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“Yeah. Lay it on me.”
“Do you want to leave early Saturday and go to the beach? We could take Lily and camp out on the beach. Or,” I start, seeing her frown at the mention of camping, “we could get a hotel room.”
“You own a tent?” she asks with skepticism.
“Yeah.” Maybe she’s more open to it than she seemed. “There’s bathrooms nearby, so that handles that.”
“But what about Lily? It’s hot to be outside all day. Will she be okay?”
“We can carry an umbrella and ice for her water. She loves the beach.”
“Hmm,” she hums.
I reach over, grab her wrist, and pull her away from the closet and against me. “What’s holding you up?”
“Well, I kinda don’t want to say yes because what if I don’t feel up to it when it comes time to leave, and then I kinda wanna ask if you would want to stay at my parents’? They’re close to the beach and I wouldn’t mind seeing them. Maybe we could take a half day off work and leave Friday?”
“I don’t know if I can do that. It’ll depend on how many clients I’m supposed to see, but if you want to see your parents, we can do that as well.” I just want a weekend away.
Brittany squeezes her arms around me. “Thanks.”
I give her a quick kiss and we get back to work. Once we finish joining all her things with mine, we settle in the recliner to rest. It’s been a long day. Part of me is curious as to what her dad told her. He wasn’t a fan of me the last time I saw him. Wonder what he said to make Brittany take the plunge. I’m not asking. I’m taking this blessing, no questions asked.
Later, when we’re lying in bed, kissing like we normally do, Brittany straddles my lap. Damn, I want to kiss her for the rest of my life. I keep feeling like I’m sixteen again, struggling to keep my hands on a girl’s hips to keep things from going too far, but Brittany is sliding her hands all over my chest and they keep going lower and lower with each visit. Those soft hands are driving me crazy as much as the shifting of her hips and the brushing of her breasts over my chest.
She pulls away when she hooks her fingers into the waistband of my pajama shorts. “Don’t say not yet. I’m making the decision to trust you. Trust that I’m ready.” When I don’t answer or act immediately, she deftly removes her shirt.
Fuck. My self-control went from barely there to gone. Brittany’s not backing down, and I’m not going to make her. I glide my hands up her sides, around to her back, and up to her neck, pulling her mouth back to mine. I roll us so Britt is the one on her back. Open-mouthed kisses placed on her neck cause her to dig her fingertips into my lower back. One set of fingers dance across her skin to skim across the waistband of her pajama bottoms.
“Trace,” she breathes. “You’re killing me here.”
I chuckle. “You seem pretty alive to me.”
The following week is great. It’s not much different than the previous week Brittany stayed, but is also somehow completely different. Before, it was like we were together, but not. There was a disconnect happening. Every day that we’re living together, I feel like that canyon of disconnect between us is growing smaller and smaller. Not to mention that Brittany has felt good this week. I’ve caught her in a few bad minutes or hours, but for the most part, it seems her meds are helping level her off.
Now, it’s Friday. We’re supposed to leave early in the morning to meet up with her parents and at this point, I don’t want to go. My mood is terrible and I don’t want to do much of anything. Yet here I am, in the kitchen cooking dinner while I wait for Brittany to come home. It’s good that we didn’t take a half day off work. She ended up staying late, so something must have come up to make her busy.
Just as I finish cooking, I hear the door open and then, “Trace, I’m home!”
“Up for a walk with Lily before we eat? Steaks are better when they sit anyway,” I say when she walks into the kitchen.
“Let me change.” She turns to head for our room.
“Lily, want go for a walk?” She barks and runs to the front door where I keep her leash. I changed before I started cooking, so I’m ready. I hook her leash to her collar. “Go tell Brittany to hurry up.” She runs down the hall, her leash dragging behind her, barking the entire time.
“Don’t rush me, Lily,” Brittany laughs as she comes out of the room a few minutes later. “Or should I say Trace?”
I hold my hands up in surrender. “It was all her.”
“Mhm.” She grabs the other end of the leash with one hand and reaches for my hand with the other once we’re outside. “How was your day?”
“A struggle. It’s going to be me, you, popcorn, Sun Drop, Dateline, and my recliner after we eat. Yours?”
“Do you still want to go tomorrow? We don’t have to.”
“We’re still going. Do I feel like it right now? Not really. Am I going to anyway? Yeah, because sometimes when you don’t feel like doing something or going somewhere, that’s when you need to do it the most. Besides, I do want to go. How was your day?”
She drops the topic and answers my question. “It was really good. I worried for a long time that my job would give me the same kind of anxiety that school did, but oddly enough, I don’t really have any anxiety about it. I mean, I get some when I have to attend events, but the rest doesn’t cause any. Now that I feel pretty good, I think what little anxiety I may have had, I’ve been able to manage better.”
