The Truth About Us (2 page)

“Can you wait a second, I’m just about done.” I spit into the sink as she sits on the toilet, her eyebrow ring rising with her light eyebrow.

“Dude, I’m like twenty weeks pregnant. This kid is punching my bladder. I piss, like, every ten seconds.” She finishes and sticks her hands under the already running water. I’ve lived in this house with her and her actual stoner boyfriend for just over a week, and she’s pulled the pregnant card over a dozen times. Not to mention, she’s totally fine peeing in front of a complete stranger. Even Sophia 2.0 is not cool with this.

This is not what I expected when I answered the Craigslist ad, ‘Expecting couple looking for mature and responsible tenant to subsidize mortgage’.

“What is it about girls and bathrooms?” Tosh pokes his head through the door, and I am beginning to think privacy was not part of this tenant deal. His thick, black and blue faux-hawk flops over his dark eyes. “Baby,
Ninja Scroll
ain’t gunna watch itself. Get your beautiful butt on that couch.” He reaches out for her and places his hand on her belly, like he does every time she’s within his reach. I dry my mouth and place my toothbrush in the appropriate holder before leaning against the counter. I still am not sure what to make of Tobie and Tosh, the dreaded, pierced, tattooed hippie and the Japanese American, ninja loving stockboy/DJ. They are definitely entertaining and have been more than welcoming. But my favorite thing about them is that they don’t ask me why I moved to the middle of nowhere without any belongings or job prospects.

“You coming Soph?” Tosh asks as he pushes Tobie gently through the door. “It’s, like, the best movie ever. This chick is poison, and totally kills people by fucking them. How awesome is that?”

I laugh at that and follow them down the stairs to the tiny living room with this massive monstrosity of a TV. “Good for her, I guess,” I say and Tobie smiles. “Not so great for the guys thinking they’re just getting laid.”

“Moral of the story is what, Tosh?” she asks, and Tosh smiles.

“Be careful where you stick it,” he says, and Tobie punches him in the arm. He falls backward onto the couch laughing. “Well we know you aren’t deadly.” He pokes at her belly, and she slaps his hand.

I sink into the soft leather armchair beside the couch and get ready for the first anime movie I’ve ever seen in my life. Another first.

Hopefully one of many firsts that might help me forget why I’m running.

Chapter Two

Corbin

“Corbin,” Kayla whispers and I watch her head fall back as I taste her. There’s something about a girl gasping my name that I’ll never get enough of. Hearing it said through hot breath and rushing blood will always make my dick hard. Every time. I unhook her legs from my neck and get up off my knees while she balances herself on the office desk in the back of the bar. Paperwork is scattered around her and the harsh light of the computer illuminates the dim room. An inventory spread sheet of hard alcohol glows and the red light on the phone blinks signalling unchecked messages. An empty feeling washes over me as I stare down at Kayla waiting for me to go to the next step in our routine. My dick is definitely hard, but I’m stalling. Something is missing. Sex is my distraction, so why isn’t it working?

Kayla sits up and looks at me her conventionally beautiful features twisting in confusion. “Why’d you stop?” She reaches out and grabs the waist of my pants, pulling me to her. “My break’s almost over.”

I feel the smile spread across my face, but like always, I don’t feel it inside. It just gets lost in the nothingness that fills me. She strokes me over my pants, bringing me back into the game, as my hands run up her legs. I grip her hips as the sensation travels the length of me. My brain shoves all my thoughts to side, and switches to carnal mode. I yank her to the edge of the desk, leaning over her, pressing into her. She rises up to meet me and clamps her teeth down on my bottom lip.

“Fuck’s sake, Kayla,” I mumble as she undoes my pants and slides her hand inside.

“I want to take it as hard as you can give it.” Her eyes hold mine looking every bit as serious as her tone sounds. She can sense something is off, but like me, she doesn’t seem to know what.

She guides me inside and the tightness feels so good I’m able to shove away whatever was bugging me. Everything beyond this moment is forgotten. I grab a fistful of Kayla’s hair at the nape of her neck and the smile I’m familiar with is back. Dirty, uninhibited, arrogant. Normal. We’re back to being us.

“As hard as I can give it?” I ask while sliding slowly in and out. She nods as best she can with her hair still wrapped in my fingers. “Well, I don’t want to hurt you, darlin’.”

“I like hurt,” she grabs my ass and slams into me with her hips. “I want hard.”

So that's exactly what I give her. Hard.

In every sense of the word.

xxx

I sit the computer screen back up on the desk, making sure it didn’t break while Kayla readjusts her skirt around her hips. She smiles as I stack papers and replace the mouse and keyboard to their rightful spot. Fucking on this desk is a regular occurrence for us and one I fully enjoy for more reasons than you’d think.

“You staying for a beer, Corb? Or, you have to get back to work?” Kayla slips her shoes back on and unlocks the door. Just as she opens it, I reach out and stop her. She spins to face me and presses her back against the hard wood, her light hair stuck to her face in a few spots from sweat.

“I didn’t come here for a beer,” I whisper into her ear and her hands go to my waist, pulling me against her. Trailing her jaw with my mouth, I find her lips and cover them with mine. She kisses me back for a second before turning her head coyly to the side giving me access to her neck.

“I have to get back to work.” She pushes against me and I back up. "But be here at close. I have a new spot for us."

Just before she leaves she looks over her shoulder, her blue eyes sparkling still. She loves sex in strange and public places and I just like sex. It’s an arrangement that works for us.

I wait a few minutes before I leave the office and slip out the front door with not so much as a glance from any of the twenty or so people sitting in the bar. Most of them are too busy watching NASCAR on the big screen to notice me.

Outside, the sun is high in the sky making the world look flat and shadowless. I pull out a cigarette and light it before making my way back down the cracked sidewalk to my truck. If I get back to the shop, I can work on a few more things for Leroy’s big railway order before I head home. The machine shop is only a few blocks from the bar, and a few blocks beyond that is the suburb I live in. The place I share with my dad. The place he’s been since I was a teenager, supporting himself and his drinking. With a couple buddies, I turned the basement into a suite where he stays, and to help him out, my three roommates and I pay him rent to live in the main house. I hate that he spends our money on booze rather than paying his mortgage but bringing it up only causes a fight, so I just don’t. Some months I pay him
and
the mortgage.

The rumble of my truck drowns out my thoughts, and I lean my head back against the seat while I finish my smoke and let the last of my orgasm tremble through my limbs. The best part about getting off is that sleepy euphoria after the last spasms, where it’s just pure forget-the-shit-around-me endorphins zipping through my body. In that window, the lies I tell myself about whom I am, where I’m going, and why I’m still here taking care of Dad’s problems are that much easier to believe.

A tap on my window scares the shit out of me, and I jump to face my old man. His thin face stares through the glass, lines cutting into his forehead as he frowns. I roll down the window and he leans in, his breath saturated with the smell of whiskey. His eyes shift from my face to the smoke in my hand.

“Hey kid, can I snag a cig off you?” he asks, but I already have them out of my shirt pocket and halfway to his hand. I watch him light it then lean against my truck. “Where you off to?”

“Shop.” I ash my smoke out the window, and Dad pushes my hand roughly, scraping my forearm along the hot metal, and glares at me. I must have dropped ash on his shoe. He’s such a dick. I don’t get a chance to tell him that, because the bar door clangs, and Kayla looks both ways before settling on us.

“Hey!” she yells and waves. “There’s an empty keg and no replacement. I need one of you to lift it to the pulley so I can get it into the cooler.” She shades her eyes with her hand and squints at us.

Dad looks in the window and nods. “Go help her.”

“It’s your fucking bar, Dad. I already have a job.”

Flicking the cigarette out the window, I throw the truck into reverse and don’t even bother to check and make sure he gets out of the way. I decide to skip the shop
and
home. No one is better than Dad at killing my buzz, so I drive to the spot I like more than any place in the world. Mills Lake. It makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something when I step in on one side of the mile wide body of water and step out on the other side.

My tires crunch on the old gravel as I pull onto the long dirt road to the lake. Mills Lake is just south of town and the place that gives us our name. A few tiny rental cabins dot the beach on one side with a large grassy meadow behind them. The rest of the lake is surrounded by trees and rocky beaches. I park in my regular spot just off the last cabin and jump out of the truck. My swimming shorts are in the cab under my work stuff, hidden from Jackson, Garett, and Riley who would rip into me for having actual legit speed swimming trunks. Not like Borat-style Speedos but definite stretchy nut-huggers.

I change right in the middle of the parking lot and grab my goggles before making my way to the water. As soon as I step in the water calms me, lapping up against my ankles, shins, knees, hips, stomach. I breathe in fast puffs as I get used to the coldness. It’s probably still way too early in the year to be in here, but I need it. Slowly my body gets used the temperature, and I begin to swim. Some of my best thinking is done in this lake, and it’s the only place where I feel totally at peace. The noise in my head is replaced by the constant reminder to just breathe.

xxx

When I pull into the driveway of my colonial style house it looks like we're having a party, each of my roommate’s cars in the drive and lining the street. But with the three of us and the revolving door of friends and girlfriends it always looks like that. Shaking out my wet hair, I notice my dad sitting on the steps that lead down to his basement apartment. I hope I can make it past him without him noticing, but as soon as I shut the truck door he turns to look. His eyes are narrowed on me in an all too familiar way. My chest constricts as he moves toward me, faster than any drunk should move.

When he's close enough his hand swings out and smacks me hard in the side of the head. I keep still, every muscle in my body tensing.

"You want to talk back to me now, big guy? Now that your girl isn't here to impress." Dad spits and smacks me again, this time in the face. "You're not so tough now."

The sting rips through my cheek, and I clench my fists at my side but still I don't say anything. It doesn't matter anyway. It doesn't change anything if I do.

Dad hits me again and pushes my chest just as the sound of a door slamming makes me jump.

"Corbin," Garett calls to me from the front step. His voice is tight, meaning he's watched the whole interaction. This kind of thing isn't foreign to him either. Garett's been my best friend since second grade and has been my escape route more than once.

Dad stops at the sound of Garett's voice and I take a couple steps back before turning away. Meeting Garett on the steps, he shakes his head.

"When are you going to get rid of that guy?" It's a question he asks often.

"He's my dad." My response is automatic, involuntary, but there's no feeling behind it. Kind of like my smile.

"Sure he is." Garett scoffs at me before going inside. His sarcasm is thick and weighs me down. It's not that easy.

I feel instantly better when the door is shut and the familiar sounds and smells of my house flood my senses. A girlish squeal sounds from the living room as my roommate’s practically live-in girlfriend, Becca, jumps up off the couch, her dark hair flying out all around her smooth milk chocolate shoulders.

"No! You idiot." She puts her head in her hands and flops back down on the couch in front of the TV.

"Jax, control your girlfriend or we'll ban her from coming over during basketball season." I laugh and push Jackson's shaved head gently while Becca glares at me with intimidatingly dark features. She knows I'm joking because she's been around for almost five basketball seasons. I say it every year just before finals when she starts getting seriously crazy.

"You know I can't control this." Jax laughs when Becca digs her fingers into his side. "Hey! Watch the gun, woman." He grabs her wrist, laughing as her eyes get big, and she apologizes. Jackson's in full police uniform, ready for graveyard. Becca's in scrubs, on night shift at the hospital. They're like one of those interracial, all-American,
we can do anything in this country and are so fucking proud of it
ad spots that play on cable TV and it's sad how much they love their life together. I don't believe in that shit. I've never seen it work.