The Leftover Club (15 page)

“Terrified,” I admitted. There was no reason to lie. He could probably feel the bed shake from my nerves.

“It’s okay to be scared,” he said as he brushed my hair from my face. “But you don’t need to be scared of me, Roni. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

I nodded, though his promises rang hollow. How could he promise not to hurt me when his leaving me was inevitable?

I closed my eyes. I didn’t even want to think about that.

He kissed me, but a soft and tender peck. “If at any point you want to stop, just say so, okay? I won’t be mad.”
His eyes bore into mine. “Do you want to stop?”

I shook my head. From the moment I felt his body warm and solid next to mine, I knew that I would never be satisfied if I sent him away.

This was our time. Everything was perfect. And I knew it.

“Truth or dare?” he asked, almost hypnotically.

My voice was hoarse as I responded. “Truth.”

“Do yo
u want me to be your first?”

I felt every nerve ending go up in flames. It was all I ever wanted, I knew that now. I had been saving myself for him without even knowing that was what I was doing. “Yes,” I said at last.

He leaned in for another kiss, a deeper, probing kiss that had me arching my back to respond. When his hand slipped below the covers to cup my bare breast, I moaned in his mouth. I could feel his cock jump against me.

He kissed his way down my chest until he caught one pert nipple in between his teeth. Color and light exploded in my brain as I cried out loud, unable to withhold it. I stuffed my knuckles in my mouth as he sucked my breast deep into his mouth, his tongue lapping against me until I thought I might literally burst into flames.

My hand sank lower to grasp him. He felt warm and familiar in my hand. Gently I stroked him like he had guided me to do before. “God, Roni,” he muttered against my flesh and I trembled violently against him.

I tried to register this in my brain, that I had made him do that. But it was useless. I could no longer think. All I could do was
feel. My breath caught in my throat as his strong fingers slid down my body and parted my legs gently. He touched me where no other person had ever touched me before. I was wet and slippery as his fingers explored me intimately, swirling around my aching clit until I was practically humping his hand. I had discovered masturbation several years before, so I knew how close I was getting to the edge as he swirled that magical, tender finger into a bunch of tiny, titillating circles. He watched my face. “That’s it, baby,” he said softly. “Let yourself go.”

I clutched his shoulder with my hand as I bucked against him.
When he slipped a finger inside, I couldn’t help but cry out. “Please,” I begged as I gripped him in my hand.

“Are you sure?” he asked again.

I think I nodded, but I couldn’t say for sure. I was incoherent with need. I could barely make it out what he was doing with his hand until I heard the wrapper tear.

Thank God he was thinking about protection, but of course, he would. It really didn’t even shock me that he had a supply on hand.
Aside from Amber, every single girl he had wanted had wanted him in return. It made sense to be prepared.

He parted my legs further with his
knee as he slipped between my thighs. Moonlight cast a shaft of light across his face and those eyes left me speechless. When he asked if I was ready, I could only nod. His fingers withdrew from me so that he could position himself against me. He felt enormous and suddenly I remembered that I was terrified. There was no going back from this. This could not be undone. I was going to be changed forever… a new person, a woman.

Dylan’s woman, if only for one night.

“Wait,” I said before I could stop myself.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded, and then I shook my head. “I’m scared.” I was scared of the pain. I was scared of being different. I was scared of what I would do with myself after this dream was finally realized.

I was about to make love to Dylan Fenn. Where does one go from there?

His eyes were dark as he stared into my face. “Me, too,” he finally admitted. He dipped his head for another kiss, probing the dark recesses of my mouth with his tongue while he ground himself against me. He felt enormous and hard as a steel rod.

It only made me panic more. I pulled away. “Dylan.”

“Roni,” he replied as his hand slipped between our bodies. The minute his fingertip touched my clit I vaulted somewhere around Pluto. He caught my cry in yet another kiss. There were tears in my eyes as he pulled away. “What’s wrong?”

Everything
. “Nothing,” I finally said.

“Truth?” he asked, and I nodded.  But I was crying in earnest now, so he was less than convinced. He brushed my hair from my face with his hand. He took me into his arms as I sobbed like an idiot.

Here was everything I wanted, and I was too afraid to grab it.

“It’s okay,” he soothed softly and I felt him shrivel against me. It only made me feel worse. Here he was kind enough to give me a mercy fuck, and I acted like a two-year-old.

“I’m sorry,” I said with a pitiful sniffle.

“It’s okay,” he repeated. He lifted himself from between my legs to cuddle at my side. His eyes never left my face, which made me feel even more exposed than being naked beside him.
“It’s a big step,” he continued.

I nodded.

His voice was soft. “You need someone you can truly trust. I get that.”

I swallowed and turned my head. That was the crux of it. I didn’t trust Dylan Fenn to do anything more than use me and go on his merry way when he was done.

The best I could hope for was to remain somewhat intact by the time he rode out of my life like the desperado he was.

“I suppose I’m the first who has chickened out of sleeping with you,” I murmured, feeling like a dumbass.

He lifted up on one elbow. “What makes you say that?”

I shrugged and looked away. “You know.
Your reputation.”

He nodded. “I guess that bothers you.”

Yes
. “No.”

He traced my face. “I guess you’re the kind of girl who needs more.”

My eyes met his. “All girls need more.”

Again, he nodded. “I hope you get it,” he finally said. My heart broke. He wasn’t offering a happily ever after, despite what my stupid childhood fantasies might have led me to believe. Sex was all he could give. And I knew it would never be enough.
I shivered and he pulled the blankets over me. “I guess I’ll go back to my cabin,” he said in that same soft voice with those same unreadable eyes.

I merely nodded that it was probably a good idea. He offered a slight peck on my mouth as a consolation prize before he inched out of the bed and walked over to his discarded robe on the floor. I wanted to say a million things but my throat was closed tight in a vice of humiliation, regret and stark terror.

He left my cabin without another word and made no move towards me the rest of the weekend.

Two weeks later he had loaded his car with every possession that would fit and headed across country to New York.
And as much as I thought I had prepared for it, I cried for almost a week solid. I turned him away that night in some boneheaded attempt to steel my heart against Dylan Fenn, but he’d run off with it anyway.

I was
still, and possibly forever, hopelessly in love with him. The only way to move on was to close that door on my past and allow that crush to suffocate and die at last from neglect, just like it deserved.

I had been an idiot to spend so much of my adolescence pinning every hope and disappointment on the elusive boy no girl could ever win. From my schoolgirl crush to my misguided Leftovers Club, my whole life had been about Dylan Fenn in one way or the other.

Clearly that had been my mistake.

By the time I moved in with Bry
an, I had closed each and every chapter of my life that included Dylan. I never told my best friend about my week in the mountains. I was too embarrassed. I had walked right into the fire, believing that I wouldn’t get burned.

I let him go, thinking that if I said goodbye first it would hurt less.

Now he was gone and it still hurt like a bitch.

Therefore it was my humiliating secret to hide, and I had every intention of taking it to my grave.

September 29
, 2007

I truly had no idea what Olive had up her sleeve when we rolled into the parking lot of the Karaoke Klubhouse, a popular bar that kept the art of making a fool of oneself in public alive in well in Orange County.

She had dressed me, which had been a huge mistake. She found a boutique store at the
Galleria to transform me into some teen wannabe with a plunging lowcut halter top and designer jeans that rode way too low for a mom butt the size of mine. I felt utterly ridiculous as she fitted me with studded shoes and chain and Gothic jewelry and makeup I had stopped wearing by the time I was seventeen.

“It’s a little early for Halloween, isn’t it?” I asked when I looked in the mirror.

“When you go into war, you don’t sit on your most effective weapons,” she said with a shrug. “God gave you natural gifts,
Roni. Bout time you used them.”

She meant my boobs, which were more on display than they had been when they were far jauntier. I kept suppressing the urge to cover my five-acre cleavage, which I was reasonably sure was so pale it might actually
send folks to the ER for seizures by causing a strobe effect under black light. She only made matters worse dusting a shimmery powder on me that made my cleavage sparkle.

“Long live Glitter Boobs,” I muttered and she tweaked my breast in response.

“You are the epitome of a late bloomer, my friend. You may be thirty-whatever, but emotionally you’re still sweet sixteen and never been kissed.”

“So I’m an immature mutant.
Fabulous.”

She glared at me through the mirror as she fussed with my hair. “I was there when you were sixteen, remember? You’ve never truly blossomed out of that awkward outcast, even when you were married to whatshisname. I assume that is because he was a raging, controlling
dickweed.”

“You assume correctly.”

“Well, you’re free now. You’re your own boss. You get to call the shots. And there’s no time limit on owning all your awesome.” I scoffed, so she continued. “There are two types of women in this world,” Olive told me. “Divas and understudies. The only difference between the two is that the understudy is just as prepared to be a diva, but just hasn’t had the opportunity to act on it yet. This is your opportunity.”

“What if I’m just a ticket taker who wants to sit back and enjoy the show? Or I could be that guy who scrapes gum off the bottom of the theater seats.”

“You’re hopeless,” she sighed. “The sooner you fuck Mr. Wonderful, the better.”

“Or he’ll just gallop on down the road to the next chick in line and I’ll feel even worse. Sometimes getting what we want is a double-edged sword.”

“True,” she conceded. “But I honestly can’t think of another way to knock him off this pedestal that you’ve had him on for so many years. Sleep with him. Get that monkey off your back for fuck’s sake.”

“I don’t have him on a pedestal. If anything, I see him more realistically than any other woman he’s ever known. I see his limitations and recognize his flaws
, which is why I never seriously pursued him. I know sleeping with him is a huge mistake.”

She placed one hand on her hip. “Then why do you still want to do it?” I had no answer for her. “Face it, girl. You’re in love with this image of him that you’ve built up in your mind over thirty years. Maybe if you actually get to know the real guy, you’ll see he’s just a guy like any other. Then you’ll be able to move on.”

I was still skeptical as I stepped out of the car and followed my hip and wonderful posse into the darkened club where amateurs wailed familiar tunes from a tiny stage. We found a booth to share, and gave our orders to a perky waitress.

We were early, which gave me plenty of time to panic. I shredded napkin after napkin as I killed two beers waiting for Dylan to show up. Or not,
I kept telling myself. Being overtly rejected was definitely a possibility as well. Frankly, that was the scenario I was rooting for.

My stomach dropped when I watched him approach in a familiar gait I could have picked out of a lineup. He wore a big smile as spotted us, and Olive was out of the booth like a shot to give him a big hug. He lifted her high in the air effortlessly as she kissed him loudly on the cheek.

“Olive!” he greeted with a charming smile just for her. “You look fantastic.”

“So do you, you movie star,” she winked. “I’m so glad you could join us.”

He slid into the booth after her. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. It’s just like old times,” he grinned.

“Not really,” I muttered. “You never hung out with us in the old times, remember?”

He laughed. “Then that was my loss.” The waitress stopped by to take his order, so he ordered two drinks to catch up with all of us. He turned his attention back to Olive. “So what have you been up to? Tell me everything.”

I allowed Olive to carry the conversation as I sat safely between her and Bryan, nursing my beer and saying nothing unless spoken to. Every once and a while, his gaze would drift toward me, likely drawn by the enormous beacon that was my exposed
, glittery cleavage. I felt my face flush and I would glance away before I could see any derision on his face. I felt like an idiot, surely that was what he saw.

Olive decided that she wanted to get on stage, which Bryan thought would be great fun. They scooted out of the booth to go peruse song options, leaving Dylan and I alone in awkward silence. He scooted toward me to compensate for the loud sur
roundings. “You look great,” he said.

“Please,” I scoffed before I took another drink.

“Seriously, I’ve never seen this side of you. It’s kind of exciting.”

“It was Olive’s idea,” I dismissed as I killed that beer and ordered another as I caught the waitress’s eye.

“God bless Olive,” he grinned. “We should go sing something.”

I laughed.
“Yeah, right.”

“Why not?
That’s what you do in a karaoke bar, right?”

“That’s what you do in a karaoke bar. And what they do in a karaoke bar,” I said, indicating towards our friends poring over the song selection. “I sit here and drink beer.”

“Sounds boring.”

I shrugged. “I guess I’m just a boring kind of gal.”

“I know better than that,” he said. Our eyes met and held for a heart-stopping moment. I looked away. “You know what this reminds me of? Remember when we did
Grease
in junior year?”

I wrinkled my nose as I giggled. “Oh my
God,” I groaned. “I had successfully repressed that memory until now, thank you very much.”

He laughed. “I got the part of Danny and you were cast as Jan, even though I heard you practice for Rizzo for at least two weeks straight.”

I shrugged. “Jan didn’t have a solo.”

“Again, boring,” he announced. “You were born to play Rizzo. That was a waste of your talent.”

“Talent, please,” I snorted.

“We should totally put something together for the reunion.”

Both Olive and Bryan thought this was a fabulous idea when he mentioned it to the both of them after they returned to the table to wait their turn to perform. “They have “
You’re The One that I Want
” over there,” Olive sadistically pointed out, and totally ignored me as I glared at her.

“Oh, yeah,” Dylan decided at once. “This is happening.”

I shook my head as he slid from the booth to put us on the list. “There’s no way.”

“There’s always a way,” he assured with a wink. He motioned to our waitress to bring me another beer.

I felt like I was going to puke every minute that followed. Ten minutes later, Olive and Bryan sang “
Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”
with gusto, even if they missed the pitch by a mile thanks to cheap draft beer. I marveled that the lively audience didn’t seem to care. They saw the performers having fun, so they had fun right along with them.

It still didn’t make me feel any better when, two minutes after they were done, Dylan was pulling me toward the stage despite my death grip on our table.

He was undaunted, even as I tugged at his shirt. “Please, Dylan. This is ridiculous.”

“What’s the worst that could happen? So they hate you, so what? You’ll never see anyone in this room ever again except the people that already love you. Just go up there and have fun,
Roni. Live for once.”

My head swam from the four beers I’d sucked down. I was sure every drop would make a sudden projectile appearance if I had to get up on that stage.

“You’re fine,” he assured in my ear as we waited for the singer before us to finish. “The worst part of performing is always the dread leading up to it. Once you push through that initial ten seconds of terror, you’re fine. You got this,” he promised. “Trust the professional.”

I took a deep breath as he took my hand in his and pulled me up onto the recently vacated stage. Olive and Bryan hooted and hollered from our table, like we were U2 or something. I looked down at the monitor as the song started, gripping Dylan’s hand like I was hanging off the side of a cliff. Thankfully his part was first, so I could muster up my nerve to warble my part as a response.

Much to my surprise, I found that Dylan was right. Once I pushed through the initial terror, the second line came much easier than the first. And I might have been totally buzzing, but it seemed like the audience was with me every step of the way, as though they wanted me to succeed rather than fail.

That was new
.

The audience joined in with the
chorus, including a very loud Olive and Bryan we could hear all the way to the stage. Dylan’s smile was wide and triumphant as he got into his familiar part, and I giggled in between lines as I tried to do the same.

For nearly four minutes, I got to be Sandy – the star of the show.

The crowd went wild for us as we finished, so Dylan led the bow and I followed suit. We returned to our table to the applause from our new fans. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I actually had a lot of fun once I pushed through the fear.

And Olive wasn’t done pushing me out of my comfort zone. Once we returned to the table, Dylan seated himself between Olive and me,
which she used to her advantage to initiate
Project: Fuck Fenn
. She leaned in close, touching him liberally as she flirted openly and shamelessly.

Not just with Dylan, but with me as well.

In fact, her innuendo made it sound as though he could join us back at my place for a private reunion of three. I kept looking to Bryan to save me, but he would simply shrug with an impish grin on his face. Like Olive, he probably thought it was time for me to fully ‘blossom’ as well.

Call me old fashioned
, but having a ménage a trois seemed an extreme measure to take to accomplish this particular goal.

W
orst of all, Dylan seemed totally open to this unconventional idea. I don’t know why it surprised me, but it did. He virtually laid claim to both of us as he rested his arm on either side of the booth, flirting openly with the both of us as Bryan watched on, trying unsuccessfully to hide his amusement.

To punish him, or perhaps to get away from the more terrifying prospect of group sex, I pulled Bryan from the booth and signed us up to sing again. We stayed by the bar and I watched Olive work her magic on Dylan as they sat close together in the booth. Dylan’s eyes returned to meet mine more than once, and I found myself leaning toward Bryan for support.

“What have I gotten myself into?”

He laughed. “You’re just sowing your wild oats, oh,” he looked at his watch, “about twenty years after
everyone else did.”

“I don’t think I’m wild enough to sow these particular oats.”

“You didn’t think you could get up there on that stage and sing either. Sometimes we have to surprise ourselves. It reminds us we’re alive.”

I shook my head. I knew that my identity as a single mom didn’t turn anyone on, but it was who I was, who I was comfortable being. What good could come from shaking the apple tree?

I didn’t have to ask. I already knew. It wasn’t the first time I had seen that look in Dylan’s eyes, but I knew it had to be the last. Nothing good ever followed and I simply couldn’t go through that again.

“Be a pal. Get me out of it.”

He sighed. “I don’t get you, Roni. I really don’t. He wants you. Why aren’t you jumping all over that? I know I would if it were me.”

“Yeah, well I’m not you.”

“You’re not you either, that’s the problem. You spent your childhood being who we wanted you to be. Then you married that jerk Wade and tried to be what he wanted you to be. Now you’re neck-deep in motherhood, trying to be who your daughter wants you to be. You’re never going to be free until you decide to be who you want you to be.”

“I don’t even know who that is.”

“Ding-ding-ding,” he said as he tapped his bottle on the bar. “We have a winner, folks. Tell her what she’s won, Johnny,” he smirked. “Look. We all had people who have tried to shove us into ill-fitting boxes. They hurt for a reason, honey. We don’t belong there.”