Take Two: A Modern Love Story Short (Modern Love Story Shorts Book 1) (2 page)

My cheeks heated.

“Well, that blush, and the fact you can still blush at your advanced age, tells me everything I need to know.” She patted my hair, which was tangled from Gil’s fingers.

After swatting away her hands and then smoothing down my hair, I opened the fridge to cool my face, mumbling about krakens and Beetlejuice. “Want something to drink?”
 

“No, can’t stay. Just stopping by to drop off your house warming gift.”

“I’ve lived here for years,” Gil said.

“You don’t count. Okay, it’s more of a shacking up gift.”

“Please don’t let it be a sex swing or restraints, or other kinky stuff,” I said mostly to myself.

“As if I’d buy you two a sex swing.” She looked up to the ceiling. “I’m not sure these plaster ceilings could handle it.”

“I don’t know whether or not to be insulted,” Gil said.
 

“Oh, I know the best place to get one if you want me to take this back.” She placed a red gift bag on the counter.

“You have a sex swing?” My voice revealed both my fear and fascination about her answer.

“No, not me. Whatshisface from the tech startup did. You know all those successful businessmen, captain of industry types, are into the kinky stuff.” Her sigh held an unspoken nostalgia.

“Before this turns into Cougar Confessions, are you sure you don’t want a beer or wine? Coffee?” Gil walked over to my newly organized cupboard and grabbed a pint glass. He held it up and smiled at me.
 

I rolled my eyes.
 

“Okay, fine. Twist my arm. I’ll have coffee.” Selah settled herself on one of the counter stools.
 

While the scent of brewing coffee filled the kitchen, Gil and Selah chatted about their upcoming classes and who had the worse teaching load for spring semester.

“What’s happening with your beach cabin while you two play love nest down here in Portland?” she asked, adding cream to her cup.

“I was going to leave it empty for the winter, but Quinn called from New York asking for a favor. A friend of his and Ryan’s needs a short term rental. Bad divorce. How could I say no?” When Quinn called and explained about his friend Diane’s bastard soon-to-be-ex-husband, I couldn’t turn her away. Divorce was tough enough when it was amicable or apathetic. I knew from experience.

“Is she hot?” Selah asked.

“Are you asking for yourself?”

She scoffed. “No, for John. I’m sure he misses flirting with you every day.”

Gil grumbled from his corner of the counter.
 

“I hadn’t even thought about John. The whole thing happened so quickly. Guess I should let him know.”
 

“I’d hate for John to show up for his morning Maggie—sorry Gil, I mean coffee—and be devastated.” Selah smiled with her typical twinkle in her eye. The finger twirling a short lock of her hair was the tell that she was up to no good and deliberately pushing Gils buttons.

Gil growled and muttered, “I’m sure the lumberjack will be fine on his own.”
 

“Does the caveman thing turn you on, Maggie?” Selah laughed. “Cause it’s working for me. I didn’t know if you had it in you, G.”

“Works for me, too.” I winked at her and wrapped my arms around his hips. He leaned down to kiss me softly on the lips. I kissed him back for a moment, rekindling what Selah had interrupted.

“Gah, you two are like horny teenagers.” She coughed.

I smiled up at the man I loved. His hair had silver sprinkled through the dark, but his eyes were the same ones that made me swoon in college.

“Okay, before you two start making out again, or finish whatever it was you were doing when I arrived.” She eyed the counter and strewn boxes. “Open your gift.”

I carefully lifted the bag and peered inside.
 

Gil leaned over my shoulder and whispered, “Why do I feel a little nervous?”

“Because it’s Selah?” I asked.

“Stop it. Open my gift, you lovebirds.” She huffed.

I reached inside the bag and pulled out a small blue and white box.

Gil inhaled behind me and stiffened, but not in the good way. “This better be a joke.”

“Now, now, no one is questioning your manhood. I just thought it would be fun for you two. You know, recreationally. I got them from that doctor I was seeing, so they’re legit. You can role-play horny teenagers. Or horny college students I should say. Second chances and all that.”

I could feel my whole neck and face heat. I touched the tip of my ears as if I could feel their pink color.
 

“Selah—”

“Maggie—” She echoed me. “Quit glaring at me, Gil. Come on, it’s a gag gift!”

I snorted. “Nice pun.”

She preened. “I’m pretty proud of that one.”
 

I stuffed the box back inside the bag and out of sight.

“You haven’t even found the real gift yet.” She pouted.
 

“I don’t think Gil can handle any more presents right now. I’m sure we’ll love it no matter what you got us.”

“Unless it’s a penis pump. Then you’re banned from the house.” Gil smiled, but crossed his arms and glowered at her. “I’m serious.”

“Okay, okay.” She held up her hands. “I’m done with my coffee and have a million errands today. Dinner later in the week, Magpie?”
 

“Sure.” I kissed her cheek before she walked down the hall.

Halfway between the kitchen and foyer, she called out, “Watch out for priapism!” With that she scampered out the door, her laughter lingering behind her.

“Why are we still friends with her?”

“Because we love her, and without her, I probably wouldn’t be here in your kitchen.”

“Our kitchen.” He reminded me before kissing me again, snaking his hands under my sweater, and pulling me close.
 

We broke apart a few moments later, both of us breathing a little faster than before.
 

“We should straighten up this mess.” I glowered at the chaos in the kitchen.

“Leave it. Let’s go to dinner.” He dug through the gift bag again, and pulled out the little box.

“What are you doing with that? I thought you were pissed at Selah.”

He shrugged.

A smile tugged at my lips. “Someone’s curious.” It wasn’t a question and I couldn’t hide my amusement or own curiosity. He didn’t need help, but well, he wasn’t eighteen anymore either.
 

“Sounds like I’m not the only one.” He arched an eyebrow.

I sucked in my cheeks and let my gaze flit around the ceiling. Damn. I was curious. Nothing to complain about in our brief sex life, but my inner twenty-something did wonder what she’d missed all those years we’d been apart.

‘You are so curious, Maggie May. Your face says it all.”

“All right, all right. I am. But not tonight. I’m tired and smelly from unpacking. Rain check?” I looked down at my hands stained with newsprint from the paper wrapped around the glasses.

He kissed the tip of my nose. “Deal.”

Chapter Two

Gil

The next afternoon, Maggie’s laughter carried down the hall into my office, breaking me out of the trance of finalizing my sophomore history class reading list.
 

I found her standing in my bedroom at the foot of the unmade bed. Our bedroom. Her eyes sparkled with amusement.

“Is that a Star Wars pillowcase?” she asked.

“It might be, yes.” I glanced at the bed, our bed, where the pillowcase in question sat on a stack of folded sheets.

She grinned at me. “How does a grown man come to have a Star Wars pillowcase in his possession?”
 

“Don’t be dissing on the vintage Star Wars collectible memorabilia.” I picked up the pillowcase and unfolded it, before running my hand over the familiar faces.

“Did you just pet a pillowcase?”
 

I nodded. “I’ve had it forever.”

“You mean, from when the movies first came out?” Her voice carried an incredulous note.

I nodded again. “Yep.”

“Gilliam Morrow, you are a sentimental fool.”

My smile matched hers. “Damn straight.”

“Only one?”
 

“Twin bed.”

She raised her eyebrows and her lips formed a small “o” shape. Her eyes softened.
 

I knew that look. I picked up a pillow and gently whacked her shoulder.

“You’re imagining me in that bed, aren’t you?”

The pink darkening on her cheeks answered my question. “Not in a perverted way. You were a kid.”

“Your cheeks say something different, sweetheart.”

She shook her head and her golden red waves settled over her shoulders.
 

“Okay, okay. I admit the thought of young Gil makes my heart swoon.”

“Young or younger?”
 

“Well, not the one who slept on this pillowcase.”

“I still had it in college. Don’t you remember?”

I watched as her forehead scrunched up in thought. “You did?”

“Freshman year. Until Ben called me a nerd and told me I’d never get laid.”

“Ben would say that.” She laughed. “So you ditched the force?”

“I did.”

“How’d that work out for you and the getting laid?”

“Pretty well.” I met her eyes and our shared history flickered behind her lashes. “Although, from your expression, I’m thinking I should have kept on being a nerd.”

“Why’s that?” She stepped around the bed, moving to stand by my side. She tilted her head to peer up at me.

“Maybe I would have got the girl instead.” I leaned down to brush my lips against hers.

“You got me now,” she whispered against my mouth. “I would have sex with you, silly pillowcase and all.”

“Silly?” I stepped back to stare down at her. “Silly? The greatest film franchise ever, in the history of film franchises, and you call it silly?”

A familiar spark returned to her eye. She was teasing, pushing my buttons. “Two words—”

“Don’t say Jar Jar.” I scowled.

“I was going to say “gold bikini.” She shrugged. “Isn’t that every man’s fantasy?”

I swallowed heavily. She was right. Most men of a certain age had a fantasy at one time or another about Leia’s skimpy outfit and Phoebe Cate’s red bikini.
 

“You so did. I can see the lust all over your face.” She teased.

I gave her a wolfish grin. “I’m imagining you in that bikini now.”
 

“You want to role play? You can be Jabba”
 

She squealed when I picked her up and threw her on the bed, toppling the stack of sheets and pillowcases onto the floor.

“I should keep you tied to this bed.”

Her eyes slowly blinked up at me, her chest heaving with her surprise and laughter. “Okay,” she whispered.

“Okay what?” I dragged my nose along her jawline.

“You can use the pillowcase.”

“So that’s a no on the gold bikini?”

She nodded.

“And the tied to the bed part?”

“Negotiable.” A slow smile teased her lips.

I arched an eyebrow at her. “Oh, really?”

She responded by pulling my head down, melting her mouth with mine. When she opened, I responded by sweeping my tongue against hers. Our kiss found a rhythm we first discovered decades ago, simultaneously familiar and new. I grasped her neck, angling her head to devour her. Lost in her taste, my feet slipped on the floor, and I fell heavily on top of her.

“Oomph.”

“Sorry.” I adjusted myself to brace my weight on my hips and elbow.

After a few minutes of kissing and rounding second base, she asked, “So, thoughts about Selah’s gift?”

I smiled against her shoulder and bit her skin with enough pressure to make her yelp. “Why do you ask?”

“Well …”

I waited for her to explain and occupied myself with unbuttoning her shirt. She squirmed under my touch.

“I was thinking we could have a do-over with that fantasy of yours.”

“You have a gold bikini?”

“No, the getting laid in college.” She paused and I could see the meaning of her words clicking into place in her mind. “Not that you didn’t get laid in college. I meant with me. On that pillowcase.”

“And that has to do with the magical pills how?”
 

“The two might complement each other.” She sat up and shrugged, not meeting my eyes.

“Maggie?”

“Hmmm.”

“Look at me.”

Her gaze swept over my face before meeting my eyes. “I’d like nothing more than to fuck you silly like I should have freshman year, if I’d had the courage.”

I watched her pupils dilate and her breath pause for a moment until she let out a slow, quiet exhale.

“You’re on, Morrow.” She untangled her legs from mine and crawled over me to get to her nightstand.
 

Sneaky woman had tucked the box away already.

“Are you sure?” she asked, her voice hesitant.

“Yeah. It’s kind of like the
Matrix
.”

“I remember when you made that reference last summer.”
 

I remembered, too. We were at a crossroads of living in memories of the past or choosing to create new ones together.
 

“In this case, the blue pill is the better choice.” She held out the pills.

“I’ll take it if you want.”
 

“Only if you want to. No pressure from me.” Maggie looked down at the blue tablets still safely ensconced in their silvery packet.

“I could be up for it.” I smiled at her.

“Pun intended?”

“What’s the worst that can happen?” I brushed my hand along her cheek.

“A never-ending erection? A trip to the ER and the embarrassment of having to tell a doctor what’s wrong with you?”
 

“If that happens, you have to promise never to breath a word of it to anyone.”

“So you’re willing to risk all that for a roll in the hay?” Amusement colored her question.

“Sure, as long as no actual hay is involved.”
 

“Okay, bottoms up!” She handed me the glass of water from my nightstand.

“Pun intended?” I knew my sly smile matched the devilish glint in my eyes. I also knew she wasn’t really suggesting backdoor action.