Page 34 of Irreconcilable Attractions (Westwend Boys #1)
Colton
“What do you mean you don’t know anything?” Mrs. Anderson’s wrinkled face was scrunched in an unflattering expression as she eyed me suspiciously over the pick-up counter at Bikini Beans.
I shook my head, not in the least bit apologetic, but trying to feign it anyway.
“I’m telling you, he hasn’t said anything.” I shrugged one shoulder slightly, rubbing at the already clean section before me.
“He’s your roommate!” Mrs. Fairchild stabbed a gnarled, arthritic finger at me. “You’re telling me he hasn’t brought any of those girls home?”
Mrs. Anderson and I shook our heads at the same time.
“No, Dorothy, I would have noticed them coming by if he did. Wilma says she hasn’t seen anyone over at Cindy-Anne’s, either.
You know Alice is as blind as a bat, so we can’t trust anything she says, but she claims that Savannah hasn’t brought anyone home in a while.
” Mrs. Anderson pursed her lips, stirring a wooden stick through her afternoon tea.
Mrs. Fairchild let out a huff while I made a mental note to make sure all the blinds facing Mrs. Anderson’s house were closed.
The Stitches Club were hell bent on figuring out who Derek was shacking up with after the Fourth of July, but only two had shown up for reconnaissance today.
The hickeys on Derek’s neck had made more than just a stir in the community.
The popular consensus was it must be a paralegal in the firm, considering he was only ever at work, with me, or at home.
But, there was a small faction that believed it was some random in town.
It had collectively been decided that the most likely culprits were either Cindy-Anne, his blonde paralegal whose fun fact was she only drank wine from Fredericksburg, or Savannah, the brunette accountant for our local feed store that most everyone agreed would’ve been a model had she ever left Westwend.
“Those big city boys are just trouble.” Mrs. Anderson tutted after a moment of eyeing me when I still didn’t give them anything.
“What do you mean?” I asked politely after the pointed look and hanging silence indicated this inquiry wasn’t over yet.
“They show up here, get all the girls excited, mess around, and then run off. You hide and watch! He’s going to break some poor girl’s heart.” Mrs. Anderson exclaimed, nodding to herself like she’d seen it a hundred times.
“Oh, Eloise, you old bat.” Mrs. Fairchild chided, waving her stirring stick at her friend. “You always assume the worst. I bet he’s fallen head over heels!”
I sat there with my head in my hand as they bickered back and forth over if Derek had fallen madly in love with his paralegal or if he was just using her for sex.
There was something thrilling about knowing that the entire rumor mill was completely wrong, but also nauseating in recognizing how flipped on its head this town would be at the truth.
Part of me wanted to scream from the top of Town Hall that Derek Hammond had picked me, Colton Shaffer—a man with a dick.
Not the semi-plastic paralegal or the quirky accountant for Randy’s Feed’n’More. Me .
But, I wasn’t going to. Not only would I never out Derek, but I wasn’t truly ready for our blissful bubble to pop. Once the town knew, that was it. Before the end of the day, my parents would’ve been told ten different times, and what a fun conversation that would be with my father.
Don’t mind me, just boinking your new lawyer. He’s been loving getting acquainted with his prostate, by the way.
While I’d been hopeful that Derek had been honest about his interest in ass play, I hadn’t been planning to hold my breath.
Things were said in the heat of the moment and I didn’t want him to feel like he would be pressured into doing something if he changed his mind.
But, I was quickly coming to realize I needed to trust Derek meant what he said.
It hadn’t been long after going to the barbecue joint that he’d come to me, his cheeks ruddy, wearing nothing but a pair of entirely too sexy boxer briefs that hugged his dick just right.
He casually dropped that he’d learned how to properly clean himself and was hoping to learn more about a particular hole of his. And learn he did.
He’d found out that he loved having it pressed on, tapped, and rubbed.
How important lube was for all the activities with ass play.
He’d learned how to bear down, that one finger felt amazing, but two was an adjustment and required a lot of patience to get used to.
But, most of all, I taught him the full wonders of his prostate and how it could make him a drooling, begging mess with just a few taps and strokes.
Since then, any time things got even remotely sexual between us, Derek practically begged for me to play with his hole.
I felt like I was living on cloud nine. Derek Hammond begging to have his asshole fingered?
If it wasn’t for the monotony of everyday living and the insanity of some tourists here lately, I would’ve worried I’d died and gone to heaven.
“What about you?” Mrs. Fairchild’s voice brought me back from my reminiscing, both of the older women’s eyes trained on my face.
“What about me?” I asked, hunching over a little to hide the semi I’d gotten from picturing Derek’s ass.
“Any special ladies we should know about? You must be thinking about settling down soon, given your age.” Mrs. Fairchild prompted, her blue eyes shining.
I shook my head, sending a small apologetic smile. “Nope.”
Both Mrs. Fairchild and Mrs. Anderson meant well, but they’d been in the category that would rather pretend my coming out never happened. They were set in their ways, and I would rather save my breath than have to constantly correct them.
Mrs. Anderson clicked her tongue, pushing away from the counter. The inquisition was over for today.
“You girls take care!” I called as they shuffled their way out the door.
“I’m surprised they’re still so interested in him.” Mitchel slid over to my side, replacing some coffee mugs he’d cleaned. “He’s been here for almost two months now; they weren’t this ravenous over me.”
I shot Mitchel a shrug and a smile. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that with his white blond hair, angelic features, and soft demeanor he wasn’t exactly the type women out here went for.
“He’ll be old news soon. Once the summer is over, I’m sure they’ll find something else to talk about.”
At least that’s what I hoped.
When I got home later that evening, I was mentally and physically wrung out from the day. As usual, though, Derek was still up, laying across the couch casually scrolling through his phone. He looked up at me with a smile that made some of the exhaustion melt away.
“Hey,” I leaned over to press a soft kiss to his lips .
“Hi,” He greeted back. “Did you know there’s going to be a meteor shower a few nights from now?”
I made my way into the kitchen, perusing for some leftovers inside the refrigerator, and popped my head over the door at that. “Oh, I think I remember hearing about it. Do you want to watch it?”
Derek turned around on the couch, nodding enthusiastically. “That would be really awesome. You don’t get to see stuff like that in the city considering all the light pollution.”
I stifled a grin around a bite of sandwich I’d found at how excited he sounded. While Westwend was a small town, it still produced enough light that you couldn’t see much in the sky in or around Main. But, there was somewhere we could go that’d be perfect.
“Why don’t we go to Darby’s Wish? We can pack a picnic or something. I think that meteor shower starts real late, like midnight, so I can come pick you up after my shift and we can go out there.”
“Really? I’d love that!” Derek sounded like a kid on Christmas, sending a pulse of warmth through me. I had no idea he was so into star gazing, but if he wanted to see shooting stars, I’d take him to the ends of the Earth to give him the best view.
“It’s a date, then.” I responded with a soft laugh.
It was such an innocent phrase, but the moment my brain registered the words, I froze.
I practically held my breath while the silence hung in the air.
Was that a step too far? Would a date be too much?
But, hadn’t we already gone on something like dates?
Since the barbecue joint, Derek and I had made it somewhat of a regular occurrence to go out somewhere together.
We’d kept it to local places and had traded off who paid each time, but did those count as dates?
“I’d like that.” Derek’s voice was small, like he was just as unsure.
The air whooshed from my lungs.
“Yeah?”
Derek nodded, sending a shy smile my way. My chest expanded again, heat creeping up my neck. I wanted to scream from excitement.
“Okay, it’s a date.” I concluded, biting into my sandwich again so I wouldn’t make an even bigger fool of myself.
The night of the meteor shower, Chris practically shoved me out the door about an hour before closing.
The cafe had been dead most of our shift, so I’d been able to sneak into the employee bathroom to freshen up beforehand.
There was an embarrassing amount of clothes on the floor of my bedroom back home from how many outfits I’d gone through trying to pick what I’d wear tonight.
But I’d ultimately decided on a forest green button up that was on the looser side, a well worn pair of khaki shorts that fit my ass well, and my grey hightop chucks.
Paired with my backward cap, it gave the impression I’d tried, but wasn’t trying too hard—or at least that was what I was going for.
When I’d come back out of the bathroom changed and spruced up, Chris had one of our nicer to-go containers packed with a series of sandwiches, pastries, and snacks from our stock.
“Give him a big ole smooch for me!” She called, waving like a mom seeing their child off from the entrance of Bikini Beans.