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Summer Rains Ch. 02

By: Transverse



I didn't go back to the store that day. I may have lost a few sales, but it was well worth it -- Rio's body was smooth and tight and thick, and my tongue tasted every part of him. He was an experimental lover, the first real one I'd ever had, and we earned a dozen bruises each trying to fuck in inappropriate places. He was stroking a bruise on my hip, kissing the back of my neck.

Another storm had come, and the skies were violet again. Flashes of lightning illuminated the room and thunder boomed and cracked outside. The window was on the wall opposite the bed, and it stretched from floor to ceiling, like a movie screen. We could see the sparse lights of Rockland below us, and the red horizon clashed violently with the color of the sky.

"It's scary," he said into my shoulder. "But I like it."

There was another flash of lightning and the room was held in its electric light for a split second before it disappeared, and the room fell back into the low light of a cloudy dusk.

"It stops being scary after a while," I told him. I settled back against him. "And then you can see how beautiful it really is. But you have to be scared first, or you can't really appreciate it, you know?"

He didn't reply, but his embrace tightened.

"I've never really done this before." I took a deep breath. "The others...they left, right after. Even when I was younger, in school. They couldn't wait to get away."

"I have," he said. "With women, mostly. But it isn't the same. I've needed this for so long."

"So...you like it, then?" I knew I had to be careful; I didn't know Rio very well then, and he might have scared off as easily as the others. "All this?"

I felt him hesitate.

Thunder cracked.

"Yeah," he said. "I do."

I tried to keep myself from making too much of it; I hadn't had my heart broken since before I graduated college, and it wasn't an experience I was anxious to repeat. But a warm-cookie feeling was burgeoning inside of me. Rio was a special man, I knew, and this wouldn't be a no-impact hookup, whatever happened afterward.

He fell asleep, and I laid there against him for as long as I could stand it. I finally rolled away from him and stepped out of bed. I was cold without his chest against my back, but I was never very good and laying down when I was awake. I grew restless and testy until I finally got up and did something. I kneeled over him on the bed and planted a slow kiss on his temple. Then I slipped on a pair of plain pajama bottoms and headed into the kitchen.

My cooking was simple and sometimes bland, but in no way unpalatable. I haphazardly dusted three pork chops with "pork seasoning" and tossed them into a skillet, breathing in the scent they gave off as they began to fry. I started to pull some frozen broccoli out of the freezer, then left it, reaching for tater tots instead.

I had just closed the oven door when Rio strolled into the kitchen, naked. He stretched, reaching for the ceiling. The golden hair on his body shone in the evening glow. He caught me looking and grinned.

He was quite the show off, let me tell you.

"What are you making?" He snuggled up behind me, running his hands through my hair.

"Pork," I said. I turned off the fire under the skillet and pulled some plates from above our heads. "And potatoes."

He glanced at the empty tater tot bag.

"Those don't really count as potatoes."

"They're the closest you're gonna get to potatoes in this house."

He chuckled and moved away from me, striding across the kitchen. He sat in one of the high chairs at the bar, looking out a giant window. His skin contrasted beautifully with the black of the seat, and I stirred again. I busied myself with the food, preparing our plates.

"You sure do love windows," he said.

I pulled the tater tots out of the oven. "The place has great views," I said. "It would have been a waste not to have good windows."

"Don't you worry that someone might look in on you?"

I carried our plates to the bar and sat beside him. I pulled two beers out of the fridge under the bar, handing him one.

"Nah," I told him. "And even if they did, so what?"

He raised his eyebrows at me, smiling with half his mouth. "Guess you're out, then, huh?"

I cracked open my beer.

"No, not really," I said. "I just don't lie to people if they ask. And people around here don't ask each other too many questions." I popped a tater tot into my mouth. "What about you? You flying any flags?"

"Not here," he said. "I did, back in Chatsworth. It...it didn't go over too well."

"That why you moved here?"

He stared at me for a long moment, the way men do when they're trying to decide whether or not they should loan you what you're asking them for. I guess he decided he shouldn't, because he lied. Or at least didn't tell me the whole truth.

"Yeah," he said. "Something like that."

He hadn't opened his beer.

"Bud not you brand?"

He looked confused, then shook his head. "I don't drink," he said.

"Not even beer?"

"Nope."

"Want some water?"

"That's okay," he said. He was melancholy all of a sudden. He fingered his tater tots.

"Something wrong?"

"It's nothing."

"Did I say something-"

"No." He slid off the stool and stroked his forearm. "I need to head home."

"I'm sorry-"

"It's not you," he said. "Please, just...just take me home."

He disappeared into the room.

I followed him, closing the door behind us.

He was sliding his jeans on, looking around for his shirt. I found my jeans and put them on.

"I didn't mean to be too forward," I said. He had his shirt on now and was lacing up his boots. "I'm sorry if I got a little intense too fast."

"Don't worry about it," he said. It was polite, but dismissive, and completely antithetical to the way he'd been speaking up until then.

"Do you even want to get together again?"

He froze, then stood slowly from his crouching position. "Sure." He plastered a smile onto his face. "I programmed my number into your phone." He took it off the bed and threw it at me. I caught it. Barely. "You can call me when you're in the mood again."

His causal tone stung a bit, but I suppose that wasn't his fault.

He left the room first, stomping his way to the front door in his giant boots. I followed him outside to the car. He got in first, slamming my truck door before I could say anything. I walked around to the driver's side, climbing in.

"So where do you live?"

"12th and Junction," he said. "Blue brick apartment building."

We rolled down the red dirt road toward the highway. "I know the one," I said. It wasn't the nicest area of Rockland, if Rockland can even be said to have more than one area. If there were any unsavory characters passing through, Junction Street is where they'd stay overnight. I wondered why someone like Rio would choose to live over there; it wasn't any cheaper than any other place in town.

We rode in silence. The worst of the thunderstorm had passed, but dark clouds still hung low over us, the bright purple having faded to plum in the dying day. Soon it would be pitch black on the highway except for headlights.

I pulled into a free space in front of the building. A dirty man sat on the stoop outside, scratching his elbow and muttering.

I started to speak but he was already out of the car, the door closing behind him with a muffled whump. He waved over his shoulder at me, stepping around the sitting man and through a green door.

"Bye," I said to no one. "The sex was fun. I'll call you about your fucking car."

I made my way back home before the rains started in earnest. I parked the truck in the garage; Rockland rain was dirty and clouded my windshield when I left the truck out in it. It was coming down hard by the time I reached the kitchen.

I threw our pork chops and uneaten tots in the trash, telling myself that I needed to learn to cook new dishes. I was tired of high fructose corn syrup and meat.

I thought of Rio and his peculiar stance on alcohol. Everyone around here drank Bud. Everyone.

But Rio was not like everyone, I came to understand.

Rio...he was unlike anyone.

*****

If there was such a term as 'Rough-Ol'-Boy,' it would describe Ryder perfectly.

He was overweight, but in a way that he still seemed lean when you looked at him. He'd worn checkered button downs every day I'd ever known him, and he had a long and loud laugh that sometimes scared me for reasons I can't explain.

He's a bricklayer for a construction company in town, and he was highly sought after; his bricklaying was very pretty, I had to admit, and people from all over the country came for his services. He had even made a few bricklayer's magazines, and I hadn't even known such things existed until he showed one to me one day when he'd come in for some Naked Juice, looking for someone to show off his article to. It was said that he was once some kind of military assassin in some conflict in Bahrain (or perhaps it was Baghdad). Given that he lives in Rockland, I wouldn't be at all surprised to one day learn that it's true.

I'd met him, like I'd met most people in town, when he became a regular at the Rockland station. That's how I found out he was a hell of a mechanic. And it was him I called to look at Rio's car.

"Yeah, this thing is really fucked up but good," he said, sliding out from beneath it. "No wonder it crapped out on him." His huge hands were covered in black oil. "And someone fucked it up on purpose, too."

"What?"

He babbled something in car-mechanic-speak, but I told him to speak English; I wasn't a fix-it kind of man, and I'd stopped trying to be years before.

Yeah, so I lied to Rio about knowing a few things about cars. Everyone likes to get laid sometimes.

"Someone fucked up his transmission," he said. "And his brake line, but they didn't shred it completely. Probably why this guy's still alive."

"Why would someone do all that?"

He chuckled, climbing to his feet. "You'll have to ask your boyfriend."

I scowled.

"I can fix it, though." He scratched his chin. The blond hairs there were interspersed with red. "It'll cost him a third of this IRA, but I can fix it."

"You can fix a destroyed transmission?"

"No," he conceded, "but I can install a new one."

I sighed. "How much?"

"Five thousand, including labor."

"Five thousand?"

"Glad to know you can hear."

"You can't give us a discount? He's a friend."

"For Rockland, that is a discount. Go on down to Hubberson's and see how much they'll want if you think it isn't."

"Okay, okay." I shook his hand. "Thanks. I'll tell him. I hope he has a rainy day fund."

He gave me a strange look as he let my hand go.

"What?"

"Be careful," he said. "Your guy, he might be in trouble."

I frowned. "You think?"

"Wouldn't have wasted my breath if I didn't."

"Thanks again."

"Yeap."

His jeep pulled onto the highway and headed back toward town.

I went inside and sat on the stool I kept behind the counter and dialed Rio.

"Hello?" He spoke very proper on the phone, so much so that for a moment I wondered if it was him.

"Rio?"

"You got him." He relaxed his tone. "I guess this about the car?"

I blinked. "What if it's not?"

He didn't answer.

"The transmission's shot," I told him. I suddenly felt a lot better about the price. "So's the brake line."

He was quiet for a moment. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I thought it might be."

"Why would you think that?"

"It's nothing," he said quickly.

"It's nothing? A cut brake line is nothing?"

"Look-"

"Don't you 'look' me," I said. I was angry, maybe angrier than I'd acknowledged about his post-fuck flight the day before.

He sighed. "I'm sorry." He sounded sorry, and I melted a bit, worried I'd gone too hard, pressing him. I was a real sappy idiot sometimes. "Landon, I...I'm sorry."

He sounded exhausted, like he'd been carrying something heavy up a flight of stairs before I'd called and hadn't had anything to drink. "I should never have even started this," he told me. "I shouldn't..."

"Hey, hey," I said. "I don't think it's like that-"

"No," he said. "It was irresponsible-"

"How?"

"Just...how much is it going to cost?"

"Rio, you-"

"How much, Landon?" he spoke softly, but his tone was final.

"Five thousand," I told him. "For everything."

"Fair enough," he said without a beat. "When will it be done?"

"End of the week," I said, praying Ryder had the time.

"Okay, then, I-"

"We should get together again."

"I don't think so, Landon."

Landon. It was so formal. "You can call me Lan, you know."

He chuckled. "Well, Lan, my life is a bit complicated right-"

"Oh, don't even bother with that shit," I told him. It was amazing how like a child he made me feel. "Just forget it, then."

"Land-"

I wished there was a hook to slam the phone down onto, but I had to settle for crushing a button with a red line under my thumb. I tossed it onto the counter and sat, fuming.

Business was slow, at least inside the store, for the rest of the day. When the sun was setting, I locked up and walked outside, leaning against one of the outer pumps and looking out at the wilderness.

The sun had already disappeared behind the red mountains to the west, leaving chunky and ill-defined strips of orange, pink, and purple sky behind to mark its passing. The red earth was fading to maroon with the approaching evening, and the sparse hunter green shrubs were nearly black, crouching on the landscape like dark boulders. The stars were emerging against the darkening center of the sky, and a light and warm wind touched the sides of my face. I closed my eyes, imagining that I stood on the edge of the abyss while horrors moved toward me with the darkness, my only protection the fluorescent light above my head that fanned out around me in a circle.

"Thinking of me?"

I whirled around. Rio stood behind me, hands in his pockets.

"No." I searched for my anger from earlier, but it was nowhere to be found. "How did you get out here?"

"It's only a few miles from Junction Street," he said. "Not all of us live on the top of a mountain, Lan."

He was closer to me now, leaning against the pump beside mine.

"Why do you live over there, anyway?"

"What's wrong with Junction?" He smiled. "It's a very colorful neighborhood, I'll have you know."

I rolled my eyes.

"It's anonymous," he told me.

"Anonymous?"

"It means it's nondescript, it's not easily identified-"

"I know what it means," I said. "Why come to Rockland if you want to be anonymous? Why not move to the city for that?"

"The city, it's not...it's not who I am. I like small places, like this. And anonymity. Which is why I live on Junction. Satisfied?"

"No." The wind moved his hair about his head, and I wanted to move closer to him, and help it. "You're hiding something, I know it. Who cut your brake line? Who fucked up your transmission?"

He took my hands in his and stepped to me so that we were chest to chest. My breathing adjusted to match his, and he planted a long, slow kiss on me.

"We'll worry about that later," he whispered.

His lips touched mine again and we kissed sweetly, without tongue, the warm breeze tickling the hairs on my arms and blowing under the back of my shirt. Rio let go of my hands and linked his arms around my waist, pressing his forehead to mine.

"C'mon," he said. His eyes were dark and bottomless and I swam in them. "I've always wanted to do this."

He led me by my hand to my parked truck and climbed over the back into the bed. He beckoned me.

"Don't be a chicken," he said.

I climbed in behind him and crawled to where he was his back against the window to the cab. His bangs had fallen into his eyes.

He touched my face, his thumbs tracing my lips. "I was never into dark haired men before you," he said. "I had a thing for redheads. But you..." He rubbed the top of my head, and then kissed me again. "You're something else."

"You're something else." I crossed one of my legs over his. "I don't even know where to begin with you."

"Here's a good spot." He put my hand on his cock, which wasn't fully hard.

We kissed again while my hands roamed his crotch and thighs. His hands were on my head, my ears, my neck. His lips were there soon, as well, and we lay in my truck bed for almost an hour, necking and petting like teenagers. It sounds silly, even juvenile, I know, and maybe it was. But it was no less wonderful for the fact.

He was straddling me and my hands were fumbling with his zipper when a song I didn't know started playing.

"Mmm," he said, breaking our lip lock, "One second."

"Tease," I said. He smirked at me and pulled the phone out of his back pocket.

"Hello?" I reached for his zipper again, my fingers dancing over his cock.

It was dark, but in the glow of the fluorescent lights above the pumps I could see the color drain from his face and the terror set into his features.

"You okay?" I whispered. I took his hand. It was cold and trembling. "Rio?"

Tears poured down his cheeks. "No," he whined, his shoulders beginning to heave. "P-Please don't say that, Teddy, please d-don't..." He took a great heaving breath. "I swear I won't, I won't I won't, just please-"

I tried to pull him close to me but he rocked away, moving toward the farthest corner of the truck bed. "Teddy! Stop!"

He was screaming. I crawled over to him, trying to wrestle the phone away. His shoe connected with my chest and I was thrust backward against the cab window. He ended the call and stood, climbing out of the truck.

"Rio!" I jumped out after him. "Rio, come back here!"

I caught him by the shoulder, turning him to face me. I took his face in my hands.

"What's happening, Rio, tell me." I pressed our foreheads together. His tears coursed over the backs of my hands and he was breathing so fast it was a wonder he didn't pass out. "Say something, come on-"

He twisted his head out of my grasp and started running down the road. He wasn't a very fast runner, stocky and short-legged as he was, and I quickly caught up with him, yanking him by the arm until we were face to face again.

"Rio-"

He packed a hell of a punch -- pain exploded in my face as his fist connected with my nose. I felt it crunch, and then blood was running into my mouth and he was gone, running down the highway. I tried to call after him, but the vibrations in my face were too painful and I bent over, hands on my knees, mouth breathing.

I walked back to the station as fast as I could without jarring my nose, and called an ambulance. Excessive? Perhaps, but Rockland had its own health care system, and I was going to put it to use. It wasn't like that had anything else to be doing at nine in the evening around there, anyway.

The senior paramedic was somewhat less than amused at driving this far out for a broken nose, but the junior he had with him was pleasant enough, stabilizing and taping and chatting about the storms.

"Those things are amazing," he said. I jumped and cried out as he moved my nose again. "I've never seen anything like 'em before, and I'm from the Midwest. They say there's another one coming tomorrow."

"There's always a storm coming tomorrow," I said. It came out stuffy and unintelligible and it hurt to say.

"What?"

I groaned.

"Shut up, Maverick," the senior said. "It hurts to talk a lot of the time. What have I told you about that?"

"Sorry," he said, cowed. "I was just making conversation."

There was no more conversation that night, at least for Maverick; the senior paramedic gave me a signed prescription for painkillers. I took it, looking down at it.

"You're a doctor?"

He scowled at me. "No. Would you like to ride back on this bumpy highway to the medical center to get a prescription from a doctor, sir?"