by B. B. Hamel
“We can help her.” I stand up. “Did you research any meetings?”
She nods. “There’s one tonight.”
“Good. Let’s get her home, get her some sleep, and then make sure she goes.”
Cora takes my hand and squeezes it. “You’re good to me, you know?”
I shake my head. “Just doing what anyone would do.”
“No, really. I know you should have gone back home by now.” I go to say something, but she talks over me. “I know you’re leaving eventually. I’m just happy you’ve been here for as long as you have… for helping me the way you did…”
I pull her close against me and kiss her softly. I don’t say anything, because there’s nothing to say. We both know I have to go, and that’s the worst thing about all this.
I pay for Cora’s mom’s drinks, and the three of us leave. Cora sits in the back seat of the car with her mom, and the two of them talk softly while I drive back to her mom’s place. We’ll get her to sleep and hopefully get her to an AA meeting as soon as possible.
After that, my mission here is over. I’ll have nothing holding me here, nothing that I’m trying to solve or fix. There will only be Cora, and I’m afraid of what that means. If I decide to stay, I’ll be admitting something to myself, something that I didn’t know I could admit.
I’ll be admitting that I’m not the Lovemaker anymore, that I’m not just out to fuck and have a good time. I’ll be admitting that I want something serious, something serious enough that I’d sacrifice for it.
That’s what scares me the most. If I want Cora enough to sacrifice, that means she’ll have the power to hurt me. I don’t know if this relationship is just a product of the stress of our situation, and if it’ll survive beyond this. But then again, I know her from way before any of this happened, back when we were kids. And even back then, I knew she was special. Atticus kept everyone away from his younger sister, but we all saw her. We all knew her.
I knew her best of all, and I wanted her most of all. I just don’t know if that’s going to be enough to get us past everything, or if we’re just doomed to fail.
26
Cora
For the first time in her life, my mother goes to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Wyatt and I drive her there and drop her off, making sure she goes inside. Wyatt parks the car in the far corner of the church’s lot, and soon we’re alone, lit only by the moon rising slowly in the sky.
“She’ll be okay,” Wyatt says to me.
“I know.” I take a breath and slowly let it out. The meeting is in the basement of a church we used to come to when I was younger. I doubt my mom’s been here in a long time, and I hope she’s doing okay in there.
“Just admitting she has a problem is a great first step.”
“I know.” I glance out the window and I don’t say anything more.
A few minutes pass in silence. I don’t know why I’m being so distant. Wyatt has done so much for me in such a short time, and our relationship has grown so quickly that it’s almost scary. If he were anyone else, I would assume that this thing we have between us is just so intense because of what was happening… but I don’t think that’s it.
There’s always been something between us, even back when we were younger, although I don’t think we understood it back then. He’s a few years older than I am, so that’s been keeping him away, but now we’re finally equals.
I know he has to leave. I just hate myself for getting so attached to him. He never said he was staying, never once said he’d come live with me in Mason. I must have had this stupid delusion where I thought we could live happily ever after… but I know that’s a lie.
“When are you leaving?” I ask him, breaking the silence. I look over toward him and he has this pained expression on his face.
“I should be back at work by Tuesday,” he says. “So, Monday night at the latest.”
I nod. That doesn’t give us much time. “You don’t have to stay that long,” I say to him, although I hate myself for it. “You can go whenever you want.”
“I know that,” he says. He reaches toward me, but I flinch away.
“Don’t,” I say.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Touch you?” He stares at me. “It’s the only thing I want to do right now. Don’t you get that?”
I stare right back at him, and suddenly it all hits me. The immensity of everything comes crashing down, rolling over me in waves. He pulls me toward him and this time, I let him kiss me, because I know how badly I need it.
And I know he needs it too. We kiss long and slow like that until he pushes his seat back and pulls me across the car, pulling me in his lap. I grind my hips down against him, feeling him and needing it, as his hands slowly explore up my top.
The car starts to steam pretty quickly. I reach down and unbutton his jeans, sliding a hand down his boxer briefs to find his cock already hard. We shuffle his jeans down as he unbuttons mine. We’re cramped and awkward but neither of us care, we’re both in a frenzy, both desperate to feel what we know is real between us.
He kisses me again as he finally gets my jeans down. He pushes my panties aside and slides two fingers deep into me, making me gasp. He pulls my hair back and kisses my neck.
“This is impossible,” he says softly. “You know that?”
“What is?” I groan.
“This, right here. We haven’t seen each other for years and yet Atticus somehow brings us together.”
I groan as he plunges his fingers deeper. “Only good thing Atticus ever did,” I say.
“He did other good things, but you’re right. This might be the best.” He tips my chin toward him and bites my lower lip.
I groan, grinding down along his fingers. He slides his hand away and pulls my hips forward, rubbing his cock against my slick pussy.
I push my hips forward and down, letting him slide right inside of me, pushing me open, pulling me apart. I groan, wrapping my arms around his neck as he cups my ass with both hands, my panties shoved aside.
I start to ride him, mouth against his. We’re both panting, and I’m moaning into his mouth, and I’m completely lost. I don’t know how this happened, how impossible this must seem on the outside, but I just don’t care. When he’s near me, hell, when he’s inside of me, I can’t think of anything but him. He’s the only thing that makes any sense to me. I grind along him harder, letting him fuck me as I ride him, letting him slap my ass, pull my hair.
The car fogs up completely. We’re fucking in a church parking lot, and my mom’s down inside there, in a basement AA meeting, but I just don’t care how inappropriate this is. I grind and I ride, and he fucks me in return, his thick cock tearing me to pieces.
It feels so fucking good. He slaps my ass, palming it, squeezing. He kisses me and bites my lip again, pushing me down by the shoulders, fucking me rough. I feel like an animal rutting, and it’s what I want, what I need. He takes me beyond myself, fucks the hell out of me, pushes me to new heights.
I grind and I ride, groaning his name over and over. He pulls me against him and spreads my ass out as he thrusts.
“How am I supposed to leave this?” he asks, slapping my ass. “You think I want to let this go? Fuck, girl, you’re so fucking tasty, so goddamn delicious, your pussy drives me insane.” He slams himself into me.
My moans are impossible to stop. I don’t care what’s happening around us, to me the world is just his cock, sliding in and out of my pussy. He kisses my lips, lets my tongue into his mouth, drives me crazy. We don’t have much room for experimentation but it doesn’t matter. It’s quick and it’s dirty, and I can feel the orgasm coming already.
“I want to feel it,” I groan to him. “I need to feel it, Wyatt.”
“Feel it,” he whispers. “Just let go.”
I toss my head back as he keeps fucking me as I come. I think I hit the horn at least once, but it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow d
own, and soon I feel the hot mess of him filling me up with his own cum.
We groan together, sweating and warm and finally, when it’s over, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me tight against him. We dress each other slowly, almost tenderly, and although there’s an apocalyptic feeling to this, I can’t stop smiling. The outside world is gone, fogged away by our own warmth and breath and fucking, and now it’s just the two of us together, alone in this car.
Fully dressed, I stay curled up in his lap, and he holds me like that. Slowly, the world returns to us. We don’t talk much, and we don’t have to. I just want to feel him close to me, feel his breath against my neck. Eventually, the fog clears, and I know it’s time.
I climb out of his lap, and I don’t meet his gaze. People are spilling out of the church, and I spot my mom coming.
“Cora,” he says softly.
I smile at him, trying not to cry. “Later, okay?” I say.
He nods once. “Okay.”
My mom shows up a couple minutes later, and I spend the rest of the car ride, and the night back at her place, talking with her about her sobriety. There’s a lot to work out there, but I’ll try to help her. Wyatt doesn’t stay, he goes back to the motel, and although I knew he would, it still hurts. I want him to stay.
But I know he can’t, and he won’t.
27
Wyatt
My phone rings around seven in the morning. It pulls me from sleep, and for a second, I reach over to touch Cora. I grunt when I realize that she’s not there before I roll over and grab the phone.
“Yeah?” I say, answering it.
“Wyatt, it’s Mitch.”
That perks me up. “Hey, man,” I say. “You caught me sleeping.”
“Sorry, I know it’s early. I just thought you’d want to know.”
I suddenly feel nervous. This is the call I’ve been expecting. “What’s up?”
“We got a judge and both Kristi and Jaxson were indicted for Atticus’s murder. Obviously it’s early days, but we’re already talking plea deals.”
I get out of bed, taking in this information. I put the phone on speaker and push the curtains open, letting light wash across my face. “What kind of deal?”
“In exchange for info on his gang, we’ll probably give him twenty-five to life,” Mitch says.
“Doesn’t sound like a good deal.”
“Better than death penalty. We’ll leave in the chance for parole after twenty-five years.”
I sigh and turn away from the window. I wish Cora were here, so we could talk about this. “Okay,” I say, letting out a breath. “What about the girl?”
“Kristi?” He chuckles. “She’s been… tough.”
“How so?”
“Less cooperative. They had to restrain her yesterday, apparently.”
“Really? I gotta admit, I’m surprised. I thought Jaxson would be the fighter.”
“Nope,” Mitch says, chuckling. “He gave up pretty fast. Kristi though, she’s not talking.”
“What’s her sentence look like?”
“Up in the air right now. Depends on how much she tries to pin it on Jaxson, but so far she hasn’t said much.”
“Maybe she’s not as stupid as she seems,” I say.
“She did ask for a lawyer so, you know.”
I laugh a little. “Well, hopefully she gets a bad one.”
“Truth is, Wyatt, I doubt she’ll go to jail forever. But she sure is looking at a long, long time behind bars.”
“Good. Bitch killed my friend.” I’m surprised at how angry I sound.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “She did. Anyway, that’s it for now. I’ll keep you posted if anything changes but… well, thanks, Wyatt. I think this is going to be good for Mason.”
“Just doing my job,” I grunt, although I have to admit, I’m a little proud.
“When are you going back?” he asks.
“Soon,” I say.
“Well, if you ever want to moonlight at Mason, you let me know.”
I laugh again. “Will do.”
“Thanks again,” he says. “We could have easily let that slide under the radar, but you forced our asses into gears. Some people might not like that, but I appreciate it.”
“Thanks, Mitch,” I say, deciding that he’s one of the good guys.
“See you later.”
“See you.”
We hang up the phone. I stretch and go into the bathroom. I brush my teeth, shower, and get ready for the day. I kill an hour that way before packing up my stuff slowly. When I’m done, I call up Cora, but she doesn’t answer.
I decide not to wait. I lug my stuff down to the car, get it packed, and head into the office. I pay my bill, hand in my key, and I am officially leaving this fucking dump.
When I’m done, I’m surprised to find Cora standing over by my car. She smiles a little bit as I walk over toward her.
“Morning,” she says.
“Morning,” I reply. I stop a few feet away from her.
“I thought I’d come say goodbye.”
I nod. “Thanks. I was going to come see you.”
“Got time for breakfast?”
I smile. “Yeah. I think I do.”
We get into my car and I drive us to the Great American. I can feel the tension in the car, but I don’t succumb to it. I ask her about her mother, and she talks about it as we head inside and grab a table.
Once our food arrives, I tell her about my call with Mitch. I’m surprised that she doesn’t seem to think much about it either way.
“I’m just glad I know the truth,” she says. “That’s all I really wanted.”
“Well, you’re getting justice. Or some kind of it, at least.”
She nods. “Good. I know it won’t help Atticus now… but at least those two people won’t be out there on the streets.”
“No, they won’t. Not for a very long time, at least, and who knows. Maybe prison will be good for them.”
That gets a smile out of her, but it quickly fades away. We move on to simpler things, stuff about my trip back home, what I’ll do there, promises that we’ll keep in touch, although I’m afraid they don’t mean much. I can see the pain on her face, and I feel it too.
Everything inside of me wants to stay. It’s screaming for me to stay. I’ve never felt like this about a woman before, and I have to realize by now that it’s real. It’s not just some stress-induced delusion. It’s a good thing, it’s pure and simple and it makes me happy. I don’t understand how I’m going to walk away from it.
I pay the bill and we leave. We get into my car and I drive her back to her mom’s place, not really thinking about the car she left back at the motel. She doesn’t say anything about it, probably because she wants to spend more time with me.
We get to her mom’s place and I park out front. On a whim, I suddenly get out of the car. “Follow me,” I say to her, shutting the door behind me.
“Wait,” she says, getting out. I’m already walking away, past her mom’s place, toward the back yard.
She has to run to catch up. “What are you doing?” she asks.
“Come on,” I say.
We cut through the woods, down a short slope, and around a little bend. We find a path, mostly overgrown now, but still familiar. She keeps step behind me as we walk, down around another bend, and up ahead I can hear the bubbling of running water over rocks.
We pass through the trees and underbrush and step up to the bank of a stream. It’s the same little body of water we used to play in as kids. We came here so many times, back in the day. Cora steps up next to me and I lean against her.
“Smaller now,” I say.
“I know.” She sighs. “We spent a lot of time down here.”
“Atticus loved it. He used to catch frogs and throw them into the water again.” I laugh to myself. “Remember the time he fell in?”
“Yeah, because you pushed him.”
I grin at her. “It was up there further, toward a deep
er part.”
“We thought there were alligators in the water.”
“That’s right. I forgot about that.”
“There were rumors that the alligators came up and ate cats and dogs in the night.”
I laugh again and she’s grinning too. “I don’t know why we ever believed that.”
“We were kids.”
“Yeah, we were.”
We stand there, side by side, looking at the water. I half-turn toward her, but there’s this look on her face that stops me.
“Cora,” I say.
“It’s okay,” she interrupts me. “I know you have to leave. I get it. What we had… it’s fine, okay? You did enough. You didn’t have to do this.”
“Do what?” I ask softly.
“Bring me here. Remind me what I’ll be missing.”
“Cora,” I say again.
“Just go, okay? Just leave me. You don’t owe me anything.”
I take a step back. I could turn around right now, walk away quickly, get in my car, and never look back. I could do that and it would be okay. I’d hurt for a while, so would she, but we’d heal. She’s right, I don’t owe her anything. I already gave her a lot, much more than I expected.
But that’s the thing about love. You give more than you ever dreamed of giving, and then you give more, because you want to give. You want to give so badly you’re willing to give it all, absolutely everything about you, in order to make that other person happy.
It hits me all at once, standing there. The problem with the little story I’ve been telling myself is, I don’t think I’ll get over her. I don’t think I’ll heal. And I don’t want to.
I turn toward her completely. She looks up at me. “No,” I say.
“No, what?” She blinks.
“No, I don’t owe you shit.” I step closer to her. She doesn’t back away. “And what I do, I do because I want to. Do you understand?”
“Wyatt,” she says, and I can hear the pain in her voice, but she has to let me finish.
“I do what I want to do, because it makes me feel good. You make me feel good, better than anyone ever has. Maybe this is stupid…” I don’t finish my sentence. I grab her hips and pull her against me, kissing her deep and hard.
