by Ava Moreau
“The thing is…” said Jack.
Oh, please don’t say anything embarrassing, Trent thought.
“Fine, tell me the thing,” said Becca.
“You’re tense,” Jack said. “You had an early flight, and your sister sprung this disaster of a room on you. So you’re tense.”
Raising a perfectly-curved eyebrow, she turned toward Trent. “And you? Do you think I’m tense? Time to pour a few beers down me? Is that the way your townie-girls do it?”
Thank you for putting us on dangerous ground, Jack.
Trent met her eyes, and gave her a sympathetic look. “We could just get some gas cans and set the whole thing on fire.”
Becca stared at him a minute, then nodded. “Good plan. Burn it to the ground, collect the insurance. Sensible, I like that. Better than your friend here, who just wants to get me drunk.”
“Hey, I never said—” started Jack.
But she was already on her way back down the stairs. “Come on, let’s go to whatever sick dive is open this time of the morning, so we can get my humiliation over with.”
6
Don’t react. That’s all. Just stop reacting to things in front of them, and you’ll be fine. Play it cool. Use your head.
That was the hard part. As much as Becca wanted to be cold and logical, being back in her hometown had knocked the logic right out of her. Worse, seeing the condition of the room. Had her mom been using it for storage ever since Becca left? She was sure there were things in there that weren’t even hers. And Sarah hadn’t wanted to help at all.
Honestly, a drink didn’t sound like a bad idea. Especially if she could keep herself from alienating Trent and Jack. She felt bad now for snapping at them. They couldn’t understand what this was like…but it wasn’t their fault. It had nothing to do with them. If anything, she was glad she wasn’t alone. If she’d had to tackle this all by herself, she’d probably be screaming by this point.
She watched Jack climb into his truck. Those are some fucking legs, she thought. She wasn’t the kind of person who looked at guys, really she wasn’t, but that man had been putting some serious work into his body. His ass was so muscular, it looked like he could just leap over the truck if he’d wanted to.
He probably needs those muscles for pounding away while fucking someone, she thought, then immediately chided herself.
Keep your mind out of the gutter! That’s not what you’re here for! Five-year plan! Remember the plan!
There was nothing in the plan that said she couldn’t look, though.
Like looking at Trent, who was opening the passenger-side door for her. His more wiry build suggested a speed and precision, different from Jack’s sheer undirected power. She thought of the way male dancers were so lithe and strong, able to hold their female counterparts overhead, and imagined…
No. Nope. Nuh-uh. She didn’t imagine anything. Because that’s how bad things happened, things that throw all your careful plans off-track.
They sure as hell knew how to grow ‘em here in her hometown, though.
She slid across the truck seat, keeping her thigh a careful two inches away from Jack’s leg. Her arm brushed his, and she was so glad to be wearing her big shirt so she couldn’t feel it against her bare skin; as it was, she could already feel the tiny hairs rising all along her forearm, an electricity she was not allowed to feel.
“Sorry to sandwich you in here,” said Trent, getting in beside her and pulling the truck door shut. He had to open it again and slam it to get the door to latch, which shook the whole truck. Her shoulder hit Jack’s, and he looked over at her, his expression unreadable.
Oh, you can read it all right. He’s trying to be polite. He’s trying to be a good boy, but he knows. He can tell what you’re thinking. He’s had years of practice studying women, studying his effect on them.
She tried so hard to clear her mind. To think innocent thoughts. But Jack was still staring at her.
This insane warmth seemed to flood her body, flushing her throat with pinkness, and she reached up to touch her collar. Why is he staring? Why won’t he stop?
“Is…is something wrong?” she asked him, hating the hesitation in her voice, fearing the look of concern he was giving her.
“You got to buckle up,” he said. “If we wind up in one of Deputy Finch’s speed traps, it’s five hundred bucks for every warm body that’s not wearing a seatbelt. Ask me how I know.”
Trent was already clicking his shoulder belt into place. His knuckles brushed against her hip as he did so. It was agony.
You know, she told herself, you probably wouldn’t be such a basket-case about guys being this close to you, if you’d just date once in a while. Roll in the hay, blow off some steam, choose your figure of speech. Love ‘em and leave ‘em.
Which lead to her wondering, if she did decide she wanted to be with a guy…which one would she pick?
Oh, that was a hard one. (Haha, I bet it is, her mind unhelpfully said.)
Either guy would be a handful. Each had his virtues. Jack would be all rough-and-tumble in the sack, a hurricane of athletic fucking, leaving you joyously exhausted and trembling by the end of it, all aglow and needing to replenish your fluids.
Trent? He was harder to read. He’d probably be really quiet, intense, staring deep into your soul as he plunged deep into you, leading you to an almost spiritual climax that left you shaken and at one with the universe.
Or hell, maybe have them both at the same time, she thought. Then I would just explode forever, like a supernova.
She cut her eyes over at Jack, who was guiding the truck out of the driveway and onto the road. Did people actually fantasize about three-ways? Surely they did. She would have to ask Kaylee. The thought had really never occurred to her before…maybe because she’d never been in close proximity with two guys this gorgeous at the same time.
Of course she’d never do something like that. It was wrong. Right? At least, ill-advised. Not the sort of thing you did, if you had a five-year plan and a vision board and a budding career and an overriding need to control everything in your life because you were a control freak.
That was when she realized the boys were being scrupulously silent. The truck rattled around them, but no one had said a word. Like they were afraid of offending her, scaring her off, if they talked like friends.
“So where’s this place you’re taking me?” she asked.
“Snuffy’s?” said Jack. “You remember where that is.”
“Oh my god, seriously? Is that place still open? I thought by now the health department would’ve shut it down.”
Trent said, “Decades of alcohol fumes have left it perfectly preserved.”
“When I was little,” she said, “I used to be so scared of walking past it. The windows were all blacked out, and I had no idea what went on inside there, just that my mom got really tense if you asked about it, and she’d press her lips together until they were white, and hurry past it. I used to think the most awful things happened inside. It turned out she was just mad because my uncle was spending all day in there.”
“Sneaking in with a fake ID is a town rite of passage,” Jack said. “I’m surprised you didn’t try that in high school.”
“It never worked,” said Trent. “Everybody in the place knew exactly who you were, how old you were, who your mom and dad were. Remember how Snuffy would get out his glasses and look at your ID, like he couldn’t see it very well?”
Jack said, in a gruff old-man voice, “Now I thought you was born in 1987, but it says here 1982. I guess I better call your mama to make sure I read that right.”
Trent laughed. “Snuffy Malone single-handedly prevented underage drinking in Myers Lake better than any of those health classes in school.”
“I never went in,” said Becca. “I was too busy studying.”
“Well, that’s because you’re better than us low-lifes,” said Jack, his face beaming.
If Sarah had said that, it would’ve felt like
a jab, but Jack seemed to glory in it, and Becca couldn’t help smiling back.
“How is life in Corinth, anyway?” asked Trent. “I know you’re glad you got out of Myers Lake.”
“It’s…busy,” she said. “You know, you move up there thinking that you’re in the city now, you’re going to do all the fun city stuff, be a tourist, go to shows, ride to the top of Corinth Tower, all that. Instead…well, I work. A lot. Constantly. Nights, weekends.”
Jack scowled. “You work on the weekend? Isn’t there a law about that?”
“Yeah, it’s the law of getting ahead in this world,” she said…then hoped that hadn’t come out wrong. She didn’t mean it to sound critical. “It’s just what it takes, if you’re trying to establish yourself. At least there are plenty of take-out places, so I don’t starve.”
They pulled into a space in front of Snuffy’s. It was just as dark as she remembered it, the windows completely opaque, as though the denizens inside would turn to dust if exposed to sunlight. Jack held the door open for her, and she hesitantly stepped inside.
The first thing she noticed was the quiet. There were only a couple of people here, other than the bartender. An ancient jukebox stood in one corner, dark and unused. And the place was clean, far cleaner than she had expected. Maybe that was because it was early in the day. Then she saw the windows.
“Oh,” she said, looking up.
Her entire life, she’d thought of the windows as being blacked out. But that wasn’t entirely true. They were tinted. She could see outside; other people just couldn’t see in. She had the sudden sense that she could hide from the world here. A sense of safety that was totally unexpected.
Jack got them a few beers and they wandered to a booth at the back. They sat across from her.
“So what about you?” she said. “What’s it like still being here in Myers Lake after all these years? Has it changed a lot?”
Jack and Trent exchanged a look, and she could tell there had been differences of opinion between them on this subject.
“It’s great—” started Jack.
“The problem is—” started Trent.
They both stopped, and she laughed. “Feel free to take turns. Let’s go with the good news first. Jack?”
He gave his friend a quizzical look. “There’s nothing wrong with Myers Lake. It’s a good town. Everybody knows everybody.”
She turned to Trent. “And the bad news?”
“Everybody knows everybody,” said Trent. “You know how it is. Nothing new is ever going to happen here.”
“Trent here is like you,” said Jack. “He wants a career. He says that Myers Lake can’t offer him that.”
“Well, it can’t,” said Trent. “It’s nothing against the town. It’s just, what is there to do here?”
“You could come work with me, for one,” said Jack. “Or start your own business, like Becca’s sister. Or…”
It was obvious this was a topic they’d discussed before, and was full of unresolved tensions. The last thing she wanted was for them to argue, even though she couldn’t stop staring at their faces, Jack’s expression of thinly-veiled hurt that Trent wanted to leave town, and Trent’s hesitant look. Wait, what is he hiding? There was something he hadn’t told Jack, it was plain on his face…but Jack didn’t notice it. Maybe he sensed, deep down, that there was a secret that Trent wasn’t telling.
She had to change the subject, to lighten their mood. “What’s social life like? I guess two strapping young men such as yourselves have lots of girlfriends banging down your doors?”
What she’d expected was for them to laugh, to loosen up the tension in their shoulders, and start talking. She could imagine Jack bragging about his exploits, while Trent hinted around at a special someone. Instead they looked like deer caught in the headlights.
Trent shook his head. “Not me. Jack keeps trying to fix me up with people, but…”
“What about you?” she asked Jack. “You seem like a player.”
“Who, me? I’m…not seeing anybody.”
“I find that hard to believe,” she said.
Jack looked around the room, like it might be filled with eavesdroppers. Then he leaned forward. “It’s complicated,” he said in a quiet voice.
Trent raised an eyebrow. “What’s complicated? That everybody in town knows your reputation, so they won’t go out with you?”
Jack shook his head. “Naw. I didn’t want to tell you about this, hell, I don’t want to tell anybody about it, but I’m…keeping myself off the market for a while.”
Trent and Becca both stared at him.
He smirked. “What, is that surprising? You just reach a point in your life, you know, where you gotta take time off from all that, to think about what you want. It’s no different than you thinking about your damn career, Trent.”
“You’ve chosen a life of celibacy, and didn’t think to mention it to your best friend?” asked Trent.
“It’s not fucking celibacy,” he said. “It’s just a break. Do I have to explain it? Do you really want to psychoanalyze me about it?”
Trent shook his head. “I’m just surprised, is all. You treat sex like other people treat oxygen.”
Becca was startled to see Jack blush.
“I guess I’m just holding my breath for a while, then,” he said.
There was an awkward silence around the booth. Strangely, Becca was grateful for it. It meant no one would ask her about her own love-life. Also, she was grateful for not being a guy. If there had been some kind of unresolved tension between her and Kaylee, they would have gotten some take-out Chinese, sat down and spent the evening talking it out, until they were both okay. There was no sense in holding things in. But these guys were going to cause themselves no end of trouble, because there were obviously levels and levels of stuff going on between them, and they didn’t know how to talk about it.
It was sweet, in a way. They needed help to communicate. She was just glad it wasn’t going to be her who had to help them.
Jack took a long pull off his beer bottle, then looked at Becca. “So, what about you? You got a man up there in Corinth? Let me guess, you only see each other twice a week because you’re both so busy. He’s a…lawyer. Lots of sharp gray suits. Maybe some of those heavy glasses city boys like. You only let him stay over on Saturday nights, then Sunday morning you read the paper together before scurrying back to work.”
She blinked. “That is quite the imagination you’ve got there, Jack.”
“You’ve got her all wrong,” said Trent. “Becca likes bad boys, because they give her an escape from her busy life. So she’s seeing a biker right now, big prison muscles covered in tats.”
“Jesus Christ, Trent,” she said, laughing. “You’re both so, so wrong. No, I am staying away from boys. Boys of all kinds. Lawyer-boys, biker-boys, boys who read French poetry while smoking tiny cigars. They’re not part of my big plan.”
Trent glanced at Jack. “Uh-oh, she’s got a plan.”
“I do,” she said. “Work nonstop for five years, establish myself as the top consultant in Corinth, and only then, once I’m bathing in money, will I take a break for things like guys, and vacations, and…getting a sofa for my apartment. Things like that.”
When she put it like that, it sounded a lot less grand than it should have. In her mind, the five-year plan was an epic sweep of history, the story of a small-town girl making her way in the big city, showing everybody that she has what it takes to come out on top. Looking at it through their eyes, though, maybe it just looked like she was cutting off all the good parts of life, for a paycheck.
Shyly, she glanced up at them. Something had changed in the atmosphere. It took her a second to understand.
Oh. We’ve just realized that we’re all single. No attachments. Just three unreasonably attractive people having a beer at ten in the morning, with no one to go home to.
Good thing she had her plan to protect her. Good thing Jack was playing celibate for some r
eason. Good thing Trent was…wait, why was Trent single? She couldn’t remember. But she knew she was going to have to be very, very careful from this point forward. She was going to need their help this weekend, and couldn’t risk giving anything that looked like a signal to either one of them. If they started to do something stupidly boyish like competing for her, it would be too damn tense to survive.
Although the idea of them fighting over her…the pushing, the shoving, big muscles tensing beneath sweating skin, pure testosterone at war over who would have her first…
Oh, shit. “Look, catching up is fun and all, but we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” she said. “Why don’t we head back to the house and get started?”
7
Wait, stop up here,” Becca said, pointing at the intersection ahead.
“Well yeah, there’s a stop sign,” said Jack. “So I was gonna do that anyway.”
Damn it was hard to be sitting right next to her. He couldn’t stop thinking about how close she was. When she lifted her hand to point at the intersection, he could feel her upper arm against his shoulder, and it was all he could do not to spring a hard-on right there in the truck.
This was a problem he hadn’t expected. From listening to her sister talk about her, he’d thought Becca would turn out to be angry and stuck-up, too good for the likes of him. Instead she’d sat there at Snuffy’s and downed a beer and had been genuinely interested to hear about his and Trent’s lives.
Maybe I can break my vow of celibacy just once.
Yeah, right. He could tell that spending time with Becca was just going to get him into trouble. She was too hot to even be around; eventually she had to notice that he couldn’t keep his eyes off her curves.
Worse: Trent was going to notice, too. He glanced over at his friend. He could tell when Trent was interested in a girl, because he got this serious damn look on his face, like he was concentrating really hard. That was the look he had right now, like he was sitting there calculating all the different positions he could put Becca through.