And it was on my tongue. It was on my fucking tongue.
Right there. Right fucking there.
I leaned into her, and I took her elbow, and she stared up and me and her eyes were wide and her lips were parted, nervous. As though I was going to kiss her, as though I was going to press my lips to hers and tear that shirt from her body and take her poor, battered pussy right here on this balcony.
But I wasn’t. I wasn’t going to do anything of the fucking kind.
“Katie…” I said, and then I stopped.
Not to give it a fucking minute, man, but because the balcony door slid open and out stepped Rick, stark bollock naked aside from his glasses, with his hair a tangled mess all on one side.
Only Rick looks so hot when he’s that fucking dishevelled.
Katie smiled, and he smiled back, and I stepped away. Recoiled like I’d been bitten, but they didn’t notice.
“Morning, campers,” he said, and kissed Katie’s pretty mouth. He slung an arm over her shoulders and pulled her a few paces in my direction so he could do the same to me. “Let’s go get an early breakfast, I’m fucking famished.”
I drove the way home, and Rick took the back seat this time. Katie was in more pain than I’d anticipated, and I felt a little guilty for it. She’d pulled herself up into the passenger seat with a grimace on her face but claimed she was dandy, just a little bruised. That would be true enough, but I still felt guilty all the same.
Conversation flowed like a dream on the way back up country, stupid stories, and old jokes and politics and the occasional silly YouTube video, but it was mainly flowing in their direction. Rick leaning forward in his seat to stare at Katie’s phone screen, or tickling her neck through the gap in her headrest. They were in deep, into each other like some corny old romance flick. If old romance flicks covered the bonding experience of double penetration, that is.
I think they call it instalove.
I was amused. Not quite jealous.
Encouraged, but not enough to let the prospects turn me into a stupid optimist.
I was happy.
We were happy.
So happy that I pulled the car off the motorway at the wrong junction and headed for Woolhope. They didn’t notice at first, too engrossed in a game of ‘what would you rather?’
Would you rather eat a donkey’s penis or take a cracked rib?
Would you rather fuck Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt?
Would you rather have no sex for the rest of your life or ten hours sex every day for the rest of your life?
Would you rather die now, or never at all, not for the rest of time?
“Would you rather find another stupid game, or walk the rest of the way home?” I said, but I was joking.
“Spoil-fucking-sport! Out he comes, Mr Grumpy!” Rick laughed.
“Quick-fire round, your turn,” Katie said, and her attention was all on me. “Would you rather… work the rest of your life or retire right now?”
“Work the rest of my life.”
“Would you rather… have bogeys for saliva, or piss for saliva?”
I raised an eyebrow. “What the fuck kind of question is that?”
“Answer!” Rick said. “You HAVE to answer!”
I shrugged. “Piss? Jesus, I’ll go with piss.”
“Would you rather live in a zoo or an aquarium?”
“Zoo.”
“Would you rather have twenty kids until you die or never see a kid again?”
“Twenty.” I looked at her. “I’d rather have twenty kids than no kids.”
She rested back in her seat. “Rather you than me. Kids would totally wreck the cool-as-fuck house you guys have got going on. I think you’d rethink if it happened.”
“No,” I said. “I wouldn’t.”
Rick leaned forward, stuck his chin on my shoulder. “Um, where the fuck are we?”
And Katie noticed. She sprang to life, staring out of the windows. “Woolhope,” she said. “We’re heading for Woolhope.” She turned to me. “Why are we heading for Woolhope?”
Rick chimed in. “Yeah, Carl, why are we heading for Woolhope? You got a sudden urge to mount a horse?”
I shot him a look in the rearview mirror. “Katie’s feeling a little worse for wear, I figure it’s the least we can do.” I glanced in her direction. “You want to see your horse, I presume? Muck him out or whatever you horsey folk need to do of a weekend.”
She nodded. “Yeah, but I was… I was going to do it later… get Jack to help.”