Chapter 31

By the time we got back to Mackenzie’s it was a little after six. I was tired and I know she was too. She leant me a shirt and a pair of short shorts so I was more comfotable and we settled on her sofa and put on some crappy sitcom that I can’t remember the name of. The cheap humor and the feeling of Mackenzie hugging me from behind ended up lulling me into a light sleep.

Its weird to think that I’m currently resting in my girlfriends arms, but at the same time it feels so damn right. I have no idea where I plucked up the balls to ask a girl of this level of beauty, with her wit and intelligence, to be my girlfriend. But I am very excited to see where this goes, especially if it means I get to kiss her a lot more than I was before.

I feel something brushing past my face. It doesn’t make contact, but the air passing over my skin is making it itch so much that I can feel myself stirring from whatever state of consciousness I was found in. I still feel Mackenzie’s arms wrapped around my hips, her body pressed against my back and her head resting comfortably on my shoulder. It’s comforting, the way her breathing comes out short and quick against my neck, the way her fingers tighten and relax against my waist. It’s strange how normal this feels despite this, us, only being a thing for a little under two months.

I both startle and relax when I come face to face with someone I’ve never met before, his face baring a striking resemblance to the girl sleeping soundly behind me. He isn’t someone who knows me, and he definitely isn’t my parents or the soccer team, so my heartbeat slows from incredibly erratic to just erratic. I must’ve jolted against Mackenzie so hard that I woke her, my gaze staying attached to the strange man looking at our position with a smug smile on his face. “Good, you’re both awake.”

This man looks to be in his late twenties, his short hair is blonde and curling behind his ears. He seems to stand over six feet tall, his shoulders broad and his physique that of health. His strong jaw is coated with stubble darker than the hair on his head and his bow shaped lips are pulled into an amused smirk. His grey eyes, grey eyes I immediately recognise, are filled with humour as he waits for his sister to wake up. I’m assuming this is Mackenzie’s infamous brother turned legal guardian she barely ever talks about. I mean, it’s a pretty sure assumption based off the fact he can get into her house and they have practically identical facial features, especially the matching eye colour. There can’t be very many people on the planet with eyes as amazing as Mackenzie’s.

I feel Mackenzie stir behind me, her hands letting go of my body so she can rub her eyes. “What do you want, Nate?”

“I want you to stop sleeping on my couch so I can watch the game.” He chuckles, gripping the knot in his tie and loosening it slightly. It clicks with me that he’s in a suit, a smart outfit for a Saturday, so I don’t really know what to assume about him. He could’ve been to church or he could’ve been at work.

“The game isn’t on for another hour.” Mackenzie clicks her tongue in annoyance, leaning over me and grabbing her phone from the floor. I’m dumbfounded by the fact she’s just conversing with her brother like it’s completely normal for me to be here, and is completely normal for him to find her like this. The second thought has my stomach turning slightly. “I set an alarm so I’d be out of your way.”

She dangles her phone in his face and he chuckles, running a hand over her hair and messing it slightly. She swats it away and I watch as his gaze finally lands on me once again. “Are you going to introduce me? Or am I going to have to guess who the girl you’re cuddling on our couch is?”

Mackenzie looks at her brother and grins, her gaze landing on me as her face softens, and I feel her hand lace with mine under the safety of the covers. “Nate, this is Alex. Alex, this is my insufferable brother Nate.”

Nate’s eyes widen. Slowly, a smirk pulls at his mouth as something clicks in his brain; the way Mackenzie’s grip on my hand tightens has me swallowing nervously. They share a look, a look similar to the ones I share with Faye and April when we know something that someone else doesn’t. It’s conspiratorial; the gleam in his eye leads me to believe that my assumption is right. “Ah. So this is Alex Doherty. Well sis, she’s as gorgeous as you described her.”

My jaw drops as I sit up on alarm, my eyes immediately turning to Mackenzie. She talks about me to her brother? Oh god I can only pray that she had good things to say to him. I can think of several occasions where we haven’t been on the best of terms, and we weren’t exactly nice to each other during that period. Our little spat at the beginning of the year was pretty hostile, especially during try outs. The way Mackenzie’s cheeks have flushed a deep crimson has me guessing that she may have said a couple of things to her brother, and I find myself swallowing anxiously because I can’t work out if they were nice comments or not.

“Shut up, Nate.” Mackenzie hisses in embarrassment, her face a perfect picture of complete and utter horror at her brother. I don’t blame her, frankly if I was in her position and actually spoke to my brother about things like this; I’d want to be swallowed by the ground if he mentioned it to said girl too. I don’t see Will much anymore so we don’t have time for sibling bitch sessions, but I’d never speak to him about a girl I had a crush on. The thought of it makes me wince because I don’t think my brother will be the most supportive member of my family about my attraction to girls. Mackenzie looks at me and tries to grin but it comes across like a cringe. “So I’ve mentioned you a few times, so what? I told him you were annoying and a little bit pretty.”

She holds her thumb and forefinger close together as proof of how much of ‘a little bit pretty’ I actually am in her opinion.

I won’t lie; my chest did flutter at her admission of guilt. The fact she talks about me actually warmed a part of my chest that spread throughout my whole body, and now even the tips of my fingers are tingling. She also thinks I’m pretty. That makes me smile.

Nate rocks back on his heels before standing up, a wicked smile on his face. He slips his jacket from his shoulders and folds it neatly over his arm, his gaze flicking between his sister and myself. “Alex, you should definitely stay for dinner.”

“Nate…” Mackenzie growls in warning, only making her brothers smirk widen.

“Piper just went out to grab food; I can text her asking to pick you up whatever you want from the Chinese. I won’t do anything mean, I promise. I just want to get to know Alex a little bit better. What’s the harm in that? If I’m going to find you two asleep together in my apartment more than this one occasion, I at the very least deserve to know who she is.” His voice is the perfect mixture of innocence and mocking. To anyone else he sounds like the loving brother who cares about who his sister hangs out with, but to Mackenzie he sounds like the brother who’s going to embarrass the hell out of her in front of the girl he’s invited round for dinner.

Mackenzie grumbles and buries her face in my back, causing me to laugh. She hasn’t outwardly stated she doesn’t want us to have dinner with her brother, and I want to get to know her brother better because he seems cool and he’s her family. So I nod my head and squeeze her hand, rattling off my order to her brother and handing him a twenty, which he blatantly refuses to take.

“It’s my treat.” He says, backing out of the room. “You’re the first of Mackenzie’s friends we’ve actually met. We can’t expect you to pay.”

I smirk at the fact he thinks we’re friends. Little does he know our relationship is slightly more escalated than that.

“Oh my god Nate shut the hell up!” His sister hisses angrily at her brother, launching a pillow across the room and hitting him square in the chest. “You’re making me sound like a loser!”

I can’t help but laugh at their interaction, Mackenzie glaring at me playfully as she untangles herself from me and stands up from the sofa. We should probably get dressed. I don’t think it would be the greatest idea to sit and eat with her family whilst wearing a shirt covered in mustard and short shorts. I’m surprised that she hasn’t brought any of her friends back here, even to do homework or just chill after school. If her brother is actually telling the truth I’m actually pretty honoured to be the first person she’s brought back here for her brother to meet.

Even if it was accidental.

I follow her into her room and watch in amusement as she flops down on her bed and huffs out a heavy breath of air, her face apologetic. “I’m so sorry you had to meet my brother. He’s so embarrassing sometimes.”

“It’s fine.” I chuckle as I wander across her room to sit on her desk chair. I haven’t really had time to pay attention to her room as we’ve mainly hung out in her living room whenever I’ve come over, so I let my eyes wander around. Her bed is king sized and covered in plain blue bedding, her floor a dark wood with a thick white rug over the central space in her room. She has a wardrobe made from wood of the same colour as the floor and a matching bedside table with a lava lamp on it. Her walls are white and covered in various posters and photographs, from signed Ronaldo posters to Polaroid pictures of her and her friends on the beach. My eyes are drawn to a photo of Mackenzie sitting on a surfboard in the middle of the ocean, her hair much longer than it is now and bleached by the sun. She’s laughing, her skin a deep tan colour as she swears at the camera.

“That was summer last year.” Mackenzie says from over my shoulder, her chest pressed against my back as her finger traces the edges of the photo. “It was the summer before I moved to West Chester with my family. My brother already lived in Pennsylvania with his girlfriend and my dad wanted to be closer to him. I stayed behind with my grandparents in Cali whilst my mom and dad shipped our lives across country.”

“I thought I detected a California accent from you when we first met.” I tease, watching as her eyes crinkle at the edges with her smile. “Where exactly in California are you from?”

“I’m from Cambria.” She says, resting her chin on my shoulder as her eyes flicker over all of the photos on her wall. She begins to point at some of her photographs, rattling off the memories attached to each picture, from going to the zoo with her Grandad and sitting on his shoulders so she can reach the giraffes, to smashing a birthday cake into her brother’s face when she was nine and he was eighteen. It sounds like she had a great childhood, so I can’t help but wonder why the mere mention of her parents has her guard up like a wolf backed into a corner.

Cautiously, my mind torn between asking about her parents due to my curiosity, or to leave it because I know how touchy the subject is, I point at a photo of her with her mom and dad. It was obviously taken when she was a lot younger, ice cream smudged over her youthful features as she bares her gap toothed teeth in a smile. She’s stood in between her parents, the resemblance she bares to both of them striking. “You look happy here.”

“Yeah.” She mumbles, and I watch as her eyes cast downwards slightly, her hands gripping the edge of her desk tightly.

“Why don’t you like talking about them?” I ask, my hand gingerly resting on top of hers. I watch as her jaw clenches, her eyes looking back up at the photo of her parents and a dark look washing over her usually schooled and carefree features. I can tell I’m about to enter new territory, and I’m not sure if she’s ready for me to see. I open my mouth to take conversation in a different direction, my plan to tease her for getting ice cream all over her face when she sighs and grabs my hand in her own, her eyes dropping down to look at our intertwined fingers, her thumb stroking across the skin on my knuckles.

“I never came out to my parents.” Mackenzie says quietly as she begins to speak, my heartbeat quickening in my chest as I hang onto her every word. She’s letting me in, and I’ll be damned if I don’t listen to everything she says to me. “They found photographs my ex-girlfriend had taken on a Polaroid and given to me tucked into one of my books in my room.” She looks at me and her eyes are watery. “They were provocative photos that I couldn’t talk my way out of having like I had with others I had kept.”

I watch as she seems to slip back into a memory, her eyes glazing over as she remembers what happened to her. “You’re no daughter of mine!” She alters her voice into a higher pitched nasal, no doubt imitating her mom. “My daughter doesn’t like girls. It’s disgusting, it’s not right!”

“Mackenzie…” I say quietly, snapping her out of whatever nightmare she was reliving. She smiles at me but it’s hollow and painful. I think she knows I’m saying she doesn’t have to say anymore so she straightens up and smiles forcefully.

“It’s all in the past now, Alex. Don’t give me those puppy eyes. My brother was the first person I came out to and he’s all the support I need and he’s all that matters at this point.” She places her hands on both of my cheeks and kisses me quickly on the lips before stepping back and grinning. “Now, I can’t have you meeting Piper dressed like that or we’re all going to have a problem because she’s going to think I have poor taste in women and she’ll never let us hear the end of it.”

///

“So, what are your plans for the future, Alex?”

I tug on the bottom of my skirt nervously as I raise my gaze to meet Nate’s. He’s sat directly across from me, his fork stabbing into his edamame as his eyes remain glued on me. I’ve never done the whole, ‘meet the family‘ thing I’m doing right now. I grew up with Clay and his parents were always family to me, so they never looked or treated me differently. The weight of Nate and Piper’s combined stares has me wriggling in my seat, my fork feeling sweaty in my grip. So far the conversation has been light and easy, talking about soccer and teasing Mackenzie on how much she talked about me. Now, conversation has steered onto more serious conversation topics. Talking about my future isn’t exactly deep stuff that should be getting my pulse racing, but I don’t want her brother to dislike my future plans, and therefore dislike me.

“I want to go to UPenn to play soccer.” I say, wiping my mouth on one of the cheap napkins that are always thrown in with take out. “Ideally I’ll be offered a sports scholarship but I’m already working out student loans and things like that in case I don’t get one.”

“So is soccer what you want to be doing as a career?” Piper asks me, my gaze tearing away from Nate’s face to look at hers. She looks like the definition of elegance, with her fiery red hair pulled up into a sleek ponytail, her makeup perfect and her face blemish free. She was a lot funnier and carefree when she first arrived at Nate’s apartment, but once she was briefed on who I am and how Nate found me and Mackenzie; she switched on her over protective legal guardian mode. “Is it all you’re going to be focusing on when you’re at college?”

I grab my water and take large sips, allowing myself time to calm the fvck down. I’m only talking to Mackenzie’s brother and his fiancée; it really isn’t a big deal. He’s goofy and sarcastic, and Piper looks like a supermodel but she’s so down to earth and she has a genuine personality. I have no reason to be intimidated for crying out loud. Mackenzie places her hand reassuringly on my knee, eating her food like her hand isn’t even there. I smile and put my fork down, my confidence back just with a simple touch. “Ideally, I’d love to play soccer professionally, in England if possible. But, I know it might not happen, I might get injured or just might not be good enough. So I’m hoping to do a degree in sport therapy as well sort of like a fall back on, just in case.”

“Why sport therapy?” She says straight away, her slender fingers steepled as she stares at me over the top of her engagement ring.

“To be perfectly honest, I never really thought of a career outside of sports. If I don’t get to play it, I want to still be a part of it. Soccer is my passion and I know I need a back-up plan in case I don’t make it as a pro, so why not get into physio and be able to help from the sidelines.” I grin internally at how well that came out, Piper visually impressed with my response, going off the small nod of her head. I breathe out a sigh of relief because that sounded a whole lot better than ‘I don’t know, I want soccer and nothing else so I’m screwed if I don’t go pro.’

Nate opens his mouth to no doubt ask me another question about my future, but Mackenzie quickly notices and cuts him off.

“I think you can stop the grilling now.” Mackenzie rolls her eyes as she puts her cutlery down on her plate as she starts to sense my discomfort. Her glare is pointed as she looks at her brother, his face a mask of amusement. “She’s answered every question she’s had thrown at her so can you please cut it out and let us finish our food.”

“Ooh, someone is getting defensive.” Nate quips jokingly, looking at me and pointing his fork in his sister’s direction. “She always gets like this when she cares about someone.”

I can’t help but laugh slightly. “I don’t think even my parents have asked me some of these questions before.”

“Oh yeah, now turn the conversation onto embarrassing me again, real mature.” Mackenzie growls as she looks down at her lap, her cheeks flaming scarlet as her hand stays resting on my thigh.

Nate chuckles, his eyes crinkling at the edges. He looks a lot older than twenty seven, whether it’s the beard or the mature way he carries himself. I can’t help but think if taking Mackenzie in has made him grow up even more. It can’t be easy becoming the full time parent of an eighteen year old girl, whilst trying to remain her brother at the same time. I know I wouldn’t be able to do it, and I know for a fact that Will wouldn’t be able to manage either.

I try not and smile too obviously, finding the dynamic between the two siblings highly amusing as I lay my cutlery on my cleared plate, my body stuffed as full as it could possibly get without bursting. I know that if I have one more spring roll I’ll end up with shredded carrot flowing in my veins. Mackenzie’s plate is also clean, so she thanks her brother for the “highly embarrassing evening” before dragging me up to her room.

I laugh the whole way, the redness of Mackenzie’s ears and cheeks making this situation all the more amusing. I flop down on her bed and watch as she shuts the door behind her, a chuckle escaping past her parted lips as she looks at me.

“Stop laughing at me.” She whines as she wanders over to her dresser, my eyes following her as she moves. She looks as if she’s floating, her movements so fluid and graceful. My eyes nearly bug out of my head when she pulls her shirt over her head in one swift movement, exposing her toned stomach and Nike sports bra.

“Make me.”

Both of us pause, my stomach dropping when I realise what I said. A dark look crosses over her face and I swallow, my pulse quickening in what I put down to a mixture of nerves and excitement.

I’ve never seen the look on her face before and it has my skin tingling with anticipation. It’s almost predatory, the way her eyes have turned a thunderous grey and they’re looking at nothing but me. It’s seductive, teasing, hot. Whilst she is my girlfriend, however fresh the relationship is, I’ve never been as forward as I have been right now. I’ve never gone further than the simple teasing and the occasional slip of the hand during a make out.

“You want me, to make you?” She whispers, a smirk sliding across her face. Her tone has my mouth drying, a smile of my own tugging at the corners of my lips as she moves towards me like a cat stalking prey. She leans over the bed and places her hands on either side of my head, the pendant of her necklace brushing against the hollow of my throat. “Are you sure you want me to do that?”

I grin, one of my hands snaking around her waist, the other twisting a lock of her blonde hair around my finger. I’m trying to appear seductive, teasing, giving her just enough to imagine what I hope is the “more to come.” I find a gap between Mackenzie’s bra and her shorts and let my fingertips rest on her skin, relishing on the way her muscles tighten and contract at my touch.

“I definitely want you to do that.” I tease, my hand slipping around her neck and pulling her head down so that her lips connect with mine.

I sigh as she melts against my lips, her own expertly moving against mine. I love the way she flattens her body against mine, the heat from her skin making my own feel hot. Mackenzie’s hair is tickling my skin as she detached her lips from mine before placing them against my throat.

I try and not let the nerves get the best of me when I feel her hands getting rougher, her hands tightening on the waistband of my shorts. I know that I want her touch go further, but I can feel myself getting almost embarrassed at the thought of her seeing me in any less clothing.

I don’t want her to think I’m gross.

“Hey.” She says, pulling away to look at me in my eyes. I can see the care, I can sense the concern, both in her gaze and her tone of voice. I’m getting flashbacks to the last time we stopped a make out in this exact position, in this exact bed, because I got nervous. “Are you okay?”

I nod my head, spiting myself for feeling nerves. I’m crazily attracted to this girl, and I don’t want my inexperience to get in the way of what we’re very capable of being.

In the words of Molly from Booksmart “you do what you do to yourself, you just flip it.”  I’m a girl for Christ sake, I know where I want to be, um, touched, so I’m sure I can handle Mackenzie.

“You know you don’t have to do anything to me right?” She says, her face showing sympathy. “We don’t have to move any faster than you’re ready for. Hell I don’t even have to touch you if you’re not ready for it.”

I grin, my chest tightening with, feelings, that I know I never felt for Clay. The way she makes me feel, the way she’s gentle and careful, makes me so damn sure that she’s who I want to be with.

That she’s who I’m safe with.

Now I know I don’t remember my first time, but I sure as hell know I’ll remember it now.

And I want to remember it with Mackenzie.

I breathe out steadily as I grip her wrist. She looks at me with a realisation as I gently coax her hand to where it was before, nodding at the question on her expression.

“I want it to be you.” I whisper before kissing her again, hoping to god she can feel how sure I am.

///

Hey guys! I hope all is well!

I had the majority of this chapter written up in my drafts as I was going to introduce it into the story a while back but changed my mind.

I’ve spent the last week or so tweaking it to make it fit the story so I hope you guys enjoyed it!

What do we think about Nate and Piper? Who do we think of when I describe them? I’d love to hear your guys ideas!

Until next time,

Lauryn