by Ever Coming
“That comes with mayo, lettuce, and tomato.”
“Sounds perfect.” He nodded in a subtle sign of dismissal.
“It’ll be up in five,” she called over her shoulder, taking his hint.
“So, Mae, tell me, what brings a beautiful girl like you to a town like this?”
“I feel like I’m in a cheesy romantic comedy.” Only this girl wouldn’t getting her happily ever after with the stranger from the bar. She might get a nice night, possibly dinner, but that was that. It was so much better than sitting alone all night.
“So dodging the question?”
“Just an observation.” I took a sip of my remaining, now tepid, beer. “I finished school and wasn’t immediately hired, so I came here to stay with my sister while I figured out the next stop on my journey to employment greatness.”
“That’s why you were doing that coding instead of going out with your friends.” It was nice to see him taking it for what it was and not that I was simply an unemployed loser. Even though, I kind of was. Fine. I totally was.
“I was doing that because I needed to figure it out. It was driving me bonkers and my grade counted on it. I don’t really have friends here. This town kind of keeps to their own.” And why was I spilling my guts exactly? Because he seemed to truly want to know and not asking out of politeness. Not a typical get in your pants kind of conversation; although, if he wanted in he was quickly earning the key.
“Some things never change.”
It was difficult for me to fathom a time where he didn’t make friends easily, but this town was what it was, so maybe. The hurt in his glance told me even if it was a long time ago, it still stung, and this time I found myself squeezing his hand with the hopes of giving comfort.
“Are you from here?”
“I lived here for a while as a kid.”
Ms. Gracie. Of course I should’ve made the connection. It was time to change subjects.
“I won’t push.”
“I appreciate it. Is this all right? ” He looked down at our hands, as if now was the time to ask. He was in agreement on it being subject change time.
“It really is.” Blissful. Comforting. Oddly sexy.
“I like making you do that.” He smirked.
“Do what?”
“Blush.”
And then the blush I didn’t know I had started to burn.
“Don’t waste your time on the town prude.” Creeper Bob stomped over, shouting, catching the attention of far too many people for my liking. “Not worth flirting up a fatty if they aren’t going to put out.”
Because not sleeping with him was a character flaw and not discernment. Asshat.
“I’m fairly confident I neither asked for nor desire your opinion.” Matt spoke calmly, but his eyes told a different tale. “If she rejected you, that only elevates my opinion of her because anyone who picks you has horrific taste.”
“Scram, Bob,” Jackie interjected as she placed my stuffed mushrooms and Matt’s burger in front of us. “No one has time for you. If you keep bothering my customers, I’ll have Steve kick you out.” He took her at her word and walked away, Jackie following closely behind.
“He’s a nice fellow,” Matt teased as he pushed out of the booth.
“His nickname is jerkhead, but you’re entitled to your own opinion.” He sat beside me and indicated I skootch over. “What are you doing?”
“I was coming to sit by you.”
“Why?” I asked, already moving over to make room for him. There was no way I was saying no to that offer.
“Because you want me to.”
I wanted to argue, possibly play a bit coy, but he was right. I wanted him to sit by me and more. So much more. He was only in town for a day or two. What harm could a little fun cause?
Matt
One thing having money had taught me was that if you were going to play social games, it needed to be more than worth your while, and even then only play them occasionally. Another thing it had taught me was that I hated social games, no matter what level they were played on. As a kid, I’d always been on the losing end. As an entrepreneur, I had to play them occasionally, but I preferred facts and competence to speak louder than any social jockeying. If it didn’t get me the deal… let’s just say I could have been a lot richer if I could have brought myself to play more games. But thankfully in college, I’d made a friend, probably my best friend, Geoffrey, who thrived on social games. He lived on them. If he wanted to, I had no question he would go far in politics. And who knew, maybe he would someday. But for right now, he ran a consulting firm that charged ridiculous amounts of money to people like me to play the games for them.
But right here with Mae, I didn’t have time for games. I was leaving in the morning. I liked her. She was clearly smart, and I knew what it felt like to be stuck in this town. Life was too short to not be real. So when I wanted to sit beside her, and I knew she wouldn’t object, I did.
It had been a while since I’d had dinner with a woman. And maybe this didn’t really count, seeing as we were here, in this bar, for completely different reasons, but I enjoyed the soft warmth of her by my side. It made me feel less alone in this room full of people I had once known.
I bit into my burger. It was no Sprague’s, my favorite first-date spot in the city, but it was decent. “So what kind of job are you looking for?"
She sighed. "Honestly, right now? Anything not here that pays me enough to make rent and my school loan payments."
"Dream big. If you could do anything."
"Dreaming big is what got me nowhere," Mae grumbled. I gave her a pointed look and she shrugged. "I don't know. It's been hard to think about what I want when what I need is shouting so loudly at me. I got an MBA because everyone said that was the smart thing to do, right? Except that everyone and their brother got an MBA too. So I've been trying to branch out. Specialize. Like this coding class, for instance."
"Yeah? What do you see yourself doing with a specialization?"
"I think I'd be a good business analyst for a tech company. I definitely have the business side knowledge, if not the actual, you know, experience."
"Would you like that?" She kept talking about what she should do, what she needed to do. This woman had drive, I could see it. But where was her actual passion? Was it so buried in plans and expectations she'd buried it?
She sighed again. "I'd like having a job."
Someone tapped a glass for attention. If I took away about fifty pounds, a few tattoos and imagined her hair long, I could recognize one of the girls who'd been at Gracie's for a year or two while I was there, before she hit eighteen and phased out of the program. As a teenager, Betty had been a tomboy. She was clearly and unapologetically butch now. "I know a lot of words were said at the funeral, but this town has too many Gracie stories to fit behind a podium. Ms. Gracie was the first person who told me it was okay to be me. And she'd wash my mouth out with soap for phrasing it this way, but she taught me it was okay to say fuck you to anyone who couldn't accept you the way you were." Betty raised her glass. "To Gracie." There was a muted roar of agreement as the crowd joined in on the toast. My drink was empty, but I raised my glass in honor of Ms. Gracie. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mae's glass raise as well.
I managed to catch the waitress's eye and signaled for refills for the both of us.
"Oh, you don't have to do that," Mae said.
"Of course I don't," I agreed, but said no more.
Betty clambered down from the bar and the next person stood up on their chair. "If it hadn't been for Gracie volunteering to watch my two boys when my Jack died so that I could work, I might have lost them to the system. I could have only hoped they would have ended up with someone as good as her, but Lord knows there's no one quite like Gracie." Another toast and cheer, and the waitress delivered our drinks.
The stories continued, and Mae and I sat and listened. When we finished our food, I took her hand again. All of the stories were raising mem
ories I thought had long lost the ability to affect me. But tonight, part of me was a lost and unwanted teenager again, with no family and no home to call my own. Ms. Gracie had provided an anchor for me, one I hadn't realized I still needed as a grown man. And now she was gone. Mae's hand in mine was grounding, reminding me of who I was—Matt Dahl, billionaire and tech mogul—and who I was not anymore—a broken child.
"I asked Ms. Gracie once how she could stand having all them kids underfoot, all day everyday," the current speaker said. "Didn't it just make her itch to get out of the house something awful? And she looked me straight in the eye and said, 'Freddy, you have a lot of cars, right?'" The crowd chuckled. Apparently some inside town joke. "'Don't you get tired of having them clutter up your yard? Don't you just want to run away into the woods sometimes to get away from them?'" The chuckling turned to roaring laughter. "Well of course I didn't. And she told me that everybody's gots a gift. Some people’s it's cars, some people’s it's kids. Some people's it's taxes, but thems a strange kind of folk and it's probably best to give them a wide berth. But just because you don't understand a person's gift doesn't make it any less valuable. Ms. Gracie had a gift for picking out people's gifts. She'll be pretty near impossible to replace. To Gracie."
They lifted their glasses yet again. The alcohol was starting to burn enough I knew I wasn't going to be able to drive back tonight. That had been more wishful thinking than anything anyway.
"Matt?" Mae's voice was soft, and I almost didn't hear it over the churning of my own thoughts. "If I could do whatever I wanted...?"
She had my full attention now. I turned to face her, tuning out whomever was currently speaking.
"I think I'd want to code. I mean, it's completely ridiculous. I didn't do any coding in college, and no one is going to hire a programmer who only has a generic business degree, but if I could do anything? I think I would give it a try."
"I'd hire you," I said, and I was surprised to realize I meant it.
She laughed. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."
"No, let me rephrase that, I will hire you."
Mae looked confused. "I don't understand."
"I'm not just a programmer, I own my own software consulting firm," I said. "If you're uncomfortable with the idea of hiring on with little practical knowledge, we can call it an internship, but the drive to learn is almost more important than the knowledge itself in my field."
Mae gaped at me.
"So what do you say?" I waited for a moment, and her facial expression didn't change. "It's your ticket out of here."
Mae
He was drinking and trying to get into my pants. I was all right with that. More than all right. This offer though, it didn’t sound like part of that. It sounded almost legit. Maybe it was, but it was an offer made with a few sips of too much liquor and during an emotional time so there was zero chance I could accept.
Sober Mae might think differently in the morning, but for now, now I had to turn him down. It was the right thing to do. Besides, if I accepted and then it didn’t pan out, that would be worse, right?
“You are far too sweet, but I need more skills before I can even intern. You saw me making a mess of things, and that was simple stuff.” It was sadly true. My skills were growing in leaps and bounds, but they weren't even interned-ready yet. They would be though. I was no quitter.
“Everyone needs a second set of eyes sometimes.”
“That may be.” I would have eventually found my error, but the amount of time I spent on it was not acceptable in any workplace. It just wasn’t. “But still, a polite decline. I make my own way.” When I did this, which I would, it needed to be because of my skills. Not a leg up from someone who I wanted to jump.
“If you change your mind—”
I cut him off with my lips. Sure, I knew it was an effective method to shut a man up, but that wasn’t why I went in for the kill. I had wanted to kiss Matt from almost the first moment I saw him, and the need to do so increased exponentially with every moment that he sat beside me.
His lips immediately reacted to mine, effectively taking over the kiss, which I was more than willing to allow. There was something so innately hot about that moment. His lips danced with mine, his tongue seeking entrance. As I opened up for him, a needy sigh escaped me. When was the last time a man drew such a reaction from me? Had one ever?
He leisurely explored my mouth as I explored his, the intensity of the moment growing with each swipe of the tongue, each taste. His hand took the back of my neck in a raw and sensual grasp that had me ready to mount him right then and there. It was a good thing he was passing through because this man was trouble of both the very best and the very worst kind.
The crackle of the check holder being placed on the table pulled me from my focus. I snapped back, catching the smirk on Jackie’s face as she sauntered away. She was right, it was time to get a room before what crappy reputation I had in this town got worse. Not that it mattered because I would get out of here. It was only a question of when.
“Are you staying at the motel?” My breath was uneven and my body was still singing for him. Oh, tonight had the potential to be amazing. There was no need to ask which motel. There was one. It was crappy and rundown, but the next closest one was forty-five minutes away and our drinking made that option obsolete.
“I was planning to leave tonight, but I got distracted.” His hand cupped my cheek, which his thumb caressed as he said distracted.
“I’d invite you to my place, but I don’t really have one.”
“I’m sure the motel has beds for two.” He pulled his wallet out and threw down some bills. I went to argue, but he gave me an “I dare you” look and some things just weren’t worth it.
“That might not actually be accurate.” And even if they did, they were in no way up to the standards he was used too. Heck, they probably weren’t even up to mine and I slept on a hundred dollar futon for years. “It looks like they haven’t touched it in decades.” More accurately, it looked like it belonged in a horror movie, but I wasn’t going to go there.
“It does look eerily similar to when I was a kid.” He took his hand from my cheek and intertwined his fingers with mine before indicating the door with his head. “Shall we see if they have a room for us?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
I was doing this. Mae, the mapper, planner extraordinaire, was going to a sketchy motel with a stranger with the sole purpose of getting herself some. No part of me could think of anything wrong with the idea either. There was just something about Matt. It was more than his looks, his intelligence, his success. He came from nothing, and that was an aphrodisiac like no other. Maybe it was because I came from little, although more than him if he was a Ms. Gracie kid. I could think about that later. Now, I just wanted to get naked.
“In a hurry?” I teased as he scootched out of the table, taking me with him.
He stopped dead in his tracks, looked my now standing form up and down slowly, before bending to my ear and whispered, ”I wanted you the moment I walked in here, seeing you sitting here, all focused. Besides, I have an ulterior motive.”
“Ulterior motive, do tell.” The lilt of mischief in his voice had me so very intrigued, so much that I didn’t even mind that we were no closer to naked time than we were only moments earlier.
“If I get you into my bed, I can prove Jackass Bob wrong.” He tapped my nose for effect, and I couldn’t control the belly laugh that poured out of me. “Is that a yes?” He was already leading me through the diminished crowd and to the door.
“Matt, it was a yes the moment you showed me where to fix my code.”
I wasn’t even exaggerating. I wanted him like no one before him. Sure I’d had a man in my bed before, but it was always after dates and wooing. There had never been this instant connection filled with so much want and need. I couldn’t even say it was the alcohol because a quick glance back at the table told me we had only actually consumed two a piece ov
er the course of a few hours. No, this drunken feeling wasn’t alcohol. It was Matt, all Matt. For the next few hours he was all mine and I planned to take full advantage of said time.
Matt
If I had realized that making a job offer and getting turned down would have ended up with beautiful women practically jumping my bones was a thing, then I would have... well, probably done exactly nothing different because I couldn't think of a single other person I wanted both working for me and working on me other than the woman in front of me right now.
My car was safe at Nick's. Or as safe as it could be in this town. And since the motel was exactly a hundred yards away, I couldn't see the point in chancing the drive so short a distance when every cop in town was either at Nick's or on their way to finish paying their respects to Ms. Gracie. I felt a twinge of conscience, leaving Ms. Gracie's memorial to get it on with a woman I'd just met, but Ms. Gracie would have forgiven me. In fact, she may have walloped me over the head for being a block head if I hadn't pursued the opportunity.
I slid my hand under the back of Mae's shirt, resting my hand on the small of her back, enjoying the heat of her smooth skin. She shivered underneath me. I could tell this was out of character for her. Was she regretting her impulsive kiss?
I stole a glance at her, the moon just barely illuminating her face. No, that was definitely anticipation. A frisson of thrill ran through my body from tip to toe. I wanted to run to the motel, dragging her with me, but I forced myself to keep to a steady pace.
I held the door open for her—no automatic doors here either—and approached the counter. "Can I get a room please?"
"Credit card and driver's license," the bored receptionist intoned, not even looking at me.
I slid both across the counter, and he entered in the information, printed a receipt, and slid it back for me to sign.
We had to go back outside to access the room, and when the door closed behind us, Mae giggled. "I don't think he took his eyes off his phone at all. What do you think he was watching?"