Chapter 9

The next few days were terribly difficult. I had promised Kay I would remain her friend and she did likewise. We had promised that we would also go back to being the same around each other as before any of this happened. And we especially promised that no matter what, we wouldn’t let this break our hearts. Like I said, it was terribly difficult.

When I had slipped into the house in the morning, feeling that my mom would know immediately what had happened the night before, I got lucky and she was still in bed. I guess her home party from the night before had run late. I hid the wet sleeping bag in the back of some boxes in the basement until both my parents were gone so I could get it washed and dried. I stashed the rest of my camping gear away and headed back upstairs to grab a bite of breakfast. I hit the shower to try to wash the smell of Kay and our lovemaking off me before my mom smelled me and as soon as I dressed I headed out the door and down to Mike’s house.

“Where the hell were you this morning. I ran up to your house and you weren’t there.”

“Oh shit, you didn’t ask my mom did you?” That was going to be difficult to explain when I had supposedly stayed at his house last night.

“Nahh, your Dad’s car was gone and nobody answered the door.”

A feeling of relief washed over me but as I quickly tried to come up with a lie to tell Mike, I thought I sure hadn’t done a good job of planning all that out when I decided to spend the night with Kay.

“Oh, I got up early and knew you wouldn’t be up yet so I took a hike in the field out back. What’s up today?”

We decided to do the usual things, ride our bikes, pick some cherries from the wild cherry tree in the field across from his house and sell them to make some spending money, went fishing in the pond, just the typical stuff we did all summer. That afternoon as I headed home for dinner Mike hollered, “Meet me at the Donut Shop after dinner.”

OK, I wasn’t sure I was ready to face Kay that soon after my heartbreak that I had promised to get over but I knew I had to, because I had promised her. Dinner was the usual eat it fast because my Mom’s cooking sucked, I didn’t want to answer any questions from her and I wanted to get going before my parents had time to start fighting. As soon as I could get out of there I headed down to the shopping center. Mike and I had each made $2.00 from selling cherries so coffee wasn’t going to be a problem but seeing the girl that had stolen my heart and then broke it into a million pieces was going to be.

Mike’s dinners were a big family thing at his house and I knew he’d be a while so I headed into the shop by myself. Kay looked up from behind the counter and gave me one of those smiles that just melted me. Why did this have to be so damn hard?

“Hi Gary, got you a cup of coffee, two shots of cream and 3 sugars, just like you like, sitting at your seat. I saw you coming.”

“Hiya cutie! Thanks,” I exclaimed as I headed over to my seat. I was going to do this no matter how much it hurt and I was surely going to put on a brave front.

I sat down at my seat after pulling out a dollar bill and said, “So you did?”

She walked over to pick up the dollar and with an inquisitive look, said “Did what?”

I tend to joke when scared, nervous, upset or just sad. Kind of my defense mechanism. So I put on a big old shit eating grin and said, “Saw me coming.”

She smacked my hand and leaned forward to say quietly, “Yes, as a matter of fact several times. And in several places.” She then smiled, winked and walked away with my dollar after giving me a little shake of her perfect ass. God, those tight white skirts excited me.

She came back with my change and bent over again while laying the money on the counter. I raised a little in my seat trying to see down her blouse as she said quietly, “Now don’t you be starting trouble young man or I’ll have to come out from behind this counter and slap you around a little.”

“Is that a promise?” I wasn’t able to get a good look and sat back again after giving her one of my award winning smile. “I’ll be good. How about a scoop of ice cream? You’re ... I mean ... it’s hot today.”

“Funny!”

She grabbed a bowl and said, “The usual vanilla?”

“I don’t know. Is that the one that’s in this back corner closest to me?” Again I flashed a big smile.

“You know it is. So I guess you want vanilla?”

“Uh-huh.”

“OK, smarty pants you asked for it”

Kay looked around and none of the other customers were watching so she slowly leaned all the way forward and stopped as she got down to the opening of the cooler with her chest. She shrugged her shoulders forward, making the front of her blouse looser, and stopped again as I saw those breasts that I had been holding, licking and kissing just last night.

“Umm, better make that a double dip.”

“OK, you want me to give you two, huh?”

I swallowed hard, and croaked out a hoarse, “Oh, yes please. Both of ‘em”

She scooped out two dips of ice cream, set it down in front of me, grabbed the appropriate change from what she had just laid down in front of me and then headed to the register.

Aww shit, you dumb ass. Why are you doing this to yourself? Kay started to help another customer as I decided I needed to knock it off. I would just end up torturing myself since I knew things were done between us. I vowed to quit being a smart ass and just try to act casual from here on out. Why stir up problems that there was no solution for.

Luckily Mike came through the door about that time and hollered, “Coffee please. Gary’s paying,” as he grabbed the seat next to mine. Julie, who was working with Kay tonight brought Mike a cup and took 15 cents from in front of me. I did owe him for buying me coffee several times so I let Julie take the money and then offered to buy him a donut.

“Nahh. My mom made a pot roast tonight and I just got done eating way too much. So what’s up tonight?”

“I dunno, got any ideas?”

“How about I ask my Mom if it’s OK if we sleep out in the fort tonight?”

“Nahhh, not tonight. We can go over and hang, play some cards or something but I really need to get home tonight.”

I rarely, if ever turned down sleeping out but I had not gotten much sleep last night and I couldn’t tell Mike I was out all night fucking Kay. So I made up some bull shit about some chores my Mom had me scheduled for in the morning and I’d get grounded if I didn’t get them done.

“OK, maybe tomorrow night.”

Summer days when we were kids were great, get a few chores done to keep Mom happy and then the rest of the days were ours. Mike and I and the rest of our gang did the usual things we liked doing, bike riding, pick-up baseball, worked on our dam that we were building on a near-by farmer’s creek. He didn’t mind we did so, as long as we kept the area clean. We made sure to keep things clean so that we could continue using the swimming hole we were creating. And most every night after all the hard playing and then going home to dinner, we ended up back at the Donut Shop.

About a week after “our night,” things had mostly gotten back to normal between Kay and I in the Shop. I hurt, god I hurt, but I had made a promise, given my word, and there was no way I would break that. Kay seemed to be doing OK also, or at least putting on a good show like I was doing. I guess deep down I was hoping she was hurting as much as I, that way I would know that maybe she felt towards me as I did about her.

I don’t know if it was on purpose or if perhaps she hadn’t needed any help but for a week straight she had not asked if I wanted to help her clean up at closing time. Tonight she did and I said sure, knowing to say anything else would make my friends wonder what was going on. And I was never going to let the secret out. Shortly after, my friends headed home and Kay locked the front door before we headed to the back room to straighten up the day’s mess.

We made short work of it and then Kay asked me to sit down a minute. There weren’t chairs in the back room so we each grabbed a seat on one of the boxes of supplies, facing each other as I wondered what would be said. I needed to let Kay start so I just kept my mouth shut and spent a minute or so looking everywhere but into her eyes.

Kay finally started. “How are you holding up? Are you alright?”

I put my best shit eating grin on and stated emphatically, “Great!”

Kay sat there a few more seconds and then asked, “Are you sure? That didn’t sound very convincing.”

The stupid grin left my face as I replied, “Do you want the truth or do you want me to say what you want to hear?”

“Gary, if by now, we can’t tell each other the truth, then things are definitely wrong. And I would never expect you to lie to me.”

I looked down, suddenly noticing a spot on the floor that I rubbed the toe of my sneaker on, trying to erase it, like I was trying to erase all the emotions I had been living the past week. I didn’t want to sound immature, I didn’t want to lose Kay as my friend and I for sure didn’t want to cause her any regret for our night of passion.

Finally, I raised my eyes to look at that gorgeous face and said, “I’m hurting, Kay. I know I promised and I would never go back on my word, but this is killing me. Every night I come in here and all I can think about was ‘our night, ‘ how wonderful it was, how much I loved it, and yes, how much I am in love with you. But I will get through all this and I don’t want you to think that in any way you have hurt me or hurt our friendship. Because that would kill me for sure, to lose your friendship.”

She sat there across from me and I could see her wanting to say something, yet unable to find the right words. I figured maybe I could make things easier for her and so I asked, “How about you? You doing OK?”

It was like I had opened the flood gates. Suddenly Kay was speaking simultaneously as tears came to her eyes.

“Gary, I can see the act you have been putting on, I know you well enough to know that you are doing that. But you want me to be honest with you?” She waited a second until I nodded my consent. “I am hurting too, partly because I have made you hurt but even more so because I regret that night so much.”

My heart sank all the way down to the tip of my sneakers. She regretted it. I knew it. I’m just a stupid little kid that had dreamed way too big. I felt the tears coming to me now.

“Gary, wait! Let me finish. I regret it because in finding out what a wonderful young man you are, that in helping you to learn how to treat a young lady, I have taught you everything that I love. And you learned so very well. I have never had anyone make love to me like you did. And I regret that I can’t ever have that again. You made me cum more times and in more ways than I had ever thought possible. And, besides, deep down inside of me I have fallen in love with you. I regret that we can’t fulfill that love.” she said with a sad smile.