Taking the Highway

by M. H. Mead

  “What?” Andre whipped his head around, but Oliver was already charging through the crowd. Andre followed blindly through the dim center of the green where the gaslights did not quite penetrate. As they got farther from the band, he started to make out two distinct voices—Topher and Bob. The crowd had formed a ring around them in the classic schoolyard way.

  Topher’s voice rose above the crowd. “As if a fart-rammer like you would dare to set one foot in the disincorporated zone.”

  With great dignity, Bob looked down at Topher and proclaimed, “You, sir, are a piss-diddling muff nugget.”

  The spectators erupted in delighted, nervous laughter. Topher’s face darkened with embarrassed blood and his voice became a growl. “You stupid faggot.”

  “What did you call me?”

  “You heard me.”

  Andre rushed forward, ready to step in front of the first swinging fist, but was stopped by Oliver’s hand digging into his shoulder.

  Oliver pulled him close and hissed into his ear. “Solve this. Now.” He let go and walked away. He shook hands, smiled, held out his arms, trying to block the embarrassing scene with his body.

  Andre looked around for Sofia, or the patrolman who guarded the door, since this was what they’d been hired for. But Oliver seemed to expect more of the finesse of a fourth than the directness of a cop.

  That might be what Oliver wanted, but that wasn’t what he was going to get. Andre was sick and tired of playing politician, with his brother or anyone else. Oliver wanted it solved? Fine. The quickest way was to remove the problem. Donor or not, Topher Price-Powell was the problem.

  Andre charged into the center of the circle and saw the kind of blunt posturing that men do right before they slug one another. Bob’s orientation didn’t matter in the least, here. A gay man was still a man. In this case, a very red-faced, very heavy-breathing man who was not backing down despite Topher’s constant shoving of his shoulder. Andre had to be quick. With all these people watching and evaluating, Bob and Topher could lock horns faster than he could step between them.

  “Let’s go,” Topher said. “Come on. Me and you. Right now. Let’s go.”

  “You want to do this?” Bob asked, smacking Topher’s arm aside. “Do you really want to do this?”

  “No,” Andre said firmly. “He does not.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Fade,” Andre told Bob. “Mr. Price-Powell and I are going for a walk.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Topher said. “Fuck you, Un-cle An-dre.”

  A soft Ohhh worked through the crowd. If Andre ended this now, it would be a funny story for the guests to tell later. Five seconds more and it would be an ugly embarrassment.

  Bob hadn’t moved, and Andre realized that he couldn’t. To run away now would be to concede the fight. Neither man would leave unless forced to.

  “You’re right,” he said to Topher. “You have had too much to drink.” He took one quick step to the side, directly behind Topher. He snaked a hand under Topher’s armpit, up the back of his neck, and grabbed a fist full of hair. From the front, it looked like he was supporting Topher like a buddy, preventing him from falling. Andre was taller, which meant all he had to do was stand straight to pull Topher’s shoulder and his hair. If he leaned forward, the smallest push would send Topher to the ground. His foot, slightly angled and directly next to Topher’s, would trip him, and he was in position to kick Topher’s feet out from under him if he had to.

  A trained fighter might be able to get out of the hold, twist and roll, or land a punch, but Topher was not a trained fighter. He had to keep moving in the direction that Andre guided him—right to the front gates.

  They moved through the crowd and off the green, down the road past the mercifully silent carousel and the dark historic buildings. Topher cursed him every step of the way.

  “Uncle Andre!” Nikhil trailed along behind them. “Uncle Andre, you’re causing a scene.”

  Andre stopped next to the cobbler shop and looked at the empty main street. “Scene’s over.”

  “Quit it, just let him go.”

  “Let me go!” Topher echoed.

  “No choice,” Andre told Nikhil. “I have to kick him out.”

  They’d reached the brick archway where the foppish doorman still waited. Andre untangled himself from Topher, giving him a little shove. “Mr. Price-Powell is leaving,” he told the doorman. “He won’t be back.”

  Topher straightened up and stared at Andre with a mixture of disbelief and icy hate. “Fine. I’m out of here. Nikhil, stay if you want.” He turned and walked through the arch.

  Nikhil started to follow and Andre caught his sleeve, holding him back. “You’d do that to your dad? I mean, politics is politics, but family is—”

  “Also politics,” Nikhil said. “At least in some families.”

  Topher stopped in the archway and called back to Nikhil. “Are you coming or not?”

  Andre jerked his head in that direction. “That guy worth it?”

  Nikhil shook off Andre’s hand. “Topher isn’t faked. He’s worth ten of my dad.”

  Andre watched him go, Topher gesturing wildly, Nikhil trailing along. Any other day, he’d be ready to agree with his nephew about his brother’s shortcomings, but watching Nikhil follow Topher Price-Powell into the night left Andre feeling cold with disappointment. Betrayed.

  He turned back to the party and hadn’t gone ten steps before he saw Oliver marching toward him, still carrying his drink in one hand, a brightly-lit datapad in the other.

  “What did you do?” Oliver demanded.

  “Me? I did exactly what you asked.”

  “You removed my son from the party?”

  “No,” Andre said, drawing out the syllable. “I got rid of the asshole.”

  “My son went with that asshole.”

  “You wanted me to leave the asshole at the party?”

  “I wanted you to remove the asshole you brought.”

  “Bob?”

  “Yes!” Oliver exploded. “Take care of your own asshole!”

  “I was trying to take care of you!”

  “So now I’m the asshole?”

  Andre pointed to Oliver’s blinking datapad. “You’ll use all the tech you want out here, but heaven forbid you touch it in front of one of your big contributors. Wouldn’t want them to know who you really are.”

  Oliver turned his back to Andre, toward his party. He pointed his entire arm. “Who I am at that party is who I really am.”

  Andre circled in front of him. “What, a hypocrite?”

  “Fuck you, little brother. You think you know me? You think you know what I’m really like? You don’t know anything.”

  “I know enough. Asshole doesn’t begin to cover it. Jesus, Oliver, even your own kid thinks you’re so full of bullshit you grow sunflowers out of your butt.”

  “You’re the kid! All I do is take care of you.” Oliver fumbled in his pocket and alarms rushed through Andre’s body. All of his police training told him to watch hands. Watch where they go. Careful of pockets. He could be reaching for anything.

  But Oliver simply pulled out the most powerful weapon he had—his wallet. He opened it and peeled off three bills. “Here’s your three hundred. No, make it four.”

  “Forget it, old man. I’m not taking your money.” Four bills. That’s all Oliver thought a brother was worth. Worse, before the end of the night, Andre would probably accept it.

  Oliver looked over Andre’s shoulder and snapped his fingers. “Ah, finally, there’s that eighty-nine. Please escort my brother out of here.” He gestured for the doorman. “Fred, you help.”

  “I got this,” Sofia said from behind him.

  Andre kept his eyes on his brother. “Stay out of this, Sofia.”

  “I can’t.”

  Andre’s hands were empty. Nothing to throw, nothing to break. So, it would have to be hand-to-hand. Oliver was a soft target. He’d be on the ground in no time.

 
; Sofia stepped into his line of vision. He tried to duck around her but she moved with him. “Just give me one minute, Andre. Just step outside with me for one minute and we’ll get some air.” She took a step closer, then another, still speaking in a soft, steady tone. How did she sound so calm when the very air around them seemed tinted with rage? “Give me sixty seconds,” she said. “After that, if you want to come back and hit your brother, I won’t stop you.”

  “No one’s hitting anyone!” Oliver yelled.

  “Please.” Sofia ignored Oliver, holding Andre’s eyes with her own small black ones. “Step outside with me right now.” She was speaking to him. Only to him. Her voice was cool water, a slow-moving stream. He could listen to this voice.

  “One minute,” he said.

  “That’s all I’m asking.”

  “Then he’s dead.”

  “Your choice.”

  Andre shook his head, trying to clear it. “One single minute.”

  “I’m done for the night.” She took his arm. “Let’s go.”

  SOFIA KEPT HER ARM linked in his all the way across the lawn to the parking lot, pretending that he was escorting her, instead of the other way around. They didn’t speak as they passed the clock tower and the antique autos, across what felt like three kilometers of manicured grass. Her car, a midnight-black Banshee, unlocked itself at her approach and she walked him to his side of it and waited until he was settled in the passenger seat before getting behind the wheel. “Where to?”

  Andre slumped against the door and mumbled his address to her companel.

  “You live in Novi?” Sofia raised her eyebrows.

  Andre was good and tired of that reaction. Single cops lived in the city if they could afford it. Married ones tended toward respectable blue-collar suburbs Downriver, full of hard-working people who were happy to call themselves Detroiters and grateful not to live near the oh-zone. But the wide swath of zone on the city’s west side cheapened property in Novi and points further west. The longer commute also meant fourths could command higher prices. It was the perfect combination. Andre could not only afford a house, but a house with a garage. A garage that—if there was any justice in the world—would hold a 2008 Dodge Challenger. So far, Oliver had refused to visit. Afraid he might have to approve.

  “I live in Novi,” he said flatly. He didn’t feel like explaining. Not today. Not to her.

  Sofia tilted her head in a half shrug and pushed the starter. The car tried to play music for her but she canceled all selections. They rode in silence.

  Studying her profile in the river of passing lights, it occurred to Andre that he was being less than gracious. None of this was her fault. “Thank you.”

  Sofia turned an incredulous look at him. “For what?”

  “For getting me out of there. For shoving me in a car before things got worse. I’m sorry about that.” He concentrated on the dark screen of his silent datapad. His police phone implant was also silent. He’d shut it down as soon as he’d entered the car. He was done with this day. Sofia didn’t say as much, but he had the feeling she’d shut off her implant too.

  “I’m the one who should be sorry,” she said.

  That brought his head up and around. “For what?”

  “I didn’t want to jump into the middle of a family matter, but I was hired to work security and I didn’t want a fight.”

  “Especially if the host is involved.”

  “Look, I was hired to do a job and I did it. I couldn’t embarrass your brother, so I got you out before you two started slugging each other.”

  “We wouldn’t.” Andre looked out the window at the river of cars below them. They were on 94’s service drive, about to get on. “We never have.”

  “Never?”

  “I’m ten years younger than him. I wasn’t worth beating up.”

  “Really?” A sparkle of lights danced across her face as Overdrive took over. “I’d beat you up for free.”

  “Oh. Tempting offer.”

  “I’m serious, LaCroix. You, me, training mats. Any time you want.”

  “Are you threatening to take me down? Offering?”

  “Take down, not go down.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  “Shut up.” But she was smiling too.

  “I don’t have to shut up,” he said. “You’re not the boss of me.”

  “Yes, I kind of am.”

  “What are the chances of you abusing your authority?”

  “You like taking orders?”

  “Depends on who is ordering what.”

  “You’re into the kink, are you, Andre?” Sofia waved her hands above the wheel. “A little spankety-spank?”

  “We’re getting dangerously close to policewoman cliché. Are you going to cuff me to a bed and have your way with me?”

  Sofia snorted. “You wish.”

  And even though it wasn’t funny at all, he found himself laughing. Laughing so hard that his midsection hurt. He thought he was laughing at Sofia, but it didn’t feel spiteful, or justified. It felt like a release. He knew it was mostly delayed reaction to the tension of a public spectacle, but it was so good to cut loose. He’d been undercover in Internal Affairs, but there was something about this case that was different. It was more draining, more subsuming of his identity—which itself was odd since he was, in fact, being more himself as a fourth. Wasn’t he?

  Sofia must have felt it too because her pout turned into a smile, and then she was giggling with him, holding her hand a few centimeters in front of her mouth.

  Andre’s laughter vanished as quickly as it came. He grabbed Sofia’s hand, and without a thought, pulled her toward him. Her face turned to his and their mouths met. Her lips were soft, her tongue agile, darting against his teasingly, her mouth tasting faintly of the coffee she’d been drinking.

  And then it was over and her eyes were wide, staring back into his. “This is a very bad idea.”

  Andre breathed out and touched his forehead to hers. “I know.”

  She put both hands on his cheeks and tilted her face to his. The kiss resumed with even greater urgency.

  “THIS IS A BAD IDEA.”

  “You’re right,” Andre said. “It’s a terrible idea.” He keyed past his alarms and swept her inside, kicking the door shut behind them without breaking away. Fastenings opened, buttons were slipped and in a few cases flew to freedom. A trail of discarded clothing followed them toward the bedroom, then veered to the couch. The light of moon and streetlight streamed in the window, painting her body in electric hues. Sofia moaned and pulled his head down to one of her tiny nipples, rock hard in his mouth. He traced circles around the aureole of the other breast with his fingertips and a long line down her body with lips and tongue.

  She lay across the couch and parted her legs obligingly as he knelt between them. “Oh, Andre.” There was a husky roughness to her voice he’d never imagined. It was a delight to know it was for him. He tasted her, raising her taut legs over his shoulders and feeling her heels dig against his shoulder blades. She said his name again, twining strong fingers into his hair and then stroking his neck softly before grasping again, raising her hips and quivering, shaking, trembling, exploding.

  She tugged his face up to hers and sucked softly on his lips and tongue, stealing his breath away and giving it back to him, warmer and urgent.

  “So, do you want to?” Andre whispered.

  “Want to . . . what?”

  “Have your way with me. I think I have some zipcuffs around here somewhere.”

  “Shut up and get over here.” Her hands reached down and grasped him with firm insistence, stroking, smoothing, relaxing, returning. He slid around her and onto the couch, lifting her by the hips and turning her so her thighs were balanced over his. She moved onto him slowly, so that the very tip of him grazed and traced her nether lips. She barely had time to grab his shoulders before he jerked her hips forward and buried himself in her.

  It might have been seconds or minutes
before the resulting kiss ended and they started to move together. Now the light from outside was a nimbus that played through Sofia’s hair and over her shoulders and only spilled across her face when she threw back her head and cried his name again. Too close! Too soon! He closed his eyes and counted prime numbers, trying to hold on.

  He felt her clench around him and gasped when she bit his earlobe, hard. “Come. Right. Now.”

  He shuddered, thrust, shuddered again. In the midst of the frantic grasping, clutching, straining, she gently closed her lips over his and shared a measured, calming breath with him, back and forth and back. She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. He guessed she was waiting for him to withdraw and pulled her closer instead. She giggled naughtily and moved in response. “Hmmm?”

  “It’ll be a few minutes before . . .”

  “Really?” she said lazily, rocking back a little and then forward to kiss him lightly, then back again. “How long do I have?”

  Andre stroked the inside of her thighs, her lower belly, the underswell of her breasts. “How long do you need?”

  Her breathing had quickened again and her voice gasped, “Not very long.”

  He kissed her throat and she moved his fingers insistently to her nipples and held them there until he tightened, pinching softly, softly, harder.

  “Yes!” she crowed exultantly, moving with greater and greater urgency. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  “ARE YOU LIKELY TO get noise complaints from the neighbors?”

  Andre laughed and explained that since he’d saved the entire block from being systematically burgled the previous Fourth of July, his neighbors were more likely to throw him a party than complain.

  They moved to the bedroom at his suggestion and over her perfunctory protests about returning to her own home.

  “You’ll just have to come back here and get me in the morning. My car is still over at the Village.” He had more arguments ready, but she acquiesced with a wicked grin.

  “I figure I still owe you,” she said, reaching down to touch him gently.

  “Are we going to keep score?”

  She draped her clothes over the back of a chair, piling her underthings on the seat. She whistled appreciatively at the acreage of his bed and crawled in cautiously. “I feel like I might need GPS to find my way back out. What’s the story here? Orgies?”