Breathe the Sky

by Michelle Hazen

  “He’s a virgin, too!” Rajni clapped her hands over her mouth.

  “No. No. But you know what I mean.” Mari wiped sweat off her forehead. With the windows rolled up, it was stifling.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Rajni started the truck and hit the AC. “No, I know I laughed, but some folks have a real deal with all that. I had a boyfriend once, a fisherman from Maine—well, anyway, if it’s honestly too big, there isn’t much you can do except get real good with your hand. Mostly, if it’s big but still within reason, it’s not too tough. Little lube and warm yourself up first. Have him get you off two, maybe three times before you start. Loosens everything right up, won’t be a problem.”

  “Okay.” Mari cleared her throat. “Good. So that’s settled.” She fanned her face, hoping the heat in the truck would provide an excuse for how flushed she’d gotten. “How’s your week going?”

  Rajni leaned back in her seat and started to laugh all over again. “Let’s just say we’ve all got problems. And we all wish we were having your problems.”

  * * *

  —

  Mari leaned into Jack’s work truck, slipping a plastic bag full of brownies up onto his dashboard. It smelled like him in here, and she took a deep, deep breath. She hadn’t seen him much since he confessed his little “issue” with sex. At work yesterday, sure, but he’d been busy, and then they’d missed dinner together because she’d taken Rajni out for emergency chai and even-bigger-emergency advice.

  Today, he’d been distant. Not rude or mean to her. Just . . . holding back.

  “You need something?”

  The gravelly southern drawl caught her off guard and she jumped, nearly hitting her head on the doorframe.

  “Mmm, maybe to be a little bit sneakier?” She turned with a rueful smile. “I was hoping you’d be too busy on the tower to see me in here.”

  He glanced past her into the truck. “So’s that mean I can’t eat those brownies because I’m not supposed to see them yet?”

  He sounded so disappointed that she caved immediately. “No, go ahead.” She stepped aside so he could get past. “They’re an equal-opportunity bribe.”

  “Bribe?” he said through a mouthful of crumbs, the first brownie already gone. He frowned. “For what? Whatchu need?”

  She batted her eyelashes, then felt ridiculous. “I found a spot. Out in the desert, like we talked about. Very private.”

  Jack blushed so hard and fast his skin went more purple than red.

  “Uh, yeah, yup. All right. Tonight? Or, uh, whenever you were thinking is fine.”

  She leaned in closer, dropping her voice to slip it under the roar of an approaching large-engined truck. “Tonight. Definitely tonight.”

  The bag of brownies hung in Jack’s hand as his Adam’s apple bobbed.

  Behind them, a truck shut off and Mari blinked, coming back to earth as she worried that she hadn’t checked the construction area for tortoises before they pulled in. Then again, she’d cleared that area not three minutes ago when she walked over with the brownies. She turned, scanning, but didn’t see any animals nearby. It was too hot midday for most anything to be out anyway.

  The truck door opened and Rod stepped out and hitched up his pants, surveying the construction site with an air that reminded her of English nobles in old BBC miniseries. Behind her, Jack made a brief, derisive noise.

  Rod sauntered over to them. “Hello there, little lady. How’s the afternoon treating you?”

  She fought off an eye roll, having a quick debate with herself about the best way to set this guy back on a professional track without making an enemy.

  “Her name is Mari,” Jack snapped.

  “Thanks, Wyatt. If I need any other introductions, I’ll call you.”

  Rod stared past her and she didn’t have to turn to know the two men had locked eyes, or that Jack’s would be creased at the corners by his scowl.

  “Your crew doing okay over there without your supervision?” Rod said after a long, uncomfortable moment.

  “Figured you were here to talk to me.” Jack spat off to the side. “There ain’t any other foremen around.”

  And even Mari knew Rod didn’t bother to talk to any of the regular workers.

  “Actually, I’m here to talk to your biologist.” He smiled at her, and the hairs on the back of Mari’s neck rose.

  “So talk,” Jack grunted.

  Rod gave him a look, flicked his eyes pointedly toward the tower.

  “Crew’s fine.” Jack didn’t budge.

  The supervisor laughed. “Oh, that’s right. I’d heard rumors you two were very special friends.”

  She held her breath. She’d worried it was a conflict of interest, for her to keep monitoring his crew. Even wondered if she should ask Marcus to reassign her, but her boss hadn’t seemed concerned so far. Out in the desert so far from an HR department, rules about employee fraternization were rarely enforced. But if Rod decided to kick up a fuss, he might be able to get her in trouble even if Marcus didn’t care.

  “Don’t worry, Wyatt. I’m not planning on hitting on your old lady.” The emphasis on the word “old” was just a breath. So subtle she couldn’t have said for sure if he’d really meant it that way. Except the word scraped along her bones like sandpaper, and she knew, damn it. Men like him never did anything by accident.

  She pretended to hear something, turning to the imaginary sound in such a way that she ended up directly between the two men, because she knew Jack. He’d been doing a lot of work on his temper, but she was pretty sure none of that work was going to hold him back if he thought Rod had insulted her.

  “I think I hear Joey calling you,” she told him. “I can handle this. I’ll come get you if it ends up being something that might affect the crew, or our schedule.” She smiled at Jack with her back to Rod so he couldn’t see the edge of steel in the outwardly cheerful expression.

  The corner of Jack’s mouth twitched upward toward a smile, and she knew he had read her expression just fine. His eyes still looked unhappy, but he ducked a nod. “All right. Be just over there if you need me.”

  He gave Rod a look and there were no amount of polite or professional words that could have disguised what it was: a warning from one large, aggressive male to another.

  He walked away, the baggie of brownies disappearing into a pocket on his tool belt.

  “I’ve been hearing very good things about you,” Rod said, before her attention had fully come back to him.

  “Is that so?” She adjusted her hard hat to cover the subtle tension that gathered in her. Men like him complimented for two reasons, and it was always the follow-up that’d tell you which it was. Either they were about to hit on you, or they wanted a favor.

  She didn’t care for either option.

  “Wyatt’s crew started out with the second-worst environmental compliance record on this transmission line, and now they have the best. It’s very impressive, the uh . . . difference around here since you started.” He smirked.

  Ah. So it wasn’t sexual, then. Too bad. That would have been easier to shut down.

  “Their record has improved because Jack put a lot of time into training his men to follow the rules.” Mari folded her hands neatly in front of her. “It doesn’t have a thing to do with me—you could put another bio on this crew tomorrow and get the same results.”

  “You see, I’m glad you think so, because I agree.”

  She did not like the sound of that.

  “My son’s crew has been paying a lot of very expensive environmental impact tickets lately. I think they could use a little of your . . .” He paused. “Extra-special treatment.”

  Only because she’d spent years getting slapped for her expressions did she manage to keep her reaction off her face.

  “Like I said, that’s not me.” The only thing she did differently was how
she explained the rules to Jack so that he could see the reasoning behind them and really understand how they protected the animals. That’s when he started enforcing them himself instead of making the bio try to ride herd over his whole crew.

  “Good. Then you won’t mind that I had you transferred to Junior’s crew.”

  Her balance quivered at the words “had you transferred.” Her new life felt so precious, she had to remind herself he couldn’t take it away. Not the job, not Jack. Not even the fact that she was assigned to this particular crew, actually. A man like Rod, though, was probably riding on the certainty that she’d give in to his orders, regardless of how valid they were.

  Once, she would have.

  She matched his unblinking stare. “You can’t have me transferred. I don’t answer to you.”

  Joey trotted up. “Kipp thinks he saw a rattlesnake.”

  She didn’t look away from Rod. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

  At least twice a day, Kipp needed her to come over and check because he thought he’d seen a rattlesnake. He’d yet to be correct.

  She didn’t intend to be rude to Joey. It was just that everything about Rod made her want to drop her eyes, and she wouldn’t let herself do it.

  She’d fought back so many times with Brad, but he’d always pushed back even harder. Yelling, then screaming, the violence escalating until she gave way. Until she learned never even to try. The way Rod was testing her now made her feel like the early days with Brad, like if she gave a single inch, he wouldn’t quit until she was broken at his feet.

  “Oh, I have the authority,” he said. “I talked to Marcus’s boss, and he felt just fine about it.”

  Her next breath stuck in her throat. It wasn’t that it was the end of the world to work on a different crew. She couldn’t work with Jack forever, and she’d see him at night. It was just that she didn’t want to do what Rod wanted. No matter what it was.

  “Jack said to tell you he thinks Kipp might be right about the snake this time,” Joey persisted.

  She turned to look at the anxious-eyed apprentice. “Tell Jack not to worry. I have it all under control.”

  Her voice was calm, even though she wasn’t totally sure if she was lying or not. She understood all too well what Rod was expecting of her by transferring her to his son’s crew. He wanted her to look the other way when his son broke the rules. If she didn’t do it, she’d lose her job and therefore her ability to pay the medical bills that gained more interest by the day.

  If she did do it, she’d lose her integrity, and with it, her fragile self-respect.

  Rod waited until Joey retreated, and then he said, “Of course, if there’s a reason you’d rather stay on this crew, I can let your boss know all about that.”

  He looked pointedly to where Jack was standing, staring across the job site at Rod and Mari. When Jack saw Rod’s head turn, he looked away.

  So did Mari.

  “That won’t be necessary,” she said to the dirt between them.

  Jack had been right. “No” wasn’t a word you were allowed to say to Rod.

  25

  Best View in the Desert

  “You sure this spot you found is—”

  “Yup.”

  “You sure you, uh, still feel like . . . Because you ain’t gotta—”

  “Jack. I’m sure.”

  Click. Click. Click.

  The turn signal clicked until they made the turn, and she tried to fight back a smile at how nervous they both were, like teenagers rather than adults in their forties.

  Tires hummed on the road, so much louder when they weren’t bald.

  “Just . . . don’t expect anything spectacular, okay? I’ve never been all that good at it.”

  “I don’t think there is any bad where that’s concerned. But just because I said there was no sense in trying to go all the way, don’t want you to think I was fishing for this instead.”

  “I know.”

  “Mari.”

  “No, it’s not that! Really. It’s fine. I don’t want you to worry.”

  Click. Click. Click.

  “Don’t pull over.” He was definitely still pulling over, maybe even turning around. She laughed. “Oh my gosh, you’re so sweet, sometimes it still surprises me. I’m nervous, but I’m fine, really. Don’t pull over.”

  His hand inched across the seat. It didn’t quite make the whole journey before she met him in the middle. She laced her fingers together with his, and then the cab of the truck was quiet again.

  Mari gave him directions, and eventually he had to let go of her hand to shift, and to wrangle the steering wheel as the dirt roads they bounced over got increasingly rocky and less traveled. The sunlight slanting in the windows was finally starting to ease in intensity, and she clicked the AC down a notch. They were close now.

  She’d been looking forward to this time alone with him all day; clinging to it, really, after the tension-filled, short conversation with Rod. She hadn’t yet told Jack that Rod was going to transfer her off his crew. She’d have to tell him later tonight, because the change was coming tomorrow, but she really didn’t want to see his expression when she admitted that she’d given in. Not that she had had a real choice, but somehow that only made it seem more like a failure.

  What Mari wanted was just to forget about terrible, pushy men and concentrate on the one she was with, who was kind and uncertain and twice the man his boss would ever be. She wanted to think about consummating her fantasy of driving Jack wild with her mouth. Except now that they were so close to their goal, she was remembering that in real life, she wasn’t the seductress she could be in her imaginings.

  How was this going to work? Maybe she was supposed to undress. A blow job in a car was something he’d fantasized about, too, she could tell. But she wasn’t sure he could stutter his way through an explanation of how he pictured the logistics. Should she kneel on the seat, or maybe try to get down in the footwell on her side . . . The stick shift was in the way, that was for sure. But didn’t men like the on-the-knees thing?

  Brad had, but sometimes she wasn’t sure if that was just because he knew it hurt her kneecaps. Or because he could yank her hair more easily from that position.

  She ran a hand through her hair, thinking of how many times she’d thought of shaving it down to her skull.

  It was funny—she’d been having so many dirty thoughts about doing this with Jack. About using her tongue to make him gasp. About running her hand down the whole, impressive length of him. But now that she was so close to getting her fantasy, she was remembering how little she’d liked it all the times she’d done it in real life. The way her jaw would get tired and she’d wish for a break but couldn’t take one. The way Brad always finished, but a minute later he’d be telling her all the ways she’d done it wrong.

  “It’s right here,” she said, spotting the boulder she’d chosen as a landmark, tucked down in a small valley, along the faintest side track off a little-used four-wheel-drive road. On a midweek night when the rowdy weekend crowd wasn’t likely to even consider going dirt biking.

  Jack parked, and just like that it was time. And she still wasn’t ready. Suddenly her heart started fluttering, stumbling over itself with its own speed. Her throat tightened, her scalp screaming with the phantom pain of her hair being gripped and pulled.

  “Mari?”

  She inhaled a long breath and took hold of her courage with both hands. This was her present, not her past. She was safe, and this had been her idea, and in this new life, her choices were supposed to be her own again.

  “I don’t think I want to—”

  “Okay.” His agreement tripped out before she was even done, and something soothing and nice flooded through her tensed chest. She peeked up from his dashboard to his green eyes. “Thought it was weird,” he confessed with a rueful twist of a smile. “Tha
t you’d wanna.”

  “No, I do.” She fumbled, not sure how to explain her contradictory emotions. “I really do. Just . . . not right now, I don’t think.”

  “Yup.” He glanced around. “Wanna go back or . . .”

  “It’s nice out here. We might as well watch the sunset, since we came all this way,” she suggested, trying to salvage the night.

  “Yup.”

  They both looked out the windshield, where the pinks and oranges of early sunset streaked the sky, framed in the rising curves of the small valley they were parked in. The spines on the cactus caught the sun and made a glowing halo that was almost romantic.

  Inside the truck, the only sound was the rush of the AC. Mari felt guilty leaving the truck idling—emissions and all—but they’d roast for sure without air-conditioning. Even with twilight coming on, it was topping 90 degrees.

  Two empty feet of truck seat separated them. Jack didn’t say a thing, just watched that sunset like it was his job. Mari bit her lip, relief and tension warring within her.

  “Can I, um, come over there?” Even her murmur sounded too loud in the silent truck.

  “Yeah. Course. C’mere.” He raised his arm in invitation and she scooted over, nuzzling into his side with a noiseless sigh. “You all right?”

  She tucked her head in under his chin, his collarbone warm beneath her cheek. “Mm-hmm.” It was okay. They were okay.

  They could fool around another time, and she was glad she hadn’t ruined her own fantasy by trying to do it on a day when her head wasn’t fully in the right place. She hadn’t really thought Jack would protest her saying no, but it was nice to know he wouldn’t take it personally and get weird about it, either.

  While they watched, the shades of the sunset began to deepen, like they were settling into their true colors, and it was utterly beautiful.