SWNOVELS HUGE STEPS: Chapter 13
“Thanks, Jared. I appreciate it. I’m not as bendy as I used to be when I was your age,” Mr. McCallum laughs, handing me the signed receipt. “Getting old is for the birds.”
I clap him on the back. “Nah. Nothing wrong with vintage,” I reply. “Anyway, with any luck, the icemaker won’t cause you any more problems.”
I slide into the work at hand, going over the paperwork from my last job, making sure I didn’t miss anything. With my thoughts so cluttered by everything that’s been happening lately, I’m worried I will. But no, everything seems to check out, so I throw the van into drive and head home, ready to relax after another long day.
As I turn onto our street I immediately notice Abi’s standing on her tiptoes, trying to push a large trash bag into the apartment’s dumpster by the curb. That’s all it takes for me to pull alongside her, rolling down my window. It’s not as if I can avoid her anyway. “Hey there.”
Abi lets out a little shriek as the top of the dumpster closes shut loudly, and turns back to me, giving me a little wave. “Hey. Did you just get home from work?”
I nod. “Yeah. Eight jobs today, can you believe it? Luckily most of them were really small things that only took like half an hour if that. What are you up to?”
Abi shields her eyes from the sun and leans into the van. “It’s my day off, so I’ve just been kind of hanging around the house. I was thinking about what I wanted for dinner, but I still don’t know.”
“How are you holding up? I mean… I haven’t really checked in with you about Cody and all…you haven’t had any more trouble from friends have you?”
“Cody, who?” There’s a small smile that lights up just enough of her face. “Really, though, I’m okay. Just taking it one day at a time.”
Pushing my hair out of my face, I smile right back at her. “That-a-girl.”
There’s a moment of awkward silence between us before she breaks it by asking me, “When was the last time you cut your hair?”
“Uh, I don’t really know. Maybe a couple of months ago?”
Abi just snorts, shaking her head at me. “Have you taken a look at the mirror lately? You totally need a haircut. Before you know it, not even I am going to be able to tell the difference between you and Jamie.”
Call me crazy, but something about that idea it doesn’t really sit well with me.
“Why don’t you come inside my apartment? I can give you a haircut. I used to cut my dad’s hair all the time before he started going to his favorite barbershop down the street from the house. What do you say?”
I blink, not really sure of what to make of Abi’s offer, but I’m not going to turn down a chance to spend time with her. No way in hell. “Sure. I mean as long as it’s not imposing on you or anything…”
I start to get out, watching her closely, wishing I was privy to what’s going through her mind. Abi rarely, if ever, just invites us over to hang out, much less do anything for us. And it’s not that she’s not sweet and caring enough to, it’s just that she’s always kind of kept herself distanced from me and Jamie. At least until now, anyway.
“Well, are you coming?” she asks with a smile.
I follow her back to her apartment, the conversation with Jamie nagging at the back of my mind. This is just a haircut, I tell myself. A haircut just means a haircut, nothing more.
“Okay, so where do you want to do this?” I ask, pretending not to care that Abi blushes furiously at my choice of words.”
“Um, stay right here for a minute, I’m just going to bring in a chair from the dining room…” she says, leaving me for a moment to drag in a chair. “Here you go.”
She moves for me to sit down and out of nowhere produces a towel to wrap around my shoulders. The moment her fingers graze against the back of my neck I jump. This is going to involve a lot of restraint on my end, I can just feel it.
“Do you usually get your hair wet before you cut it?”
I shake my head. “The guy just cuts it, no hair washing or anything like that.”
“All right. Just relax, I promise I won’t hurt you,” she says, amusement coloring her tone. The sound of scissors snipping away catches me off guard, and I’m wondering if Abi really knows how to cut hair. I mean, her dad’s hair is always pretty well done, but then again, she did mention something about a barbershop so…I imagine it looking terrible and uneven. How would I explain that to Jamie?
I take a deep breath and say a little internal prayer that Abi has enough scissor skills to make a good job of this. Only time will tell, I guess.
Instead of worrying about my hair, I focus on how close Abi’s standing to me. Close enough that I can smell the sweet strawberry shampoo she uses, and feel the warmth of her body when she presses her belly against my shoulder.
Everything about her feels so soft.
And I’m close to getting hard as a result.
Abi steadily snips away at my hair, bits and pieces of it falling away into my lap and on the floor around me. I don’t know whether she realizes or not but she starts to hum quietly to herself, something I didn’t know she does. It’s so damn adorable, that I wish I could comment on it, and maybe ask her what she’s humming. But that would probably just make her stop, so I stay quiet and listen with a smile.
I don’t expect the way she runs her fingers along my hair, trying to make sure there are no strays left behind, but she’s dragging her nails slightly over my scalp, sending insane tingles up and down my spine, until I’m wishing I could take her up on washing my hair. In the shower. Naked. Together.
“You know, I had no idea how thick your hair was,” she muses, her voice still softer from the humming. “It’s a wonder you don’t have to get it cut every few weeks.”
Another scalp tingle runs through me and I fight every urge to shiver under her touch. “I’ve never really noticed.”
Abi brings a comb out of nowhere and pulls it through my hair, the humming finishing off with a cheerful, “Voila!”
She hands me a small mirror to check out her handiwork and I turn it this way and that, looking out how evenly she kept everything. Not too much off the sides, and enough off the top that I don’t look like some ‘90s boy band singer.
In the reflection I see a hopeful look on her face, weighing heavier on me than I thought it would. I can see it in her eyes—she’s looking for some sort of validation here.
“Very nice,” I say casually, genuinely impressed with her skills. “Now what do I owe you?” I hand her the mirror back and sit up straight, smoothing out the top of my hair.
“I’d say that installing a new garbage disposal seems like a pretty fair trade.”
“Oh, does it need to be replaced? I wouldn’t mind handling that for you, especially since you turned me back into a decent-looking person once again,” I smile, eyeing the kitchen sink. “Do you need me to go ahead and do it? I’d have to order the kit, of course, but as soon as—”
The funny look on her face stops me abruptly. “I mean, Jamie already did it.”
Now I’m the one confused. “He did?” I frown.
Abi shifts her feet, uncomfortably. “Jamie came by earlier with a new one and replaced it for me. You didn’t know?”
I’m pretty sure my eye twitches well past normalcy, but I don’t seem to care. Jamie’s been over here. And while doing something like replacing a disposal seems pretty innocuous, I know my twin well enough to know his real intentions. Sure, he probably thought he was just being helpful, but that’s how Jamie’s brain works. Where some guy would give his girl flowers and candy, Jamie unclogs pipes and fixes creaky doors.
“I didn’t know,” I finally reply, not quite meeting her eyes. I have a feeling that if I do, she’ll be able to read me loud and clear. “But it’s fine, Abi.”
Pure relief washes over her features.
“So…when did he replace it for you? Was it today?”
“Yep,” she says, a broom appearing in her hand. “He said he took off early so he could come install it for me. It was really kind of him, I mean I didn’t ask for it and he just showed up with the box for it. Turns out it really needed to be taken out.”
Intrigued, I nod. “He just came in and fixed it, then left?”
She hesitates for a moment, the sweeping frozen until she starts back up again. “Well, not quite. He came in and then instead of doing it all by himself, he taught me about plumbing.”
“I get it,” I interrupt, not seeing the point in wasting time wondering what else they may have been working on in here. As amusing as it is to me, Jamie up to something. There was no way this was just about a waste disposal. Which certainly changes things with us in her apartment right now.
She takes a step back as I stand up, looking somewhat sheepish, but something changes in her eyes. “Hey, did you want me to maybe wash your hair for you? I see a whole bunch of little bits of hair around your neck and all.”
“Sure,” I say, wondering what Abi’s game is. I walk over to the sink.
“Okay, let me just grab the shampoo from my bathroom…”
The moment I smell the delicious scent of strawberries my knees nearly buckle. It’s the scent I most closely associate with her, and once her hands are running through my hair to wet it, I feel myself getting way too excited about a simple shampooing. It doesn’t help that I’m slammed up against the damn kitchen cabinets.
She’s humming again, her voice even sweeter this time around. “Keep your eyes closed,” she whispers next to my ear, and my cock thickens.
I do as I’m told, but it only makes it easier to think about what she’s doing and how she’s probably leaning far over, her tank-top pulled away from her chest. If I was facing in that direction, I’d get a nice view of her pretty tits.
Just like that, it’s over too quickly, and Abi quickly runs the towel over my head, drying off my hair.
My brain has been put on temporary hiatus when she pushes my shoulder to lean back, and I find myself staring up at her gorgeous face, my eyes unable to stop from trailing down to her chest and stomach, where splotches of wet water stains cling to her.
I stand up slowly, my eyes moving back up to her lips, seeing the way they’re slightly parted. She’s only inches away, and the gap seems to be closing by the second.
I’m kissing Abi again, and this time it’s just me and her in the empty, private space of her apartment. My hands are gathered up in her hair, and I’m backing her up against the counter, her hands tangled up in my shirt, pulling me even closer.
When she gasps against my lips it just drives me deeper into this forbidden territory, and I’m tasting her jaw, her neck, kissing back up to her ear, trailing my tongue back to her lips where I kiss her harder, more desperate this time. My mind is going a million miles an hour and I’m sure I’m going to lose this moment if I don’t run with it, if we don’t—
With one hand, she pushes gently away from me, disentangling our bodies until we’re far enough away from each other that we can look at each other properly. “I’m sorry, Jared. I…I don’t know if this is such a good idea.”
Rebuffed again and my mind teetering on the edge of some crazy precipice, I’m starting to really not like this feeling. I have to adjust myself by twisting to the side, hoping she doesn’t notice the strain against my pants that feels like it’s a new normal. “Okay, no problem. No pressure.”
I see the lump rising in her throat as she sighs. “I don’t know what we’re doing,” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“I…I kissed Jamie too when he was here…and now this…” she glances at the floor and my heart pounds. She kissed Jamie too?
“We have to stop…all of us,” she says.