I looked around, grabbed the money that Trevor and Joe had left, stuffed all but one twenty in my pocket and threw the spare on the bed. I knew one of the people I’d gone to high school with, probably Kathy Matthews, would be the maid for this place and finding a twenty on a bed as a tip was about as close to winning the lottery as she could get around here.
I didn’t know if Trevor and Joe really meant it but if they did, I was on my way. And if we weren’t meant to be together, I had Josie as a fallback.
If she didn’t work out – I had myself as a fallback. Always.
The click of the door locking behind me drove home the reality that it was over. Not that the window was closed into Trevor’s and Joe’s life, but that this particular episode of our co-existence was over and that whatever I decided in the next few weeks would just be about picking up the pieces and moving on – whatever moving on meant.
Not having their arms around me, not having them here to stare at whenever I wanted, at my whim, not having Trevor and Joe to talk to, or to freak out about, or to listen to felt weirder than having them here, their presence so much a part of the real Darla that when they were gone it felt like my “real” life was the fake one.
Dragging my feet, I walked out to the parking lot, digging for the keys in my pocket, deep in my own thoughts. When I reached my little shitbox I looked up to find a completely naked Trevor spread across the hood of my car with a straw hat covering his groin.
“I didn’t know Toyota made hood ornaments quite like that,” I sputtered.
“It’s a custom job, Ma’am.”
“Ass.”
“If you say so,” he said, peeling his body off the hood of my car and turning around, mooning me. Is it mooning if you’re already naked? Two truckers sucking on cigarettes gaped and guffawed.
“Put your clothes on!” I hissed.
“Not before I kiss you.” And then he did, my new hood ornament shoving into much of my thigh. His lips said so much, the kiss a redeeming, carefree symbol of hope.
He bent down and retrieved his pants from the puddle of clothing next to the driver’s side, more truckers gathering to gawk. Great. Mike would hear about this in an hour or less.
“Where’s Joe?” I asked, looking around. “And your note sucked.”
He mugged. “Sorry. I thought we were leaving. I didn’t know how else – ”
“You could have woken me up.”
“I didn’t want to. You were so beautiful, so peaceful, so…” he stepped forward and began to stroke my upper arm, “so sated.” He said the words like little pinpricks directly into my clit.
“Get your clothes on now,” I said through gritted teeth, my whisper rising to a loud roar, “before the cops come and get you.”
“Who’s gonna come? Davey?” he cracked, but he complied, slipping that gorgeous skin into his own faded jeans, throwing on his clothes that Joe had brought.
I heard one of the truckers mutter, “Nut job,” and I thought blowjob, which made me want to drag Trevor back into the hotel room for another quick episode of my real life.
“Anyhow, what happened?”
He stepped closer and I swear to God my heart started beating with his, my lungs breathed when he breathed, my body moved when his moved. I was a goner. What I thought would not end well was going to begin quite nicely.
“Joe took off. Got a text from his mom saying she reported that he had stolen the BMW. Plus,” Trevor added, “I think we freaked him out.”
This time it was my turn to do that body relaxing thing that I’d seen them both do so much, all of my muscles from the neck down loosening. I willed myself to do it and damn if it didn’t help, resetting me somehow, giving me clarity. “Did it freak you out Trevor?”
In the space between my words and his answer there was a kind of peace. My core knew that whatever he said, it would be all right.
His hands curled around my upper arms and he stared into my eyes earnestly. “We wouldn’t have left you the money and the note if we didn’t mean what we said.”
We got in my car. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I absentmindedly got back on the highway, forgetting what the rest of my day held. Did I work today? Did I have a shift? I’d have to go home and check, probably need to call in and ask, and then face the embarrassment of having my boss needle me about it. And then there was Trevor. He held my hand like we were drowning, and he hummed his new song as the wind whipped through the open windows.
I didn’t care about work. Really, there was nothing that I could possibly care about less right now. Boston? Moving with Josie? It seemed like a pipe dream and as I tootled down I-76 a freakishly familiar sight greeted my tired eyes.
Lightning could not strike twice in the same place. That was a fact, right? Because there, on the side of the road, stood a very naked Joe Ross wearing nothing but…you guessed it – a guitar. My daddy’s guitar.
What the fuck?
I pulled over about fifteen feet from him, turned my car off and climbed out. The opening chords of I Wasted My Only Answered Prayer floated through the air like the white moth yesterday in the clearing where Trevor and I had made love. Joe’s entire body was on display for anybody who drove by and I looked back, hoping to God no cops were on patrol in this stretch right now. The BMW was about twenty yards away, lonely and patient, looking not one bit stolen at all.
“What are you doing?” I called out.
He strummed a couple cords and then said, “What comes naturally.”
“How much peyote did you eat?”