No Regrets (12 page)

“You’re kind of unreal,”
he says with one hand on my chest while gliding the other up my leg. He eagerly tugs at the knotted strings at my hips. My nerve endings explode at his touch and my body reacts with pure desire. I dig my nails into his back.

When he looks at me again his face is serious. Lustful. I reach do
wn to untie one of the strings but he’s impatient and pulls them off all together. The cool air hits my warm skin and I’m exposed. He removes his own shorts, covering my body with his. 

He enters me quickly. Sure of himself.
The chair creaks under our weight and I laugh into his mouth.

“What?” he says, moving inside me. His eyes never leave my chest.

“I’m afraid we’re going to break this chair,” I whisper. My body doesn’t care though, the rickety chair and muffled noises from the pavilion adding to the intoxicating feel of the moment. It’s not much longer before my legs shake and quiver, while the chair squeaks obscenely, rocked by my euphoria.

Henry’s body is coated
with sweat and he closes his eyes and finishes, bliss taking over his features. His full weight presses against me and the seat groans.

“Wow,” I say, pushing his damp hair out of his eyes.

He opens his mouth to say something but the chair makes one final crack and one leg tumbles us both to the ground. Laughing, Henry rolls me on top of him and I’m straddling him naked on the gritty pool deck.

“Only us,” he says. I frown in confusion.

“Only us what?”

“This could only happen
to us,” he clarifies, running his fingers between my breasts down to my bare stomach. “It’s sort of perfect, for us at least. We’ll never have that cheesy romantic thing—like you said. Satin sheets and roses. Good grief, we just did it on a broken lounge chair while a party rages on a hundred yards away. I’m not sure I’ll ever get anything right with you.”

I lean down to kiss him. “You’re right. It was sort of perfect.
One thing’s for sure, I’ll never forget our first time,” I say. “And everything about it was right, even if it was terribly wrong.”

He stands, pulling me with him and we both jump in the water, washing off the dirt and sweat from the night.

Chapter
Eleven

“Well, well, well,” Shelly says the next morning from the doorway of the cabin. Henry and I are wrapped around one another, sleeping under a thin sheet. We’ve got our clothes on, well I’m in a tank and pajama shorts. Henry’s shirtless in a pair of cotton shorts. “That explains a lot.”

I blink, trying to open my eyes in the bright sunlight, while Henry rubs his face and hides his eyes behind my back. Guess he’s not embarrassed. Frankly, I’m not either. Maybe I would be if she’d known what we’d done by the pool or much later in this very bed, but she doesn’t. That’s between me and Henry.

“
Explains what?” I ask, shielding my eyes. Shelly flops on her bed and it creaks under her weight. She looks rough and worn out from the night before.

“Why you two volunteered to
come up here and why Tate ditched. Plus you two volunteering to work last night,” she says with a knowing smirk. “Like you were doing me some kind of favor.”

“Tate pulled rank
and made us come up here.” Of course, I now know he sent us up here to get us out of his hair with Lisa, but again, she doesn’t know that. “Plus, he doesn’t even know about me and Henry.”

“Well, it definitely explains
why you turned down Jackson Stevens.  And why—, “ she narrows her eyes behind me, at Henry’s sleeping form. “Never mind.”

Dealing with Shelly’s vague comments
isn’t how I want to spend my morning. My first morning after sleeping with Henry.  He’s ignoring Shelly completely, pressing his body (and parts of his body) against my back.  She must decide we’re not worth the time, because without another word, she gathers her stuff and heads to the shower.

Once I hear the water start
, I roll over and face Henry. His eyes are closed but his tiny smile lets me know he’s awake. “Care to share what that’s about?” I ask.

His smile turns to a grimace and he slowly opens his eyes. Henry Fletcher’s blue eyes first thing in the morning. Swoon. “She had plans to hook up with Tate this weekend.”

“Obviously.”

He rolls over to his back and looks at the underneath of the top bunk. “I
think
she thought she could switch that over to me when she realized he wasn’t coming.”

“Why would she think that?”

“We may have hooked up—not slept together,” he clarifies, “but hooked up once or twice.”

“Ew—after Tate?”

“Before Tate,” he says.

“Gross.”

“I’ve known her since freshman year. She even has this on and off again thing with Charlie.” He burrows his face in my neck and his lips start to roam over the sensitive skin. “Can we stop talking about her now?”

“I guess,” I say. I’ve already moved my hands to his waist. I’m not jealous of Shelly. I can tell—no feel—how much Henry wants me.
“What should we do about Tate?” I ask. “Everyone else knows.”

“I say we play it cool and see how it goes. Nothing obvious. He’
ll be pissed when he finds out.”

“I guess if he can’t make out at work we can’t either,” I say. “Stupid rules.”

Henry laughs. “It’s your own fault, you know, you made them.”

“H
ow was I supposed to know this would happen?” I ask, but the way he looks at me makes me think I was a fool to not consider it. Henry and I are a done deal.

Keeping our hands off one another becomes a challenge when we get back home and to work. Having sex only lit the fire between us
, and two days later we’re avoiding contact while working our positions at the pool. By avoiding, I mean obsessively watching one another and sneaking touches whenever Tate isn’t looking. I’m starting to think we should all just come clean.

“No,” Tate says when I suggest he tell Henry what’s going on between him and Lisa. “No one can know.”

“Well, I know.”

“Yeah and it’s not good.”

“What’s the big deal? You’re fucking an older woman.” He appears started at my language, but I shrug, refusing to think of it as anything else. “No one cares.”

“
I care,” he says, looking a little upset. “You can’t tell.”

“I’m not a blabbermouth,” I tell him, walking back to my chair.
I pass Lisa on the way, her sitting with her back to the pool so she can chat with her other mom friends.  Unbelievably, for a woman with two kids, she has tight, washboard abs and the obnoxious smirk she wears when I walk by is enough to make my blood boil. Why does she have to be such a jerk about it? Does she think I’m jealous?

“What’s wrong,” Henry
asks when he sees my still-frustrated expression during the next adult swim.

“That Lisa chick rubs me wrong,” I tell him.

He glances over to where she’s begun setting out dinner on one of the patio tables. Tate’s and I have the closing shift, but he’ll most likely eat dinner with her, like every other night lately. “She’s pretty comfortable,” he agrees. “Maybe Tate’s sleeping with her anyway.”

I bite my lip to keep from saying anything.
Henry doesn’t press it, though. “I’ll see you tonight?” he asks. “Syd and Charlie invited some friends over, want to hang?”

What I want is hours of naked time with him, but we’re in no rush. “Yeah, I clean up and come down around nine.”

Lisa spreads her dinner out on the table and to my surprise a
tall, handsome man walks into the pool. He’s wearing comfortable clothes but no bathing suit and his face lights up when he sees Lisa.

“Who’s that,” I ask Tate
.  Tate’s face turns pale and I whisper, “Holy shit,” under my breath.

Lisa stands and gives the man a kiss on the cheek and the kids scramble to hug him. Yep. Daddy’s here.

“I thought she was divorced?”

“
Yeah, about that,” he says. “She’s not exactly divorced. Not yet.” This whole situation is just getting worse and worse. The obvious guilt on Tate’s face confirms that fact he knew about the husband. I’m weighing my options when he says, “You’ve got to help me.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I’m serious Pip, her husband is on to us and he can’t find out.”

“Well then, stop fucking his wif
e,” I say. “This is why you took me to that party right? And hung out at my house? You weren’t taking a break at all. You just needed a buffer from the sorority girls.”

Tate runs his hands over his face. “I wasn’t using you if that’s what you’re implying.”

“That’s exactly what I’m implying and I have the feeling you’re about to do it again.” Same old narcissistic, self-absorbed, douchey Tate. I feel like an idiot.

“
Zadie, I’m serious when I say I love her. Honestly, I’ve been in love with her since the beginning of the summer. It’s why I started hanging out with you and not at the frat house. It’s one of the reasons I took you to the superhero party. I didn’t want other girls hitting on me.”

Wow.

“Things are complicated though and she needs time to figure things out,” he continues. “If you’ll just do one thing for me it will all be okay and he’ll stop digging around.”

I shake my head. “No.”

“He’ll take her kids. The money, the house. She’ll have nothing.”

I want to ar
gue that her husband has every right to do those things but Tate turns those green eyes on me and pouts his lips and he looks so desperate I find myself caving. Stupid Tate and his damn Jedi Mind Trick. “Tate…” I’ve got nothing else to say.

“Look, all you have to do is just pretend to be my girlfriend? Maybe that way he’ll back off a little.”

Tate Christensen wants to be my fake boyfriend and Henry Fletcher wants to be my real boyfriend. What alternate universe have I stumbled into? “Just this once?”

He can’t even fight the smile of victory. “Yes, just tonight. We’ll go over. I’ll introduce you. Maybe a kiss on the cheek and done.”

I sigh and look at the happy family across the pool, eating pasta salad and fruit. “Once, but you’ve got to knock it off, okay?”

He looks relived for the first time since Lisa’s husband arrives and gives me a big bear hug, lifting me off the ground. “Thank you,” he says into my ear. “You won’t regret it.”

There’s that word again and I’m starting to wonder how great a philosophy it is. Regardless, I follow Tate to the shelter and plaster a smile on my face.
His fingers slip between mine and I can’t help but notice the missing spark that I have with Henry.

“Tate,” Lisa says with a forced grin. “You’ve met my husband, Eric, right?”

“Sure, you came by a couple weeks ago and we met then.” Tate offers his hand.

“Nice to see you,” Eric says
cordially.              

“Have you met my girlfriend, Zadie?” Tate says. Lisa doesn’t even flinch. “She works here also.”

“No,” Eric says, giving me a bit warmer smile. If he’s suspicious he doesn’t show it. “Must be fun working with each other.”

“Zadie’s a lucky girl,” Lisa says. She’s so disgusting. Out of spite
, I place a possessive hand on Tate’s chest.

“The luckiest,
” I say.

Tate worms his arm around my waist and pulls me tight.
I pinch his back but he’s made of muscles and he doesn’t loosen his grip. Jerk.

I make a big show of checking the time and say, “Oh look, break is over. I better get back to work.”
I smile nicely at everyone and attempt to make a break. Tate has other ideas and bends down and kisses me. I’m stunned into some sort of hazy submission. He tries to slip me the tongue and I push back on his chest, using my utter embarrassment to the benefit of this charade.

“Not at work, babe,”
I say, narrowing my eyes and managing to wiggle out of his arms. I feel the scrutiny of everyone at the table and make my escape, wondering what I’ve gotten myself into.  Just this once, I remind myself. It better be, because I can’t imagine Henry being okay with another one of those kisses.

*

Consumed by the stress of too many secrets, I willingly join in the circle at Henry’s that night. It’s the first time I’ve smoked with his roommates, but they’re laid back and easy to get along with. To my surprise, Shelly was huddled close to Charlie on the couch when I walked in. When I lifted an eyebrow in question Henry just shrugged and kissed me on the mouth.

“You taste like candy,” he says, kissing me again. Out of guilt and disgust I’d come home from work and brushed my teeth twice. Then I sucked on several pieces of hard candy.

His tongue lingers in my mouth and the pit of my stomach flip flops.

“How was closing?” he asks, pulling me down into his lap. The television is
on a black and white movie. I notice subtitles at the bottom. Apparently Charlie is the film major who watches anything and everything he can get his hands on. No genre is off limits. I can’t figure out what this one is about, but at least it’s not porn.

“Uneventful,” I lie.
“Same old, same old.”

The boys talk some and I try to remain neutral to Shelly, even
though she seems to watch our every move. Her interest makes me uncomfortable, but I realize I need to get over it. According to Henry she’s harmless, so I decide to play nice.

“How’s camp?” I ask.

“Pretty good. I had a couple of days off so I came home.”

“You live in the sorority house?”

“Nah, I have an apartment with some other girls.” She reaches in her pocket and pulls out her phone.

“
Smile,” she says, holding up her camera. I’ve loosened up enough to pose with Henry. I laugh while he nibbles on my ear, the sensation flaring up and down my body. She photographs everyone else, including a dozen of herself making various poses.

“I like your necklace
,” she says, while Henry repacks the bowl on the table next to us. “See how cool it looks with this filter?”

I take her camera and flip through the photos. She does have a neat filter, making everything vivid and bright
. “So no one cares if you hang who you hang with? Like Greeks or non-Greeks?” I ask, handing it back to her.

“Eh,
not really. We have required events and stuff but otherwise no one cares much.” Charlie lays his arm around her neck. She responds by nuzzling into his side. I get the desire for closeness because the weed is making my skin sensitive and every time Henry brushes against me I have to fight the urge to pounce on him.

My battle stops the
third time the pipe comes around, Henry turns me around, positioning me so that I’m straddling his lap, legs bent in the chair. “What?” I ask, laughing at the determined set of his jaw.

He kisses me, wetting my lips before takes a hit from the bowl. When he
leans forward, I welcome it, pressing my mouth to his. He shotguns the smoke directly into my lungs and I feel the vague burn in my chest. I hold it, or I think I do, because once his mouth connects with mine, my mind and body give into hazy desire.

Henry doesn’t stop kissing me when the smoke is gone, leaning us both over to hand the pipe to someone else.
I lift up, trying to reach him better, and I feel the pressure of his fingers digging into my lower back.