Cabin Fever (19 page)

Through it all, though, wound a thread of sadness that most times she tried not to think about. She was in Tall Pines for as long as she still had something to learn from Duane, but sooner or later he would go off to his retirement or she would face the fact that she had learned everything she needed to know about the newspaper business, and now had to get on with the business of setting out on her own. And meanwhile Brad had plans of his own, plans that didn’t include her, plans that she didn’t want to include her. It was as if the two of them had made their bed on top of a time bomb, and they both could hear it ticking down to detonation.

They talked about it, from time to time. Not often, but frequently enough that neither had any room for illusions or cause to claim later that they had been lied to or misled. “It’s a ton of work,” Brad would say. “More than I’ve ever known. I wonder sometimes if I’ll be able to do it.”

“What happens if you can’t?” Sarah asked. The two of them were curled on the couch in her father’s cabin, finishing off a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Heath Bar Crunch with a shared spoon that they passed back and forth.
 

“I can do it. I have to do it,” Brad answered with quiet determination. “There is no Plan B, so I can’t allow myself to think that I won’t be able to do it. But that doesn’t mean that I have to be blind to the reality of the situation, and the reality isn’t always pretty. You have no job security. You’re always going to be judged by your most recent win or loss. And then there are the hours, which are brutal.”

Sarah shook her head. “I still don’t get it. Why does it have to be like that? It’s so stupid!”

Brad chuckled and hugged her from behind. “I know how you feel, baby. And I love how worked up you get about it. It’s sexy. You’re turning me on.”

Sarah ignored his teasing. “I’ve seen the same stupidity in the Valley. You can’t work in a technology startup without working crazy, stupid hours. It destroys relationships and burns talented people out, it results in low-quality work produced by people who are exhausted, but everyone is so convinced that it’s necessary that nothing ever changes. I hate that sort of thing. I hate when stupidity just piles up on itself, and otherwise smart people somehow never think to ask questions about any of it. I hate it!”

Brad wasn’t laughing any longer. Instead he hugged her more tightly. “Stupid or not, that’s the way it is right now, and if I want a job coaching – and I do – I have to play the game. Maybe someday, if I’m successful, I’ll have enough influence to make changes, but for now I don’t have any choice.”

She sighed. “So what do their wives and girlfriends do?”

She could feel Brad shrug behind her. “They … make arrangements. I’ve seen it in action. They have lives of their own, they keep busy during the season, and then during the offseason they go on long vacations together. It seems to work for some, but it’s nothing I would want. It’s not a real marriage. It’s more of a partnership, and I’ve always believed that a woman deserves more than that.”

Sarah sat silently. Every time they talked about each other’s future they came back to this point, where Brad was clearly talking about her without naming her directly. She never knew what to say. He was right, she did deserve better than that. She would never accept that life for herself. It still broke her heart to think of it, though, and not only because she would lose him, but also because that would be his life. It sounded so lonely. She hated that it was the future he had chosen for himself. She hated that, in part, he was choosing her future as well – a future that would not include him.
 

Of course she had always known that their days together were numbered, and it wasn't just because of the coaching. When she looked at the situation logically, she could see that they had almost nothing in common. Really, any rational person could see that what they had was an accident of circumstance. If they had met at any other time, in any other place, they would have gone their separate ways without a second glance. Their time together was a fantasy, and Sarah knew that she treat it as such: as a precious, fragile thing that would go away in a moment and, years from now, would be no more than a titillating story that she could share with her girlfriends.

That was all it was. She knew that. So why did tears come to her eyes whenever she thought about the end?

Inwardly Sarah flinched away from the thought. She didn't want to think about that, not while everything was so good, not while she felt so warm in his arms. She leaned back into his embrace and shifted the conversation to a safer place. "How are you going to stay happy while you're working so hard? What are you going to do to protect yourself against burnout?"

He was silent for a time while he formed his answer. "I ... I don't know," he admitted at last. "I guess I'll have to figure a few things out. And to tell you the truth, happiness isn’t the first thing I’m looking for. I don’t feel like I need to have everything I want the first time out. But what I do need is a chance to show that I’ve got what it takes to succeed as a coach. And if I need to put my personal life on hold for a few years while I get that started, well I guess that’s something I’m willing to do.”

She answered him with silence. There seemed to be nothing else to say, but then one more question came to her lips. "It's not going to happen for a while, right? You won't be leaving soon." She hated the way her voice sounded when she asked the question. It was plaintive, like a child asking after her lost cat. Sarah had always prided herself on her strength, but she wasn't feeling very strong right now.

He was silent for a long time, but then he hugged her tight. "It won't be soon," he murmured. "We have time."

His lips came to her ear then, and traveled from there to her neck. Sarah stretched languorously in his arms, a slow smile spreading across her face. His hands traveled up first to cup her breasts while he kissed her neck, and then they started traveling down again. Sarah twisted in his arms so that she was on all fours above him on the couch, looking down at him with a mock-stern expression that said, “Oh no, it won’t be as easy as that.”

Their lips came together, and then their tongues in a kiss that was deep and sloppy and just right. Brad’s hands were in her hair, and her hands were on his chest where she could feel the play of his pectoral muscles when he moved his arms. God he was sexy, and he made her feel sexy, too. When they were together, Sarah felt like a goddess of love and sex. She felt like she could do anything, and she wanted to do everything.

She lifted up into a sitting position and smiled at him as she unbuttoned her blouse, slowly and teasingly. Brad puts his hands behind his head and wore a large smile as he enjoyed the show. Sarah didn’t need his smile, though. She could feel, pressing against the inside of her leg, an evident sign of just how much he was enjoying himself. She would be sharing that pleasure very soon now.

When her blouse hit the floor, there was the question of her jeans. She wanted them off, she wanted to strip for her man, but she was enjoying the feeling of sitting in his lap and she didn’t want to get up yet. Sarah solved the problem by shifting sideways and lifting her legs in the air. She had been a gymnast up through high school, and she had stayed flexible during the more sedentary years that followed. She only felt a slight strain in her hamstrings as she slowly pulled the jeans over her butt and down the length of her legs.
 

Brad had the look about him of a hungry man at a banquet. His eyes shifted from her legs to her eyes to the bra that still contained her breasts. Sarah wanted to laugh, but she didn’t want to risk spoiling the mood. Instead she shifted back around so that she was perched on him again and slowly started unbuttoning his cotton work shirt. “What do you want?” she whispered in a sultry voice.

Brad made a low noise deep down in his throat, more a growl than a part of speech. “You,” he muttered. “I want you.”

Sarah smiled. She loved the feeling of control. She had power over this man and savored the experience. “I know you do. But what do you want me to do to you?”

Sarah couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if Brad’s nostrils actually flared. She had seen him turned on before, but not like this. “I want …” he started, then trailed off.

“Yes?” she purred, coming to the end of the buttons and pulling his shirt aside to lay his chest bare.

“Suck me,” he said at last.
 

Sarah shifted to the floor, and her hands drifted to the button fly on his jeans. “Relax,” she purred. “I want you to enjoy this.”

In answer Brad closed his eyes and pulled his head back as she undid his belt and used both hands to pull the buttons open on his fly. His erection was straining against the material of his briefs and his jeans, and it nearly exploded into her hand when she freed it of the straining material. Even now, after they had been together so many times, Sarah marveled at the size and power of it.
 

One hand didn’t seem like enough to hold it. She took the shaft in both hands and began stroking slowly up and down. Brad let out a sigh, which was good but not the reaction she was looking for. Sarah opened her mouth and slowly took the head into her mouth, sucking lightly on the crown. She was rewarded with a great moan from her lover. That was more like it; she sucked harder and began moving her hands up and down the shaft.

“Shit! Shit,” Brad moaned from above her.

Sarah freed her mouth. “You don’t like it?” she asked, knowing that he did.

“Oh baby, I love it. Too much. You’re going to make me come and I wanna…”

“Yes?” she teased, her hands still working his shaft.

“I wanna fuck you,” he said, and leaned forward to grab her under her arms. Kissing her, he pulled back, hard, lifting her onto the couch on top of him. His erection was captured between their bellies and rubbed deliciously against her clitoris through the soft fabric of her panties. Sarah gasped her pleasure into his mouth. Control felt good, but this felt good, too.

Urgent with his need, he flipped her over onto her back and spread her legs. Something brought him back to the moment; his eyes asked the question before his mouth formed the words: “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Sarah breathed, surprising even herself. She shouldn’t be ready yet, she couldn’t be ready yet, but she felt so wet that she was sure she must be dripping on the couch cushions. “Yes!” she said again, more fiercely, calling him in.

Pulling her panties aside he kneeled between her and then he was deep, deep inside. Sarah wrapped her arms and legs around him and settled in for the ride. Brad’s face was buried in her neck, and she kissed his neck and his hair and called on his name as he drove deeper and deeper into her. Sarah wiggled her pelvis until the friction was just right, and then there was no time or space for conscious thought as the two of them raced to orgasm. When she came in a burst of light and shuddered breath, her groan tipped Brad over the edge and he roared his pleasure into a cloud of her hair.

Afterwards they drifted to sleep together in bed, their limbs intertwined. Sarah still felt a bit of the high from the sex, and she felt warm and safe in the circle of Brad’s arms, but inwardly she was troubled. She felt both happy and unhappy, and she didn’t know where the confusing tangle of feelings was coming from. Maybe she was sad that Brad was determined to head down a path that she thought would destroy his health and his happiness. She wanted better for him, and hated that she couldn’t find a way to stop him from making that mistake. Or maybe she was sad that he had picked a path that would not and could not include her. By some unlikely set of circumstances he had found her way into his life, and now that she could smell him on her sheets, she didn’t want to go back to where she had been before.

Ellie thought she was crazy, of course, and the next morning she didn’t hesitate to tell her so. “What’s so bad about being a coach’s wife?” she would demand, and through the phone line and across the miles Sarah could feel her exasperation as if it were almost a physical thing.

“You know why. He would have no time for me. And by the way, who’s talking about marriage, anyway? Because Brad certainly isn’t.”

“He’ll get there eventually if you give him a chance! He’s obviously hinting around the subject to see whether you’d be willing to go with him, and I know you want to say yes, but you won’t because you’re so stubborn that I want to slap you!”

"Don't beat around the bush, Ellie. What do you really think?" Sarah asked sarcastically.

"It's just you drive me so crazy! You've always been like this. Even in high school. As soon as a man gets interested in you, you figure out how it will all end badly. You’re always so sure that you’re going to get hurt that you never give it a chance."

"That's not true."

"Oh, it's true. I've seen it happen over and over again. And I'm seeing it happen again, right now. You've got a sexy pro football player eating out of your hand, and just when it's all getting good you're starting to give up. You know what I think? I think you're afraid to be happy."

"What?! Please."

"I think you're afraid to be happy, and it's much easier for you to give up and say it never could have happened than it is to try for something that you really want and risk not getting it. And so you don't try, and it doesn't happen, and you use that as proof that you were right all along."

"This is so unfair. Why do I keep calling you?"

Ellie's voice softened. "You keep calling me because I'm the only one who will put up with your bullshit. But that's getting harder."

“Oh, you know you love it. But seriously, I don’t want that life, and you’re wrong – Brad doesn’t want that life for me. I would be stuck out in some god-forsaken town in the middle of nowhere, and the sole reason I was there would be so busy working 16-hour days that he’d pay no attention to me. Thanks, but no. And that’s not even addressing the fact that he hasn’t asked me to come along, so I don’t even know why we’re talking about this!”

“We’re talking about it because that’s what you really want, even though you won’t admit it.”