Afterglow

by Artemis Anders

  “Ha ha,” she said, sticking out her tongue. “Victory is mine tonight, Major.”

  Aaron rolled his eyes. “Then I’m paying for ice cream. No arguments.”

  “Fine.”

  With that, they left their patio table and went to find the end of the now-monstrous line of people waiting for their ice cream. Behind them, a young man and woman chatted about Justin Bieber, him struggling to get his words out and her chattering a mile a minute while barely taking a breath. Teagan glanced at Aaron, wondering if he was listening too. He got a tiny smile on his face before he mouthed the words “socially awkward” and gestured subtly with his head. Teagan squelched her laughter until it hurt, doing all she could to avoid looking back at the couple. Again, she wanted to throw her arms around Aaron and give him a playful kiss for making her laugh so hard. But she held back. Apparently, she’d let him screw her six ways to Sunday, but kissing him… well, that would be downright shameful!

  With her scoop of key lime and his scoop of salted caramel, they strolled down to the Platte River and the park beyond, the cool breeze refreshing them as the sun disappeared behind the mountains. The air was comfortable and everyone was out enjoying the summer evening, eating ice cream or riding by on their cruiser bikes. She wondered if Aaron needed to get back, but he seemed content to keep walking, taking in all he saw and never glancing at his watch.

  On the way back to Teagan’s place, she detected a distinctive and familiar odor. Aaron smelled it too.

  “Someone pissed off a skunk,” Aaron said.

  “That’s not skunk.” She motioned to the pot shop up the street, with its green cross.

  He chuckled. “I keep forgetting this is Colorado.”

  By the time they arrived at Teagan’s red brick duplex, it had gotten dark out. Instead of opening her front door to go inside, Teagan just stood on her porch, feeling extremely self-conscious. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do. She only knew that letting him inside seemed unwise.

  “When do you fly home?” she said.

  “Tomorrow morning, first thing.” He gazed down at her with intense eyes, his long lashes unblinking.

  Teagan flushed, his eyes on her enough to rattle her. “Don’t let me keep you. I… I know you have a long drive back.”

  “You aren’t keeping me.” He drew nearer to her until he stood so close that she felt his heat and smelled his clean, masculine scent. He reached over and brushed a strand of hair from her face. Then he kissed her.

  Teagan almost melted onto her porch. His lips on hers, his tongue tasting hers, his hands on her waist. He felt good, so good that she wanted to take him inside and strip him down to nothing but his hard-muscled body and gentle hands. But then fear coursed through her and she pulled away.

  Aaron blinked in surprise. “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t.” Her voice was a whisper.

  “How come?” He studied her face for clues, but showed no sign of annoyance.

  “I… I just can’t.” Her voice broke a little, and she looked away, the pain of her past coming to haunt her all at once. Aaron laid a hand on her arm.

  “It’s okay, Teagan. I came here to see you. If you don’t want more than that, it’s fine.”

  She looked up at him. “You weren’t expecting to sleep with me?”

  Aaron hesitated. “I… I’m not going to lie. Yeah, I guess I hoped to. But I didn’t expect to. If you’re not into it or you’re seeing someone or whatever—”

  “It’s not that. It’s… I just can’t.” You live far away and you’re too hot for me and you’ll just break my heart and Diana’s right… I do want the real thing.

  Aaron nodded, backing up just a hair.

  “But thank you,” she added. “Thank you for driving all the way up here. I had a great time.” And she did. So much so that sending him away felt lousy. What the hell was wrong with her?

  “Me too.” He gazed at her another minute before glancing at his black rental car. “I guess I better get on the road.”

  Teagan nodded, still feeling a bit shaky. “Have a safe trip back.”

  “Thanks. And do me a favor?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Promise me you won’t tell my dad that you paid for dinner.”

  She gave a relieved laugh. “I promise.”

  And without knowing if it was the right thing to do, Teagan came in for a hug, putting her arms around Aaron and feeling his warm, hard body against hers. He returned the hug, lingering for a moment. And when he walked down her steps to his car and waved goodbye, she returned the wave. She felt sad, already missing him.

  Because she knew she wouldn’t see Aaron again.

  Chapter Twelve

  Teagan stood on her porch, watching Aaron’s rental car pull away and disappear around the corner. She sighed, went inside to get a bottle of root beer, and came back out to sit down and put her feet up. The city was alive with people and cars and lights, but she felt a little empty.

  A door opened. Ben emerged onto the porch, a beer in his hand, his brown eyes searching her.

  “Did he take off?”

  Teagan nodded.

  “No round two?” he said, a glimmer of humor in his face.

  She shook her head, looking away.

  Ben flopped into her other chair and put his feet up. “What happened? You had a good time with him before, right?”

  “A great time.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t know. Before… that was different. I knew what it was, I knew how long it would last, and I could get up and leave when it was over.”

  “When does he leave town?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “Then how is this different? You have fun, he leaves first thing.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I mean… you do it once, it’s a fling. You do it repeatedly, it’s… it’s a fuck buddy. That’s not what I want. You can’t avoid every disappointment life hands you, but you can stop setting yourself up for them.”

  Ben held out his beer, looking a little impressed. Teagan smiled and clinked her bottle with his.

  “It’s too bad,” Ben said. “He’s the first guy you’ve brought around that I could get onboard with. And that includes that dipshit who lived here.”

  “You just like Aaron because he’s Army.”

  “Maybe. Probably not your type, though…”

  “Not really.”

  It was true. Aaron wasn’t her usual type. Yet, he was no chest-pounding tough guy, either. He was intelligent. He was kind. He had great manners. She loved his company.

  He also lived nine hundred miles away. And, despite his spending time with her and acting like such a gentleman when she rejected his advances, he’d come for sex. What else would bring him all that way when they barely knew each other? She’d loved sex with him, but that wasn’t good enough.

  And she could wait to find something that was.

  A couple of weeks later, Teagan finished the final edit of her novel after her editor had returned the manuscript. When she first saw all the suggested changes, she’d sighed. But Teagan knew her editor well enough to know that when she made a “suggestion,” it pretty much always improved the book.

  Her small fanbase would be happy to get the next book in the series. But that didn’t change the fact that she was a tiny island in a sea of science fiction authors, and her income reflected that. She would have to create a much larger readership, which would take years at the rate she was going. It was either that or write a book series that would take the science fiction world by storm… and if she knew how to do that, she’d have done it by now. She could also just keep publishing. Eventually, she’d have so many books that maybe she’d eek out a living.

  Teagan sighed. She had to become a fiction author. She couldn’t just be happy with a normal job that paid regularly and offered benefits and retirement, like everybody else.

  She let out another groan when s
he got her editor’s bill. Good editors were necessary, but they didn’t come cheap. It would be a painful addition to her already bloated credit card and its daily accruing interest.

  It was late July. She was broke. And she needed to let the university know by tomorrow if she could teach two more classes in fall semester, one of which she’d never taught before. New classes required a ton of preparation time, time she could be writing instead of lecturing to five hundred students, most of whom would never appreciate the difference between steroid hormones and stem cells.

  But she had little choice. Her book sales had declined and she had a mortgage and a credit card bill to pay. Even teaching full time, she’d take no vacations other than camping. She’d have no new clothes, no good wine, and no dinners on patios with the other well-heeled folks near downtown, where the drinks cost north of $12 and a plate of tacos cost more than that. It wasn’t what she’d hoped for when she’d decided to publish her books, but it was reality. And with that, Teagan emailed the chair of the biology department and committed to teaching the two additional courses.

  She heaved a big sigh and logged onto Facebook. When she scrolled down, she was surprised to see a familiar brown and white dog. She smiled at the picture of Patton sniffing the nose of another cute dog. When she glanced at the headline, it only said, “New buddy at the vet’s office.”

  She hadn’t heard from Aaron since he left her house. She hadn’t expected to. But that hadn’t stopped her from thinking about him pretty much every day. What was he up to? How was work? Had his dad found a post-retirement passion project yet? And then there were the fond recollections—their conversations, the feel of his hands on her, the way he’d pushed her beyond the limits of pleasure. She replayed the conversation they’d had on her porch, too, more times than she cared to admit. She still felt uncomfortable about it, but she had no regrets.

  It annoyed her that she thought about him. Especially when he’d shown all the signs of being uninterested in a relationship—calling his ex “wife” before he corrected himself to “ex-wife,” the dark look he got on his face when divorce came up, his inviting her to stay at his house for the night while knowing she’d leave the next day. Not that she was any better, as she still nursed her own divorce wounds.

  She shrugged. Of course she thought about Aaron. Who else was there to think about? He was the best thing that had happened to her in a long time.

  But the sight of Patton’s little face on Facebook made her happy. She couldn’t help but leave a comment, stating how cute he was and that she missed him. Aaron would never respond to it, but at least he would know she cared and would remain his friend.

  As she scrolled through her feed, a picture of Diana appeared. She was outfitted in her usual mountain biking gear, standing next to her bike among a group of women cyclists in spandex and helmets. They were surrounded by the tall rock cliffs and dry brush of western Colorado. She wished she could be there too, not that she could keep up with Diana or her friends on a bike.

  The following evening, after publishing her latest book and loading it onto all the retailer sites, Teagan poured a glass of Malbec and went to relax on her porch.

  Her phone beeped. When she glanced at it, she had a notification. Aaron had emailed her.

  Hey Teagan,

  How are you? It was good to see you and hope the writing is going well.

  My Air Force buddy Stovi and I are going camping in southern Colorado the third weekend of August. If you aren’t busy or teaching, do you want to join us? Bring some friends if you want. We’ll hike some big peaks and hit the hot springs down there. Let me know.

  Aaron

  Teagan stared at the message, a warm feeling of pleasant surprise running through her. She thought she’d never hear from him again. But there he was, inviting her to camp with him and his friend.

  She checked her calendar. The timing worked perfectly. The fall semester, and her heavy teaching load, wouldn’t start until the Monday after she got back. She immediately got on the phone to call Diana.

  “Teagan!” Diana said.

  “Hey, D! Do you have plans for the third weekend in August?”

  Weeks later, Teagan drove south on the winding mountain road, the jagged peaks of southern Colorado greeting her. Her phone rang and she put it on speaker.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, it’s me!” Diana said.

  “Diana! Where are you?”

  “About an hour away.”

  “You’ll get there before I do. You have the directions, right?”

  She laughed. “Yeah. What’s up with the GPS coordinates?”

  Teagan laughed too. “I guess that’s what happens when two military guys plan a camping trip.”

  “Oh, they’re military. Totally makes sense. How do you know these guys again?”

  “I only know one of them. Long story.”

  “What story?” she cried. “You didn’t tell me about a guy you met!”

  “It’s nothing. We’re… we’re friends. I met him when I was down in Tucson.”

  “And? Tell me fast before I lose you. Cell coverage is spotty around here.”

  Teagan sighed. “It’s nothing. We hooked up down there and we’ve stayed in touch. I didn’t tell you because I know you don’t approve of casual sex.”

  “Sweetie, if anyone is entitled to a hookup, it’s you. So what happened after you hooked up with… what’s his name?”

  “Aaron. He visited Stovi in Colorado Springs last month and we had dinner.”

  “Just dinner?”

  “Just dinner.”

  “And why not more?”

  Teagan sighed again. “You know, after talking to you at Castillo’s, I realized… I do want to get married again someday. Not now, but someday. I want the real thing, not a hookup. Hooking up once is one thing, but—”

  “Hooking up again and again is a fuck buddy. Which is lame.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Yay, Teagan! I’m so glad you aren’t settling for less than what you deserve. Although, it’s kind of strange that this Aaron guy has stayed in touch.”

  “I know. It surprised me, too. I think he’s just a good guy, and maybe they thought it would be more fun with some girls to camp with.”

  Diana’s response was garbled, and soon the connection died. No more service for a while.

  A couple hours later, Teagan found the campground—a small, quiet one with vault toilets. It was situated in a meadow that was surrounded by forest, with a beautiful view of the Rockies behind it. She spotted Aaron’s white truck, and next to it was a dark gray truck with Colorado plates and an Air Force sticker.

  She slowed down even more, locating Diana’s Jeep parked at the adjacent campsite. When she pulled in, there was Aaron, waiting for her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Aaron wore shorts and an Army t-shirt, looking disgustingly handsome as usual. Teagan went over to hug him, suddenly feeling grateful for his friendship.

  “Any trouble finding it?” he said.

  “Uh… no. Not with the GPS coordinates, Major.”

  He chuckled at that. “That’s all Stovi.”

  Before she could respond, Diana came over and hugged her hard. “It’s so good to see you!”

  “You too, D. I’m so glad you came!” Teagan inhaled a giant breath of cool mountain air. “Oh, it smells good up here.”

  “Come over and meet Stovi,” Aaron said. They followed Aaron back to the other campsite, where a good-looking guy with dark, military-cut hair stood up from his chair. “Teagan, this is Jason Stovall… we call him Stovi. Stovi, this is Teagan.”

  Stovi shook her hand. He was Aaron’s height, but not quite as muscular. “Nice to meet you, Teagan. Heard good things about you.”

  “Likewise,” she said, feeling a bit embarrassed and wondering what sort of “good things” Aaron had shared with him. But whatever they were, she found no hint of irony or suggestiveness in Stovi’s tone.

  She felt something tickle h
er leg and looked down. There was Patton, wagging his tail as his brown eyes looked up at her. She kneeled down and gave him a vigorous petting. “Hey, boy! How are you? It’s good to see you, yes it is…” She giggled as Patton’s tail whipped wildly before she stood up and looked around. The men had their tents and cooking equipment set up already.

  Stovi spoke. “Before you got here, we talked about taking a quick hike before we start cooking dinner. There’s a trail at the other end of the campground. Might feel good to stretch your legs after the long drive.”

  “Sounds perfect. Let me get my hiking boots and my stuff together.”

  After Teagan got ready, the four of them set off in the late afternoon sun, the threat of an afternoon thunderstorm quickly passing them by. The narrow trail took them into a dense aspen grove, and soon they were surrounded by thin white tree trunks and green leaves that fluttered in the breeze.

  Stovi took the lead and talked shop with Aaron, Patton trotting along with them. Teagan and Diana followed, conversing among themselves. Once out of the aspen grove, they entered a meadow with golden grasses and a few wildflowers. The shadows of the rocky peaks inched across the meadow as the sun began its descent. Teagan breathed it all in, relieved and grateful for the natural world she had access to, the world Grandpa Larry had taught her to appreciate. She also appreciated having friends to enjoy it with. She could camp by herself, and she had many times, including during her marriage. But it was much more fun with others.

  Back at camp, they broke out the wine and beer and sat down at one of their picnic tables.

  “Nice hike, huh?” Stovi said.

  “Perfect,” Teagan replied.

  “That aspen grove was amazing,” Diana said. “In a month, it’s going to be bright orange and gold. Like Teagan’s tattoo.”

  “Is that what that is?” Aaron asked. “An aspen tree?”

  Teagan nodded, a little embarrassed, knowing how he’d come to see that tattoo. There was a moment of awkwardness before Stovi went on.