The Distance

by Alexa Land

  His voice rose as he exclaimed, “Why would I apologize when you hit me?”

  “Oh yeah. I swerved right, hit you, and then my car went flying off to the left, where it rolled half a dozen times. Because physics works like that!”

  “Sure it does, when we’re talking about your little Fisher Price car ricocheting off a solid metal object!” He stormed over to his Mustang, picked up the paper coffee cup and said, “Here’s a demonstration so you can understand this once and for all. This cup will stand in for your toy car, since they weigh about the same. My Mustang will be playing herself in this reenactment. I’m driving along, minding my own business, but then your tire explodes and oh, look!” He threw the cup at the Ford’s fender, and it bounced off and rolled across the floor. “See that? That’s exactly what happened! Cause and effect. You hit me, you bounced off, and the stupid embankment on the side of the road acted like a ramp, so you went airborne and then you rolled. I’m sure that sucked, I’m sure it was scary as shit, but what it wasn’t was my fucking fault.”

  “Thank you for that brilliant reenactment, and your point would have been made spectacularly, except for the fact that I was actually driving something made by Mazda and not by fucking Dixie.”

  “Whatever. My car weighed twice as much as yours, so the result was the same.”

  “Except that here’s what actually happened,” I said, marching over to the coffee cup. “You hit me, and my car did this.” I stomped on the cup and flattened it. “And yet, somehow, saying you’re sorry is just asking way the hell too much from you!”

  Trigger’s voice rose again. “Fine. I’m sorry you hit me. I am, actually. It sucks that you got hurt, and that you wrecked your shitty toy car. But you were what caused all of that!”

  “Asshole!”

  “Fucking stop blaming me!”

  “No, because you’re to blame!”

  Trigger threw his hands in the air and yelled, “You refuse to see this from anything but your own misguided perspective!”

  “So do you!”

  “Get the fuck out of my shop. I’m so sick of you and your kind!”

  “My kind!” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t tell me you’re also a homophobe, as if just being a regular asshole wasn’t enough!”

  “You’re gay?”

  “Duh!”

  “Well, how was I supposed to know that? It’s not like you’re wearing a sign around your neck.”

  I said flatly, “No, just three beaded necklaces.”

  He waved his hand dismissively and said, “That doesn’t mean anything.” Okay, he had a point there.

  I asked, “So, if you didn’t mean gay people when you said ‘my kind’, what label were you trying to stick to me?”

  “Spoiled brats who fix up their cars on mommy and daddy’s dime. Was your Civic a high school graduation present?”

  I stared at him and said, “Dude, I’m twenty-four.”

  “Oh, come on! There’s no way we’re the same age.”

  “Are you ever right about anything? I mean anything at all?”

  “It’s impossible that you’re twenty-four. You barely look old enough to shave!”

  I rolled my eyes and pulled my driver’s license from my wallet, then went up to him and held it in front of his face. “Satisfied?”

  Trigger grinned and said, “That’s the worst fake ID I’ve ever seen.”

  “Based on what?”

  “You called yourself Jessie James, and spelled Jessie with an i-e.”

  “Granted, I’ve regretted that last name, and I’ll probably change it again, but the ID’s not fake.”

  “What do you mean, change it again?”

  “I legally changed my name a few years ago, because the one my parents gave me completely sucked.”

  “What could possibly be worse than Jessie-with-an-i-e James?”

  “None of your damn business,” I said as I shoved the license back in my wallet and returned it to my pocket. “Neither is this, but James was my middle name. That’s why I used it. It wasn’t because I have a great love of bank-robbing outlaws.”

  He chuckled and said, “Wow, you’re kind of insane.”

  “And you’re an asshole. Which is worse?”

  “Oh, okay. I’m an asshole because I won’t buy in to your delusions and tell you what you want to hear.”

  “No, you’re an asshole because you’re an asshole.”

  Trigger knit his dark brows. “That’s enough name-calling for one night. Go home, Jessie James.”

  “Sure,” I said, my stubbornness flaring, “just as soon as you apologize for ramming my car and making me crash last year and for running a dirty race tonight!”

  His voice rose again, and so did the color in his cheeks. “It’s not unusual for cars to swerve at those speeds when they’re in the straight-away, and sometimes they bump into each other! If you can’t understand those basic facts, you have no business racing!”

  “Oh no. Do not try to explain racing to me! I’ve been doing this most of my life! That’s how I know the difference between an unintentional drift and the crap you pull when you’re on the track!”

  “You don’t know shit, and I told you to get out.”

  “Not until you fucking apologize!” He grabbed my upper arm and started to tow me to the side door, and I yelled, “Let go of me!”

  He went right on pulling me across the shop. “No matter what I say, you just won’t listen. You think you know everything! You think you know me, but you don’t have a fucking clue!”

  “I said let go of me!” I tried to yank my arm from his grasp and hip-checked him fairly hard in the process. That threw him off balance, and he fell over and pulled me down with him. Trigger rolled over so he was straddling me, and I swore at him and almost slapped him as I flailed around and tried to free myself.

  He caught my wrists and pinned them to the floor on either side of my head as he exclaimed, “Just calm down!” When I finally stopped struggling, we stared at each other for a long moment as I caught my breath and my heart raced.

  Without warning, lust shot through me like a jolt from a defibrillator. When Trigger let go of my wrists, I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him to me. In the next instant, we were kissing wildly. I rolled over so I was on top of him and devoured his mouth, and he ran his hands down my back and grabbed my ass. I had absolutely no explanation for what was happening. None at all. I went with it anyway.

  After a couple minutes of kissing passionately and pawing at each other, I tumbled off him and shucked off my jeans and briefs, then dumped my wallet onto the floor and rifled through its contents until I found a condom and a packet of lube. While I did that, Trigger pushed down his jeans and pulled off his shirt, revealing a thick, hard cock, a smooth, muscular chest and a sexy tattoo on his ribs. My lust ratcheted up another couple notches at the sight of him, which I hadn’t thought was possible, since it was already through the roof.

  I handed him a condom, and as he put it on with shaking hands, I tore open the lube with my teeth and quickly worked some into me before wiping my hands on a clean shop rag. The concrete floor was cold when I leaned back on it. I didn’t care.

  I parted my legs for him and rubbed my throbbing cock, and he knelt between my thighs and asked, “You sure about this?” Hell no, not even a little, but I was absolutely going to do it anyway.

  When I nodded, Trigger lined up his cock with my hole. I pushed back as he pressed against me, opening myself for him. When his length slipped inside me, I let out the breath I’d been holding. He picked up my legs and pushed them to my chest, almost folding me in half as he began to thrust into me.

  I tried not to overthink what was happening, which soon became really easy. It was so wild and primal that it forced out all concerns, all questions, until I was distilled down to nothing but pure sensation. Nothing mattered except the way his thick cock stretched me, and the feeling of his rough hands on the back of my thighs, and the waves of pleasure radiating th
rough me as he pounded my prostate. My cock twitched and leaked precum as I moaned incoherently and drove myself onto him, trying to take him as deep as I possibly could.

  He muttered, “Oh fuck,” as he drove himself into me again and again. With each thrust, he almost pulled his cock from my body before driving it in me to the root. The sound of his body colliding with mine filled the quiet garage. He let go of my legs and fell forward, his face inches above mine. As he met my gaze I grabbed ahold of him, clawing his back, frantic with need.

  All too soon, my orgasm detonated. I yelled incoherently as I arched up off the concrete floor, shooting all over myself, and a moment later he cried out and grabbed me as he came too, pulling me against him. I came harder than ever before, my head spinning, and wrapped my arms and legs around him, clinging to him, as if that would somehow keep me from flying apart.

  We were both shaking by the time our orgasms finally ebbed. My heart pounded in my ears, and it took a few moments to catch my breath. He eased his cock from me and stood up shakily, and I immediately reached for my briefs and began to get dressed. He threw the condom in a metal waste barrel before pulling up his jeans and zipping them. Neither of us said a word.

  The moment I was dressed, I headed for the door. I paused for only a moment to glance at him over my shoulder when I reached the exit. Trigger was turned partly away from me, his shaggy, dark brown hair covering his face. He had two more tattoos on his back, a small blackbird just above his waistband on the right, and a slightly larger blackbird in flight on his left shoulder blade. But what stood out more was the web of red welts on his back from where I’d clawed at him with my short fingernails. Shit, had I really done that? Guilt and confusion vied for the top spot as my emotions churned and I bolted from the garage.

  When I got behind the wheel, I shoved the keys in the ignition and took off like a shot. I only drove a few blocks though before pulling to the curb in a quiet residential neighborhood and taking a deep breath. I leaned against the headrest and closed my eyes as I tried to get myself together.

  What the hell had just happened? Since when did I fuck people I hated? God, Trigger of all people. Okay, yes, he was sexy as hell, but he was also a total asshole. That was an irrefutable fact. So how did we go from fighting to fucking in the blink of an eye?

  And why the hell did it have to be the best sex of my entire life?

  Ugh. I sat up a bit and looked down at myself. I was absolutely disgusting. My red t-shirt was soaked with semen and sticking to my chest. When I flipped down the visor and looked in the mirror, I realized two things: my baseball cap was gone, and I had cum in my hair. Awesome.

  Oh man, and my house was packed with people. I was sure Nana’s party was still going on. That was going to be the most embarrassing walk of shame ever.

  I pulled a handful of fast food napkins from my car’s center console, tried to wipe the cum from my hair, and dabbed at my shirt. Not surprisingly, it didn’t help at all. I thought for a moment before pulling my phone from my pocket.

  I sent Zachary a quick text that said: Hey, you still awake?

  He replied just a moment later with: Yeah, what’s up?

  Is it okay if I come by? I need to borrow your shower and some clothes. Long story.

  He wrote back right away. Sure, no problem. Everyone’s asleep, so go around to the back door. It’s quieter than coming in the front.

  Thanks. I’m only a few minutes away, see you soon, I texted before tossing my phone aside, grabbing my hoodie from the backseat, and putting it on to hide my gross t-shirt.

  Fifteen minutes later, I pulled up in front of a fairly plain, rectangular building beside the bay. It had been a small warehouse, then a restaurant, and was now home to Chance and Finn, two teen boys, and for the time being, Zachary. The front was little more than corrugated metal siding, but they’d been working on fixing it up in the few months they’d owned it. The tall, sliding door had been painted dark red, and river rock delineated a tidy front yard. A few shrubs and small trees softened the industrial exterior, including a pair of cypresses in big red pots, which flanked the front door. All of that was a big improvement, given how it had looked when they’d first bought it.

  I followed a gravel path around the left side of the building and crossed a concrete patio to the back door. Lit rows of bulbs around the patio swayed in the breeze coming off the water and cast long shadows. The back of the building was glass, and it was dark inside, except for the soft glow of a single table lamp. Zachary was curled up and reading in that little pool of light.

  I tapped on the glass door with a fingertip, and he jumped up and let me in. “Hey,” he whispered. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I, um, had an unexpected encounter tonight and things got messy.”

  “Define messy.”

  “I came all over myself while Trigger was fucking me.”

  Zachary looked startled, but then a smile spread across his face. “Are you serious?”

  “Oddly enough, I am.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “Hell if I know. I’ll tell you the whole story, but can I clean up first?”

  “Yeah, of course. I put some clothes in the shower room for you, and there are clean towels on the hooks along the back wall. I also found a blanket and pillows for you in case you want to sleep on the couch tonight. It’s pretty late.”

  “Thanks. Where’s the shower room?”

  “It’s where the men’s room used to be when this place was a restaurant. Since they didn’t actually need ten toilets, Chance and Finn made the ladies’ room unisex, then gutted the men’s room and put in two shower stalls.”

  “Why two?”

  Zachary shrugged. “I dunno. I guess they figured it would speed everyone along in the morning or something.”

  The converted bathroom almost felt like a locker room, except for the dimmer switch on the lights, the attractive golden-brown tile on the floor and walls, and the spacious, private shower stalls framed by walls of etched glass. Still, the wooden bench in the center of the room and the half-dozen hooks with towels along the back wall had a definite gym vibe.

  I showered quickly and washed my hair, then put on grey sweats and a long-sleeved black t-shirt before joining Zachary on the couch. After I told him the story of what had happened, I asked, “How the hell is it possible to have the best sex of your life with someone you can’t actually stand? And what possessed me to do that in the first place? Or him, for that matter. I’m not exactly his favorite person.”

  “Since there’s actually a name for it, I guess it’s not that uncommon,” he said, tucking his bare feet under him.

  “Oh God, there is, isn’t there? I’ve always thought the whole concept of a hate fuck was gross, but I guess that’s what I just did. I have to say though, it sure didn’t feel like hate while it was happening.”

  Zachary asked, “What did you say to him afterwards? How did you leave it?”

  “I’m not proud of this, or any of it, but I just got dressed and left without saying anything. The moment we finished, it became painfully awkward. We’d been yelling at each other right before it happened, so it wasn’t like we were suddenly going to make polite conversation.”

  “Who initiated it, you or him?”

  I had to think about that before saying, “I guess I did. He had me pinned to the floor, and all of a sudden I got really turned on. When he let go of me, I grabbed him and kissed him.”

  He said, “Sounds hot.”

  “It was, but now I don’t know what to make of it.”

  “Don’t overthink it. You were attracted to each other, you fucked, and that’s that. It might be a bit awkward next time you see him at the races, but there’s no reason to feel bad about this.”

  “You’re right. It just threw me off.” I glanced at him and asked, “Do you think less of me because I did this?”

  “Of course not.” He grinned a little and added, “You know, now that I think about it, I hated a lot of my customer
s, going all the way back to the trick who claimed my virginity. All of that probably counts as hate sex, so I’m clearly in no position to judge.”

  “Oh God,” I murmured, then quickly added, “I don’t mean to sound shocked. I just didn’t know you lost your virginity to a client.” My heart broke for him a million times over.

  He nodded and admitted quietly, “It’s fucked up, I know. So’s the fact that I’ve never had sex with anyone who wasn’t paying me.”

  “Never?”

  Zachary shook his head. “I tried. I clumsily propositioned Chance once when he was single, but he thought I was kidding. Thank God. Like this living arrangement isn’t awkward enough.”

  I whispered, “I wish things had been different for you, Zachary.”

  He tried to brush it off, and said, “Could have been worse.” My friend picked up a red-and-brown-striped throw pillow and fidgeted with it. After a moment, he added, “You know, I don’t usually open up about any of this shit, but you’re easy to talk to. Thanks for listening, Jessie, and for not giving me a lot of unsolicited advice or trying to fix me.”

  “It’d be nuts for me to try to fix anyone when I can’t even fix myself,” I told him as I slid close and leaned against him.

  Zachary put his head on my shoulder and asked, “Why do you need fixing? It seems like you have it all together.”

  If only that were true.

  Chapter Three

  Nana and Ollie (and their dogs) had gone out for Valentine’s Day brunch, so the big house was oddly quiet when I got home the next morning. Two of her grandsons had been staying there when I first moved in, but they’d both found love over the last year and went off to live with their partners. Only I remained.

  Most of the decorations were still in place from the night before, but the peen forest in the foyer had apparently been heavily logged. Only six stragglers were left behind, and they were clustered around the front door, as if they were eager to go join their friends. I assumed some of the guests had taken the other two dozen balloon phalluses home, and grinned at the thought of cars driving all over the city with giant dongs sticking out the windows.