My Mother's house

11

Nath got me before he finished the last part of the hall.  I sat out on the front porch and watched him brush on the poly, watching the wood turn into a golden color.  He had insisted that he carry down my bag and that he would carry it to the truck.  So I waited, having nothing better to do than watch him work.  He had finished the very last of the floor and leaned in to grab the door knob, somehow I had so badly wanted to give him a little shove and run away giggling.  I shook that thought out of my head, deciding the pain pill I had just taken was making me loopy.  Nath turned around and gave me a grin, like he knew what I had been thinking and I smiled back at him.  Yeah, I'm going crazy.
He picked up my bag and set it in the back of his truck. 
"I just have to clean out the brushes and put the lid on the polyurethane can, I'll be right back."
I gave him a slow nod and stood by his truck.  I started to feel sleepy and leaned against the door.  Stupid me had taken a full pill instead of the halves I had been taking.  This was my first drive after being home and I had felt a little nervous.  I must have drifted off a little, I didn't hear Nath come back.  He put his hand on the front of my shoulder, his voice came out just as soft as his touch.
"You ready to go?"
I nodded, struggling to keep my eyes open.  He pulled the door ajar and ushered me in. 
"Go ahead and lay down, like you did on the way to the hospital.  I don't mind."  He pulled an old shirt out from behind the seat and laid it over his lap.  "I have poly on my pants.  I don't want it to get in your hair."
In a normal situation, I would have a witty comeback.  But normally, I wasn't drugged up, about to lay my head on the lap of a guy who I couldn't say no to his advances.  Or whatever it was he had been doing.
I did like he instructed and lay my head down on his leg.  My eyes instantly closed and the lull of the truck rocked me to sleep right before I felt his hand in my hair.

I still felt groggy.  I wanted so badly to roll over and go right back to sleep but I knew I couldn't.  I had made the mistake of rolling over onto my back before and thought I had died and went to hell.  Instead, I shifted onto my side and caught scent of sandalwood and leather. I forced my eyes open, curious about the smell and why all of a sudden I felt ultra comfortable, in a soft pillow of a bed.  My sight lined up perfectly to see what my ears were hearing, a towel hit the floor, exposing the most perfectly white ass.  A white ass I had yet to see.
"Uhhhh"  I was about to tell him to cover back up, but my being awake was a little more than a surprise to him.  He whirled around showing his front side.  I know I should have stopped staring at his perfect rear end, because now I had a glimpse of something from the gods.  Something I shouldn't be seeing. 
"Put some clothes on!"  That is what I wanted to say, what I would have said and started to say as I rolled on my back, to get this heavenly figure out of my sight.  I made it one and a half words into my sentence and ended it in screaming.  Screaming and tears.  To say my burns were still a little tender was an understatement. 
Wet hands helped me roll back onto my stomach, closer to him.
"Jesus lex.  What were you thinking?"  Nath's voice.  I was at Nath's house.  His hands were damp and I could feel the drips off his hair as he hovered over me, lifting the back of my shirt.  We came back here so he could shower.  That explains why he was naked, but why was I in his room?  Why couldn't he have put me on the couch or something?
"Maybe next time you could face me away from where you will be standing, naked, and I won't get the shock of my life when I wake up."
I had turned my head away from him, but I could still feel his smile grow on his face.  His gaze flickered to my expression then to my back, to my wounds that still stung.
"I think you just popped the last of your blisters.  You can wear one of my shirts since yours is spotted with fluid and blood now."  His hand patted my butt before I heard him turn away and pull open a few drawers.  He tossed a shirt onto the bed in front of me and I scooted over to get it, then finished my way to the edge of the bed, so I could sit on the only part of my body that wasn't singing with pain.
I know what I was about to do was potentially wrong on my part.  Sending him mixed signals and all, but I reasoned that he would only see my back, the same thing he had just seen seconds ago.  The same thing both my brother and my Dad had seen.  I carefully took off my shirt, on the edge of Nath's bed, with my burned back facing him.  I did this slowly, and not for his benefit at all.  That part was solely for me.  My skin was raw, and every little glance of fabric was like sandpaper, sandpaper laced with needles and salt.  I had raised the shirt up, to just below my ribs when I felt hands helping me.  I hadn't felt the bed dip at all, hadn't felt the warmth off his body.  His hands were cool on my skin as they ran up my sides, taking my shirt with it.  My eyes flickered to a small mirror on the wall.  It showed just below my shoulders and up.  He was still shirtless, that much was easy to tell.  His sculpted muscle was trying to capture me, but my eyes followed his body up.  My gaze met his deep eyes, deep dark eyes that were staring into me.  He leaned towards me, still keeping our gazes caught by the other's and kissed me on the neck.  He kissed me softly and I had let him, moving to give him access.  That kiss held so many unspoken words, so many wonderful intentions, so many un-acted upon feelings.
He took the fresh shirt from beside me and helped me into it, then sighed and left my side.  I sat for a second, wondering about how things could have gone, and why he had kissed me that way.  Why I had let him.  My feelings were torn, and I needed to get out of this bedroom.  I put my feet to his wood floor and felt no barrier in between.  The wood was cool and felt nice in the summer heat.  I padded out of his room and down a short hallway to the living room.  He hadn't called after me, hadn't followed me out.  I think he too, needed some space.  The only reason for someone's hands to be cool fresh out of the shower was because the shower was cool.  I dragged my hands down my face, wondering what the hell I had gotten into, what was getting into me.
I opened my eyes, and caught sight of a picture on the wall.  A picture of little Nathy and an even littler me.  I had my arms around his middle clinging to him, smiling big and looking up to him.  He wasn't smiling though.  His father's hand weighed heavy on little Nathy's shoulder, his father grinning at the camera.
"You weren't supposed to be in that picture.  You ran into me last minute."
Nath's voice grew closer as he talked, ending right behind me.  I could feel the heat of his body on my sensitive burns.  He whispered in my ear.  "It's one of my favorites now."
"Do you have any other pictures of us together?"  My vision flickered over the frames on the wall, catching views of the past.  Nath as a teen in front of a sports car.  Him and a few friends at a bar.  "Is that Dr. Tom?"  I had moved away from Nath and was pointing at a picture a few feet away.   Nath didn't move, he had been staring at the picture of us on the wall.  "Yeah.  We went to high school together."
He was starting to worry me, but then his gaze met mine and he smiled.  It was slightly forced at first but grew on its own into the beautiful one I had grown to recognize from him.  I turned my focus back to the pictures, reading faces, seeing how happy everyone was.  The last set of pictures on the wall were of a small family.  I recognized Nath's father from the first picture with his hands around a gorgeous woman.  A small girl sat on Nath's father's lap and a baby was in the arms of the woman. 
"That's my Mom and Dad, my sister and me."  Nath pointed out faces to me. 
"Your mom is beautiful, I bet your sister looks just like her."
"She did when she was younger, but her hair started to darken and her face started to look more like Dad's."
Something was starting to bother me.  Something about the pictures and how Nath was acting.  My face scrunched up as I faced him.  "If we played together all the time, how come you don't have more pictures of us?"
"I didn't get my picture taken often when I was little." His face stayed calm but his eyes flickered with an emotion that wasn't there long enough for me to catch.  "We were too busy playing in the creek, or swimming, or running around being kids."
"Did your sister ever play with us?"
Nath grinned.  "No.  She is six years older than me, and fourteen years older than you.  She had to babysit us on occasion, but we always snuck out and played on our own."
"Why didn't we play with my little brother, he's only three years younger than me."
"He was really attached to your mom, plus he was potty training the last summer you all were here."
I wanted to ask why my family had stopped coming.  What had changed.  Why Nath looked so happy in all of his pictures except for the one I was in.  Why he didn't have more pictures of his family.  But none of those questions came out of my mouth.  "Why did we start playing together?"
"It's more like you started following me around.  You wouldn't leave me alone and I just let you.  I was younger and thought it was cute, but then you started growing up and talking more.  Started saying things and I had to make sure you wouldn't tell my secrets." 
The last part was meant to be funny, meant to be adorable, but I heard the sadness and regret in those words, heard all the things I wasn't suppose to hear.  I knew something about him that I shouldn't, and I had forgotten.