A Real Goode Time

by Jasinda Wilder

  I reached for the phone. “It’s cool, I’ll say hi.”

  “She’s worse than Leighton, so just…be warned.”

  That gave him pause. “Worse…how?”

  “Exactly how am I worse than Leighton?” We both heard Lexie’s tinny voice over the phone—she’d clearly heard me.

  “She’ll ask you ridiculously inappropriate and personal questions simply for having any association with me at all.”

  “Just give him the phone, you silly twat.” Lexie was audible even from a distance.

  Torie took the phone back. “What the hell did you just call me?”

  “I mean it with love, Tor, you know that.”

  “Well, coming from someone who was majoring in women’s lit, and was all about liberation and equality and whatever, it’s kind of a gross thing to call me.”

  Lexie’s response was garbled, too muffled for me to make out, but it seemed to mollify Torie, and she handed me the phone again.

  “Hi, this is Rhys,” I said.

  “Rhys, buddy, hi, how are you?” Lexie’s voice, which I recognized from YouTube and other social media, was deceptively friendly and breezy.

  Which made me distinctly wary, considering Torie’s warning.

  “I’m good, how are you? It’s nice to meet you, sort of.”

  A pause. “Is my sister sitting right next to you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can she hear me?”

  I glanced at Torie, who was watching but didn’t give any indication that she’d heard the question.

  “I don’t know, maybe?”

  Another pause. “Have you had sex with my sister, and if not, do you plan to have sex with my sister at any point in the near future?”

  I coughed. “Well…right out with it, huh? All right, I can respect that.” I stood up, paced down the steps a ways. “If I had or hadn’t, I wouldn’t feel comfortable telling you. I haven’t met you face to face, number one, number two, that would be between Torie and me, and number three, if Torie wants you to know the answer to that, she’ll tell you. I’ve got no issue with her telling you the answer to that question, but it’s not my place to do so.”

  “Huh,” she mused. “Damn good answer. Not the one I was hoping for, but a good one.”

  “Anything else you want to know?”

  “I mean, yeah. A ton of stuff I doubt you’ll answer. What are your intentions? What do you want from her? Why are you going so far out of your way to help her? What’s going to happen between you two when she’s out here in Alaska and you’re not?”

  I barked a laugh. “Honestly, I can’t answer any of that, because I don’t really know.” I moved further down the steps, out of earshot of Torie. “Mainly because it’s not like that. It may not ever be like that. I can’t say part of me doesn’t want it to be like that because she’s cool as hell and gorgeous. But…Alaska?”

  “But Alaska, right.” She sighed. “All right, well…I can’t argue with that answer. Just…be careful with her, okay? Don’t hurt her.”

  I laughed. “She’s not delicate, Lexie. She’s strong, and she’s smart. She can take care of herself. I have no intentions of hurting her, of course, but telling me to be careful with her seems like you’re a little…unaware of her strength as a person.”

  “Damn, okay, tell me how it is.”

  “Just saying.”

  “Game respects game, Rhys. All right, give me my sister back.”

  “Yeah. Bye. Good talking to you, Lexie.”

  “You too, Rhys.”

  I went up and gave the phone back to a wary and bemused Torie. I just shrugged, grinned, and headed back inside.

  Torie was out there a few more minutes and then came in, phone in hand. “What did she ask you?”

  I debated what to say and what to not say. And in the end figured I had nothing to lose by telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. “She asked if we’d had sex, if I planned to have sex with you, what my intentions for you are, why I’m helping you, and what’s going to happen between us when you’re in Alaska and I’m here.”

  Her eyes widened, and a flush crept up into her cheeks. “And? What’d you say? About the first two questions specifically.”

  “I said it wasn’t my place to answer that, and if you wanted her to know you’d tell her. And that I had no problem with you and her talking about what you and I have and have not done together.”

  “I’m sorry she asked you that—” Torie started.

  I interrupted. “Don’t be. You’re lucky as hell to have the kind of family and friends that check in on you like this, that are willing to ask those kinds of questions. I don’t mind. I’m not going to answer questions I don’t think are my place to answer, but I respect the fact that they love you enough to ask.”

  “Your family doesn’t do that? What about friends?”

  I shrugged. I was acting more nonchalant than I perhaps felt. “Well, my family isn’t…we’re not like that. I wasn’t beat up and they weren’t alcoholics—which put me way better off than most of the kids I knew. I mean, they drank plenty and probably more than they should, but Shania’s parents were…god, they were downright evil, and drunk from wake up to pass out.” I sighed. “Anyway, no, we’re not like that. They don’t really call and check on me except maybe once a month or every other, and honestly they only call then to see if I can send ’em money. And my sister…? Well, like I said, we try to check in with one another a couple times a month. As for friends? I got some guys I’d call friends. From the jobsite, mainly. Some old clients will sometimes swing by to shoot the shit and talk cars. There’s Marty. But, honestly, no I don’t really have anyone who would check on me. I’m on my own, more or less.” I laughed bitterly. “Kinda pathetic, now that I put it in so many words.”

  “Are you a loner by nature?”

  I rolled a shoulder. “I guess so? I’ve never been the guy who has a whole, like, herd of friends. I had a buddy in middle school and high school, Dougy. We were pretty close. He’d help me salvage, and I’d give him some cash, which he’d use on booze and firecrackers.”

  “Firecrackers?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, he had a thing for blowin’ shit up. Firecrackers in middle school. But by high school he was tossing sticks of dynamite down rabbit holes.”

  She stared at me. “He’d…what?”

  I laughed. “Not with anything in ’em—he’d shove a stick down the hole first, make sure nothin’ came out. He just liked the big explosions. Never lost any fingers or anything, so he sort of knew what he was doing.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Joined the Army, went to Iraq, and stepped on an IED.” I picked at my shorts. “Went out the way he’d have wanted, though—in an explosion.” I glanced upward. “That joke was for you, Dougy.”

  She was quiet. “Wow. I’m sorry.”

  I shrugged. “The day he shipped out overseas, he called me. Said, ‘well, buddy, I’m off to get myself killed. You be good, now, hear?’ So, I think he knew, somehow.”

  She was quiet a long time. “My dad…the week before he died, we were working on the MG. He stopped, looked at me, and said, ‘Torie, I hope you know I love you, more than anything. And that I’m sorry.’” She sniffled. “I asked what he meant, but he wouldn’t say another word. One week later to the day, he died of a heart attack.”

  “God, Torie. I’m so sorry.”

  She swallowed. “I’ve never told anyone that—what he said to me. It just…it’s always freaked me out. Like, did he know? Why would he say that? I don’t think he really knew why he said what he said, because he seemed…confused. I don’t know.”

  “Death is a weird thing,” I said.

  “Sure is.”

  A silence. Long, and profound.

  “I think I’m going to go to bed,” she said. “I’m so tired.”

  I shook my head. “Go to sleep. I’ll putz around downstairs for a while.”

  She blinked, swallowed, eyed me. “You don’t have
to. I can usually fall asleep pretty easily.”

  Wish I could say the same. I had trouble falling asleep under normal circumstances—but with Torie only feet away, it’d be damn near impossible.

  But, I was tired too, and I didn’t feel like dicking around in the shop.

  What I felt like doing was climbing in with Torie and getting her naked and kissing every inch of her…

  I had to look away from her. Nodded. “Yeah, all right.”

  And so we went to our separate places.

  Sleep was a long time coming. I heard every sound she made—I was hyperaware of her. Her sniffles and snorts, each time she rustled and rolled. I fought my imagination tooth and nail, trying to keep my mind off her, to keep her clothed in my mind.

  I failed.

  Miserably.

  I kept seeing her, again and again, standing there with her shirt in her hands, looking at me, breasts bare and pale and plump and upturned and perfect and begging to be kissed and touched.

  I tossed and turned, trying to blank out my mind.

  Hours passed.

  Eventually, I gave up. I heard Torie doing her soft light snore, not really even a snore, just a loud breathing. I went downstairs and grabbed a socket wrench and attacked the front bench seat of my F-100, freeing it and hauling it out, dragging it outside to the salvage yard. I stood out there in the late night or early morning cool— I wasn’t even sure what time it was. I looked up, missing the wash and spray of stars I used to be able to see back in Kentucky. Here, there was too much light pollution. I could only really see Venus and few brighter stars.

  Lost in memory, in thought, I didn’t register the sound of the door opening and closing. Or of Torie’s presence until she was beside me. “Not many stars to see,” she said.

  I jumped. “Oh, hey. Sorry, I hope I didn’t wake you up.” I gestured up at the sky. “Nah, not too many, not around here.”

  “I’ve never been out of Connecticut.”

  I eyed her. “So you’ve never seen the stars, like for real? Out in the country, where there ain’t no lights, you can see just about every damn star there is in the galaxy.”

  She shook her head. “Nope. Suburbanite born and raised.”

  “Damn, girl.” I shook my head. “This road trip, we’ll do a section at night and stop somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. Ain’t nothin’ like it.”

  She smiled. “I’d like that.” She glanced at me. “Sometimes you sound more country than other times.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, it comes and goes. Been up here long enough I’m starting to lose the accent, and honestly I get less shit from folks if I don’t sound like a backwoods Kentucky hillbilly. Clients question me less, and take me more seriously. Fewer dumb questions. So I guess I’m working at losing it. But if I’m tired or whatever, sometimes it just…comes out.”

  “I don’t mind. I kind of like it, actually.”

  “You do?” I smirked at her, bemused.

  “Yeah. It’s cute.”

  “You don’t think it makes me sound like a mouth-breathing yokel?”

  She cackled. “No, Rhys. You’re smart, and there’s no mistaking that, no matter what you sound like.”

  “Why’re you up?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Woke up to pee and you weren’t there. Wondered where you’d got off to.”

  “I…couldn’t sleep.”

  Her eyes bored into me. “Because of me?”

  I tipped my head side to side. “Not in the sense that you did anything. Just…I’m used to being alone.”

  “Don’t bullshit me.”

  “What do you want to hear, Torie?”

  “The real reason you couldn’t sleep.”

  I turned to face her, leaned back against the rusted hulk of an ’89 LeSabre. “The real reason? Sure you want that? I don’t think you do.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because it’s you. You’re the reason I can’t sleep. I get stuck thinking about you.” I held her gaze. “About you in that fucking wet T-shirt.” I swallowed hard. “You without any shirt at all. I didn’t mean for any of that to happen, and I mean that as true as my own name. But now I can’t sleep for thinking about you, like that.”

  She was blushing, I was sure, though I couldn’t really tell in the middle-of-the-night gloom of shadows, and the dull waning crescent moon glow. “Rhys…”

  “Told you.” I turned away. Peeled at a chunk of paint on the LeSabre’s hood. “It ain’t your fault, nor mine. And I know, you don’t want to start anything, because of your trip to Alaska. And I get it. I respect it. But you wanted the truth? There it is. I can’t sleep for thinking about how goddamn sexy you are, whether you’re in clothes or topless, and damn if I don’t want to see more of you—every damn inch of you bare. I won’t push it. I’ll keep my shit contained. But yeah, Torie…I’m thinking about you naked. And picturing doing things to you that’d make you blush so hard you’d start a fire.”

  She didn’t say anything. Her eyes didn’t leave me for a long, long time. Her mouth opened, closed. Her fingers twisted at the bottom of her T-shirt. Eventually, her gaze dropped, and she reached into the pocket of her shorts—tiny little things that only just covered her butt.

  I couldn’t make out much, but I knew what she was doing—lifting the little tube to her mouth, lighting, inhaling. Holding.

  She passed it to me, and I gratefully took it, lit it, and dragged on it; I’d slept like a baby last time, and maybe this would help me get some sleep tonight. I handed it back. “Thanks.”

  “I lied,” she said, barely audible.

  “About?”

  “I woke up because I had a dream about you.”

  “Good dream?”

  “A confusing dream. Because I…I want things. But…I’m afraid if I get involved with you, even just…just temporarily, I’ll get…messed up. Attached. Involved. Wanting more than what it is. You’ve got your life here, and mine is…I don’t even know. Leighton and Jillie don’t think I’m coming back. And part of me thinks they’re right. So, I…I want things, but I’m scared. And…there’s other stuff that I…that I can’t really talk about.”

  I had a dozen different responses to that, and no idea which to say. “Torie, I…”

  “You don’t have to say anything, Rhys. It’s just safest for my heart if I don’t let anything start. But don’t think I don’t want to. That I don’t feel…this.”

  “Is this road trip a bad idea?” I asked, keeping my voice low, because if I was too loud, she might hear things I was feeling that I didn’t want her hear.

  “Probably,” she laughed. “But smoking pot is the only interesting thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket. Never gone anywhere. Never had a boyfriend. A lot of nevers—my whole fucking life is a list of ‘I’ve never.’ So…a bad idea, yeah, but I want to go on a road trip with a guy I just met. I guy I like—a superhot guy who’s attracted to me, who’s seen me half-naked, who wants to do things to me that I’m probably better off not knowing about. A guy who, in the interests of self-preservation, I shouldn’t let anything happen with. A guy I like more than I’ve ever liked anyone. It’s crazy, and maybe irresponsible. But I want to do it, just to say I’ve done at least one crazy, possibly irresponsible thing in my life.”

  “You got a bucket list, Torie?” I asked.

  “A bucket list?” she repeated.

  “Yeah, like a list of things you haven’t ever done that you really want to do before you die.”

  She mused thoughtfully. “I mean, yeah. Sure. A lot of stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  She laughed. “Some of them are embarrassing.”

  “So?”

  She eyed me. “You can’t laugh at me.”

  I laughed anyway. “How about I promise if I do laugh, it won’t be out of meanness, and I won’t make fun of you.”

  “Fair enough.” She took a deep breath; held it, let it out; her words coming out in a rush, toppling over e
ach other. “I want to go skinny-dipping. I want to drive a car more than a hundred miles per hour. I want to be kissed in the rain like Noah and Ally from The Notebook.” She hesitated. “I want…I want to have sex in the bed of a pickup truck under the stars. I want to give a man a blowjob for no reason at all, surprise him with it. Maybe in a car while he’s driving, I haven’t decided. I want a guy to…to go down on me for no reason, and want nothing in return. I want to get a mani-pedi and a massage and a facial all in the same day. I want to go to a fancy steakhouse and order the most expensive thing on the menu. I want to stay in bed all day, watching movies and having crazy hot monkey sex and smoking copious amounts of marijuana. I want…I want to fall in love and have the man I love tell me I’m his everything. Because I’ve never felt like anyone’s everything and I want to know what that feels like.” She exhaled sharply, glanced at me. “There. The list, which no one else on the planet, even Jillie and Leighton, has ever heard. Now you tell me yours.”

  I hesitated. “I gotta be honest, then, since you were.” I spent a moment in silence, considering. “I want to restore a classic pickup, one of the really valuable ones, like a ’48 Dodge Power Wagon, and do it without sparing any expense, and I want to sell it at Mecum. I want to make a million dollars before I’m forty. I want a big family, someday. Like, way in the future someday, but I do. I was lonely as a kid, and I just…yeah. I want a big family. I want…I want to be with someone, someday, who I can wake up with and have lazy morning sex with. I want to sell a car I’ve restored to someone famous. Stupid, I know, but whatever. I want to be woken up by a blowjob. I want to see the Grand Canyon. I want to fly an airplane. I want to see a whale. Stupidest one yet, but I want a big surprise birthday party. I’ve never had a birthday party. Folks were too poor. Mom’d make me a cupcake and put one candle in it, and Dad would give me whatever cash he had left from paying bills that month.”

  We looked at one another and a million things passed unsaid between us. “Seems like some of those things sorta match mine,” she said.

  I cleared my throat. “I noticed that, too.” I laughed. “Never thought I’d tell anyone any of that.”