by BB Easton
“What the fuck, man?” Dave’s voice was much closer now. Like in-the-room close.
I scrambled to grab the sheet and pull it over us, but it was too late. He’d seen everything. Not that he or Harley seemed to mind.
“Y’all fucked in the kitchen, didn’t you?”
My cheeks heated, and I pulled the sweat-soaked sheet over my mortified face.
“Right there on the kitchen table, and y’all didn’t even have the decency to wait for me to get home from work first.”
I giggled under the sheet.
Jesus, Dave.
“Sorry, bro.” Harley chuckled, trying to sound remorseful. “I tried to wait, but BB jumped me. She couldn’t keep her hands off me, man. What was I supposed to do?”
I tickled him, then stifled a moan as his laughter caused his dick to throb inside me.
I heard Dave mutter something about us being assholes and peeked my head out from under the sheet just in time to see him walking out the door with his middle finger in the air. As soon as he was gone, Harley threw the sheet completely off the bed and thrust into me with his fully awakened cock. I should have been worried about the fact that we were going on round three with the same condom, but I was too fuck-drunk to care.
My brain had been sitting on a month’s worth of unused endorphins, and in one afternoon with Harley, I think I’d blown through all of them. I was high on stockpiled serotonin, high from the smell of pot wafting in from the living room, and high on Harley as he fucked me slowly and sweetly in the late-afternoon sun. Nothing could possibly bring me down.
Not even Dave when he appeared in the doorway again, wearing a headlamp and offering to “shine some light on the subject.”
After the cumtrillionth orgasm of the afternoon, I dragged Harley by the hand into the house’s only bathroom so that we could shower off. We were sweaty and sticky and disgusting. The bathroom was at the entrance of the hallway, which was in full view of the couch, so I sprinted in the hopes that Dave wouldn’t see us.
Just as I scurried through the door, yanking a very naked man in behind me, I heard Dave yell, “Wait, are those titty rings? Goddamn it, Harley!”
I slammed and locked the door.
“You guys have a fucked-up relationship.” I laughed, turning to face Harley.
He leaned against the vanity in all his long, lean, tattooed glory and smiled. That hard body combined with that baby face had me squeezing my cum-covered thighs together.
“He’s just mad I’m not sharing.”
My jaw fell open. “You guys share? Like, girls?”
Harley’s mouth pulled up on one side. “If they’re into it.”
My eyes went wide. Holy shit.
Harley shrugged. “When you’re only ten months apart, you get used to sharing.”
“Well, I’m an only child,” I said with a haughty huff. “I don’t do sharing.”
“That’s good,” Harley said as he laced his fingers through mine and pulled me toward him, “because I’m keeping you all to myself.” He leaned down and kissed me. Then, he gave my ass a little smack as he pushed off the vanity to start the shower.
I wanted to ask him what that meant. I wanted to overanalyze every word of that sentence for proof that Harley and I were boyfriend and girlfriend—that he loved me and we were getting married—but the possibility that I might be wrong was just too real. I needed the fantasy. Holding on to the idea that a virile sex god like that might actually be satisfied with a boyish, flat-chested child like me was the only thing keeping me going. I wasn’t about to throw away my newfound will to live by doing something stupid, like asking questions.
Harley and I ended up spending, like, forty-five minutes in the shower…talking. He asked me if I still wanted that golden shower. I asked him about his tattoos. In addition to his sleeves, he had a few random ones that piqued my interest. Like the one that just said ARM…on his chest. And the one that just looked like a pointy letter Y on his shoulder. He also told me that he had one on his head, but I couldn’t see it through his adorable mop of blond hair.
Every badly drawn, unfinished, jailhouse-looking tattoo I could find had a story behind it. Through them, I got a glimpse into Harley’s past as an impulsive, reckless teenage gutter punk, squatting with a band of misfits and runaways in Little Five Points. Even though his stories were hilarious, they also made my heart ache. After his mom had kicked him out, Harley had basically been homeless—a street kid doing whatever the fuck he wanted and whatever it took to survive. No wonder he’d looked so at home while sitting in that chair in the Terminus City parking lot earlier. He was home.
Just as the hot water ran out, Dave banged on the door like the fucking FBI, yelling, “Dinner, bitches!”
Evidently, he’d gotten so stoned that, when the munchies struck, he just ordered one of everything on the menu from the local Chinese takeout place. For the second time that week, Harley, Dave, and I ate, drank, smoked, and laughed as the earth slowly rotated away from the sun.
Of course, we had to eat while leaning over the coffee table because Harley and I had reduced the kitchen table to scrap metal that afternoon, but it was pretty obvious that furniture wasn’t exactly a priority for the James brothers.
I made sure to start the good-bye process at least twenty minutes before I actually needed to leave, knowing that Harley would probably try to thwart my efforts to escape again. And he did. He gave me the puppy-dog eyes. He begged me to spend the night. He offered me another beer. He told Dave to hide my purse. And, eventually, shoulders slumped in defeat, he walked me out to my car.
But he did talk me into smoking one last cigarette.
I hopped up onto the lid of my trunk, and Harley stood between my dangling legs, idly rubbing the fuzzy material covering my thighs with his free hand. I was physically uncomfortable being that close to him with all of our clothes on. It felt wrong. Unnatural. I was full of holes, literally and figuratively, and Harley was the one holding all the pegs.
“God, I wish you could stay,” he said, sincerity shining out of his heavy-lidded eyes in the moonlight.
“Me too,” I admitted.
“You should probably just move in.” The corner of his mouth pulled up just a hint as he took a drag from his cigarette.
I laughed. “We’d never get anything done.”
“Oh, we’d get plenty done.” Harley slid his hand up to my hip as he exhaled a stream of smoke away from my face.
I blushed, thinking back over the afternoon. “Dude. We broke a table.”
Harley gave me a sideways glance. “Good thing I don’t have a bed, or you probably woulda broken that too, you savage.”
I thought back to sleeping with him inside me. Tickling him. Cuddling with him. The desperate, needy sex. The sweet, slow sex. Nothing and no one had ever made me feel that good before. Since meeting Harley, I’d gone from wanting to die to feeling as though I could fly. He’d done what my psychologist couldn’t do. What my antidepressants couldn’t do. What my best friend, mom, and one angry letter to Knight hadn’t been able to do. He gave me back my happy. With zero adverse side effects.
“Are you working tomorrow night?” Harley’s voice snapped me out of my reverie.
“I get off at six,” I said, excitement blooming in my tiny bosom.
Harley beamed. “Good. There’s gonna be a race tomorrow night, at the track. I want you to come with me.”
My excitement deflated like a balloon. “Harley, I told you. I don’t wanna—”
“Not to race. Just to hang out. I…” Harley paused. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “I want you to meet everybody.”
It didn’t seem like a big deal to me—meeting a bunch of rednecks and motorheads—but the way Harley hesitated made me realize that it was a big deal to him.
My face erupted into a huge grin.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” I beamed.
“What?” Harley growled.
I shook my head and pre
ssed my lips together with my teeth, trying to squelch my smile. It didn’t work.
“Fuck this.” Harley flicked his cigarette butt into the street, turned around, and tickled the shit out of me with both hands.
I shrieked and squealed and tried to push him away until I finally blurted out, “You like me! Okay? You fuckin’ like me! Now stop it!”
Harley stopped tickling me. He practically stopped breathing. His eyes locked on to mine, shiny in the dark, his playful expression suddenly unreadable.
Fuck. Why did I have to say that? We had the perfect day, and I fucking ruined it.
Regret washed over me as I waited for him to deliver the blow. To shatter my fantasy and send me home just as damaged as he’d found me. Harley was a whore. He didn’t do relationships. He didn’t do serious.
But his face suggested otherwise. I held on to my hope as Harley gripped the edge of my spoiler and bent forward until our faces were completely aligned.
“Lady,” he said in a voice thick with sincerity, “you have no fucking idea.”
Then, he kissed me.
And then I died.
When I pulled onto the unmarked road that led to the track, my headlights cutting through the low-hanging tree branches and illuminating the pine-needle-covered pavement, I could feel a kind of kinetic energy in the air. I could hear the rumble of engines, even over the sound of my cassette player and blasting AC, and I could see the gauzy glow of artificial light up ahead, emanating from the crater just beyond the tree line.
When the woods parted and the road plunged down into the makeshift stadium, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The place was overflowing with people and cars and trucks and ATVs and motorcycles, and, I swear to God, I think I even saw a couple of riding lawnmowers. They were all parked in the center of the oval-shaped track, all surrounded by girls with their tits hanging out and guys with their chests puffed up, and they were each playing a completely different type of music at full volume.
As I circled the oval, searching with giddy anticipation for a certain matte black fastback, I noticed that the cars seemed to be grouped by type. There was the Japanese import crew with their colorful paint jobs and neon ground effects. There was the redneck crew, huddled around a bunch of racing trucks with nets for tailgates. There was the ride-or-die crew, hanging out by a collection of crotch rockets blasting DMX. And there was a crew of retro-looking rockabillies clustered around an impressive collection of vintage American muscle. I assumed Harley belonged to the muscle car crew, but really, he would fit in with any of them. He had the style of a rockabilly, the subtle twang of a good ole boy, and the swagger of a gangster.
I began to wonder if I would ever find him out there. His car would be impossible to spot in the dark—that thing was basically a shadow on wheels—but thankfully, its owner shone so bright I spotted him the moment I rounded the first turn.
Harley had parked outside the oval track instead of inside where everyone else was partying. He stood next to the Boss with his arms folded across his chest, talking to a semicircle of people gathered in front of him. It reminded me of a NASCAR driver taking questions from the media after winning a big race. I remembered Harley saying something about people not wanting to race him anymore, but seeing him in that environment really drove it home. Harley was fucking famous.
I parked about fifteen feet away from the Boss, which was as close as I could get without hitting a member of his entourage. After work, I’d changed into fishnets, cutoff jean shorts, and a white wifebeater with a black bra underneath. It was skimpy, but looking around, I still felt a little overdressed. I fluffed my bleached bangs in the rearview mirror, wiped the smudged mascara from under my eyes, and took a deep breath.
Harley had left his spot by the Boss and was waiting at my door when I opened it. I don’t know what happened. One second, I’d been anxiously primping in my car, and the next, I was wrapped around Harley’s torso with my fingers in his hair and his tongue in my mouth. It was as if our bodies had become magnetically charged during the hours we spent pressed against each other the day before. The moment the obstacle between us was removed, we collided.
Finally finding my wits, I pulled away enough to make eye contact. “Hi,” I said breathlessly.
Harley smiled at me with swollen lips. “Hey, lady.”
“I missed you.” The words tumbled off my tongue so easily, I almost forgot to cringe.
“I missed you, too.”
I closed my eyes and let my head fall to the right, my tongue sticking out to the left.
Harley chuckled. “Did I kill you again?”
I nodded, my tongue still hanging out of my mouth.
“Good thing I know CPR,” Harley said just before sliding a hand up my bony side and wiggling his fingertips between my ribs.
As I screamed and swatted his hand away, a thick Southern accent interrupted our little reunion.
“Uh, Harley, looks like we got comp’ny.”
I looked over Harley’s shoulder to see his coworker, Bubba—the guy who’d delivered my drive belt—standing behind him, gesturing toward the track with his chin. I turned my head in the opposite direction and saw a half-dozen German sports cars coming down the hill. BMWs, Mercedes, a Porsche, maybe an Audi. Luxury cars.
“Who are they?” I asked, guessing from everyone’s reaction that they weren’t welcome.
“Just some Buckhead prep-school douche bags,” Harley readjusted my tank top which had bunched up during his tickle assault. “We call ’em tourists. They only come down here during summer break. Everybody fuckin’ hates ’em ‘cause they roll up in cars their rich daddies paid for, actin’ like their shit don’t stink, but I love ’em.”
“Why?” I asked, kind of hating them already.
“’Cause they practically beg me to take their money. Just watch.”
The imports parked on the other side of Harley’s car in a cute little row, each one at a perfect forty-five-degree angle. Six doors opened and shut, almost in unison, and six frat-boy D-bags walked up like they thought they fucking owned the place. Considering the wide berth everybody else gave Harley, they obviously weren’t showing him the same level of respect as the rest of the community.
Harley didn’t seem to care though. He kept one arm loosely draped around my shoulders and didn’t even puff up his chest when they approached.
“Oh, shit. Y’all musta got your allowance today, huh?” he asked with a lopsided grin.
The pink Polo-wearing asshole in front sneered, his reply dripping with classic Ivy League condescension, “Real cute, Harley. My boy Preston here just got a new Porsche, so your crew is going to be paying our allowance today. That thing can beat any P.O.S. on this field.”
“Why doesn’t your boy Preston step up then?” Harley asked.
Polo shirt number two stepped forward and said, “’Sup?” with a flick of his chin.
I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t help it.
“So, you think you can smoke anybody here?” Harley asked, stroking my shoulder with his fingertips, bored indifference in his voice.
“Fuck yeah,” Tweedledum answered. “Got the nine-eleven Turbo model.”
The way Harley’s back muscles contracted under my hand told me he was trying not to laugh. “How about me?” he asked, tilting his head toward the Boss. “Think you can handle a four twenty-nine?”
“Dude. C’mon. That’s a ten-second car,” Fratty McDoucherton replied, eating his words.
“You said you could beat anybody. I’m anybody.”
Then Harley gave my shoulder a little squeeze—so tiny, I almost missed it—and added, “How ’bout this? I’ll race your nine-eleven…in any car you want.”
Preston’s mouth fell open.
Pink Polo’s mouth fell open.
My mouth fell open.
“What?” Preston asked.
“Any car?” Pink Polo asked.
“Any car on the field,” Harley replied. “That’s what you said, right? You can smoke any pie
ce of shit here? Well, prove it. Pick one.”
I watched in horror as all twelve douche-bag eyeballs scanned the sea of race cars and then all came to rest on something behind me.
No.
No, no, no, no.
Preston’s lip curled into a sneer as he pointed over my shoulder. “That one. The five-oh.”
Fuck.
I stared at the side of Harley’s face, trying to telepathically tell him that he was a fucking idiot.
He shrugged, ignoring the invisible daggers shooting out of my eyes, and said, “You sure? I know my way around a Mustang, man. This might not be pretty.”
The wannabe Abercrombie models all burst into laughter, making my cheeks flush with shame.
“Dude, I hate to break it to you, but there is no way you’re going to beat a nine-eleven Turbo with a base model Mustang.” Pink Polo’s tone was so fucking haughty, I prayed to every god ever invented to help Harley win.
I prayed even harder when I heard Harley say, “Two Gs says I can.”
Shit! Two grand? Is he out of his fucking mind?
As all six trust-fund babies laughed in unison, Harley dropped his arm from around my shoulders, reached into my front pocket, and stole my goddamn keys.
“Harley, what the fuck are you doing?” I whispered. “My car can’t beat a Turbo.”
Glancing behind me at the hatchback that was about to lose him two thousand dollars, Harley put his finger to his lips and said, “Shh…she’s gonna hear you. You don’t want to hurt her feelings.”
Crazy bastard.
Turning back toward the crowd of Ken dolls, Harley said, “Do I need to make it two hundred? I forgot y’all didn’t get your allowance today.”
Preston shook his head, still snickering. “It’s your future bail money, bro. You can give me as much of it as you want.”
Harley pointed two fingers at Preston and shot back, “I’m gonna need bail money if you keep runnin’ your fuckin’ mouth.” His tone was surprisingly threatening, but in the blink of an eye, he dropped his finger gun and resumed his cool composure. Jingling my keys, Harley said, “Let’s do this. The lady’s gonna call it.” Harley didn’t wait for confirmation. He simply turned and walked toward my car with long, determined strides.