Authors: Casey Elliot
Slade jumped over a second later, then grabbed my hand and wrenched me down the street toward his bike. We ran full-tilt all the way to the side street it was parked on, and he threw me my helmet, climbed on, and then peeled off into the night as soon as I had my arms wrapped around him.
I let out a whoop of laughter as we raced away, and I could feel laughter rumbling through his chest too. We had just done the craziest thing I’d ever done. It felt amazing.
Next, we went in search of somewhere to sleep. We passed three motels, all with their “no vacancy signs” lit. The fourth looked a little out of our price range, (which for me was practically zero), but it didn’t seem we’d have much more of a choice.
“That was amazing,” I said, as I dismounted and pulled my head out of my helmet. “Holy shit, did you see that guy’s face?”
Slade merely smiled and shook his head. “And, people say I’m trouble.”
I gave him a light-hearted jab in the ribs as we walked up toward the manager’s office, feeling a little bit drunk on adventure and perhaps a little careless and friendly. “We’d make a good bank robbing team.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “One trespass and you’re already turning into some kind of Billy the Kid.” My smile dropped when I entered the office. The dusty, old man sitting at the desk looked like an actual nightmare come to life. His sallow face barely turned to acknowledge us when we walked in. What a great place to spend the night.
“Two rooms,” said Slade.
I frowned at him. Did he think I was made of money?
“We’ve only got one room,” replied the man. “Busy week.”
Slade looked over at me, as if seeking my approval. I shrugged. “One room, then,” he said. “Two beds.”
“Only got one room with one bed,” the man replied.
I saw Slade’s jaw tense. The look in his eye caused the man to take a step back.
I put a hand on Slade’s arm. “It’s okay,” I said. “We’re adults, and it's the twenty first century. We can share a king bed without me being spoiled for marriage.”
“It’s a queen,” the man interjected.
Now, we both shot him a glare. “Is there anywhere else in town that will have rooms?” Slade asked lowly. I could tell more than anything else he just hated this guy and didn’t want to give him our business.
The manager shrugged. “Like I said, busy week.” When we continued to stare, he said, “Lavender Festival. People come from all over the state.”
Shit. I had forgotten about the Lavender Festival. Slade turned his head to me, glaring. I smiled meekly. “I forgot.”
Slade turned back to the man. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll take the room.”
“How many nights?” the man asked, writing something down.
“Two,” I replied.
Slade gave me a look, but didn’t say anything else, as we filled out the paperwork and paid. I protested against him paying for the whole thing, but he simply waved me off. We headed up to our room after grabbing Slade’s stuff from his bike, and when he flicked on the light, I nearly cringed.
Yeah, it wasn’t as cheap as the other cheap motels, but it wasn’t winning any awards. And, the bed seemed oddly small. Surely, it couldn't have been a queen.
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” Slade said gruffly, dropping his bag onto the aforementioned couch.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, laughing. The couch was probably only half as long as Slade, and looked less comfortable than sleeping on his bike would have been.
He slid off his jacket and dropped it onto the couch as I walked over to the bed. “You want me on the bed, Ginger?” he asked, a licentious grin creeping up my face.
Damn. It was suddenly very hot in there.
“I just don’t want you to be all cranky tomorrow when your back is all fucked up,” I retorted. “Or, if you break a hip from falling off of it.”
Bringing up his age was a mistake; I knew that the moment the words came out of my mouth. He strode toward me, skewering me with his green gaze. I felt heat rise to my face as he stopped inches from me, his face tilted down toward mine. I had to keep my eyes on his. It took great effort, considering they wanted to roam over his strong jaw and long, straight nose.
“What was that?” he asked smoothly. “I didn’t quite hear you.”
I gulped, my mouth suddenly dry. “I uh—”
“You, uh?”
“I just think you’d be more comfortable on the bed,” I squeaked. I could smell him again, feel the heat radiating off of him. It was too much.
He moved away from me and I let out the breath I’d been holding. If he heard it, he chose to ignore it. He grabbed his bag and put it on the bed.
“If you insist, Ginger.”
I went to the bathroom to change into my pajamas, and suddenly wished I’d brought anything else but pajama shorts and a t-shirt. I checked my face in the mirror and gave myself a silent pep talk before I left the room.
Don’t sleep with Slade. Don’t sleep with Slade. Don’t sleep with Slade.
Slade
When she came out of the bathroom, I was glad that I was under the blanket already. She was just wearing little shorts like the ones she’d showed up to my house in this morning, but the realization that she’d be getting into bed with me seemed to make it even hotter.
She ran across the room to the light switch like if she ran quickly, I wouldn’t see her. All it did was make her butt jiggle as she went past, which was a visual I wouldn’t soon forget. Once the light was off, she crawled into bed beside me and lay there, still.
“Goodnight,” she said, after a minute.
I grunted in response, closing my eyes and trying to forget that there was an exceptionally attractive woman lying only a foot away from me. My nose picked up her smell; faint, but intoxicating. It was flowery and sweet like her… too sweet for the likes of me.
I rolled over onto my side, away from her, determined to ignore the throbbing in my cock that urged me to turn around and pull her to me.
*****
When I woke up in the morning, at first, I didn’t know where I was. The bed under me was soft; the girl next to me was soft.
The girl next to me… shit.
I opened my eyes and looked down at Lexa. She was still snoozing away, probably drooling onto the pillow beneath her face. She was backed up to me, and my arm was tossed over top of her. With the precision of a bomb tech, I began to carefully lift my arm away and slide out my other one, extracting my body inch by inch until I was at a safe enough distance to get off of the bed and not have her wake up still touching me.
As soon as I stood, I barked at her, “Wake up.”
She lazily turned her head over to me, eyes half-lidded with sleep, her little cupid’s bow lips parted.
“Why?”
I furrowed my brow. I didn’t know why. I had no idea what we were doing that day.
“Because we’ve got shit to do,” I replied.
She shook her head. “We’ve got all day,” she groaned. “What is it, seven A.M.?”
I checked the clock on my phone. It was six-thirty. Well, I’d never been able to sleep in very long after my first tour. It was hard to want to stay in bed when you knew that someone could rip through your tent with bullets any minute.
“I’m going for a run,” I announced, grabbing my change of clothes and going into the bathroom. When I came out, she was already back asleep, one leg slung over the blankets. Her fiery hair was splayed out over the pillow, and I wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed and see if she’d wrap that leg around me.
But, that couldn’t happen.
I went outside and had a look around, deciding that I’d head in the direction of the ocean I’d spied yesterday. I jogged down the stairs, and then pumped my legs on the asphalt, feeling the morning air blow coolly against my face. With each step, I felt lighter, with each breath, I felt stronger.
When I got back to the motel an hour later, Lexa was curled up in bed, scrolling through her phone. She looked up at me and scowled when I entered. “I thought you might come back with coffee,” she said.
Panting, I ignored her and walked to the bathroom, stripping off my shirt as I went. I could feel her eyes on me, and I smiled away from her view. I bet she wouldn’t say anything snarky to me now.
Lexa
It should’ve been illegal for someone to look that good without a shirt; like some sort of humility law or something. My eyes followed Slade’s muscular back to the bathroom where he closed the door behind him. I heard the shower turn on, and I settled back down into the pillows. Oh dear.
When Slade was finished in the shower, I had already dressed. I walked past him into the steamy bathroom and began brushing my teeth, ignoring the towel slung low around his hips and focusing very hard on eliminating any potential cavities.
When we were both dressed and ready, we headed down to Slade’s bike.
“Where are we going now?” he asked.
“The pier,” I responded, taking my helmet from his outstretched hand. “Head west about two miles, and then I think it’s a bit south.”
He nodded and hopped on, and I straddled the seat behind him. We cruised down the roads of the little town, and as the sea air began to fill my nostrils, my heart began to lift. I barely remembered this place, being that I was still quite young when we moved to where my parents lived now, but Joel had loved it here. He and his friends would come and play in the salty surf all summer; fishing off the pier with their legs dangling above the waves and searching for crabs when the tide was out.
We turned a corner and the ocean stretched before us in both directions. As we turned again and began to ride along the length of it, I watched the ships bob on the surface, and noticed that the tide was in.
Crap... should have thought of that.
Slade didn’t seem to notice. Or, if he did, didn’t care. I guessed that he thought I wanted to spread some of Joel’s ashes in the water. He didn’t realize yet that we’d have to wait a few hours to get access to the sand beneath the pier.
We reached the pier and parked. After freeing myself from my helmet, I eyed the long boardwalk and smiled to fight through the clenching in my chest. One of my earliest memories was of Joel taking me here. We walked hand-in-hand across the wooden planks, and he pointed out jellyfish to me in the water below.
“What now?” asked Slade.
I turned to look at him, my hair whipping around my face in the breeze. “We’re going under the pier,” I replied. “So, we’ve got to wait for the tide to go out.” I pulled out my phone and did a quick Google search. “Looks like we’ve got about an hour to kill.”
Slade rolled his eyes at my lack of organization, yet again. Despite his surly attitude, I was glad he was there. He was like a big, unmoving, emotional rock. With him by my side, I felt like I could face anything. He wasn’t my support, but he was my buffer.
We walked over to the little gift shop across the street, and I bought us each an ice cream. Slade scowled when I handed it to him, but began to eat it, nonetheless. He bit chunks off instead of licking them, which I found odd, but strangely hot.
“Why the pier, then?” he asked.
We sat down on the bench table outside the shop, and I leaned against the table top and watched the waves beat and retreat from the shore.
“He loved this place,” I said. “But, most of all, he loved the area below the pier. He used to go there any time he needed a place to hide out… when my dad was being a prick, when my mom was being fussy.” I smiled… “when I was being annoying.”
Slade’s eyes were dark, as he looked over at the ocean as well. The salty air stung at my eyes… or maybe, those were tears. I hastily wiped my eyes on my sleeve and turned away from Slade.
“He was a good man,” Slade said. “He didn’t deserve any of this.”
I laughed and poked his arm. “I thought you said we weren’t going to say anything until the last stop?”
He shrugged, taking another bite of his cream-sicle.
Slade was a man of few words, and I liked that about him. His quiet confidence, though at times seemed quite broody, was probably what my brother had liked about him too. Joel had loved to talk. All day and all night, he could have chatted. I could picture Joel and Slade here. Joel would be telling stories, making gestures with his hands, smiling like an idiot; Slade would nod along, listening and thinking about whatever it was that he thought about.
Like my brother would have done, I started to talk to Slade about the things going on in my life. At first, the look he gave me made me think he was going to stop me… that he was going to tell me he didn’t care, but he let me get it all out—how I’d been fired from my summer job for throwing a drink in a rude customer’s face after I’d learned of Joel’s death; how I didn’t really know what it was I wanted from life anymore; how I felt so lonely in my own home. I hadn’t meant to tell him so much, but it all just kind of poured out of me. It was like a spout had been turned on, and everything in my life flowed out. There was the good, the bad. There was the humorous. I talked to Slade for over an hour, receiving few responses, but somehow knowing that he was listening.
Then, I saw that the tide had gone out.
“I guess we can get going now,” I said. “These ashes aren’t going to spread themselves.”
Slade
I was not a guy that people generally thought to share their thoughts with. I gave off a definite “don’t fuck with me” vibe most of the time, and that was how I liked it. People told me the essentials and went on with their day… most of the time.
It had never been like that with Joel. Since the first time I met him, he’d constantly been blabbing in my ear. I had been a moody teenager with a chip on my shoulder, and he had been a skinny brace-face, much like his sister at her graduation. We shouldn’t have ever been friends. But then, he’d come at me with his theories about the afterlife, and wondering if we were alone in the universe, and I’d let him in because he helped ease the ache in my soul.
Now, his sister was doing it to me as well. If it had been anyone else, I probably would have just told them to shut up. I didn’t have time to listen to the ramblings of a girl I’d likely never see again, even if she was as hot as Lexa was. Even as that thought crossed my mind though, I realized there was a part of me that did want to see her again after all this. Joel had been the only string connecting us, and now, I wanted to find another… which was dumb, so I was glad when the tide went out and Lexa shut her mouth.
She led me onto the wet sand beneath the pier and onto a little jut of rocks near the water’s edge. It was riddled with tidal pools, and I watched her smile as she looked in each one, pointing out the different anemones and other shit that I didn’t care about. I liked watching her though; watching the light in her face.
“Where’s Joel going?” I asked.
She stood from where she’d been squatting next to a sea star, and slid the pack off her back. The silver urn gleamed as she pulled it out. I still wasn’t used to seeing it.
“All over these rocks,” she said. “And then, when the tide comes back up, the sea can slowly lick him away. I think he would like that.”
She pulled the lid off, and I walked next to her as she began to sprinkle it in the wind, pieces of dust swirling and flying away from us, covering the rocks. I hated to admit it, but it was fucking beautiful.
I turned to look at her face as she finished and closed the lid, slipping the urn back into her bag. Unshed tears glistened in the corner of her eyes like diamonds. I felt a strong urge to pull her into my arms and protect her from anything else that could hurt her… which was just as dumb as my earlier thoughts about her.
She looked up at me, smiling as she blinked away the tears. “Only one more place left.”
“Where’s that?”
“Big Barry’s,” she said. “It’s a bar on the outskirts of town. It was my brother’s favorite place to drink, even after we moved away.”
“I know,” I said. “I used to go there with him.” Then, I quirked my eyebrow. “What the hell are we going to do there?”
She smiled at me before brushing past me toward the road. “What do you think?” she called behind her. “Get shitfaced, of course.”