Rich Soldier (The Dirty Thirty Pledge 2)

Wallace groans, lips against my neck, and he changes his rhythm, a little slower, more intentional, and I know he’s close. He’s thrusting in to the hilt every time and finally, he breaks, crying out in my ear and holding himself deep while his cock jerks inside me. He thrusts again, and again, and when he’s finally finished, he falls to the side, avoiding collapsing on me with all of his weight. Within seconds he pulls me to his chest, unwilling to not be touching me, and he’s kissing me again or I’m kissing him. It doesn’t really matter anymore. All that matters is that we’re catching our breath together. That impossibly, we’ve gotten back a little bit of what we’ve lost.

For the first time in a long time, I feel truly peaceful, like that anger that was buried deep has been soothed, even if it’s only temporary, and I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open. But like hell am I going to go to sleep, because I don’t want to miss a moment of this peace or pleasure. Not a single goddamn second.

“I’ll be right back,” Wallace says softly, excusing himself to the bathroom to take care of the condom. But I don’t want to wait. I pull on a pair of panties and a bra, and then some shorts. Because I want to show him something.

When he comes out of the bathroom, still naked, I take a look at him again. He’s glorious. It’s like the statue of David is standing in my bedroom. I could stare at that for the rest of my life and never get tired of it, I think. “Put some pants on,” I say, “and come with me.”

Down the hall, there’s a set of french doors and a balcony. I open the little closet in the hall so I can get at the small refrigerator that I keep up here and grab two cans of beer. I toss one to him. “Not soda anymore,” I say to him hoping that he’ll get the reference before I open the doors and climb over the balcony and onto the roof.

When we were younger, we spent a lot of time on my parents’ roof, drinking far too much soda and snuggling under the stars. There was a fair amount of making out, though we never had sex on the roof. There’s something about the idea of getting caught having sex on the roof that’s even more embarrassing than just getting caught having sex.

The sun is setting in a blaze of red and orange and yellow, the final big burst of light before it drains from the sky into a faster darkness than you would have thought possible. I settle myself on a flat area of the roof—that I made exactly for this purpose. When you build your own house, it’s pretty amazing that you get to do exactly what you want. And I wanted a place to be on the roof. With or without Wallace, sitting on roofs has always been one of my happy places.

Wallace settles down too, cracking open the beer and sitting a careful distance away from me. Not so far that I can’t reach out and touch him, but not nearly as close as I expected given what just occurred downstairs. But he’s right. All of this, even with the sex, is temporary until we figure out what happened between us. And what can still happen.

Before I can speak, he does. “I’m glad you remembered,” he says, lifting the beer and gesturing to the roof. “Those were some good nights. Some of the best.”

“I made this place so that I could sit on the roof,” I say, “because I loved that.”

“You built this house?” he asks, startled.

I nod. “I had help, but yeah, I did.”

He laughs softly. “We always talked about building a house together. I tore down my father’s house and I’ve been wanting to build a new one. But I keep stalling on the plans.”

I don’t have to ask why. Because, like he said, we planned to build a house together. And we didn’t.

“It’s a beautiful house, Tia,” he says.

The question bubbles up behind my lips and I can’t hold it in anymore. “Can I ask you a question?”

6

Wallace

I haven’t felt this at ease in a long time. Sex with Tia was…mind-blowing. Fucking amazing. It made something loosen in my shoulders that I didn’t even realize was tight. And now we’re on a roof together—a roof that she built—and it seems like everything has come full circle. This is what being happy feels like. It’s strange to think that I might have forgotten what that was, but I did. Sometimes you’re so far into your own shit that you can’t even remember what simple emotions like happiness are anymore. Shit.