Forbidden Crush Read online

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and said, “Hey, Scott.”

  “Is now a good time?” His voice was soft, almost a whisper. Like he was trying too hard to be soothing. “Can we talk?”

  “Sure,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “What’s up?”

  “Did you get my voicemail? I left you a voicemail.”

  “I listened to it. Most of it.”

  He let out a sigh. “I’ve been so worried about you, Charlie. At first I didn’t blame you for not answering your phone, but I got more and more worried, and then I called your parents and they told me what happened…”

  I snorted. “What’d Momma have to say to you?”

  “Ehh. Nothing good.”

  I laughed with more humor than I felt. “Sounds about right. What do you want, Scott?”

  “It’s about the truck.”

  The knot in my gut tightened. “If you’re under-staffed, maybe she could help you.” I couldn’t bring myself to say her name. Not out loud.

  “Business is fine,” he said. “It’s really good, actually. Lots of people visiting for spring break. I’ve had to restock the condiments twice in the last week alone.”

  “Oh, wow,” I said, biting back my resentment. “That’s great.”

  “But I still want to pay for an ad in the food magazine,” Scott went on. “The meeting we had when you walked out went well.”

  “I thought we talked about it before the meeting,” I replied. “That the cost was too high?”

  “It’s a little steep, sure,” he admitted. “But it’s what we need to do. You have to spend money to make money, right? Nobody can buy burgers if they don’t know our truck is around town. Anyway, if you’re okay with it, I’ll send you the invoice so you can pay half.”

  I sat upright in bed. “What?”

  “It’s more than I can afford on my own,” he said. “And it costs more than we have in the floating account. It’s only fair to split the cost since it’s an expense.”

  “Fair?” I asked.

  “Sure. Just like the truck cost, and the supplies, and all the other little things we had to pay for along the way…”

  “We,” I repeated. “You keep saying we. We’re done, Scott. You wanted to take a break from our relationship, and then you started seeing Tammy behind my back. So why do you keep saying we?”

  There was a pause of silence on the other end. “I don’t know. I thought you’d come back.”

  “And what?” I shouted. “Continue on like nothing ever happened?”

  “We did okay for the last month…”

  I got up and began pacing because I was too angry to sit still. “It worked okay because I was expecting us to get back together. I thought it was temporary! I didn’t know you were already looking for your next lay…”

  “Don’t say that about Tammy,” he cut in. “She’s not just a random hookup.”

  “Oh, excuse me for not showing her the respect you think she deserves. That wouldn’t be fair, now would it?”

  Scott cleared his throat. It was something he did when he was trying to collect himself in an uncomfortable situation, and I imagined him on the other end of the line standing up straighter. Puffing his chest out.

  “Charlie, let’s get back to the original topic. This ad spot in the magazine would really boost our daily foot traffic, which means less spoiled food—”

  “I don’t care,” I interrupted. “But whatever you do, I have just one request.”

  “What’s that?”

  I took a deep breath, like the wind-up before throwing a punch. “Go fuck yourself, Scott.”

  18

  Hawk

  I lay in bed, staring at my phone. Waiting to see if Charlotte would text me. I’d been the one to text her first last night, and the night before that. I figured tonight it was time for her to be the one to initiate the conversation with me. I didn’t want to seem too eager, like a clingy boyfriend.

  I shook my head. What has gotten into me? Worrying about text message initiations and seeming too eager was high school bullshit. The kind of shit guys grew out of when they were adults.

  But Charlotte was the kind of girl who made me feel like a little boy again, totally clueless about everything I thought I knew.

  Our nightly texts were something I’d come to look forward to every day. We pretended like we were just two people, barely even acquaintances, while we worked during the day. But at night we got more and more daring. It was crazy what a little distance could do for one’s self-confidence.

  To keep myself from texting her, I scrolled up to read the exchange from last night:

  Charlotte: Well, what did you have in mind?

  Me: Dealer’s choice. I’m not picky

  Charlotte: Here you go!

  [Photo attached]

  Me: What is that? All I can see is a few freckles.

  Charlotte: That’s a photo of the back of my calf. Sexy, huh?

  Me: Your plan backfired, Peaches. I happen to have a calf fetish.

  Charlotte: Is that so?

  Me: Hell yeah. Calves are much sexier than tits or asses.

  Me: I don’t need anything else. Give me 5 minutes and I can get off to this.

  And then she’d sent another photo.

  One much better than the one of her calf.

  It was a selfie taken from above, with her free arm around her bare chest to simultaneously cover the nipples and push her tits together. The cleavage was thick and her breasts were full, and she had a lidded look to her eyes.

  The very definition of a fuck me look.

  I had let my hand drift down under the sheets of my bed, caressing myself toward my rapidly hardening cock. I don’t think I’d ever gotten stiff so fast. Like a goddamn light switch went off. Boom, erect. No transition.

  I had stroked myself gently as the next text came through.

  Charlotte: If you don’t like that, I can go back to sending you calf photos. Your choice.

  Me: Alright, you called my bluff. This is better.

  Charlotte: What would you do to me if you were here right now?

  I had stroked myself faster while thinking about it. I would throw my lips into hers, crushing her gorgeous tits against my body, coiling my arms around her to hold her tight with a lust that knew no words. I’d kiss down along the perfect orbs of her breasts, then bury my face in her delicious pussy. I wanted to taste her honey, to lick and suck and swirl my tongue inside of her until she screamed for me.

  I would make her mine.

  But I didn’t want to seem too eager.

  Me: I’d do something to you that would make your toes curl and your back arch with pleasure. Something you’d never forget.

  Charlotte: Go on.

  Me: You’ll just have to use your imagination, Peaches ;-)

  Charlotte: Oh, I am.

  It’s crazy, but the photo was better than any porn. It turned me on more than anything I’d ever seen before. I imagined fucking her from behind, feeling Charlotte tighten her muscles around my raging cock while we moaned together, my body crushed against hers on the bed…

  I had groaned as I came loads of warm white spunk all over my belly. It gushed and gushed, proof of my unbearable lust for Charlotte. I gasped and panted and lay there, wishing she were with me rather than just a photo.

  But that was the other night. Tonight, she hadn’t texted me yet. And I was getting antsy.

  Deep down, I knew we were playing a dangerous game. The more we flirted and teased, the more likely we were to act on it. The more we acted on it, the more likely we were to get caught. Then they would make Charlotte pay for my sins.

  No woman deserved that.

  That fear, that overwhelming terror for her safety, was the only thing that made me put my phone away.

  “I need a drink,” I told my empty bedroom as I got dressed and went out to my truck.

  19

  Charlotte

  After hanging up with Scott, my entire body trembled. Adrenaline f
rom telling my ex-boyfriend off. I’d been avoiding it over the last week, but deep down I’d been fantasizing about giving him a piece of my mind. It was empowering. It was what he deserved after daring to call me to ask for money.

  But telling him to go fuck himself didn’t magically make me feel better.

  My room was too stuffy, so I grabbed my purse and walked outside to get some air. My feet carried me down the road, then onto main street and into town. I’d already had dinner, but I could get dessert at the diner. Mindy sold chocolate chip cookies that were so soft you could barely hold them without leaving a thumb-print in the surface.

  I looked across the road at Flop’s Bar & Grill and decided sugar wasn’t the vice I needed tonight.

  The entrance was around the back of the building away from the road. As I rounded the corner of the bar I saw a familiar white truck parked outside, with cracks in the windshield and a missing driver-side window. I smiled at it and then pushed through the door.

  It might have been called a “bar and grill,” but the interior was heavy on the former and light on the latter. Only a few hanging bulbs gave off any light, and it took my eyes a few seconds to adjust. Two pool tables filled the left side of the room, and the right was a row of eight rectangular tables with stools for chairs. At the end of the room was the bar, shaped like a U with one long end flanked by two stubby sides. Altogether, there were only five patrons inside.

  I sat next to the handsome man at the bar and said, in a husky voice, “Lookin’ for a good time, cutie pie?”

  Hawk smirked when he realized it was me. “I hadn’t seen you in here before.”

  “First time.” I jerked my head toward the door. “You didn’t want to ride the bike here?”

  “They’re callin’ for rain.”

  “With a busted window,” I pointed out, “you’ll get almost as wet in the truck.”

  “Almost. But a little wetness never hurt nobody.” His grin slipped, and then he frowned at me. “You okay, Peaches?”

  “I’m just fine,” I lied. “Guess what I did tonight? I dropped an f-bomb.”

  “Oh shit, no kidding?”

  “Said it loud and with authority. You would’ve been proud.”

  “Who was the unlucky recipient?”

  “My ex.”

  He nodded, unsurprised. “I’m sure he deserved it.”

  “Oh, he did.”

  Hawk looked over his shoulder at the other side of the bar. “There’s only a few people in here, but we shouldn’t… uh… you know.”

  “Right, right,” I replied. “Wouldn’t want anyone seeing us chatting.”

  “Only if you want me to call you a cunt again,” he said with a disarming smile.

  “No thank you.” I moved down three barstools just as the bartender came out of the back. I raised my finger and asked for a beer.

  “Yes ma’am, what’s your brand?”

  “Whatever’s cheapest.”

  “One can of Natural Light, coming right up for the young lady.”

  I remembered him from the time I saw him drinking coffee in the diner. If he had any hair on his head it would have been grey, and his face was covered with freckles so large they blended together. “This is your bar, right?” I asked.

  “Yes ma’am!” he announced while grabbing my beer from the fridge. He cracked it open and slid it across the bar with the sound of aluminum on old wood. “We don’t have the best beer selection, but what we have is cold.”

  “What more does a girl need?” I toasted him and took a long pull. “Mind if I ask you something?”

  “Don’t…” Hawk muttered under his breath.

  “Not at all,” the bartender said.

  “Why’s your name Flop?”

  Hawk groaned. Flop’s face lit up like a Christmas tree.

  “That’s a great story!”

  “Now you’ve done it,” Hawk said, rising from his barstool and walking away. He shook his head all the way to the table in the corner, as far from the bar as possible.

  “It goes back to my time in Vietnam.” Flop leaned across the counter toward me. “I was a Huey pilot in ‘72. That’s a helicopter. You know why they’re called Hueys? Well, its was made by Bell Helicopters, and its model designation was the Iroquois HU-1, which stood for a Helicopter of the Utility variant. On paper, HU-1 looks like Huey, and bam, it got its nickname!”

  I glanced over at Hawk. He was sipping from his bourbon and trying not to smile. It was adorable. Flop continued his speech as if he’d been rehearsing it and waiting for someone to tell.

  “Now, they changed the designation from HU-1 to UH-1 in the 60s… hrmm. Was it ‘62 or ‘63? I don’t remember which, so don’t push me on it. But despite the designation change, the nickname Huey stuck. Now, I was lucky enough to fly the Bell UH-1N, which was the twin-engine variant that came out in ‘69. You know why you want two engines instead of one? ‘Cause if one goes out, you’ve got a backup! Don’t get me wrong; a Huey couldn’t do much flyin’ with only one engine. But it’s enough to get you out of danger and maybe put her down gently. Or at least, more gently than the alternative. I didn’t join the Army to crash-land no Huey into the jungle, no ma’am I did not.”

  He had bottomless lungs and so much enthusiasm that I couldn’t help but smile while I drank my beer. “So your nickname…” I said gently.

  “Right! I was gettin’ to that, just giving you the pertinent information. Don’t want you confused during the story, now do I? So I get my ass over to Vietnam and complete two tours flyin’ Hueys. Those were no problem. It helps that I was the best, don’t get me wrong. I could smell a 50-cal trap waiting in the bushes from a mile away. I had a sense for that sort of thing. Most pilots didn’t. They’d fly right over a high-caliber machine gun nest and get shot to hell. Lose all the grunts in their Huey that way. Saw a lot of good men die like that. Terrible way to go, especially for boys who were drafted. Yanked out of their momma’s home and sent to die on account of a bad pilot.”

  He pointed a finger at me and grinned. “But not Flop. No ma’am. I was the best pilot in the former French Indochina. Ask anyone.”

  “Oh, I believe you,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Hawk shaking his head.

  Flop stood up straight and his face drew serious. “Now, that all changed on my third tour. Not my skill, mind you. I was still the best. But I had a bad day. Just one bad day, is all. Charlie got a dozen men behind our front lines. I was ferrying an E-9 from one camp to another.” He paused. “An E-9 is a Sergeant Major. Do I need to go over the ranks for ya?”

  “I’m good. So, your nickname?”

  “There I was, ferrying this Sergeant Major from one camp to another. We were behind the front lines, so we thought we were safe. I was flyin’ real low, just over the tree tops ‘cause that’s safest from these new SA-2 missile launchers the North Vietnamese were using to shoot down our Hueys. If you’re a thousand feet in the air, you’re a sitting duck. Flying low over the trees, you’re safer. But it exposes you to small fire. That means weapons carried by individuals. And that’s where I got into trouble. A dozen Vietcong were waiting, and on that day I didn’t sense them up ahead. As soon as I flew above them, they opened up. Mostly with Type 56 assault rifles, which is the Chinese variant of the AK-47. Tore my Huey up like Swiss cheese. By some miracle I didn’t get hit, but the E-9 took a round through the foot. Went straight through sideways, taking out all his toes like a farmer scrapin’ kernals off an ear of corn.”

  I winced. “You can skip the gruesome details,” I said while finishing my beer and waving for another. I wasn’t squeamish, but hearing about a guy getting his toes shot off was more than I had hoped for tonight.

  “Sorry ma’am,” he said while grabbing a second beer. It hissed as he opened it up and handed it to me. “Although that’s the only wound he took, and I wasn’t shot at all, Charlie did manage to hit one of my engines. We lost most of our thrust from the rotor disk in the blink of an eye. But this was a twin-engine UH
-1N, so I had the second one. That’s only 50 BHP by itself, so it’s barely holding us in the sky while I tried to get us out of firing range and to safety. Alarms were screaming in my cockpit and the E-9 was hollering about his bloody toes, but I kept my cool. I managed to wheel us around toward safer territory, but we’re losing altitude fast. I wrangled the cyclic—that’s the stick—like a goddamn rodeo bull to get that helicopter over a section of Vietnam that wasn’t full of jungle trees. A clearing no bigger’n a baseball diamond. Any other pilot would’ve put her in the ground sideways, but I managed to steady her out ‘til we bounced.”

  “You landed it safely?”

  “You bet I did. Just about, at least. We bounced once, and the rotors became unstable. She tilted sideways until the blades hit the ground. They dug up more dirt than a monster truck rally. Tore the blades all to hell, and bent the rotor mast beyond repair. When the rotor finally stopped spinning the helicopter fell over.” He demonstrated with his hand making a karate-chop motion on the bar, and then falling flat. “Didn’t blow up, though! I got that E-9 out and away, since he couldn’t walk himself. Still get Christmas cards from him every year. Least I did, ‘til he died back in 2009.”

  He nodded to himself as if that were the end of the story.

  “But… the nickname?” I asked.

  “Oh! Right. So we radio’d the boys for pickup. We weren’t far from base, so they sent three jeeps over with grunts. They get there and help the E-9 into the jeep, and one of the boys looks at my Huey and asks what happened to her. So you know what I said? I told him, it just sort of flopped over! I didn’t mean it as a joke, but boy, the E-9 laughed harder than a crazy person. Slappin’ his knee and everything. Granted, it might’ve been the morphine they gave him, but when an E-9 laughs, a bunch of privates laugh with him.” He spread his hands. “They told that story all over base for the next week. And the nickname Flop just sorta stuck.”