Authors: Lori Ann Mitchell
Derek
Dana drifted from the shower, carefree in her nakedness, keenly aware that Derek stood in the doorway, looking away. “What’d you say?” she asked, using her towel to dry her auburn hair instead of her damp, dewy body.
He smirked, his back to her even as he regarded her reflection in the hallway mirror facing him. “I asked if you wanted to have dinner with Archie and Sage tonight?”
She grunted, drifting closer as the scent of her lilac and jasmine body wash wafted along with her. “It’s our first night alone,” she said, sliding a hand onto Derek’s shoulder. “Can’t we enjoy it?”
He turned, inching back to avoid contact. Her body was flawless, young and lean and pale. Her bush was carefully trimmed, a stark red against her full, damp mound. Her breasts were full and pendulous, rosy nipples taut and tender and close enough to touch.
“I didn’t think it would be a hardship to have dinner with your son.”
“With
our
son,” she corrected him, leaning saucily in the doorway, one hip resting against the door jam. “And I’ve had dinner with him every night for nearly five years, Derek.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, putting his hands up in defense as he turned to walk back downstairs. “But put some clothes on, okay?”
“Spoil sport,” she called after him, padding away on bare feet as he climbed back downstairs. Turning up the reggae and reaching for a beer, he remembered that he’d gotten rid of every drop of alcohol in the house, replacing it with every brand of soda, seltzer water and fruit juice known to man. He sighed and grabbed a coconut-flavored seltzer, putting some water on to boil a box of whole wheat pasta.
In another sauce pan, he mixed a jar of organic spaghetti sauce with a can of Italian style diced tomatoes and mushroom stems and pieces until it simmered alongside the boiling spaghetti. While a bag of garlic bread roasted in the oven, he improvised a pitcher of sangria by combining cranberry, mango and apple juice over crushed ice.
He was just melting fresh parmesan cheese in the microwave when she emerged at the foot of the stairs, dressed but barely in a sundress with, clearly, nothing beneath. She had blossomed during her time in Seaside, her face healthier and sun-kissed, body aglow with the recent shower, movements lithe and limber as he’d remembered in high school.
Derek would have been lying to himself if he denied the raw, chemical, physical attraction. He was hard in his shorts, just thinking about her obvious promise of hot, sweaty, consensual, unattached sex. He wanted to fuck her all the ways he didn’t fuck Sage: Fast and dirty, unrelenting and oblivious of her feelings. That’s how he’d remembered it in high school, anyway, and she hardly seemed a demanding lover in the way she kept throwing herself at him.
He and Sage made love. Long, tender, fulfilling love. Eager, hopeful, sweaty, sexy love, sometimes even down and dirty frantic love. But always… love. He hadn’t had sex, pure, animal, “don’t care who it’s with” fucking in… well, since he’d cheated on Sage with her assistant manager, Colby.
That had nearly cost him the love of his life, and the thought of putting Sage through that again was the only thing that keep Derek from bending Dana over the nearest counter and making good on the sexual innuendo that dripped from her every glance, word and movement.
“Smells good,” she said, sitting on the far side of the kitchen counter where he’d set up two plates and the pitcher of juice. “What’s this?” she asked, zooming in on it immediately.
He smirked. “Alcohol-free sangria.”
She made a face, as cute as it was frustrating. “Blecchh!”
“Come on, Dana, work with me here,” he said, plating their spaghetti and garlic bread. “You don’t think I’d like to have a big, fat glass of dry cabernet with this meal?”
She made big eyes, licking her full lips. “Sounds delightful,” she said, crossing her legs amorously as he sat next to her. “Where is it?”
“At the neighbor’s house,” he grumbled. “Along with every other drop of alcohol I ever had in the house. You’d think the guy had just won the lottery or something when I showed up with two whole boxes earlier today.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, picking at her dinner listlessly. “I just got a little carried away at the hotel, Derek. That old witch didn’t need to kick me out.”
“Bullshit!” Derek spat, frustrated with her willingness to play the victim, and her unwillingness to accept responsibility for her own actions. “You were stealing out of people’s rooms, Dana.”
She shrugged, like it was no big deal. “I didn’t say I wasn’t drinking, Derek,” she said, nibbling on a crust of bread. “I just said it wasn’t as bad as all that.”
“But stealing?”
“It was a few bucks here and there until I got paid,” she huffed, shoving her plate away without having touched her dinner.
He knew the feeling, suddenly having lost his appetite. Standing abruptly, he ignored the swollen breasts pressing against her clingy sundress and stood on the other side of the counter, pouring himself some of the improvised sangria. It was sweet, but not as bad now that the ice had melted.
“What happened to you?” he asked. Sexy and young as she was, there was a hardness to Dana that he hadn’t remembered before. She’d never been innocent and naïve, exactly, but she’d had a sweetness to her back in high school that suddenly seemed like a distant memory. Now she was all hard angles and dull eyes.
“Don’t judge me, Derek,” she said, rising from the bar and drifting toward the deck to peer out into the dark, inky night. “You have a kid and leave high school early and see how things turn out for you.”
“Don’t blame that shit on me,” he huffed, putting down his drink and following her onto the deck. “If you’d told me what was going on, Dana, I would have participated.”
“Maybe I didn’t want you to,” she huffed back, pacing in tight little circles near the outer deck railing. “Maybe you were just a one night stand and I never wanted you back in my life.”
Derek shrugged. He wasn’t shocked by her comment, or particularly hurt. After all, they were words he’d thought on more than one occasion since she’d re-entered his life. “So why’d you come here anyway?”
She shrugged back, bare shoulders aglow beneath the pale moonlight. “You’re the kid’s father,” she sighed. “Where else was I gonna go?”
He chuckled. “I guess that makes sense,” he sighed, leaning against the railing and watching her carefully. She seemed a little woozy, suddenly, eyes struggling to focus as she wobbled in place. “You all right?”
“Sure!” she said, waving her hand a little wildly. “Never better.”
He shook his head, biting his lower lip. She seemed drunk, but how? He’d gotten rid of all the booze and she’d been in the house all afternoon, never out of his sight for more than a few minutes at a time.
Still, as they stood in silence, across the deck from each other, he watched her eyes grow drowsy, her body relaxing gently against the weathered wood of the porch railing.
His stomach clenched anxiously as he approached her. “Dana?” he asked, cautiously. She was suddenly alert, stiffening as if being caught.
“Marumphfraggle,” she mumbled and he shook his head.
“All right,” he said, taking her hand. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” she asked, more coherently.
“Let’s get you to bed,” he said, grabbing her by the waist as her arm slithered around his neck in a vice grip.
“Finally,” she slurred, but there was no longer any heat behind her flirtation. They struggled up the stairs, Dana becoming dead weight about halfway up until they reached the bedroom doorway when, suddenly, she sprang to life.
Contorting despite her eyes being half-lidded, the straps of her sundress slid off her shoulders and, gently, down her arms. The dress itself followed, drizzling down her body like melting ice cream until it puddled at her feet. She stepped, gingerly, out of it and somehow sank onto the crisp white sheets of the guest bed.
“Come on, baby,” she purred, skin velvet and soft in the room’s dim light. “Nobody will know and I’ll treat you real good.”
“Yeah,” he snorted, approaching cautiously. “Should be real fun when you pass out halfway through. What’d you get into up here, anyway?”
She sighed and, lying on her side, pointed to the pill bottle on the nightstand. “When I saw you’d thrown out all the booze,” she confessed, eyes focusing then blurring equally, “I ransacked your medicine cabinet. Found a few sleeping pills and figured they’d at least take the edge off.”
“Jesus,” he huffed, sitting on the edge of the bed. “They sure have. Come on, Dana, get under the covers.”
“Only if you’ll join me,” she purred, sliding out long and lean in the soft white sheets. She laid back, hair dry now and soft on the white pillow, lips full and wet, eyes smoky and sleepy as her breasts lay, radiant and soft and oh, so close. He could reach out and touch them, tenderly, rasping and teasing and no one would ever know.
She spread her legs invitingly, belly flat and bush soft and thin like a landing strip to places he hadn’t traveled in years. Her legs stretched, long and coltish, feet bare, purple nail polish cracked and in need of a fresh coat.
He smirked, ignoring his sudden hard on to drag the covers across her tempting, young, naked flesh. “Sleep tight, Dana,” he said, grabbing the bottle from the nightstand as he stood. They were some over the counter sleep aids he’d bought at the drugstore a few weeks earlier. Nothing too hardcore and, looking inside, it was still mostly full.
“Come on, baby,” she purred but, looking down, her eyes were closed, her breathing steady, the covers still tucked up under her chin. He smiled, relieved she was at least safe and warm, before turning off the lamp by her bed and drifting back into the bathroom.
Opening the medicine cabinet, he looked for anything else she might get into. There wasn’t much, but he did take the sleeping pills and a few bottles of aspirin and Sage’s cramp relievers for good measure. Downstairs he did the same, until the house was child- and drunk-proof.
Then again, he’d thought that earlier in the day, too. His cell phone rang just then, skittering across the kitchen counter. He grabbed it before the steel drum ring tone could wake Dana. “Hey,” he said softly, seeing Sage’s number before swiping to answer.
“Where are you guys?” she asked brightly, the sound of cartoons blaring in the background.
He crept onto the deck, sliding the French doors shut behind him. “Dana got into my sleeping pills,” he said. “She just zonked out, but… I don’t feel right leaving her alone right now.”
“Jesus,” Sage said, softly, and from the quieter background noises Derek could tell she’d crept away from the TV in the living room to talk. “How many?”
“She said just a couple, and there were a ton left in the bottle, so I’m thinking she was telling the truth.”
“Why?” Sage asked.
“She found out I’d thrown all the booze out and just wanted something to take the edge off, I guess.”
“Shoot,” she said. “I forgot about the pills.”
“Me, too,” he gushed, glad for someone grownup to talk to after “babysitting” his baby mama all night. “I guess she’s more messed up than we thought, huh?”
“I didn’t know it was this bad,” she said. “I guess… you’re right, you should stay with her to make sure she’s okay.”
“You guys could come down?” he suggested, already missing her.
“I dunno,” she said, and her motherly tone made it clear which way she was leaning. “That’s probably not a great idea, Archie seeing his mommy like that. Plus I’ve already got him settled watching Baby Edison, so… maybe tomorrow?”
He shook his head, gritting his teeth. “Sure,” he said. “Tell Archie ‘hi’ for me, okay?”
“Will do!” she brightened, as if relieved. “Just… take care, okay? And if you need anything, I’m only a block away, okay?”
“We’ll be fine,” Derek said, noting how easily they had paired off since the move: Archie and Sage in her upstairs loft above the bookstore, Derek stuck with Dana in his place. “Just… let’s not make this a habit, okay?”
“You’re telling me!” she snorted, the old Sage once again. “I won’t need sleeping pills for the rest of my life after one night with this little hellion. I’ll be lucky if I make it past nine!”
“Well good luck,” he snorted, thinking maybe he’d gotten the better end of this deal, after all. “Should I… should I tell Archie goodnight?”
Derek heard the hesitation even before she said, “Well, I just got him settled with his favorite DVD, so… I don’t want to get him riled up again.”
“You’re probably right,” he said, disappointed in how relieved he felt. Derek knew he should be spending more time with his son, not his drunken, slutty baby mama! “What’s the plan for tomorrow?”
“Well, I was thinking I could keep Archie at the bookstore for awhile, and maybe you could come visit.”
“Nice!” he said. “Great thinking.”
“Yeah,” she chuckled. “I’m kind of good at this, ain’t I?”
“You sound surprised,” he cooed, wanting nothing more than to have Sage, right then and there. “I’m not.”
“You’re prejudiced,” she said, just before the sound of a loud DVD returned. “Oh, shoot, Archie got into the cookie jar – literally. I’ll… stop by the store tomorrow, okay?”