A Shot at Us

by Cameron Lowe

  “Am I going to scare you off if I admit I need another trip through that taco bar to try some of those pork quesadillas?” she asked Malcolm.

  “Not unless I’m gonna scare you off by making the world’s biggest taco salad.”

  Her lips hit his cheek before it registered Runa was even moving. It was a brief, silly smack, but it transformed the night for him – and not necessarily in a great way, either. Malcolm hadn’t thought much about Gwen the whole night, but some spark of his mind felt those lips and wanted them to belong to a different woman. That was brutally unfair, but he couldn’t shove the thoughts aside.

  “You. Are. Cute,” Runa said, and scooted out of the booth. Malcolm had never hated himself more than in that moment.

  After they’d eaten their fill and spoon fed each other soft-serve vanilla ice cream, the four headed back out into the parking lot. Alicia eyed her friend, and asked, “You coming back with me, or…”

  “I could drop you off,” Malcolm said.

  “Mmmm,” Runa said, eyes sparkling. “That is a preeeeetty sweet car. I think I’d better take advantage of the offer.”

  “Aw, I have to ride with you?” Nic asked Alicia.

  “Could walk, jerkwad.”

  He stroked his chin. “Yeah, you’re right. I could. Probably get there quicker.”

  In the car, Runa gave Malcolm directions to her place, but beyond that, stayed mostly quiet. He did some talking for them, mostly inane nonsense about the holidays coming up, or living with Nic. It was a smokescreen to hide the doubt in his mind, and his self-loathing grew with every mile. Her place wasn’t all that far, and in about ten minutes, they pulled up to her driveway.

  In the car, as it idled, Runa reached out and squeezed his thigh. “I’m not crazy that this could be a thing, right?”

  Malcolm thought about Gwen letting down her sweat-crisped hair, about the mad little grin on her face when they played ball together, about the way she jumped at a horror movie, grabbing his knee – and Calvin’s.

  Calvin.

  Gwen was living with Calvin. Malcolm couldn’t change that. Didn’t want to. Gwen had promised him nothing, had made sure he knew she wasn’t interested. To obsess over her would be stalkerish, and he definitely didn’t want to be that. Malcolm had to start looking elsewhere.

  Time to move on.

  “No,” he said. “You’re not crazy at all.”

  “Then… do you want to come in?” Runa was nervous, as nervous as he was, and he decided to help her past it. Him too.

  He leaned across and kissed her, and as they both fumbled for their seatbelts, his heart and soul screamed at him that this was a mistake, that he was doing this to the wrong woman.

  Chapter 10

  With the cold gone, Gwen could no longer blame the charged, erotic dreams on her fever. Not only had Malcolm invaded her waking mind, but her subconscious too. She woke aroused in the night, her fingers at her sex, her mind still lost in a haze of him leaning over her, his hands under her ass, lifting her up off the bed as he plunged into her again and again and again. Or how about the fantasy where he stalked her across the house, his eyes so hungry, so needing, and no matter how she backed away, he still managed to pull her to him in the end, where she gave in to both their desires and let him drive her against the wall, his fingers seeking her out, panting her name against her neck?

  Gwen burned for him. She saw Calvin, and there was fondness there, and warmth, and sometimes passion, but she thought about Malcolm and something chained in her heart and mind came loose, lifted her up, made her feel light as the air she breathed.

  It was lust, she told herself as she finished the casserole he’d requested. It was a passing fancy. It was desire born out of her frustration with Calvin and her anxiety and unease about their relationship.

  That’s what Gwen forced herself to think when she jerked the tight little khaki shorts out of her closet, the ones that hugged her butt and showed off her tanned legs. It was what she told herself when she tossed a half dozen blouses on the bed, each discarded for different reasons until she settled on a figure-flattering long-sleeved top that would make sure Malcolm’s eyes had to strain to stay on her face.

  She wasn’t going to cheat on Calvin. No. Gwen was going to tell Malcolm thank you. And if the outfit was a little daring, well… maybe it’d give her a thrill, something she needed to take the edge off her growing need.

  With the clothes at the head of the bed, she stripped down, trying to ignore the way her thighs rubbed together or the hard points of her nipples as she contemplated definitely not walking into Malcolm’s place and riding that cute face until she screamed his name.

  Her hand slipped across her thighs, her center, but she recoiled against the pleasure it gave her. No. No, this was wrong. Calvin. She loved Calvin.

  But.

  Malcolm’s smile. Those long legs of his. The short hair, clipped now. For her? Probably.

  “Oh God,” Gwen whispered, her fingers working as she fell onto the bed, trying not to imagine Malcolm, trying to shove him out of her mind, but it wasn’t Calvin’s name she moaned out loud when she came, staring up at the ceiling, shame and desire fighting for control of her mind.

  * * *

  In the end, she settled for a pair of loose, ratty jeans and a tee shirt over a sports bra. Nothing sexual. Nothing that would give him any more ideas. The thank you did need to be said, though, that much was certain, and if her whole body shivered at the idea of seeing him again, she was an adult. She could control herself.

  Gwen packed up the casserole in a box so it didn’t stain her seats. She’d made two batches, actually. A smaller one, just for him, and a larger one Malcolm could share with Nic or Alicia. The garlic bread base to the meatball casserole wafted up to her as she drove. Her stomach rumbled its approval. Maybe she’d stick around if Malcolm didn’t mind and have a bite with him. Maybe she’d talk this out, tell him it probably was for the best if they didn’t hang out when it was just the two of them.

  Or maybe they could feed each other little forkfuls while she sat on his lap. Maybe while she was naked. Maybe while he…

  Gwen jerked her mind back to reality.

  There was an unfamiliar car at his place next to the covered Grand National, a little red hatchback. Probably one of Nic’s customers, she thought. Gwen didn’t like the weed dealer. Not that she hadn’t smoked a couple times, but she didn’t exactly want to cozy up with the people who sold it. Nic was a bad influence on Malcolm and she feared he would get sucked into dealing himself, or would become a pothead. Or worse. Hugh had started in on that shit in his senior year and loved it. Calmed his mind, but Gwen thought maybe it fucked him up even more when he wasn’t using it.

  In a way, though, now she was almost grateful to be so preoccupied with Nic. It forced her mind away from thoughts about Malcolm and put her back in a mood to just get this done and move on.

  Yeah. Just move on.

  Right.

  No one answered when she first knocked, but she definitely heard music inside. Hip-hop. She banged on the door harder, the music irritating her even more. Why was her mind so unsettled?

  “Hang on,” someone called inside. Malcolm. Huh. Maybe the car was a friend of his, not Nic’s. She waited impatiently. The box with the casseroles was heavy and she shifted it arm to arm, wishing he’d hurry up. Because of the weight of the box, not because her body demanded to see him again and right that moment.

  He answered the door in a pair of basketball shorts and a dirty tee shirt. His hair was mussed, and his cheeks rosy red. Malcolm stared at her for a moment, his mouth falling open in surprise. “Gwen? Hey. Hi!” He cast a glance behind his shoulder and stepped outside, barefoot despite the fact they’d had a cold snap recently and the concrete would be freezing.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Gwen asked.

  He hadn’t yet closed the door behind him, and she could see into part of the living room and down the hallway leading to the bathroom. A slim woma
n with a sheet wrapped around her darted down to the bathroom and slipped the door shut. Malcolm glanced behind him, then at Gwen, grimacing.

  “Oh,” Gwen said quietly. Her mind felt like it had been hit with a bag of bricks. Her lust evaporated, and she said the word again louder. “Oh, you’ve got company. I… I should have called ahead.”

  “Gwen, I…”

  “I’m sorry. I brought you the casseroles. Like… um… like I promised. I…” Gwen nearly dropped the box in her haste to get out of there. “I’ll go. Sorry. I… sorry.”

  She fled, and blocks away, she parked on the side of the road, hitting the steering wheel as hard as she could.

  * * *

  When Calvin came in from classes that night, Gwen was there, dressed in her slinkiest black nightgown, the one she secretly kind of hated because the lace was itchy and a good stiff draft left her feeling like her fun parts been dipped in an ice bath. Not that the nightgown mattered much. She had it pulled up, revealing herself to him as she stared at the man she knew she should be happy with.

  “Good thing I didn’t bring home anyone with me,” Calvin said, drinking her in greedily, his hand rising up to the neck of his polo to jerk it off and toss it aside.

  “Good thing,” she murmured throatily, trying to forget the hurt and the pain of someone she shouldn’t have lusted after anyways. This was who she wanted, right here, and as he stripped down to his boxers, Gwen said, “I don’t want it slow tonight. I want it to hurt a little.”

  “Yeah?”

  She nodded. Truth was, she had no real desire to do this at all. But Calvin liked good, rough sex, and she’d felt guilty all day. Time to remedy that. Time to give him her full attention.

  * * *

  Both of them were covered in a sheen of sweat when Calvin finally rolled off her, gasping for breath as he peeled off his condom and dropped it into a wastebasket. “Holy shit, baby.”

  “Mm hm,” she said, rolling over on her side to face him and stroke his chest.

  “What brought that on?”

  “Nothing.”

  He laid back, one arm under his head. Early in their relationship, she learned Calvin didn’t like wrapping an arm under her when they cuddled. They couldn’t find a position where it didn’t fall asleep. It sucked. She wanted him to pull her against him, to nestle with her. He wasn’t a big spooner either, so that was out.

  Are you just going to spend the rest of your life thinking about the ways he doesn’t make you happy?

  The thought made Gwen cry. She didn’t mean to – she wasn’t much of a crier – but she did. The whole day since she’d seen Malcolm with that woman was like that, even despite the cold logic she tried to use to ward off her feelings of hurt and betrayal. Her attraction to him was temporary. Just temporary. What she had with Calvin was real. Maybe it wasn’t perfect but he was a good partner.

  A partner. Fuck, that sounded so… clinical.

  “Hey, what… what is this?” he asked. “What’d I miss?”

  She wiped at her eyes and pulled herself together. “You ever…” Thickness filled her throat and Gwen cleared it. “You ever have one of those days where it just seems like…”

  “-wen?”

  She focused in on him. “Yeah?”

  “You all right?”

  “What? Yeah, why?”

  “You stopped talking there for a few seconds.”

  “Right. Just… one of those days, I guess. I missed you. I’m too much in my own head.”

  Calvin glanced at her. “You regretting putting off your bachelor’s for a while?”

  “No.” She thought about that. “Well, maybe a little. What Robertson’s paying me, I’m not going to get that working some part time job at night, you know?”

  “I told you, you don’t-”

  Have to work. Like her mother, who stayed at home for nearly nineteen years and was only now exploring things she’d wanted to do most of her life. “Don’t spoil the mood, please. I made up my mind.”

  “I know. Just making sure.” They were quiet a while, and then Calvin said, “But would it be so bad, really?”

  “What?”

  “You. Focusing on a home life. You know? Us. A family. Maybe homeschooling our kids, or-”

  “Wait, what?” Gwen sat up. They’d never talked about her homeschooling, and she’d never actually thought he wanted her as a good little housewife. “What the hell, Calvin?”

  “What?” he said, now getting a little irritated himself. “I’m just asking. Would that be so bad?”

  “Yes!” she snapped. “No. I mean… look, moms who do that are great, but that’s not what I want for me.”

  “So you keep saying,” Calvin said drily.

  She rubbed her forehead with two fingers and the bridge of her nose with a third. “Tonight. Tonight of all the nights, you had to bring this crap up. Do you even want me to become a vet?”

  “Well… sure, eventually. Maybe when we’re married and the kids are a little older, but-”

  “Holy shit,” Gwen whispered. She shook her head in disbelief. “I’m not going to yell at you. I’m not even going to discuss this with you.”

  Gwen stood up, her naked butt to him as she leaned over to grab her jeans from earlier. “Come on, Gwen,” he protested. “Don’t be like this.”

  She grabbed her cell phone and started dialing from memory. Juliet picked up on the second ring. “What’s up, Baby Bird?”

  Her voice icy, Gwen turned and stared at Calvin. “Mind if I come stay with you for a while? Calvin just told me he wants me home. To take care of the kids, and do the dishes, and maybe darn the clothes-”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Calvin muttered. “Darn the clothes? What the hell does that even mean?”

  “-and I’m just so not in the mood right now.”

  Silence, then, “Yeah. Yes. Come over.”

  Calvin sighed and jerked the blanket up over his naked chest. He rolled over and turned off his bedside lamp. “Whatever.”

  On the phone, Juliet asked, “Are you okay to drive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. What kind of booze you want?”

  Gwen loved her cousin. “Whatever gets me drunkest the fastest.”

  “Oooh, whiskey then. We’re getting sloppy.”

  “God, I hope so.”

  Chapter 11

  They hadn’t gone to the park since Gwen was a little kid and Juliet a teenager, but the day after Gwen and Calvin’s fight, they drove there when Gwen’s shift at the vet clinic was done. The swings swayed in the breeze, the plastic over the chains nearly chewed through. The merry-go-round canted at a crazy angle, and when Juliet tentatively sat on one side, it warned her to back off with a rusted creak. She hastily jumped up, and muttered, “This place has gone to hell.”

  “I think it was always this way,” Gwen said, running her hand along the scratched, rusted metal. “We were just too young to see it.”

  “Still talking about the playground?”

  Gwen chuckled, but there was no humor in it. She wandered over to the long metal slide, the one bit of equipment aside from the swings still usable. While Juliet headed for one of those, she kicked off her shoes and climbed up the slide, not bothering with the ladder around the back. Five times, Gwen slid down it, her mind wandering, not settling anywhere.

  When she first got her license, Juliet used to drive them down here. It was a good halfway spot between their houses, a neutral territory where she could be a goofy teenager and Gwen could be a goofy kid. Juliet was the one she told her innermost secrets to, and much of her dirty laundry had been aired out here, among the overgrown grass and the weed-torn gravel of the playground. Her first kiss. Her fights with her stupid parents and her stupid brothers. Even her solemn admission that she no longer believed Santa Claus was real had happened here at this park with Juliet.

  Gwen finally joined her cousin on the swings, and they kicked off the ground together as one, just as they had years and years ago. The only sound
for ten, fifteen minutes was the squeak of the chains, but finally Gwen drug her feet through the gravel, coming to a stop. Juliet jumped off hers, nearly falling.

  “Not so easy when we’re older.”

  Gwen smiled, and echoed her earlier question. “Still talking about the park?”

  “No. You know I’m not.”

  Gwen nodded slowly, and Juliet came over to hug her.

  “You don’t love him, do you?”

  Unable to speak, Gwen shook her head slowly.

  “Jeez. That’s a mess.”

  “I should,” she said faintly. “Everybody loves him. Everybody thinks he’s a great guy. Because he is. All this shit aside, he’s kind and giving and he’ll be a good husband and a dad. There’s not really a mean bone in him. Everybody loves Calvin Carmichael. Just… not the woman living with him.”

  “You don’t have to, you know. No one has to love anyone.”

  “It’s my fault,” Gwen whispered.

  “Oh no it’s not,” Juliet said indignantly. “Hell no. You don’t want to be a housewife, you don’t be a housewife. That’s not his call to make.”

  “I’m not talking about that. This whole fight, it’s about something else, or it is to me anyways.” Gwen shuddered. “He’s sleeping with someone.”

  Juliet’s eyes went wide. “Calvin? I’ll kill him.”

  “No. Not Calvin. Malcolm.”

  “Oh.” Juliet thought about that and frowned. “Wait, why do we care if he has a girlfriend… ohhh. Oh, shit, Gwen.”

  “I get it!” Gwen snapped.

  “Do you? You’ve known the guy, what, three months? If that? He’s cute, I guess, but come on, Baby Bird, what do you actually know about him?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t, except that… except that he wanted to know whether I wanted to be called Gwen or Gwendolyn.”