“Thank you, my goddess.”
She giggled, “For what.”
“You made my dreams come true.”
The next thing she knew, he was snoring. She refused to think about it too much and let herself fall asleep in his arms.
*****
She woke to her cell phone ringing in the kitchen. She was so comfortable in his arms, but it wasn’t even dinner time yet and she knew she had to get started on that.
She extricated herself, regrettably, from his arms and put on her robe. She gave him one last look, smiled, and went to deal with her call
It was a missed call from her daughter, Emily.
“Hey, Mom,” Emily answered when she called back.
“Hey, Baby. Sorry I missed your call. We’re painting the barn.”
“Who’s we?”
Julia couldn’t hold her grin back. It was a delicious secret from her daughter. “Eric Wilson.”
The line was silent.
“Emily? Did I lose you?” she pulled the phone away to see if it was still connected. It was.
“Yeah, um sorry. Eric, huh? I haven’t heard from him since freshman year.”
Julia shook her head. She knew all to well why her daughter hadn’t heard from him. She cut him off when she became popular.
“Yep. That Eric. How’s Spain?”
“That’s why I’m calling. Our trip’s been cancelled due to a Covid breakout. I’ve tested negative, but we’re being sent back to the states. I figured I’d come and help you get the place ready to sell. I still can’t believe my worthless father isn’t helping.”
“I know, I know. Eric’s been a great help. With the two of you, it will be all the easier.”
Julia was disappointed. She wanted more time with Eric. Having Emily home would only put a damper on their activities.
“Sounds good, Mom. I’m getting on a plane in a couple of hours, so I’ll be stateside tomorrow. Since I don’t have a car at the airport and I’m coming to you, would you mind picking me up at the airport?”
“Of course. Text me the flight info and I’ll see you tomorrow. Sorry your trip got cancelled.”
“Me too. Okay, Mom. I gotta run. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Julia put her phone on the table and sighed. “Eric will be so disappointed,” she lamented.
*****
Eric woke to Julia calling him for dinner. He looked around, still out of sorts from his deep sleep. He realized he was in Julia’s bed and his smile widened. It wasn’t a dream.
He sprung out of bed and threw his shorts on. He cleaned up the rest of his clothes and tossed them onto the floor of his room before he headed downstairs.
When he walked into the kitchen, he saw a bottle of wine opened and a pan of lasagna sitting on the table.
“Looks great,” he smiled and sat down.
“Thanks. Listen, I have some news. I think you’ll take it as bad news given what we did this afternoon.”
He put the spatula back into the pan and looked at her silently.
“Emily’s trip was cancelled. She’s coming home tomorrow.”
He shook his head and sighed. “I knew it was too good to be true. I knew I couldn’t have you for a couple of weeks.”
She touched his hand, “We still have tonight. We can make the best of the alone time we have left. Who knows? She’ll probably go home right after the work is done, and maybe you could stay. You can tell your mom we’re not done yet.”
He smiled and nodded. “No matter what, you were my dream come true and I’ll never forget today.”
After he swallowed a forkful of the lasagna, he said, “You don’t feel weird about it do you. I mean, I kind of just…”
“I kissed you first, if you remember,” she smiled. “I don’t regret a thing and I’m looking forward to picking up where we left off. There is one thing though.”
He gazed into her eyes and took her hand, “I promise, not a soul will know about us. My lips are sealed.”
“Thank you. It’s not that I’m embarrassed, it’s just…”
“I understand. It’s a bad look and people wouldn’t understand. I’d never say or do anything to hurt your reputation.”
She snorted, “I don’t care about that. I’m leaving here anyway.”
He laughed, “Ah! Emily.”
She nodded.
“I’ll keep our secret to the grave.”
*****
The following morning, she woke him with a blow job. After he grunted his load into her mouth, she spooned into him and sighed as he pulled her tightly into him.
“Thank you, Eric, for making me feel like an attractive woman again. You don’t know how bad I was hurt by David cheating on me.”
He didn’t say anything, he simply kissed her neck.
“Are you looking forward to seeing Emily today?” she asked, hoping he didn’t hold a grudge against his daughter for her ending their friendship.
“I won’t lie to you and say I am. Honestly, she hurt me, and it took a long time to get over it. I couldn’t understand how she could do that to me when we were best friends for so long.”
“Your mother and I used to joke around and talk about how we would plan your wedding. We always called you boyfriend and girlfriend, even though you were still too young for dating when we moved.”
“That’s funny because I always thought of her that way. Not in a sexual way, but that we were meant to be together forever. We had so much in common, it was as if we were twins. I guess we weren’t meant to be after all. She became a mean girl and left me in her wake.”
“I’m sorry she did that. It wasn’t fair to you.”
He turned her to face him, “I’ll be damned if I spend my last moments alone with you talking about her.”
He kissed her and she broke the kiss, “You never back away from kissing me after I swallow you. Do you like tasting that stuff?”
He laughed, “I suppose it’s okay because it’s my stuff. I just don’t think about it. I like to kiss”
They kissed again and made love one last time.
*****
A few hours later, Julia walked outside to find Eric.
“Do you want to keep me company on the road to the airport?” Julia shouted up to Eric, who was replacing shingles on the barn roof.
“I’d like to, but I’m a mess and I’m almost done up here. Will you be okay driving on your own?”
The truth was, Eric didn’t care to see Emily. Not after she blew him off for her popular friends, and especially not after she cockblocked him by coming home from Spain. He couldn’t wrap his head around why she stopped writing him. It would have been a couple minutes a week or even once a month. It was hardly any effort at all to stay in touch. He understood that as he didn’t mean as much to her as she meant to him.
“Okay,” Julia shouted up. “I’ll see you in a couple hours.”
He waved and watched her get into her truck and drive away. He went back to work, sweating more than the day before. With the addition of the black asphalt roof shingles, and the jeans he wore to avoid scraping his knees, he baked in the 90-degree heat.
After a while, he finished and cleaned up the mess he made. He looked at the time and realized he hadn’t moved his stuff out of Emily’s room and then he saw the dirt flying on the approach to the house.
“Shit, they’re home!”
He didn’t want to deal with Emily at all and hoped to have all of his stuff out of her room, before they got back, so she didn’t get angry with him. He ran into the house and hurriedly packed his gym bag leaving her drawers as empty as he found them. He stuffed the dirty clothes from the floor in the bag and turned to walk out, but he was stopped by the sight of the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.