Just to torture me, he licked my shoulder and up my neck, using that delicious tongue to wet me in more areas than one. I shivered against him again.
“Good night, angel,” he whispered.
“We’ve been sleeping all day,” I whispered back. “I don’t think I’ll fall back asleep anytime soon.”
“No? We can do other things then.”
I turned my face to him and he kissed me. It started slow and innocent. I pressed my lips harder against his, until he parted his mouth and slipped his tongue inside mine. My heart raced as his fingers trailed my body again, touching every inch of my skin.
It escalated very quickly after that.
26.
Elise
We’d found sleep a couple hours later, pressed against one another. When morning came, I woke up before Aston and slipped out of bed. I went to the toilet and then downstairs to turn the coffee machine on. Tuck was passed out on his back on the arm of the couch. Weird, weird cat. I shook my head at him when I entered the kitchen, and then I startled at the sight of Mom already seated there, mug to her lips, flipping through the news on her tablet.
“How long have you been up?” I asked her on my way to the cupboards.
“A while,” she answered.
“What time did you get home?”
The vaguest answer came. “Late.”
I made myself a cup of coffee, trying to figure out how to tell her that Aston was here and…in my bedroom. We’d never discussed the rumours. She’d never asked me, and I didn’t even know if she heard them to be sure. Words failed me at the moment, so I stood there at the counter, cupping the hot mug.
“I wasn’t here yesterday,” she then told me. “I didn’t get to wish you a happy birthday and I left the card in the car.”
I turned around just as she slid a birthday card across the table. I walked over to it and picked it up. I blinked back tears at the glittery butterfly on the cover, thinking of Dad and his nickname for me, before opening it. There was a small note telling me she loved me, and a couple ten dollar bills.
“I would have given you more,” she told me apologetically, “but we’re a bit tight on money.”
I removed the money and placed it in front of her, swallowing back my emotions. “You need it more than me, Mom.”
Seeing the bags under her eyes and the slump in her shoulders, she was dressed for another day of work and she looked exhausted.
“Just take it,” she told me, her fiery blue eyes hard on mine. “I’ve been absent from your life, Elise, and I owe you more than twenty dollars for your goddamn birthday, especially after what happened to you the other night. Please, just take what I’m offering, okay?”
I wavered for a moment, and then I sighed and took a seat. She slid the money to me, and I accepted it, knowing it meant a lot to her that I did.
“Working late again?” I asked her, purposely steering the conversation away from what happened the other night. I could tell she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to discuss it. She just…wasn’t the mother I once had.
“Yes,” she answered. “Are you okay for dinner?”
“I’ll make myself some mac and cheese.”
“Okay.”
I tapped my mug, looking nervously into it. “Uh…Aston is here, Mom.”
“I know,” she responded casually. “I saw his car out front.”
I looked back up at her, surprised. “He’s in my bedroom.”
She glanced at me before flicking through another tab on her tablet. “I know.”
Oh-kay. Why was she so calm about it?
Sensing my confusion, she added, “When you’re a mother to two teenagers, Elise, nothing escapes you. You’re just lucky your father was a heavy sleeper and didn’t hear your footsteps every single night to Aston’s bedroom.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t know what to do. If I told you I was aware of it, that wouldn’t have stopped you. If I told your father about it, he’d have lost his mind. Denial seemed to be the only strategy that kept both sides content for the summer. I didn’t want there to be a blow up before Aston left. He might have been driven away and I couldn’t bear to not hear from him.” She laughed scornfully and looked away. “Funny that it turned out that way, anyways.”
I didn’t reply. I took a few sips of my coffee, and didn’t taste a thing. I didn’t know if she was okay with it. Maybe part of me didn’t care.
“Mom,” said a deep voice.
She looked up and over my shoulder. Instantly her face brightened in a way I’d never seen in months. She smiled brilliantly and stood up, rushing to Aston as he stood at the threshold of the kitchen in nothing but his jeans on. She hugged him and he held her tight to his bare chest as she broke down. She wasn’t crying in that breathless way I’d overheard her doing when she thought she couldn’t be heard. No, she was crying from happiness, telling him how much she missed him, how much she thought of him and how nice it was to hold him again. I watched them and forcefully sipped my coffee, trying my hardest not to smash it on the floor from the jealousy that ripped through me.