by Brynn Hale
And she’s gone.
“Whoa…” Kohl, the custodial engineer, turns his head quickly and closes his eyes. “Dude…”
“You saw nothing.”
“Damn straight.”
“And would you do me a favor?” I pull out a hundred from my pocket. “Would you clean up the mess on the roof?”
Kohl’s eyes scan me and one side of his mouth sneers. “Sushi? Really, Dexx.”
“Dude, this wasn’t some—” I swallow. What was this really? “This was something special.”
“Just go. I’ll get it done. And keep your money. If you have to buy flowers to make up for shit, you’re gonna need it. But you owe me one.”
I race down the stairs and when I’m buckled up, into the office.
I get to her cubicle, but she’s not there.
Bathroom.
I walk to the bathroom and wait outside. And wait. And…
I pull out my phone.
Dexx: Where are you?
Aine: I headed home.
Dexx: Come to my place.
Aine: Dexx, I need some space. I need to get away and think for the weekend. I’ll never regret what happened. It was
Dexx: It was what?
Aine: Real. Maybe too real. Please, give me the weekend.
My jaw tightens. I had her in my hands. I had the real her at lunch and in the food fight. But this is the old her. This is the scared and untrusting her. I don’t like this. But I know if I go barging over there, she’s going to recoil further. She’s got to either realize I’m really real. Or we’ll have to be just a dream that never happened.
I’ll be the one in a nightmare then.
Dexx: I’ll see you on Tuesday. If you need anything, call me. To talk, to throw food, to light something on fire and put it out ;-) , I’m your man, Aine. I mean it. I. Am. Your. Man.
I’m done pussyfooting around her. She needs to hear it to believe it. I can’t say shit with my eyes, and I can’t touch her and expect my feelings to show.
Aine: But I’m not sure I can be your woman.
And that’s what I’m afraid of, too.
6
Aine
I texted Alyx that I had a headache. He texted back that he hoped I was okay and if I needed someone to talk to I could call him.
Sure, that’s what I’m going to do. Discuss how I’ve fallen for a man I shouldn’t with my boss, and I don’t think I can’t fall for him because of what I know about him. It’s what I know about the other man I had in my life. And what I now realize about myself.
I thought that my parents’ divorce was their divorce, but now I realized that it split me in half, too. Mostly on my father’s side—he cheated—but my mother had some to do with it, too. She stayed mad for too long. She told me that the same would happen to me and convinced me that trusting a man was wrong. I felt like I couldn’t trust any man past being friends. And the ones I did let past the gates, they didn’t get far. I kept a safe distance. I blocked their efforts. I protected myself and, in the process, I became jaded and crazy scared of more than sex. Not that I slept with that many men, but there were a few in college and a few after that I got close to, but was I really that close?
And now I’ve fallen for the one man…the one man I said I’d never fall for. He’s the one that scares me more than all others.
And that’s why I need some space. I need to see if this feeling is still there on Tuesday or if it’s only the lingering orgasm memory that I can’t shake, and remember all the other stuff, too. The stuff that seemed to mean so much in the moment, but now I’m wondering if it was a seduction scene he put forth.
I get home. Shower and wonder if rice is actually good for hair because my hair is shinier than ever. Weird.
And then I crawl into my bed. I close my eyes and when I wake up, I wonder if it was all a bad dream. Maybe I’d been home the whole day. And then I see the pile of food covered clothes in the bathroom waiting to be shaken out and I know it wasn’t a dream.
I text my father and make sure the house isn’t being used by one of my brothers. It’s all mine for the Independence Day weekend. I call AAA and they have my tire fixed in an hour. I pack, grab some snacks and a couple of water bottles for the road and then I’m off on the about hour and thirty-minute drive. Dad doesn’t live on the shore, but a quick ten-minute walk away. Close enough to get away and get some perspective.
Thirty minutes into my best playlist on Spotify, I’m driving cautiously because the sky is crying in a deluge of rain. I’m lost in singing along to “Better When I’m Dancin’” by Meghan Trainor at the top of my lungs, when the car starts shaking and the light on my Jeep’s dash flashes “!”.
What the… Another flat. What did I drive over?
I smack my flashers button and pull off on the next side road, praying the rim of the tire is still okay. The rain picks up and I look around my car for an umbrella and then remember I used it to help Mrs. Whitehouse to get to her car and then let her have it for going to her hair appointment. She left me a note, but the last few months I’d been in a daze. I barely left my apartment.
I sequestered not only myself, but my future.
I call AAA, again, and I’m told three hours. It’s already seven in the evening. I climb out and open my trunk and start the process. I won’t wait to be rescued. I’ll get it done myself. I jerk on the tire and hear an unfamiliar but resounding sound.
You’ve got to be kidding me!
Water starts to stream down my back and chills me. My most comfortable pair of yoga pants are now ripped open in the ass and water is basically sluicing down my ass crack.
I hold my hands up to the sky. “Seriously!” I yell into the heavens. “Did I really deserve that?”
I pull the tire out, it’s a full-sized…piece of flat rubber.
My jaw tightens until I can feel the muscles being starved of blood. I close my eyes. I won’t break. It’s not worth it. It’s not the end of the world. But it is the end of the road for this car until AAA can get here.
I climb back in and the leather reminds me the al fresco situation happening behind me. I could change them, but I give up to the gods of fate.
I’m only thirty minutes outside of the city, I could call someone to come get me and take me back home.
I dial Alyx.
“Hello, Aine. You feeling better?”
“Yeah. I am. Hey, any chance that you can could come get me? I started driving to my dad’s in the cape and I’ve got a flat and a flat spare.”
“Ohhh, I’m sorry. We’re actually headed the other way to go to NYC with Bren and Addison.”
“Carr and Marley will be in the city, too,” I mention.
“Maybe try—”
“I can’t.” My voice bobbles in the middle of the short sentence and I can feel the sting of tears.
“Something I need to know, Aine?”
“No.”
“If there was, you’d tell me right?”
“Sure.” It even sounds like it’s a lie to me.
“Where are you?”
“I’m waiting on a side road about two miles from Randolph on highway twenty-four. Why?”
“Just want to know where you are. And when will AAA be there?”
“Three hours.”
“Okay. Text me every hour.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Alyx, give me…” I can hear the phone jostling on the other end. “Aine, this is Sloan. Text Alyx. You’re family. Do you understand? He’ll turn this car around right now, if you don’t agree.” His wife has a motherly quality that I miss.
“Fine.”
“Thank you. We’ll look for your first text around eight.”
“Fine.”
“Good,” Sloan finishes.
Alyx comes back. “She’s right. I’ll turn this car around.”
“Thank you.”
The rain cascades down the front window. I hang up.
I could wait the three hours or I could…
I dial his number.
“Aine? Hey…”
“Hey, Dexx. Um…I’m broken down—flat tire—on the way to the Cape and I was wondering if you’re not doing any—”
“Dexx, get off the phone! I need you. Now! Get back in here.” A woman’s voice floats through the phone. She’s young. She’s demanding and I don’t need to hear more.
I stare at the radio red lettering and it seems to morph into fire.
I feel burned.
I swallow back the pain. “You know what, Dexx, forget it.”
“No, Aine, that wasn’t—”
I hang up. I’m too scared to hear the truth…or a lie. A dog doesn’t stop its wagging tail. And a player doesn’t stop doing his thing either.
He seemed so different. I thought he was different. I wanted him to be different. The only thing that was different was me. I thought what was happening was real. I thought it was right.
But again, I’m wrong. And trust is just something that I can’t share with someone.
My phone lights up.
“Dexx, just don’t. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I’m a big girl.”
“Aine, that was a video game. I was playing with someone online.”
I close my eyes. It might be true, but if I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop what kind of relationship is that? If I can’t trust him, then it’s not a relationship.
“AAA is on the way. I’ll be fine. Go back to your video game, Dexx.”
“Tell me where you are…” I hear his car start.
“Dexx, just stop. I’ll be fine. I promise.”
“Okay, then I’m going to drive around until I find you or your tell me where you are.”
“Then congratulations on a wasted tank of gas. AAA will help me.”
“Why won’t you let me help you?” He sounds truly hurt and it’s hurting me, too. I want to let him. I need him. But I’m fighting the feeling because…
“I can’t let you in because I don’t want us to end.”
There’s silence on the other end. Maybe I was too real.
“But we haven’t even begun. I promised you that I would never hurt you. Aine, I’m not that guy.”
“What guy, Dexx?”
“The one that uses women and throws them away. I know you think—”
“The only thing I think is that I’m here and I’m going to be fine. I don’t believe that you’re a bad guy, Dexx. I know there’s good in you. I know that you can be sweet. I know that you’re not—”
And my phone goes dead. I search my bag for my charger.
“Shit. Back on my work desk.” I roll my eyes up. “Of course. Just another challenge that I didn’t need, right?” I don’t usually talk to deities, but today feels like I need a higher power to intervene.
I reapply my lipstick, it’s the only constant in my life and I feel secure knowing it’s there. I recline my bucket seat and lock the doors.
I’ll be okay.
I’ll be…
Alone.
Dexx
Stubborn. Just plain fucking stubborn. Sure, she can take care of herself, but I want to take care of her. I hate to think of her being out there alone.
I dial her number and it rolls to voicemail. I doubt she’s blocking me. I dial another person for help.
“Hey, Dexx,” Alyx is too fucking happy and I’m not.
“Alyx, Aine called and she’s got a flat tire somewhere and I was playing Revenge of R’yleh and she heard my sister saying, ‘I need you’ and to ‘get back in here’.”
“Wow. That’s not good.”
“Yeah, talk about the shittiest timing. I turned the game off and called Aine back, but she won’t tell me where she is. Any chance you know or have GPS tracking on your employees? Implanted chips? Something. Bro, help me out here?”
“And what are you going to do, Dexx?” he asks and the craziest things run through my head. You’d think it would be things like “Get her and take her to her apartment.” But it’s stuff like.
Hug her.
Kiss her.
Tell her how I can’t be without her.
Tell her I love her.
Make love to her.
Marry her.
Have children with her.
Make a family and never break it up.
“I’m going to do everything for her.” That pretty much encompasses it all.
He chuckles. “I’d say that’s a good start.”
He tells me where she is, and I do a cookie in an intersection and scream off.
“Dexx, I can hear your engine revving. Stop it. You need to be alive to get to her.”
He’s right.
“Okay, I’ll be careful.”
“And that goes for her, too. Be careful with her. Those who act the strongest are often the most scared inside.”
“I think that goes for me, too. But how do I do this?”
“Be the real you. The guy who volunteers at the shelter and let’s young kids win on video games when he could whoop up on them and shares books with his neighbor who his housebound.”
“That guy doesn’t like to tell people who he is,” I mumble.
“But she needs to know. And she will love that man, too.”
I swallow down pressure in my chest. “I’ve loved her for too long from too close, Alyx. I need her closer.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear, Dexx. You’re ready. Make her yours.”
“Forever.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks.” I’ll take all the luck I can get now, even if I don’t need it. It’s not about needing it, it’s about the gesture.
7
Aine
Headlights approach from behind and I sink down in the seat. If it’s a murderer maybe they’ll just drive around.
Sure, because all of those horror movies, the murderer said “I don’t see anyone. I’ll go home. That’s a day.”
I shake my head and let out a shriek when there’s a knock at the window. I clamp my eyes closed as I breathe fast.
“Baby…”
And instantly, I calm. He’s here. But how?
Alyx. If you called him, I’ll string you up by that new peach fuzz of a goatee you’re attempting.
“Aine, come on. I’ll take you home.”
“I don’t want to go home.”
“Then I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
I open the door and step out, rain pelting my face. “I told you I’d be fine.”
He grabs my bag and the keys from the ignition. He locks the car with the fob and starts walking toward his car.
“Come on…” he motions with his head.
I shuffle my feet. The rain whips across my face. I walk behind him. “I heard that woman on the phone and I…I don’t understand how you could move on so fast from…from us.”
He stops in front of his car. “Baby, I was playing a video game. I didn’t want to be. I wanted to be with you, but I decided to give you some space. The woman you heard is my twenty-year-old sister from my mother’s second marriage, Claire. She was asking me to engage in the game because our team was getting pummeled. Right after that, I said goodbye to her, turned off the TV, grabbed my keys, dropped off some books at an apartment-bound elderly neighbor’s door, and I was in my car in a minute.”
“Wait…back up. You read?”
“Yeah, a lot. We trade books to read. She likes mysteries and I like mysteries. She likes political commentary books and I don’t, but I read them because I want to know. Then she and I discuss them over FaceTime because she’s immune compromised. But like I said, I was coming to rescue you no matter what.”
My chest tightens. I stop moving forward. I need to hear more. “Okay. So it was the video game. I can accept that. But I told you I didn’t need rescuing.”
“Then what do you need?”
The truth washes out of me. I’m being cleansed from the heavens.
“I just need…I just need you! But I don�
�t want to need you. It scares me. I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t want to feel that pain.”
He puts my bag in his car and walks back to me. The headlights on his car casting his long shadow over me and I feel small.
He lifts my chin. “I need you, too.”
“But what if—”
“There’s no buts. There’s an us, Aine. You and me. Tell me there’s still an us.” He steps closer and I have to crane my neck to look up at him. “Baby, I’m afraid, too. This is new and special, but I came to the conclusion today that it’s real. And that’s the most important part. It was real ninety-days ago when I kissed you for the first time. And it’s real right now.” He lowers his head and I raise to my tiptoes.
Our lips meet and there’s no denying, we’re fused at the heart.
The rain drips down our faces.
“Think we should get back to Boston?” he asks.
“No, I think we should go to my father’s place on the Cape and get to know each other better. What do you think?”
“I don’t have any extra clothes.”
“I don’t think you’re going to need any.”
“Now that sounds like my kind of vacation.” He wraps an arm around my back and pulls me close to his side. “Do you think that shade of lipstick is my cock’s shade?”
I look down. “We’ve got some time before AAA. Wanna find out?”
“Hell yes.” His hand slips lower and he slides to a stop. “Ummm…clothing malfunction?”
“Easy access.”
He reaches back in and slides his fingers inside of me as he backs me to his car. “I’m gonna make you come a hundred times this weekend.”
“Make it a hundred and one and I’m in.”
“Deal.”
We climb into his car and I show him that yes, my lipstick is in fact the perfect color for his cock and he gives me two of the first hundred promised orgasms.
But when it comes down to it, the sex might be mind-blowing but it’s what’s inside that means more to me.
Together we are adorkable and we always will be.
Epilogue
