Best Kept Secret | NEON LIT

I was sixteen when she caught me.

Danny's house, summer vacation, the kind of lazy afternoon where nothing happens and everything matters. His mom was in the backyard, sunbathing by the pool in a bikini that barely contained her—all that dark skin and thick curves glistening with suntan oil.

I couldn't stop staring.

She was forty then. Forty years old, two hundred and forty pounds, with breasts that spilled out of her top and thighs that looked like they could crush worlds. Danny's dad had left years ago—"couldn't handle a real woman," Danny said once, bitter—and she'd been alone ever since.

She caught me looking through the kitchen window.

Our eyes met. I froze, terrified, waiting for the screaming, the accusations, the end of my friendship with Danny and probably my entire social life.

But she didn't scream.

She just smiled—slow, knowing—and turned over to give me a better view.

I came so hard in the bathroom afterward that I saw stars.

I never told anyone.

Neither did she.

That was eight years ago.

I'm twenty-four now. Danny moved to Neo-Seattle for work, and we've drifted the way friends do—occasional calls, birthday messages, the slow fade of proximity into memory.

But I never stopped thinking about his mother.

Miriam.

I'd search for her on social media late at night, cataloguing every new photo. Her face a little more lined, her hair a little more grey, her body somehow more—bigger, softer, everything I'd spent eight years trying not to want.

She caught me looking when I was sixteen, and I've been looking ever since.

So when I get transferred to Neo-Phoenix for work, and I realize I'm going to be living three blocks from her house—

I tell myself it's coincidence.

I tell myself I won't go see her.

I tell myself I'm not still that desperate sixteen-year-old staring through a kitchen window at something he can never have.

I last two weeks before I knock on her door.

She opens it in a sundress.

Forty-eight now—God, forty-eight—but she looks the same. Fuller, maybe. More grey in her hair, which falls in loose curls around a face that's aged like fine wine. The dress is yellow, thin cotton, straining across breasts and hips in ways that make my mouth go dry.

"Julian?"

My name in her mouth sounds different than I remember. Deeper. Richer.

"Hi, Mrs. Reyes."

"Call me Miriam. You're not a kid anymore." Her eyes travel down my body—I've filled out since sixteen, work and gym and years of trying to become someone worth looking at—and something flickers in her expression. "Look at you. All grown up."

"I moved here for work. Found out you were in the area. Thought I'd—" I shrug, trying to look casual. Failing. "Say hi."

"Just say hi?"

"What else would I be here for?"

She smiles. That same smile from eight years ago. The one that saw straight through me.

"Come inside, Julian. It's too hot to stand in the doorway."

Her house is cool and dim, all terracotta tiles and slow-spinning fans. She offers me iced tea, and I accept, trying not to watch the way her dress rides up when she reaches for the glasses.

"Danny mentions you sometimes," she says, settling onto the couch. "Says you're doing well."

"Well enough."

"And you're here now. In Phoenix. Three blocks away, according to my map."

"Convenient location. Good rent."

"Mmm." She takes a slow sip of her tea, those dark eyes watching me over the rim. "Is that why you're really here, Julian? Convenient rent?"

My heart is hammering. "What other reason would there be?"

"You tell me."

Silence stretches between us. The fan turns overhead, cutting shadows through the afternoon light.

"I remember the summer you were sixteen," she says quietly. "I remember how you looked at me by the pool. Like you'd never seen a woman's body before. Like you were hungry for something you didn't know how to name."

"Miriam—"

"I remember turning over so you could see more. I remember the look on your face when our eyes met. I remember—" She sets down her glass. "I remember how much I liked it."

My throat closes up.

"You were forty."

"And you were sixteen. Far too young. Off-limits in every way that matters." She stands, moves toward me. I'm frozen in my chair, watching her approach like a deer watching headlights. "But you're not sixteen anymore, are you?"

She stops in front of me. Close enough to touch.

"You're twenty-four. A grown man. And you're sitting in my living room, pretending you moved here for convenient rent." She reaches down, cups my chin, tilts my face up. "Tell me the truth, Julian. Why are you really here?"

The words come out before I can stop them.

"Because I never stopped thinking about you. Not once. Not in eight years."

She kisses me like she's been waiting for it as long as I have.

Soft at first—testing, tasting—and then deeper, her tongue sliding against mine while her hands grip my shoulders and pull me up from the chair. I'm taller than her now, broader, but she still feels overwhelming. All that body pressed against mine, all that flesh I've been dreaming about for nearly a decade.

"My bedroom," she breathes. "Now."

I follow her like I'm sleepwalking.

Her bedroom is all white linens and afternoon light.

She strips off the sundress in one motion, and I see her—really see her—for the first time. She's bigger than I imagined, softer, every inch of her yielding and real. Her breasts hang heavy, dark nipples hardening in the cool air. Her belly is round and marked with stretch marks. Her hips are wide, her thighs thick, and between them—

"Like what you see?"

I realize I've been staring. Again. Just like I was at sixteen.

"You have no idea."

"Then show me." She sits on the edge of the bed, spreads her legs. "You've been looking for eight years, Julian. Time to stop looking and start touching."

I worship her the way I've always wanted to.

Every fantasy I've had since I was sixteen comes flooding out in a rush of mouths and hands. I bury my face in her breasts and groan at the softness. I kiss my way down her belly and feel her shiver. I spread her thick thighs and taste her for the first time, and she cries out like I'm giving her something she'd forgotten she needed.

"God, Julian—"

"I've imagined this every day for eight years," I tell her between strokes of my tongue. "Every single day. You were all I thought about. All I wanted."

"Then stop talking and show me."

I show her.

I make her come twice with my mouth before I strip off my own clothes and position myself between her legs. She looks up at me—this woman who's known me since I was a boy, who watched me grow up, who's been living in my fantasies since before I knew what fantasies were—

"Are you sure?" I ask.

"I've been sure since that summer by the pool." She reaches up, cups my face. "I just had to wait for you to grow up."

I push inside her, and we both moan.

We fuck like we're making up for lost time.

Because we are. Eight years of looking, of wanting, of pretending we didn't know what the other was thinking. Eight years of distance and denial and desperate loneliness, collapsed into a single afternoon in a sun-drenched bedroom.

She's loud. Demanding. Tells me what she wants in explicit detail and doesn't let me get away with anything less than exactly that. She wraps her thick legs around my waist and pulls me deeper. She bites my shoulder hard enough to leave marks.

And when she comes—with my name on her lips and her body clenching around me—I follow her over the edge like I was always meant to.

"Danny can never know," she says afterward.

We're lying in a sweaty tangle, her head on my chest, my hand tracing the curve of her hip. The afternoon light has shifted to gold.

"I know."

"I mean it. He's my son. If he found out—"

"He won't." I kiss the top of her head. "This is between us. Our secret."

"The best kept secret." She laughs softly. "That's what I've been calling it, in my head. For eight years. The boy who looked at me like I was something worth looking at, and the way I couldn't stop thinking about it."

"Neither could I."

"Clearly." She props herself up to look at me. "So what happens now? You're here, I'm here, and we've just—"

"Ruined any possibility of pretending this isn't happening?"

"Something like that."

I pull her back down, hold her close.

"I didn't move here just for convenient rent," I admit. "I moved here because I knew you were here. Because I've spent eight years wondering what if, and I couldn't take it anymore. And now—" I cup her face, make her look at me. "Now I want more. Not just one afternoon. Not just a secret. I want you, Miriam. For as long as you'll have me."

Her eyes are bright. Wet.

"You're twenty-four. You should be with girls your own age—"

"I should be with who I want. And I want you." I kiss her, soft and slow. "I've wanted you since I was sixteen. I'll probably want you when I'm fifty. The only question is whether you want me back."

She's quiet for a long moment.

Then she pulls me into a kiss that answers every question I've ever had.

We keep the secret for six months.

Six months of stolen afternoons and quiet dinners and falling asleep tangled together in her bed. Six months of learning each other—not just sexually, but actually. Her favorite books, her secret dreams, the loneliness that's eaten at her since her husband left.

I love her.

I tell her on a Sunday morning, making breakfast in her kitchen, and she cries into my shoulder for ten minutes before she can say it back.

"I love you too. I think I have since you were eighteen and came back for summer break and I realized you weren't a boy anymore."

"Then why didn't you—"

"Because you were eighteen. Because you were Danny's friend. Because I convinced myself it was wrong, even though—" She shakes her head. "Even though it never felt wrong. Just... forbidden."

"Is it still forbidden?"

"I don't know." She looks up at me. "Does it matter?"

I kiss her forehead. Her nose. The corner of her mouth.

"Not to me."

Danny finds out eventually.

He's visiting for the holidays, walks into his mother's kitchen, and finds me making coffee in my boxers.

The silence is... extensive.

"Mom," he says finally, very carefully. "Why is Julian half-naked in your kitchen?"

"Because I slept over," I say.

"You slept over?"

"We've been seeing each other for six months." Miriam emerges from the bedroom, wrapped in a robe, looking at her son with an expression that's equal parts defiance and fear. "I was going to tell you, I just—"

"You've been sleeping with my best friend?"

"Ex-best friend," I point out. "We haven't talked in months."

"That is not the point!"

There's shouting. A lot of shouting. Danny storms out twice. Miriam cries. I stand in the kitchen, weathering the storm, refusing to let go of her hand.

Eventually, Danny runs out of anger.

"You're serious about this?" he asks, slumped at the kitchen table, a beer in hand. "This isn't just—some midlife crisis thing?"

"I'm in love with her," I say simply. "Have been since I was sixteen, even if I didn't know what to call it then. She's not a phase, Danny. She's it."

He looks at his mother. "And you?"

"I love him too." Her voice is steady now. "More than I've loved anyone since your father. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I was scared."

Danny is quiet for a long time.

"This is insane," he says finally.

"Probably."

"You're almost young enough to be my brother."

"Technically, yes."

"And you've been—" He shudders. "Actually, don't tell me. I don't want to know."

"Fair."

He downs the rest of his beer. Looks at me, then at his mother, then back at me.

"If you hurt her," he says, "I'll kill you. You know that, right?"

"I know."

"And this is going to take a lot of getting used to."

"I know that too."

He sighs. Stands. And—after a long, awkward moment—holds out his hand.

"I guess... welcome to the family? Christ, that's weird to say."

I shake his hand.

"Thanks, Danny."

"Don't thank me yet. I'm going to give you shit about this for the rest of your life."

I grin. "I wouldn't expect anything less."

We get married two years later.

A small ceremony, close friends, Danny as my reluctant but ultimately supportive best man. Miriam walks down the aisle in white, all curves and confidence, and I think about the sixteen-year-old kid staring through a kitchen window, desperate and confused and wanting something he didn't understand.

He never could have imagined this.

But here we are anyway.

"You're still looking at me like that," she murmurs during our first dance.

"Like what?"

"Like you're hungry. Like you've never seen a woman before."

I pull her closer, feel her body warm against mine.

"I'll never stop looking at you like that," I promise. "Not even when we're old and grey."

She laughs, that same knowing laugh from eight years ago, from the moment our eyes met through a window and everything changed.

"Good," she says. "Because I plan on giving you plenty to look at."

And she does.

Every day, for the rest of our lives.

The best kept secret that finally became something more:

Ours.