Escaping Me (4 page)

Before my parents let their vices get the best of them, there was a short period of time where we lived a semi-normal life in a house like this, albeit in much better condition, on a stretch of riverside land.  Me, my brother, and my parents.  It was the only semblance of an actual family life I've had.  My dad would take us fishing and my mom would fry up the catch.  We spent the evenings around a picnic table laughing and listening to my dad tell us stories from his youth—back before he knew the kind of man he was going to be.  As nice as the memories were, they can’t make up for the fact that my parents abandoned me.  Finn followed in their footsteps soon after and I became the burden my grandmother was forced to look after.  I know she only let me live with her because she is good Christian woman.  I caused her about as much heartache as her drug addicted daughter.

I manage to find the bedroom and I’m not surprised when I see a pile of leaves that blew in through a broken window on the far side of the room.  I let out a sigh and shake my head.  This is perfect.  Exactly the kind of place I deserve.  The bathroom is next on my walkthrough, and when I reach down and push the handle on the toilet, I am happy to see that the place at least has running water.  I turn on the faucet above the old clawfoot tub that sits next to the toilet.  The murky water that spills into it takes a few seconds to clear up, and the idea of taking a shower seems like a good one.  I pull the lever and a cascade of steamy water falls from the overhead nozzle. 
That's a good sign.
Hot water, electricity, a roof over my head.  I can do this.  I can make this place work.  I sure as shit have seen worse. 

I strip down and step into the shower.  As I pull the dingy daisy-covered shower curtain closed and let the water wash away the pissy attitude I woke up with, I decide that I may as well make the best of it.  I start planning out how I am going to fix this place up and make it livable.  First, I have to make a few weekend deliveries for Hank and then I'm going to take the broken window into town and get the glass replaced.  I'll need to pick up some cleaning supplies and paint, too.  I am pretty handy.  I've worked for a couple contractors doing odds and ends on construction jobs.  This place can definitely be presentable, but who in the hell will I ever have over to present it to?

Her blue eyes flash in my mind and I shake my head at the notion.  I am pretty sure that after the cold shoulder I gave her yesterday evening, I've seen the last of Miss Whitney.  Girls like that don’t come home with guys like me.  I don’t get the girl with freshly manicured nails and perfectly styled hair.  I get the girl with too much cheap makeup and low standards.  I'd never see Whitney Vandaveer inside the walls of this house.  I'd never hold her in my arms on that dusty old sofa or lead her back into the bedroom.  Images of pulling the thin piece of ribbon that was holding that halter top she was wearing and watching as it falls around her waist to reveal what I know are her perfect, perky tits.  The way the fabric stretched across them and teased my imagination.  Not too big, not too small.  Just enough to fill the palms of my hands.  I feel my soapy, calloused fingers wrap around my dick, and with a vice-grip, I stroke my length.  I bite down on my lip as I think about what it would feel like to roll one of the pink tips of them between my fingers before flicking my tongue against it and seeing her arch toward me as she starts to come apart.  With each shift of my wrist, and my imagination, I envision pushing her closer and closer the edge with my mouth and hands, touching each and every inch of her sun-kissed skin.  Watching her writhe as I tease my way around her body.  I feel myself tense and know that I am close.  With one last image of her slender fingers replacing mine, I finish.  I let the water wash the evidence of my perversion down the drain and silently chastise myself for allowing Whitney to become the newest addition to my spank bank.

Chapter 7 – Whitney

“
I'm starving!” After last night's beer drinking and dancing, I woke up with a major case of the starves.  I sit cross-legged on the bench seat that is pulled up to our kitchen table, waiting anxiously for my mother to bring over the hot biscuits and gravy she just finished cooking for breakfast.  Mallory stumbles into the room looking a little less excited than I am.  “Morning, sis!”  I tease at a decibel I know will cut through her hungover haze. She responds with a grunt and her middle finger before sitting down next to me and pulling up the sleeves of the oversize sweatshirt she managed to pull on when I drove her drunk ass home from the bar we weren't supposed to be drinking at last night.

“
You girls look like you had fun last night,” Mom says sarcastically as she places the food down in front of us and pulls up a chair of her own.

“
Ehh...” Mal answers, obviously feeling the effects of the evening a little bit harder than I am. Unlike my sister, I limited my alcohol intake.

“
It's was alright,” I reply as I load my plate down and put a napkin across my lap.  “I met Cole Pritchett.”

“
Oh?” Mom's eyes go as wide as her smile.

“
I didn't know that.”  My sister bumps her shoulder against mine.  “Where was I?”

I look over the top of black-framed glasses I put on this morning instead of my contacts.  The smoke-filled bar left my eyes begging for fresh air, and I can still smell the evidence of it in my hair that is piled loosely on top of my head.  “I think you were still... um... dancing,” I whisper with a heavy insinuation.

“Ahhh...” she answers, panicked, hoping I won’t tell my mom that she'd already retreated to the back of Ricky's pick-up truck by the time I came back from talking to Cole.  You know, after her disregard for Ricky early last night, I was surprised I had to practically drag her out of that truck bed.  I quickly learned that “Drunk Mallory” loves everybody, especially Ricky.  I give her a subtle head shake and turn my attention back to my mother's prying eyes.

“
I don't even want to know.” She takes another drink from her mug and gives my sister a suspecting look.  “Tell me about the Pritchett boy.”

“
Well, you were right about him being good looking.”  When I turned around to find him standing a few feet away from me with his hat pulled low over his eyes, I couldn't stop myself from staring.  The white t-shirt he was wearing stretched tight across his chest with its sleeves hugging his tattooed arms.  His shirt and low slung jeans showed the wear of a day of manual labor.  My usual type is clean-cut, like Wesley, but something about imagining Cole working outside, his skin glowing with the sweat of his labors, lights a fire in the pit of my stomach.  I felt the rough tips of his fingers as he curled his hand around mine.  He for sure works with his hands and I'm sure he knows exactly how to use them.  The thoughts that flash through my mind are explicit.
Mmmm...
 

I thought for just a moment I saw him catch his breath when he tilted his hat back and our eyes briefly met.  It took me a moment to gather the words to speak, because I was too busy trying to make out their color in weak light of the moon.  I felt small in his shadow, and as intimidating as his presence was, I couldn't help but imagine what it would have felt like to press the curves of my body against him out there in the near dark, where no one was watching. To have his stubble-covered cheek graze against mine if he leaned in and whispered in my ear.  He looked like the kind of guy that said exactly what he was thinking, and judging by the way his hooded eyes were taking me in, I lustfully wished he'd tell me all the ways he'd make me scream his name.

“I wish I would have seen him,” Mallory pouts, pulling me back from the memory of standing in front of him.

“
Well,” I shrug.  “That's about where the positives end with him.  I introduced myself and thanked him for helping me.  I even offered to buy him a drink, but he blew me off before I could even ask what kind of beer he drank.”

“
I'm going to pretend like I didn't hear the part about beer.” My mom gives me a cautioning stare before extending it to my sister.  We know she isn’t stupid.  That doesn’t mean she thinks it is okay that her underage daughters were out drinking.  “Maybe he was nervous or just shy,” she defends.  I can’t understand why my mom is such a Cole Pritchett cheerleader.  She doesn’t even know him.

“
I don't think so,” I disagree.  “He didn't seem like the shy type.  He almost acted like I was bugging him.  I mean, all I did was say thank you.  It's not like I was hanging all over him.” 
Even though I really wanted to.

“
Whose mother are you?” Mallory questions between bites.  “Why are you so hung up on this guy, Mom?  Maybe he's just a dick.”

“
I don't know.” Mom shrugs.  “If you could have seen the look on his face when he brought you up to the house, Whit.  He was genuinely concerned with your well-being.  He just kind of seemed like a lost soul,” she adds.  “Maybe he just needs someone to genuinely be concerned about him.”

“
Or maybe he is just a dick,” I note even though deep down I really want to see him again and find out for myself.

“
Well, it looks like you might get another chance,” Mom says over her shoulder as she refills her coffee cup.  She nods out the open kitchen window to the Wilson Lumber Yard truck that just pulled into the driveway.  “It would seem that one Mr. Cole Pritchett works for the very lumber yard that is delivering my latest order of supplies.”

Mallory quickly scrambles from her seat and runs to the window.  “Omigod, that's him?” she squeals.  “You were right, Mom. He is smokin' hot.”

I can’t very well let them have all the fun, so I casually walk over to the window to catch a peek of him in the early morning sunlight.  As the three of us stand there, ogling him out the window, my mother makes a suggestion.

“
Why don't you go sign for my order, Whit?”

“
Oooh, I'll do it!” Mallory starts to head toward the backdoor.

“
Sure you want to do that, sis?” I ask, grabbing the doorknob before she can and trying not to look like I am dying to take another crack at him.  “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror this morning?”  She wrinkles up her nose and takes a step back from the door.  Even if Cole blew me off yesterday, there is no way I am taking a chance on my sister snatching him out from underneath me.  Even in my head it sounds stupid.  I don’t even know this guy and he is obviously not interested in me. Yet, the idea of him talking to any other girl, even my sister, makes a little bit of crazy creep up inside me.

“
Relax,” she smiles.  “I wasn't going to go out there and steal your man, Whit.”

“
He's not my man,” I say and shake my head as I pull the door open.
  I quickly take off my glasses and sit them on the counter.  I don't need him seeing me in my nerd look this morning.

“
Well, not yet,” she affirms.  “But he could be. Go out there and ask him out.”

“
Are you still drunk?”  I look down my nose at her.  “Didn't I just finish telling you that he completely blew me off last night?”

“
Try again,” she urges me.  I catch a glimpse of my mother's face as I walk out the door.  Her cheery disposition means that she obviously agrees with Mallory.  If it is going to be two against one all summer, I am going to be doing a lot of things I normally wouldn't have the nerve to do.

I hold my head back and walk toward the delivery truck.  Cole's eyes are down on the clipboard he is holding in his hands as he double-checks what he has to take off the truck.

“You're a little late to take me up on the drink offer,” I tease as I cross the gravel drive toward him, shuffling my flip-flops against the rocks.  I am hoping that maybe he is a morning person and will be in a better mood than the last time I saw him.  No such luck.  He looks up at me quickly, adjusting the bill of his hat to shade his face, and then back down at his clipboard.  Not even the hint of a grin on his lips.
Wow.
  His expression is as cold as it was last night when he walked away from me.  He shakes his head, albeit subtly, but to me it is like a flashing neon sign that says, “Go away.”

He sets the clipboard down on the hood of the truck, his eyes never once drifting back to mine.  Instead, he turns his back and walks behind the truck.  He lowers the gate and pulls the pallet lift, loaded up with whatever it was my mom ordered.  As he lowers the lift to the ground, he keeps his focus on what he is doing.  It is painfully obvious that he is avoiding looking at me.  Maybe I should have looked in the mirror again?  I thought my fitted pink t-shirt and black cotton shorts were cute pajamas. Maybe I was wrong. 
Do I look that horrible this morning?

“
Just put it outside the barn doors over there,” I say between clenched teeth.  Who the hell does this guy think he is?  Never in my life have I been so callously ignored.  I glance over my shoulder at my mother and Mallory, who are still watching from the kitchen window.  I roll my eyes at them and turn back to see if Mr. Personality has finished what he came here to do.  As infuriating as this situation is becoming, I can’t help but notice how fantastic his ass looks in his jeans.  The worn denim hangs from his narrow waist perfectly—not cowboy tight and not gangster loose.  The gray t-shirt that is stretched across his back reads Wilson Lumber Yard with their catchy slogan underneath—“We Got Wood”.  I fight back a giggle.  At least someone has a sense of humor.  He unloads the pallet and has the lift back in the truck, all while managing to completely not acknowledge my existence.