Page 18 of Better as It

Her eyes glisten as she shifts her hips making my fingers slide deep inside her again.

“I’ve got you. I’ll take care of you.”

She instantly relaxes ass I press my thumb to her clit and make sure she’s stretched to be able to take me before I move to settle over her between her legs. I ease into her, inch by inch. I go slow as her breath catches. Agonizingly I move delicately watching every reaction and every shift in her body.

When she finally relaxes, the pain of stretching goes away giving into something new inside her. I let her guide the pace.I let the moments build on soft touches everywhere and quiet sighs against her skin as the rhythm between us builds

I work sliding in and out as her fingers grip my shoulders tightly. She holds on for dear life as the momentum between us builds and she begins raising up to meet me thrust for thrust. In moments, she’s crying out my name as I lose control coming inside her knowing I’ve been given the gift of a lifetime and I don’t want to ever let her go.

“You okay?” I ask sliding out before going to get a cloth to clean her up from the remnants of my need and her virginity.

“More than okay. Always okay with you, Justin.”

Pride swells inside me along with something else I can’t describe. What I feel for the woman in front of me is unlike anything I’ve felt before.

I didn’t know it at the time, but what I felt was love. Real, unconditional, fully connected love. BW thinks I can get through to her. He doesn’t know she’s always gotten through to me. She has always gotten through to me no matter the walls I tried to put between us. From the second my body joined hers, she was it for me and I never deserved her. Not even an ounce of her love.

I don’t reply. We sit in silence tossing back the Jack Daniels, drink after drink.

The fire pit out back is burning solid by the time we all make our way outside. Tripp stands, holding a cup and bottle high. Even in his sixties now, the man still stands tall and ready for anything.

“To Clutch. He came here in the most unorthodox way. He caught hell for letting his woman bring him to the patch, but he did so with pride.” Tripp looks to Dia, “my daughter, that man loved you in a way a father could be happy about. To one of the good ones. Benjamin “Clutch” Henderson you will be forever missed.”

The crowd murmurs as everyone raises a cup and we all take a drink in his memory.

I didn’t know the man, but I stand behind him as a brother nonetheless. BW stands up sharing a story of Clutch attempting to fix a bike problem with a shoestring mid-ride once. It didn’t end well and everyone laughed at the memory.

Red shares about a charity Black Jack tournament where Clutch beat three brothers, including Red, and refused to take their money, saying it was all luck, he wasn’t actually good.

People share the humility of the man and I find myself happy that Dia had a taste of that goodness in her life even if for a short time.

A voice comes from the crowd, a female voice, but I’m not sure whose it is. “Dia, do you want to say something?”

My chest tightens in worry for her.

She freezes. I see it. The hesitation. Shoulders stiff, eyes on the fire, jaw stuck. Maritza touches her elbow. I wait for her to shake it off and continue her silence. Instead, she surprises me as her head lifts, her eyes find mine and she speaks.

“Benji hated motorcycles,” she swallows, clearing her throat. Her voice isn’t loud, but it is steady. Her eyes don’t leave mine. “He was everything I never wanted,” she gives a half laugh. “He loved me. He didn’t understand my life, but never judged it. For me, he learned to ride. And he tried. Then he found his footing. Found his place here. He joined the club, not for me, but because he wanted this. He understood family and why all of this matters not just to me but to all of us.”

She looks around finally breaking our stare. “He once told me this was the only place he ever felt like he was accepted exactly as he was. The nerdy, goober, who was as gullible as they came. He said being here, he could walk into a room and be a hundred things at once, smart, soft, tough, loyal, and no one would expect him to be one single thing.”

She brings her gaze back to me. “He gave everything and still I wanted more.” Her voice cracks as I can see she begins to visibly tremble. “I miss his laugh,” she whispers now. “I miss how he never left me without telling me to be safe, like it was a prayer. I miss the stupid way he asked my dog if she approved of dinner before we ate. I miss the way he didn’t ask me to explain myself when I clearly couldn’t make the words make it make sense.”

A tear rolls down her cheek, she doesn’t attempt to stop it.

“I wish we weren’t here tonight. Being here, means he isn’t coming back. I wish he was here. I wish I didn’t have to wish. But that’s all that is left for Benji, unspoken wishes.”

Later, after the stories are over, the alcohol slowing down, I find myself outside leaning against the fence with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth.

Dia is sitting on the steps to one of the duplexes that are crash pads for the brothers. She’s looking up at the stars in wonder.

I want to go to her. I want to say something that matters. The reality is, what could I possibly offer her? She gave her whole world to someone else because I told her to. She gave her goodness, her tenderness, her loyalty to him.

And he deserved it.

And now he’s gone.

I’m still here. The wrong man in love with the right woman, always at the wrong time for us.

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