Chapter 28

Friday, September 13, 2013

Things started to settle into a steady rhythm.

Cece and I saw each other almost every day, and she didn’t seem to be getting sick of me, so that was a good sign. We had our time together driving to and from the gym in the mornings, our date and ballroom dance class on Tuesdays, and then we’d go out on Friday or Saturday as well. It was a little frustrating that we still hadn’t moved past her ending the night by giving me a handjob—sometimes finishing with me in her mouth and sometimes not—but it wasn’t the end of the world. I was thoroughly enjoying our time together as a couple, even without sex.

She finally met my mother, who took her out to lunch one day. As far as I could tell that went well. We had plans to join her and Maria for dinner next week.

Cece also started hanging out with Beth. She seemed to enjoy finally having a female friend in town. Part of me hoped that Beth’s ... uninhibited ... nature would rub off on my girlfriend, but only a little bit. On the other hand, I wasn’t a fan of Beth feeding Cece all sorts of embarrassing stories from our childhood. Oh well.

The Cowboys would be coming into town to play the Chargers at the end of the month, and Emma and I planned to go to the game, so we asked around to see if anyone else wanted to join us. Tori and Melissa immediately said yes, and I was only slightly surprised that Riley did as well. The group quickly expanded to include Becca, Nicole, and Maria, and before we could put the brakes on it, we had over a dozen teachers who were interested in going to the game, including Mr. Thomas, the PE teacher.

I asked Cece if she wanted to come, and even invited her dad too. Francis didn’t want to deal with all of the hassle of navigating a stadium and the associated crowds, but Cece said she’d be there. Then I invited Paul and Jackie. It was going to be quite the crowd, but I was excited for it.

I was finally feeling like I had a handle on everything at the school, and my students were doing amazingly well. Riley and I continued our little back-and-forth book club, and she even started to join the gang in my classroom for lunch on occasion. Things still weren’t quite back to normal between me and Melissa, whatever normal meant for us, but at least she could handle hanging out during lunch.

“Hey, Ryan. What are you up to tonight?” she asked as we all settled in to eat. I had ordered a sandwich from the deli across the street.

“Going to go out and do something with Cece, but we don’t really have any solid plans. Why?”

“You guys should come over to our place. We can have some drinks, play some games. Just hang out.” Melissa looked over to Riley and Emma. “You too.”

“Are you sure?” I asked her.

The petite blonde nodded and gave me a reassuring smile. “Yeah, totally. We never hang out outside of work anymore. We’re still friends, right? Plus, it would be good to get to know your girlfriend. I know it might be a little awkward at first, but I think if she can get comfortable with us then it’d be a lot of fun.”

“You should invite Beth, too,” Tori added.

“This is starting to sound like a dangerous collection of women for me to be alone with.”

“Oh, don’t be a baby. It’ll be fun. I’m sure we’ll only gang up on you a little bit,” Melissa said with a laugh. She looked over to Emma and Riley. “What do you think? Are you in for tonight?”

“As long as you’re providing the booze, I’ll be there,” Emma said.

Riley was a bit more hesitant, but she eventually agreed. “Sure, it sounds like fun.”

Everyone looked at me. “Fine, fine. I’ll ask her.” I pulled out my phone to send my girlfriend a text.

Hey, Melissa and Tori invited us over to their apartment for drinks and games tonight. Beth too. Are you interested?

It only took a couple minutes for her to respond.

Yeah! That sounds like fun! You know I love games. What time?

I looked up from my phone. “Okay, we’re in. Cece is excited. What time do you want us over there?” I asked.

Melissa clapped her hands. “Yay! Oh, let’s say eight?”

“But eat your own damn dinner before you come over, we’re not feeding all of you,” Tori said.

“That’s fine. I guess we’ll be over at your place at eight. I’ll text Beth too.”

I sat back and finished my sandwich while the girls all gossiped through the rest of lunch. When the bell rang they all cleared out to go pick up their classes. Beth texted back that she had nothing better to do, so she was down to hang out with everyone as well. She decided that I was going to make dinner for her and Cece before we went over, so the two of them would meet at my place around six.

When the school day wrapped up, I swung by the grocery store on my way home to grab some stuff I could throw together for dinner. I bought what I would need to make a Greek salad and some chicken pitas with tirokafteri, one of my secret favorite toppings. I would have preferred it with some real gyro meat, but chicken was just going to be way cheaper and easier to make work on short notice.

The girls showed up together while I was in the middle of making dinner. My girlfriend gave me a very enthusiastic kiss when I opened the door. “Hey there, hot stuff. I missed you.”

“Missed you too, beautiful,” I said, pulling her into a tight hug and kissing her again.

Beth made a gagging sound and slid past us to step into the apartment. “Stop being gross. You saw each other this morning.”

Encouraged by Beth’s annoyance at our PDA, I bent down to start nibbling on Cece’s ear and neck. She giggled and playfully slapped by arm. “Behave, Ryan.”

I smiled and pulled back. “Oh, hey Beth, didn’t see you there. What’s up?” I stuck my tongue out at her like we were kids again.

She winked and blew me a kiss, then held up the two bottles of wine she had brought. “I’m going to open these up. Is the food ready? I’m starving.”

“It’ll be done in ten or fifteen, calm your tits.”

The girls opened up one of the bottles and poured themselves glasses before sitting down at the table. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Cece kept giggling about whatever it was. After a minute or two, she brought me a glass of wine and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for making dinner for us,” she said.

“It’s my pleasure. You know I love to cook, especially for you. Beth is a bit of a hassle, though.”

“Fuck you too, bro,” she yelled from the table.

“Love you, Beth,” I said. My girlfriend smiled and went back to the table to sit with Beth. I finished the food as quickly as I could and then joined the girls at the table.

“It’s still so weird to see you cook real food,” Beth said. “You used to be as helpless in the kitchen as I am.”

“You should work on that if you ever want to land a guy for good. Men like a woman who cooks.”

She made a retching noise. “Absolutely not. I have no interest in any of that. No marriage for me, and definitely no cooking. But if I ever do find someone who I want to stick around, he can be my kitchen bitch.”

“Really? Cece asked. “You don’t ever want to get married?”

Beth shook her head. “Nope. No one’s tying this down. I love having my freedom. I can go where I want, when I want, and fuck whomever I want.”

“Whatever makes you happy, I guess,” my girlfriend said, but she didn’t seem convinced. I reached over and gave her leg a squeeze under the table. It was still way too early for us to be talking about getting married, but we both knew it was something we were at least aiming for. She shot me a shy smile.

“This is really good, babe,” Cece said. “Thanks again for cooking.”

“Yeah, you’ll make a great housewife someday,” Beth added.

“Hey, if I’m lucky enough to marry a woman who makes enough money and wants me to stay home to cook and take care of the kids, I’ll happily take that. Find me a sugar momma and I’d be a great trophy husband.” It would be kind of awesome to get to spend all day with my kids, once I had them.

“You and my sister can share lifestyle tips about that,” Cece said with a laugh.

We chatted about our week as we ate. I knew most of what Cece had been up to, of course. Beth had done a boudoir photoshoot for a friend, and would be doing her wedding next weekend.

“Is it awkward at all, taking pictures of someone like that?” Cece asked. “I don’t think I could do it.”

Beth just laughed. “Not at all. If anything the only problem I had was trying to hold back from jumping her bones. We used to mess around a bit. She looked really fucking hot.”

“Oh,” was all Cece could say in reply, a blush spreading across her cheeks.

“You should do one. I bet Ryan would like to have some sexy photos of you.”

They both looked at me. I just shrugged. “I mean, yeah, what guy wouldn’t want to have some sexy photos of his gorgeous girlfriend? But I think you’re embarrassing her, Beth.”

Cece just hid her face behind her wine glass as she took a big sip. “No, no ... it’s fine. We’ll ... talk about it later,” she said. I raised my eyebrows at Beth, who lit up with a huge smile.

We finished dinner and Cece insisted on cleaning up. I tried to help, but she shooed me away. It was still a little early, so Beth and I moved over to the couch to relax for a bit and continue chatting. Cece finished cleaning up in the kitchen and joined up, happily dropping her perfect posterior into my lap. I wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to me for a kiss.

“Seriously, you two are too sweet. It’s been almost a month, aren’t you sick of each other yet?” Beth asked.

“Nope,” Cece said, then she gave me another kiss. “How could I get sick of this guy? You’ve known him basically your whole life, you should know.”

“Yeah, and I’ve been sick of him for a long time!”

“Oh shut up, Beth,” I said, laughing. “You love me.”

“Of course I do,” she replied. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not sick of you, too.” Beth stuck her tongue out at me.

“You two really are like brother and sister. This sounds like a conversation between my siblings.”

Having Cece on my lap as we chatted definitely led to some arousal on my part. As my cock grew she shifted slightly, placing my growing erection right between her cheeks, but otherwise ignored it. When it was finally time for us to head over to Melissa and Tori’s place, I was dealing with quite a bit of tightness in my pants. I only had the one small glass of wine, while Beth and Cece were well into their third glasses, so I drove us all over.

We got there a few minutes after eight, and I was surprised to find that the three of us were the last to arrive. Melissa and Tori were there, obviously, as well as Emma, and Riley ... plus her roommate Tiffany. I froze for a second when I spotted her, and Melissa followed my gaze. She gave me a hug when I entered and then whispered into my ear “Sorry, I probably should have warned you. Riley asked if her roommate could come, and I totally forgot about what had happened with her.” Then she pulled away and opened her arms wide to huge Cece. “Cece! I’m so glad you could make it.”

“Thanks for inviting me,” my girlfriend said. “I’m excited to get to know more of Ryan’s friends.”

We all settled into the living room and grabbed some drinks. I took a beer, while Cece and Beth both grabbed a glass of sangria. I said hello to everyone and introduced Cece and Beth. Tiffany gave me a wink when my girlfriend wasn’t looking, and I just shook my head.

Melissa pulled out some games, most of which we had too many people to play. We started out with a few rounds of Bananagrams, while we were still sober enough to form words with the tiles. I won the first round, then Riley won the second. We called for a third round to act as a tiebreaker, but of course neither of us won that one, with Cece taking the crown instead.

After that we turned to Wits and Wagers, but both Emma and Tiffany insisted that we turn it into a drinking game. Then we had a hilarious round of telephone pictionary. My drawing skills aren’t great even when I’m sober, so the pictures I drew while inebriated were hardly legible.

“Okay, that’s enough of that,” Emma said, throwing her notepad across the room. “We’ve got lots of new people here. Let’s play something that will help us get to know each other better.”

“Like what?” Melissa asked, obviously annoyed at Emma for throwing things across her living room.

“Let’s play ‘Never Have I Ever’,” she said.

“I don’t know if that’s-” I started to argue against the game, but I was quickly shouted down by the group. Even Cece seemed excited to play, but I really didn’t think it was a good idea. Either way, I was outvoted. Everyone freshened up their drinks and settled back in to play.