Cider House Fools, page 31
“Can we please have popcorn and a stupid movie neither one of us are going to watch while I tell you about both of the crazy conversations I had while you were gone? I need my bestie,” I plead.
His face falls a little, but he recovers quickly. “I’d love too. I’ve missed that, Bennie.” He opens his arms, and I fall into them, breathing him in like a hit of pure oxygen. “It’s not as easy to share you as I thought it would be. I’m not mad at the others, but I miss you when you’re with them.”
I pull back and grin wickedly. “If you make me a bowl of greasy, buttery popcorn, big enough to drown in, I’ll pretend to spill it and let you lick every drop off of me.” Go ahead. Call it cheesy. Food is our love language.
Franklin licks his lower lip and growls. “I want it salty and sweet.”
I squeal and run over to a cupboard door. I reach up on my tiptoes and grab the bag of plain M & M’s I have stashed. I whip them at Franklin, but they hit the table and slide to a stop. He doesn’t even try to catch them. He’s too busy catching me.
Chapter twenty-eight
December
Weston
I watch her on my phone as she lets that neanderthal farmer grind his crotch into her and makes out with her homo business partner. I knew she was pathetic from day one, but I had no idea she was such a dirty whore. The three cameras I installed in her home were worth every penny. The money I’ll make from uploading the clips to porn sites will more than pay for them.
I lift the bottle to my mouth and curse when I realize it’s empty. I toss it the corner of my disgusting room. This town is so fucking small all it has is one seedy motel that hasn’t seen new carpet or bedding since Ronald Reagan was in office.
I stare at the box on my nightstand. I need Bennett Vanderberg to marry me so I can convince my father my investment into her restaurant wasn’t a mistake. The ring is a piece of shit, a used out of date set I bought at a nameless pawn shop. It’s more than a sniveling cry baby slut deserves. The real prize is the contract folded beneath it.
The one for the two-million-dollar policy I took out on Smoke and Mirrors. Nothing wrong with protecting my investment, right?
I think about how the screams would rip out of her throat if she saw her precious restaurant burning. I unzip my trousers and palm my flaccid dick, willing the sight of her face streaked in tears to harden the soft tube of flesh. I squeeze and imagine her on her knees wailing.
Nothing.
Without preamble, I see her in Grandmother’s bedroom. I imagine how it would feel to drive a knife into her tender flesh, and then watch her choke and gasp, her upper body jerking as she tries to inhale through the bubbling blood frothing up her throat and splattering out of her rapidly graying lips. My arm would burn with exertion as I plunged the knife into her pouchy, soft abdomen over and over again.
I squeeze my cock again and this time it’s almost hard. I’m pleased the head is almost reaching the end of my grip, but I need more. I picture her blood spreading, oozing as her heartbeat slows. Her lifeforce draining, flowering into twisted petals, creating a bed of blackened roses beneath her.
There it is. An erection. I begin to masturbate, and when I picture myself standing over her cold, sticky body with the insurance check in my hand, I come.
Chapter twenty-nine
December
Franklin
I watch her out of the corner of my eye. The others have never seen Bennett suffer like I have. I’ve seen her bent over a toilet vomiting so hard her face is covered in petechiae. I’ve seen her passed out in pool of watery defecation. I’ve seen her down to a measly one hundred and seventeen pounds, her collarbones and ribs protruding so far out of her skin she looked like mummified. I’ve seen her in the hospital, with an oxygen mask strapped over face, fighting to breathe, through infections that could have easily taken her life. I held her hand and cried with her while she signed her medical power of attorney over to me.
I’ve seen her graduate college. I’ve held her through break-ups. We made whiskey peanut butter ice cream in our apartment the day we signed the papers for Smoke and Mirrors together. I was in the audience when she was the runner up in the Paris Gourmet Pastry Chef of the Year contest. I have lived with her, held her, cooked with her, and nursed her. The times we have fought and argued could be counted on one hand. We confide in no one the way we confide in each other.
We were made for each other. I watch her pad naked into the bathroom. She has a piece of popcorn ground into her left shoulder. “Leftovers eleven o’clock,” I holler, and she reaches back, somehow managing to snatch the escapee kernel off her shoulder before it falls to the floor. She pops it in her mouth and turns. “Join me in the shower?”
“Because you love giving shower BJs?” I ask with a snicker. She grins and turns back, like she’s going to launch herself at me, but she jumps a foot in fright when the Santa Balthasar planted on the nightstand erupts into an electronically jolly “Ho! Ho! Ho!”
“Grr I hate that creepy thing! There will be no shower BJs. But I will allow you pretend I’m a piece of perfectly marinated steak. You can impale me on your giant skewer and call me shish kabob.” She smirks. I whip the covers off and leap out of bed. She shrieks while I chase her the short distance into the bathroom.
I catch her and wrap my arms around her. “You dirty little cut of beef. I’m going to pound you raw.”
“Oh God, tenderize me with your giant meat hammer,” she moans lustily.
I can’t help it. I burst out laughing. I loosen my hold so she can bend over and turn on the water. My hands skate up her sides and I let my thumbs brush over her scars. She tenses. I bend down and nuzzle her neck. “You’re beautiful Ben. They might be pissed you didn’t tell them, but they won’t think any less of you for these. They will be nothing but filled with admiration for what a badass survivor you are.”
She stiffens, freezing as fear takes her over. Gently I turn her around. “Listen to me,” I nuzzle her neck, kissing her on the hidden patch of sensitive skin behind her earlobe. I should dub that place the melt Bennett button. When she relaxes, I take her face in my hands. “I want you to hear me. Drown out all the little voices and focus on only what I’m saying. Can you do that?”
She shrugs, then presses herself against me. “Do we have to do this now? I was about to fuck you stupid in the shower.”
“Nice try. No deflecting. Listen to me, and then I’ll fuck you silly in the shower.” I quirk an eyebrow at her and drop a finger over her lips as she protests.
“I love you, Bennett.” She gasps. “I remember the exact moment I fell in love with you. It was that afternoon in the Valley Street apartment. When we made the chocolate mousse. You licked it off your finger and somehow managed to get it up your nose. You were as adorable and goofy as that mousse was light and fluffy. You were the girl I didn’t think existed. A woman more perfect for me than any I might have dreamed up.”
“I remember that, and you have it all wrong. I was trying to be sexy, but I tripped on the mat and jammed my finger up my nose,” she wails.
“I know. And it was the cutest, most heart melting thing I’d ever seen. I still get a boner when I think about it.” We both glance down. My dick does not fail me. He jumps so hard at the greedy sound she makes, he smacks her in the stomach.
She reaches down and wraps her hand around me. “Go on,” she encourages, stroking me in a way that makes me almost forget what I was going to say. The feeling of her small hand wrapped around my cock makes my entire body shiver. This is it. Standing in a tiny bathroom in her grandmother’s farmhouse. And it’s perfect. Bennett and I aren’t about chocolate and fancy dates. Well, maybe chocolate and dates. The tender, chewy kind. She doesn’t need those things from me. We’re about life and living. We’re about hard work and creating art with food and being together no matter how difficult times get.
Ten years I’ve been denying her and lying to myself, and through it all, she never lost faith in us. She deserves everything I can give her. We belong together.
“I love you, Bennett. You are my ride or die. My best friend. My forever. I love you more any place I’ve lived, or any restaurant I’ve cooked in. I want to sell Smoke and Mirrors and open a cider slash barbeque house with you and Balthasar. I know we can make it work. I will smoke my fingers to the bone to give everything to you and this crazy family we’re building. But if you want to go back to Pennsylvania, I’m with you. I exist where you do.”
She lets go of my dick and launches herself at me. I catch her easily. I hold her under the water first, not wanting her to get cold in the chilly bathroom. The beginning of the kiss is excited squeals as I nip down her jaw and knead her ass, but as the tiny bathroom steams up it slows down and deepens. She lifts her pelvis up and I bring her back down, slotting my cock between her slick folds.
I walk her back against the wall of the shower letting her upper back rest against the wall as she grinds against me. “Oh God that feels so good. Fuck me, Franklin. Fuck me like you own me.”
I’m rocking into her with smooth steady strokes, easily holding her up on the wall as she bucks. I let her set the pace, meeting her thrusting hips, doing my best to hold my orgasm back. She’s gorgeous, strands of long hair plastered to face and shoulders, her cheeks flushed apple red from hot water and lust. The water beads over the scars on her chest, running between her forever pert breasts. If I took her out of this shower I could bend down and lave the beautiful scars that mark her a survivor. My girl is a warrior queen, and just like the trails of water bending around her scars, death itself has taken a bow of defeat. “You want to be fucked hard?” I thrust into her, slamming her into the wall. I’m not afraid to hurt her. She knows her limits and I trust her to tell me when she reaches them. “You got it baby. I plan on fucking you senseless.” I pick up the pace, driving into her, bending my knees so I can slide a hand between us.
“Stop. Stop Franklin.” She reaches down and pulls my hand away.
I stop thrusting as soon as she utters the words, but I don’t pull out. She seems content to let me rest inside of her. I wipe a strand of wet hair off her cheek, praying we can work this out, so I can bring her back to the edge of the orgasm she was just balancing on. She glances away. Her breath hitches. “Hey, hey, hey. What’s going on in that beautiful brain? Talk to me.”
“I’ve had time alone with Balthasar. With Smith. With Whittaker. And that’s been great because we have a lot of catching up to do, but Franklin, I’ve been dreaming of this for so long…I want my time with you.”
“Bennett,” I groan, pulling her tight against. I turn us around and hold her body in the water. “Baby, we’ve been cooking this low and slow. If you think I’m going to inhale you and not savor the flavor…I want to taste every inch of you. I want to slow cook you baby. I want it so tender between us you fall off the bone. You’re right. I can’t have that if we waste it on a quick fuck in the shower.”
She blinks, her face scrunching up. “That’s so sweet. Are you mad?” Her legs start to unwind from around my hips.
I let go of her ass, one hand at a time. She tries to step around me. I crowd her back against the wall, trapping her with a forearm on each side of her head. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“You said—” she starts.
“I said we aren’t having the whole meal baby, but I still want you to unwrap this big ole protein bar.” She laughs. “You know, I don’t believe if I’ve seen you work after a really good orgasm. We have to cook food for hundreds of people tomorrow baby.” I lean in and nip her lower lip, letting my lips travel the clean line of her chin and down her neck. “Let me taste the sauce first,” I whisper against her skin.
She giggles, turning off the shower and hopping out. She grabs a towel and rubs her body dry. My heart sings when she towels off her chest and doesn’t pause. Then she dashes through the door to the bedroom and lays back on the bed. She parts her legs and holds her arms out. There is no more hesitation. I kiss every inch of her of skin. When she arches her back and lifts her chest to meet my mouth, her hands are threaded through my hair, not trying to hide the parts of her body that she thinks are flawed. She comes with her legs wrapped around my shoulders, around my face, and gripping my thighs. When I come, it’s followed by a roar. Bennett Vandenberg is mine, regardless of whom else she loves.
The food Bennett and I cook and serve takes time. It’s complex and layered. Food like ours is meant to be savored. We don’t buy cheap ingredients. We don’t cut corners. Our relationship will be exactly the same as our food. Because we do things together and we do them right. That’s how it’s always been, and that’s how it will always be.
Chapter thirty
December
Bennett
Everywhere I look its Christmas. There’s been a constant blanket of snow, which is rare in Michigan. The weather is a fickle mistress, and often the first half of winter in my home state is just gray skies, blustery wind, and random days filled with snow and ice. Ten degrees and snow one day can turn into fifty degrees and cleared ground in an afternoon.
But this last week…if a Norman Rockwell painting and a Hallmark Christmas movie had a baby that would be Stayman. Make that pairing a quadrouple with Eden Books and Passionflix and you’ve got my life. There’s Christmas decorations everywhere. All over Gran’s house and all over town.
I woke up alone this morning, with a sweet note on my pillow. All four of them are working hard to give Gran the best sendoff possible while simultaneously making impressive efforts to woo me. The sun is brilliant this morning. Parting the clouds like a morning person throws open the curtains, morning light refracts of the snow and fills the living room with radiant heat and the kind of light that transfuses both Vitamin D and hope into your epidermis. Even though it’s December, the glow that suffuses the room reminds of spring. Gran would have been up for hours by now. Hell, most of her work would have been done by this time of the morning. I can see her, curled up in chair, her hair neatly wound into a tight bun, her apron still on, engrossed in a romance novel while a cup of tea steams unnoticed next to her. Running my fingers along the usually spotless oak shelves of Gran’s built in bookcase reminds me that I will never see the soft smile that curved over her face as she fell in love with her book. I run my fingers over the spines absently, my mind drifting as the old Harlequins give way to Nora Robert’s and Sandra Browns. And then I see a Laurel Hamilton.
I squat down to the last shelf. The paperbacks are taller. I don’t recognize many of the authors. Until I get to the end, and there is a pile of books that aren’t vertically shelved. They’re stacked, and there’s a yellow Post-it note on the top with my name on it scrawled in Gran’s handwriting.
I pull the stack out and set the books on the coffee table. The author of the books is Kathryn Moon. I lift the first one off the stack. The Lady of Rooksgrave Manor. The next one is Lola and the Millionaires. There’s a piece of folded notebook paper sticking out of the top of that one. I open the book and take out the note. Underlined on the page is the quote, “I was safe here, and in spite of the weakness they’d seen from me last night, I was accepted.”
My eyes fill with tears. There couldn’t be a more perfect quote to explain my current circumstances. I disappeared from their lives, reappearing as a grieving, weeping, needy mess. Me, the girl that loved and left. The girl who snuck away in the dead of the night and didn’t even have the courtesy to leave a note. They’ve put their own lives on the backburner to honor Gran and support me.
I know, right here, in Gran’s living room, with the winter sun on my shoulders, that I have been forgiven. Losing Gran has forced all of us to face our mortality. Absolution came with distance, when the hurt receded enough for us to close our eyes in the dark of night and live the other side of the equation.
I forgive Smith for leaving, because in reality, there is nothing to forgive. The nearsightedness of youth cost us years together. And that’s nobody’s fault.
Can I apply that rationale to my relationship with Gran and gift myself clemency? Can I let go and stop projecting my guilt onto her love for me?
My eyes start to burn and I purse my lips to exhale. I want to unfold the paper, but I’m paralyzed. I can’t decide if I want it to be a to do list or a note to me.
The sound of the kitchen door shutting startles me out of my locked position. I slip the note back in the book and put it back on the stack before scurrying to the kitchen. “What are you doing here?” I blurt.
Balthasar unwinds the scarf from his neck and hangs up his leather jacket. His hair glints in the sunlight pouring through the window over the sink. His eyes shine like cerulean prisms and his teeth are polished pearls as he grins at me, brushing away my rudeness as if it were no more than errant lint on his sweater. “Hi. I was just thinking that with Smith and Whittaker working, and Franklin off performing his chef-fy meat magic,” he grabs my hand and pulls me into his space, “that my darling Bennett might be wandering around this place getting melancholy.”
He's envelopes me in a hug as my face crumples. Harsh, ugly sobs claw their way out of me. Hot tears soak into the fabric and spread across his shoulder as I bury my face. He tucks a hanky in my hand when I sniffle, causing a loud, horse-like laugh to burst out of me. “What? You don’t want me to get snot on your sweater?”
“There’s are certain bodily fluids I like to get on my clothing, my love, but snot is not one of them. Don’t think of it that way. Tell yourself I’m the penultimate gentleman, and me handing you a handkerchief is my way of protecting your delicate feminine sensibilities from the grotesque realities of grieving.” He punctuates his statement with his signature, charming smile. There is nothing artificial or hidden in his expression. It’s wide open and honest and makes me feel like he’s presenting me his heart on a polished silver platter. The way he looks at me slays me.
