Where You Least Expect (15 page)

She gave him an encouraging nod of the head, an unspoken statement to continue, so he did, hating himself even more as the words sprang from his mouth and looking away because he found it too difficult to look at her as he exposed the depths of his uncertainty and the weakness that lay under it.

“It used to be easy, you know? I lived for the excitement, thrived on it, in some ways needed it, but now I just don’t. And when I look at the new guys, who get younger, stronger…better, every day—I don’t know. I just feel so…old.”

There, he’d said it, shared something he hadn’t revealed to his closest friends, not in so many words anyway. He glanced back at her, unsure what to expect, that feeling only intensifying when she peered back at him, her face a blank mask.

With that same almost hollow expression in place, she started speaking. “I have to confess, Joe. I can relate.” Verna bowed her head and then continued, voice solemn. “In the summer of my tenth year, I was Thornehill Springs’s double Dutch champion for two months. It was an unofficial title, but everyone acknowledged my superiority. I can remember it like it was yesterday, the fearsome pride, the unshakeable belief that I would reign forever.” She shook her head. “I was so young, so naive…”

He bristled with offense. “Verna, I just shared some deep shit with you and you’re laughing at me?”

Verna raised her head abruptly, her face now sporting an of-course expression. “Yes! Joe, I’m laughing at you and your pain because you and your pain are ridiculous.”

Joe scowled, but Verna just swatted a hand at him dismissively. “Oh, don’t look so hurt. Are you listening to yourself?” She threw her arm across her face and leaned back dramatically. “Oh God, I’m one percent less awesome than I used to be, which means I’m only nine hundred ninety-nine percent more awesome than every other person on earth. I can’t live like this!”

She slumped down farther in her chair, and Joe couldn’t stop his grudging smile.

“Whatever, Verna. I’m not that dramatic.”

“No, you’re worse. Dude, Father Time is undefeated. And it’s not like they’re giving you a gold watch and sending you on your way or shipping you to the glue factory. In fact, they want you to actually
teach
people. You’re gonna be like the Johnny Appleseed of badassery, sprinkling Joe MacDermid awesomeness in your wake, and you’re too busy thinking about whether this makes you soft or useless or old to see how great this opportunity is. Get a grip, O.J.”

He raised a brow in question.

“That’s your new nickname. It stands for Old Joe.”

“You better not ever call me that again,” he said, voice low, not that Verna seemed alarmed by his tone.

“Fine, Grandpa, but do you get my point?”

He wanted to, desperately, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of failure or the feeling that he was quitting.

“Ohh, I know. Let’s look at this ‘objectively,’ to borrow a phrase,” she said, eyes bright with glee. “You can acknowledge that even ‘well-oiled machines forged in the fire of battle’”—she scoffed and then continued—“like yourself are still subject to the laws of physics, right?”

He nodded after she paused.

“And you’re still entirely capable.”

He nodded again.

“You just would rather do less supersoldier shit, so your totally awesome consolation prize is that you get to teach supersoldier shit instead.”

He didn’t nod this time, and instead just stared at her, considering her words.

When he finally spoke, he said, “Maybe you’re right—”

“Of course I am,” she said, cutting him off.

He leveled a hard glare at her and then continued. “I get what you’re saying, Verna, but I’m just…I don’t know…”

Her face went soft, and she reached across the table and captured his hand with hers. “Joe, you’re human, as much as you might wish otherwise; you don’t have to know everything all the time or be sure all the time. That doesn’t mean you suck. And no one said you had to do the same thing or want the same thing forever.” She stroked her thumb against his. “Change is good or some such fuckery like that, right?”

He laughed and then pulled his hand away, the comfort that he felt from her touch almost as scary as the emotions whirring through him.

“Okay, Verna Love, spiritual guru. Let’s finish dinner.”

And like that, the tension that had been building inside him abated, though the uncertainty remained. They left the topic and moved on to other things, but Joe couldn’t shake the strange mix of melancholy and happiness that had come over him.

He still felt much the same later when he lay in bed, Verna curled against his side, her warm weight against him giving him some measure of calm. He wanted to drift off with her like this, wanted her to stay, but he steeled himself for her departure, not looking at her when he felt her move.

“What’s wrong, Joe?” she said, her breath brushing against his side.

••••

Verna kept her face pressed against Joe’s hard abdomen, the steady rise and fall of his breath lulling her. She didn’t quite know how she could tell, but she knew that something was still bothering him. There was no physical sign; Joe was loose-limbed and relaxed, but she felt his angst all the same.

And then a horrifying thought occurred. What if he wanted her to leave? She always tried to make herself scarce, didn’t want him to think she was clingy or invasive, but she’d lingered tonight, feeling that he might want the company. But she might have been mistaken. That thought in her head, she tried to slide away, but his grip on her upper arm stilled her.

“Did you mean what you said earlier? About me being a good teacher?”

His voice was a raspy whisper in the darkness of his room, but there was no mistaking the uncertainty in it. She rested her head on his side and lay a hand on his opposite side, hoping that the contact would help her convey the vehemence of her belief in him.

“I did, Joe. Don’t know that I’ve ever meant anything more. I know fuck all about the military, but I think I know a little bit about you. And I know you’ll be the best damn instructor the Coast Guard has ever seen.”

He laughed, the action sending vibrations rippling through his midsection and into her body.

“Navy, but I appreciate the sentiment,” he said, his voice rumbling through her as his laughter had.

They fell silent, but Verna stayed where she was, idly stroking her hand up and down his side, the tight, smooth expanse of skin and the muscles underneath begging for her touch. She couldn’t pinpoint when, but at some point, the air in the room changed, got denser, more charged, and Verna felt Joe stir, heard the shift in his breath and felt herself responding to his silent call. With each stroke, she moved her hand lower and lower, sweeping over the muscles of his abdomen, rasping over the hair that covered it and lower, down to where his rapidly stiffening cock rested against his thigh.

As she wrapped her fingers around him, slowly at first and then with increasing fervor, she glanced up at his face. Though she couldn’t make out his features in the darkness of the room, she felt the intensity of his gaze, and the encouragement in it emboldened her. She gripped his shaft tighter and slid her hand up and down, the way he further hardened in her grasp drawing a sigh from her. Breaking his gaze, she looked down and realized that she’d moved lower too and was now almost eye level with his cock.

The sight of his flesh in her hand was like a siren song, and pulled by an urge she neither understood nor could deny, she leaned forward, the brush of her breath against her hand and the shivers that it created proving how sensitized she was. At the first contact of her lips against his cockhead, they both exhaled. He was fully erect now, and at the second swipe of her lips, a clear drop of fluid pushed from his tip.

Verna had never loved him this way, nerves having held her back, but as she faced him now, his warm, hard flesh in her hand, the uniquely Joe scent filling her nose, and her lips still tingling where she’d touched him, she couldn’t imagine why she’d held back and couldn’t imagine anything she wanted more than to have him in her mouth.

So, driven by her need, she leaned toward him again, running her lips over the velvet skin of his shaft and then up over his crown, sighing at the feel of the moisture that had gathered there against her lips. On an exhale, she parted her lips and sucked him inside, the shape of him in her mouth and the texture of him against her tongue an amazing mixture of sensations, both hard and soft and strange and wonderful. Something she wanted more of. Without releasing her hold, she lifted herself so that she was centered over him, and as she moved down, his tip now fully inside her mouth, a portion of his shaft following, she settled between his spread legs and gripped his hard thighs in her hands, the tension in his bunched muscles making her smile around the flesh cradled between her lips.

Verna pulled back and then sucked him in again, deeper this time. She moved her tongue experimentally, scraping across his slit and then down over the veins that lined his shaft. He choked out a moan and then rested his hands on her shoulders. She could sense the tension in his touch, feel the way he restrained himself, the slight tightening of his hands betraying his need.

On instinct, she looked up and her gaze clashed with his. His eyes were shadowed in the darkness, and despite the tremor of nerves that sprang up in her stomach, she couldn’t look away. The raw intimacy of the moment left her vulnerable, exposed, but she wasn’t alone.

Joe had revealed parts of himself she’d never expected to see, but never more than he did now and for maybe the first time, she felt that they were on equal footing, that maybe, possibly, she meant as much to him as he’d come to mean to her. And that feeling was headier than any touch could ever be.

Spurred by that new awareness, she increased her efforts, working her jaw and tongue in an attempt to drive him wild. She was probably doing something wrong, but Joe responded nonetheless, his hold on her shoulders increasing as his breaths did. He went even more rigid against her tongue and on a choked-out moan, he panted out her name.

“Verna…” he said, his voice tight.

He wanted her to let go, but she murmured her denial and increased her efforts, sucking as much of him into her mouth as she could and stroking at the flesh that remained exposed with her hands. The first spurt of his hot seed against her tongue had her widening her eyes in surprise, but she welcomed the next and the next, the feel of his essence against her tongue sending her own arousal into overdrive. She stayed there through his climax, licking and sucking at him until he started to soften and whispering her own displeasure when he pulled away from her touch.

They stared at each other for a few long moments and then, suddenly feeling awkward, Verna went to get up.

“Stay,” he whispered into the darkness, his voice low and gravelly, and then he pulled her up the length of his body and turned her so that she nestled tight against his chest.

Wrapped in his arms, feeling more safe and satisfied than she ever thought she could, Verna drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Thirteen

Verna stuffed her hands into her pockets once she realized she was a moment away from gnawing on her fingernails. She’d thought that nervous habit had been left in childhood, but the trepidation of the moment had her reverting to her old ways. After she blew out a hard breath, she swallowed and then glanced around the meticulous living room, grasping for any distraction. Blakely had left her to wait while she tried on the last pair of pants, and Verna’s heart pounded as her anticipation spiked.

She was proud of her work, but in the end, her opinion didn’t matter. Blakely would be the final arbiter, and though Verna knew she couldn’t let one customer decide her fate, she wanted this to go well. Another glance around the room made Verna even more nervous. The living room, everything she’d seen in Blakely’s house in fact, was picture perfect. Not a single thing was out of place. Verna could even see the zigzag lines that the vacuum had left on the plush carpet, and the hardwood floors shined. Verna laughed, thinking that even dust wasn’t brave enough to cross Blakely.

“Something funny?”

Blakely’s voice cut into her thoughts, and Verna jumped, feeling like she’d been caught misbehaving.

“Uh, nothing. So,” she said, “what did you think?”

Blakely’s bright smile was simultaneously surprising and relieving.

“They are amazing, Verna! Absolutely perfect. And you have probably guessed that I wouldn’t use that word lightly.”

“Yes!” Verna exclaimed, pumping her fist in the air.

A knock sounded at the door.

“One second, please,” Blakely said as she walked to the front door and opened it. Ariel Mallick, one of the town’s mechanics, entered.

“Hey, Ariel!” Verna said.

“Hey, Verna,” she replied.

“Good, you know each other,” Blakely stated.

“Oh yeah. Ariel and Dani have breakfast as Love’s at least once a week. And where is that adorable little girl? I haven’t seen her since I left the restaurant.”

At Blakely’s urging, Ariel sat next to Verna, and Blakely sat in an armchair off to the side.

“She’s at pre-K. I actually need to pick her up soon, but I wanted to see how Blake’s pants turned out.”