Page 19 of Just a Little Crush
It was the winter we turned fourteen and my body and emotions were in overdrive. If I wasn’t at school I was moping, skulking around the house and screaming tirades of “you just don’t understand me” at my parents every five seconds. How could they? I barely understood myself.
The only place I felt calm was in the shop with my Gramps. He’d let me keep to myself in the back office; do stock takes, process orders, busy work that kept my scowling face away from customers.
Fourteen is a confusing age and there was nothing in my life more confusing than Alistair Rendall, and the way he made me feel. Sometimes I hated him just for existing, and other times I’d wrap myself up in my duvet and close my eyes and pretend he was hugging me tight.
Other girls at school had posters of boy bands and movie stars on their bedroom walls. I had a framed class photo, and I kissed it every night. I’d pout my lips and hope they landed solely on Rennie and not either of the boys he stood between.
I didn’t know how to be around him anymore. We’d gone from being thick as thieves to awkward and distant. That summer it was like someone had drawn an invisible line and stuck girls on one side, boys on the other, and it sucked. The girls were too mature for the boys, and the boys made the girls a target for their jokes and pranks.
That Halloween was the first one where we hadn’t gone Trick or Treating together. I’d gone to Jenna Harper’s house for a party, and the boys had run amok through the town, throwing eggs at shops and toilet paper over trees.
The next day, I turned up for my Saturday shift and found Rennie cleaning it all off before we even opened up. From inside, I’d stood the entire time watching him through the window with a cocked hip, crossed arms, and a scowl across my face like I already owned the place. But while my face was furious, something inside my body was going haywire.
His arms, his hands, the way his hoodie rode up and showed me the underwear that was always sitting above his jeans. He was the only one who cleaned up, and afterwards he came inside and apologised to both Gramps and me. He even bought me flowers. It was like he knew how much the place mattered to me too, and I had never felt more understood.
“I remember,” he says.
“At first I thought it was just because you were scared, and I almost laughed at you, but then you didn’t let go. And then you stroked my thumb with yours.”
“Like this?” He interlaces his fingers with mine then sweeps his thumb, much bigger now, along the top of mine, almost to the tip and then back down again to a sensitive spot on my wrist.
“Yeah,” my eyes fall shut. “Like that.”
“And it felt good?”
“Uh huh.”
“I wanted to kiss you that night,” he says, his gentle strokes sending sparks all the way up my arm.
WHAT?I open my eyes and find him staring at our hands. “Why didn’t you?”
“I thought you would laugh at me. Or worse, cry.”
“I’d probably have cried with happiness,” I confess.
“Really?” A wide smile spreads across his face, then he rolls his lips over his teeth to suppress it.
“Yeah, I went home and touched myself and pretended my hand was your hand.”
His eyes fly to mine and his jaw drops. “Did you?” I nod and when he gives a little shake of disbelief, I can tell he’s picturing it.
“I’m shocked. And here I always thought you were such a sweet girl.” The stroking is firmer now, and all I can think about is that thumb teasing circles somewhere else.
“Sweet girls like orgasms too, you know.” I can’t believe I’m saying this to him.
“I figured that out when I found you listening to porn in your car.”
“It was not porn! And I do not masturbate in the car. Well, not very often.”
Rennie’s future wife wouldn’t talk about these things so directly, but right now a stupid part of me wants to shock him. Show him I’m not the sweet girl everyone thinks I am.
My thumb mirrors his movements and I feel like I’m in a regency romance, about to explode from the mere act of hand-holding.
Being here cooped up in his house is driving me sex crazy. I’m bored, and horny, and it’s unbearable having him so close. The heat from his hand, the scent of his skin, the fire in his eyes. And still no release.
I’ve pushed it too far. Rennie clears his throat, places his hand on my thigh and he stands to leave. The sight of his big hand covering so much of my bare skin makes me whimper and slump further down on the sofa.
“What’s wrong?” he asks in a panic. “Are you hurt?”
