Roll Me Away: A Smokey's Roadhouse Novel (17 page)

I
no longer
had any doubts about my future with Zach. Even though there was still a long way to go before he’d be fully recovered, I knew it would happen someday. And if it didn’t, he’d already made enough progress that I didn’t doubt my ability to be what he needed me to be.

I’d lost the consuming need to explore the limits of my sexual appetite. Weeks without it, followed by the sweet lovemaking we’d enjoyed so far seemed to have tamed my more exotic desires. I suspected that if Zach were ever up to it, I wouldn’t object, but even without him being able to fully be in control, I could achieve a more than satisfactory orgasm. Strangely enough, even more satisfactory for me was being able to give him one. I knew he worried, so I tried to show him in every way that he was enough and more.

Not surprisingly, Rose noticed. She didn’t say anything to embarrass me, or even point out the obvious, but she showed me more and more affection. She had Carl put a locking doorknob on the room we’d fixed up for him, now overkill in the accommodation department.

He could sit without pulling himself up, but when I suggested to him that we wouldn’t need that trapeze, he winked and said better leave it, just in case. He must have said the same thing to his mother, because she came into my room and asked if I’d like her to take me to Cheyenne for any ‘special shopping’.

I’m sure I turned bright red. She didn’t press.

T
he day
we brought Zach home, we all had dinner together in his room as a special celebration. We were almost ready to bring in the dessert when the doorbell rang, and Rose went to answer it while Carl cleared the dishes to the kitchen. I was watching Zach and listening to something he was telling me when his face changed.

“Mom, what is it?”

“Cricket? There’s someone here to see you.”

“No! Mom, you didn’t let them in?” Zach nearly shouted his question, and Rose turned a puzzled look on him.

“Of course I did. I couldn’t leave her parents standing on the front porch.”

My parents? What the fuck?

Numbly, I stood, but before I followed Rose out, I went to kiss Zach. “It will be okay. I’ll be right back.”

Mom and Dad hadn’t taken the seat Rose had offered them. They stood in the formal living room, waiting for me. Mom gave a small cry when she saw me and held her arms out. Dad just stared. Mom let her arms drift down when I made no move to walk into them.

“Mom, Dad, what are you doing here? Where are the kids?”

“Your brother and sister are at home. We didn’t want…”

“Carol, this isn’t the place or time. Cricket, we’ve come to take you home.”

At first, I couldn’t believe my ears. When I understood he was perfectly serious, I simply stared at him until he shifted as if uncomfortable. Mom had an anxious expression, but didn’t try to say anything.

Rose looked from them to me and then cleared her throat. “I’ll just go and see to Zach. Call me if you need anything, dear. And do offer your parents some refreshment.”

I couldn’t form the words I needed yet, so I took her suggestion. “Would you like something to drink? A beer, or some wine? Tea?”

Mom said, “Tea,” just as Dad said, “No.” For a second they stared at each other and then Dad nodded.

“All right. Your mother would like a cup of tea. Nothing for me.”

“Please sit down while I get it. Not even a glass of water, Dad?”

“That’s fine.”

I left them in the living room for the entire five minutes it took to heat the water in the microwave and steep the tea bag for the length of time Mom liked. Then I took the refreshments in and set them on the coffee table in front of where they’d settled. Mom reached for her tea immediately, but Dad left his water untouched. I began to get the idea that Mom was here to support Dad’s agenda, nothing more. For some reason, that made me even madder.

“How long…” Dad started.

“Wait. Before you say another word, why don’t you tell me by what stretch of imagination you believe I’m going home with you? No, before that, tell me how you found me. I never gave you this address.”

Mom gave Dad a frightened glance, but he kept his eyes steadily on me. “Never mind that. What do you mean ‘believe’ you’re going home with us? You are, and that’s all there is to it.”

Stunned, all I could do was shake my head. “Dad, do you recall when I had my eighteenth birthday about five years ago? You stopped having the right to tell me what to do then. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You have no job, no means of support, and this boy you followed out here is in no condition to support you. Your brother and sister miss you. Your mother and I miss you. Why argue?”

I couldn’t decide which item to address first, but as soon as my power of speech recovered from my outrage, I let it pour out. “How do you know all of that? Who told you I didn’t have a job? How do you know what happened to Zach? And what the fuck do you mean by implying that I can’t support myself? Have you had someone spying on me?”

The change in Mom’s face meant that’s exactly what they’d done. “
You hired a private detective?
”

Dad looked away. I hoped he was thoroughly ashamed of himself. Mom took that moment to try to explain. “Honey, we were so worried about you! Please try to understand.”

“Why should I? You’ve never taken the time to understand me. I’m not your little girl anymore. I have my own opinions, my own ideas about how I want to live. I’m an
adult
, and you’ve never given me that respect.”

Dad broke in, “Well, you might try acting like one.”

I’d had enough. I stood. “All right, that’s it. I have a life here. It may not look like your idea of what it should be, but it’s what I’ve chosen. You’ve wasted your time and your money, and you’ve set our relationship back a long way. I love you guys, but I’m not going home with you. I’ll see you out.”

Mom gave a strangled cry and reached for me again. I didn’t think she’d instigated this idea, so I went to her and hugged her. “I’m not going to disappear from your lives. But you have to give me some space and respect my choices. Tell Egghead and Sissy I love them.”

With that, I disentangled myself from Mom and went to the door to open it for them. Mom was crying as she walked through, and Dad gave me a hard look. “I suspect you’ll come to regret this.”

“Your choice, Dad. I’m leaving the door open to have a relationship.”

He left with no gesture of affection, and I closed the door gently before I sank to the floor in tears.

Maybe it was an invasion of privacy, but Mom left the door open when she came in after leaving Cricket with her parents. We could hear only snatches of what was going on, when they raised their voices. I could hear enough to know that Cricket was under extreme emotional stress, and that in turn stressed me. I’d have given anything to walk in and stand beside her to support her.

For some moments, we couldn’t hear anything, and then I had the sense that her parents were gone, though I hadn’t heard the door shut.

“Mom, would you go and see if Cricket needs us?” It was the first request I’d made of Mom to do something for me that I couldn’t do for myself. I guess I’d gotten used to it in the rehab center, but it felt strange when Mom was on the receiving end. Like I was a little kid again.

A few minutes later, Mom came in with her arm around a pale Cricket. Her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. I lifted my arms, and she almost dived into them, being just careful enough not to jostle me. “Are you okay, baby?”

“No. I can’t believe they did that!”

“Did what?”

“The set a private detective on me! They knew about my losing my job, and your accident. They actually thought they needed to come and rescue me. Of all the insulting things to do!”

Mom came over and patted Cricket’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let them in.”

“No, it’s okay. I guess we needed to have that discussion. I’m okay, just pissed off and a little sad that they don’t trust me to act in my own best interest.”

I saw Mom shake her head, and knew that somewhere in the back of her mind she might have agreed with Cricket’s parents. She shook her head again and moved away when I frowned at her. It was true that without her support, and Carl’s as well, neither Cricket nor I would have much in the way of prospects. We needed to put our heads together about that very soon.

It wasn’t until Mom had given up and gone to bed that I had the chance to broach the subject with Cricket in private. Carl had come in before that and greeted me, but didn’t stay. Whatever Cricket and I decided may well require his help, but first we had to get our plans straight.

And it started with pressing her for her decision. If she couldn’t commit to me long-term, then I needed to set her free to pursue her career somewhere else, without me holding her back.

She’d been lying beside me in my bed, holding hands, all evening. I squeezed her hand as soon as Mom left. Cricket twisted her head to look up at me questioningly.

“We need to talk,” I said.

“Oh, no. This isn’t one of those ‘it isn’t you, it’s me’ speeches, is it?” she joked.

“Not exactly.”

She sat up so abruptly that she almost lost her balance and fell off the bed. I saved her with our linked hands, the first time I’d put that much of a strain on my left arm, and I yelped involuntarily. Immediately, she was contrite.

“Oh, Zach, I’ve hurt you! Some caretaker I am.”

“Baby, I don’t want a caretaker. I want a partner. Someone to make me work to get better. But I know that someone may have to take care of some of my needs at first. I can’t ask you to do that. You have to volunteer.”

She sat awkwardly, cross-legged on too narrow a space. “I’ve thought about it, Zach. You don’t know how much I’ve thought about it, ever since your accident. I didn’t know at first if I’d be able to handle things. But you’ve made so much progress, and I think I can. I want to. I admire you so much for your strength and your courage.”

“You’ve said everything except what I need to hear, Cricket.”

“Do you mean that I’m staying?”

“No, that’s not it. I can’t let you stay if I don’t hear the why.”

She puzzled over it for a minute. A slow smile began. “You first.”

“I said it weeks ago.”

“No you didn’t. You blinked something about us being a couple, but you have never said the words, Zach. Use your words.”

I gripped the arm I could reach and pulled her down to me. Just before our lips met, I whispered, “I love you.”

Only then did she utter the sweetest words I’d ever heard. “I love you, too.”

The kissing got intense after that, and it was a long time before I remembered we were supposed to be making plans. In fact, it was after she looked up at the trapeze and smirked about my having naughty ideas for it, and after she’d scrambled off the bed to lock the door. After she did a slow strip tease and watched a part of me that had completely recovered its full function signal my desire. And after she’d told me she had been to Planned Parenthood and taken care of birth control.

After all that, she moved over and around me, giving me access to the places I wanted to kiss and caress, kissing and caressing in turn, until I begged her to join our bodies. I feasted on the sight of her body, her breasts swaying as she moved up and down to slide my dick inside her.

Captivated by the look of desire on her face, it occurred to me that I might have never known this particular pleasure if I hadn’t been injured. I was more the take charge type, and even when I’d allowed a woman to be on top, I was in control. It was one thing to take a woman by the hips and thrust up into her, and quite another to be passive as my lover rode me to her pleasure, and then to mine.

I could feel strength surge through me as my climax came. I wouldn’t be at her mercy for long, I knew. While I was, I enjoyed every ploy she used to tease and please me.

I couldn’t help closing my eyes at the moment of my release, but when I opened them, I found her face inches above mine, an expression of wonder lighting it. When she saw my eyes open, she pushed herself up again and began a twisting, rocking motion that soon made her throw her head back and keen. I found the strength to reach up and palm her breasts, then twist the nipples gently as she fell forward, pumping with all her focus. At last, she shuddered and I felt her inner walls squeeze me spasmodically until she collapsed on my chest.

As I softened within her and gradually shrank away, I held her and murmured my love. This time, I knew she was completely satisfied, and as long as I could do that, I also knew I could do anything.