“At the wine bar?”
She nods and twists her bracelet around her wrist.
My brows knit together. “Are you sure?”
“You jealous?” She winks at me.
I know she’s teasing but it’s a hit in the gut when I realize I am. However, I’ll never admit it. Jealously has never been my thing. I just move on.
“No. He just better treat you right.”
“I’ll make sure he does,” she says with what feels like a false bravado. “Besides, it’s just a meet-up tonight.”
“You’ve got my number. Call me . . . you know, if you need anything.”
She leans on the door jam and studies me in the most unnerving way. “Thanks, Paul. I will.”
The next morning I pick up my phone three times and set it back down. I glance at my watch and the roll of blueprints next to me. Screw it all. I open the contact list on my phone and rub my finger over her name.
She sounds a little worse for wear when she picks up.
“So how’d it go last night?”
“Paul Junior? Is that you?”
“You can drop the junior now, you know.”
“What if I don’t want to? It sounds so . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Are you high?”
“Nah. Maybe a little hungover. Or maybe a lot. There’s a lot of wine to drink at the wine bar.”
I grip my phone tighter. I don’t like that she drank that much with a dude she didn’t know.
“So how was the guy? Was he what you expected?”
She sighs. “Even better. The man has unbelievable swag. You should have heard him and his sexy talk. All the things he wanted to do to me.”
“Really?”
“Oh my. Yes, really. And he licked my fingers. Sucked on them actually.”
“He what the fucking what?”
“Oh, I know it sounds weird but it was so hot. My fingers in his mouth as he gave me that smoldering look . . . damn I was so wet. As a matter of fact I think I still am.”
I take a sharp breath as I imagine Elle wet. My cock comes to life in record time. I desperately try to refocus on the conversation.
“I’m sorry but I’m trying to picture his fingers in your mouth and how that can be hot. The dude sounds freaky if you ask me.”
She giggles. “He told me he wanted to taste my pussy . . . over and over.”
I hold the phone away for a second to compose myself. “In the wine bar?”
“I think he meant at my place.”
“Sounds like a winning evening.”
“Well, I’m seeing him again tonight.”
“I guess it doesn’t take a lot to impress you,” I say as my grip tightens on the phone.
“What?”
“I don’t think you know him well enough to have him at your place.”
“I may be new to this hook-up thing, but I’m not a dim-wit. You don’t have to worry—I’m going to his condo. He lives in those fancy new high rises downtown. He’s so sophisticated, Paul.”
Really? The finger-sucker is sophisticated? He sounds like a douchebag. I remember the call I got back in the day from the health department. “Promise me you’ll use condoms.”
“That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she teases.
“Promise? Take some in your purse.”
“I promise.”
When we hang up I have to take a long shower despite being late for my meeting. The entire time the water rains down on me I’m jerking off thinking about tasting Elle’s pussy. I’m so screwed.
“Paul, I’m just checking in because this is the second meeting in a row you’ve missed.”
“Yeah, sorry Jim . . . it’s just been a really busy week at work.”
Liar.
“Have you talked to that woman you told me about?” I pause fighting with myself as to how to answer. “Have you slept with her Paul?”
“No.” At least I can say that.
“Do you want to?”
“Every motherfucking minute of every day.”
Jim lets out a long sigh.
“This is your test . . . your big test. We all have to face them. You need to stay away from her.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t give me lip service Paul. I mean it.”
“What if I can’t?”
“Remember how you told me how worthless it made you feel when you were out of control? Is it worth it to get that low again?”
I think about Elle’s ass with my hands gripping it and I’m at a loss for words.
“It’s not worth it Paul. You’ve said it before, and you made a promise to God and yourself. You want to find a good woman to marry and have kids. You don’t want to be getting blow jobs in dive bar bathrooms.”
My cock twitches as I picture Elle on her knees. “I don’t?”
“You don’t, Paul. You’ve told me again and again, you want what your parents have. You aren’t going to find it with a girl like her.”
“She’s not what you think.”
“Paul, you need to be at tonight’s meeting or I’m going to have to reconsider being your sponsor. Do you understand how important this is?”
I close my eyes tightly and try to remember my oath. “Yes. I’ll be there tonight.”
The SA meeting that night gets me back on track. I even get my ass up in front of the group to confess how meeting Elle had gotten me off track.
“Off track? Is that a euphemism for admitting that you’re screwing her?” asks George the perv, who gets off on women mud wrestling.
“I’m not screwing her,” I reply.
“But you want to,” Austin says with a nod of understanding. He’s the youngest in our group. He’s still in college and I’m pretty sure before he joined our group his college major was screwing anything that stood still long enough.
“So damn badly,” I say.
“Are you jerking off a lot?” Austin asks.
I lower my head so I don’t have eye contact with Jim when I nod. “Yeah.”
Jim clears his throat. “What did we talk about, Paul.”
“That jerking off all the time only fires up the obsession and that I should avoid thinking about her if at all possible.”
Jim nods. “Unless this is a girl you want to date as a possible future life partner, and you certainly haven’t made her sound like a viable prospect, you need to step away.”
“He’s right,” George states. “Pardon the pun, but it only gets harder the longer it goes on. You remember how messed up I got over that mud-wrestling stripper I thought I wanted to marry.”
Comparing Elle to George’s stripper is just wrong, but I know these guys have my best interest at heart. Besides as beautiful and fun as Elle is, I don’t see a dirty mouthed divorcee looking for hook-ups on Tinder as the mother of my future children. My mom definitely raised me with an old-fashioned attitude about marriage.
I have a moment of clarity and decide I’m going to talk to my father when I’m over for our next family dinner about not handling her yard issues anymore.
Everyone is being unusually civil at our family Thursday night dinner. It’s a surprise since my siblings and I usually revert to our childhood selves and goad each other into stupid arguments. Watching whomever gets pissed and storms away from the table has become a regular source of family entertainment.
“Paddy, pass the green beans,” Ma says to my brother.
“You really should start steaming these, Ma. You could reduce the calorie total by almost 150.”
“But then they’d taste like shit,” I respond.
I may be twenty-nine going on thirty, but my dad still gives me a scowl for my use of foul language at the dinner table like he did when I was a kid. Despite that, he nods in agreement at my assessment.
“What kind of man counts calories?” my sister, Trisha asks while rolling her eyes.
“An accountant,” Ma answers with a warm smile. She always defends my nerdy brother.
“So Paulie, do you think you could take care of another client for me this week? The Andersons contacted us about drip systems again for their vegetable garden.”
“Sure, Dad. I’ll give them a call. Speaking of your clients, I wanted to tell you something about Ms. Jacoby.”