Retreat (3 page)

3
 
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ENEMY
CONTACT

Dinner with the parents at P.F. Chang’s was not nearly as awkward as the impromptu meeting that morning. The dark ambience of the restaurant lent itself to pleasant, mellow conversation.

At least, until Henry’s wayward hand landed on my leg under the table.

I flashed him a warning look but he just gave me that impudent smile that made me want to smack him and kiss him at the same time.

“They can totally tell you know,” I whispered to him, glancing over at my dad, who, thankfully, had no clue what was going on less than three feet away from him.

Henry just winked and pushed his hand higher up my thigh. I finally had to grab him when his fingers inched under my skirt. He just grinned again and ordered his meal.

It was cheesy but we held hands under the table while we waited for our food to arrive. We tried to participate in the conversations around us, but our parents, having realized Henry and I were in a world of our own, just began to ignore us and talk amongst themselves.

Henry’s fingers drew circles around my palm then he took two fingers and started pulsing them into the web between my thumb and forefinger. He bent close to my ear and said, “This is what my fingers wish they could be doing inside you right now.”

I squeezed his fingers, giving him a meaningful look.

He breathed into my ear, “It’s so hard sitting here next to you, pretending to be the good little boyfriend when all I want to do is throw you on this table and fuck you senseless.”

The breath hitched in my throat, my panties instantly moist. “So do it,” I taunted.

He bared his teeth. “Oh, you don’t know what you’re asking.”

“…
if
only our children could stop flirting and pay attention.”

My mom’s words snapped me back to reality. “What was that?” I asked.

My mom had an amused smile on her face when she said, “Our food is here.”

Henry and I looked down at our plates in surprise. “When did that get here?” he asked, flashing me a grin.

His dad groaned and rolled his eyes. “You guys are fucking gross,” he said.

~

Later, Henry and I attended a party for his friends from high school at the Cannery Row Brewing Company. Kelly and Hass had been a couple since high school, and only now were they getting engaged.

“What have they been doing all this time?” I asked as we walked towards the bar hand in hand.

“I guess they broke up for a while,” Henry said, holding the door open for me. “And then decided they were better together than apart.”

We stood at the entrance, looking through the crowd for a familiar face. “Maybe they were too young and needed to figure out who they were first.”

“Maybe so,” Henry said and waved at someone across the room. I held tight as we waded through the thick Friday night crowd, making our way towards a small group by the back of the bar.

“Logan!” a tall guy with sandy blond hair said, looking very much like the same as the boy I knew in high school. Hass was softer around the edges, with a little more padding all around, but his warm smile was the same. He clapped Henry on the back and turned to me. “Little Elsie Sherman?” he asked with wide eyes.

I nodded as he gave me a hug. His eyes flicked back towards me then Henry then back to me again—which, I would later find out, was the normal reaction from people from our high school— before asking, “You two?”

Henry grinned and threw a possessive arm over my shoulder.

Hass turned around and brought forward Kelly, a girl that I didn’t have fond feelings for back in high school. Still, I kept in mind that people changed and sometimes they outgrew meanness and their bitchy tendencies.

“Congratulations,” I said, pretending that she and her friends hadn’t made the first half of my sophomore year a living hell, that they hadn’t been the cause of many tears on my pillow.

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t completely over it, but I was trying at least.

Kelly gave me a warm embrace then said, “It’s good to see you, Elsie. I’m sorry for being such a bitch to you in high school.”

I pulled away and waved away her apology. “Don’t worry about it. That was a million years ago.”

“No, really,” she said, grasping my hand. “We were really mean. I’m sorry.”

I nodded, accepting her apology. What else could I do?

She gave Henry and me that look then said, “I guess Nina was right to be jealous.”

The name made my stomach lurch. Nina Yates, beautiful and terrifying, who had held the title of Henry’s Girlfriend for several months back in his senior year.

Henry squeezed my shoulders. “She’s not here, is she?” he asked.

Kelly nodded, looking around. “She’s around here somewhere.” Hass grabbed her hand and she threw us an apologetic look as she was once again steered towards another introduction.

“Do you want to leave?” Henry asked.

I assessed my outfit and decided that I looked hot enough in my
colorblock
tube dress and black heels to face off with an arch nemesis. “No. I’m good.”

I led the way to the bar and was stepping up onto the brass railing at the bottom when Henry grabbed me by the waist and whispered against my ear, “You weren’t planning on using what you’ve got, were you?”

“As a matter of fact, I was.” I caught the eye of the bartender and called out my order without having to resort to
cleavage-baring
. I joined Henry on the floor a minute later with our drinks in my hands and a grin on my face. “I think an apology is in order,” I said, holding the beer bottle out of his reach.

He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against him, a dark look on his face. “I’m not going to apologize for wanting to keep you all to myself,” he said huskily.

I gave him a wicked look. “Then no beer for you.”

He pulled me closer as he reached behind me for the beer. I gasped when I felt his erection growing, and he winked.

“Keep going…” I said, enjoying the feel of his hard length against me. “A little further…”

“Henry?”

We both turned to see who else but Nina-freaking-Yates standing beside us with her beautiful auburn hair cascading down the sides of her face, looking more gorgeous than I remember.

“Nina,” Henry said, getting points for not immediately letting me go. He released me gently, squeezing my side as he did so. “Nice to see you.”

Nina fixed her blue eyes at him, completely ignoring me. “Henry.” She reached over and kissed him on the cheek.

He stood stock still until she was done. “Nina, you remember Elsie Sherman?”

Finally, she deigned to look at me. God, did she have to look like she just stepped out of a fashion magazine? Suddenly my dinky little Target dress seemed so inadequate. “Elsie?” she said, pronouncing the last syllable like
sea
. “I didn’t even recognize you. You look so adorable.”

Adorable, my ass.
I was looking pretty damn hot.

“So how are you?” Henry interjected and kept me from saying something snarky.

“I’m good,” Nina said, brushing back a lock of her hair and flashing us the huge rock on her left hand. “I’m married with two kids.”

“You’re married?” he asked, trying to hide his surprise. “To whom?”

She looked over her shoulder, to a man across the bar in a dark blue suit. “To John Morris. You remember him? You used to play football with him.”

I stifled my snort. John, my date to the homecoming dance,
who
had groped me all over the dance floor right before Henry had pulled him off of me in a jealous rage.
That
John. “Congratulations,” I said with genuine glee. Really, I was happy for the both of them.

“And how about you two?” she asked, her eyes flicking back and forth. “How long have you been together?”

Henry opened to his mouth to answer, but I beat him to the punch. “Since March.”

“Oh, I thought you’d been together longer than that.”

“Well,” Henry said, clearing his throat. “Technically, we’ve been together for years. It just wasn’t official until March.”

I raised my eyebrow at him, surprised by his little white lie. Why he felt the need to exaggerate was beyond me.

“You two are married?” Nina asked. Her eyes zeroed in on my bare ring finger and got her answer. “I don’t get it?”

“It doesn’t really matter,” I said. “Henry and I get it.”

The night went on and I found myself actually enjoying myself. Nina didn’t come to speak to us again, and I realized that maybe she wasn’t the big beautiful bitch that I remembered her to be. At the very least, she didn’t appear to be on some sort of undertaking to win Henry back. I wondered if, maybe, our perception of people is oftentimes tainted by emotion, that the person you hated was really just a girl trying to get through the hell that was high school.

Later, I was in deep conversation with Hass about the upcoming
Joomla
!
Conference when Henry excused himself and headed to the bar.
After several minutes of discussing the keynote speakers, I realized that Henry still hadn’t returned. My eyes searched for him through the dark room and found him still standing at the bar, involved in a deep conversation with Nina. They stood close together but nothing else about their postures said they wanted any closer. In fact, Nina’s back was straight and she was not looking at Henry as they talked.

I felt fear clutch at my heart but I kept it in check. I trusted Henry. He would never in a million years cheat on me.

I just hoped my optimism didn’t come back to bite me in the ass.

Henry drove home in silence, lost in his own thoughts. I leaned back into the seat and closed my eyes, exhausted from the day’s events. The next thing I knew, the car was coming to a stop in front of my parents’ driveway.

Henry got out, opened my door, and walked with me all the way to the front door.

“Are you coming inside?” I asked, grabbing a handful of his jacket. “My parents should be asleep by now.”

He shook his head with a rueful smile. “I think I should stay on the Colonel’s good side for now.”

I looked up at his face, half hidden in shadows, and asked, “Is something wrong? You’ve been unusually quiet.”

“I just have a lot to think about.”

“About Nina?”

He frowned as he wrapped his arms around me. “No. Just about life in general. About where our lives are headed.”

“Where
are
we headed?”

He gave me a dubious look. “I think we both know where this is headed.”

“Enlighten me.”

“We’re headed towards a happily ever after,” he stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

A bright little flower bloomed in the middle of my chest. I stood on my tiptoe and kissed him, grasping the back of his head to deepen the kiss. He instantly responded, pulling me closer against him so that I could feel his arousal. His fingers lifted the hem of my dress and dug into my butt cheeks as his hips ground into mine.

“Don’t you mean a
happy ending
?” I whispered against his lips, reaching into the waistband of his jeans and massaging him through his boxer briefs.

He gave a little growl in the back of his throat. “I want that too,” he said and gave a little groan when I stroked the length of him.

I pulled away with a wicked smile. “Well, goodnight.”

His eyes widened as he tried to catch his breath. “What? But…”

I turned away and slid the key into the door when he pressed into me from behind, his arms boxing me in on either side of my head. “So that’s it then?” he asked huskily. He rocked his hips into my butt. “You’re going to leave me like this?”

I pushed the door open and stepped away from him. “Yes,” I said, feeling deliciously cruel. I licked my lips and gave him a slow, sexy look that slid down his body and ended on his bulging crotch. “You have a lot to think about, remember?”

He reached out with one finger and traced my lips then pinched my nose. “You’re a brat.”

“And a tease,” I reminded him.

He bit his lower lip, giving me a disgruntled look. “You know, we won’t have that happy ending if you keep giving me blue balls.”

“That’s what
he
said,” I said with a carefree laugh, heedless of what tomorrow would bring, only happy to learn that Henry was thinking of our future together.

4
 
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ALPHA
MIKE FOXTROT

The next day, after Henry’s session with Doc Gal, we bought sandwiches and drinks and brought them to a beach in Pacific Grove. Parking was hard to find on a rare cloudless Saturday afternoon, and we ended up walking a long way to get to the beach, but it was worth it. I hadn’t been back to this beach since Jason’s death; I’d forgotten how beautiful the ocean could be, how the water reached up to meet the sky in the gauzy horizon.

We sat down and ate our lunch on a blanket, our bare toes digging into the sand as we gazed out over the blue ocean.

I leaned back on my elbows and angled my face up to the sun, enjoying its warm touch on my face. “This couldn’t be more perfect.” When I opened my eyes, I found Henry staring at me with an unreadable expression. “What are you thinking?” I asked.

He blinked a few times. “Have you ever wondered what life would have been like if you’d never moved here?”

The question took me off-guard. “Not really.” I paused, giving it a little more thought. “Although, I’m guessing I’d now be dating someone else, whoever became my brother’s best friend.”

“I’m serious.”

I laughed. “So am I. I’m a sucker for older men.”

He gave a small grin and lay down beside me, folding his arms behind his head. “Do you think Jason would still be alive?”