Torch

by Roxie Noir

  “If I keep doing that you’re gonna make me come,” he says.

  I arch and thrust backwards, driving him deep inside again, and he groans.

  “Good,” I say, breathless. “It’s fucking sexy when you come inside me.”

  He goes faster and harder, and I can feel myself tilting toward the edge.

  “Don’t stop,” I say, nearly shouting. “God, please, don’t stop.”

  “I’m gonna come,” he growls against my ear. “Fuck, Lula-Mae, I can’t help myself.”

  Just as he groans, I suddenly feel myself go over the edge and fall.

  “Fuck, Jackson,” I gasp. I dig my nails into his thigh without meaning to, and I can just hear myself whispering his name over and over again.

  I come so hard I barely even realize he’s pulled me against him as hard as he can, his cock throbbing. I just moan wordlessly and Jackson bites my shoulder. I feel almost knocked senseless, even as my orgasm fades and he slides his arm around me and holds me tight against his chest as I’m still panting for breath.

  “I missed you,” he whispers. “I know I said that but I missed you.”

  I turn and kiss his shoulder. There’s a million uncertainties right now, about him, about us, about how the hell this is ever going to work out, but in this moment, I’m totally certain that everything will be okay.

  “I missed you too,” I whisper.

  31

  Jackson

  We’re just lying there, in my bed in my trailer. Through the window above the bed I can see a rectangle full of stars, and I’ve got my face against Mae’s head. I can smell her hair, and I’ve got one hand over her chest and I can feel her heartbeat, too.

  After a minute I point at the window.

  “I think those are the Pleiades,” I say.

  She just laughs.

  “There, we stargazed,” I say.

  Mae wiggles and then turns around in my arms, and I roll onto my back, her head on my chest.

  “Should we go back to the house and pretend like that’s all we were doing?” she asks.

  “Nah,” I say. I run one finger up and down her spine. The bedroom is almost tropically warm because that’s what happens when you run two space heaters on full blast in here, and it feels like Mae is melting into me.

  “Are we just going to stay in the jizz trailer the whole time I’m here?” she teases.

  “Lula-Mae, I swear to God—” I start, but she laughs again.

  I sigh.

  “Is that just what it’s called now?” I ask.

  “Sorry,” she says.

  “Liar,” I say. “You’re not sorry at all.”

  We’re quiet for a moment.

  “They’re not gonna think that we got eaten by wolves and come after us, right?” she finally asks.

  “This is a don’t ask, don’t tell situation,” I say. “They don’t ask why we’re really going on a walk in the direction of a secluded trailer after dark when it’s twenty degrees outside, and I don’t tell them that I’m crawling out of my skin to jump your bones already.”

  “Jump my bones?” Mae asks.

  “It means—”

  “I know what it means,” she teases me. “That’s how my Aunt Bertha refers to sex, too.”

  “Aunt Bertha sounds like a fun gal,” I say.

  “Depends on how much you like gin rummy.”

  Mae’s fingers are tracing a new scar, the one where I had a tube in my chest after I punctured a lung.

  Tell her, I think.

  I almost don’t want to end this perfect, quiet moment, but I hate not telling things to Mae. There were only thirty-six hours between getting out of the wheelchair and her seeing me and finding out, and I just about bit my tongue off.

  “The Vice President of programming at ESPN called me last week,” I say.

  She raises her head and looks up at me.

  “They’re adding rodeo to their main programming lineup next year, and they’re looking for a charming, good-looking, knowledgeable commentator who’s currently unfit to ride,” I say.

  “And what did they want with you?” she teases.

  “They want me to audition in Cheyenne in a couple of weeks at a pre-season exhibition,” I say.

  Mae grins, her blue eyes sparkling.

  “Then what?” she asks.

  “If they like me, I do it for the rest of the season,” I say. “And if I’m charming enough, I assume Hollywood comes calling and I star in a bunch of commercials for pickup trucks.”

  “I’d buy a truck from you,” Mae says.

  “You wouldn’t buy a truck from anyone,” I say.

  She laughs.

  “You’re right,” she says. “I’m never gonna own a pickup truck, I hate driving those things.”

  “You’re the least country Texas girl I’ve ever met,” I say.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  I swallow, and we both go quiet for a moment.

  “I’d have to move if this ESPN thing goes through,” I say.

  “Where to?” she asks, her voice quiet.

  “I’d probably need to stay out west,” I say, and suddenly my heart is thumping. “But I’d need to be a lot closer to a major airport, at least. So a real city.”

  I look down at her, but she’s looking at her hand, tapping her fingers on my chest one by one.

  “But which one might be flexible,” I say.

  Mae rolls off of me and props herself on her elbows, not quite touching me anymore.

  “I talked to my agent about moving away from New York,” she says quietly.

  “Is that a good idea?” I ask.

  “I don’t really like it there,” she says. “I want to, but I don’t. People keep telling me that it’s the center of the photography world, but...”

  She trails off and spreads her hands, staring past my head at the wall.

  “Janice thought I could make it work,” she says.

  “Mae, I already almost tanked your career once,” I say. “I’m not trying to do it again. I don’t even know if I’ll get this ESPN thing.”

  “What are you gonna do if you don’t?” she asks.

  “Well, I’ve gotta finish digitizing the books for my parents’ ranch into Quicken, and that might take another five years,” I say. “There’s six months in nineteen seventy eight where I swear everything is written on napkins from a diner.”

  I pull her back against me and she puts her head back on my chest, her hand flat over my old scar.

  “But after this year,” she asks, slowly. “Are you going back?”

  I stroke the back of her neck with my fingers.

  “I’m not asking you to quit,” she says. “I know you love it, and I would never ask that, Jackson, and I’m here either way, but...”

  She trails off.

  “I just want to know what I’m in for,” she says quietly.

  I’ve studiously avoided thinking about it. I mean, I think about it a lot, but I dance around the question, tell myself things like not this year and then try not to think beyond that. Even if I can ride again, which isn’t certain, who knows if I’ll be competitive.

  “Right after Crash ran me over and they were taking me out, I heard you when I was on the stretcher,” I say.

  “You were conscious?”

  “Barely,” I say. “I was in and out, and all I remember hearing is you shouting I know Jackson, fucking let me in! And I thought, she just told everyone about us, she’s gonna get fired, and it’s my fault. And I felt terrible.”

  “That’s oversimplifying it,” she says.

  “You were in most of my morphine dreams,” I say. “You know how I knew I wasn’t dreaming when you showed up that morning?”

  “You mom called me a stray?”

  “You looked like hell,” I say. “Like you’d been up all night crying.”

  She swallows.

  “Only most of it,” she finally says. “No one would tell me anything for the longest time. I had no idea if you’d made
it off the operating table or not, or if you were paralyzed forever, or...”

  She trails off again, and I decide. All at once, I decide.

  “I was really scared that I’d lost you,” Mae whispers.

  “I’m not going back,” I say.

  She looks up at me again.

  “I swear to God I’m not asking you to quit,” she says, her voice low.

  I just laugh.

  “I just broke every bone in one leg, and now there’s so much metal in it that I’m barely human,” I say. “I fractured four vertebrae, and it’s a miracle I’m not paralyzed. My ribcage is pretty much made out of bendy straws by now because I’ve broken ribs hard enough to puncture lungs twice now. I can tell when it’s gonna rain because my left arm tells me, both my ankles hurt when it’s cold, my right shoulder freezes sometimes because I tore the cartilage once, and I’ve chipped five teeth.”

  When I say it all out loud, it’s pretty compelling.

  “I didn’t even know about half those,” Mae says.

  “This way I get to go out on top,” I say. “Blaze of glory and all that.”

  That’s all true, but it’s not the real reason.

  The truth is, after Daffodil broke my ribcage, I started just assuming I’d die in the arena, and I realized I didn’t mind. Better to burn out than fade away. Half the rodeo guys I know who make it to sixty are in bad shape, so I started figuring I just wouldn’t make it that long.

  Then I met Mae, and when they put me on a stretcher and loaded me into an ambulance, I realized that if I were dead I’d never see her again.

  It’s pretty simple, really.

  “We should head back,” Mae says.

  “Stay here,” I say. “I like pretending we’re a normal couple who don’t have to sneak around.”

  Mae laughs.

  “That’s your own fault for living with your parents when you’re twenty-five,” she says.

  “I got special circumstances,” I say, and kiss the top of her head. “And I only got to wake up next to you once, and you weren’t at your best.”

  “I was such a bitch,” Mae says. “I’m sorry. I’m not a morning person. I’m not.”

  “Stay here and I’ll pretend to know more constellations,” I say.

  She rolls over onto her back and looks out the window.

  “Okay,” she says. “What’s that one?”

  “Orion,” I say.

  It’s not Orion. I don’t know what it is, but Mae’s in my arms again and neither of us really care what the constellations are. After an hour we shut down the space heaters and get ready for bed, then crawl under the covers and curl up together. I try not to kick her with my cast.

  In the morning, it’s freezing, so we have sex under the blankets before we go back to the house.

  ESPN hires me. When I tell Mae, she yelps with delight and then shouts, “I knew they would!” Later that month, she goes to Carnivale in Brazil for a week and shoots colorful samba dancers. I get my cast off while she’s there and start physical therapy.

  In March, I finally visit New York. We see the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building and a whole lot of the inside of Mae’s bedroom.

  In April, ESPN sends me to San Antonio for a while and she joins me there. We visit the Alamo, tire each other out in the hotel room, and afterwards, still in bed, Mae grabs her laptop and we start looking at apartments in other cities.

  I’m sitting in a folding chair in front of a box, eating cereal, when my phone buzzes. It’s a selfie of Mae, in front of the “Welcome to Colorful Colorado!” sign.

  Me: Stop taking selfies and drive faster.

  Mae: Just for that, I’m stopping for more coffee.

  Me: You were stopping for more coffee anyway.

  Mae: Busted.

  I pace around the house. I feel like I should be cleaning and decorating and getting something ready, but there’s nothing. There’s a small pile of boxes in the living room, but the biggest one is the wardrobe box full of new suits for my job.

  For years, everything I needed I pretty much fit into my truck, but now that it’s in an actual building, it looks tiny.

  I’m still staring at it when the moving truck pulls up outside. It’s been almost a month since I saw Mae, and just like always, I start grinning like an idiot the second I see her.

  She hops out of the cab of the truck, blond hair flying, and I wrap her in my arms before she even gets the door closed.

  “I made it,” she says, and she’s already laughing.

  “Welcome home,” I say, and kiss her. She wraps both her hands around my neck and presses herself against me, her tongue licking my bottom lip, and I’m hard in no time at all. My hand’s under her shirt and on the skin of her lower back and she bites my bottom lip when I pull away from her.

  Already, we’re those neighbors.

  I reach out and shut the truck door.

  “Want to see the inside?” I ask.

  “Of course,” she says.

  I open the door for her and watch her face as she steps through. Mae hasn’t seen the place in person yet, and it turns out that I can ride a one-ton animal for eight seconds, but choosing an apartment for the two of us to live in is nerve-wracking as all hell.

  She walks through the kitchen, then the living room, checks out both bathrooms. When she comes back to where I’m standing, she looks relieved.

  “You were worried?” I tease her.

  “Jackson, the last place you lived was called the jizz trailer,” she says.

  “Only because you named it that,” I say.

  She grins and shrugs, then slides her arms around me.

  “One more question,” she says.

  I bend down and pick her up. She yelps and throws her arms around my neck.

  “Bedroom’s this way,” I say.

  Epilogue One

  Mae

  One Year Later

  I wake up with a jolt when the car stops. It’s totally dark, wherever we are, and I try to surreptitiously wipe my mouth because I think I was drooling in my sleep.

  Then I look around. Behind us there are headlights winding down a road, and I look over at Jackson, who’s grinning at me.

  “Is this Santa Barbara?” I ask, totally confused, because I was ninety-nine percent sure Santa Barbara was a city.

  “Not exactly,” he says. “This is Big Sur.”

  I have no idea what that is.

  Jackson got a surprise break from his job when a rodeo in Albuquerque was canceled, and then a job of mine got pushed back, so we decided to go on a road trip to California.

  I look at the clock on the dashboard. It’s 1:06 in the morning. I look at Jackson again.

  “Are you kidnapping me?” I ask.

  He leans over and kisses me.

  “Are you ever going to get better at waking up?” he asks.

  “Probably not,” I say.

  “Come on,” he says.

  We get out of the car, and I wrap my jacket around me. I can smell the ocean, and after a moment, I realize I can hear it, too.

  Okay, so we’re on the coast.

  Jackson grabs a blanket and a reusable shopping bag from the trunk of my car, then walks toward me. I’m trying really hard to wake up, but riding in a car at night puts me to sleep.

  “C’mon,” he says. Then he kisses me and walks toward a staircase.

  We head down. I was right: the ocean’s right here, almost invisible in the night, and in a few minutes we’re on the narrow strip of sand. The road above is totally invisible, and as my eyes adjust, I can see the rocky shoreline extending for miles in either direction, the blackness of the ocean ahead, the stars above.

  I still don’t know what I’m doing on a strange beach at one o’clock in the morning, but Jackson’s spreading out a blanket on the sand and then we sit on it, staring out at the black water, his arms around me.

  “You remember that first night in Vegas?” he asks.

  “When I waited for you naked with
cowboy boots and a hat?” I ask.

  “Exactly,” he says. “And afterward we talked about how if we got into a car right then and drove we could make it to the ocean that night?”

  I look over at him. Suddenly everything clicks into place, and I know exactly why I’m on a beach at one in the morning, and why my boyfriend seemed oddly prepared for this excursion.

  Now I’m awake and trying not to laugh from sheer delight.

  “Yeah,” I say, and I think I’m grinning from ear to ear. “I remember when we talked about running away together for a night.”

  “You could have talked me into it,” he says. “If you’d said, right there, let’s go to California together, I think I would have gone.”

  I run my hand lightly over his right kneecap, the busted one.

  “We hadn’t even seen much of each other in person, but we’d been talking nonstop, and you were all I could think about,” he goes on, his voice getting quiet. “And there was this moment when we were alone, and just talking, and I thought, this feels right, I think this is what it’s supposed to feel like.”

  He puts one hand in his jacket pocket. My heart pounds, and Jackson looks at me.

  Then he laughs.

  “You figured this out already,” he says.

  I just grin and shrug, and he leans over and kisses me.

  “The night we had sex in the bucking chute, I was afraid I loved you,” he says.

  He kisses me.

  “And when we talked every night, and you sent me pictures of rats and postcards of trash barges, and every single time it was the highlight of my day, I thought I loved you.”

  He kisses me again.

  “And I knew I loved you that first night in Vegas, standing in front of that window and talking about running away, and I’ve thought about doing this ever since,” he says.

  Finally, he pulls a box out of his pocket and opens it. Inside is a ring with a deep blue stone in the center.

  “Marry me, Lula-Mae,” he says.

  Suddenly I can’t talk around the lump in my throat, and I just nod and hold out my left hand.