Bolt

by Savannah May

  “You need to leave,” she says at last.

  “No, we need to talk about this,” I tell her.

  “I don't want to talk and I don't want you here. I don’t even want to look at you.”

  “Are you sure, Sweetheart?”

  She jolts at the word. I’m not sure she isn’t going to smack me again, or spit on me.

  “Totally,” she says coldly.

  Her eyes are still hurting and I cant leave her like this. All I want to do is take her in my arms and tell her we can make this work if we want to. I open my mouth to speak, force myself through the frozen part of me.

  “Please just go,” she says and her icy sheen burns my skin.

  She turns and walks away out through the trees and I follow in another direction.

  24

  Bella

  This might come as a surprise but I have never been more miserable in my entire life. A man I've known two days and a night is gone. But he’s not out of my head or my body and to make it worse the people all around me keep asking where he is.

  “What have you done with that gorgeous man of yours?” Dottie leans across to inquire, her eyes twinkling naughtily.

  “Oh, I think he went to find a drink,” I say.

  Or another plate of turkey. Or to the washroom. I say, every time one of his friends or an auntie inquires.

  They look so cute sitting in a row along the bench, the SEALs and the aunties. Interleaved boy girl boy girl like giants and Lilliputians, they’re all having the time of their lives by the looks of things. It’s a real Instagram moment but I sit rigid, unable to eat, unable to speak except to answer the queries of where my fiancé is.

  No one notices my devastation and why should they? It’s a happy event and they’re all here to have a great time. I force myself to push my lips up into a smile and push food around in the plate like I’m eating.

  I bust myself with the tasks that are required of me as bridesmaid, which aren't too many now that it’s coming to an end. I’m supposed to get drunk and make out with the groomsman. The first part I’m working on. The second part I screwed up.

  It’s probably for the best. What kind of man screws his best friend’s girl and her sister? We must have been a game for him to feed his ego. So why do I ache in every cell for him?

  He just doesn’t seem like that kind of douchebag. All his army buddies love him. Well, men could go for that scenario. But the wives that are here seemed fond of him and he was playing with the kids like he loved every moment with them. He’d be such a lovely dad. Shit, not a good thought to be having now. Just focus on Scherri. Oh shit, I really messed up there too.

  How could I have been so nasty to her on her wedding day? I’m just the biggest bitch in the world.

  I sink again then and it all goes by in a swirl. The cake, the first dance outdoors with the country band and the millions of fairy lights in the trees. Shit don’t think about the trees. Just don't think period. I grab another glass of champagne. Scherri is dancing with our father.

  Daddy spared no expense for this wedding. I know he really loves both his girls and is determined they’ll have the best he can provide. Then she goes to dance with her stepdad, and also her husbands dad and rather than dance with mom, his ex, Daddy reaches for me. He takes me in his embrace and I bite my lip to stop from crying but it doesn't work.

  It can’t have been easy for him coming up here and entering the house his wife cheated on him in.

  Then the couple have slipped away to grab their things and leave in their Airstream for wherever they’re heading on their Honeymoon. Scherri told me it’s some gorgeous island in the north west where they can play together in the water and the hills with their dog. Pebble, the dog Bolt gave them.

  Scherri has gone to the house and I’m supposed to be helping her take off on her honeymoon, not sitting her thinking about my own problems. I locate her flower bouquet and head quickly inside. I need to beg some big time forgiveness.

  I wait beneath the stairs until I see Steele come down, carrying the luggage out to the trailer, then I head up to help Scherri. I stand at the door for a second admiring how beautiful she is. She’s going to continue wearing the white crochet lace dress to drive off. So her husband can enjoy stripping it off her tonight in their little wagon house. Like his face has indicated he’s desperate to do all evening.

  “I meant it when I said it wasn't like that,” she suddenly says, interrupting my daydream.

  She’s been watching me in the mirror.

  “It doesn't matter now,” I say and bustle into the room to organize her last minute stuff.

  If I just stay busy, my thoughts won’t knock me down.

  “Bolt’s gone. God knows where this time. And I don't want to spoil any more of your day going over what happened.”

  “Nothing on the planet could spoil this day but it does matter,” she says, more kindly than I deserve. I guess she can tell I’m hurting as much as I try to hide it. “You mustn’t think that either I or Bolt would ever have betrayed Steele.”

  I sink down on the edge of the bed and she turns to face me.

  “I don’t really see how you can evade that one though.”

  My sister takes a long inhale.

  “Steele was there at the time,” she says. “With us.”

  Now I’m confused.

  “Watching,” I say.

  “Not exactly.”

  I gape at her stupidly then it dawns and my stare morphs to amazement. My sister is all kinds of surprising and if it hadn't been the man I love she was involved with, I’d be high-fiving her with props.

  “Wow.” I breathe.

  “Yeah, it was wow,” she says shaking her head with a wry purse of her lips. “I can’t believe it happened now. I mean it was this particular moment in time when all three of us needed to move forward on our own paths. That one time seemed to open us all up.”

  I sit there trying to take that in. To imagine how that works. Frankly I'm pretty entangled in the visualization of having two men inside your body at the same time. Two gorgeous hunking men. My sister is so fucking lucky.

  “I was in a menage once.” A voice squeaks out of nowhere.

  “Oh my god,” I screech, leaping up off the bed.

  Away from the mound rising up at me. The blanket and coverlet shifts then rises up like a night terror and then Dottie appears from underneath, just about.

  The blanket swathes her so that only her tiny plum face is visible from its folds.

  “Sorry dear, you sat on my foot and I didn’t want to move and interrupt you guys.”

  I exchange an amused glance with Scherri. If this was one of our girlfriends, we’d be all over it wanting the dirt, but this is our ninety three year old great aunt. I can tell her curiosity is peaking too, and I can tell my old auntie doesn't care a fig about her years. In her mind she’s the same age she always was. Same as us.

  “I ran away to Europe when I was nineteen, wanting to be a reporter and grabbing my chance while the war was on.”

  “I can’t imagine being so young and running toward instead of away from danger.”

  “Nineteen then was different than it is now. We were much more free. Lots were mothers by then, so not free.”

  “And then?” I ask, dying for the story. My aunt has become a real pal to us this weekend and we to her.

  “They were two boys on leave, Crispin and Arthur, heading back to the front the next morning. Crispin I had been seeing and Arthur was his mate, in the same brigade. Skinny young men, not the hunks you girls have. But it was still an incredible experience. Not like that, darling girl,” she says to me; “Don’t look so shocked. We had kinky sex back then too you know, you two aren't the only ones.”

  Scherri and I meet eyes and laugh. I sit down on the stool beside her and she makes a space then leans into me.

  “Go on.”

  “I had this cathartic moment feeling like I was joining the two of them together. All the shit they were dealing
with, the killing, their friends dying, bonded them and they were able to express that through my body.”

  I look over at Scherri and she’s nodding her head like, yes, that’s exactly how it is.

  “You’re so fucking lucky,” I tell her.

  She nods slowly.

  “And having a guy like Steele who gives you everything.”

  “He is amazing,” Scherri agrees, softly.

  “And so is Bolt,” Dottie tells me.

  “Yes.”

  “You should go get that man back,” Dottie says.

  “I can’t,” I moan and Sherri puts her arm around me.

  “Believe me life is too short to let a good one get away,” Dottie says, lying back down in Scherri’s bed.

  She must have come up here when she got tired.

  “What happened to the two soldiers, Aunt Dottie?” I ask, needing the ending.

  “Dead. I never heard from them again and when I went to inquire. Dead. Two days later.”

  I swallow down a lump that’s throbbing painfully in my throat. When I look over at Scherri, her eyes are glistening with tears.

  25

  Bolt

  After the edge of town, it’s nothing but dense trees looming tall in the dark and then nothing. Flat for as far as the eye can make out with some looming shapes of hills on the horizon.

  Pointing my bike to the north, heading for the coastal mountains, it’s good to be riding in the night blackness. The freedom I crave wraps me like a cloak and I’m relieved to be alone again, not needing to answer to anyone for my actions.

  That lasts for less than an hour.

  The wind on my face, through my hair, begins to feel less invigorating. It’s replaced by an emptiness gnawing outward from my core, making its way to my skin lining like a worm in an apple.

  I shake it off and keep going. Sure, I missed saying goodbye to my best dude and all the others that came out specially. They probably won’t even notice I’m gone. And if they do they wont think much of it. Like Steele said, vanishing is what I do.

  Fuck that.

  I veer off to the side of the road into a sandbar and skid to a stop on my heel.

  I turn the bike around and kick off, heading back in the direction I’ve come from. I’m not that guy that walks out. Not on his friends. Not when they made the effort to come to the shindig from all over the place on my say so.

  The little aunties have a special place in my heart. They feel like the family I never had, always loving, always understanding and not withdrawing affection when you do something wrong. Who fucking knows if they’ll be around next time I pass through this way? The urge to give each one of them a gentle hug is pulling me back.

  And then I’ll be on my way and the first town I pull into, I’ll hit up a bar and find myself...

  I veer off to the side of the road into a sandbar and skid to a stop on my heel.

  “Fuck. How ‘bout we face the fucking elephant in the room,” I tell myself, looking around at the endless darkness to clear my head.

  I can’t imagine picking up a woman. The idea of it feels all fucking wrong. There’s only one woman I want and that’s what’s yanking me back there. This is my one chance. She’ll be leaving to go back to LA tomorrow, today now. And I have no idea where she lives in that huge city. In a month or a week she could be hooking up with some other guy, even asking him to be her fake fiancé for a fun weekend and the idea of that incenses me so much my blood boils up in my veins.

  Because I can’t stand the thought that anyone else might lay one hand on her. I’m the only one that should be able to do that. She’s mine.

  “No, she’s not yours.” I say out loud. “Okay but she could be.” I reply. “No she couldn't she told you to get lost.”

  And now I’m having a convo with myself – the first sign of madness.

  I turn the bike around and head back toward freedom. I can’t do this. I’m not made for being tied down anyway. What would be the point of begging her to try something when I don’t even know what we’d be trying. And then there’s the small technical hitch of her telling me to hit the road, even when I did attempt to plead with her.

  “You didn’t try that hard though. You asked her to talk about it and when she said no you caved. That wasn’t much of a show of how much you want her. She probably assumes you’re a disappearing act, same as your best friend.”

  Shit.

  I veer off to the side of the road into a sandbar and skid on my heel but just to slow down enough to make the U-turn.

  When I make it back to the house, it’s in darkness and silent. Because it’s the middle of the night, obviously. I search out my phone, yeah, after 3am. And the app thing is open to a photo of the wedding breakfast. My buds and the aunties all in a row, smiling cheesily at the camera. Everyone having a good time, including Bella.

  I scroll down and there’s Steele and his bride about to leave, waving happily in front of that old Airstream, the steel all shined up so it’s glowing in the dark. Then a photo of some flowers – the caption says ‘I caught it’ whatever that means. What it signifies to me is that Bella went on with her life, enjoyed the parry without giving this asshat another thought. I shouldn’t have come.

  I heel the kickstand, ready to turn the bike and head off. This time for good but then the front door is pulled back an inch.

  A tiny hand beckons me urgently. I unstraddle and walk up the path to the cracked door. A shining face peeping through at me.

  “Dottie, what are you doing awake at this hour, babe,” I whisper-husk.

  “Waiting for you of course,” she whisper-hisses back.

  “What?”

  She puts a finger to her lips telling me to STFU and I do. Then I follow her up the stairs. She silently points out a tread that squeaks, showing me where to step around it.

  “I feel like the madam in a brothel,” she giggles.

  “Dottie I’m shocked that a lady like you knows about that stuff.,” I say in mock horror.

  “Get on with you. Can’t you tell yet that I wasn't born yesterday?”

  “That’s my fiancee.”

  “You have to ask her first,” she glints.

  “You think she’d say yes?”

  “Now that would be spoiling the surprise if I told you.”

  She heads into the room Steele and Scherri slept in until they took off.

  “Now you just wait right here,” she orders me. My favorite Major-general.

  She disappears and for a moment it occurs to me she’s gone to get a rifle. Or Bella’s father with a shotgun. No, he wouldn't be in this house, this belongs to Steele’s dad, not Bella’s. Christ, relationships can get complicated. I almost want to head downstairs and out the door. The desire to take off is worse than when we go out on a mission.

  Just remember, courage is facing the fear that tries to make you run and hide, not the lack of it. Maybe I run because people always expect me to be a hero not a human. They don't get that a hero is someone facing their terrors, not someone that doesn't have any.

  Yeah all that sounds good, but the idea that Bella could look at me with those beautiful big eyes and tell me ‘I don’t want you here’ again is ripping me up. I have never been so fucking nervous in my life.

  “Hey.”

  My cock and my heart hurl like double grenades when I look up and see her walking nervously into the room.

  “Hey,” I say.

  She’s wearing a slip thing, white and almost transparent. Her perfect body is as vivid in my mind as though I still had my hands on her soft skin. I don’t want to act like a beast but there’s nothing I can do to stop the bulge growing hard as granite in my pants.

  “You came back,” she says, shyly which I didn't expect. I don’t know what I expected but not her all docile.

  “Yeah. To tell you I’m sorry.”

  “Is that all?”

  26

  Damn. Did that sound all wrong? That wasn’t what I meant to say and aren't I the one tha
t ought to be apologizing?

  I’m shaking so hard and my heart is galloping so that it actually grazes against my skin lining, making it painful to breathe. He looks so amazing, just like the night I ran into him with the cream. All wind blown hair and rough beard shadow. As soon as I see him, shocked because Dottie didn’t actually say why she was pulling me out of bed, my pussy begins to pulsate with desire that spreads through my core.

  “I mean, you don’t have to be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Bolt’s face relaxes in relief and I realize just how tense he was up until then. He takes a step toward me but I back away.

  “Still, we can’t continue with this. If that’s what you wanted, that is.” I’m daring to make assumptions here. Perhaps he really has only come to say sorry.

  He takes a step toward me and then suddenly I’m flying up and over onto his broad shoulder. With my thighs bolted onto his width by the iron belt of his forearm, he carries me fireman style out of the room.

  “Put me down,” I hiss.

  “Shhhh,” comes a double response.

  He moves solidly down the stairs and even knows to step over the squeaker, without a hitch. Like I weigh nothing for him. I could squeal and tell him to put me down but the blood is rushing at my heart chambers faster than the pounding can keep up with.

  I really don't want to wake anyone up to come stop him. He’s not taking no for an answer this time and that makes me eager to hear what else he has to say. Maybe he’s had time to come up with a plan that could work. I want that more than anything.

  He throws back the front door and strides through, pulling it shut quietly.

  “Where are we going,” I squeak. “I’ve got no clothes on.”

  Now I start to struggle, my calves kicking at him lightly, to no avail.