Chapter Thirty-five
Friday morning brings dreary rain and I climb out of bed and throw some clothes on. Andy is still asleep but I promised I'd wake him when I got up. I go to the bathroom and when I come out I crawl up the bed to where he's lying and kiss his earlobe. He stirs slightly and I plant a kiss on the end of his nose. He flicks his head to the side and I lick his neck up to the base of his ear.
Suddenly two arms are wrapped around me and I'm thrown on my back.
"Don't start something you can't finish" he whispers in my ear before sucking on my neck.
"For once, it's you who won't be able to finish" I say to him. "It's 6.30. You have to get up for practice remember."
He shifts his hips against mine and says "I'm already up."
"Nice, but no" I say and push him off me. "Come on, you have to get ready. You're suppose to be leaving at seven remember" I say to him.
"We've got time" he says with a grin as I climb off the bed and go back into the bathroom to straighten myself back up.
I brush my hair again and decide to put it up but when I do I see a mark on my neck from last night's frolicking. Dam it. He marked me.
I let my hair fall back around my shoulders and mentally note to keep it forward and not to tuck it behind my ears today. Sandra will give me such a hard time if she sees that.
I walk back out and find Andy with one leg in his jeans, jumping around on one foot trying to keep his balance. He glances up at me and loses it before falling on the bed behind him.
"Having trouble with you jeans?" I say with a grin.
"They're only tight when you're around" he replies and I laugh as I walk out of the bedroom, leaving him to wrestle with them himself.
I say good morning to the kids as I pass them in the living room and go and turn the kettle on. I come back to the couch and ask what they want for breakfast before heading back and making it. I pour two cups of coffee and when Andy wanders in a minute later barefooted in jeans and a singlet, I hand him a cup and he gives me a kiss.
"Thank you" he says and sits at the bench seat.
"Welcome" I say.
He takes a mouthful and I ask him if he wants anything to eat.
"No thanks, I'll grab something on the way" he says.
"Okay. Is Shaun picking you up or are you driving?" I ask him.
"I'm going to drive Bradie and I down and then come back this afternoon. I think the other two are staying with Sonny again and going out tonight."
"Well, how come you're not?" I ask him.
"I want to stay with my girl, if that's okay" he says to me.
"Yeah, it's fine. It's just, I don't want you to feel like you have to stay with me all the time. If you want to go out, then go, please. Don't feel like you're obligated to be beside me all the time okay. Don't cut your mates out of your life."
"I'm not. Honestly. I just want to be where ever you are. Those parties are boring if you aren't there," he says.
"Yeah, but they never used to be did they?" I say.
"Do you want me to go out tonight?" he asks me, getting a bit pissed off from the looks of it.
"I want you to do what you want to do" I reply.
"Great, then it's settled, I'm going to come back here, after practice, and do you," he says with a grin.
"Cute. But I'm serious. If you want to go out, please go out."
"Okay, I promise that if I want to go out, I will. Does that make you feel better?" he asks.
"Yeah it does. Now you'd better get your ass into gear. It's seven o'clock and Bradie will be waiting."
He leans over the bench and gives me a kiss before putting his cup down. "Bye sweetie, see you tonight sometime okay."
"Okay."
"I'll text you when I'm leaving."
"Bye" I say and he heads next door. About five minutes later, I hear him pull out of his driveway and beep the horn as he leaves.
I get organised and get the kids lunches made and then get them dressed in their uniforms.
We walk to the bus stop and when I get back I see Tom out the front getting the paper.
"Morning Tom" I sing out and he waves back at me.
"Hey Elle, I see you got my son out of here on time for once this morning" he says.
"Amazing hey?" I laugh and head inside to dress for work.
When I arrive at the shop I say good morning to Sandra and head out the back. She pokes her head into my office and I ask her what's up.
"How did you go on Wednesday with the program? Is it working okay?"
"Yeah, everything uploaded great. No bugs or errors at all. I even managed to email the worksheets here so I can up load them onto this computer as well."
"Oh great, I meant to tell you to do that but I see you've thought ahead. Listen, I was wondering how you would feel about doing just Friday's here starting from next week?"
"That's fine with me. If you want me to do that, then yeah, no problems at all."
"Great. I was hoping you'd say that. I also wanted to ask you something else. I've been planning on having a week off in May for quite a while now and even though I have Angela here part time on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the shop, I was hoping that maybe you'd be able to work that week as well. I've asked Angela to work the whole week for me but I'd feel better knowing that, well if anything goes wrong, I'd feel better knowing that you'd be here to sort it out."
"That's fine with me" I tell her. "I would just need to check a couple of things but it should be good."
"Terrific. I'll let you know for sure what the date will be as soon as I know. Thanks again Elle, you're a lifesaver, truly," she says before heading back out to the shop.
I go about my work and before I know it, hunger strikes and I realise it's lunch time. I grab my wallet and phone and go out to let Sandra know I'm off for lunch.
She nods at me and I head across the road to say hi to Alice.
She's behind the counter as usual and I give her my order. Instead of going out to the table to wait I decide to stay in the shop and chat to her whilst she's making my lunch. There's no one else in the shop so I ask her if she had a good week.
We casually chat about the week that was and plans for the weekend. I notice she makes no mention of a boyfriend so I ask her if she's seeing anyone.
"Not at the moment, why do you ask? Are you going to set me up with someone?" she says with a laugh.
"Actually, I was thinking of maybe inviting you over for a BBQ with my neighbours. You've met my boyfriend Andy right?"
"Yeah, he was in here the other day actually."
"Well, he has a brother you know" I say with a smile.
"Yeah, and?" she says.
"He's been here once before actually but I don't know if you'd remember or not."
"Are you talking about Bradie?" she asks me.
"Yeah I am, you know him?"
"Of course I know him. You can't live around here and not know who the members of Short Stack are."
"Well that makes this easier then. So would you like to come over maybe on Sunday?" I ask her.
"Sure, that'd be great" she says handing me my lunch and her phone. "Just put your number in there and I'll give you a call this afternoon or tomorrow okay."
I grab her phone and put my number in it and hand it back to her. "Okay, I'll talk to you then I hope."
A couple come into the shop so I head out the front to the table I usually sit at and send a text to Andy.
Hey sweetie, hope it's going well. I just invited Alice from the Deli over for a BBQ on Sunday. Can you check if Bradie's up for it?
I unwrap my roll and start eating when a text comes back.
He said yes. Do I invite anyone else?
I reply with Yeah, sure. Ask Shaun, Brooke, Shannon, Sonny, whoever okay. Just let me know how many.
Okay gorgeous, see you tonight. X
Bye x
I finish my lunch and head back to the shop, turning off my phone in the process. When I've finished for the day I grab my stuff and say goodbye to Sandra on my way out to my car.
I climb behind the wheel and turn my phone on before starting the car.
It buzzes signalling I have a new text and I grab my phone to check it.
Setting me up I see… she'd better be as nice as you :)
Ah Bradie. I send a quick one back saying better ;) and start the car and head home.
When I get there, I change out of my work clothes, grab some steaks from the freezer for dinner and grab the washing in off the line.
When it's all put away I grab my phone and keys and walk to the bus stop.
On the way home with the kids, I tell them about the BBQ we're going to have over the weekend and I ask them if they want to help me make the food on Sunday morning. They both love cooking and eagerly agree to be my little chefs.
We have an early dinner and by eight o'clock I still haven't had a text from Andy. Maybe he's actually stayed there the night and is coming home tomorrow. I decide not to annoy him and let him text me if he wants to.
By half past eight the kids are both asleep on the couch and I'm not far behind them. I put them both to bed and go and have a quick shower. I throw some pyjamas on and go back out to the couch. There's nothing on TV so I grab a book off the bookshelf and head to bed with my phone in hand.
I must have dozed off because when I feel the bed move suddenly I sit up and squeal.
"Shhhh. It's only me" I hear Andy say.
"Shit you scared the crap out of me" I say looking over at him. The bedside lamp is still on and I can see he's naked. Whoa. He's happy to see me too.
"Sorry" he says as he crawls over to where I am. He gives me a kiss and says, "I was going to text you but then it was after nine when I left and I didn't want to disturb you so I thought I'd surprise you instead."
"Well, you successfully scared me" I say as he pulls the sheet off me to see what I'm wearing. He sees that I've only got a black see-through nightie on and he sucks air in through his teeth.
"What the hell are you wearing?" he says.
"Umm, my nightie" I reply as his hands find my body and start to pull the hem of my clothing up to reveal nothing underneath.
"Well, looks like I'm the one who's surprised then hey" he says and bends down to kiss me again with a bit more effort.
Not long after my nightie hits the floor and I'm biting my lip to keep from screaming out his name. How he gets me so high is a mystery but I'm almost drunk off his attention to detail. He gets me to a climax again before he joins me and collapses on top of me.
"I've been thinking about that all day" he says in my ear as I'm trying to get my breath back.
"Really? Shouldn't you have been thinking about guitar riffs and what have you?" I reply.
He moves off of me and goes into the bathroom before coming back out to where I'm still laying in a naked mess of limbs. He bends over and kisses me before saying "that's probably why I kept fucking up all day and the reason practice went so late."
I smile at him and force myself to stand and go to the bathroom. "Back in a second" I say over my shoulder to him.
When I've composed myself and cleaned up, I go back out to the bed where Andy is lying face down.
I run my hand up and down his back and over his ass to the back of his legs forming a circuit. He hums in approval and I feel his body relax.
"So you kept stuffing up today then?" I ask him.
He rolls his head toward me and says "yeah, and I'm blaming you and your sexiness."
"I wasn't there though so you can't blame me."
"I think that's why I stuffed up. Because you weren't there and I was thinking about what you were doing constantly. I though Shaun was going to bust a nut at me in the end. I swear Bradie was making choking signs at me all afternoon."
I start laughing at him and his pout gets more pronounced.
"It's not funny you know. We went three hours over today because of me and my lack of concentration skills. Come to think of it, it only went downhill when you sent me that text."
"Hey, don't be blaming me again. You're just constantly horny and can't stop thinking about it. Nothing to do with me" I say.
"You're kidding right? Look at you! No wonder I'm horny all the time."
"Okay, whatever. It's after midnight now. Come on, lets get some sleep while we can," I say to him.
"If you want some sleep, I suggest you put on a daggy old pair of flannelette pyjamas cos I'm just going to have my wicked way with you again if you put that nightie back on."
"Be serious" I say as I forgo the nightie and crawl under the covers naked.
Andy climbs in behind me and reaches over to turn out the light. He cuddles into the back of me and kisses my shoulder.
"I love you" he whispers in my ear and I turn my head and kiss him back.
"I love you too. Goodnight my sweet" I say.
"Night gorgeous" he replies as he holds me tight.