(Bet you all thought I had died. I'm still alive, I swear! The scene that involves the fire crackers is from real life. A lot of our troops come home messed up and they don't get the help they need. They deserve our respect and our admiration.)
Otis looked to the side at the beautiful woman driving him home. She looked absolutely stunning, and he wanted to say so, but was too shy to do it. She always looked lovely, but tonight it was like she had set her looks from stun gun to the heart to downed electrical wire to the brain. Otis stopped and had a very stern discussion with himself about his similes, or was that a metaphor? Which in turn lead to a rather stern conversation that this was not an English lesson, they were talking about a beautiful woman here. Otis shook his head to dispel the thoughts and looked back at Ariel.
She bit her lip in concentration as she navigated the River District back to his house. He was over whelmed by a sudden urge to kiss her, but used his stalwart Russian will he had inherited to crush that urge. He wasn't going to kiss her until she asked him to; he didn't think it was right to do after all she had been through. But oh how he wanted to. In the dark corner of his mind where he stifled thoughts, there was a rebellious one, the thought of what else he would like to do with her. The rebellious thought wanted to be made know, not stifled. His other thoughts told it that she may not even like him that way, but the rebellious thought brought others to its cause. If she didn't like him like that, why had she offered to drive him home? Why would she be looking at him like she wisdom shit! She was looking at him and he was starting at her with his mouth open! Abort mission Pony Boy. ABORT MISSION AND ACT NORMAL!
Ariel looked at Otis, who looked like he was about to explode. She was slightly worried. "Are you okay?"
He nodded and smiled, and to his credit, it only had a slight strained feel to it. "Yea, I'm fine. I was just thinking about everything that has happened in the couple of weeks. It's been a lot."
Ariel nodded in agreement. It had been. She had been taken to a dark place she never wanted to visit again, but she had accepted what had happened to her. Danny was evil, and he wanted what he wanted. And she had refused him, so he had tried to take it. There was only one person she wanted to give that too now, and he was sitting next to her. But what if he didn't like her like that? What if he just wanted to have sex with her and then leave her? What if he left her after he found out about her and his dad? There were so many things that could go wrong. She was too scared to advance anything on her own, and if he didn't show her something was there, she didn't think she would. As she pulled up in front of his apartment, she realized the flaw in her plan. She would have to call someone to come get her. Otis opened the door and turned to step out of the truck and looked over at her.
"Would you like to come up?"
Ariel bit her lip and nodded. They walked up the steps together, and she was ready to at least pretend like she could catch him if he fell down the stairs or slipped. He had to still be hurting a lot, and she still felt like it was partially her fault. If she hadn't called him that day, he would never have been shot. His family would have never had to have gone through what they did, but at the same time she had a selfish feeling because she had got to get closer to him because of everything that had happened. She really liked him.
As they entered the apartment, he dropped his cane in the umbrella stand and stretched. His back made some of the weirdest and grossest popping noises she had ever heard, and when he jerked his head to pop his neck, she thought he had broken it. He lowered his arms and turned to her, all of the sudden looking like he was shy. She thought there was a point when shyness flew out the window, and it was definitely when the person you were looking at had put pressure on your bullet holes so you didn't die.
Otis cleared his throat. "I'm going to change into some more comfortable clothes, do you want some sweat pants or something?"
Ariel nodded, and as he walked back into his room, she began to explore. She had seen his room on that one day, but she hadn't really paid any attention to the rest of his home. Now, she walked through and looked at some of the things he had on the wall. She laughed when she saw the picture that could only be JB, Deke, and Otis as kids, in a frame that said Goonies Never Say Die. Through the pictures that he had hanging and on shelves, she could almost watch the changes he had made to himself. The bright pink Mohawk was a shock, but it was also very funny. She came to a photo of him and a man that could only be his father. His father was a lot like his son, and he looked very handsome in his uniform from what she assumed was the local fire department. Otis stood proudly next to his father, wearing a t-shirt that said "My Daddy is a Fireman". He couldn't be more than six or seven years old in the picture. A soft cough made her turn around, to see Otis holding a pair of sweat pants and a hoodie.
"They'll be huge on you, but it you loop the string and tie it enough; they might attempt to stay on you."
Ariel smiled and thanked him, and went into the bathroom to change. The sweat pants were HUGE on her, but she tied them tight and then rolled them a few times. The hoodie was also huge on her, but she was fine with that. She still wore the hoodie she had gotten from him every night when she went to bed or when she was just walking around the house. It was a big, warm, slightly fuzzy, security blanket. She shuffled out of the bathroom, holding up the pants. Otis started laughing as soon as he seen her, and she stuck her tongue out at him, only for him to laugh at her some more. He was sitting on the couch, and she thought he looked good enough to bite. He was wearing some shorts that had obviously started out as sweat pants, and a black wife beater that she thought showed off his muscled arms and a lot of his tattoos very well.
He smiled. She might be swamped by it, but she looked really good in his hoodies. It was just a thing. She shuffled over to him and sat down on the couch next to him. She pulled her phone out and checked the time; it was 12:30 in the morning! Her parents would kill her! Then again, she was an adult. They'd be fine for a while longer. She looked at Otis.
"Sooooooooooooo?"
"Want to watch a movie? Your choice."
Ariel smiled and jumped up, making a bee line for the movie rack. She forgot about the damn sweat pants, and they fell, baring her ass for the world to see. She quickly grabbed them and yanked them up, her face going supernova in seconds. She looked over her shoulder, expecting Otis to be laughing at her. The look in his eyes was for sure not a laughing one. It was desire, pure and simple. She blushed even more, and then bent down to look at what movies he had.
Otis tried to control himself. Now that, that was a nice ass. A really, really, really, nice ass. As evidenced by what was trying to make an appearance in his pants, he really liked that ass. Moving both to get comfortable and readjust, he finally found a position that wasn't too showing of what was going on and began to pray for a lowering. It wasn't the best conversation piece. Just in the nick of time, as Ariel made some weird squealing noise and put a DVD in. She sat on the couch next to him, and the look of excitement on her face had him racing through his movie collection in his head, trying to figure out what it could be. He was concentrating so hard that he missed the opening credits and the movie was already playing, and now he really had to wait. But not for long, he knew what it was as soon as the beautiful painting that made up the old Disney animation came up. Beauty and the Beast was, without a doubt, his favorite movie of all time.
As the movie went on, Ariel began to move, inch by inch, closer to Otis. When she was almost sitting on top of him, she went to lay her head on his shoulder, only to have him lift his arm up and put it around her, and it put her head on his chest instead. She looked up at him, but he was pretending to be focused on the movie so she happily snuggled her head onto his chest while he held her with his arm. She really liked it.
Otis smiled as she laid her head on his chest. It felt good. It was like being a puzzle, and one piece had always been missing, but someone found it under the couch and put it in the puzzle and now it was complete. Wow, he thought, I really need to learn how to do that better. I'm not sure she would like being called a puzzle piece that someone found under the couch. He focused on the movie, and the fact that he had the most beautiful girl in the world under his arm. When the movie ended, neither of them moved, and Ariel relaxed into him, molding her to the contours of his body she was laying against. He didn't have a problem with that at all, and pretty soon they were both starting to drift in and out, falling asleep.
Otis opened his eyes and looked at the clock, which was reading 3 A.M. Very late or very early, depending on your standards. He gently shook Ariels arm, and when she groggily demanded what he wanted, he told her.
"It's 3 in the morning. Want me to call you a ride?"
Ariel shook her head and burrowed herself even deeper into his side, mumbling something about wanting to stay. Otis smiled; he would like that very much. He finally cajoled her awake enough to call her parents and leave them a voicemail, and then they walked to his room together and laid down in his bed. Otis threw the covers over them, and Ariel was the little spoon, and she fell asleep almost instantly in his arms. Otis took a little longer, being able to touch her and to smell her perfume that close to him was causing a reaction that could be embarrassing if she noticed. But he was just too tired to care, and he fell asleep soon enough.
When Ariel woke up the next morning, she smiled because she was happy. She was still in his arms. When she moved a little to adjust a kink in her back, she felt something poking into her. Maybe he has a TV remote in the bed... she thought, her mind still pretty sleepy. When she reached behind her, she quickly discovered the only thing this remote would turn on is her. She felt up and down through his sweats with her hand, and almost jumped out of her skin when he spoke.
"As good as that feels, don't write any checks you don't want to cash."
Ariel shivered. She loved his voice when he just woke up. She continued to move her hand up and down his length, and looked over her shoulder at him.
"Honey, I never write a check I can't cash."
Otis looked at her hungrily. He wanted this. Badly. He had rules though, rules that he knew he would obey without question, no matter what. He grabbed her hand to stop the motion that was driving him up and down the walls of his mind.
"Ariel, I'm sorry but I can't. I've got this rule that I don't have sex unless I'm in a relationship with that person for a bit. Even though I really, really, really, want too, I can't."
Ariel bit her lip and let go, rolling her body over so she could look at him. She looked up into his eyes and almost lost her train of thought. His eyes were so beautiful. Two months ago she would have never said it, but he was so handsome. His personality shone through, and his face reflected that he lived, actually lived his life. In her eyes, he was amazing.
"And do you think you could ever be in a relationship with me?"
Otis looked down at her. She looked so scared that he was going to say no. How was he supposed to say that he had been thinking about it last night when they were watching the movie? He had just been waiting on a time to ask. Otis ran this thumb down her jaw line and tilted her head up and kissed her softly.
"So, is that a yes?"
