Second Chance for Romance

Chapter 10

We slept for a couple of hours, until someone knocked on the door. I opened my eyes. The room slowly came into focus. The lights were still on, and everything was where we’d left it.

“Come in,” I said without thinking.

Mom opened the door. She must have sobered up quite a bit, because she immediately looked away and cleared her throat.

My sleepy brain took a moment to realize why.

I was lying on my back, with my dick stretched out on my thigh. Gina lay with her head on my chest and one leg over mine. And if I had to guess, her shaved pussy lips were in full view. We must’ve been quite a sight.

“Sorry ’bout that.” I pulled the sheet over us.

“It’s okay,” Mom said. “I should’ve expected— Never mind. Where’s Erin?”

I looked at the clock. It was almost four in the morning.

“She isn’t in her bedroom.”

“Relax,” I said, and belatedly remembered that I was talking to my mother. “Sorry. I mean, she’s probably okay. She was with Mark and Leah.”

“That makes me feel a little better, but she still isn’t home.”

I struggled to sit up without disturbing Gina. I finally gave up and rolled her away from me as gently as I could.

“Wha’ time izzit?”

I suppressed a grin. Leah said it the same way. “It’s still early,” I said softly. “Go back to sleep.”

I cast about for something to wear and found my trousers. I pulled them

on. “I know where they were going,” I told Mom. “I’ll go look for her.” I jammed my bare feet into my dress shoes and didn’t bother tying them.

Gina sat up and rubbed sleep from her eyes. Her tan lines drew my eyes to her breasts, and I reminded myself that I had more important things to do than enjoy the scenery.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Erin isn’t home yet.”

“She was with Leah,” she said in alarm.

“They’re probably fine.” I shrugged into my shirt and snatched the car keys from the desk.

Gina climbed out of bed and put on my suit coat. It still had the boutonnière pinned to the lapel. I almost laughed at the absurdity of it.

We were halfway across the living room when the front door opened.

Erin came in. She thanked someone we couldn’t see and closed the door.

Then she locked it and leaned forward. Her forehead made a soft thump when it touched the wood.

Mom cleared her throat.

Erin jumped and dropped her keys. She picked them up and came into the living room.

We looked at her.

She looked back.

“Well…?” Mom said at last.

“Well what?”

The silence drew out.

“Do we have to do this now?” Erin limped toward the bathroom, and I realized she was walking on one shoe. She was carrying the other one. Its heel was missing.

Mom tailed her into the bathroom.

Gina and I looked at each other and followed.

Erin lifted the toilet lid, unceremoniously hiked up her dress, and sat. She breathed a deep sigh and let loose a stream of pee.

I glanced at Mom to see if she’d noticed that Erin wasn’t wearing panties.

Either way, she didn’t say anything.

“Sorry I’m late,” Erin said. She laughed and wiped her smeared mascara.

“What happened?” Mom said with more composure than I’d have given her credit for.

“What’s it look like?” Erin said testily. She knew it was the wrong tone.

“Sorry. It’s been a long night.” She took a deep breath and wearily crossed her arms over her bare legs. “After the reception we went to a club. The Limelight.”

“I know it,” Mom said neutrally.

“We had fun and didn’t do anything stupid. When it was time to leave, we couldn’t get a taxi. There was this… guy,” she added, clearly a polite alternative to what she was thinking.

“The guy from the reception?” I said in alarm.

“No. Another one. We met him there. He followed us when we left, wouldn’t take no for an answer. He was groping me. Mark told him to knock it off. They got in a fight, and—”

“Wait,” I said. “Mark got in a fight?”

“Yeah. We needed you, though. You’d’ve taken this guy apart. Mark…”

Her shoulders shook with a humorless laugh. “Well, he can’t fight for shit.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“I know,” she continued, “you were with Gina. I get it. Nice to see you, by the way,” she said to her. “Sorry we didn’t have much chance to talk at the reception.”

“It’s okay,” Gina said. “Is Leah all right?”

“I’m getting to that,” Erin snapped. “Just hold your horses.”

Gina looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

I’d never seen Erin like that either.

“Anyway,” she went on, “the bouncers broke up the fight. Someone inside must’ve called the cops, though. They showed up and threatened to arrest us all. Underage drinking, drunk and disorderly, disturbing the peace.

Fucking morons,” she muttered darkly.

All three of us blinked in shock. Erin wasn’t a choirgirl, but she usually didn’t swear like a sailor.

“How’d you get out of it?” I said.

“The bouncers backed up our story. The… guy… was some kind of drug dealer. So they said. I’m pretty sure the cops planted the drugs, though.

Assholes. They arrested him. Not for what he did to me, but for some trumped-up bullshit charge. ‘Just Say No,’” she mocked. “Fucking police care more about drugs than sexual assault. We should file a complaint with the mayor or something.”

“We’ll look into it,” Mom said dryly.

“I mean it, Mom! Don’t fucking patronize me!”

“Whoa,” I said. “Take a chill pill, Erin. We were worried about you.”

“Then where were you when we needed you!” She sobbed, and I realized she was scared more than angry.

“I’m really sorry, Er.”

“We should’ve gone with you,” Gina said.

Erin savagely tore off some toilet paper and used it to wipe her eyes.

“How’d you get home?” Mom asked.

“The cops brought us. Well, the other cops did. The assholes who arrested the guy were just going to leave us. But more cops showed up, and they knew Mark’s stepfather. They dropped Leah and him off first. At your parents’ house,” she said to Gina. “Then they brought me home. They were actually pretty cool. They walked me to the door and everything. Made sure I was safe.”

“That was very nice of them,” Mom said. She turned to us. “Why don’t you two go back to bed.” She knelt in front of Erin and brushed her hair out of her face. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“Oh, Mom,” she sobbed, and flung her arms around her, “I didn’t know what to do! I was so scared!”

“I know, sweetheart. It’s all right. I’ve got you.”

Gina put a hand on my arm. I nodded, and we retreated to the hall. I pulled the bathroom door closed behind us.

“Is everything all right?” Susan asked. “I heard voices.”

“Erin had a bit of a scare. She’s okay now.”

“Does she need any help?”

I looked over my shoulder and thought about it. “Probably not. It’s…

hard to explain.”

“I think they need some mother-daughter time,” Gina said.

“Oh.”

“We should probably go back to bed,” I added.

We said goodnight, and Gina and I returned to my bedroom. I closed the door and let out a long sigh.

“I dunno ’bout you,” I said, “but I’m wide awake.”

“No kidding.” She looked at me for a moment. “You handled that very well. They’d’ve started arguing if you hadn’t been there.”

“Mom and Erin have a… rocky… relationship. It isn’t really either of their faults.”

“It’s the same with my mom and Leah.”

I nodded. Then I thought of something. “How come you never had problems like that?”

“Oh, I did. But never like Leah. She’s always been difficult. Kara and I used to think she was switched at birth or dropped on her head.”

I chuckled.

“Seriously. I don’t understand what her problem is. Mom just wants the best for us.”

“Yeah, but Leah wants something different.”

“Don’t tell me you agree with her.”

“Not saying I do,” I lied. “I just know Leah doesn’t want to be a doctor.”

I knew a lot more than that, but I didn’t want to start an argument. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? I mean, she isn’t standing in my bedroom half-naked.”

I reached inside the coat and tweaked her nipple.

“How can you think about sex? At a time like this?”

“What else am I s’posed to think about? Besides, look at you. You’d make the Pope stand up and take notice. A certain part of him, at least.”

She laughed. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Yeah, but you love it.”

“You’re right,” she said at last. “I do.”

I woke up at the usual time and cursed my internal alarm clock. I’d been asleep less than two hours. Gina was warm beside me in bed, so I caressed her bare bottom. I thought about nudging her awake with my hard-on, but she was sleeping so soundly that I decided to let her continue.

I had to go to the bathroom—part of the reason I had an erection in the first place—so I slid out of bed. I didn’t bother to cover up since I didn’t think anyone else would be awake.

Surprise!

Mom was listening at Erin’s bedroom door when I came out of my room.

The hall was too dark to see her expression, but somehow I knew she’d seen my hard-on. I didn’t try to hide it, either. If anything, part of me wanted her to see.

She played it cool. “Did you sleep?”

“A little. You?”

“Not really.”

“Erin…?”

“Finally asleep, I think.”

“Good.”

“Mmm. Thanks for your help earlier.”

“Any time.”

We looked at each other for a moment. She was less than ten feet away, but only a silhouette against the faint light from the master bedroom.

I could see her curves—she was nude too—but little else. I thought about her fantasies. My hard-on felt like it might explode if I didn’t give it some attention.

“Well,” Mom said after a moment, “I’m going to try again to get some sleep.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks. And watch where you point that thing,” she added playfully.

“You’ll shoot an eye out.”

“Yeah, but whose?”

“Not mine,” she said with a throaty chuckle. “I swallow.”

Part of me wondered what the hell we were doing. Another part, the honest one, knew better than to ask. I wasn’t sure I was ready to face the truth.

“Well, goodnight,” she said after a moment.

“G’night.”

I went into the bathroom and closed the door behind me. I couldn’t pee with a hard-on, and it wasn’t likely to go away by itself, especially with the fantasies running through my head at the moment. I thought about returning to bed. Gina liked a morning dose of semen as much as the next Coulter woman, but she also liked her sleep.

In the end I took care of things myself.

Gina and I spent the entire morning in bed. We slept for most of it. But she eventually wanted her taste of cream, and I had a fresh batch ready to deliver.

We dozed for a while after, since neither of us was in the mood to get up.

Sometime later I moved her hand to my resurgent hard-on. She spread her

legs, and I played with her pussy until we were ready. Then we took our time and enjoyed ourselves, without all the urgency and interruptions from the night before.

We lay together afterward and talked, mostly because we didn’t want the morning to end. Neither of us asked the question we were both thinking: did we want a relationship again or was this a one-time thing?

We eventually showered and joined my parents and Susan for lunch. We talked about the wedding and reception, of course. Dad thanked me for bringing his car home safely, and later Mom drove us to the Coulters’ to pick up mine.

Gina and I hung out with her family for a couple of hours. Most of them were hungover, but none as bad as Chris. He looked like death warmed over in the microwave.

A little before five o’clock, Gina finally admitted that she had to pack for her flight back to Los Angeles. We’d both known it was coming, but neither of us had wanted to face it head-on. I offered to drive her to the airport.

“That’s okay, we can take her,” Elizabeth said.

“Oh, get real, Mom,” Gina said. “You’re about as hungover as Dad.”

“I am not.”

“Then take off your sunglasses.”

“You’re a wicked girl. You know that?”

Elizabeth’s father laughed and patted her hand. “She’s just like you were, lal. Let her go with the young man.”

So Gina packed and said goodbye to her family. I drove her to the airport and walked her to the gate with the question hanging over us.

“I’d like to see you again,” I said at last. I chuckled at the uncertainty in my voice.

“What?”

“It’s like we’re on a first date,” I explained, “and we’re both too shy to ask about the next.”

“You weren’t shy last night. Or this morning.”

“Neither were you. But we weren’t saying goodbye then.”

“No.”

“So… what comes next?”

“I’d like to see you again too,” she said.

“When?”

“I don’t know. We both have school.”

“Yeah.”

“Christmas?”

“Or Thanksgiving,” I said.

She grimaced. “I can’t. I promised to spend it with Regan.”

“Ah.”

“Don’t say it like that, Paul. She’s my friend.”

“She’s more than that.”

“So? Besides, you have ‘friends’ too. One of them’s my sister! ”

I started to say something snarky but turned it into a deep breath instead.

“Look,” I said at last, “we both have lives. And we both have other…

friends.” I thought of Christy and felt a jolt of surprise. Where the hell did that come from? I shook it off and continued, “We also have a history together. A pretty good one, if I do say so myself.”

“True.”

“So let’s not fight, especially now. I don’t know if things’ll work out between us. I want them to, but we’ll have to see.”

“I know. Me too.”

I pulled her into my arms and kissed her forehead.

“I don’t want to go,” she said. “Not now.”

“I know. But you have to. I have to. Like you said, we both have school.”

“You can come visit. In LA”

“Or you could come to Knoxville. Isn’t Regan’s family still there?”

She nodded.

“Does she ever visit?”

“Not much. Her parents are kind of… distant.”

“Ah. That makes sense. From what I know about her.”

“We can write, though,” she said. “And talk on the phone.”

“That’d be nice. It’ll be fun to get to know you again.”

She arched a playful eyebrow. “You mean last night and this morning weren’t enough?”

“You tell me,” I said with a grin.

She grinned as well. “No.”

“So it’s settled. We’ll write and call, and see each other at Christmas.”

“Okay.” She looked up, and I wiped a tear from her cheek.

“Hey,” I said, my voice hoarse with emotion, “it’ll be all right.”

“I know.”

I was going to say something else, but the gate agent announced final

boarding. I looked around in annoyance and wondered when they’d announced the start of boarding.

“I’d better go,” Gina said.

“Unless you wanna ride with me to Knoxville.”

She smiled. Then she tilted her head up, and my lips touched hers. The kiss went from tender to hungry in two heartbeats.

When we finally separated, the gate agent was blushing and trying not to smile. She also gestured to speed things up. She looked apologetic, but she had a schedule.

I gave her a nod of thanks and turned Gina toward the entrance of the jetway. “Go,” I said softly. “I’ll write you tomorrow. I promise.”

She turned and kissed me again before she crossed the gate area. She looked back once and waved, and then she was gone.