a lot of things i’ll remember about this weird vacation away with my portmanteau family, but the biggest will always be Landon. I’ve run out of superlatives to describe him. From the moment I saw him in the flesh, to now, packing food into bags and hunting for a rug to take with us, our connection has just grown stronger and stronger.

I have no idea what it seems like from the outside, no idea either what it seems like for him, but I get the real sensation that when I’m with him, whatever it is we are doing, even if it’s arguing about something stupid, we are doing it together as a team.

Mom might see that as sibling camaraderie, Marvin perhaps as something akin to affection, but whatever it is, I know I can’t get enough of it.

I feel like we are about to embark on a secret mission. As far as Mom is concerned, we are preparing a picnic, a walk in the hills, maybe a bit of sunbathing to while away the day. It’s a hot lie neither of us are going to deny, that makes my whole body giddy with excitement.

What Mom doesn’t see going into the bag is the large pack of extra large condoms, what she doesn’t notice in the almost innocuous touches Landon gives me, is the light squeeze at the end of them, that turns his fingertips almost imperceptibly white and tells me everything I need to know about what he’s planning for us to do.

I am short of breath when we are ready to go, and it isn’t because I’ve been particularly active getting to this point.

“
Sunscreen?”

“
Check.”

“
Food?”

“
Check.”

“
You know where you are going?”

“
GPS.”

“
Rescue whistle?”

“
Rescue whistle?”

“
I don’t think that’s necessary, Marvin.”

“
You’d be surprised.”

Tingly pussy? Family pack of condoms? Huge cock? Desire to be immoral? Check, check, fucking check, check.

Mom funnels us out of the door so quickly it’s almost like she’s trying to get rid of us. I barely have a chance to collude with Landon about our plan either. One minute we are having breakfast, and he makes a suggestion, the next we are packed up on the edge of the property saying goodbye to Mom and Marvin.

I’m not complaining at all, I’m just surprised it’s been this easy to get away. I thought we’d get a volley of questions about what it was we were thinking of doing, a million obstacles placed in our way to stop us achieving it. God bless the doctor who told Marvin he had to rest up. Thank God for that mystery illness in the first place.

“
Your Mom really wants to fuck. Now I know where she gets it from.”

“
Don’t. I can’t think of anything worse. She’s just pleased we are getting along that’s all.”

“
She’s not the only one.”

“
You could be a bit more subtle.”

“
You’d like it a lot less if I was.”

“
Maybe.”

From the car we can see the window to the house, but where I expect Mom to be standing, waving at us, she isn’t.

“
They are either fucking or talking about how to cope with what we are doing.”

“
I don’t know which is worse.”

I put my hand on Landon’s crotch, just to feel it. Just to make sure it’s still there.

“
It’s not going to have gone anywhere you know.”

“
I know, I just-. I’ve wanted to do that all morning.”

Landon guns the car into action and guides it out onto the road.

“
You think we’re going to fuck this much when we get back home?”

“
Definitely not if you’ve got the internet we won’t.”

I whack him on the arm for that, even if I know he’s joking.

“
I guess we’ll just have to make time for it.”

“
There’s always time for it.”

“
You don’t think we’ll get bored?”

“
With you? No chance. When we’re bored, we’ll just change position.”

Sun leaks off the edge of the road like sparkles from the edges of a diamond.

“
Landon?”

“
Yeah.”

“
I want to go somewhere we can lie under the canopy of a tall tree.”

“
Ok.”

“
And then I want you to make me scream until that tree shudders and all of the leaves come tumbling down around us.”

Landon smiles at the poetry.

“
I’ll do my best to look for the tree if you take care of the scream.”

“
Deal.”

“
Deal”

I squeeze his arm and rest my head in the bulge of his shoulder.

“
Today’s our last day.”

“
Then you better hope we find a cell signal so you can store my number in your phone.”

“
For emergencies?”

“
When you can’t get to sleep.”

“
I’m going to miss that.”

“
I’ve told you already I’ve got a bed you’re going to fall in love with.”

“
A bed too?”

Landon gives me a smoldering look of agreement.

“
I knew you were dangerous.”

“
Come on, we’ve got a forest to find.”

Resting my head on Landon’s shoulder, with the sun bleeding in through the windshield to warm my skin, my stomach turning knots over what we’ve got planned today and the possibility of what awaits us, I could not feel closer to understanding the true meaning of perfection.

If I wasn’t convinced it could get even better than this, with the warmth of time, the power of love, and a stack of memories to go alongside it, I’d be quite happy to collect my chips and check out right now, just as long as Landon gave me a final earth shattering, leaf-loosening orgasm to send me on my way that is.

Landon

This vacation seems like it’s going to be over just when I’m beginning to enjoy myself. I thought this was going to be torturous at best, impossible to cope with at worst. To be honest, I didn’t even see myself getting through the whole thing before I actually got here. I know I’d promised the coach, and the owners of Shoreville, but Dad and I aren’t exactly peas in a pod, I’d met Rachel before but didn’t have all that much in common with her as nice as she is, and knew nothing at all about Tilly, beyond her name and an approximation of her age.

This wonderful, mysterious girl was the only variable in a potentially mind-numbingly boring equation, and what an incredible variable she’s turned out to be. I’m not sure I can even wrap my head around how quickly things are moving between us, but also how naturally too. It’s not like we are rushing into things because we feel like we’re running out of time, we’re just all over each other because we want to be. Time has nothing at all to do with it, at least not on my end. Tomorrow we go our separate ways, but even though we haven’t said it directly to each other yet, it’s pretty obvious we both want this thing to continue. Do I want to see Tilly again when this is over, the game has changed, I’m back with the team and the dust has settled? Absolutely, I do. If there is one thing I’m good at in this world, it’s understanding what I want and knowing how to achieve it. If I can’t, for any reason, I don’t give up until I’m convinced it’s impossible.