Fall

by Cora Brent

  I was also starting to think my cousins were right; I ought to get the hell out of Emblem. Every day the desert looked more desolate, its residents more lost. Long term strategies had never been my thing. One upon a time, I’d signed a document binding me the United States Marine Corps with scarcely a thought other than an abrupt need to see something other than the Main Street of Emblem. Then I put a ring on a girl’s finger, thinking I wasn’t doing anything better at the moment so I might as well give that a try, and it ended up being the shortest, saddest chapter of my sorry ass life. After the American government was done spinning me around its international whirlpool for half a decade, I returned to the place I’d once been itching to abandon. And here I got my hands dirty, never really bothering to wipe them clean. I had an ownership stake in a half dozen legitimate business enterprises and twice that many disreputable ones. There were always more women lurking around than I could make use for and none of them meant a fucking thing. It was a pale imitation of living and I knew it but I couldn’t make myself care about much. My folks were gone, I had few real friends and human relations in general seemed fucking pointless. The only people I still had it left in me to care about were my cousins. Yet if anyone had suggested that I was struggling through some inner torment I would have laughed or punched, depending on whether the speaker had a pussy or a dick.

  And now there was Jenny. Where did she fit into all of that? She hadn’t asked me again about my claim that I’d been married. Just like I hadn’t asked her for details on the strange circumstances she was raised in, and the cruel way she’d been forsaken by her parents. We were both in silent agreement that some things didn’t need to be laid bare. We were both trying to bury the most painful shit deep.

  She was watching me again. “What are you thinking about?”

  “You,” I said truthfully, pulling her into my lap and jarring my head out of the past. We were at Cord’s house. Jenny giggled and kissed my neck while in the background Chase and Creed were arguing over who would cut the stupid cake.

  “Oh for crying out loud,” complained Stephanie, pushing her boyfriend aside and grabbing the knife from a startled Creedence. “It’ll be your next birthday before you guys sort it out.” She quickly cut pieces of the cake Truly had baked and started briskly handing them out while Chase stood behind her with his eyes locked on her ass. He was wearing a pink party hat on his head.

  “Eat your cake,” Stephanie told him, shoving a plate in his direction.

  “Let’s eat it together,” he grinned with obvious sexual intent and her face reddened but she smiled anyway.

  “Later,” she promised and Chase seemed happy enough with that answer. He sat down on the couch between Saylor and Cord and devoured his birthday cake.

  I accepted a piece of cake from Stephanie and caught the way she grinned at Jenny. It was a little surreal being at a birthday celebration for the triplets. When they were kids their Emblem parties used to be rather lackluster. My mother always found time to bake a cake for them, knowing their own mother was too lost in her own disasters to do it. Once Benton had thrown them something of a party, featuring pony rides and shit but it turned out to be a sick joke. The horse was a wild piece of hell and would buck like crazy every time she felt weight on her back. Yet that didn’t stop Benton from hauling all three of his boys up there, one by one, laughing like a motherfucker as they clutched the horse’s mane in terror before being thrown off. Cord earned a dislocated shoulder out of that. At least I thought I remembered it being Cord that time. Between the three of them there were too many Benton-inflicted childhood mishaps to keep it all straight. Good god, had it really been twenty-three years? Twenty-three years since that night when my mother held me as we watched the snow fall, when she prayed to god to safely deliver the boys and their mother from the evil that threatened their lives. Long time, twenty-three years. And yet not long at all.

  Later, when I was standing in front of the kitchen sink and trying to unclog the garbage disposal, Creed knocked into me from behind. Creed tended to show affection that way.

  “What’s with the girl?” he asked, belching.

  “What girl?”

  “The cute redhead you’ve been towing everywhere lately.”

  “I acquired a personal mascot. You like her?”

  “Do you?”

  “She’s entertaining,” I said and then grimaced while pulling a bent fork out of the depths of the sink.

  Creed nodded and tilted his head thoughtfully. “It’s been nice.”

  “How would you know? I don’t even know.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Seriously? You haven’t hit that yet?”

  I glanced at the door. Chase was loudly teasing Cord and I could pick out Jenny’s laughter from that of the other girls. Her laugh was a high, sweet giggle. “Let’s change the damn subject.”

  “That wasn’t what was on my mind anyway. I meant it’s been nice seeing you around so much.”

  I flipped the switch to the garbage disposal and the thing purred to life. Creedence cleared his throat and exhaled thickly. I stared at him for a minute while he looked uncomfortable.

  “So what’s up, Creed? You didn’t follow me in here to gossip about girls.”

  “No,” he admitted. “Just been thinking a lot lately.”

  Shit. I knew whatever was coming was bound to be about Emblem. I waited for it anyway.

  Creed closed his eyes briefly and when he opened them there was pain there. “I hate him.”

  There was no need to ask who he was talking about. “I know.”

  “Sometimes it would get so thick that was all there was. I couldn’t drink it away or hide it deep enough. It’s better now. Partly because of Truly and partly because time does that I guess.”

  I couldn’t tell him anything that would remove all the old misery. I didn’t understand what it was like to be raised by a tyrant who destroyed everything he touched and never allowed you to forget how much he hated you. Watching from a distance isn’t the same thing, even though if I closed my eyes right now I could still summon the horror of leaving my baby cousin behind as I carried his brothers to safety. In a way Creed was looking to me for comfort. His memories were awful and they would always be awful. I wished I could tell him what it meant to see the three of them together now. They were good men, they were strong men. There was a version of Maggie I remembered well from that ancient day when Benton brought his radiant bride home to the desert. That Maggie would have been fiercely proud of them. But telling Creed all of that wouldn’t have helped anything. All I had to offer was the only worthwhile thing I had learned so far.

  “You know that old saying about time healing old wounds? It’s bullshit, Creedence. Time doesn’t heal. But if you’re lucky it’ll help blunt the edges a bit.”

  Creed nodded. “You’ve got your wounds too I’m sure.”

  “A few.”

  He grinned. “I think that girl out there would sure like to help you get over them.”

  I was about to say I might like to let her try when Truly came into the room. Her face was flushed and she scolded both of us, demanding that we rejoin the party, where Chase had just had an epiphany of sorts. He was standing in the middle of the living room as if he was about to recite a toast.

  “It’s a poetically filthy coincidence and it’ll only come around once.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Cord asked, snuggling on the couch with Saylor and her giant stomach.

  “We’re twenty-three.”

  “I know I’m not the brains in the family but I’m not going to forget how old we are, Chasyn.”

  “What’s twenty three times three?”

  “Oh sweet Jesus,” Cord moaned, catching on. “Don’t, I beg you.”

  But everyone else in the room had already done the math while Chase grabbed Stephanie and howled. “Sixty fucking nine, sweetheart!”

  Only Jenny looked a little nonplussed. She shrugged over the joke while the others laughed amid C
hase’s wild hooting.

  “You’re gonna deafen my kids before they’re born,” Cord grumbled, putting a protective hand over Say’s belly.

  Chase stopped whirling Stephanie around and scowled at his brother. “Oh my god, Saylor. Have you sedated all of Cordero’s pleasure senses?”

  Saylor threw a couch pillow. “Shut up, Chase. He gets plenty of pleasure.”

  I stopped listening to the ruckus and watched Jenny instead. She stood a little apart from the group, shyly watchful. I had learned that the jeans and old cowboy boots she wore tonight were much more her style than the sexed out getup she was wearing the night we met. She looked good this way, far better than the fuckbunny vibe she’d been searching for in the Dirty Cactus. That didn’t mean I wasn’t having some thoughts though. I let my gaze travel to the V between her legs and imagined getting some good old fashioned sixty nine action out of that hot place. Tonight might be it. It just fucking might. I was staying in a corporate housing suite that was in a decent neighborhood and I was sick of playing the Boy Scout, sleeping alone and beating off my own shit because every other woman looked cheap and ordinary except this one.

  Jenny noticed me staring at her. She tossed her red hair behind one shoulder and bit her lip as she headed over.

  “Hey,” she said, tilting her face up for a kiss. She was probably searching for a quick peck but that’s not what I gave her. I circled my hand around the back of her neck and slid my tongue into her mouth, enjoying the way she eagerly pressed against me.

  I moved my lips to her neck. “Want me to show you?” I whispered in her ear.

  “What?” she asked, so softly I could barely hear her.

  “What the joke means, baby.” Shit, I was hard. I was used to being hard every time she was near, and then not going far enough for satisfaction. I stepped back night after night and barely understood why, other than the vague realization that there was something exceptional about this girl. She was getting to me, to a place I thought was permanently numb, if not dead. What the hell would happen once I got inside of her? I might be coldly satisfied and able to move on. Maybe once I fucked her I could return to the callous mindset I’d been keeping company with for so long, the one that insisted that disposable women were the only ones I deserved. I didn’t think so though. But I might go the other way and unwittingly drag us both into a yawning void of wreckage. After all, I’d done it before.

  “Yes,” she said clearly, looking me in the eye and delivering a challenge. “Show me, Declan.”

  Only then did I realize that the room had quieted. They were all staring at us.

  “So I guess you’ll be leaving now,” Chase said with a smirk.

  “Hell yeah,” I said smoothly, leading Jenny to the door. “Happy birthday, boys. And good night, ladies.”

  “They’ll be talking about us, won’t they?” asked Jenny with a smile as I lifted her onto my bike.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Well then,” she said, holding onto me as I started the engine. “Let’s give life to the rumors.”

  I’d gotten sick of cheesy dives and rented an extended-stay suite for the month. It was just as I was pulling into a parking spot that I felt my phone buzzing. I was tempted to ignore it. There was no one who’d be calling me that I gave a shit about. We’d just left the boys and Jenny was here with me. Any business that needed to be taken care of could wait until tomorrow. Still, I glanced at my phone as Jenny climbed off my bike. A 520 area code, a number ID’d as ‘Char Roy’. It was Charlie Royner, longtime friend and owner of the Dirty Cactus bar. What the hell could he want? I held up one finger to Jenny and answered the phone.

  “Charlie.”

  “Deck,” he said in a breathless voice. “Listen, I know you ain’t in town right now but figured you’d want to know that Gaps hauled off Benton a few hours ago.”

  Fred ‘Gaps’ Driscoll had a space between his front teeth wide enough for a two by four to sail through. He was also a county sheriff’s deputy and an all around good guy. If he’d collared Benton he must have had a reason, a justified one.

  “What’d he do, fall off the bar stool and swing at a few bystanders?”

  “Not quite. He got into a scuffle with McCann, then pissed on the hood of McCann’s car. Gaps tried to shoo him off without bringing him in but you know that cheese dick never walks away quietly. After Benton charged, Gaps had no choice but to take him down and shove him into the squad car.”

  I rubbed my right temple as Jenny watched me curiously. It wouldn’t pain me much to see Benton take a stretch in lockup and it wouldn’t be his first time there anyway. Charlie wasn’t done delivering news yet though.

  “And then Maggie stumbled through the door a little while ago, looking for Bent I guess. I’ve got her in the back room and she don’t seem to know where she is. Shit, Deck, she looks like death. Must be forty fucking degrees out there and she walked in barefoot, wearing nothing but a filthy slip. Can’t remember the last time I saw her. Must have been a good five years, maybe about the time the triplets ran out of town.”

  My stomach dropped. “You mean Maggie’s there? In the Dirty Cactus?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fuck.” I pictured my aunt; wide-eyed, shivering and half brain dead, roaming around the desert nearly naked.

  Charlie sighed. “Place is pretty empty right now but she scared the lights out of a few folks and they might call it in.” He paused and the weight of the distance between me and Emblem hung heavy in the air. “What do you want me to do, Deck?”

  There weren’t any other Gentrys to call. None who would be willing to scrape a sick, shattered woman off the floor and see her safely home. The boys would go if they knew, but in a flash I pictured my cousins as they’d been this evening; peaceful and happy in the presence of the women who loved them. I could spare them this sad indignity. I could go instead.

  “Just keep it quiet, Charlie. Give her a few drinks if you have to. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Jenny’s soft arms went around me the second I ended the call. I kissed her forehead.

  “Got some trouble, babe,” I said by way of apology.

  She rested her head on my chest. “I figured out that much. Can I get a rain check for another night?”

  “There will be a lot of other nights, Jenny.”

  She lifted her head and gave me a happy smile. “That’s the first time you’ve done that.”

  “What?”

  “Hinted that you want this to keep going.”

  I closed my eyes and leaned into her for a moment, wondering what the hell to say. I knew that I cared for Jenny, that I wanted her, and that there was all kinds of crazy shit starting up my bruised heart because of her, but I just didn’t have any pretty words to add. As far as Jenny was concerned though, I’d given her all the confirmation she needed. She stayed in my arms for a few more moments until I gently placed the helmet back on her head for the ride to her building. I parked around back and offered her one of the card keys to the suite.

  “Look, I might be stuck down in Emblem for a few days. I’ve got the place paid up for a while though so if you want some peace and quiet away from the dorm feel free to use it. Room two sixteen.”

  She held me and I hugged her hard, wishing for all the world I could just carry her off and forget about the mess that awaited me eighty miles away. I meant what I said about other nights. They would happen. I was determined now. This girl was too good to let go of.

  “Drive safe,” she said and started to move away but I pulled her back to me, picking her up and carrying her to the shadows behind the building. There were voices around, but no one was too close. At first I only meant to kiss her, every bit as hard as I wanted to fuck her. But she broke away and moaned in my ear, running her tongue along my neck.

  “Want you so much,” she whispered and I couldn’t let that go by, not this time. I got my hands inside her pants and yanked her jeans over her hips.

  “Shh,” I soothed, when she loo
ked around, startled. “No one can see, baby.” Her panties were down and I had one hand braced against her lower back and the other one inside of her.

  “Declan,” she said in small whimper as I kept moving my hand in a slow, merciless assault on her sweet pussy.

  “Honey, next time it’ll be my cock in there. You want that?”

  “Yeah,” she breathed, straining and moving in rhythm. “That’s all I think about. Deck, I make myself come all the time imagining it.”

  She would be the death of me. My dick was ready to explode inside my pants. “Holy shit, tell me that again.”

  She was moaning, shaking “I’m almost there.”

  “I know, baby.”

  She was close. I needed to release as much as she did but I had to hold back or else I’d be fucking her against the side of the building right now and that wasn’t how it should be with us. Jenny wrapped her arms around my neck and I pushed my thumb straight up as she gasped.

  “Tell me again,” I insisted.

  “I want you, Deck,” she moaned. “I get myself off all the time thinking about you.”

  “That’s it, let it come. Jenny, you’re gonna show that to me next time. And I’m gonna show you everything else.” I pulled my fingers out and slid them back in, feeling like William the fucking Conquerer when she cried out and buried her face in my shoulder to quiet the sound. I shielded her until after every last tremor had subsided and she was able to put her clothes all back together.

  “Deck,” she said and I silenced her with a kiss.

  “That was just a taste, baby. Something for you to think about until I can give you the real thing.”

  “Now,” she whispered and went for my pants.

  “Soon,” I promised and gave her the deepest, most impassioned kiss of my life. I put more of me into that kiss than just the pledge of my dick. It was everything I couldn’t say to her, everything I couldn’t wait to share with her.