A Simple Life: Chapter 34 (Patreon)

I’d only just realized what was actually happening when the moment had already passed.  I sit stunned, gawping up at Winona as she casually smooths out her clothes and gets to her feet as if nothing had happened.  The kiss, no more than a peck really, had been so brief I wonder if I had imagined it.  But the merry twinkle in Winona’s eyes as she offers her hand to help me up tells me that it was real.  Though she plays it cool a fay grin plays at her lips as she sees the effect she’d had on me.

I reach up and take her hand and let her help me to my feet, impressed as always by her deceptive strength.  Standing and staring I touch my lips and whisper.  “What was that for?”  I felt stupid the moment the words escaped my lips.

Her only answer is a breezy laugh and a shake of her head at the silly question.  “Come on Sprout.”  We exit the bush, her leading me by the hand, and once on soft lawn brush the soil from our bottoms.  I straighten my clothes and wipe my eyes and cheeks thinking about nothing except for that tease of a kiss.  It was…nice.  Really nice.  Her lips were so soft.  I wanted more.  Winona faces me and runs a hand down my vest as she checks me over.  She then gives the pad of her thumb a big lick and brings it to my lips to wipe them clean of her lipstick.  “Got a little something there.”

I giggle.

She nods toward the house.  “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

She pats my chest.  “If they tease you I’ll kick their ass.”

Something about the way she said that…I actually believed her.  It made me smile.  She made me smile.  A smile that came from deep inside.  Just as she had pulled me from my hiding place behind the shrubbery she had lifted my heart from the depths of self pity through patience, understanding, and kindness.  She offers me her arm in that gentlemanly way she had when I was Althea and I am only too happy to accept the offer.  Holding close to her side I accompany my date back into the house.

The moment we are through the door Kayla springs to her feet and hurries to meet us.  Around the living room the others turn to look with concerned expressions on their faces.  Argh!  This was so embarrassing!  Oh so subtly Winona’s arm pulls me in closer.

“Are you okay?”  Kayla asks.

“Y-Yeah.”  I say sheepishly.  “S-Sorry about that.”  I grip Winona’s arm a little harder to borrow some courage and after a deep breath say.  “I, uh, I was embarassed.  The movie made me…cry.”

“Oh my God.  That’s why you ran out of here!?”  Kayla smiles.  “I was getting misty eyed myself.”

“Me too.”  Says Briar, now sitting cross-legged from her spot on the floor.  “Full on sniffles.”

“Avery.  Everyone knows how close you and your grandpa are.”  Kayla says.  “No wonder it hit you.  Geez, I thought it was something serious.”

Before anything more can be said Winona chimes in.  “How about another round of Mojitos?  And where’s the music?  I thought this was a party.”

Kayla smiles and pats my shoulder then gives her ex a nod.  “Drinks coming up.  Babe!  Let’s lift the mood.”  With a flourish she snaps a hand into the air.  “CUFF IT!”

Moments later a pumping beat and the silky smooth tones of Beyonce fills the pod.  Right away Winona starts grooving to the rhythm.  Peeling away from me she turns sways her way backward into the center of the open area, her hands beckoning me forward.  I look left.  I look right.  Then I look back to her and point at myself and mouth the word.  ‘Me?’  Grinning as hard as I am she nods.  “I d-don’t know how to dance.”  I say over the music.

“Me neither!”  She claps, her body jiving to the beat as her long skirt swished back and forth, and summons me forward with a a gimme-gimme-gimme motion of her hands.  “Come to Mama.”

With a laugh I step out and start to dance.  Dance was a generous term for my awkward bobbing and shuffling but Kayla’s hoot and Winona’s approving smile spur me on.  The fact that Winona was even clumsier on the dance floor than I was yet completely at ease with that makes me all the bolder.  Fuck the haters!  Still holding the flower that she’d picked for me in my left hand I boogie.

Cain gets up from his chair and in one swift flowing motion lifts Riley to her feet by her hands.  She throws her head back and laughs and the pair spin out to join us in the open space between the kitchen and living room.

“Eeeeee!”  Riley squeals with delight as her suave boyfriend pulls her tight to his body.  The pair dance.  Like, properly dance.  Their graceful, practiced motions making Winona and I look like the pair of klutzes that we were, not that we were having any less fun.

Hips bopping back and forth as she muddles the new batch of mojito Kayla calls out to Briar.  “Come on girl.  Get up!  Shake that booty, baby.”

“Oh!”  Briar’s face turns bright pink.  She looks around at the rest of us.  “Okay.”

Standing up she starts with a little nod in time to the music.  Her shoulders start to rock back and forth.  Then her arms begin to swing forward and back.  Soon her hips join the action and finally her knees.  While her feet remain planted to the floor the rest of her was dancing along with the rest of us.  I can’t even imagine what kind of dance she thought she was doing but it was hilarious and wonderful.

“Ha ha haaaa!  That’s it Briar.”  Abandoning the drinks Kayla twirls and weaves through the rest of us to join her new friend.

One song leads to the next and then to another.  Without being asked Babe seemed to know just the songs to pick.  Upbeat, lively, and each one better than the last for dancing.  For a computer he was a pretty darn good DJ.  The six of us laugh and sing along and move our bodies to the music.  It was all so FUN!  For the first time in my life I actually understood why parties were so popular.

It hits me by the fourth tune…that I hadn’t ruined anything.  My emotional outburst was a thing of the past.  In fact we were having the time of our lives.  Nobody here expected me to be perfect or looked down on me for my moment of weakness.  I never would have seen this had Winona not drawn me back out of my shell.  It made me wonder how many other things that I had run away from throughout my life might not have been the earth-shattering deal I thought they were at the time.

Speaking of Winona…my goodness she was beautiful.  As we danced a very light sheen of sweat made her skin glow as if from some inner light.  Now and again her eyes catch mine.  Each and every time I my heart skips a beat and I am hit with that same connection as when our eyes met behind the hydrangea.  That moment just before she kissed me.  Each time our gaze would linger and the fires of our desire burned ever hotter.  In her burning hazel eyes I see a future brighter than the sun, I feel a lust hotter than flame and hear the sigh of a thousand unspoken promises.

As another song winds down Winona, her eyes still locked on mine, surprises everyone by speaking to the AI for the first time that night.  “Babe.  Play ‘Feels So Right’ by Alabama.”

Without a verbal reply Babe obeys the request and soon the upbeat pop transitions into the sultry opening notes of that song I’d heard and commented on the night before.  She remembered.  Graceful as ever Cain and Riley transition effortlessly into a slow dance, Riley melting happily into her boyfriend’s tall, muscular body.  Even Kayla and Briar get into it.  Not nearly as intimate as the couple but more of an easy waltz.  And Winona and I?  We stand facing each other in the center of the room gazing into each others eyes.  Around us the pod, the people, the world fades into the distance until it was just her and I and the music.

Plucking the flower from my hand she tucks it into the breast pocket of my vest then opens her arms to me.  “Avery Beckett.  May I have this dance?”

I damn near cry all over again, this time from joy.  With a nod I reach out for her.  She takes me into her strong arms and pulls me close.  As the sweet notes and words of the romantic country ballad float around us, we dance.  We dance and she leads.  From the very first step it was simply what flowed, easily and naturally.  My arms around her waist, her arms around my body, I rest my head on her shoulder as we slowly rock to the melody.

Feels so right.

Chapter 35