by Aly Martinez
He barked a laugh and then stopped in front of…Till’s beat-up truck?
“Your brother’s here?” I asked looking around the parking lot.
“Nope,” he answered, running his hand over the rusted-out hood.
Till’s truck was a hunk of shit junkyards probably wouldn’t even allow on the premises. He had other cars and more than enough money to restore it to all of its budget luxury of its heyday, but with the exception of keeping it running, Till hadn’t fixed anything on it. I suspected that it had sentimental value to him. What I didn’t understand was why it was parked in front of our apartment.
Quarry answered my unspoken question when he pulled open the passenger’s side door for me. “Hop in.” He smiled.
“What’s wrong with your cars?” I asked, thoroughly perplexed.
Quarry was a car whore. He paid thousands of dollars each month to rent out four of the small garages our apartment complex offered to store his collection of sports cars. I never knew what was hiding behind those garage doors because it seemed the cars were always different. He rotated through them, trading them in whenever a newer or a nicer one came out.
“Nothing. I borrowed this from Till special for tonight.”
I scrunched my nose in displeasure, which only made him laugh.
“Get in, Rocky. We can’t be late.”
“Valet is going to love this,” I smarted, sliding into the open door.
Quarry twirled the keys around his finger as he circled the front of the truck. With an unbelievably loud creak, the driver’s side door opened, and he slid behind the wheel.
“Here. Put this on.” He lifted a blindfold my way.
I stared at it dangling from the tip of his finger. “Where’d you get a blindfold?”
“Flint said Ash likes to get crazy in bed sometimes,” he said nonchalantly.
Curling my lip, I slapped it out of his hand. “Ew!”
He laughed and scooped it off the floor. “I’m kidding. I bought it today.” He stretched the strap over my head. “Come on. I want to surprise you.”
I glared at him until he finally understood.
“Oh, right.” He cranked the noisy truck and flipped the radio on. Then his hand anchored to my exposed thigh. “I’m right here. Nothing to worry about.”
He was wrong. That was exactly why I was worried in the first place.
Open mind.
No guilt.
It’s not a competition.
Of course I can trust him.
We can do this.
I sighed then pulled the mask over my eyes.
Minutes later, with a blanket thrown over my lap since the heater didn’t work, we were roaring down the highway.
“Don’t take it off until I tell you,” Quarry ordered as the truck slowed to a stop. He put the car in park but didn’t cut the engine.
“Okay,” I agreed, shedding the blanket and straightening my dress in preparations to exit the vehicle.
Only that didn’t happen at all.
“Um…yes, I’d like two chili dogs. No onions. Two large fries…”
“Are you kidding me?” I snapped as he continued to rattle off a mountain of fast food.
I went for my blindfold, but he caught my wrists in one hand and locked them together in my lap.
His voice was filled with humor as he finished ordering. “What’s wrong, Liv?” he asked when he was done.
“You made me put on a dress and blindfolded me for chili dogs?”
“Hey, I’m wearing a suit. Imagine my disappointment.” He released my hands and glided his fingers up my thigh. “Fine, I’ll confess. The dress was for me.”
I sucked in a sharp breath when he brushed the bare flesh at my core.
“Oh. My. Fuck,” he whispered.
My mind forced me to back up in my seat in order to escape his touch, but my body had other ideas and uncrossed my legs to offer him more access.
“This…dress doesn’t exactly look good with panties,” I said breathily.
Actually, that might be why I picked it to wear tonight.
After our moment in the kitchen, guilt couldn’t even trump my desire for him.
I could feel guilty for the rest of my life.
I only had one date with Quarry. Or so I’d told myself as I’d removed my panties.
His finger deliciously ran up and down my slit, and I felt the blanket fall back over my lap.
“Are…are,” I sputtered when he found my clit. “Are we in a drive-thru?”
“Drive-up. But no one’s around.”
Oh…I was classy.
I was with my friend’s man, letting him finger me under a blanket at a drive-up restaurant. How old was I again? My thoughts started to win out over my desires. However, just as I convinced myself that this had to stop, he dipped inside.
Screw my thoughts.
My head fell back and my legs spread wide.
“Fuck,” he cursed as his hand disappeared.
He growled loudly. Then his mouth covered mine. The faint flavor of my arousal lingered on his tongue as it snaked into my mouth.
He’d licked his fingers. Dear lord. Why was that so hot?
Slanting my head, I gripped the back of his neck, attempting to pull him impossibly closer.
I felt the blanket pull taut on my lap, but it still covered me. It was as if he had crawled under it with me.
“Shit. I should have ordered more food,” he mumbled as he suddenly moved away.
I heard the manual crank of the window, and then a female voice joined us.
“Hey. How’s it going tonight?”
I giggled as Quarry bit out a frustrated hello.
The crinkle of plastic bags sounded just before they landed in my lap.
“No change. I’m good. Thanks. Have a good night,” he gritted out then promptly rolled up the window. His hand found its way under the blanket again. “I did not need to know you weren’t wearing any panties.” His fingers brushed between my legs again, but he quickly removed them and pulled my dress down.
It was a good thing he was stopping. We didn’t need to be doing that—regardless of how much my body was screaming for more. For a minute there, even my mind had been begging for it.
Which reminded me: I needed to start packing in the morning for my one-way trip to Hell.
“Can I take this off so I can eat?” I pointed to my eyes.
The truck shifted into gear.
“Not yet.” He was reversing when I felt his hand start digging through one of the bags. “Open up,” he ordered.
My legs immediately obeyed.
He barked a loud laugh and then amended, “Your mouth. For now, at least.”
“Shut up.” I rolled my closed eyes and followed his instructions. A french fry landed in my mouth before he dug back into the bag—I assumed for his own appetizer.
Moments later, we were once again roaring down the highway.
“Hang tight, and no peeking,” Quarry instructed when he cut the engine.
This time, he gathered all the bags of food and then pulled the blanket off my lap before he got out.
I blindly smoothed my hair down and ran my fingers around the outline of my lips to hopefully get rid of any lipstick that may have smeared at the drive-up.
I was so nervous I couldn’t even remember my mantra anymore. Something about an open mind and some other bullshit. However, it seemed like it was a lot more like open legs when I was with Quarry.
“What is wrong with me?” I asked myself over the loud music he’d left playing solely for my benefit.
I loved that he knew that about me.
I loved that I hadn’t felt awkward when opening my mouth for him to shove french fries in as we had driven.
I loved that, despite how uncomfortable I felt about being on this “date,” I was unbelievably comfortably with him.
Really, I just loved him.
And I hated myself because of it.
The cool air rushed through
the truck as my door swung open.
“Okay. Come on.” He unbuckled my seat belt and then helped me to my feet. He held my hand as he guided me down the side of the truck. Then he stopped at the tailgate and used my shoulder to turn me away from it.
When he had me positioned just right, he stepped away. “Now you can take it off,” he announced excitedly.
I didn’t waste a second before pulling the blindfold from my eyes. Quarry was standing proudly in front of me with his hands shoved in his pockets. Looking every bit as tantalizing as he always was. I smiled shyly as he popped that dimple with a lopsided smile. I was so focused on his mouth that I barely registered the light of the bus station sign glowing behind him.
“I’ve never brought anyone in the world here before.” He rested his hands on my hips and swayed me forward.
I twisted my lips. “I’m not sure I’m excited to find out that the last place in the world you haven’t taken anyone else on a date is a bus station.”
“No. Smartass. You are the only person I’ve ever brought here.”
I arched an eyebrow in question. He shook his head with a smile and slid his hands under my arms, and then he lifted me to sit on the tailgate.
I expected cold metal, but I was met with a plush fleece blanket covering the bed of the truck.
It was cold, but he tugged his jacket off, draped it over the side, then settled beside me.
I bumped him with my shoulder. “Are you this romantic on all your dates? Or am I just that special?” I teased.
“Just you.”
“I’m assuming there’s a story here?” I motioned a hand to the bus station.
He went to work passing me food, leaving what was left of the fries at the bottom of the bag between us. “Yep.”
“You gonna tell me?” I asked before taking a bite of my hot dog.
He lifted a finger and then finished his dinner in three bites. After washing it down with a large soda, he winked and popped a mint in his mouth. “I should have taken you on our first date at sixteen.”
My smile fell, and I lost my appetite completely. Dumping my food in the bag, I became fascinated with the concrete parking lot.
He linked his hand with mine and settled them on his thigh. “This is the date I would have taken you on. I was a broke sixteen-year-old back then. But Till would have let me borrow his truck, and Eliza would have snuck me some money for dinner even if I hadn’t done my chores at home. I splurged on the roses, so you got chili dogs.” He smirked. “Even feeling you up at the drive-up would have happened, and I definitely would have brought you here. Because, if we were going out on a date back then, this place would have been the way I got you back.”
He stopped talking and turned to face me. Then he stole a boyish kiss that made me blush.
I nervously fidgeted with my dress as if I really were that fifteen-year-old girl in the back of his truck.
Quarry laughed then continued. “Two days after my sixteenth birthday, Till and I got into a huge fight because he wouldn’t let me get my driver’s license, seeing that I had a C in Spanish.”
“Y por eso deberías haberme mantenido alrededor,” I mumbled. (And this is why you should have kept me around.)
“Showoff.” He bumped me with his shoulder. “Anyway, I took off. Wandered around aimlessly with no place to go. I was on foot, so it wasn’t like I could make it far, but I refused to go home. I ended up here.” He pointed to a bench just outside the door to the run-down terminal. “I sat there for hours, watching people as buses came in and out. It was crazy, but I started trying to imagine what those people’s lives were like. Were they better than mine? Worse? Did they also have to live under the tyranny of an older brother who actually cared about their grades?”
He shook his fist in the air in humorous defiance. Then his face turned serious again, and he squeezed my hand impossibly tight.
“Did they have parents who loved them instead of abandoning them? If not, did they have a woman like Eliza in their life who, at only twenty-one, became the surrogate mother she didn’t have to be? No? What about a brother like Flint who spent his childhood making sure they were fed and clothed? Were they happy? Did they have a little brown-eyed girl who’d stolen a piece of their soul at ten years old?” His voice was thick, and he paused to swallow. “And, if they did…did they fail them all too?”
“Stop,” I whispered, scooting closer and moving our joined hands to my lap.
He kissed my forehead. “I was a kid. I couldn’t stop. Anyway, watching people got me thinking about you. I was positive that you hated me. But I started wondering what you were doing. Had you grown up? What did you look like? Were you still scared of the silence?” He lowered his voice and whispered, “Did you miss me like I missed you?”
My stomach had already been in knots, and my heart was breaking, but it wasn’t until he tipped my head back and stared deep into my eyes that I felt the true pain.
“Every. Single. Day,” he whispered my confession reverently. “That was the only answer I truly needed.”
His lips pressed against mine, and his thumb traced my jawline.
I melted against him. Anxiety and guilt were temporarily banished from my thoughts.
Opening my mouth, I silently requested more of a connection. His tongue obliged my plea and glided against mine. Much to my dismay, he kept it short.
I was still drunk from his kiss when he said, “That was when I got an idea. I decided to buy a bus ticket to come see you.” He tucked a stray hair behind my ear and squeezed me with the hand I was clinging to. “I marched into that office, slammed my wallet down on the counter, and demanded a ticket to Chicago.”
I blinked up at him expectantly. I knew how this story ended. I’d lived it. He’d never made it to Chicago, but my heart raced with anticipation as if, this time, the story could somehow be different. As if Quarry could magically travel back in time, show up at my door when I was fifteen, and sweep me off my feet exactly the way I’d dreamed of at least a million times.
We could have still been sitting right there years later.
But this time.
It wouldn’t be wrong.
It wouldn’t be weird.
There wouldn’t be guilt.
There wouldn’t be pain.
But, if that were the case, there also wouldn’t have been Mia.
That was the kind of friend I was. I had gotten so lost in a fantasy where I got the boy that I’d just written her out of my life altogether.
My heart sank all over again.
Quarry must have felt my body tense, because he released my hand and scooped me into his lap, cradling me like a lost and confused little girl.
Maybe he could travel back in time after all.
“The next bus wasn’t until the following afternoon, and I was five dollars short,” he told the top of my head. “It was just a silly idea. I wasn’t even sure what I would have done when I got there, but it crushed me when I couldn’t make it happen. I hadn’t seen you in three years, but every second after I walked out of that bus station felt like an eternity, and each one broke me a little more. And I’ll be honest, Liv. There wasn’t a whole lot left of me to break at that point. I’d been trudging along for the sake of everyone around me for years, but it was all a lie. And, in that moment, completely alone at a bus station with memories haunting me with every step, I gave up the fight and called Till. I sobbed like a little bitch when he showed up to get me. Sitting in the cab of this truck, I lost my ever-loving mind, pouring out my heart and soul like I was on death row.”
I curled into his chest, offering him comfort when, in reality, I was taking it for myself. The idea of Quarry breaking broke me too.
He continued. “I think Till got his first real glance of how bad off I was. I started counseling the next day. A month later Till moved me to a private school for the hearing impaired. My first day there, I met Mia. And, nine months later, you came back to me. My life went from completely empty to overflowing in
a matter of months. I didn’t even know how to handle it. But I was determined to hold on to it.”
I buried my face in his neck and cursed the gods of bus schedules and five-dollar bills.
And, while I was at it, I threw in closets, silence, and brain tumors too.
His voice became raspy and low. “We aren’t wrong.”
I looked up at him. “Huh?”
“Last night, you said we were wrong. That’s bullshit and you know it.”
I sighed. “She was my best friend. You are my best friend. There are some lines you just shouldn’t cross.”
He groaned and shook his head. “I seriously don’t get you. What do you want me to do? Spend the rest of my life alone because Mia died?”
“Of course not! She never would have wanted that.”
A loud laugh escaped his throat. “But, somehow, we’re wrong?”
I clamped my mouth shut.
“Right,” he scoffed, moving me off his lap. He stood off the tailgate and intertwined his fingers, resting them the top of his head. “This is ridiculous, Liv. Why is this about her? She has not one damn thing to do with our relationship.”
My head snapped back. Was he insane? She had everything to do with our relationship.
“She was your girlfriend!” I snapped.
“And I loved her! Don’t punish me for that!”
“I’m not punishing you for anything. I’m simply stating the facts to explain why this is absolutely wrong.” I bit my lip, instantly regretting my choice of words.
A stifling rage began radiating off his strong shoulders. He was beyond pissed. His hands clenched at his sides as he paced back and forth from hood to bumper.
Knowing exactly what would follow, I jumped to my feet when he stilled. Then I rushed in front of him and protectively leaned against Till’s beater truck as it if were the crown jewels Quarry was about to destroy with his fist.
“Don’t you dare!” I seethed. “You break your hand again, Davenport wins. Calm the fuck down.”
His jaw ticked as he held my glare. His chest was puffed, filled with breath, but he wasn’t breathing. Thankfully, that was a good sign. It meant he was reigning himself in. With the exhale, his temper would fade—or so I thought.
“We are not wrong!” he roared.