"We're done here," Ace said to me. "Let's go."
"Aw, come now," Junior said. "No need to break up the party; we were just getting to know each other!"
Ace didn't diddly-dally. He just took me by the hand and pulled me off my seat before he half-led, half-dragged me towards the exit. It happened so fast that I didn't really get to say goodbye. Mr. Merrill called out, "It was nice to meet you!" as I was being hauled along, but an acknowledging glance over my shoulder was all I could manage.
"I told you to stay out here for a reason, and he was it." Ace got behind the wheel of the '49, slamming his door.
"How was I supposed to know he was here?" I asked, getting in beside him. "Four hours, I've been waiting! I needed the bathroom!"
"That's why I told you to stay at Eyeball's!"
The humiliation and degradation of being dragged around and talked to like a naughty child made me seethe in my seat. I wanted the argument, but we argue too much these days. I took a breath, long and deep and told myself, He's going through shit, and he needs you to not lose yours.
"OK. I'm sorry. I should have stayed here." Should have stayed home would have been better. Should have stayed at the garage. Should have just downed a bottle and passed out on the sofa and everything would be hunky-dory.
I became aware of Markus standing right beside the car at Ace's door, making things doubly embarrassing. "Uhh... I'm gonna head out," he said awkwardly. "Meet you at... you know where."
"See you there, bud," Ace replied.
Markus headed to his own car, somewhere down in the dark, leaving Ace and I alone in the parking lot.
Ace snatched his cigarettes off the dash and lit one up. You could almost feel the calm it brought him as he inhaled from the burning embers and then sunk back into his seat, letting the smoke stream up and away, out into the darkness.
"You're going somewhere tonight?" I asked. "I take it I'm not invited?"
"This place is men only."
"Right..."
"Wha'd you wanna talk about?"
Mr. Merrill words rang in my ears. "Sometimes, we Merrill boys can forget what's good for 'em. We get caught up in chasin' things that don't matter and lose what does."
I remembered back to when times were good. To when Ace poured whiskey all down the front of me. To when he was so proud of me for winning that drag race in his truck. To the first time he kissed me. My stomach went all a flutter when I thought back through it all. I wondered what we were doing. Does money matter so much that it's worth all of this pressure, stress and worry?
"I ain't got all night, you know," he said, taking another drag.
"I was just thinking about that time we got drunk up at The View and everyone left except those two rich kids who fell asleep in their car."
Ace smirked to himself. "And we let down their tires and smeared their windows with mud."
"I can't believe they didn't wake up," I chuckled.
"'Cause they were as drunk as we were."
Ace and I grinned at each other - the first smile we had shared in what seemed like forever. But his smile quickly faded and he looked away for another puff.
"When I said I miss you, I meant it," I said. I smoothly ran my hand up his thigh, feeling the warmth of him under the denim. "Things haven't felt the same between us these last couple of weeks."
"What are you talking about? If you wanna find some View kids to throw mud at, I'm all in."
"No... but, what happened after, can we do that again?"
"What - throw mud at each other?"
"No, I hated that! You got it all in my hair!"
"You started it."
"I did not! ...Did I?"
"Yeah - you planted that muddy handprint on my ass."
I cracked a laugh. "Oh... it was me, wasn't it? And then we drove home - that was so bad."
"I was fine."
"You always say that."
"Cause I always am."
I bit my lip. "That was the hottest shower we've ever had."
Snatching his cigarette from between his fingers, I tossed it over the side of the car and threw a leg over his lap, settling my thighs on his.
Ace sighed and rolled his neck, his eyes looking everywhere else except for at me.
"Come on, baby," I said. "What's the matter?"
Sliding my hands around the back of his neck, I softly kissed his lips, staying mindful of his reaction. There hardly was a reaction at first. Just a vacant stare into the darkness. I may as well have been kissing the back of my hand. But I wanted to show him just how much I longed to feel him close to me again. I needed to show him that this is what mattered above everything else.
Shuffling in closer on my knees, his belly was warm against mine as I seated myself snug in his lap. I dared to slip my tongue between his lips, my touch rich with emotion as I breathed in the feel of him that wasn't so familiar anymore. After two weeks of not having him, it felt like the first time. My heart fell into a heavy, rhythmic beat as I drifted away, losing myself in him and drowning in every detail from the softness of his short, blonde hair between my fingers to the stirring of the beast beneath me. I pressed myself down onto him firmly, insistently, then obsessively.
His hand shot up my spine and clenched the nape of my neck, holding me firmly as his tongue pushed into my mouth. The sudden touch sent a sensual shudder through me, and my breath hung for a moment as emotion almost overtook. Breathing slow, I sunk back into that rhythm but softened my movements and opened myself up, inviting him to take his control. Heavy palms dropped onto my thighs and needy fingers drug up to my hips and sink into fresh, bare skin. I sighed into his mouth as his hands dove down the back of my jeans, the warmth of them kneading my skin as he drew my hips into him snugger. I had to steady myself as he rocked up against me with such power that my knees all but left the seat. A blissfully warm feeling spread through my belly, and now there was a restless throb that desperately need to be sated.
My belly burned for him as hands slid inside my waistband and thumbs gripped the button on my jeans... and then... his hands hesitated. His hips rested still. And his shoulders lowered as his head fell back against the seat as he shut his eyes and panted to catch his breath.
I panted too, for a moment, my heart still galloping, and I kept stroking the back of his hair in a desperate attempt to keep things going.
Ace lifted me off his lap, and I settled next to him, blinking away the tears as my eyes started to well. "Did I do something?" I asked.
He propped himself up on his seat and his eyes narrowed as he stared straight ahead into the darkness. "All I can think about is the way you looked at me the other night."
"When?"
"You made me tell you what I was doing to get that money, and then you looked at me like I was dog piss."
My chest caved in like he'd knocked the wind out of me. My gaze faltered, and I felt my cheeks redden. "I'm sorry. I was just scared."
"Look, I didn't wanna do that shit. I told you that. But, sometimes you gotta make some tough calls and not be a pussy about it. I need you to back me up with shit like that, not run me down."
"OK - you're right. But, I just want us to not forget what's really important."
Ace scoffed. "Ohh. You got the, 'All Merrill's are greedy fuckers' speech, didn't you? Is that why you're all over me?"
"Err... he did mention something along those lines," I confessed. "But like I said, I miss you. I miss being near you. We're so focused on money all the time that we don't... have fun anymore."
"I know it's tough. I know I been working on this a lot. But, once I start rolling a few dollars home, we'll be sitting pretty."
I sighed and rubbed my damp eyes to dry them. "OK."
"You're problem is, you don't think I can do this," he said, stunning me a little. "I got a month to work something out, and you've already written me off."
"Huh? That's not true."
"Isn't it? You see, I think that you think you can handle this better than me."
"That's ridiculous."
He snatched his cigarettes off the dash again and hastily lit one up. "Answer me this then," he said through his smoke, snapping his zippo closed. "How did you get into town?"
"What?" My voice got caught in a guilty, dry swallow.
"See, if you'd gotten Eyeball to pick you up or if you walked, you would've told me when I asked you over the phone. But you keep avoiding the question. So, who gave you a ride?"
He took another draw on his smoke, his eyes all knowing. My stomach was in knots. I still hadn't decided if I was gonna mention the job with Keith. I went back and forth on it so much, my head hurt. But now, I had no choice. He knew. In hindsight, I guess it wasn't that hard to work out.
My stomach was in knots as he eyed me, and I took a breath for bravery. "I phoned Keith."
"Fuck..." he said, his top lip curling. " I knew it. Just tell me you didn't-"
"He picked me up way down the road, nowhere near the garage. And I didn't tell him a thing about that."
"So, you got in his car. Even when I explicitly told you-"
"I'm sorry I went behind your back with this, but all I could think about was repaying you that money-"
"I told you to forget it!"
"But I can't! It's not that easy, especially when you need it so badly! And don't think that I don't believe you can't handle this - if anyone can find something, it's you. But, I thought, if I could earn a bit while you're looking-"
"How much is he luring you with?"
"Luring me, what are you talking about?"
"He's got that diner, right?"
"Oh... you know?"
"He was all set to buy the grocery store down Second Street, right up until the Diner went on the market, and then he suddenly switched. I wonder why," Ace said, looking sideways at me before taking another drag.
"You think he bought it to get to me? I highly doubt that."
"What's the offer?"
"I talked him up to 10K per week."
"Holy shit. He is desperate," he muttered.
"Ace... can you please take this seriously. It's ten thousand dollars!"
"Fuck his money," he growled.
"It's not just about the money. He wants me to manage the diner. Someone my age doesn't just walk into a role like that. If I stay there for a while, I'll come out with a glowing reference that I can use in the future. What - you want me to just sit on the sofa and waste my life away?"
"You're not working for him. I don't trust him."
"Why not?"
"Because he wants to fuck you!" His voice cracked like a whip against the silence of the night, making me flinch. "You really needed me to spell it out?"
The familiar creak of the door to Sukey's sounded a few times repeatedly, and I looked over my shoulder to see a few old guys gathering on the porch, probably to see what all the yelling was about. And right at the back of the small crowd was Ace's father, his tall figure standing out from the others as he silently looked on.
"Look," I said lowly, shriveling in my seat. "Nothing will ever happen. I would never do something like that to you. Don't you trust me?"
"You let him hit on you, don't you?"
I scoffed at the notion as if it were the most absurd thing I had ever heard, but... then I realized what he meant. The night Keith came around looking for him, I was never sure if Ace had seen it. Now I knew.
"Yeah - you know what I'm talkin' 'bout," he said. "You expect me to be OK with that?"
"No," I said, my voice catching on a dry swallow. "You're right. Umm... I'm really sorry. I should have told him to back off."
"Should have told him to fuck off..."
"That may be. But we have an understanding now. This is strictly work."
Ace took one last draw from his cigarette, then flicked the butt over the car door and let the last smokey breath leave his lips. "Let's see what he understands, shall we?"
The engine came alive with an ear-splitting roar as Ace wrenched the guts out of it.
"Ace... what are you doing?"
He threw the car in reverse and hit the gas, barely checking that nothing was behind us as he raucously backed the '49 all the way out of the parking lot and onto the road, bounding over lose rocks and gravel. He then put the car into gear and floored it, dramatically peeling rubber against road, the tires screeching until they found their grip. The few drunk guys that had hung around to nosy in on our conversation were whooping and howling off the porch, obviously thriving on the moment of excitement in their otherwise drab night. Ace's old man, however, was nowhere to be seen.
We whizzed through town and down Main Street, and I had to hold both the door and the seat to stop myself from being thrown around the vehicle. It was obvious where we were headed, and by the way he drove, it was also obvious that we weren't going there to work things out like civilized adults.
"I thought you just said we need to back each other up!" I yelled over the rowdy engine noise.
"I'll back you up when you know what the fuck you're doing."
We hung a tight right around a corner, and Ace's switchblade shot across the dashboard in front of me and caught in a nook, right by the steering wheel. It surprised the life out of me because I hadn't noticed it the whole time I was waiting for him. I noticed him eyeing it as if contemplating whether to take it to the party.
"Whatever idea you have in your head right now, drop it," I warned.
"One more word outta you, and you're on the curb."
Keeping my mouth shut for the two minutes it took to get to Keith's was a struggle. We bounded up his driveway, and Ace braked hard, shoveling the front tires deep in the gravel. He killed the ignition and snatched his switchblade off the dash before stuffing it in his back pocket. "Stay here," he warned me before getting out.
"Chambers!" Ace shouted as he banged every window and exterior wall on the way down to the back of Keith's house. "You got a visitor!"
I jumped over the side of the '49 and tried to stay silent as I followed him around the back. Ace skipped up the two steps and started pounding his fist on the back door so hard I could see the wood vibrate with every blow. Ace's T-shirt was tucked in, making it easy to see the obvious lump in the back pocket of his jeans where he had lodged the blade.
My heart was racing, mainly because I didn't know what he was planning. Maybe he wouldn't use it. But maybe he would. He could have easily whipped it out from its hiding place and caused Keith some serious damage, and Keith wouldn't have even see it coming. I fidgeted on my feet, bottom lip between my teeth, as the anxiousness to interfere overwhelmed me.
I walked up behind Ace and wrapped my arms around his waist, kissing between his shoulder blades. I closed my eyes and lost myself in there for a moment as I thought back to the times when I loved burying my head in that nook to sleep.
"Ace..." I pleaded, "think about what you're doing right now."
"I told you to stay in the car," he muttered. But he didn't push the issue, and resumed his door pounding. I supposed he always assumed I wouldn't do as I was told.
Seeing how insistent he was, I decided to stand right back and well out of the way for whatever was about to go down.
Eventually, Keith opened up and stepped out onto his doorstep. He stood in the porch light, his height advantage casting a large shadow over his noticeably shorter counterpart. Ace is usually competitive in the height department, but Keith's tall figure and bulky build make him almost foreboding. Ace seemed less than impressed though as he took one step closer to Keith, putting them chest to chest.
Keith sighed and staunchly folded his arms as if to wall a barrier between them. "I knew you'd be 'round here. You OK, Cassie?" he called to me.
"You don't get to speak to her," Ace said.
"So, you'll speak for her. Will you?"
"Stay the fuck away from her."
"Look - why don't we go inside, have a drink and talk this through?"
Ace scoffed, his upper lip tightening. "Twice, I've warned you, but I can't seem to drill it into your thick head. Maybe... you just need the warning to be clearer." Ace reached into his back pocket and dug around in there for a moment before checking his other one.
He frowned in confusion as he looked around behind him, thinking he may have dropped it. It's funny... he never suspected me. Not even for a second.
"Ace..." I said.
He twisted my way to see me standing half-way to the car, holding the blade out in the palm of my hand. His shoulders rose as his lungs expanded, filling with despise, I'm sure. He came for me, his fists clenched by his sides and his piercing blue eyes glaring at me without a single blink. He got to me quick, and I didn't have time to think what to do with the knife. All I knew was, I didn't want him to have it. I swiftly slipped it down the back of my jeans and wriggled a little, feeling the heaviness of the cool steel slip lower until it was lodged behind my thigh.
Ace came right up to me, his chest bumping hard into mine, and I met his gaze at his height. His jaw was clenched hard as iron. I shrunk back a bit then as I realized just how angry I had made him. I can understand why he got like that - I mean, in terms of disloyalty, I just scored ten out of ten. But, seeing how vicious he got with Kyle, and remembering how helpless I felt to do anything about it, I wanted to take control of the situation this time. Keith might be a big boy, but he's not made of steel.
"Give me my fucking blade." I half expected him to grab me and tip me upside down to shake it back out.
"If I say I won't work at the diner, can we go?" I asked, my heart racing.
"Tell him you never wanna see him again."
I felt my cheeks redden as I looked over Ace's shoulder at Keith who was still standing on his steps, profusely shaking his head, his arms folding tighter. I looked directly into his eyes and imagined saying it to him. I never wanna see you again. Such hollow words. I didn't believe Keith had any ulterior motives or bad intentions. Maybe Ace was thinking, if he couldn't gut Keith with a knife, he'd use me instead.
At that moment, I remembered something Eyeball said to me a while ago now, right before he basically told Ace to shove it and then got together with the love of his life.
"Maybe it ain't all about what Ace says. Maybe life ain't all about what Ace says."
The words streamed into my head, and my breath held as the revelation hit me. Something shifted in me. My mindset. My perspective. It was like finding something inside myself that, until then, I didn't realize I had lost.
"No," I said to Ace. "I'm not doing it."
"OK," Ace said. "Then give me my knife or I'll rip down your jeans and take it myself."
My knee trembled as I removed my shoe and worked the knife down my leg - actually, all of me trembled. I tried to hold it together and not let on how afraid I was of what might happen once the knife was back in his hands.
I held out the blade and Ace snatched it from my fingers. And as he looked at me, I saw a flash of vulnerability in those steel-blue eyes. I saw hurt, disappointment and betrayal.
Without another word, Ace turned his back on me and walked towards his car, pushing the knife deep into his back pocket. I went to follow, but hit an invisible wall preventing me from taking one step closer. A wall that told me I wasn't welcome.
Ace started the engine and it came to life, and he looked at me one last time, his hand ready on the wheel, and I hung mid-air waiting to hear him prove my assumptions wrong and call for me.
Keith walked down his steps and stood beside me as Ace backed down the gravelly driveway and then hammered his foot to the floor, ripping up the road as he tore off into the night.
My mind was everywhere. My eyes welled and darted aimlessly at everything around me as I tried to comprehend what just happened. Did Ace just break up with me? Did I deserve it? What on earth am I supposed to do now? A shudder came over my shoulders as I suddenly felt cold and lost in the world.
"Are you OK, Cass?" Keith asked.
There was a noticeable hesitancy about him; I think he didn't know what to do. And I couldn't help him. I didn't know if I wanted to go inside for a drink, cry into his big chest or go find the nearest bush and hide in there and ball my eyes out for a few days.
"I might not be able to take the job," I said, voice a bit shaky. "I don't know yet. Can you give me a couple of days to think about it? I'm sorry if I let you down."
"Hey," he said. "It's OK. If you don't want it, I'll find someone else. Not that you're so easily replaceable. But, I'll figure something out."
I gave him a shaky nod and began my decent down his driveway into the unknown.
"Do you want a ride somewhere? Back to Natalie's?"
"I'll be fine."
A raw, raspy feeling crept up my throat, and it quickly grew into a painful lump that I could not swallow away. I had no idea what I was doing; I just had to find somewhere to go where nobody else was.
I won't lie - that chapter was absolute torture to write haha. I knew the points I wanted to make, it was just finding the right order of telling everything. Pretty happy with how it ended up tho... it's not perfect, I know, but let's move on now before I lose my sanity haha.
I really tried with that intimate scene lol - I'm usually so lazy with them because I think I suck at them. But I'm really trying to learn how to write them better.
