We park at her store, then walk through the quiet square to the old pizza place. We round the building twice, going into the back alley and up to the old back door. The dumpster used to sit beside the door, but over the years, it’s seemed to migrate. Now it’s a good three feet from the building but right in front of the door, which provides the perfect cover.
I open the old screen door and work at the lock on the door while she keeps a lookout. She’s bouncing from foot to foot, clearly nervous and scared that we’ll get caught.
“Hurry up,” she whispers rather loudly.
I chuckle. “It’s fine. Almost got it,” I say, picking the lock. After a few more seconds, I feel the click of the lock, and the handle turns easily. “Got it.”
I push the door open as far as it will go, which isn’t much because a stack of chairs has been knocked over, and we both slip inside. I take her hand and lead her through the kitchen, which is surprisingly clean other than the fact that everything is covered in a layer of dust. I push open the swinging door that separates the kitchen from the lobby and walk inside the place I haven’t seen since I was a kid.
Everything is still pretty much in order. All the tables and booths are still here, but the tables have been pushed up against one wall. The chairs to the tables are gone, being stacked up in the kitchen for easy cleaning I’d guess. I release her hand, and she goes to sit in the booth in the corner that we claimed as ours. I walk over to the far wall where all the booth tables have been pushed. I look over each of their corners, rubbing the dust off as I go. The last one I come to is it. I rub the dust off the corner and feel the grooves of our initials beneath my hand. “Found it,” I say, picking it up and carrying it over to the booth she’s sitting in. I put the table into place and then sit beside her, looking the place over.
Even though it’s slightly dark and everything is dirty, I still see the way the place used to be. There were red-and-white-checkered tablecloths on every table, the plastic ones, not the cloth so they could be easily wiped down. There used to be an old-fashioned jukebox in the front corner with seating for people who had to wait for a table. And I can still see signs of where decor hung on the walls, one I remember being an old Pepsi sign. I remember it because there was a picture of a blond model on it, and I always teased El by saying it looked just like her.
“It’s still here,” she says, running her fingers over the spot that reads: E.J + L.M.
“I can’t believe they didn’t sand it down and refinish it.”
“I can’t believe we’re back here,” she says, wrapping her hands around my arm as her eyes find mine.
“It’s been too long,” I reply, moving in for another kiss that I can feel deep in my bones. Her hands move up, wrapping around the back of my neck as she kisses me. My hands find her hips, and I pull her on top of me so she’s straddling me. Even after all these years, she still feels amazing pressed against me. Our kiss is slow and full of blinding passion. I find myself getting lost in her. Connecting again like this, after so many years, it feels like no time has passed. I’m still the kid that’s hell-bent on getting out of this town, and she’s still the girl who loves me blindly and believes in me the most.
I let my lips fall from hers, kissing my way across her jaw and down to her neck. She lets her head fall back, exposing her soft skin to me. I kiss and softly nip her neck all the way down to her collarbone. My hands move up her back, and she arches into me where my lips find the swell of her breast. She lets out a soft moan that has my body coming to life in ways it hasn’t in years.
There’s a banging sound coming from the back, and the next thing I know, someone is yelling, “Who’s in there?”
She gasps and straightens up.
“Shhh,” I say, holding my finger to my lips as I urge her to get off me. We quickly walk to the front door, unlock it, and escape, running back over to her store where she parked the car. Moments later, a man walks out the front door we just escaped.
“You two happen to see anyone over here?” he yells from across the street.
“A couple of kids ran off that way,” I say, pointing down the road.
He waves and says, “Thanks,” before turning around and going back inside.
El is clinging to my arm and giggling like crazy. “Come on, let’s go in here and get a drink.” She pulls her keys from her pocket and lets us into the flower shop. She locks the door behind us and leads me to the back room. She flips on the light and moves to a fridge that’s holding flowers, but she pulls two beers out, handing me one.
“Hiding the alcohol, huh?”
She smiles and takes a sip. “It’s a trick that my mama taught me. The flowers can only be more beautiful through drunk goggles, thank you.”
I laugh and set my beer on the table in the center of the room.
She’s sitting on a stool at the end of the table, and I move between her legs, my hands slowly moving up her outer thighs. “You have no idea how many times I dreamt about taking you in here, right under your overprotective mother’s nose.”
She giggles and wraps her arms around my neck. “Oh, I remember you telling me. That’s why we snuck in here to make out, remember?”
I grin. “Oh, I remember,” I say, moving back in for a kiss.
This time, there is no stopping us, and she makes sure of it by running her hands up under my shirt, working it up my stomach and chest until our kiss breaks and I pull it off completely.
When our lips find one another again, it’s no longer slow and sweet. Now it’s rushed and hard. It’s urgent. My hands start pulling her pink top off as my lips fall back down to her chest. I unclasp her bra and it falls down, allowing me to kiss further until I can suck her hard nipple into my mouth. Her fingers thread through my hair, and she tugs at the strands, but she doesn’t pull me away. She’s pulling me closer.
I pick her up against me and set her on the table. She lies back and allows me to kiss down her stomach to the top of her jeans. I make quick work of removing them, and she sits back up, her lips on mine while she pushes my jeans down my hips. I spring free and she catches me in her hand, wrapping her fingers around my girth and working me up and down.
I’m painfully hard, needing to be back inside her. There have been many women since her, but none that ever meant a damn thing, and none of them had me feeling like I was about to burst apart at the seams. No, that’s something that only she can do to me. With her, everything is different and always has been. There’s a tingle in my body that I couldn’t understand before, but now I know it’s the mark she’s left on my soul. She’s bringing it back to life just like she is my body.
I pull her closer to the edge of the table as we kiss, and I position myself at her entrance. I pause, wanting to make sure that she’s absolutely certain. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait?”
“I think twenty years is enough waiting, don’t you?” she asks against my lips.
That’s all I needed to hear. I push forward, sliding into her and filling every inch. She lets out a moan that makes my dick twitch inside her, and I’m ready to come already. She’s so hot, tight, welcoming. I’m easily lost in her, wanting to hear her moan, whimper, and scream my name while I make her remember who she really belongs to. It’s sure as shit not Tom. She was mine first and she’s always been mine.