Rival by M.C. Cerny
Aaron
“Ican’t believe you tried to finger fuck me at the dining room table,” Claudia hissed, pinching my arm. The pain took nothing away from the satisfaction of seeing her hair wild and eyes bright, on the cusp of a pending orgasm. My Buttercup was on edge, and it was a little taste of what she did to me with her coy teasing. She made fuck sound like a dirty word. I was hard just thinking about the word coming out of her mouth as I bounced her over my dick in my mind.
I took her frowning face in stride, considering I knew for a fact she wasn’t mad. She was upset she liked it so much, a hangover from our ultra-religious upbringing. I also knew I wasn’t going to get her to loosen up anytime soon. From the moment we returned from church, Mrs. Shaffer put Claudia to work in the kitchen, effectively separating us and forcing me outside to sit with Mr. Shaffer and Claudia’s little brother, who insisted on asking me the worst kinds of questions about being a Marine.
“Did you ever kill anyone?”
Yes. But given the fact their dad was sitting six feet away from me, and we’d just returned from a stern lecture about honoring each other’s neighbor, it didn’t seem like the fitting time to share. Uneasily, I shifted in my seat. Nothing like a twelve-year-old kid to put you in the hot seat.
“Luke,” Mr. Shaffer chastised him, but curiosity was a strange thing. He pressed forward, probably wondering how realistic it was compared to the movies I was sure he snuck watching at friends’ houses.
“What’s it like to shoot a gun?” He gripped his football tightly, sitting on the edge of his seat.
Amazing. The power in your hands was unlike anything I’d ever felt—next to sex with your sister—and carried a huge responsibility. Yeah, that wouldn’t go over well. My tongue was tied and throat dried up. He kept peppering me with questions, one after another, before I could gather my thoughts and respond.
“Did anyone in your unit die?”
Half my guys on the first fubar mission. It gave me nightmares at night and fast-tracked me to a promotion I didn’t deserve. The military was a strange beast of burden.
Instead, I smiled and asked him how football practice was going, and if he had any of the same teachers his sister and I had. That seemed … easier. Mr. Shaffer smiled from behind his paper, lips twitching, and I thought in a few ways my lack of divulgence earned me a small measure of respect with him. I didn’t have to wait long in the tense silence as he threw me a bone and put his paper down, focusing on Luke. The energy around this kid was palpable, constantly moving, inquisitive, and rife with teenage innocence in his sheltered world I didn’t want to ruin. I’d seen too much already and made choices that, while honorable, weren’t something to be shared over homemade lemonade and cookies.
“Luke, why don’t you call Steven to come over and throw the football. Your mother is working on dinner,” Mr. Shaffer said, waiting for Luke to be out of earshot. Sounding passive, his look told me to keep my ass parked in the uncomfortable metal patio chair. Waterboarding might have been preferable to a pissed off father.
He put down his paper and reached for his glass of lemonade. On the outside, the Shaffer family was all-American. Two kids, picket fence deal, and a religious routine. On the inside, I suspected the family dynamics were more complicated given the shrewd look from Claudia’s father.
“I know you were in the house last night.” He held up his hand to stop my practiced lie. “Give me the courtesy of not lying, boy.” He paused again, as if what he was telling me was painful to him. “I realize if my daughter is anything like my wife, she is hard to convince of an alternate course.”
Okay, maybe not painful, just embarrassing.
“Sir.” I gulped back my opinions on the latest global crisis outlined on the frontpage of his paper. This man had known me a good portion of my life, and even though I launched grenades at infidels and hot-wired Jeeps in the desert to make it to my rendezvous point without a second thought, I practically withered under his direct glare when it came to his daughter.
I needed his respect. Craved it. Someday I planned to ask his daughter to marry me, and I wanted to be worthy of the question. I knew I wasn’t perfect. Far from it. We both had a lot of growing up to do, and if time was kind to me, we would have that opportunity. I knew Claudia was hanging her hopes on a huge declaration, but I simply couldn’t give her one. At least not anytime soon.
“Claudia is headstrong. She thinks she knows what she wants, and she’s good at creating the fairy tale around it.”
I nodded. He wasn’t wrong. Even leaving her before, I knew Claudia had a secret Pinterest board of wedding dresses, and I did my best to ignore that fact like a microscopic splinter. It was there, annoying, and only time would take care of it one way or another. If she was looking to scare me off that first time, she succeeded, whispering to her girlfriends in our senior class about how I was going to propose to her on a beach and give her two perfect babies, a girl and a boy. She kept wanting to fast-forward time which only made me buck harder, despite wanting it with her.
Someday.
In the way distant future.
“I have no doubt you’ll do right by her, but she isn’t patient.” He tapped his knuckles on the table, and I snorted in agreement.
“I do care about her, but I signed on for the next tour. The military owns me body and soul.”
Mr. Shaffer leaned over the table, chuffing, “Then you should have stayed next door in your own damn bed.” He whipped his paper from the table and flipped it over to the world news section, pointing to a picture of a naval aircraft carrier parked in the Persian Gulf outside of Jebel Ali, specifically the ship I knew I was returning to but couldn’t comment on.
“She won’t hear anything you have to say outside of wedding bells.”
“I need time, and I want her to finish school. She’ll need to have something solid for when I’m deployed.” I eased back in the hard lounge chair, taking a sip of lemonade that was more bitter than sweet given our discussion.
“I agree. It will be good for her to be a little independent. Seeing as how both our families embraced the missionary life when you kids were younger, this won’t be new to her even if she doesn’t like it. I just don’t want you making promises you can’t keep or knocking her up. Her mother would die if she thought you two were…” Mr. Shaffer coughed and waved his hand in the air. I ran my hands through my short buzzed top. He wasn’t the only one uncomfortable, but I appreciated his frank talk and restraint from getting a shotgun out. Now, Mrs. Shaffer would’ve been a different situation, if she’d learned of my whereabouts.
“I appreciate what my parents have given me and your faith in me, sir.”
“Please, Aaron, at this point you should be calling me Ron.” He stood and offered me his hand. I stood and shook his firm grip. The man had basically given me his blessing to marry his daughter as long as I kept my dick in check. Otherwise, I was certain he’d feed me, with no Christian guilt whatsoever, to his wife, Laurie, on a silver platter. I didn’t really blame the guy.
It seemed simple to sit back and listen to Claudia and her mom gossip about the latest church scandal and who was dating who that we both knew. The hints of marriage were anything but subtle. Dinner invitations were extended to the family down the street as well. Before I knew it, the whole neighborhood had come prancing into the backyard, and by evening’s end I’d been maneuvered from the boy next door to the boyfriend. I could handle that considering the clock was ticking down a four year time bomb to a beach proposal.
My phone buzzed several times during the night as lemonade turned toward wine and the select beer for us adult males in the house. My team was checking in. My current commanding officer requested a status update on how soon I could get back to Norfolk, VA to deploy. My parents sent a one-liner to let me know the key was still under the patio rock if I needed it. Not exactly probing news, but I hadn’t expected much either. My sister, Sophia, asked if I could meet up for dinner, which I declined in favor of getting back early. By the time Claudia felt loose enough to sit in my lap, I was untangling her arms from around my neck and watching her smile turn into a frown. Her dad’s gaze was never far from us, and I reined in my libido with promising kisses in pantry closets and dark mudroom corners before slipping away at sunrise in Joe’s rental car idling in my driveway next door.
Claudia cried herself to sleep, and I planned to make it up to her; just not today. She’d have to wait another eighteen months when I got my next scheduled leave. For all I knew, she’d have moved on to newer Pinterest boards. Only time would tell. I’d always love her, my Buttercup girl. If she waited for me, I’d make it worth her while and continue deceiving myself into thinking I had all the time in the world.