That didn’t sound good.
“I… I…” I swallowed. “Am I doing something wrong?” I whispered.
His head shot up and his hand returned to cup my face as he shook his head. “No, beautiful. No, baby,” he assured me gently. “Maybe we should just take a break from neckin’ for a while.”
This was not a suggestion I liked but I finally got it.
I was making him hard.
Oh my God! I was making Tucker Creed hard!
Me!
Sylvie Bissenette!
Oh my God!
He liked kissing me too, not like I thought he liked it. Like… really. Maybe even as much as I liked kissing him.
Wow.
I liked that.
I tried not to grin but it didn’t work too well. I knew this when his eyes dropped to my mouth, they went funny in a way that made my belly feel funny and also made me bite my lip.
His gaze came back to mine and he muttered dryly, “I see my girl gets it.”
“Um…” I muttered back and he grinned.
“Yeah, she gets it,” he kept muttering then his face got closer. “I dig that you like you can do that to me but just so you know, it feels good, gettin’ excited but for a guy, it can go bad.” He saw it coming, my question, so he lifted up his chin slightly before shaking his head. “Not gonna explain. Not now, baby. Later, maybe. Not now.” He rolled to his back, pulling me with him so I was lying partly to his side, partly on him and he lifted a hand to pull my hair away from my face before suggesting, “Let’s just talk for a while.”
I preferred kissing but I could do that too.
So I agreed, “Okay.” Then I studied his face and fell into the Creed and me that was and would always be. “Is everything okay with your Mom?”
His hand left my hair, his torso lifted up and he got up on his elbows behind him even as I stayed close. Once in position, he rolled his head around on his neck like he was trying to stretch away tension there.
He did that a lot when I brought up his Mom.
She was living with him again. She’d moved out, moved in with a man but they’d got in a fight and now she was back. This, unfortunately, happened a lot. She’d find the man who was the love of her life, date him for a few weeks, move out then move back in when it went sour. Sometimes her being away lasted a few days. Sometimes, if Creed was lucky, it lasted months.
This time, it had lasted months.
Now it was over.
Creed did not like his Mom coming home because he didn’t like her much. He also didn’t like it because that meant I couldn’t come over at night, eat with him, watch TV, neck on his couch before he walked me through the woods to my car that I’d park on the old abandoned lane that went nowhere.
He further didn’t like it because she hadn’t changed. She drank too much, didn’t mind making a mess but did mind cleaning up after herself.
He also didn’t like it because when she got back, she could be nasty. She didn’t get that there was only one Brand Creed. She didn’t get, after years and years and years, that she needed to learn to live with his loss and move on. She just continued to feel the pain and take it out on everyone around her.
Last, she was in and out of work, currently out and Creed worked at the local tire factory. He was union, he told me, so the pay wasn’t bad (I didn’t get this, totally, but I did believe him). But no one wanted to work hard, come home and watch their Momma drink their paycheck while she made a mess and gave him stick (I did get this, totally).
Creed told me his Dad actually didn’t leave the house to his Mom when he died and when Creed turned eighteen, he owned it. So he could tell her to leave, kick her out.
But Creed wasn’t that way.
He was Brand Creed’s son through and through. He didn’t have it in him to be mean, not even to a Momma who never was any good to him or for him or, really, anybody.