Ride: A Bad Boy Romance

by Roxie Noir

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper again, because I can’t even find words for how bad this feels, and because I really, really didn’t want to have a sobbing breakdown like this in front of him.

  Jackson just holds my hand tight. After a while, I finally stop sobbing and then I’m just sniffling. Regular crying.

  “I didn’t want to put you through this,” he whispers. “Watching you cry is the worst part of everything.”

  I sniffle and half-laugh, and it comes out like a weird snort.

  “Only because you’re still on drugs,” I say. “Just wait until they pull you off the painkillers.”

  “Lula-Mae, I did this to myself,” he murmurs. “And you’ve got things to do besides listen to me babble about people with fish heads while I’m half awake.”

  I swallow.

  “You’re not abandoning me,” he says. “You have your own life.”

  I just nod, trying not to cry again.

  “I should go,” I whisper. “They’re gonna kick me out.”

  I lean over again and kiss him one more time, slowly, with tongue, and I wrap both of my hands around his.

  “Go,” he whispers. “I’ll be fine, Lula-Mae.”

  “I’ll see you in Wyoming,” I say.

  I squeeze his hand one more time, and then I leave. I walk down the hospital hallway and take deep gulps of air and try to focus on the future, on what I need to do between now and my plane taking off.

  I’m almost at the exit when I realize I forgot to do something, and I stop in my tracks.

  Then I turn around and power-walk back toward Jackson’s room. A nurse looks up, annoyed.

  “Sorry, I forgot my phone,” I say, smiling as brightly as I can. I probably look insane, but I don’t care.

  When I open the door to Jackson’s room, the lights are low.

  “I’m not in Wyoming yet,” he says.

  I take his hand and bend over his bed and kiss him again.

  “I love you too,” I say.

  He smiles.

  “You come back to tell me that?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “I already knew,” he says.

  “I wanted to say it out loud,” I say.

  At the door, someone clears her throat.

  “Wyoming,” I whisper.

  Then I kiss him again and leave.

  29

  Jackson

  After Mae leaves, the days kind of blend together. My bruises fade. I can move body parts — my arms, my left leg — without it feeling like a giant is pulling me apart limb from limb.

  Mae calls me. I call her. I’m not the best conversationalist, but just hearing her voice makes me feel better, every single time.

  I can tell she’s worried. She’s worried about me, and she’s worried for herself, that she totally blew her cover when I got hurt, and now no one will ever hire her again. She tries not to say anything about it, but I hear it in her voice, and I feel terrible.

  We were so close to getting away with it.

  In a week, they move me out of the ICU. My hospital room fills up with flowers, from friends, from fans. ESPN sends a huge bouquet, and so do Ford and Stetson. I’m not sure why, but I think it’s probably a good sign.

  My doctors decide I’m in good enough shape for more surgery. I’ve got a hairline fracture in my right femur — my thighbone — and they can’t let that go for much longer without fixing it, which involves inserting a titanium rod lengthwise through the bone. While they’re in there, they want to screw my kneecap back together and probably put a plate on it for good measure.

  The good news is that even though I also broke both bones in my shin, those just need to be set properly and put in a cast.

  Mae calls the night before the surgery. There’s street sounds behind her, and I imagine her walking from her subway stop to her house. She sent me a video once of the walk, so now I know what it looks like.

  “You walking home?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” she says. “I got a three-day gig for an ad agency. Today I was shooting ice skaters at the Rockefeller Center. But I got good news.”

  “Tell me,” I say.

  A nurse walks in and fiddles with the machine to my left, the one that shows my blood pressure and stuff.

  “The Atlantic wants to send me to Mexico for Christmas,” she says. “There’s this village somewhere outside Mexico City where everyone works for the whole month of December to make the whole square this elaborate, immersive nativity scene, and people flock from everywhere to see it.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and think.

  “I’ve heard of the Atlantic,” I say. “That’s a big deal, right?”

  She laughs.

  “It’s a really big deal,” she says, and suddenly I can hear the relief and happiness in her voice.

  I didn’t ruin her life. I start laughing, even though it hurts my ribs.

  “I think I might have gotten your luck,” she says, quietly. “Sports Weekly told my agent they’re never hiring me again, but I think I’m gonna be okay.”

  “That makes two of us, then,” I say.

  The surgery is first thing in the morning. Before I go in, I get a text from Mae. It’s a picture of people ice skating under a massive Christmas tree as it snows.

  Mae: This is what I’m doing today while you get a metal rod put through your thigh bone.

  Me: In eight hours I’ll be more metal than man.

  Mae: Good luck. I love you. Tell your mom to keep me updated.

  When I’m on the table, the anesthesiologist puts the IV in and tells me to count backward from one hundred. This time I fight it and force myself to keep my eyes open for as long as I can, because suddenly I don’t want to go under, I want to stay here. I still only make it to ninety-four.

  I dream that I’m skating and it’s snowing. I’m in a city I don’t recognize. Probably New York, but I’ve never been to New York, so my subconscious gets it wrong. There’s no one else there, but I can skate down streets, past shops, across a bridge and look down at a river. It’s beautiful, even if it’s lonely. I think about jumping into the water, but I skate on instead.

  “Another four or five weeks, at least,” my mom is saying. “After that, they might be able to put him in a walking cast instead of a wheelchair, but they don’t know the exact timeline for that yet.”

  She’s quiet for a moment. I’m staring at the ceiling. I still feel a little like it’s snowing on my skin, and I’m not completely sure that this is real, either.

  “The MRI is in two days,” my mom says.

  It is?

  I wonder if I can move my fingers or the toes on my left foot. I try, but I can’t tell if it’s working, because I still sort of feel like I’m moving on ice skates even though I’m conscious and in this room.

  “Oh, he’s awake,” my mom says, and holds out the phone.

  I try to take it, but can’t quite manage it. My mom holds the phone to my ear.

  “Mae?” I say. My voice comes out a rough whisper, and I swallow.

  She laughs.

  “How are you feeling?” she asks.

  “I’m part robot,” I say.

  A couple days before I get to go home, they take the catheter out. Most of the IVs are gone. I’m still on antibiotics and blood thinners and a bunch of other things, but they finally trust me to pee on my own.

  At first, a nurse has to help me get into the wheelchair. But I’ve made friends, sort of, with one of the male nurses on the floor, and he’s nice enough to help me practice over and over until I can do it on my own.

  The instant he’s gone, I wheel myself into my bathroom. Hospital rooms are pretty much public. The door’s always open, and I don’t think anyone has ever knocked, so the bathroom is pretty much it in terms of privacy.

  It’s five here, so it’s eight in New York. Mae’s probably off work by now.

  I’m rock hard before I even maneuver the bathroom door shut and lock it. I’ve spent a week and a half doing my best
not to get an erection, so it’s not exactly surprising that my dick already feels like it might explode.

  I wrap my fist around the base, take a picture, and send it to Mae. I try not to get my IVs in the frame.

  Then I take a deep breath and hope she’s not at work.

  It takes about thirty seconds before my phone rings, and I grin.

  “It’s definitely working,” she says, sounding a little breathless. “Nice wheelchair.”

  “See anything else that interests you?” I ask.

  She laughs, and I can hear people talking in the background.

  “It’s like Niagara Falls over here,” she murmurs.

  “That bad?”

  “That good. I’m not even the one who’s been deprived.”

  I raise my eyebrows, my hand on my cock.

  “No?”

  “Your present’s been put to good use,” she says, background noise still behind her voice.

  “You didn’t tell me,” I say.

  “I’m telling you now that you’re in good enough shape to do something about it,” she says.

  I groan into the phone.

  “I pretend it’s you, but it’s a bad substitute,” she whispers. “There’s only so much a toy can do.”

  “What’s missing?” I ask. I’m stroking myself slow, trying to last more than a minute, but it’s not going well.

  “From the toy?” she asks, her voice low, almost a purr. “It doesn’t have a tongue. It doesn’t wink at me. It’s never texted me dirty pictures while I’m running errands.”

  I chuckle.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “No, you’re not,” she says.

  I hear a door shut, and suddenly the background noise is almost gone. Mae exhales.

  “If I were there I’d be on my knees with your cock in my mouth,” she says, a new note of urgency in her voice. “Still sorry you called?”

  My dick practically jumps in my hand, and I have to clench my jaw to control myself, the ball of fire inside me already threatening to explode.

  “Where are you?” I gasp, bewildered, because I thought she was in public.

  “I’m in the handicapped bathroom of a grocery store,” she says. “I’m leaning against the ugly tiled wall and I’ve got one hand down the front of my jeans, rubbing my clit furiously, thinking about you.”

  “What are you thinking?” I ask.

  “Besides how I want to make you come in my mouth?” she asks. “You do it to me, so it’s only fair.”

  Jesus.

  This is the dirtiest she’s ever talked to me, and it went from zero to sixty in seconds. I’ve still got my fist around my cock, barely moving, because I know the moment I do, I’m going to come.

  “What else?” I ask, because I can barely form coherent thoughts.

  “There’s a sink and a mirror in here,” she says. “And I’m thinking about you bending me over the sink and then watching in the mirror while you fuck me.”

  “Shit, Lula-Mae,” I whisper, and my cock jerks in my hand as I come, the muscles in my body clenching. I manage to cover my dick with my hand, and I just sit there, groaning, gasping into the phone.

  She’s half-panting, half-laughing.

  “That was easy,” she says, breathlessly.

  “I just imagined you were bent over that sink,” I say, swallowing. “There’s this noise you make when I hit exactly the right spot with my cock.”

  Mae gasps. My dick is limp in my hand but I keep going.

  “And I’m hitting that spot over and over, as hard as I can, because I know that’s what you want right now,” I say.

  She makes a strangled moan, like she’s biting her lip.

  “Keep going,” she whispers. “Fuck, I wish you were here.”

  I can tell from her breathing that she’s close, and I grin at the shower curtain.

  “And when I can feel you’re about to come I lean over and whisper I fucking love being deep inside you.”

  “God, Jackson,” she moans.

  “Shh,” I say, smiling. “Come quietly for once, Lula-Mae.”

  “It’s pretty hard when you talk dirty to me,” she says, then gasps.

  “I wish I could watch you come,” I say. I’ve got my eyes closed, imagining it, her body beneath me, writhing and shouting.

  She makes another noise, almost a whimper. Then she gasps and holds her breath, and I have to imagine what she looks like, standing in a grocery store bathroom, fully clothed, coming undone. It’s fucking sexy, and I love knowing how crazy I drive her. That she couldn’t wait to get home to call me, that she just had phone sex almost in public because she couldn’t help herself.

  Mae pants into the phone, then starts laughing.

  I grin.

  “What?” I ask.

  “It’s only been a week and a half,” she says. “And I’m masturbating in public bathrooms.”

  “That was a special test run,” I say. “Thanks for helping me make sure it still works.”

  “I’m happy to help,” she says, still laughing. “If you need to make sure your video chat still works, I can help with that too.”

  “When I’m out,” I say. “Only a couple more days, but I don’t want anyone else hearing the filthy things you say to me.”

  “Good,” she says. “I’ve got a reputation as a nice girl to uphold.”

  She clears her throat.

  “Can I call you later?” she says. “I was in the middle of getting groceries.”

  “Love you,” I say.

  “Love you too,” she says.

  I hang up my phone and take care of the mess.

  I do a lot of jerking off in the bathroom. Sometimes Mae’s on the phone and sometimes not. The nurses probably think I have some kind of problem.

  With the wheelchair, I can at least leave my room. There’s a ten-year-old on my floor in a wheelchair with two broken ankles, so we start racing up and down the halls. I mostly let him win. He’s already figured out how to spin in a circle while balancing on two wheels, so he shows me.

  The nurses yell at us both, but especially me. Something about being a role model.

  I show him my scars, from the compound fracture in my arm and the big one on my chest, and he thinks I’m super cool. He tells his mom that he’s gonna get a tattoo when he’s eighteen, and she glares at me.

  When the Sports Weekly comes out, he knocks on the door of my room and then wheels himself right in, holding up the article inside. The big spread picture is me, Raylan, and Clay standing in front of the cattle stalls, and I’ve got one hand on my hat and we’re all laughing. Mae’s name is right beneath it.

  “Is that you?” he asks, suspiciously, pointing at my face in the middle.

  “Sure is,” I say. “My girlfriend took it.”

  He couldn’t care less about my girlfriend, and flips to the front. I haven’t even seen the magazine yet, but it’s a photo of me on Crash Junction, his back hooves in the air and his front hooves on the ground. Above my head, the clock says 8.03.

  I swallow, and for a moment, I don’t say anything to this kid because I’m thinking about riding Crash, the pure, sheer high of being up there and knowing I’d won. I have no idea if I’ll ever get to do that again. At the very least, I won’t be doing it for another year.

  “That’s also you,” he says.

  “Yep,” I say.

  “That’s how he broke all his bones,” my mom says, walking in.

  The kid looks suspicious. My mom glares at me.

  “She’s right,” I say, because she is.

  I don’t say, it’s also one of the greatest feelings in the world.

  “Will you sign it?” he asks.

  I do. Then we race down the hallway, though I forget to let him win this time.

  I get the MRI. The fractures are still there in my vertebrae, but they’re healing. I hear the word “lucky” a lot. After a few more days, I get to go home. Twelve hours in the back seat of my mom’s Ford Taurus isn’t ideal, but when we
get back to the ranch, my dad’s put a wheelchair ramp up the back steps and converted the downstairs den into my bedroom.

  After dinner, we sit in the living room and he brings in two bankers’ boxes worth of papers. I just stare.

  “You’re gonna be laid up for a while,” he says. “Seems like a good time to digitize the ranch accounting.”

  “I haven’t been here four hours and you’re already putting me to work,” I say.

  He claps me on the shoulder.

  “Welcome home, son,” he says, and then chuckles. “No free rides.”

  30

  Mae

  A couple weeks go by. Jackson goes home and I go to Mexico, then to New Hampshire. I get more postcards from Wyoming and I send back ones of New York. We talk most nights. Eventually, the neck brace comes off and his face heals and from the shoulders up, at least, he looks like I remember.

  I cry myself to sleep that night and I don’t know why. It’s part gratitude that I didn’t lose him, part the awful, gnawing ache that tells me I should be there in person.

  Finally, I’ve got the money for a plane ticket to Riverton, Wyoming, the closest airport to Sawtooth.

  “I told Janice I can’t do anything from the 22nd to the 1st,” I say, looking at a calendar. “You got anything going on then?”

  “Not a thing,” he says.

  “And your parents don’t mind picking me up in Riverton?”

  “Not at all,” he says.

  I exhale. It’s expensive, but I don’t even care. I’m just relieved to finally have a date when I’ll see him again.

  “I’ll buy tickets tonight,” I say. “Did I tell you the NYPD dredged a shipping container full of dildos out of the East River?”

  Jackson laughs.

  “Is that what they were looking for?” he asks.

  A few minutes later, I get an email confirming my plane ticket reservation from La Guardia to Riverton, connecting through Denver. For a moment, I’m just confused, and then I figure out what happened.

  “Jackson,” I say, cutting him off mid-sentence. “Did you buy me a plane ticket?”