by Roxy Harte
Right. Note to self. We are not a couple. “I didn’t say we were. I said you were fired because you were seen in my company.”
She throws up her hands and shrieks.
Shade tries to sneak away. “You two need privacy.”
“And who in the hell are you to be sneaking around town filming everyone’s business? You don’t think we have enough gossip without you fueling the fire?”
“Clarence Oliver Reginald Brown the third, better known as Shade, professional documenter. You might have caught some of my stuff on—”
“Shut up, Shade, not now,” I say. And since when does he give his full name to anyone who asks?
He points at Jessica. “She asked.”
I point to the door. “Go!”
Fortunately, he leaves.
Turning to Jessica, I try to explain. “I wanted to get you your job back.”
“I don’t want that job back.”
I let out a heavy sigh. I kind of figured as much. “Look. I can’t help who I am. This is what I do in New York. I talk. A lot. And people listen.”
“I got how important you are after seeing the long list of credentials roll by on the videos you posted. Little highly educated for a mechanic, aren’t you?”
“Not really. I’m sure there are other really smart mechanics out there. With the job market these days, I don’t know how anyone gets a job without a degree of some kind.” Pretty sure by her expression that was not the right thing to say.
She rolls her eyes. “So was it all fun and games flirting with the illiterate town whore for a day?”
“Are you kidding me?” I grab her hand and pull her toward me. “That isn’t how I see you.”
A tear slides down her cheek. “Really? Because that’s all there is to see. I’ll never make more than a few bucks an hour plus tips. I’ll never—”
I shut her up with my mouth and when she tries to keep talking I smother her words with my tongue. Eventually she gives up and kisses me back. I could say that it is like fireworks, bright and magical, but it isn’t. There’s tears and snot. It isn’t pretty.
But then clothes start coming off and I’m not sure whether she made the first move or I did, but one of us started something that is going to end with us both naked.
I start pushing her backward, toward the bed, but next thing I know I’m lying on my ass looking up at her. She foot swept me.
She laughs at my expression before falling on top of me and straddling me. She’s all seriousness when she says, “I’m mad at you.”
“Please don’t be.”
“I don’t want my kids hurt by this, by us.”
I hadn’t thought about a repercussion on them. I’m an idiot. “I’m sorry, Jessica.”
“You should be.”
I’m sorry enough to look genuinely contrite.
“Show me your cock.” She grabs my packing piece through my jeans. “Not this one. The real one. I want you to fuck me for real.”
“The last time wasn’t real?”
“The last time was foreplay. Tonight I want to fuck like animals.”
I arch my brow. Curious. “Who’s watching the boys?”
“Cheryl was having an overnight birthday party for her own son and was kind enough to invite Jax and Max.”
“An overnight, you say?” I waggle my eyebrows, earning a chuckle. “You’ll have to let me up so I can get the strap-on.”
She rolls off, I stand, and then I’m left staring in my top drawer trying to figure out which cock. She joins me and looks inside, gasping a little. “That’s a lot of silicone.”
“Hard to choose. You’re a little small. That rules these four out.”
I catch her expression, eyes wide, slightly fearful. “I said animal sex, those are like stallions.”
“You were thinking more like monkey sex?” I hold up a short, thin one.
“Maybe. That’s like two fingers’ worth.”
I agree with a nod and start strapping on. She watches intently. I can’t say it ruins the mood. She feels how the straps hugs my thighs then squats down to inspect. I grab a condom from the drawer and start sliding it on.
“I’m going to buy you a cock that is just ours so that we won’t have to use the condom.”
I hold out my hand, help her stand, and then lead her to the bed. She starts to crawl up but I stop her. “Huh-uh.” I push her down, face toward the mattress, bent over it so that she’s still standing and I can enter her from behind.
I rub her bottom with my palm, considering a swat or two just to warm things up, but decide maybe next time. I can already feel her trembling, so anxious, ready, unsure. I touch her, finding her slick, but still use the lube I palmed, just to be certain. It’s cool and slick. She jumps a little when I push some into her with my finger.
I aim, holding her hip with one hand, and start pressing forward. Slowly, so slowly. I want her to feel the separation of her flesh. I want her to feel herself being filled. I push until I feel resistance and then I start withdrawing as slowly as I entered.
“God, you’re killing me.”
“It hurts?”
“No! I want you to fuck me. I can’t wait.”
I close my eyes, inhaling sharply. I place my hands on either side of her hips and start thrusting. Slowly, but building a momentum.
“Faster.”
I don’t. I keep the pace. She grabs my hips, reaching behind herself to do it, and starts trying to jerk me forward at the rhythm she’d like. I give her a little more and she starts keening.
“Fuck me, Danni, fuck me like you mean it.”
I lean over her, thrusting into her hard and fast. She cries out and I thrust harder, faster. Until she screams with every thrust. I whisper against her neck, “Fuck you like I’m never letting you go.”
A sob builds in her chest and I reach around her to rub her clit. I can feel my own need rising. It won’t be long.
I fuck her with everything I have and know the instant she’s swept up by the vortex. I’m already falling. Falling hard. I’m in love with Jessica.
Overhead the storm breaks, I can hear the pitter-patter of the first large drops of rain hitting the tar and gravel roof.
* * * * *
I wake up to the smell of smoke.
“Jessica!” I shake her. “Wake up.”
“What?”
“Get your clothes. I think there’s a fire.” I try the light switch but nothing happens. That’s not good. I pull on jeans and a tank top. I make sure Jessica is dressing as well. The room is dark, lit only by the rising moon, but I find Jessica, grab her hand and lead her to the door. I turn the handle and push but it barely budges. “Fuck. Something’s blocking the door.”
“Danni?” I can hear the panic in Jessica’s voice. I’m scared too, but I can’t let her see it. Somewhere there’s a fire, and someone is trying to keep us from getting out. “It’s all right. Just hold my hand. I’m getting us out of here.”
“How? The door.”
I consider the windows, but it’s a long drop to the ground and there’s a much safer way out. I drop to my knees, pulling her with me, not that there’s any less smoke here, but I need to feel my way along the floor. “When my father converted this from storage to an apartment, he added the door then. Before that the entire attic was accessed by a drop-down stair. We’re using that. I need you to trust me. I’m going to go down first, but only to make sure it’s safe. If we can’t get out that way, if the fire blocks our path, we’ll have to drop from the windows.”
“God. We’ll break a leg.”
“More than likely.” If not our necks. I finally find the lever that releases the stair and it drops, less than silently, but at least flames don’t fill the space. “Come on. Stay close.”
We exit into the back of the office. I can hear flames roaring, and there’s no scarier sound than that. The fire’s in the garage and my next thought is three cars, three tanks of fuel. I push Jessica hard and fast toward the door and I’m rel
ieved it opens on the first try. I push out to safety, coming out fast behind her. “Get across the road. Get help.”
“What are you going to do?”
My thought was to try to start moving the cars in the lot farther away from the building. There’s only two, not in immediate danger but…I can already see the flames. If I had any doubt how bad it was, there’s no doubt now. And then I’m falling forward.
Jessica is screaming.
I’m not sure what happened but I know we’re in deeper shit now. “Run!”
I grab the side of my face, head reeling. I gain my feet barely.
“Not so fast, boy. That’s what you want everyone to think you are, isn’t it?” I feel him jerk my shoulder and spin me around.
I block up with my arm, expecting a strike. I wasn’t wrong. A ball bat slams into my arm. He was aiming for my head—again. Motherfucker. I see a flash of Jessica’s white dress. She’s across the road. She’s safe for now. I focus purely on my assailant and start swinging.
My fists land again and again. I’m surprised when there’s no second person to intervene. He tries to swing the bat but I’m on top of him, so close his efforts are useless. I keep hitting. “You tried to kill us?”
I hit his ribs with my right and his chin with my left and I just keep whaling.
His punches are falling, but I ignore them like pesky flies. I’m so mad. So goddamn mad. I’m not sure when I realize he’s not moving. Or that he has been down for a while.
In the distance I hear sirens but staring at the silhouette of the burning building, I know they’re too late.
The first explosion blows me back. The second is just as much shock, but I’m already down. I wait for a third but it never comes.
* * * * *
When the nurses finally allow Jessica into my emergency room cubicle, I am being grilled by my mother. The whole experience is quite humiliating. Like sporting a shiner and a fractured ulna isn’t bad enough.
“The teenage girls in town are all wearing men’s white tank tops and jeans, care to explain that?”
“I’m a trendsetter.”
“They’re telling their mothers they are forming a front of solidarity. For you. They’re telling everyone that they are bisexual.”
My mouth twists a little. Now is not the time to laugh. But seriously, she pronounces it bi-sesh-wal. “Maybe they are. There’s nothing wrong with it if it is true.”
“You’re what’s wrong, Denise Alanna O’Brian, filling these girls’ heads with thoughts they wouldn’t have had if you hadn’t come around here. And now look at you. Beaten, broken. I want you to be on the next bus back to the city or I swear I’ll drive you there myself. I have enough on my plate worrying about your father without your antics. I can’t take it.”
I keep my eyes lowered. I’m not ready to go back to New York.
Jessica slides into the space on the other side of the bed and stands near my shoulder. She leans down and kisses my cheek, whispering, “I sure hope you won’t go.”
I meet her gaze. “I told you before. I won’t be run out of this town again.”
“And if they kill you next time?” my mother demands.
“Then she’ll be dead and it will be a sad day for all of us.” Mrs. Morrison’s cane pokes through the space between two privacy curtains and makes enough room for her substantial body to fit through. She looks at me. “I hope you don’t mind the intrusion, but I didn’t want to sit in the waiting room any longer. They keep trying to shuffle me into a room and I’m not even sick.”
I chuckle. “You are quite welcome here, Mrs. Morrison.”
“The doctor says all that saved her this time was that her attacker hit her face with a glancing blow. If she’d have taken the full force of that bat, he’d have crushed her skull for certain.” My mother’s face crumbles, but she turns her back to us. “Maybe you can talk some sense into my idiot daughter. I sure can’t. And I’m done trying.”
“Probably for the best you are, Edna. She’s a grown woman well capable of making her own choices. And she can obviously defend herself. I hear they have the man who attacked her in custody because she was able to restrain him until the police arrived.”
“I couldn’t save the garage,” I tell Jessica and her grandmother.
“I heard the thug was trying to burn you up inside but I’m so very glad you escaped, my dear,” Mrs. Morrison says gently. “Buildings can always be rebuilt, lives can’t be replaced.”
I nod.
“There won’t be another garage. The land will sell easier if it’s cleared.” Mom looks at all of us over her shoulder.
We all gasp, me, Jessica and Mrs. Morrison. I should have expected it, but I hadn’t thought it through.
“My decision’s final,” Mom says and then she walks out of the room.
I don’t even try to stop the curse words from coming out of my mouth, following her wake. I’ve been stalemated at every turn with my mother and I’m tired, so tired of trying to get her to understand. Jessica rubs my back and I appreciate her silence more than any words she could say.
I don’t really notice when Mrs. Morrison slides out of the room. I close my eyes, maybe I sleep, maybe I just fight tears for more than an hour and keeping my eyes closed is the only way to keep them from falling. I know the moment she returns. There’s quite a bustle outside, and then she returns with my father, his wheelchair pushed between the divide in the curtain by a male technician.
“Dad!” He’s alert. Granted, I’ve only visited from a distance the last few weeks because I haven’t wanted to interfere with his progress. And not that he isn’t still damaged. The right side of his face is still slack and from the way he’s holding his body, much of his right side.
I should have realized they’d bring me to the same hospital.
“I’ve been to see you. I’m glad you’re improving.”
“You never came near enough to say hello.” His words are labored, slow and slurred, but he is talking. “When J.C. said you were here. What happened. Couldn’t keep me away.”
I didn’t realize he knew Mrs. Morrison. As if she read my mind, she explains, “Your father and Mister spent many an hour fishing together of the years.”
“Good man,” my father says. “Taught me a lot about fishing, about people.”
I stare at my father. “I came as soon as I heard. I wouldn’t go into ICU because I thought you might think you were dying and give up. I didn’t want that, so I stayed away.”
”I appreciate that.”
He reaches into his robe with his left hand and retrieves a stack of folded papers. He reaches them toward me and both Mrs. Morrison and Jessica have a turn passing them to me. “What’s this?”
“Legal crap. Lawyer came by a few days ago and dropped all the finished paperwork off.”
I don’t want to know. I don’t look. I imagine a living will, or power of attorney, or other forms pertaining to what to do for him in the future.
“Well, open them,” he demands.
Shit. I open. I read. I don’t understand. “These are papers creating a partnership.”
“Yes.” He nods. “You and me. Danny and son.”
Oh god. Now I’m gonna cry.
“The business. Dad. It’s…gone.”
“J.C. told me everything. I’m proud you protected yourself, tried to defend the garage. Wish I’d have been there to seen you take him down.”
My father taught me to throw a right hook behind the garage. It brings a melancholy smile to my lips.
“Insurance information at the bottom of the stack. You call. Today. Get things rolling.”
I shake my head. “Mom won’t go for that. She wants me gone. She’ll claim you’re mentally incompetent.”
“Well, she’ll have a hard time proving that one. My body may be shit but my mind is crystal clear.” My dad leans forward and reaches out his left hand. I take it and hold on tight. I can’t bear to look at his face though. “You listen. Ten years ago I let yo
ur mother push me into making a wrong decision. I made you believe I didn’t want you here. Didn’t want you to have any part of that garage. Oh her heart was in the right place. She wanted you to have a better life. An education. But some of her ideas were misplaced. She thought you’d find a man and miraculously be changed. Healed.”
There’s no hope of stopping my tears now.
“I always knew, Danni. I always knew. You’re perfect just as you are. And I should have formed this partnership with you when I originally wanted to. More than ten years ago.”
I sob. “Dad. I didn’t know. I thought…I thought I was a disgrace to you.”
“Did I ever once treat you as if I was ashamed of you? You’re the second-best mechanic for five counties and don’t you forget it.”
I laugh through my tears. He always said that.
“You just need to sign the papers too. Make it all legal.”
“I will, Dad.” I nod, meeting his gaze. “I will.”
* * * * *
When Shade finally shows up at the hospital, I’ve already been discharged and am just waiting in the lobby for Mrs. Morrison to pull the car around. I’m sitting in a wheelchair because it’s protocol and they wouldn’t let me walk to the parking lot.
“Thank god you are all right. I saw the garage. Or what’s left of it.”
“Where were you?”
He shrugs, looking sheepish. He’s disappeared a few times in the last week only to return in the predawn hours. “There’s this girl—”
“Oh. Ha-ho. Ho. A girl, you say?”
He at least has the decency to laugh with me.
“You’re doing better than I would be.”
“Maybe I’m in shock. I don’t know. It hasn’t really hit me yet.” I pause, thinking too hard. “I know it will. Once I see the place.” A thought occurs to me. “How did you get here?”
“I drove Lola, I hope you don’t mind.”
“Lola’s okay? Lola’s fine?” I bounce a little I’m so excited. “She’s here?”
He points through the large window and I see her, sitting at the curb.
“You trying to get her towed?” I leap from the chair and pretty much run outside. I run my hands over her as soon as I’m near enough. “Not a scratch. Perfect.” It suddenly occurs to me why. “You took her for a spin last night? To meet your girl?” Nobody drives Lola except me.