A Simple Life Ch. 01-10

Next I carry her monitor in and then the first box. On my way out for what I knew would be my last trip I try to think of excuses to stay out here longer. Unfortunately nothing had come to mind by the time I return and place the last item down.

"That's everything." I say as I remove the gloves she'd lent me.

"You're the best Sprout." She says. "Thanks!"

I stand nearby as she continues to put clothes away trying to think of something charming to say. As she pulls out a couple of t shirts a little puff of bright pink catches my eye. Reaching down I lift the item which turns out to be one of those sets of novelty handcuffs.

"And what is this?"

She turns to look at me. Her eyes go wide and this time it is her cheeks that darken. "Hey! Give me that!"

I let out squeal and dart for the far side of the room. "Ha ha ha! What are you? A cop in your spare time?" As I turn back around I am shocked to find her right on my tail! "EEEE!"

"You little snoop!"

Her hand snaps out to grab my wrist in a tight grip. I switch the cuffs to my other hand and try to pull it away but she grabs that wrist as well. The next thing I knew she was pressing me back against the wall. I start to resist her, stopping her from pinning me, and for a moment we stand in a back and forth test of strength. Not wanting to be shown up by a girl, and hoping to impress her with a little manly bravado, I put my all into it and press forward. Winona hazel eyes lock onto mine. My advancing arms are halted and begin to shake. Then, slowly and steadily, Winona forces my wrists back against the wall behind me. I struggle and twist but I was going nowhere. Winona was stronger than me! Genuinely, truly, stronger than me! She steps in, looming over me and staring down into me as she physically dominates me in a way I'd only experienced with male bullies before.

I stare up at her in humbled awe as the fastest god damned erection I'd ever sprung comes to full mast in my tight jeans.

Slowly her right hand slides up my arm to pluck the cuffs from my hand. "Thank you." She says, then turns to return to the dresser to toss them into her top drawer.

I stand against the wall, still shook and wildly aroused by what had just happened. When my wits return I think quickly and grab the water bottle to hold it in a way to conceal my rock hard pecker.

"Uh...wh-what do you do with those?"

"Wouldn't you like to know." She quips. How right she was!

I am nearly startled out of my boots when suddenly there comes a booming. "Hey kid!" Filling the doorway was what might have been the largest human being I had ever seen with my own two eyes. The man had to be peeking over six and half foot tall but it was his thick stature that truly made him such a behemoth. One of his stout legs probably weighed as much as my whole damn body! His bright hazel eyes and distinctive high cheekbones left no doubt who this man was.

"Hey Pops." Winona hurries to the man for a warm hug. "Did you see this place?"

"I saw it!" He says. "I told you this was meant to be."

"You're right Pops, as usual."

"And who is this?" He looks to me.

"This is my friend Avery."

Friend? She called me friend!

"Ahem." I step forward and offer my hand for a shake. Thankfully the sight of the giant Dad had my over-eager pecker in a full and swift retreat. "G-good to meet you sir."

He steps through, filling the room with his presence. His size was intimidating as hell but the friendly smile on his face put a lot that to ease. He towers over me and his huge mitt completely encompasses my comparatively slender, pale hand as we shake. "Don't tell me. You play these funny games of hers too." He looks to his daughter. "You geeks are everywhere!"

"Yeah we are." Winona states proudly, slipping back on her glasses as if to emphasize her nerdiness.

"You unloaded the truck already."

"With Avery's help."

"Ahh." He slaps my shoulder in that same rough but friendly way that Winona had...only a hell of a lot stronger! "There's a true gentleman."

"H-happy to help sir."

"Ha ha ha!" His laughter bellows through the whole garage. "Enough of that sir business. Call me Amos, Avery."

"Yes sir...I mean, Amos."

"For the help I'll give you ten percent off your first tune up. Just the labor mind you."

"Pop!"

"Fine! Fifteen percent."

"God you're cheap!" Winona says. "Avery said he's got to get going." She takes my arm and whispers. "Come on." As Amos starts to poke around Winona leads me back out to my bike, pausing so that I could grab my pack along the way. "We've got a lot to do yet today and I know you do too."

"Yeah." I say. "I work in a few hours." I glance toward the hired cube van parked alongside Winona's truck. "He's nice."

"Oh he's nice alright." She rolls her eyes. "One look at you and my Mom'll be even nicer." When she sees my curious look she explains. "They're hoping I hook up with one of the rich white or asian boys from the college. They're not even coy about it, they just talk about it in the open." She lets out a huff. "Parents!"

"Oh." I say. "I'm not rich...or in college."

"And that is none of their business." She says. "Hey, really, thanks Sprout."

"Yeah."

"And don't worry. Those cats aren't going to starve while I'm around. I promised, and I keep my promises."

"Thank you." I didn't want to say goodbye. In fact it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do right now. I smack my dry lips and rub my fingers against my clammy palms. "Hey...uh...Winona...uhhh..."

Stepping closer she reaches out and softly rests a hand on my chest. "Avery. Before you ask me what I think you're going to ask me..." She pauses, searching for the right words. Oh no! She was blowing me off! Why did I ever think a woman like her would be interested in a guy like me! She just wanted help unloading. Of course she did. Why else would she be nice to me? I am such an idiot! Taking a deep breath then letting it out in a puff she says. "Whoo. This is always so awkward."

"It's okay." I say, already berating myself for my presumption that kindness equaled interest. "I'll just go."

"Wait." She says. "Just...talk to Kayla first, okay?"

"Kayla?"

"Before you ask me what I think you were about to ask me, and I DO want you to ask me, talk to Kayla. Just...talk to Kayla." Winona says, rather mysteriously. "You'll understand why later."

"O...kayyy?"

She grins a beaming, beautiful grin and pats my chest. "See you around?"

"Y-yeah. You bet."

I watch her every step of the way as she strides back to disappear around the back the garage, captivated by her long swooshing black hair and smoothly swaying hips. In a daze I shoulder my back, put on my helmet, and kick my bike into life. As I coast down the drive and back onto the highway for town I begin to question whether that had even happened. That had been a dream. It had to be dream! Right? Right!? With glance behind me I see the two trucks parked along side the old garage. Nope, it was real.

"Ha ha ha!" I cry out in joy and open the throttle wide.

***

Chapter 7

With the fresh ocean air coming in from the west blowing in my face I zip back into town in record time. Before heading for home I take my planned detour through a drive-thru and make for the harbor with the warm bag of fast food precariously balanced at my crotch. I glide smoothly through the wide tidy lanes of gleaming New Town, putter through the cozy avenues of charming Midtown, and finally snake through the narrow cobbled lanes of historic Old Town until at last I am rolling up to the Haven Point harbor at the end of the peninsula. I park my bike and with my lunch in hand I practically skip my way across the docks.

I can hear the tinkling of my grandpa's keyboard as I approach his old trawler turned houseboat. As I round around the front of it there he sits near the gangway to his home. With his long white hair, scruffy face, bare feet, fraying straw hat, well worn shorts, and unbuttoned demin shirt a newcomer to the island might have thought him a bum, and they wouldn't have been too far off. How he actually made a living even I didn't know. He sort of did everything and nothing. He'd sell oddball trinkets to the students and tourists one day, be busking the next, then be helping another one of the boats out here with repairs the next. Whatever he did it worked as he never seemed to be wanting despite living on his own terms.

The moment he sees me, as he always did while he was playing, he stops his current song dead to break into a rousing and rasping rendition of My Little Buttercup from the movie Three Amigos. It never failed to bring a smile to my face. Buttercup was his nickname for me due to the bright blond hair I had as a child and though my locks had darkened over the years the moniker had stuck, at least for grandpa. As he serenades my blond hair and blue eyes I come to sit on the empty folding lawn chair he kept beside him. On the little table between us I set out his burger and fries then unwrap the first of my two fish burgers and tuck in. The wonderfully silly ditty at an end he draws out the final "...I looooove youuuu."

I giggle and say. "Love you too Grandpa."

From the tacky turtle shaped ashtray sitting on the end of his keyboard he nabs the awaiting lit cigarette to take a long draw. For years I begged him to give up that dirty habit but he insisted that the smoke gave his voice 'seasoning'. I loved this man, I loved this man more than anybody else in the world, but that one habit of his I detested with all of my heart. I could hear the wheeze in his regular breathing now and the rattle in his cough but I had resigned myself to this simply being a battle I could not win. The bright eyesore of an ashtray was pure grandpa, his whole boat was furnished with other such garish knick-knacks that he had picked up over the years. An eccentric to his core he had actually been 'normal' once, a hard working fisherman until the fisheries collapse in the early 2000's, but in all of my lifetime he had always marched to his own beat.

After another puff he munches a few of his fries then starts to play Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, my most favorite song of all. As he plays he talks.

"Did you get that bluebird you were after?"

Patting my backpack I say. "I sure did."

"Well...let me see."

I put down my sandwich and dig out the camera he had given me a couple years ago. I flip past the pictures of Mama and her litter to the shots of the azure avian. I tilt the screen so that he could see them and, as I go through them, I impress myself when I see that they were even better than I remembered.

"You've got the eye. I always said that about you. You got the eye."

"It's more patience and luck than anything."

"Well you've got those too." He says. "I know how long you've worked for those. I'm proud of you Avery."

"Thank you." I smile bashfully. Turning the camera off I put it away and resume eating my lunch while I listen to the slow, somber tune. "Hey Grandpa."

"Yeah?"

"Can...you play something else?"

"Oh?"

I sit up tall. "I'm in a really good mood today."

"Heyyy! Good mood music coming right up." With that he transitions from the sonata to an upbeat Alley Cat. I laugh as I munch and bounce along to the tune. With a glance over to me he gently prods. "It must have been the bluebird of happiness."

I chew and swallow, the silly smile on my face not going away. "I...I met...a girl. Or, met her again I guess."

"A girl?" His whole demeanor brightens.

"Remember that role playing game I went to a few years back?"

"Yeah."

"It's her."

He looks at me surprised, though his playing continues smoothly. "The girl that embarrassed you?"

"I was wrong Grandpa. I was so wrong. It wasn't at all like I remember."

"Hmm." He hums, remembering back. "I seem to remember someone telling you it might be that way. A wise old skipper if I recall."

I giggle and hide my face in my sandwich wrapper. "It's nothing though. We just met. I helped her a little. It's nothing."

He chuckles. "I see." Continuing to loop the simple tune he plays on. "Pretty?"

"Ohhh Grandpa!" I swoon back. "She's the most beautiful girl the world!"

He laughs a hearty laugh that turns into a cough. With a phlegmy spit into the water and a shake of his head he says. "What have I told you?"

"I know, I know. Start small. Go slow. Let her get to know you." I say. "But Grandpa...this girl, she's different."

"Oh?"

"She's funny and kind and smart and strong and a little nerdy and....ohhhhh so beautiful."

"Slow down Buttercup."

"She's...perfect."

He plays a for a few bars just looking at me from the corner of his eye then says warmly. "I met a girl just like that once." His dancing fingers switching to a breezy As Time Goes By. "Ended up marrying her."

Stretching out my legs I stare up at the lazily circling gulls and happy blue sky. "She wants me to ask her out."

"Oh really?"

I nod, my smile only getting bigger. "I wasn't even going to ask her, not yet anyway. I'm not that brave. But she said she wanted me to ask. She wanted me to! I think she likes me too Grandpa."

"So? Did you?"

I sigh. "I've got to talk to Kayla first."

"Kayla!?" He laughs. "Didn't you tell me that they were a thing once?"

"Yeah."

"After you and Kayla was a thing?"

"Yeah."

"Kid, I might have only had but one woman in my life but even I know that talking to exes about exes is a bad idea."

"Kayla's cool." I say.

"If you say so." He says. "So, is it one of the students or...?"

"No. She's a mechanic. Her and her Dad are opening the old garage up at the junction."

"Oh! The native lass?"

I look at him surprised. "Yeah."

"Yeah, her and her parents came in on the morning ferry." He says. "I met Amos a few times at the coffee shop the first time they were through. Real nice guy."

"You saw her then? In the pickup truck."

"Yes Avery." He chuckles. "I saw her. In the pickup truck."

"Isn't she...beautiful?"

He looks at me as the romantic old tune floats through the air around us, a smile of understanding on his weathered face. "She is lovely my Buttercup."

***

Chapter 8

We chat and enjoy the music awhile as I finish up my lunch. When I could wait no longer I give my grandpa a kiss to his stubbly cheek. "Gotta go."

"Have a good day at work." He says.

"I will."

"And Avery." He stops his playing to turn to me. Reaching out he cups his hand behind my neck and smiles. "You just be yourself with that girl, okay? Put your best foot forward but you don't need to pretend that you're something you're not. If she can't see the good man that you are then she doesn't deserve you."

I smile back. "Thank you Grandpa."

"You'll sweep her off her feet." He says with that same unshakable faith in me that he always had. Where he got it from I will never know. He pats my cheek. "I love you."

"I love you too."

We hug. As he sits back and starts in on the burger I brought him I shoulder my pack and hurry off back down the dock. Back on my bike I zip home for a shower and a change before my shift. I already knew my good day was about to take a sour turn when I see my roommate's car parked in its spot. I park beside it and pull the camping gear from out of my saddlebags then up to our third floor apartment to see what was going on this time.

I hear a familiar video game soundtrack coming from the living room the moment walk in and kick off my hiking shoes. I walk around the corner to find my roomie Brayden kicked back with a controller in his hands resting on his pudgy belly. He was still in his work clothes and the place reeked of weed.

"Hey man." He says.

"Hi." I reply. "Um...aren't you supposed to be at work?"

"Ah, they fired me."

"What?"

"That bitch Lily said I was skimming from the till. Manager backed her up and claimed they got me on the camera. Those two always had it out for me."

"Oh. Um...did you?"

"No! Fuck you dude. You think I would do that?"

"N-no. O-of course not."

"Fucking fat bitch. She was probably the one stealing."

"Yeah. Probably." I say. "Maybe if you weren't late so many times..."

He flashes me an angry glare. "Don't fucking nag me right now dude. I've had a shit day and I am NOT in the mood."

"Sorry."

"You know I got that bipolar. I can't help that shit."

"Yeah. Sorry." I say quietly. "Um...that therapist I went to..."

"I told you that I don't need no fuckin therapy. Jesus."

"Sorry." I say again. "Sooo...um..."

"Calm your tits Avie." He says, using the name that only my siblings still called me. I hated that shortening of my name, it sounded childish to my ear, but him being a long time friend of my brothers it was all he had ever known me as. "Rent isn't due for a week. I'll get something else before then. No problem."

"Yeah."

"We'll figure something out, we always do don't we?"

"Yeah." I mumble. Unfortunately us 'figuring something out' usually meant me covering the difference.

I hurry on to my room where I unpack. I crack the window and roll out the sleeping bag and tent to they can air out and the rest of it I put away in their proper places in my neat and tidy room. I look around at the photos of my beloved island that lined the walls already thinking about where the friendly bluebird was going to go once I had a chance to get a few prints printed. Those thoughts don't last long however as others invade my mind. Thoughts of the tall beautiful hazel eyed woman that had pinned me against the wall. Ohhhh. Despite the excitement of my perfect wildlife shots all I could think about was...when would I see her again? I wished I had remembered to get her number. But Kayla would have it and I had to talk to her anyway...though I really didn't know why.

I give my head a shake and look at the clock. I didn't have time to daydream right now. Grabbing fresh socks and underwear along with my crisp white collared shirt and black trousers I hurry into the washroom for a very quick but thorough shower. When washing my junk I give my cock a few extra strokes as I remember Winona, but only a few. Just a few were enough to get me to half mast though. My goodness she had me worked up! I might have done more but didn't have time for a proper fap session right now and Winona certainly deserved a proper session. Besides, I kinda liked denying myself sometimes so that I could savor that pent up energy and make it feel extra good when I did bust my nut.

I brush my hair and teeth then shave, even though I barely needed it, and follow it up with my usuals suite of cleansers, lotions, and a touch of cologne. My weak effete features and naturally slender physique might not have given me much to work with but I took pride in making the most of what I had. If I'd been a girl I would have done makeup, pedicures, day spa facials, the works! There was nothing like looking good to feel good. Even if nobody noticed but myself.

I get dressed and give myself a good once over. I was looking rather dapper, for now. At least until I put on the ugly green apron that I had to wear at the store. I head back to my room to put on a belt and grab my phone and keys then on to the kitchen to grab my...

"Hey, uh, Brayden?" I say as I dig through the fridge.

"Mmm?"

"Did you see a container in here. It had rice, broccolli and some chicken and beans in it."

"Oh yeah. I snarfed that down when I got home."

I look to the sink to see the empty container atop the other dirty dishes. "That was my supper."

"Sorry man. I didn't know you were saving it special." He says. "I was starvin. You shoulda said something. Or left a note."

I sigh and swing the fridge door closed.. "I'll just get something at the store."

"While you're there we're out of frozen pizza." He says. "Maybe some soda?"