Page 22 of Licks

“The poles I’ve used tend to buckle under pressure.”

“Then I guess you need a steadier pole. Something longer and firmer?”

I imagined her cupping the length of me, stroking me until I roared. Fantasies I should curb.

She touched her collarbone, ran her fingers toward the dip at her throat. “I need a pole that can go the distance. The kind that can support my weight.”

Her tone wavered from coy to uncertain. Trepidation that probably had little to do with me. The burden of her mother’s lost luggage must be affecting her. Unclaimed baggage, filled with years of neglect. I cocked my head, hoping the motion would organize my jumbling thoughts. Sex. Want. Guilt. Ire. The need to take Gwen in my arms and whisper soothing words.

Our eyes locked again and the air snapped, the way an extended note vibrated and hummed.

Abruptly, she hugged her waist. “Is your number the same? Should I text you where to meet?”

“My number hasn’t changed.”

Gwen suddenly had. She was on the move, snatching up the bible and journal. She stacked them in the open box that had held my PI badge. Her shoulder-length hair dipped forward, a wavy curtain covering her face.

To avoid looking at me? To avoid this intensity binding us, whether we wanted it to, or not?

Not surprising with the day’s craziness. I needed to stop thinking with my body, too. My bruised and battered heart. A shower would do me good. A cold one. An ice bath, maybe. Something to remind me why I’d avoided Gwen all this time, her ability to unbalance me powerful, the details I hadn’t shared enough to end this reunion for good.

If I could nurse the anger I’d harbored the past nine years, it would help me confess about her father and move on. Stop pretending the two of us could water these fledgling feelings, grow something good out of them.

Watching her gather and pack a tiny box that represented her few good childhood memories silenced that notion. She’d endured so much growing up, too much the past month, me and this lost luggage adding to her stress. The grudge I’d harbored seemed childish now. We’d been kids back then. Stupid. Led by our fears, unsure who we were and who we should be.

Today, I was a lonely musician who missed his best friend. Today, I was a man struggling to tame his desire for his first and only love.

Gwen

I couldn’t gather my paltry box fast enough. If I could eject myself from this overheating kitchen, that had shrunk with August in it, I’d strap myself in and brace for impact. One second I was ready to grab his pole and test how high it could make me jump, the next I couldn’t stop remembering the rabbit hole I’d fallen into after my WTF.

Losing August back then had been a sledgehammer to my heart. For two years I’d wallowed, barely going out. Self-imposed isolation. Until I’d met Rachel and Ainsley. The girls had reminded me there was life after a shattered heart, but the extent to which I’d suffered wasn’t something one forgot.

I was twenty-seven now, not nineteen, but the San Francisco fault line had nothing on my shoddy foundation.

One moment on August’s aroused lap, and the cracks under my feet showed.

I shuffled across the white linoleum floor, glancing at him as he returned my guitar to its case. His strong back stretched his jersey, his shoulder blades shifting with each move. My Badass PI partner.

Of our investigative duo, he’d been the clever one, quick to decipher leads and solve problems as we’d hunt down clues. I was the sneaky one who’d sweet talked “suspects” and “informants,” donning my meager acting skills.

Anything to spend more time with August.

He hadn’t agreed to investigate with me today, only to join my friends for a drink. The possibility of combing the city with him sounded too good to be true, grinding on his pole sounded even better, but we’d spent the last nine years ignoring each other, angry and hurt. Me ashamed and pissed at myself. August furious with me. Not the kind of history suited to unearthing parental information that could trigger my own personal earthquake.

That didn’t lessen my internal tug-of-war: I wanted him with me for this daunting scavenger hunt. I wanted him playing me songs, flirting with me, possibly thrusting his pole inside me. An electrifying and petrifying prospect.

Which meant I needed to focus on one sure thing: August and I were friends. We had been, at least. A relationship I wanted back. A fling might calm the fire one look from him stirred, but he could never be a one-night stand, and we’d never be more, certainly not today, with this journal and the challenging hours ahead of me.

Finding my father was priority one.

August trailed me from the kitchen. He wasn’t even close, but I could barely breathe through the feverish grip on my lungs.

“So, we’ll meet in a couple hours?” he asked.

Hopefully long enough to get these hot flashes under control. “Five thirty. I’ll text you.”

He opened the front door and reached toward me. “Give that to me.”