A Mess of Reason (10 page)

“I love you, Scout.” It’s a whisper that
makes my throat wants to close onto itself but I just keep
swallowing.

“I love you too, Tess,” I answer back, and
her eyes open. She pulls her head a tiny bit away but keeps looking
at me through her long, drenched lashes. She studies my face,
drifting from the top of my head down to my chin and then back to
my eyes. I’m smiling because even though she’s sad, she’s in my
arms and she’s looking at me with love that’s blanketing me like a
balm for my soul.

Seconds later, her lips are on mine. Not by
my doing…by hers. But she’s getting married in less than two weeks
so I do nothing but hold them to hers. I want nothing more than to
open my mouth to taste and feel her tongue on mine, but that would
once again be me crossing a line I promised her I wouldn’t. Then
she pulls off my lips and looks into my eyes with question in
hers.

“Kiss me back. Please, Scout, kiss me.” Her
voice comes at me like an instrument of nature. My lips are on hers
in less than a second, my heart doing all it can to escape my
chest. My hands grip her ass, pulling her into me, against me, onto
me. Her hands grip my face forcefully, then move behind my neck.
And this kiss…oh fuck, this kiss is filled with more passion and
depth and want than any kiss we’ve had before. This isn’t a slow,
meandering kiss—this is an aching, craving, crazy,
I-can’t-live-without-you kiss. I pin her against the wall as I’ve
pictured myself doing a thousand times over, our lips never
separating. Her breaths are intense, the sort of breaths you take
when you’re fucking and you can’t get enough of the other person:
you can’t get close enough, you can’t get enough of their air into
you. Her hands roam everywhere, touching me with squeezes, pulling
me into her. Her fingers skate down my back, up my arms, then onto
my chest. Everything feels like a test and a challenge to my very
core.

She pulls away from my lips, looks into my
eyes. I see no question…only love, want, need—passion. Then her
hands are at the buttons on my shirt. She opens them down to my
navel, then places her hands inside, against my naked chest, as her
face comes back to me and her lips rest on mine. She fucks my mouth
with her tongue so intensely that I have no other choice…every
signal she’s sends me is forward moving.

“Tess, are you sure? I…”

I walk her to the bed, and I lay her down
gently, moving her to the center, and I climb onto her.

“Scout…please…I want you…”

My hips are pinned to hers. I’m harder than
a steel girder as I rest my upper body on my elbows for fear of
crushing her tiny body. Her hands go to the back of my neck and
pull me down to her lips with a forceful tug. And again we kiss as
though we’ve been doing it all our lives. But it’s all so new to
us, intoxicating and exciting, earth shattering and exquisite…she’s
blowing my mind and I’m doing all I can not to think. In this
moment, I just act and go with everything that feels right.

“Scout,” she says in a sweet whisper with
the smallest smile at the corners of her mouth. Her plump lips
glisten with saliva as the edges of her snow-white teeth peek out
just barely. My hips are moving against hers in slow, deep thrusts
as I imagine what it will feel like to be inside of her. She
mirrors every roll as though we truly are making love.

As my hand goes to the bottom of her
sweatshirt, about to make my way under, she pins it down, stopping
me. Really? I’m grinding into you, wanting desperately to feel your
naked breasts in my hands, and you stop me? I’m all for taking our
time, but this is fifteen years in the making—I think we’re
ready.

Then I remember, and I still my body. Is she
pregnant? Pregnant with his baby? My Tess, lying underneath me,
pregnant with
his
baby? The man she’s going to be marrying
in less than two weeks. She’s getting married. She’s made him her
choice, not me.

I can’t do this to her. If I keep going,
I’ll be fucking her in minutes. It’s all I’ve ever wanted and she’s
under my body moving with me…but if I fuck her, what then? It would
kill me to have her once, then never again. I’m walking her down
the aisle to her fiancé so she can be with him, have a family with
him: their family. I can’t do this to her; I can’t ruin our
relationship because of my own selfish want and need. I can’t ruin
her relationship with her almost-husband because I can’t stop
myself from taking her. She’ll regret this the day she walks down
the aisle with her hand in mine as I take her to
him
. Then
every time she looks into my eyes, she’ll think about how she
cheated on him with me and she’ll resent me for it. I’ll be the bad
guy, the guy who makes her feels guilty every time
they
make
love.

“Tess, I…I can’t. Tess…it’s not right…we
can’t…” Feeling like a by-product of her decision, I get up and
leave. I walk out into the cold night sky, unhitch the caravan, get
into my truck, and drive home. I leave my girl, the only girl I’ve
ever wanted, the one person I’ve craved for more than fifteen
years. The one woman whose touch I want…raw flesh against flesh, my
body inside of hers. Our souls dancing and mingling and sated
finally. But not this way, not in the center of the hypocrisy of
her life.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TESS

I lie huddled under the downy blankets in my
new gypsy caravan, the most amazing birthday gift ever from my
Scout. My Scout, who just walked out on me. Scout whom I love and
adore. Scout who remembered my birthday…as he does every year.
Scout, whose kiss makes my heart cave in. Scout, who stole my heart
fifteen years ago and still to this day does. Scout, who if he had
kept going would have been fucking me right this very minute. What
exactly was the something that made him stop, the something that
made him get up and walk without anything more than a few words and
my name?

Clearly I’m living in my own fantasy world.
I feel so many things right now, but more than anything, I feel
foolish. What is it with us? I know what that kiss held. I felt it.
I know he had to have too…the depth, the want, the crave. He sends
my senses spinning, though my feelings and desires for him leave me
with a stab of guilt over my nearly-here wedding. But I’m
listening. So damn hard. Harder than I ever have in my entire
life…listening to him, for him. And I’m listening to me. This rich
sense of humiliation and confusion is partly my doing. I’m a
partial spectator at this performance we’re both involved in.

Maybe I’m not showing enough consideration
for his feelings… I am, after all, the one getting married. I’m the
real pretender here. If he had gone ahead…kept going…made love to
me like I was craving…if he had done that—then maybe, just maybe, I
could have called off the wedding and maybe Scout and I could have
had a chance at being more than just friends. I want him to prove
me wrong. I want so much to feel what it would be like to have him
with me in that way, loving me further than he ever has. But
clearly we are just friends in his mind. Just friends who kiss like
that? Friends who grind into one another like that? Is that what
kind of friends we are?

*

The week flies by and Scout never once
reaches out to me. Seems like a pattern with us. He’s not exactly
keeping a tight rein on his signals these days. I, of course, have
him on my brain non-stop, as I can’t help wondering what it was
exactly that took us from hot-and-heavy mouthfucking, grinding, and
lusting to him abruptly walking out. Right now we’re a hell-born
combination if ever we were. I can’t help but wonder, can I win
this race without losing the prize? Not even a text? Not even an
“I’m sorry”? It’s feeling like a two-way collision at best.

I stay in my studio twelve hours every day,
all week, working feverishly on new holographic concerts, burying
myself in the distraction of work. We’re at a point where I have a
team of ten people I direct, all of who function out of our
headquarters in town. Scout spends most of his time there in the
recording studio where he’s videoed a few days a week on green
screen, which allows me to create all kinds of amazing video
graphics within each concert. We have clients at this point who
even want custom Scout Steele concerts. Easy. Anything for the
right price.

I’m currently working with a
loaded-beyond-the-bajeezus guy who owns a string of islands in the
Caribbean, quite possibly Scout’s biggest fan. He wants his concert
to be reflective of the island life, so he flew our crew down to
his islands to video a four-day stint so that I could have endless
footage for my team to mess with. The beauty of it is, our
contracts are written in a way that they give us the right to own
all of the concerts, even though the client is paying for the
entire thing to happen. After he uses it for six months, it’s ours
to do with what we want. Imagine the bars, hotels, and resorts
around the world in coastal spots that will love using that! Its
almost too easy.

Thursday rolls around and I pack my truck
for the trip to my ski cabin as it’s my bachelorette party weekend.
Scout and I had plans to drive together; he was going to help me
get everything set up for my naughty, raunchy party. Naughty right
down to the cock cake filled with cream and the Pin the Junk on the
Hunk game. My girlfriends are joining us via two other cars a day
later. My plan is to leave this afternoon so that I’m there before
dark.

And, here I am again…now what? Do I uninvite
him? Do I tell Rox to talk to him? Then I remind myself that I’m
twenty-nine years old. A mostly mature, smart-thinking woman…not a
twelve-year-old ding-a-ling like I was in the seventh grade. Hey,
why don’t I fold a note into a football shape, then punt it to him
with my fingers while I’m at it? Be a grown-up. Channel your inner
adult. On that note, had I not been channeling my inner slut a few
nights back, I wouldn’t be sitting in this predicament, now would
I? I go with the obvious: a quick text to give him the easy way
out. Guys don’t like drama…especially not Scout.

hey

hey

I’ve decided it might be better if it’s just
me and the girls for the weekend, i think they’ll be more
comfortable if no guys are there

no prob—totally get it—have fun

yeah, thanks…see ya next week?

sure.

My heart sinks to bottom of my gut and sits
there like a lead apron.
Sure? No prob?

I’m such a fucking idiot. I feel my veneer
shedding. I’ve done this to us. I get it now. This time it’s my
fault. I can’t blame the guy. One minute I’m getting married; the
next I’m shoving my tongue down his throat. What the hell is he
supposed to do? Scout’s a good guy—he couldn’t have fucked me even
if he’d wanted to. He knows I would have been cheating on Creed,
and he knows never, not once, have I ever cheated on a guy I’ve
dated. Why is Scout feeling like an acceptable exception to my
rule? Can I feign lovesick crazy? I feel as if I’m sitting at the
bottom of a steep rise.

Well. That’s that. Scout’s off the hook and
so am I. Now I can have a perfectly wild weekend with my six
girlfriends and not worry what he’s thinking every time I sink back
another penis-colada Jell-O shot.

CHAPTER TWELVE

SCOUT

“Rox, you cannot be serious—she’s there by
herself?” The image of her there alone, on this of all weekends,
forks through my gut.

“Um, hello, six girls stranded on a highway
during a blizzard is not an option, Scout. There’s no way we’d make
it. I’m one of the drivers and I’m calling uncle. I can’t put this
entire group of women in danger so that we can all play pecker
piñata while dancing around in our underwear. What the hell am I
supposed to do? You think I’m happy that she’s stuck there
alone?”

“I have to go. I’m her best friend. We had a
shitty week of no contact and now she’s alone a week before her
wedding at what’s supposed to be one of the best weekends of her
life.”

“Oh, my God. Cue the barf bag. You are so
friggin’ superhero I’m going to vomit. Seriously, do you think she
can’t handle a weekend alone? She’s a big girl. She’ll be fine
without you, Prince Charming. Anyway, shouldn’t her fiancé be the
one swooping in to save the day?” Rox hits me with her gift of
sarcasm.

“Fuck you. I’m just doing what I do with
her.”

“Which is what, exactly? Torment her? Make
her think you want her, then never man up with any moves? You think
you’re helping her?”

And, yes. She’s playing her hand rather
well.

“God, you can be a bitch. Just let me love
her in my own way, all right?”

“That’s the problem, Scout: it’s
your
way. You never give her more than that. It’s like a sneak preview
of the greatest movie…you’ve got your mouth full of popcorn and
that super-sized Coke ready to guzzle and
then…bam!
you shut
the damn movie off before it even begins.

“Do you not get that? Do you not see the way
she looks at you? Do you get that the only reason she’s marrying
that smear of smegma is because you’ve never so much as offered to
take her on a date? Oh, but you couldn’t stop that steamy kiss at
her fitting, now could you, Romeo?”

“Would she have wanted that? With
me…dating?”

Do I sound confused? Yeah, I’m pretty sure I
am. Because Roxanne’s commentary is hitting me like multiple blows
to the jaw.

“Hang on. Can you unzip your pants for me
and text me a package-selfie? When exactly in the last fifteen
years did you get the nut removal surgery? How have you bagged as
many girls as you have and not get that the one standing in front
of you is
the one
? God, Scout, you’re like a textbook idiot.
Oh, here you are on Wikipedia—it’s the page called
head-in-ass.”

I’m feeling like living proof as she
railroads every truth I already know.