The First Taste(91)

Is that enough reason to put us all at risk of getting hurt? Since day one, I’ve tried to protect us from the long-term. We could be together for a night. For three nights. Hell, if I had a month left to live, I’d enjoy him every day of it and as much as possible. Does that really mean anything, though?

As soon as the question forms in my mind, I know the answer. It actually does mean something.

Maybe it means a lot.





TWENTY-FIVE

ANDREW



There’s still an hour until butts out, and even though I rarely partake like the chimneys I work with, today, I come up from a tricky engine feeling particularly agitated. I’ve been at it all morning. I’ve tried everything I can think of to get it to work. All the guys have taken a look. The only option left is to call in Burt. Burt knows everything there is to know about automobiles, and that’s why his hourly rates are astronomical. I end up eating the cost since it’s not the customers’ problem I can’t do my job.

I wipe my hands on a rag and throw it at the car. “Fucking piece-of-shit lemon,” I say. “Someone get me a cigarette.”

“Only got one left,” Pico answers, closest to me.

“So? I gave you a job when you were homeless and had never seen the inside of a car.”

“I lived with my mom,” he says defensively. “And I’d worked at Bob’s Motors for months before you finally hired me.”

“Whatever. If someone doesn’t put a cigarette in my hand in five seconds, it’ll be butts out permanently. Don’t f*cking test me right now.”

Pico mutters, making a show of digging into his back pocket. He passes me one from the pack he has left, which is half full. He stares dumbly at me.

“Do I look like a f*cking boy scout?” I ask.

“Huh?”

“What am I supposed to do, go out front, knock a couple rocks together, and produce fire?”

He flips me off before tossing me his lighter.

Randy chuckles a few feet away from us. It’s the kind of sinister laugh that gets under my skin and bubbles at the surface. “Everything all right, boss?”

I take a soothing drag. “Fine.”

“You seem a little on edge,” he says. “When’s the last time you got laid?”

“Ask your mom.” Acting like an immature teen makes me feel oddly better.

Randy tsks. “Might be time for a trip to Timber. You’ve been nasty ever since the city girl blew you off.”

“She didn’t blow me off.” I sound sulky even to myself.

“Well, something happened. You gotta get yourself some *, who cares what kind.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“I got a blowie last night,” he volunteers. “Not bad, but not worth the fifty bucks. I’d stay away from Timber’s back alley if I were you.”

“You’re such a piece of shit,” I say.

“Maybe, but at least I’m having a great day.”

“Believe it or not, blowjobs aren’t the answer to everything,” I say and stick the cigarette between my lips to pull up Burt’s number.

“No? Name one situation that doesn’t improve with a blowjob. I bet you can’t even think of one.”

I hate the fact that I’d give my left nut to get laid right now. When I get this way, agitated, overwhelmed, I need release. If not emotional, then physical. Sex. Fucking. It’s been almost a week since I’ve heard from Amelia. She’s glaringly absent, and her timing is shit with Shana trying to get her claws in.

I haven’t seen Shana since the gymnasium, but she called the house last night. Bell was in the bathtub, and I was halfway through dishes. I’d had to wedge the receiver between my ear and shoulder thanks to wet rubber gloves.

“Andrew, babe,” she’d said, and her tone, her words, were so familiar, for a moment it felt as though she were calling from the market to ask if we needed milk. “Just meet me for a drink. One drink.”

Cornered and on the verge of feeling like one half of a couple again, I was terse. “I’m a single parent,” I’d told her. “I barely have time to wipe my ass let alone sit and chat.”

If she responded, I didn’t hear it. I was already back to the dishes, but as I’d scrubbed and rinsed, dried and tidied, Shana had grown bigger in my mind. The first time I saw her, she was walking away from me. She wore jeans one size too small, her ass round and firm like an apple. It always seemed to be swaying. Looking back, her strut never faltered. Not when she left bed in panties and a tank to feed Bell. Not when she came home drunk off her head. I never stopped to wonder if it was just the way she walked or if she’d trained herself not to break character.

Sex with Shana, in the beginning, was an addiction; I was worse than a kid in a candy store. After Bell, it died off, and we had nothing to say to each other that didn’t involve accusations or insults. Her resentment over Bell needled me to an unhealthy level.

Amelia feeds a different kind of hunger in me. She isn’t candy, without nutrition or value, but a well-balanced, well-flavored meal. Her wit, her ambition, draws me in as much as her figure. She’s surprisingly funny. Adventurous. And somehow, despite our boundaries, the sex is more connected than casual, more intuitive than cautious.