Chapter 6 You Suck!

~Ryan~

I wake up abruptly around 4 in the morning, an hour before my normal alarm is set to go off. My breathing is heavy and sweat falls down my creased brow as I try to compose myself from the steamy dream I just awoke from. I sit up in bed and my hands clench around the white sheets as I blink rapidly in the darkness, hoping that will somehow dispel the naughty images torpedoing through my brain.

It doesn’t, not in the slightest, and I groan desperately as my raging hard-on strains against the soft fabric of my red and black plaid pajama pants. I let my mind linger on the dream. One that started with her on her yoga mat in the downward dog position, just as she had been a few days ago when I’d come home and unintentionally started checking her out, which led to her startling me and me dropping my peace offering. Except this time, instead of asking me if I’m going to just stand there or if I’m going to come in, she spreads her legs a bit, opening a space wide enough between them that I can see her shooting me a sexy grin, and she asks, “Are you going to just stand there, or are you going to come fuck me?”

In my dream, I waste no time tossing the items in my hands to the side, rushing behind her and caressing her roughly, nipping and suckling the base of her thighs, all the way until I’m hunched over her, nibbling her ear until she turns her head and shoves her tongue down my throat. We fumble together desperately, clothes flying off in a frenzy until our bodies are a tangled mess and I have her bent over the arm of the couch, one hand on her waist and one kneading her breasts as I thrust frantically. But the dream ends suddenly, with her screaming my name and clenching around me, just before I find my own release.

The aching throb between my legs leaves me groaning and I start to desperately slip my hand into my waistband and let my conscious mind fill in the blanks where the dream left off, but the guilt of basking in those images overtakes me after the first pump of my hand. Guilt from knowing I’m technically still legally married since the divorce isn’t finalized, and guilt lusting after my sister’s best friend, who I’m not even sure I fully like as a person yet.

I’m not sure why I’m having this dream, or why my brain started imagining her that way the other day in the first place. I haven’t thought of another woman in that manner since I was a teenager. Not since I met Vanessa. Not one I knew in real life anyway. I was a man after all, and I did watch porn and take care of myself when I had an itch that needed to be scratched. Though I never allowed myself to venture outside of my marriage. It’s like I shut that part of my brain down.

Maybe that’s why I was having such a visceral, raw reaction to her. Because my sexuality had lay dormant for so long and she was a woman in my everyday life I had contact with, close contact with. After all, she was the first woman I’d seen in so little clothes, other than random women at the gym that I tried not to stare at or allow my eyes to linger on out of respect, in a very, very long time.

But that didn’t change the fact that I felt it was wrong to have these thoughts, and I wasn’t going to allow myself to act on them. That could only lead to disaster. I was disciplined, I could work through this unwanted physical attraction and train my brain to focus on something else. Something more productive.

And the first step towards that was cleaning my mind and ridding it of such thoughts, which was going to be to get rid of my raging boner. But not by taking care of it myself, because that would lead to thinking of her again, and that would be wrong. So I jump out of bed, rub the sleep from my eyes, and decide my best course of action would be to take a shower. A long, cold shower, which would be sure to get rid of my not so little problem.

What I wasn’t expecting as I traipsed to the shower, however, was to slam into something in the pitch black hallway. Or someone rather.

“Ow,” comes the sound of her soft, feminine voice as her head connects with my chin, causing my jaw to pop violently.

“Damn it,” I mutter to myself and stumble back slightly, my hands reaching out to steady myself, landing directly on her hips for the briefest moment, before I realize that I’m still half hard and her body is now flush against mine, which only causes my dick to twitch more as it is presses against her stomach.

I fly backwards, as if her skin has seared my flesh, and my bare back connects with my closed bedroom door with a thud.

“Watch where you’re going!” I bark at her.

“Me watch where I’m going?” she huffs, the palm of her hand pressed against her throbbing forehead. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” She grabs her cell phone and presses the home key so the two of us aren’t submerged in total darkness and the dim light illuminates the hallway. “What are you doing up, anyway?”

I clasp both hands together and place them in front of my crotch and nod towards the bathroom. “I was-I was going to pee.” My voice hardens and I demand, “What are you doing?”

“The same thing,” she replies cooly, her eyes lingering on me as heavy silence falls between us, her flashlight still shining that dim light, allowing us to make out one another’s features in the faint light.

With a few feet of space between us, neither of us makes the move to head towards the bathroom door, and I can’t help but notice how her eyes are unwaveringly set on me.

“What?” I growl after several uncomfortable beats pass.

Finally, she lowers her phone and her eyes drift from my bare chest as she moves towards the bathroom, stopping just a few inches away from me and whispering seductively, “What, you can check me out but I can’t check you out?”

I blink and my mouth opens, but I’m not able to form words, and my eyes are adjusted to the darkness just enough that I catch her smirking at me with her head peeking through the bathroom door just before it clicks closed, though the lock doesn’t turn.

My head falls backwards and hits the closed door as I suck in a desperate breath. I pinch my forearm as hard as I can, wondering if this is another one of those naughty dreams and I never really woke up, but the sting of the pinch leaves me muttering curses under my breath, and I decide she must’ve been screwing with me in that way she loves to irritate me, and mumble, “Ha-ha, very funny,” before I roll my eyes and creep back into my room.

The moment I hear the bathroom door open and close, then her bedroom door does the same, I make a bee-line for that cold shower.

~

Later that evening I return from a 12 hour shift, exhausted and frustrated. It was a long day at work and the events from early morning are still weighing on my mind. Jenna and Lila aren’t home, my sister is out with that Drew guy again, and Lila… well I don’t know where she is. I don’t keep up with her schedule. Why should I?

I find myself happy for the solitude and I crack open a beer, settling in front of the couch with a cold bottle of beer. I check my phone and realize that the Dodgers game just started thirty minutes ago and I happily flip the channel until it reaches the sports station and settle in, ready to give my mind full attention to the game and take it off of everything else, especially my new roommate.

I jump from the couch, shout, “Yeah!” and throw a fist in the air when Corey Seager hits a grand slam twenty minutes later. This game was providing the much needed distraction I deserved. Grinning from ear to ear, I plop back on the couch and take a sip from my second beer as I lean back and throw my sock clad feet on the coffee table, but my mood falters when I hear the jingle of keys and the front door opens to reveal a smiling her behind it.

“Hey,” she greets me cheerfully, stepping inside with a laptop bag slung across her shoulder. “How was your day?”

I press my beer to my lips and slowly take a sip. Carefully, I shrug a shoulder and offer her a curt, “Fine,” in response.

She heads to her room and is gone a few moments, changing from her high waisted skinny jeans and button up yellow top into something more comfortable. She reemerges in a red tank top, tight matching sweat pants, and her hair pulled in a loose ponytail. I watch out of the corner of my eye as she dips into the kitchen and I hear some clanging around. Ten minutes later, she is sauntering into the living room with a plate of food in hand and nodding at me to scoot from the position I’m in on the middle of the couch.

I huff in response, but I slide over, beer in hand, and settle on the far end of the sectional.

She pops a sweet potato fry into her mouth and reaches for the remote, telling me, “The new True Crime documentary starts in ten minutes. I’ve been waiting months to see it.”

“Nuh, uh! No way!”

She raises a brow mid chew.

I point to the television. “I’m in the middle of watching the game!”

She grunts and whines, “Come on! Can’t you pull up the app on your phone or something?”

I could. I know she’s right and I could totally watch on the app, but I’m resolved to distance myself from her and avoid her as much as possible, and that includes being unnecessarily nice to her. Plus, I don’t want to watch on a tiny screen.

“No!” I firmly insist. “I was here first.”

“Because I’ve been at the tutoring center all afternoon. I’ve had it set to record for weeks, way before you even moved in!!”

“Forget it!”

“Ryan,” she begs, giving me the most pitiful set of puppy dog eyes I’ve ever seen, “please?”

My stomach does this weird sort of flip flop, which I absolutely don’t like and try to convince myself is indigestion from drinking two beers too quickly.

“NO!” I snatch the control from where she set it beside her and sit down on it, folding my arms across my chest as I stare her down.

She lets out a frustrated sigh and stomps to the kitchen, snatching her keys from the bar and storming off towards the door. On her way out, she shouts, “You’re such a giant, irritating ass. I’m going to Marcus’s to watch with him and Sterling.”

I watch her leave, and feel a smidgen of guilt for not giving in, but I push it down and gulp down the last of my second beer. Soon enough, the Dodgers score another homerun and I forget about her entirely.

~

The next morning, I awake early for my shift. I’m happy that I didn’t have any more strange dreams about her last night, and even happier we didn’t interact more before I went to bed. In fact, I’m not sure she came home at all, and if she did, it was long after I went to bed.

As I step into the kitchen, I find a note by the coffee pot written in impeccable script on a napkin. It reads, “Ryan, I feel like maybe I overreacted a bit last night when we argued about the T.V. I shouldn’t have called you an ass and you deserve to relax and enjoy yourself just as much as anyone else in this house. I woke up early to give you my own peace offering, there’s a fresh cup of coffee for you. Just like you like it, plain and boring =).”

I fold the note and slip it into my pocket, not fully knowing why I did, and I grab the mug and press it to my lips, eagerly anticipating that first sip. But my pleased face distorts into one of disgust and I spew the coffee into the sink instead of relishing it. Instead of a fresh cup of black coffee, she’s left me with a stale cup that tastes a week old.

I shove my hand into my pocket to retrieve the napkin, so I can clean the droplets that splattered onto the counter and the window up, and that’s when I catch what she’d written on the back, “Gotcha! You suck!”