Page 19 of Afterglow (Ottawa Regents #3)
Fletcher
I’m on the highest of highs.
She doesn’t know how gone I am. She doesn’t know that I imagined her face, her mouth, her tits, what she’d feel like, every time I fisted my cock in the past six years. Or that it’s her name I moaned whenever I came for most of my adult life.
I do a few push-ups on the balcony to blow off steam while waiting for her to take a study break.
The group chat blows up in the minute it takes me to do twenty.
I scroll to catch up. Landon sent a family picture of him, Indi, and Akhila, all three smiling and framed by a reddish pink facade of a palace behind them.
Landy
Look at this cute baby I helped make
Boner
God, I miss her sweet lil face
Boner
Cool palace bro
Landy
How’s it going over there
Wade sends a view of the golf course near his place in Fort Lauderdale.
Boner
Gabe is kicking my ass on the green today
Landy
Just how you like it
Boner
Damn right
Landy
Have you heard from Fletch?
Landy
I haven’t gotten an animal video in almost a month, and I’m worried
Landy
Fletch?
Landy
Buddy?
Landy
You alive?
Me
Yeah, I’m alive
If they’d asked me three weeks ago, my answer would have been different.
Boner
So, wanking off 24/7 doesn’t kill you
Boner
Good to know
Me
Shut tf up
Landy
Yeah, he only does that 6 hours a day
I mean, he’s not far off.
Landy
Doing good?
Me
Yep
I wish I could tell them how good. But then I’d have to tell them about the concussion, and how Behraz is living with me. She’d kill me if Indi and Gabe found out because I blabbed to my nosy teammates. I can’t out her and lose her trust like that.
Instead, I send them a reel of a group of otters slowly sliding across ice on their bellies.
Me
Us at dryland training next month
Boner
Tracks
Landy
I’m the slowest one for sure
Landy
My in-laws are hell-bent on fattening me up in the mother country
Boner
Shit, it’s my turn to putt
Boner
My wife gets pissy if I take too long
Landy
Title of your sex tape
Me
Title of your sex tape
Landy
JINX 12345673405694586394753049
Boner
*middle finger emoji*
The glass door of the balcony slides open, and I turn with a squint to reduce the glare of the sun.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Bea sings.
“How’s it going?”
“I submitted an appeal for the accommodations request. It takes three to six weeks for them to review it, so Dr. Gill has me trying some new methods.” She slumps into the egg-shaped chair, drawing her knees into it.
“The audiobook version of the manual seems to work better than visually reading the words.”
“Good to hear.”
“But for some reason, it’s missing parts.” Her mouth scrunches to one side. “Like it’s an old edition or something.”
“Weird.”
“Right?”
Then it dawns on me. “What if I read it?”
“You’ll read my exam prep for me?”
“Not for you, to you. Like a live audiobook.”
“Wait, that’s actually genius.” Her hands clap together. “I could even record it and then listen to it at double the speed.” The excitement drains from her face for a moment. “Are you sure you don’t have anything better to do? It’s all boring legalese?—”
“I don’t mind reading.” I sit on my haunches in front of the chair, flanking her with my arms. “I can’t think of a better way to spend my time.”
Her feet slide down and rest on my thighs before she leans forward, hands cupping my jaw. I go lax into the light contact, no less than putty in her grasp.
“Okay, my little bookworm. Let’s start now.”
We don’t get through enough material to choose a date that day, but I couldn’t care less.
I spent the afternoon with her, watching her smile, making her laugh with my mispronunciations, cherishing the wrinkle in her brow, and the way her tongue pokes from the corner of her mouth when she concentrates hard.
It’s like living in a dream. I never want it to end.
We’ve got the routine down. I drop her off at work, then hit the gym or go for a run, hop in the shower then circle back to pick her up. Or if it’s Tuesday or Thursday, I drive her to therapy after making lunch together, then a few hours of studying.
“When I’ve got structure and routine, I thrive. And when I thrive, I’m happy,” Bea said at the end of the first week.
That’s what I thrive on. Being with her. Seeing her happiness.
It’s a nice little life I could get used to. But the calendar on the fridge is a stark reminder that it isn’t forever. An early date in August circled in red highlights her exam. I shrug the thought away. She’s here now. Take what you can get.
Behraz dances into the kitchen, doing the Charleston with jazz hands. “Guess who aced their flashcards?”
“Good girl.” The accidental praise has me hiding my face in my hands and my swelling cock behind the island counter.
Bea brings both hands to her mouth in a languid motion like that one shocked Barbie GIF. “My, my, my.” She tugs her shirt away from her neck, fake-cooling off.
“I didn’t…mean to say that.”
“Too late,” Bea teases. “It’s stored in my memory forever. It’s gonna come in handy one lonely night.”
Sweat beads at my temples at the idea of Behraz touching herself at the thought of me praising her. The devilish smile across her face widens as she reaches for the date jar on the kitchen island. It rattles when she offers it to me. “Wanna choose? Or want me to choose?”
I close my eyes and grab a stick, narrowing my eyes to read the small handwriting. “What’s tufting?”
“You’re about to find out.”
While I unlock the door, Bea hugs a tufted rainbow rug with smiley faces on the end clouds.
“This is the cutest thing ever.” She snuggles it once more.
“I love it so much.” The tufted yarn bends under the sweep of her hand.
“It’s gonna go next to my bed so my feet don’t have to touch the cold flooring first thing in the morning. ”
Behraz could make me her bedside rug any time. I walk with her across the living room. “No hot girl dinner today?”
“That gelato was the hot girl dinner.”
“I see.”
“Fletcher,” she starts, chewing on a corner of her beautiful lower lip. “I really, really, really wanna kiss you.”
There it is. The beginning of the end.
“Oh.”
This is what you wanted, Fletch. You want this.
“Are you scared?”
“Terrified.”
“Of me?”
I reject the idea.
“You scared it might not be good?”
“A little.” Yeah, what if I suck at kissing? I’d rather throw myself off a cliff than suck at kissing Behraz Irani.
“Okay, that’s understandable. It’s new and unknown. I mean, unless you don’t want to kiss me?—”
I half-sit on the arm of the sectional. “It’s definitely not that.”
She drops the rug to the floor and puts her hands around mine. “Then?”
“The bigger problem is that I…I’ve imagined this for a long time.”
“First kisses are special, I get it.” Bea plays with my fingers, stretching and curling them over hers.
“They are. But I meant with you.”
“We only met last month.” She steps between my bent knees.
All I can do is shrug. The admission is too hard.
“You’ve wanted me…longer?” Bea pries. “Months?” Her face tilts in question, so close I can taste the strawberry gelato on her breath. “Years?”
Our foreheads touch, and I still can’t look at her. “If we kiss, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop,” I whisper.
“That’s okay by me,” she whispers back. “Does that mean you want to kiss me? ‘Cause I want you to kiss me.”
“Yeah, it does. I mean, I do.”
“Can I?” Behraz pulls my hands around her hips and rests her elbows atop my shoulders before tapping the middle of my forehead once. “Kiss you here?”
I nod, dipping downward. My eyes draw closed.
“Say yes.”
“Yes.”
Her lips move, feather-light against my skin, then purses to plant a kiss. A shaky sigh drops from my mouth. “How about here?” Two fingers coast over the top plane of my cheek.
“Yes.”
Bea repeats the movement, and I shudder, bunching the hem of her shirt in my fists. It feels too good. She feels too good. “Here?” She draws a line to a spot at the corner of my jaw below my ear. My groin tightens. So does my grip on her waist.
“ Mmhmm .”
I tremble through the kiss.
“Oh, my God, Fletcher,” she says through a breathy giggle. “You’re doing wonders for my ego.” The column of my throat clenches through a swallow. “Hey, look at me.”
I do, and I’m so glad. Her eyes go molten, nose sidling to mine, breath skating across the parted seam of my mouth. One of her hands bolsters my neck from going lax, while the opposite thumb sweeps over my lips. “Can I kiss you here?” The question is softer than a whisper. “It’s easy, I promise.”
“Please. Yes.”
It begins pillowy, tender, a soft latch to my mouth that has my hands lifting to her face and hair. Then we’re tugging closer and closer until we can’t possibly be any closer. Surely we can’t be any closer. We’re breathing each other in and out.
I was right. I won’t be able to stop.
A moan vibrates from my chest when her tongue sweeps over mine. Behraz echoes it with a delicious hum. “Fuck,” I mutter. She tastes like warm paradise.
“Slip your tongue in my mouth,” she directs.
I do. Each swipe is greedier, needier than the last, dragging the most maddening noises of pleasure from her. An aggravating ringtone from the phone in her pocket cuts us apart. “Sorry.” She fishes the phone out. “Oh, shit. It’s my parents.”
“You…should take it.”
Because my cock cannot take anymore. I sway back to my room after she closes her bedroom door, in a tizzy over this phenomenal kiss. My body goes limp against the mattress, but my dick is so hard it hurts. I silently scream into the pillow.
Behraz Irani kissed me. I kissed her. I may never sleep again.