by Eris Adderly
Fuck me, I hate this.
The whole thing made her skin itch.
Ashland was too small. Too small to avoid running into Travis at the gas station. Too small to find a decent job anywhere close. And too small to give her a reasonable amount of emotional prep time on her drive to the Haul Ash.
The rental yard’s sign out by the highway appeared in Christina’s view well before she was ready. She flat-out drove right past it the first time and had to convince herself to turn around and not just keep driving, straight on out the other end of town.
The needle of her weirdness meter was jumping around wildly in the red when she made that long-familiar turn from pavement to gravel lot. The two steel buildings were exactly as they had been, but the sense of difference after her time away was uncanny. Like she was coming here in a dream and not grabbing the container of cookies in her very real hand. Stepping out of the Bronco onto very real ground.
They’d see her through the glass as her truck rolled-up. See her coming toward the door. Would they start talking? Speculating? Some force propelled her feet forward.
This is it. He’s either going to hear you out, or not. Whatever’s going to happen, it’s happening now.
Her heart was trying to swallow itself in uneven hiccups. Through the door she went, cowbells tinkling, grip on baked goods intense.
Jonah looked up from the computer. Raised eyebrows greeted her just ahead of his mouth. “Hey, Christina,” he said. “Dang, been a while!”
“Hey, Jonah.” She hoped the awkward line on her face looked something like a smile.
“What’s going on?” He stapled a credit card receipt to an invoice. “Find a new job yet?”
“Ugh. No.” Because, of course, he had to rub salt in it. “Just comin’ to say ‘hi’. I brought these. Same kind as I made last winter.”
She hefted the container and slid it onto the counter, cracking the lid open on one corner as she did.
“Oh, nice! Can I have one?”
“That’s what I brought ‘em for,” she said. “Hey, is Bill here?”
So casual. So smooth. Yeesh.
“Uh-uh,” Jonah said through gingerbread. “He’s off Thursday-Friday, now. So he can be here on Monday to do the pos.”
Christina struggled to control her face. How had she not noticed that his truck wasn’t out front?
Because you’re blind, dumbass. This whole thing has you blind.
Today was the day.
Anything that was going to happen was going to happen now. And it had. The universe could not be more obvious about it.
Jonah had stopped chewing, his hand on the way back to the container for seconds. “Wait,” he said, eyeing her, “were you bringing these … for Bill?”
It welled up. All of it. The look on Jonah’s face. The key rack behind him on the wall. The empty hum of the ac. Wilted flowers on a grave marker and there was nothing really left anymore, was there? Who was she fucking kidding? It welled and overflowed.
“You know what?” she said, holding the two ends of her voice together with all her might, “It doesn’t even matter. Just take ‘em.”
If he said anything to her retreating back, the sound of the door and the bells clattered right over it.
Let it go.
She hustled into the Bronco. Fought the seatbelt while her eyes stung, yanking it one, two, three times while she tried not to scream.
Just stop. It’s over.
Tires bumped up onto the blacktop. She blinked away blurry vision and put more than her normal amount of focus into watching her speed.
This was real life. Real life where there were cops just waiting to hand out tickets she couldn’t afford. Real life where people didn’t always get what they wanted. Not some fairytale where kisses lift curses and everyone’s happy.
She needed to live her real life. Not a fantasy one.
But I …
I think I …
No. No saying it. No thinking it.
No more.
✪
Bill’s beaten-up copy of Dune sat on his nightstand, its receipt bookmark halted in place since July. It throbbed in his periphery as he sat on the edge of the bed and tugged on shoes and socks, the reminder trying to ruin another mercifully bland October morning.
If he tried to read it, she was sitting in his lap again. He could smell her. Feel her.
Until all that went away, House Atreides could just sit there.
He grabbed up his wallet and keys from the narrow table that stood behind his new couch. Daisy was already in the backyard. Nicotine patch on his arm, but he’d see if he could make it through the day. He seldom did.
Today was going to be insane. He’d seen the call list during the week; damn near every rentable piece of equipment was either coming or going off the lot. If either Jonah or Travis called out, he was going to lose his shit.
You could take a look at some of those applicants. Fill some of those hours.
Bill could do a lot of things.
The sky was that almost-white overcast as he pulled into the Haul Ash lot. The kind of sky that was procrastinating about either raining or clearing up, it wasn’t sure which. The office wasn’t open yet, but—thank heaven for small favors—both Jonah and Travis were already parked out front.
One of the shop’s two roll-up doors was open, and Bill headed there instead of the office, giving Jonah a brisk wave through the glass on his way past the front windows.
“Bill.” Travis nodded at him from the open driver’s side window of the twelve-footer he was pulling out of the shop.
“Morning.”
Gravel crunched behind him, and Bill turned to see a customer pulling in. He shook his head. Nearly twenty minutes before their posted hours, but signs on the front door would be useless with the shop clearly opened and employees walking around. Jonah would handle it.
There was maintenance work, and that was where Bill intended to shove his nose until lunch. Or until someone wanted a manager, which was a safe bet on a day scheduled as tight as that one.
When the shop phone rang just after noon, the disgruntled customer beat out food in the neck-and-neck race. Bill handled it. In his way. Which was to say, that customer was unlikely to recommend the Haul Ash to his friends and family.
“Damn, son,” Jonah said watching the man’s suv leave the lot.
“Well then he should read things,” said Bill. “It says right in the rental agreement. Right where he signed.”
His employee snorted. Picked up and hefted a smallish, translucent container in his boss’s direction. “Want a cookie?”
Bill lifted a brow but took the thing. Started prying up the lid. “Where’d these come from?”
And then the smell hit him.
“Christina was in here yesterday,” Jonah said, eyes on the monitor again, mouse hand scrolling. “She brought ‘em. I think she was actually lookin’ for you, but I told her you got Fridays off, now.”
Gingerbread.
How long did he stand there, a deer in headlights, before he looked up to find Jonah giving him the concerned stare.
“Somethin’ we should know?”
Bill’s mouth was dry. He set down the container. “Don’t worry about it.”
But Jonah was all over it, eyes round. “Woooow.” The kid had it in his teeth, like a dog shaking a rag, enthusiasm building. “You and Christina? Holy shit.” And then, after a beat in which Bill wanted to strangle him: “Hey, is that why she left?” Clumsy feet stomped all over a fortress Bill had built of mismatched twigs of normalcy.
“I said, just”—he growled through his teeth—“you know what?”
“Uh … no, I don’t?” Jonah’s eyebrows sought their own levels of atmosphere.
“Goddamnit.”
Bill reached past him to tear one of the rings of truck keys off the rack on the back wall. He was already de-threading the tag and the key as he strode through the front door and toward the Ram, blood singing in his ears.
✪
Christina stood in her old bedroom in the trailer, empty of everything except the bare mattress, which she wasn’t quite sure how to move or transport on her own, and stretched an orange-and-white skirt between her hands.
It was one of the ones she’d bought for Bill, and they were the last things hanging in the closet.
Keep ‘em or toss ‘em?
They were perfectly viable skirts. She didn’t have the money to go throwing out decent clothes. But outside of that ‘bargain’, when had she ever worn skirts? And when would she ever want to wear these skirts again?
She sighed, but it was a noise contained in her throat, and stuffed the garment into the trash bag at her feet. Pulled the next one from its hanger and stuffed it, too. Kept going. It wasn’t a decision yet; she transported all her clothes in trash bags to begin with, because having squishy belongings gave her more options for packing the Bronco.
Christina hefted that and another bag full of sheets and blankets, and waddled her way through the trailer. She gave the squinty eye to some markings now visible on the front living room wall where her little sofa had been. There were cleaning supplies out in the truck. She could get them once she wedged these bags in there.
Navigating the narrow steps down from her front door was a chore with the bulk, and Christina swore when one of the metal curlicues on the banister caught and tore the bag with the blankets.
“For fuck’s sakes.”
But you’re almost done. Don’t stop.
The truck’s hatch and tailgate yawned open like a mouth. Bags and boxes were already wedged in there, a complicated puzzle. Plenty of it was for donation—her granddad had all the furniture she needed, and there was no point doing the very thing she kept on him about: bringing more stuff into the house.
She found places to cram in the last two bags, and then went around to the passenger side where she’d left her little bin of rags and cleaning stuff. Head ducked into the open door, she began to rummage for one of those white spongy erasers that pretty much cleaned everything.
There were tires gritting on dirt. An engine cutting out and a door chunking shut.
“Christina.”
Her head shot up and she nailed it on the door frame. “Fuck!” Fingers whipped to back of her skull as she stepped away from the Bronco.
“Jesus Christ, Bill!”
There he was, causing her even more pain. He’d stopped in his tracks, several feet away, under the awning of her trailer to stare at her. Concern pinched his face.
“Are you all right?”
There was no collecting her shit. Why? What now? “I mean … ugh, I guess?” She quit rubbing her head and eyed him, one foot further back, like she might bolt.
“Listen,” he said, and she wanted to do everything but listen, but he took a step in her direction. “The agreement is off, right?”
Something jerked around under her ribs.
Can’t take it.
“Uh, obviously,” she said, looking him up and down like he’d sprouted horns. “I don’t work for you anymore.”
He took the last long stride.
“Good.”
Hands were on her. Heels pivoted, and the side of the truck was at her back.
Bill Marshall’s mouth was on hers.
Christina yelped some nonsense, but it fell apart when he ate it right out from under her tongue. Her world fell apart. Nothing between her ears caught up fast enough to try to argue or kiss back or beat him to death.
He pulled back. Destroyed her with those brown eyes. “I need you.” Crowded her.
“Bill!”
Jarred her into another plane of reality with a second kiss. A tiny thing in her chest shuddered. She tilted her chin. Let him, even when her head fought it.
You tried so goddamn hard not to do this.
He came up for air. “I haven’t seen you in months.”
“Bill!”
His hands clasped the sides of her face. She met him this time, tongue and teeth, furious.
So good. So right. How fucking dare he?
Her fingers were lacing around the back of his neck, and she tasted him and wanted him, and was so entirely pissed off that she let their thighs dovetail and his tongue spell out whole volumes before she pushed him off.
“What even is this?” She was raking hair out of her face, lips swollen, breathless. His body still pinned her to the Bronco. A woman had stuck her head out the front door of the neighboring trailer, brow pinched at the unfolding scene.
“You made cookies.”
How had he made those words stroke her like something much heavier?
“And?” She squirmed. “You just show up here and start making out with me in front of my neighbors? What the fuck is your deal?”
“You.” He lunged at her with the word. Kissed her again. “You are my deal. I’m a wretched sonovabitch without you, Christina Lee Dodd, and if you don’t marry me, I don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do.”
“What?” Her grip on sanity fluttered. She clutched at his arms, as though the truck wouldn't hold her up. “Are you outta your goddamn mind, Bill?” A knot was in her throat.
“Yes.” He was taking a knee. Right there in front of her empty trailer. “Yes I am. I am out of my mind in love with you, and I have been since before last Christmas.”
All her systems were shutting down. He was digging in a front pocket of his jeans, and she was blinking too fast.
Last Christmas?
Between thumb and forefinger, he was pinching something shiny. Silver.
Is that a keyring?
Grabbing up her left hand.
“Will you please marry me?” he said, grip on her knuckles fierce. “I know what I am, Christina. I know I’m a prick. I know what everyone calls me. I know I’m too old for y—”
“Oh my god, shut up, you fucking asshole!” Her voice warbled by the end of her outburst.
She’d settled right down into it. Sometime in the last two years. Not even noticing until foolish choices painted her into a corner.
She couldn’t be without him. It was all there was to it.
His brows condensed. “Christina—”
“Yes! Yes, I will marry you!” She wanted to laugh and cry at once. “Jesus Christ, are you a dick, though! Get up here.”
He was threading the makeshift ring onto her finger. She was making a fist in his work shirt. They were kissing again.
The ring way too huge, and it would be work to hang onto it, much like everything else at the moment, but Christina didn’t care.
“I missed you,” he said, once they fell away breathless. “I never want to miss you like that again.”
“Hey! All right! Congratulations!” Her neighbor was clapping.
Christina felt her face go hot, but she still had him by the shirt. His eyes were swallowing her. Eclipsing the rest of the world. She stood on her toes. Leaned up to brush her lips over his, dizzy from a reality where she could do a thing like that at any time she wanted. Where she did want a thing like that.
More than her face was warm.
“I’ve been missing you, too, Bill.” These words were quiet, hummed near his mouth and not for the neighbors.
The look on his face was like that afternoon in the shop. While he stood there and watched. Forced himself not to get involved, though she saw it took every bit of his effort.
Christina shoved him back. Grabbed up his hand. Hauled him up the three little stairs, through the door into an empty living room that felt in the moment weirdly hot and close.
They were making up for all the kissing they’d missed. Her shirt was on the carpet. His was on the kitchen linoleum. They stumbled backward, breath hissing in the silence, names mumbled into each other’s mouths.
She was laughing when the backs of her knees hit the mattress. Grinning when he crawled over her. Her wrist twisted behind her back, and then her bra was across the room. The heat of his chest lowered onto hers.
“Oh, god.”
And that mouth. The one place it was always meant to be, telling her all those things without words that Christina had always been waiting to hear. She just hadn’t understood who she’d wanted to hear them from.
Her left foot was kicking the shoe off her right. There was too much momentum. He was chuckling, shucking her jeans down past her hips, yanking the right pant leg off past her foot. Too much pain to erase with happy things. She tore at the buttons of his fly; found him ready. On fire.
He was between her legs. Above her. The urgency so great it made a lump in her throat. Whatever he saw on her face made him dive for her mouth again, and they fell, kisses reckless, bodies rolling as though they might only be satisfied if they occupied one hundred percent of the same space.
There were knuckles bumping her inner thighs. Firm heat between them. Seating. Hiding from it was over; this thing she hadn’t wanted to look right in the eye.
Her palms splayed on his chest. She looked him in the eye now.
“I love you, Bill Marshall.”
They were together. She accepted him, and he made her full. Her breath shuddered. Nails dug. He sank down until their lips met.
“Again.”
She about turned inside out. “I love you.”
A low noise came from his throat, and a palm cupped the back of her neck. “I’m yours, Christina Lee. I love you.”
And she was his. Right there in her empty trailer, where half the neighbors could probably hear.
Christina did not care.
She was in love.
Christina yawned from behind the counter of the Haul Ash, and gave her cup of coffee the side eye—it was doing nothing, but she took another sip. She was pretty sure she’d dreamed about Qualitative Social Research last night; the class reading had her up until three.
You gotta pace yourself, Dodd.
Her eyes watered, and she wiped at them. Stretched her arms out behind her back. She’d woken up that morning all stiff and wadded up on the couch. Bill had come out and stuffed a blanket in around her some point in the wee hours, and put her book and laptop on the coffee table, out of harm’s—and probably drool’s—way.
