Lakeside Park

"I'll load the car," he said when I didn't respond, letting go of my waist.

"Wait," I said, and when he turned back to me, I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him.

We didn't go to the bedroom. I tried to pretend it was because I wanted him so badly I couldn't wait one second longer, but both of us knew it was because I didn't want to wake Ramona. Scott didn't seem to care too much; strong arms tightened around me as he walked me back towards the table in the front entryway. As soon as I felt the edge of the table pressing against my back, he hiked my dress up around my waist and tugged my panties down. His lips captured mine as he unbuckled his belt, the hurried sounds of him working to get his cock out enough to make my skin tingle and my pussy drip.

"Up," he grunted, helping me onto the table before shoving my legs apart.

When he sank himself inside me, I whimpered, clutching his shoulders as he exhaled loudly. He paused once his pelvis pressed against mine, his breath hot against my skin as his cock filled me.

"Fuck," he groaned softly. "I miss this, Liz."

"Me too," I whispered.

He pressed his lips against mine, the walls of my pussy gripping every inch of his cock as he started slowly, then began moving harder, then began fucking me against the table in the hallway. I clung to him, heat rising up my neck and to my cheeks, shuddering as he hit all those deliciously wonderful spots that made electricity surge through my body. He buried his face against my neck, his teeth nipping at my skin as he sent me closer and closer to ecstasy, as his pelvis rubbed against my clit and made that pooling sense of bliss start to bubble and roll inside me.

I tried to be quiet when I came.

I failed.

He pressed a hand to my mouth as I lost control of my voice, as the pleasure inside me boiled over and manifested as a wavering sort of cry. I was still working to find my breath when Scott grunted and stilled as he shot a load of cum deep inside me, pulse after pulse of warmth filling me up as I writhed in his arms.

"Fuck," he murmured as he finished, resting heavily against me. "We gotta do this more often. I want my wife again."

I shivered as he pulled out, his cum dripping from my pussy. "Maybe we should try for another."

He stopped and looked up at me. "What?"

I felt my face turn red. "I just mean when we were trying for Ramona, we... we did it a lot. So maybe that would... never mind."

He chuckled and kissed me again. "Maybe in a while. Right now, one's a handful, wouldn't you say?"

I laughed and agreed and slipped off the table so I could pull my panties back up, then rushed upstairs to fix my hair and makeup. By some miracle, Ramona wasn't cranky when she woke, and Scott and I managed to get the car loaded so we could drive the two minutes to the parking lot closest to the picnic area only a few minutes later than I originally intended.

Of course, because we were a few minutes late, Scott's parents were already in the parking lot waiting to help us set up, which meant they got to witness the crestfallen look on my face as I realized the picnic tables I'd booked were overrun by another party.

"It's fine," Scott said as he looked at me. "We'll go to another spot."

"There isn't another spot with picnic tables!" I hissed. "I'm telling them to move."

"Liz--"

"I booked them and paid for the permits and everything!" I snapped. "Those are my picnic tables and I'm not changing the party I spent weeks planning because someone else didn't bother to do the same thing!"

Before he could respond, I got out of the car. Leaving Scott to get Ramona out of her car seat, I picked up my bag and marched across the parking lot to the nearest picnic table.

"Excuse me," I said as I approached. "Whose party is this?"

A gorgeous woman with long, thick black hair turned towards me, a baby around Ramona's age in her arms.

"Well, my son's, technically," she said, shooting a warm smile at me. "But seeing as he's only one, I guess I'm in charge."

"Great." I pulled the carefully clipped together permits out of my bag and held them up. "I have this spot booked for my daughter's birthday party.

The smile on her face was replaced by alarmed confusion. "Booked?"

"Yes," I said evenly. "The picnic space needs to be booked a minimum of ten days prior to an event and you need a permit if you want to have a grill." I motioned towards the bar-b-que they had set up next to the table. "Which you most certainly don't, because I do."

"What's going on?" A man came up and put his hand on the woman's back as he looked at me. "Is there a problem?"

"I didn't know we had to book the spot," the woman said, all traces of her smile gone. "But everyone's here and we told them--"

"I have an entire party full of people coming to this exact spot for my daughter's first birthday," I interrupted.

"Of course," the woman said. "I'm sorry, I just... I didn't know and--" Her voice cracked and she looked like she was about to start sobbing. "I can't believe I did this."

"Monica, it's okay," the man said. "We'll find another place to--"

"It's not okay." She pressed her lips together and shook her head. "I'm already months late with celebrating his birthday and now I've gone and screwed up--"

"We delayed celebrating his birthday because you needed to have surgery," the man said patiently. "He's one, he has no idea it's not his birthday, and he would much rather have his mother around for years to come anyway." The man looked up at me. "You said your daughter's one?"

"Yes," I said.

"Well, we have far too much food and there's plenty of space. How about we help feed your guests and we combine the parties?"

I frowned. "But--"

"That sounds excellent," Scott said from behind me. He had Ramona balanced on one hip and was holding a cooler in his other hand as he gave me a look. "We have tons of food and cake and games. It's a beautiful day and if the kids are the same age, they'll probably end up being friends at school or something eventually."

"Really?" the woman said hopefully, looking first at Scott and then at me with wide eyes. "We'd be so grateful for that. Do you mind, Mrs....?"

I felt three sets of eyes on me. The thing was, I did mind. And maybe that made me sound like a horrible person, but I couldn't help it.

I had planned the birthday a certain way. Now I was going to be responsible for adjusting everything on the fly because my husband wanted to be friendly and accommodating. But who was going to be the one changing how all the tables were set up? Who was the one who was going to be tracking whose food was whose and responsible for watching twice the amount of kids as I'd anticipated? Who was going to explain to those kids why some of them were getting certain goody bags and others weren't?

It was either that or be the monster who had to tell an upset-looking mom who'd had a rough couple of months that she couldn't have her son's birthday party even though it was already set up and ready to go.

"Liz Roth," I said, extending my hand to her. "And not at all. It'll be a blast."

"You're an absolute angel." The woman reached out and shook my hand. "I'm Monica Halliday. This is my husband, George, and our son, Ashton."

**

"Lady, lady, please!" someone was saying over the terror-wild pounding of my heart. "I'm not going to hurt you, I was just--"

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I demanded shrilly. "The park is closed!"

"Uh, yeah," he replied. "So what the fuck are you doing here?"

I paused, my mouth dry and my head light as I tried to catch my breath. From beside me, I saw the outline of a vaguely humanoid shape, but it was too dark to see any details.

"None of your business," I finally said. "I-I'm going to... I'm gonna leave, I... if I don't get home, my husband will--" I stopped suddenly, then swallowed the lump that had jumped into my throat. "Scott w-will--"

"I swear to God, I'm not gonna do anything." He was so close that I didn't know how I hadn't collapsed on top of him when I sat down. "I didn't know anyone else would even be out this time of night, okay? Let me... I'm gonna scootch away a little and grab my cell phone from my pocket, okay? And I'm gonna turn the flashlight on so we can see each other."

I should have just run. I didn't know who he was, sure, but he also didn't know who I was, and that meant he wouldn't be able to tell anyone I was in the park in the middle of the night and--

"Okay," I whispered.

I heard movement, then saw a brief flash of light as he turned the screen of his phone on. Moments after that, the stark white light of his flashlight burned through the darkness and I blinked as my eyes adjusted.

His adjusted first, apparently.

"Mrs. Roth?" he said incredulously.

I blinked twice more as his face came into focus.

The man sitting beside me was in his early twenties and vaguely familiar. I didn't know much about him except that he was older than my daughter--if they'd been close in age, I would have recognized him as one of her classmates, and he certainly didn't look younger than her--and that I'd seen him around Minwack Falls.

And I knew for certain I'd seen him around town. He had a very... distinctive sort of look, with stretched piercings through each of his ears, a hoop through his lip, and apparently--since his mouth was half-open as he gaped at me--a stud in his tongue. That night, he was wearing a hoodie with some sort of skull on the front, but I knew from seeing him skateboarding around the park that tattoos covered his arms and neck. He had blonde hair that was long on top but shaved on the sides and was staring at me with wide, round eyes.

In another universe, back before marriage and a baby and a town with bylaws and perfect lawns, the twenty-year-old version of me would have been intrigued by everything about him. At forty, the reaction was less intrigue and more... I wasn't sure what to call it.

"Liz Roth," I replied unsteadily. "Just... just Liz, please. I'm sorry, I don't know your name."

"Jus--" He started saying, then stopped. "Um... I mean..."

I must have looked nervous, because he sighed and looked down at his hands.

"Justin Higgins," he said. "Are you gonna call the cops on me again?"

"I... what?" I asked.

He glanced up at me, confused. "You've called the guys down at the station on me like six times for being in the park after it closes."

"Well, you shouldn't be in the park after it closes," I said without thinking.

"Mm-hmm," Justin replied, raising his eyebrows.

I felt my face go red. "I didn't know it was you in the park. I just call when I see people who aren't supposed to be here. But I... I won't be calling them tonight."

He half-laughed. "Right. Cool. They probably wouldn't come, anyway."

"Why?"

"'Cause they're busy responding to a domestic incident," he said flatly. "Which is why I'm here."

"What happened?"

He shrugged. "It's the chick who lives in the townhouse next to me. Her boyfriend or husband or whatever works out of town and came home to discover that she's not missing him as much as he's missing her, if you know what I mean."

"Oh."

"Yeah. But regardless of her being a cheater, that doesn't mean he gets to... you know. Hit her or whatever. So I called the police and they came down around the time she was trying to convince him that she'd mistaken the guy she was fucking for him because of the power outage." He shrugged again. "It got a little loud and I wasn't really into listening to more of that soap opera, so I figured I'd come down here and--"

He stopped again, and that was when I glanced down and saw the bag of weed clutched in his hand.

It wasn't illegal. The weed itself, I mean. In fact, I'd been a supporter of legalizing it. Sure, part of that was fond memories from my pre-married life when I could indulge in things like weed without anyone thinking twice about it, but it was more than that. Legalizing weed meant drug dealers like Aaron Mulch weren't necessary anymore and kids were less likely to be able to get their hands on it. However, I'd also been one of the many vocal supporters within the town itself that insisted weed should not be used on public property.

I mean, if I couldn't have a glass of wine while picnicking in the park, why should someone be able to get high? Not to mention the smell or the litter. So sure, Justin wasn't doing anything wrong by having weed on him--besides being in the park after closing, of course--but lighting it up was firmly against the town bylaws.

"Changed your mind?" he asked when I didn't say anything.

If it had been a few hours earlier, I might have. Well, actually, no. If it had been a few hours earlier, I would have already called the police on him and certainly wouldn't be sitting in a dark park with him, staring blankly at the dried buds he was holding. There would be no changing my mind because we would have never even reached this point of the conversation.

But that was before everything had changed.

"Split it with me and we'll call it even," I said.

He stared at me. "Wanna repeat that? 'Cause I think I might be hearing things."

I pressed my lips together, doing my best impression of Ramona's exasperatedly unimpressed face, and tilted my head towards the bag. "I would like to have some of your cannabis, so if you would be so kind as to roll it up into smokeable form and share it with me, I won't tell the police we're both breaking the law by being in the park past closing time."

"Wha..." Justin's head moved from side to side. "Okay, what the fuck happened?"

"Excuse me?"

He folded his arms. "You're Mrs. Roth. HOA lady and like, town ambassador. Unofficial judge of which people 'belong' in Minwack Falls. The type to call the cops on people for sitting in the park after ten p.m. Following rules is your thing. Everyone knows that."

Heat was crawling up my neck. "Your point?"

"You just asked to smoke weed with me. Have you ever even smoked before?"

"Once upon a time," I muttered, then shook my head. "Never mind. It was a stupid thing to ask. I'll leave now."

"No, wait," he said, hesitating for half a second before grabbing my wrist as I made to stand up. "Look, I'll share, Mrs--uh, Liz. You just threw me off a little but like, hell yeah, I'll split a joint with you. Just, you know, maybe you should like, also tell me what's wrong because I'm a little worried about you?"

The uncertainty in his voice was cute, in a way, and I almost had to laugh. "You came here to get away from listening to a soap opera, not to be involved in mine."

"Yeah, well..." He let go of my wrist and fiddled with the bag of weed. "The soap opera next door ends with me not being able to sleep because they either make up loudly or she bawls her eyes out loudly after they haul him off to the station. Pretty predictable finale. But something that gets you breaking the rules? This is a story I wanna hear."

I laughed softly. "How much time do you have?"

Justin flashed a bright grin at me and opened the baggy. "I got all night, Liz."

**

"Mommy, can you please leave me alone?"

I would never forget the look on Ramona's face as she looked up at me, eight-year-old eyebrows furrowed in a pained expression as she pleaded with me, just as I would never forget those words.

"Can you please leave me alone?" she had said, but there were a thousand other words written beneath it.

"I want to do this by myself."

"I'm tired of having you here."

"It's embarrassing being the only kid whose mom volunteers every time."

"I don't need you anymore."

She hadn't said it to be mean or rebellious or defiant. The look on her face told me that much. Her tone was quiet and her voice wavered as she found her footing in standing up for herself and communicating her needs, and at the same time my heart was being crushed in my chest, I was so, so proud of her.

"Okay, Ra-Ra," I said.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, her eyes starting to shine as her voice got smaller. "I just sometimes want to do things on my own and--"

"I get it, sweetie." I glanced around, then bent down and quickly kissed her on the head. "Go have fun with track-and-field, and I'll let the teacher know I'm going home. Mrs. Halliday will pick you and Ashton up after school, okay?"

Monica Halliday and I shared pickup duties since we lived across the street from each other. In the years since that fateful first birthday party, our families had become reasonably friendly; Scott had been right about Ashton and Ramona being in the same class at school, and they played together often.

Ramona threw her arms around my neck, kissed me on the cheek, then practically sprinted towards her friends on the other side of the field. Straightening up, I spotted her teacher talking to one of the other volunteer moms near the high jump mats and tried to swallow the lump in my throat as I walked over to her.

I'd never had a career.

I'd had a job, of course. It was how I'd met Scott. Me, an eighteen-year-old waitress at a poorly run place with mediocre food and a tendency to hire their waitstaff based on how good their legs looked in a skirt over any meaningful qualifications, which was how I got the job with zero work experience. Him, the new general manager who took over a few months after I started when the owner of the restaurant group discovered the former general manager fucking one of the hostesses on top of a produce crate in the walk-in cooler. He'd been twenty-four then, and it was his first time managing a restaurant on his own, which he wasn't exceptionally pleased about; the only reason he was working there was that his father was the owner of the restaurant group and felt Scott needed more "real" experience before working with him on a higher level.

But being a waitress wasn't a career. It was supposed to be a way for me to earn enough money to get myself to university, but the moment Scott had walked in, I was smitten. And, for some reason, he'd been smitten with me.

For a few months, we simply flirted and teased each other. The chemistry was intense and obvious; long before we finally gave into it, the other restaurant staff joked about how I was going to be the boss's wife one day. I always rolled my eyes and shook my head, certain that it was all just for fun, that this handsome man who was older and better off and more clever than I was wouldn't actually want to be with me.

Then there was one of those nights. Anyone in the restaurant industry knows about them; someone calls out and another person doesn't show, but somehow it's a blessedly slow night anyway, so you get lulled into a false sense of security and the manager starts cutting people as the night wears on. And then, it's just you, him, and one cook left and it's a half hour until close and suddenly the front door is chiming as table after table flows into the restaurant, and you're all scrambling to get people seated and fed and paid up as quickly as possible.

And then the customers all leave, and Scott starts helping clean the kitchen as you clean the front of house, and that means the cook is able to leave first. And then it's just you and Scott, and he comes out to help you finish cleaning, and you realize you've never been completely alone together.

Suddenly the conversations are more risque, and the tension is about as thick as the bulge in the front of his pants as you wipe the tables down just a little more suggestively, and before either of you know it, you're pressed against the bar with his tongue in your mouth and his hand under your bra and your skirt being worked up your hips as you try to unbuckle his belt. And then there's a hard, throbbing cock in your hands and your legs are spreading farther and farther as he helps you onto a bar stool, and then he's standing between them and pushing your panties to the side and shoving his cock inside you, and it's like nothing you've ever felt and you squirm, needing more, and more, and more.