Ian Walker
I sat in my car for a solid 15 minutes before turning it off and stepping outside. The air was muggy and hot, everything felt stuffy and like there was barely enough air. I tugged at my clothes out of nervous habit and strode over to the building and inside, where I was immediately blasted by the air conditioning, and I finally felt like I could breathe.
Riley was sitting in the same spot that she had been sitting in the first time I came to group therapy, she probably didn't notice, but I did. I tugged one more time on the collar of my shirt before her eyes scanned the room and landed on me. She smiled genuinely and uncrossed her arms, looking like she was about to stand, but decided to stay sitting.
I wish she would stand, I wish she would cross the room and hug me, hold me tight and rest her head on my chest. I made my way to a seat diagonal from her and she kept her gaze on me. She thought it was just a game but she really didn't know how much of a nervous wreck she made me. I attempted to keep myself from looking at her but it was nearly impossible, how could anyone not want to look at her.
I did my best to focus on Kathy and the session but it wasn't easy. I caught a few snippets of it here and there, "why we find inner fulfillment from sex...sex isn't love...we have to find different outlets...blah, blah, blah..." But as hard as I tried there was no way I could focus on Kathy when I could be focusing on Riley. They couldn't compare, I mean the things Riley made me think of in the top she was wearing...
I caught myself staring at her, and Riley caught me too. I looked away quickly, my cheeks heating up fast as I bit my lip and pretended like I had been listening to Kathy the entire time. Without even looking I knew Riley was smirking, because this was all a game to her, and she was winning. Life was a game to her, a game of chance, and she was always willing to take the chance.
When it was time to mark progress, I added one tally mark, because it was true, one week, no sex. Lot's and lot's of jerking off, but no sex. I had four tally marks next to my name, and even though it was stupid, I felt kind of proud of it. I gave a small smile as everyone clapped and shoved my hands into my pockets before going to sit down.
Riley had no tally marks. She had erased her last one the week before, so everyone was on the edge of their seats wondering what her next move would be. She, unexpectedly, added a tally mark next to her name. I exhaled a breathe I hadn't realized I was holding. I was honestly relieved, it was hard to explain, but I guess when you're in love with a someone, a lot of things become hard to explain.
She strutted back to her seat and pushed her hair out of her face, then sat down and crossed her legs. As I was looking at her she looked back at me and gave a small smile, then looked down avoiding eye contact.
After the session I stayed behind sat in my chair while everyone filed out of the room and into the muggy summer air. I ran my fingers through my hair repeatedly, trying to build up the courage to go out and face Riley. She always talked to me after group therapy and I wasn't prepared to try and hold a conversation with her today.
As I rounded the corner of the hallway that led outside, I could see her standing on the curb with her arms crossed, as well as her ankles, waiting for her friend to come and pick her up. I looked at her back for awhile, observing her, before she could see me. She had on black skinny jeans, that hugged her waist and ass, but you couldn't really tell with the shirt she was wearing, a black tank top and a dark blue and gray flannel over it, left completely unbuttoned, her breasts bulging out of her top. The flannel came down just above the end off her butt, leaving only a little of it exposed. The wind was blowing it up slightly, as well as pieces of her hair into her face, she reached up and brushed them away, and as she turned her head, she caught sight of me standing in the hallway and smiled, waiting for me to walk over to her.
I stood up straight and walked towards her, stopping before I could get as close as I wanted. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, her friend whose name I could never remember, pulled up and honked her horn for Riley to get in the car. Riley closed her mouth and began to walk towards the car before turning around and saying,
"Hey, call me, we can hang out." and then she winked and drove off. Always completely oblivious to the state she leaves me in.
It was three days later, on a Tuesday morning, that my phone rang. It was Riley, I had saved her number in my phone the moment she called me that first time to invite me to the club. I had even set a picture of her in the contacts, it was a picture I'd snapped on that night we spent on her roof, drinking wine, looking at the stars, and for one of us; falling in love. She was laying in my lap, looking up at the sky, and from the angle I took it at, it looked like she had her eyes closed, and you could see how long her eyelashes were against her cheeks. She didn't know I'd taken the picture, which was why I think she looked so beautiful, because she wasn't trying like she always is.
I hesitated to pick up the phone, but eventually did.
"Hey." I breathed into the speaker, sounding small. I could hear her talking through a smile, and she sounded like she was laying down.
"Hey, I told you to call, you didn't, so now I'm calling you." I scratched the back of my head and looked out the window at the rain that was pouring down today.
"Yeah, sorry, I got busy, I was going to," Noticing how shaky and nervous my voice sounded, I tried to gain some confidence, "don't be so eager Riley, have some patience." I joked, she chuckled before speaking again.
"Do you want to do something today?" I looked out the window and frowned.
"It's raining." I said. She sighed loudly into the phone.
"So?" I shrugged to myself and contemplated, whatever she had in mind was probably something crazy, and was I willing to do something crazy for Riley Green? Yes.
"What do you want to do?"
Half an hour later and I was driving in the rain to Riley's apartment, waiting for her to reveal her plan to me. She wouldn't tell me over the phone, she said I relied too much on knowing what was going to happen all the time, and that she was going to give me a taste of chance and risk. I wasn't sure that I trusted her, yet here I was parked outside her apartment. She ran down the steps in dark jeans, cuffed at the bottom, and a gray sweatshirt with faded red letters on it. Her hair was falling down around her face as usual.
I honked as she walked in front of my car and she jumped before getting into the passenger seat. Her sweatshirt was almost completely soaked through, as well as her jeans.
"Get a little wet did you?" I jokingly asked, as she squeezed the water out of the ends of her hair. She punched me on the arm and I rubbed it and pretended it hurt. "Okay, okay, so where are we going?"
She smirked up at me and cocked her head to the side. "I'm not telling you." She said.
"Well then how am I going to drive us there if I don't know where it is?" She looked down and played with the hem of her jacket.
"I'm going to drive." I raised my eyebrows at her and she finally looked up, smug as usual.
"My car? No, I don't think so, sorry but I'm not playing this game of chance if it means you drive my car, nope." She laughed and laid her hand on my arm.
"Oh shut up Ian, don't be such a baby, c'mon get out." She opened her car door and got out and I groaned loudly before doing the same, and tossing her the keys as I passed her.
As much as I had complained about it, I couldn't explain how great it was to watch her drive. Her fingernails tapping the steering wheel, her eyes focused calmly on the road, occasionally she reached up to move a piece of damp hair out of her face. We cracked jokes and sang along to the radio and I could honestly say I'd never had a better car ride. There were times when Riley made me feel at peace, as opposed to how she normally made me a wreck. It was like I was falling in love with her again, for the second time, and my love for her was coming in waves that washed over me and crashed onto the shore.
She took a bunch of roads I didn't recognize, and I really didn't know where we were until we got there. She'd driven us to the lake. It was a large lake, so large you could barely even see the other side of it, and there was sand all around the edges of it, so it practically felt like a beach. I'd been to this lake once before, on a school trip in the 10th grade. Riley was 15 and so was I, she'd worn a bikini and got in trouble with the teachers because all the girls were supposed to wear modest swimwear, but Riley didn't care, she never cared. The teachers had scolded her in front of everyone, but Riley liked the attention, she liked when everyone was looking at her, no matter what the reason. Sam Pavinsky had ended up giving her his tee shirt to wear over her suit and she swam like that, in Sam Pavinsky's tee shirt. I was so mad at myself now that I hadn't given her my tee shirt, maybe then she would've remembered me. She would've thought of me when she went to this lake and how she'd swam in my tee shirt in the 10th grade but instead she was probably thinking about Sam Pavinsky and his stupid tee shirt.
I looked at her, trying to read her emotions, but she was just staring ahead at the lake, through the rain running down my windshield.
"What are we doing here?" She turned her head towards me.
"We're gonna go swimming." She smirked and hopped out of the car, standing in the pouring rain. Even though I didn't want to, I stepped out and stood next to her.
"What are you talking about?" She rolled her eyes at me and walked forward, untangling herself from her sweatshirt.
"C'mon Ian Walker, for once do something fun in your life." She was kidding, and so I retorted with,
"I'm in a sex addiction therapy group for christ's sake!" She laughed, genuinely laughed with her eyes squeezed shut and her head tilted back.
I watched her in awe as she slid her wet jeans off and tossed them in the gravelly sand. Catching on, I began to remove my shirt and jeans as well. She peeled of her wet shirt that was clinging to her torso leaving her in just her bra and underwear, and what a sight she was. I couldn't have been luckier than to be standing across from Riley Green in the pouring rain, both of us in just our undergarments. Her hair was clinging to her face and she was spitting water off of her lips as she spoke.
"I'll race you!" We took off in a sprint towards the lake and ran into the water, both of us falling and becoming completely submerged. I came back up and noticed we had gone out farther than I thought. I took a deep breath and the rain was falling all around me, splashing the water and making it hard to see where Riley was. I turned around and found her treading water, with her back to me. She was looking up at the sky in awe, like a child in a toy store, her eyes were rimmed with joy and fascination.
I looked up as well, the rain was covering every inch of the sky, falling down drop after drop in a continuous downpour. When I looked back over she was swimming towards me, dipping her head underwater. I splashed her as she neared me, and pretending to be offended, she splashed me back.
We were chasing each other around in the water and splashing each other like children. I was having so much fun and I had to admit that I was wrong about her idea. When she was swimming up to me, I grabbed her by the waist and threw her over my shoulder, since I was tall enough to touch the bottom and she wasn't. She yelled and laughed and pounded on my back telling me to put her down, but I couldn't. She didn't know how good her wet skin felt pressed up against mine, and how some people might find it annoying but I loved that her wet hair was clinging to my back, and if she leaned forward enough, her breasts would press up against me, and her stomach was draped over my shoulder.
I moved so that we were in shallow water and set her down in front of me. She had been laughing and was out of breath. She was tall enough here that her breasts were above water, and she was breathing hard so that they were bulging out against her bra. I looked at her intently, and she looked back at me. Neither of us said anything.
I brought my hand to her cheek, and ran my thumb over her wet, plump lips. She froze under my touch.
"Ian..." she started, she said my name like she was warning me not to kiss her, but she was right there in front of me, and I had to have her.
I dipped my head down and brought my lips to hers, connecting us. Her lips were soft against mine and I ran my tongue over them. She kissed back for a moment, for a second she almost wrapped her arms around me, and brought us as close as I wanted to be. But instead, just as it's expected of Riley, she ducked down, pulling away from the kiss and submerging herself underwater.
I took a deep breath, relishing in our kiss, and waiting for her to come back up. I ran my fingers through my hair, and instead of being mad like I should've been, when she came back up and splashed me, I beamed and splashed back, and everything was normal again. Nothing ever phased her, nothing threw her off her game.
When we had finished, we grabbed our clothes off the beach and ran back to the car, getting in despite being soaked. I had some blankets in my trunk that we used as towels before we got dressed in our soaking clothes.
Riley was back in the passenger seat and I drove us back towards town, we stopped at a small diner before getting back into the city. We got burgers and shakes, and Riley even put a quarter in the jukebox and made me dance with her. The whole day I spent with her, she just laughed and laughed, like her walls had come down and she was being herself, she was happy and having a good time, she smiled like a child, her eyes would screw shut and she'd get wrinkles around them, and her face would turn bright red when she'd been laughing hard enough. I couldn't get enough of her.
When we got to Riley's apartment, she didn't get out of the car immediately, it was already 11 o'clock. She looked over at me, her hair was mostly dry now and it was framing her face instead of sticking to it.
"So Ian, anything you want to say." I rolled my eyes and sighed like it bothered me to admit she was right.
"You were right, I had a nice time." She smirked and nodded to herself. Truth was, I didn't mind admitting defeat, it was a game to her but not to me. I liked that I could make her happy with herself, that she was glad because of me, I hid my smile as she rubbed it in my face.
"Well, I should go, thanks for hanging out with me today." She stepped out of the car, it was no longer raining. I rolled down my window as she was walking away.
"Thanks for calling." Without turning around she waved at me and yelled,
"See you in group therapy!" I chuckled and shook my head, while rolling up my window and driving away.
As I drove in the night back to my apartment, all I could think to myself was,
God damn it I love her
-
This is a weird place to end this chapter but HEY C'MON YOU GOTTA ADMIT THIS IS BETTER THAN THE LAST ONE
So yeah I have some really really great big huge amazing life-changing revolutionary plans for this story like just wait I'm gonna blow your mind
Okay I dont understand how I can get like, for an example, 16 reads on chapter ten, and then 19 reads on chapter eleven or twelve, like how can I get more reads on later chapters?? Don't they have to read the early chapters first?? Does anyone understand how doES THIS WORK??
Comment! Vote! Recommend this to your friends, your cousins, your grandparents, your neighbors, your dogs, your dentists, ANYONE!!
Okay that's it BYE!
-S ♡