The Co-op

Chapter Eleven

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Before

DEACON

It’s two days after our impromptu post-sex-shop lunch when I see her again, at monthly poker night with the grands, Sal, and my mom. I normally join in case someone ends up needing a designated driver, since the chardonnay and razzing flow abundantly. Tonight’s is at Santa Sea, though, and it’s a gray coastal day, a persistent fog in the sky. So even though it’s an afternoon in the middle of June, it’s cool. I’ve got my arms loaded down with firewood and am setting up the ring nearest to the picnic table that we’ll be playing at when the grands and Sal pull up, surprised when LaRynn slides out of the back seat, too. A strange expansion happens in my chest when I see her, a black-and-white flannel over a Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt, her signature shorts and sandals, but of course a new version. I don’t know that I’ve seen her wear the same things twice. Toenails painted a surprising shade of pink. Hair loose and straight, all the way down to her waist. I very casually, very coolly wave a piece of kindling her way. I have to bend down for the older women to kiss my cheeks in greeting, but when I tilt sarcastically toward LaRynn, she just huffs a laugh, nudging my shoulder with hers as she passes me. I catch my mom’s eye when she steps off her deck just then, brow lifted at me like she knows something I don’t.

“Deacon, will you get the barbecue going for your nan?” Mom asks.

“I’m making Mike’s chili burgers!” Nan declares, and we all make various sounds of celebration. No one knows who Mike is, and no one asks. My grandpa’s name was Phil. No one quite knows what the chili meat is, either. All we know is that it’s delicious and probably terrible for our arteries.

“That reminds me, ma fille, did you get the cheese?” Cece asks LaRynn.

“Yes. I put it in your wine cooler,” says LaRynn, just as she takes her seat by the fire.

I’ve just got the coals lit on the Webber when Nan gets her wine out of their ice chest and says, “Uh-oh.”

“What is it?” asks Cece.

Nan holds up a bag of fancy sliced Muenster. Cece makes an Oops face, and my mom gasps dramatically. LaRynn’s expression crumples in confusion. “What’s wrong with Muenster?”

“It’s not Velveeta, that’s what,” Sal says. LaRynn gives her an annoyed look and Cece says something to her in French, which has LaRynn replying just as rapidly with “Velveeta” thrown in with a look of distaste.

“You just told me to get cheese, you did not specify,” LaRynn adds. “But give me your keys and I’ll right my wrongs immediately.”

“I’ll drive you,” I’m volunteering before I consider it. “Can’t risk you fucking up again.”

“Watch your mouth, Deacon James,” says Nan. “But he is right.” I love being her favorite. “These specialty burgers cannot be tarnished by anything other than chemically modified, melty, American gold.”

“Fine,” LaRynn agrees with an eye roll and a snort.

We climb into the Bronco and head on our way, LaRynn laughing ruefully under her breath.

“Never would have thought my French grandmother would get snooty about Velveeta,” she says.

I wince and shrug. “We’re a bad influence.”

She hums an agreement and we fall back into a comfortable silence.

“Elyse busy again?” I ask.

A line forms between her brows. “I’m not sure, actually. I didn’t try to make plans with her tonight.” Her eyes dart over to me bashfully and then back on the road. I’m not sure why this makes my palms start to sweat or makes me feel like I swallowed something bubbly. The silence is no longer comfortable and instead feels absolutely loaded.

“Hey,” she says, “why’d you even go the other night? To the movie? If you faint at the sight of blood, why would you even try a horror movie?”

I heave a deep sigh. “I don’t know why, but it doesn’t work like that for me. I guess on some subconscious level I know that it’s not real, so blood in movies doesn’t get me? My own doesn’t get to me, either. I don’t understand the science behind it all,” I admit.

I peer over at her again when we cut through a thatch of redwoods and come to a stop sign. A slow smile unfurls on her pretty face. “So you faint when other people get hurt, but don’t for yourself? Why is that adorable?”

I frown at the road. I’m not sure why it feels like I’ve just lost another edge with her. Why is something that makes me weak the thing that’s got her smiling at me that way? Don’t overthink it. It’s working. “I am adorable, that’s why.”

Her smile fades when I check over there again, something contemplative in its place.

“Much as it pains me to admit,” she says, “you have your moments.”

Our pinkies graze on the seat between us, and I nearly stall the Bronco. I have to pull my hand away to shift gears.

My thoughts are in complete disarray the rest of the drive to the store, as well as in it when we grab the appropriate cheese. I don’t know how to bridge the gap in conversation the longer we go, and LaRynn seems just as lost. I’ve never had this problem when it comes to girls. If I sense a mutual interest, I can always find something to talk about. Flirting is usually fun and easy for me. With LaRynn I feel slightly panicked. Almost too hopeful.

Finally, when I don’t think I can take the silence any longer, an idea breaks free.

“Can I show you something?” I ask.

She looks at me like she’s relieved. “Yes.”

I pull off down a bumpy dirt path that might only get driven on by me, swooping through a copse of trees until it stretches out into a clearing overlooking a cliff. It’s still a gray day, but golden and orange patches sneak through. I roll my window down and she follows suit. I turn the volume low on Elvis singing “It’s Now or Never” from my radio. Waves crash, and the trees behind us shield out any other sounds from the road. My chest rises and falls, and I try to summon every bit of bravery I’ve ever had. When I finally look at LaRynn, she’s already looking at me. My eyes get caught up on her lips and I can’t pry them away for the life of me.

“Can I kiss you?” comes out of me in a gruff whisper.

“Yes.” Hers is just as husky.

I have never felt clumsier than when I jerk on the emergency brake and turn off the car with trembling hands, before I move down the old, patched-up leather and lean into her space. The hummingbird pulse at the base of her throat matches whatever is happening in my chest. So, so much faster than the rhythm of this song and the waves. I give my thumb a steady place to land, right on the center of her full bottom lip, the rest of my hand spreading wide to touch the smooth skin on her neck, her hair sliding over my knuckles. I allow myself half a moment of disbelief to be touching her like this, and then I close the distance between us. Her lips fit themselves perfectly to mine, parting shyly, tongue lightly bumping my own. Her mouth tastes like cinnamon gum and it takes all my restraint not to nudge her open further so I can get more of it. When I lean back an inch and open my eyes, hers are still closed, a furrow in her brow. It becomes my mission to kiss her silly then, until that furrow goes smooth. She angles her head and licks into my mouth and I can’t stop a low groan. She slips away, fists curled in my shirt.

“Was that okay? Did I hurt you?” she asks, green eyes looking at me in concern.

Something pangs somewhere beneath my collarbone, a quick double kick in my chest. “No. No I’m not hurt,” I say. Let myself sweep some of her hair off her neck where it’s fallen forward. “I just liked it very much.”

Her returning smile starts out tentative, but melts into something else entirely, something I like even more. “Good.”

She lifts up onto her knees, cupping my jaw in both of her hands, then slowly shifts until her bent legs bracket my hips, eyes searching my face the whole time. My breathing has gotten away from me at some point, and I don’t get a chance to recover when she begins kissing me again. I am rapidly shattering into chaos and sensation, my fingertips pressing into her thighs, squeezing against her hips, sliding up into her hair. Trying to be everywhere at once. When they come around to squeeze her pretty tits through her shirt, she bites into my lip and hums, and my hips jerk up involuntarily.

“Fuck,” I pant. “Velveeta.”

“LaRynn,” she says. “My name is LaRynn.” She’s grinning down at me, drunk on power, swollen lips split into a full, beaming smile. I am fucking wrecked. I can’t come up with a response.

She swallows heavily and some of her smugness softens. “Take me for a drive after poker?” she asks. I’m almost positive that the way she said “drive” means “park again.”

“Yes,” I choke out. Jesus Christ, yes.

I am a mess the whole way through dinner. I feel undone. I feel like I’m in a trance. I’m no stranger to lust and I have never been ashamed of my body or its needs, nor have I ever felt shy about communicating how to serve someone else’s. I know what I am. I’m a good time, and I make sure I deliver on that. And I’m beside myself with anticipation, but LaRynn is something entirely different from the other fleeting romances I’ve had. We share family and history between us. I feel sewn up and frayed again, right down the middle between these thoughts and sheer, desperate desire.

I expeditiously lose my twenty bucks in poker and then go tend to the fire, fiddling with it frantically until it’s ripping through the air because I absolutely need something to do with my hands. I feel my mom and Nan giving me suspicious looks when I eat only one burger as opposed to my typical three, but I can’t bring myself to pretend I’m at all present. That my mind is anywhere but back in that car on that cliff. I barely make eye contact with LaRynn through the entire evening, afraid that my face will reveal every single thing.

“Deacon and I are going to go for a drive,” LaRynn is saying to Sal and the grands, who are loading up into their car. “Probably hit the Boardwalk for a bit. I’ll be home late.”

I stand up so abruptly my camp chair topples over. I prop it back up and steady it, then find all five women looking at me. I smile a closed-lipped smile back.

“Be safe,” says Sal, before she’s urging the grands into the car.

“Yes, that ,” my mom adds as they pull away, before sparing me a heavy look.

We climb into my Bronco shortly after, the quiet atmosphere in the car thick with tension, LaRynn’s hands clasped in her lap. When I park out in the cliff clearing again, the sun has all but set. I take a deep breath, then let it out very slow.

“You changed your mind,” LaRynn says, voice droll. A statement. Not a question.

I turn her way. Her eyes stay firmly on the horizon. “I didn’t. Did you?” I ask, voice full of gravel.

Now she looks at me, her expression uncertain. “I didn’t,” she says. “You seemed… distant all night.”

“I just got worried,” I explain, a little breathless.

She slides closer to me then. “ Don’t worry. I don’t expect anything from you. We don’t even need to tell anyone. I don’t want a boyfriend and I won’t need a thing, I promise.”

I’m not sure why that doesn’t make me feel better, even if it takes some of whatever this pressure is away.

“Deacon,” LaRynn says, closing her eyes like it’s taking her everything to offload whatever she’s about to say. “I’ve never. I’ve never anything . My life is about to be hell for like, the next seven years. School is not easy for me, and I won’t have energy to give to anything else. I just—I also don’t want to trust a stranger. I promised myself I would try things this summer, but I don’t think I want to try them with someone I don’t know at all.”

I don’t want her to do that, either. I’m not so sure I feel amazing about being her sample spoon, but… but I don’t want her to do that at all.

Her face contorts into something impatient and she sucks her teeth. “ Damn, Deacon, you cannot just sit there like that and stare at me when I’m over here practically throwing myself at your di—”

I dive for her mouth and kiss her, her body bowing into mine and her hands raking into my hair. Things go hazy for a minute after that. She makes a small, eager noise into my mouth, I swallow it down, feel it settle and curl around the base of my spine. She climbs into my lap like she did before, watches me watch her when she slips off her flannel and strips away her T-shirt. I swallow hard. Breathe hard. Everything is hard.

“Can I?” I ask, sliding a fingertip under the strap of her bra. She smiles then. She likes when she can tell how much I like something. She reaches back and unclasps it, lets it fall away.

“Perfect,” I say, then have to work to clear my throat. “You’re perfect.”

She circles my wrists in her hands and brings them up to her chest.

“You’re sensitive here?” I ask, thumb sweeping across one of her dusky nipples.

She nods, heart pumping beneath my hands. “Well, the other one, too,” she laughs softly. And I lose track of time again, her skin against my lips and tongue and her hands tangling in my hair. I never want to cut it. I commit myself to always having it long enough for this. Her airy, bitten-off noises filling the cab.

“What normally gets you there?” I eventually ask. She visibly stiffens, glazed eyes unsure. “Rynn, that’s part of this, if you want this arrangement with me. You need to tell me exactly what you like and what you don’t. You don’t need to worry about sparing my feelings, just… just talk to me.”

“That’s the thing. I don’t know. Sometimes something will feel good and I’ll try to chase it, but…” All the blood in my body starts migrating, picturing this, but I wrangle my composure. “But it either goes away or I lose interest,” she says. “I was hoping there was some magic secret that everyone out there knew and you’d only find out once you did it.”

I breathe a laugh, my forehead in the crook of her neck and my chest vibrating against hers. She arches and presses into me like she wants more. “No magic secret,” I say. “From what I know, it’s not as easy for women, so… time and talking.”

“You’re gonna talk me into an orgasm?” That one bratty eyebrow lifts.

“If that’s what you want,” I say. “If you want to touch yourself while I talk you through it, I will.”

The wry look on her face disappears, pupils dilating. Her soft gasp lands on my chin. “But if you want me to be more hands-on?” I say. “Then I want to know when something feels good, or when something doesn’t.”

“I can do that,” she quietly agrees.

I kiss her once. Twice. “Then I know where to start.”