Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride. Brian Sweany

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СКАЧАТЬ Laura’s kisses were light, uncertain. Beth’s lips are strong, committed. She smells like lavender.

      This isn’t Beth’s first time in the backseat of a car. She grabs my left hand and shoves it under her shirt. She slides my hand up to her right breast. My thumb grazes her left nipple, and Beth moans between kisses. I open my hand, encompassing her small breast, and slide my fingers underneath her bra strap. Something bites me.

      “Ouch!” I jerk my hand out of her shirt.

      “What’s the matter?” Beth leans forward, panting a little.

      “I pinched my finger on your underwire thingy…” I’m panting, too. “On your bra.”

      “Oh, is that all?” Beth reaches inside her shirt and behind her back with both hands. She brings her hands forward, her bra in her right hand. “Is that better?”

      I nod, smirking more than smiling. We start kissing again. Beth is playful, nothing at all like Laura.

      “Okay, you fucking horndogs!”

      Hatch’s timing, as usual, sucks.

      Claire says she hasn’t been drinking, which is a lie. I let her drive anyway. She and Hatch are screaming at each other in the front seats. Hatch caught her making out with Bobbie on the kitchen table.

      Beth nibbles on my ear. She reaches down with her left hand to my crotch.

      “What are you doing?” I ask.

      “Relax. They’re too drunk and pissed off to even know we’re back here.” Beth unfastens my pants. Her index finger teases the elastic of my boxers.

      She reaches inside my underwear and takes me in her hand. I’m hard. I’ve been hard since that first game of euchre. Beth slides her hand up and down, stopping at both ends to rub the tip of my cock and squeeze my balls.

      Beth’s kisses are rougher now. She bites my tongue a couple times. Her breasts are smashed up against me. I come in minutes.

      We pull into Beth’s driveway. Claire slams her car door while telling Hatch to fuck off. Beth kisses me goodbye, with just a hint of tongue.

      “I’d walk you to your door, but…you know.”

      Beth gets out of the car. She shuts the door, leans in, and kisses me on the cheek, smiling. “Yeah, I know.”

      Hatch drives us back to my house. My underwear is unsalvageable. I’m reluctant to shower, comforted in a perverse way by sitting in my own aftermath.

      Hatch tries to collapse on the family room sofa, but I drag him down a flight of stairs to the ugly red, brown, and white convertible couch that used to be in my Grandpa George’s living room.

      I strip down to nothing, wrap my boxers in newspaper, and stuff them in the garage trash can. I go upstairs to shower in the laundry room shower. I hate that shower, all cramped and smelling like my Grandpa George’s urine. The water pressure is anemic thanks to a newly installed energy-saver showerhead. But the other shower is upstairs, and I’ve given up my room to the still-hypothetical nursery to avoid these potential drunken encounters.

      Not that I’m drunk, at least not anymore. The warm water helps, but my tolerance is getting ridiculous. I dry off, wrap a towel around my waist, and tiptoe across the main floor of the house. I open the door to the basement, but not before the stairway light catches a pile of mail on the kitchen table. On top is a letter addressed to me with no return address. But I recognize the handwriting.

      I grab the letter. If Hatch were awake he’d tell me, “Burn that son of a bitch.” My towel falls to the floor. Expectant and naked, with maybe a hint of another erection, I open the envelope.

      Dear Hank, it begins, I miss you…

      Chapter thirteen

      Ipull into the library parking lot. Laura is already there in the silver Oldsmobile Calais her parents bought from my dad. The “Fitzpatrick Oldsmobile-Cadillac-Subaru” license plate frame on the back of the car almost dares me to be nice to her.

      No fucking way that’s happening.

      I get out of the Subie. Its dented rear hatch does its best to remind me I’m still dented as well. I step over to the passenger side door of Laura’s car. I open the door and sit down without waiting to be invited.

      “Fancy meeting you here again,” I say.

      “Hi, Hank,” Laura says. She looks like she’s been crying.

      I swear, she’s leaning in to hug me. I shrink back toward the door. The car feels small, even for a Calais. Laura is wearing that white denim mini-skirt that hugs her ass. The remnants of her Florida tan have faded into a soft glow. I’ve missed her smell. I’ve missed hearing her voice. We broke up a month ago, and it’s as if that month never happened, and all because she said, Hi, Hank?

      Holy fucking Christ, this was a bad idea.

      “Laura.” I nod. That’s more like it. My tone is short, assured. Not even a “hi” or “hello.”

      Laura backs away. She squeezes her steering wheel as if to steady herself. “You hungry?”

      “Excuse me?”

      “You want to go somewhere for dinner?”

      “Why would I want to do that?”

      “Just asking.”

      “Look, Laura. I didn’t come here for dinner or a date or whatever it is you have rolling around in that fucked-up head of yours.”

      “Fair enough. I guess I had that coming.”

      “You guess?”

      “Okay, I deserve every mean and cruel thing you plan on saying to me. Is that better?”

      “No, but you’re getting there. And please save the martyr bit for somebody who gives two shits about you.”

      I set the over–under for when she’d start crying at two minutes. I nail the under without even trying. I don’t feel as good as I thought I’d feel when I see her cry. In fact, I don’t feel good at all.

      Laura pulls a tissue out of her pocket and blows her nose. “I might deserve every awful thing you plan on saying to me, Hank. But that doesn’t mean it feels good to hear you say them.”

      The temptation to pile it on is just too great. “You want a fucking medal?”

      “You son of a bitch. I still love you!”

      “Oh, shut the fuck up!”

      It’s the loudest I’ve ever raised my voice to a woman. I’m poking her in the shoulder before I even know what I’m doing. “You’ve lost the right to cuss me out. And you’ve certainly lost the right to love me.”

      “Do you love me?”

      Laura is fast on the trigger. “Do I what?”

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