“I’m gonna need a verbal there, bud. We take this shit seriously.”
“I got it.” I laughed, leaning over to whisper in Grace’s ear, “Is it just me, or does this pizza night have more hurt feelings than most?”
“Rory, come over here with me. We’ll make this one together,” Scott said, patting the stool beside him. “Don’t be scared.”
Objections were immediately raised as to Scott’s nefarious intentions.
“It’s a trap,” Grace warned.
“Don’t look him in the eye.”
“He’s using your newness against you,” Finn cautioned.
Scott groaned. “Don’t listen to them, Rory. This has nothing to do with stealing your ingredients. Just because you’re young and inexperienced and don’t know any different doesn’t mean a thing. This is about me wanting to bond with my new drum-in-law. If that’s wrong, I don’t want to be right.”
A smile crossed my face as I took in all the warring factions. It was all happiness, bickering, laughter, and love. Everything I’d ever wanted in a family and more. I’d been placed in a couple of families with similar dynamics, but they’d never made room for me despite them pretending I was part of the tribe. This was different. The McKallisters embraced me like I’d been born into their inner circle. Or maybe I was so starved for belonging that I’d attached myself to the first family who’d pulled up a stool.
I’d gone into this relationship with Grace with the mindset to hold on for as long as she’d allow me to, but after sampling her family, I didn’t want to just get by, like I’d been doing my whole life. I had to fight if I wanted to secure the girl, the future, and the family I’d always wanted.
* * *
I’d barely openedthe door when Grace pushed her way in, panting and sweaty like she’d run the whole way from the parking lot to my apartment. And I knew she had.
“Hurry,” she said, kicking the door shut while removing her shirt and bra. “We’ve got seven minutes.”
She didn’t need to tell me twice. My shirt was off in an instant, and I closed the short gap between us. Wrapping my hand around the back of her neck, I hauled Grace to me, my lips crashing into hers. Our mouths parted. Our tongues tousled. Her fingers buried in my hair. We were a jumble of tangled, groping, needy limbs.
“I drove the back way. Maps showed less traffic. Bought us three extra minutes.” Each sentence she spoke was between ravenous kisses. Groaning, I used my one free hand to slip fingers into her waistband and drop her short shorts to the floor.
“Best. Girlfriend. Ever,” I said, walking her back until her legs hit the bed, and I tossed her onto it. When her back hit the mattress, Grace bounced, but I caught her on the upswing, my body crash-landing on top of her. With no time to spare, I heaved her further up on the bed and dipped between her trembling legs. Her body bowed, fingers ripping through my hair, and she whimpered in that raspy voice I’d come to love.
Thankfully, Grace didn’t require a whole lot of tender loving care. Or foreplay. My girl came prepared, typically having listened to a sizzling audiobook on the car ride over. She was like an instant hot water recirculating system: always hot, always wet, and always ready when you turned on the tap. Not only that but the girl was built for speed, making my job exceptionally easy. Sixty seconds on her trigger spot and my thoroughbred was crossing the finish line. And a few seconds after that, I was rolling on a rubber and busting through the starting gate.
This was what we’d been reduced to—traffic-dependent quickie junkies. It couldn’t be good for our developing brains. We were young. Habits were forming. What was all this saying to our subconscious minds? Speed—good. Tiny enclosed spaces—fine. Lovemaking—Huh? Aftercare—what the fuck was that?
As part of the deal Grace and I had made with Michelle, we kept our relationship almost entirely under her roof. That meant I spent most of my spare time on the McKallister property, with its pool and basketball court and cool people and soundproof music room. Not a bad trade-off for the sex we weren’t supposed to be having. Under her watchful eye, Michelle thought she had us under control with her clearly defined rules. No closed doors. No going off on our own for extended periods of time; no hands on each other’s bodies. But all the restrictions had done was drive us underground. Speed us up. Make us savvier.
Grace especially. To my surprise, she was a sneaky little bitch, and I goddamn loved her for it. Her bank of trust was just the tip of the iceberg. As the youngest and most unassuming member of her family, Grace had learned to operate under the radar. She’d also become the perfect spy. She regularly charted the comings and goings of her entire family, and calculated the amount of time between when one would leave and another would come back. She knew how long her father worked out in the home gym, right down to the equipment he used on any given day. She knew when Quinn showered, when he left and came back from his part-time job, and when her other siblings would be visiting. If there was, say, a five-minute or longer gap in time, we would bang out quickies in various places around her house. In her bedroom. In her bathroom. In the backyard shed. Even her old Little Tikes fairy princess castle.
To be fair, there weren’t a lot of five-minute gaps at her house, so ninety-nine percent of the sex we weren’t supposed to be having was taking place to and from my apartment. With no car of my own, Grace regularly picked me up and took me home. The round-trip drive was thirty minutes, depending on traffic. Michelle knew exactly how much time it would take and tracked her daughter’s phone throughout the journey. That was where my girlfriend’s most meticulous charting came into play. Grace devised a schedule based entirely on Michelle’s schedule, the idea being that the busier she was, the less time she had to focus on how much time Grace was lingering at my place. Grace had it down to a science, and her calculations had yet to let us down.
I moved inside Grace, our rutting grunts arriving in perfect unison. No talk, no loving kisses, no awkward giggles. We had sex like we were a hidden menu item at a popular burger joint—animal style. Picking up speed, every time-sensitive thrust brought us closer together. She was everything to me. Everything. Grace gripped me tight, her heavy, raspy panting bringing me to the edge of sanity. Hitting the crescendo, I went rigid. She arched her back. The world stopped, if only for a split second, and then we collapsed back onto the mattress, spent and fully satisfied, with two minutes left.
With time to spare, I leaned on my elbow and pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes, both of us still working to catch our breaths. She looked up at me with such trust. Such affection. I traced her soft pink lips, her smile shaping wherever my finger touched. God, she was so beautiful, that flushed skin against my white sheets. I’d once thought Grace was too good for me, that I wasn’t worthy of a girl like her, but not anymore. She was making me better. Worthy of her.
I remembered as a child lying in bed and wondering how I’d be able to identify love for myself. If I didn’t know what it looked like or what it felt like, how would I even know if I found it? But lying here with Grace, I knew it had finally come for me. I still couldn’t explain what it was, but that feeling inside me—my heart beating only for her—proved that we were more than a passing infatuation. We were end game love.
“I love you,” I whispered, testing the words out for size.
A smile skipped across her face as carefree as a schoolgirl’s.
“I love you too,” she said, almost like it was an afterthought. As if she’d loved me way longer than it had taken me to figure out that I loved her back.
She lifted her head and kissed my lips. “Now, get off me. We’ve got to go.”
* * *
The weeks spentwith Grace and the McKallisters were the best of my life. It wasn’t like I’d had many great experiences to begin with, but this would’ve topped them all no matter what. If I could, I would’ve spent every minute of my day with her and them, but my free time was limited to afternoons and evenings. As part of the deal living at Camden Place, I was required to work a minimum of eighty hours a month, and I did so busing tables at a breakfast café a block away. In addition to the work, they also required us to participate in therapy sessions and life skills classes. I got the reasoning behind it, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. Although I might have been the only one. My fellow residents seemed to love talking about their feelings, which told me they really didn’t have anything shocking to hide, like I did. Not that I was complaining about their emotional dumps, which allowed me to just sit in the circle with my mouth shut until the session was over.
