Three Weeks on the Road Ch. 16 Pt. 01

Author's note:

This chapter contains no sex. If that is your motivation for reading, please tune in again next week for Chapter 16 Pt.2.

This week's chapter resolves some unanswered plotlines left over from Messy. I've mentioned them or made oblique references to them in the preceding 15 chapters, but 16 addresses them head-on.

Regarding the change in Short Description, this "cluster" of chapters is particularly meaningful to me - it's about people loved and lost, and the people who replaced them - and I wanted a way to set them apart from all the others. I would encourage you to listen to the referenced songs while reading these chapters. It will definitely enhance the experience.

As always, all comments, criticisms, critiques, and concerns are appreciated, public and/or private. Thanks for reading.

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"Sex now? Please?" McKenna asked impatiently. "Jessie's stress relief is getting beat or smoking, yours is hitting things, mine is getting fucked."

I looked over at Jessie and she rolled her eyes, shrugged. "Tonight," I said.

"Awwww, but that's too long to wait, I want your cock in me now... What about a blowjob? Can I give you that?" McKenna sounded whiny.

"Tonight."

The girls had showered together and were getting ready for their meeting. Jessie was getting dressed. McKenna had been laying on the bed face down, ass up, reaching back to rub her open pussy in an attempt to entice me.

I was focused on Jessie.

The vampiric woman seemed somewhat better today than she had last night. Dressing in a pencil skirt, blouse, and jacket, she was silent but didn't seem as...lost...as she had in the shower. She'd kissed me this morning and told me that sleeping in my arms was exactly what she'd needed.

McKenna dressed quickly, a slightly shorter skirt, slightly lower cut top, and a jacket left unbuttoned, and they both rushed through makeup as quickly as women can. I was lucky. I just needed to throw on boxers, shorts, t-shirt, shoes, and a knife and I was good to go.

I walked with them to that monstrous black spider building, and the Brotherhood mob quieted down when they saw us. No profanity, insults, or projectiles spoiled the cool, sunny morning, and Jessie pulled me into a ferocious kiss at the door. "Go kick some butt," I told her.

She smirked, and I saw in it that that intelligent, predator grin that had drawn me in. "I will. Love you."

"I love you too. McKenna, don't annoy them too much."

The smaller girl sneered at me and I held the door for Danny and Harper. "Weird crowd this morning," he said in passing. "They ain't bothering us."

"Funny that. Good luck."

And then the door shut and I was alone on the concrete, with a hostile mob at my back.

I don't do well alone, so I decided to take my mind off my aloneness by exploring. Denver is a big city, I might as well get a start on seeing it.

I spent most of the day wandering. Up and down the Sixteenth Street mall, through a museum of really ugly modern art, down a street of nothing but restaurants, through a beautiful garden, and over a shining white bridge that looked like a sailboat. I ate lunch at a gourmet pizza restaurant and treated myself to a lunchtime whiskey, then spent a good hour or two wandering through a massive used book store.

I like big cities. As much as I like the desolation and return to primal nature of the great outdoors, there's something thrilling about getting lost in a crowd, moving through the streets like a blood cell in a vein, drifting anonymously in a sea of humanity, wandering through a vertical forest of human ingenuity and accomplishment. I could be ANYONE and NO ONE.

No worries.

No cares.

No history, no past, no memories.

Just shoes and shadow on brightly sunlit concrete. The cool of air conditioning and a bell against a door as I pushed into a shop. The feel of a firm body against my leading arm as I shouldered through a crowd, a faceless nobody among hundreds of thousands.

In a big city, I could just BE.

My phone rang at four thirty, and I answered it as I stood in a corner store buying a bottle of water. "Hey, darling."

"We're done for the day." I couldn't tell if her voice was stressed or not. "You wanna come get us? I feel an urge to go shopping."

I walked out onto the sidewalk, twisted the cap and gulped water. "Be there in ten. You have a good day?"

"I have no idea. It was...ok?"

"That's better than bad."

"Yeah it is."

"See you soon. Love you."

"I love you."

I picked up my place and made the clock tower in seven, held the door for my woman and her friend in eight. Jessie pulled me into another fierce hug and buried her face in my neck. I could feel her heart hammering through our shirts and skins. "Good to see you," I whispered. "I missed you today."

"Missed you too, daddy," she whispered back.

I pushed her to arm's length. "How'd it go?"

"Can't talk about it in detail. Confidentiality agreements like a mile long. But I think it went ok."

McKenna slugged me in the arm. "Don't let her fool you. She did awesome."

I looked over at Harper and Danny. "How do you guys think it went?"

Danny shrugged. "I think we'll know more tomorrow."

"You guys wanna go get some pizza and a brew?" Harper asked. "I'm famished."

Jessie shook her head. "I need some retail therapy. Mike? You wanna go?"

"I'm following you."

The mall along Sixteenth looked like it had some churn, the stores in a perpetual state of moving in or moving out. Most either had the pleasantly chemical "new store" smell or were disorganized messes with "Going Out Of Business" signs. We walked down tiled corridors, under skylights, past storefronts and restaurants and huge banks of windows, in and out of thick crowds as Jessie led us from one store to another. Afternoon faded to evening as the women pulled me along to "just one more store" and I held purses and phones and jackets while they tried on clothing or shoes.

I had LTE, I couldn't be bored.

And it was nice seeing Jessie happy again. She seemed to be working out her stress with long strides and fast pace, the nervous energy bleeding off as she burned up tile floors and asphalt streets.

"One more, that cowboy looking store, and then let's go to dinner. That brewery looks amazing." Jessie stared down the street we'd already walked like four times.

I sighed. What was one more store?

The business was at the base of a huge brick tower, and the lights were bright and soft and inviting as we walked in. They seemed to cater to city-slickers, though Billy Crystal was nowhere to be seen. Rough leather jackets, cowboy hats, hardy flannel shirts, tough canvas work pants, home décor with a western or woodsy motif - everything the store stocked seemed designed to cater to suburban men who liked to pretend riding the lawnmower was the same as riding out to run miles of fence.

But I wasn't going to complain. It made Jessie happy. And so I wandered rack to rack while the girls tried on boots, and I tried to visualize myself wearing this shit at a house in the Colorado countryside. It was a pleasant image.

Warning bells cranked to full Chinese gong band in my head as I passed a mirror, and my heart rate jacked up. Something was wrong. I'd caught something in my periphery that didn't belong here.

Hand in my pocket, finger through the ring of my knife, I walked around a rack with forced nonchalance.

A small woman bent over a box of deerstalker hats. Glossy black hair streamed down her back, cascaded over her left side as she knelt.

I knew her.

I could never forget her.

But still, it couldn't be her. In this massive country with three hundred and fifty million people, she couldn't be here right now. The odds were impossible.

The cane in her hand confirmed it.

Dammit.

"Tori?"

Her head cranked around at warp speed, and it WAS her. She'd added a few pounds in the last few years - exercising is difficult when a high-velocity chunk of lead destroys your thigh - and a few lines to her face, but she was still Tori. Gorgeous bright eyes, brilliant teeth in a broad smile, light brown skin, and that thick soft waterfall of hair black like oil.

I hadn't seen her since she moved out of the now-sold row of townhouses I'd owned a lifetime ago. The last thing she'd said to me was "We needed each other, Gary. But I never loved you."

The last thing I'd said to her was "I love YOU. And I always will."

Staring at each other across a few feet of empty carpet, I could still hear the zipper on her duffel, and the beep of the moving truck outside her back door.

"Hey, neighbor," I said. Killing had been easier than saying those words. Dying had been easier.

"Hey, Gary."

Dammit, even her voice was still the same. I could feel my breathing picking up, like a panic attack. "Um, fancy meeting you here. What are the odds? How have you been?"

She reached out and I shook her hand. Warm. Dry. Muscle under the skin. Familiar. Tori. I could see the way her fingers whitened on bedsheets, feel her pulse as I gripped her wrists together behind her back, see those delicate digits wrapped around the handle of a gun.

"Good. You?"

"I'm good. On a months vacation between jobs. Here with Jessie for her business."

"Jessie?"

"That woman I met in Milwaukee."

"Ah."

"So what do you do? Do you live in Denver?"

A shake of her head sent that beautiful mane of hair swinging. "No, I live in Vail. I was up here to get some parts for a furnace, decided to treat myself to some shopping."

"Hey Gary, who - " Jessie entered my world again. She stopped mid-sentence and I looked over to see her sort of stagger in place as she saw me holding Tori's hand. Stormclouds of rage and pain crossed her face, then blew away. "Who is this?"

"Jessie, this is Tori. Used to be my neighbor, back in Minneapolis. Tori, this is Jessie. She's... Mine. And that's McKenna, a friend of ours."

Tori gave me a lopsided smirk as if to say "You slut" and the three women took turns embracing. "Nice to meet you," the Latina told Jessie. "I remember when Gary met you, he was absolutely infatuated. He sure does pick them beautiful."

"Thanks, he sure does." The taller, gothic girl looked Tori up and down, her voice on edge.

"Awww, thank you. So, when did you guys get together?"

"After Florida."

"Florida?"

Jessie's demeanor changed with a purse of the lips and a smile so saccharine sweet I thought powdered sugar would start raining down around us. "Why don't we all go to dinner and catch up, see where we've been. I'd like to hear about Gary's time in Minnesota, and I'm sure he'd LOVE to catch up with you."

McKenna was giving me weird looks as the two women spoke. I couldn't blame her, something about Jessie's demeanor seemed incredibly, violently PISSED.

"Uh, sure. I found this great place downtown, serves wonderful enchiladas. Wanna go?"

Jessie cocked her head. "Sounds great. I wanna drop these bags at our room, change out of these business clothes. Meet you back here around seven thirty?"

A smile lit up Tori's face and blew a hole straight through my chest. Fuck me, I remembered that smile. "I'll be here." She hugged Jessie and McKenna again, hesitantly shook my hand, and then I was following Jessie out the door, her long stride burning up the pavement.

McKenna dove for the bathroom as soon as we got back to the hotel room, and I watched as Jessie sling her bags in the corner and hike herself up on the desk, looked at her shaking hands in disbelief. "What's up?" I asked.

I didn't want to know. I felt like I'd just unscrewed the housing on a nuclear bomb ticking down to zero. Whatever my vampiric lover said would be the boom.

"So that's what you were doing at that bar," she said quietly.

"Huh?"

"You met up with her. That's why you wouldn't tell me. You knew TORI was here all along...fuck..."

"No, that's not it at all. I was doing something... Else... There... Something for you. To keep you safe."

She came off the desk in a graceful slide, got up in my face. "What's the deal? Were you even going to come back to Milwaukee with me?"

"The fuck are you talking about?"

"Tori, Gary. TORI. THE TORI. Your Tori. The woman you spent three years sleeping with and vacationing with and hunting with and sharing your life with after she pulled that fucking gun out from under your chin after your parents died. The woman you died to save. The ME who came before ME."

"You think I'm gonna leave you for Tori? That's absurd. I had no idea she was here!"

Jessie paced away, biting her nails, paced back. I seized her by the shoulders to keep her in one place. "I love you, woman. You. I'm with YOU."

"I saw your face when you looked at her. Don't try to tell me there's nothing there. Don't you dare tell me you don't still feel something for her."

"Of course I feel SOMETHING. And of course its different than with you. We met each other at the lowest points in our lives. We dragged each other out of that. We killed fuckin' terrorists together!" Why couldn't she understand this?

"So you do still love her." She looked away, voice low.

I love YOU. And I always will.

It was my turn to look away. "I'm with YOU," I gritted out.

"That's why I want you to go to dinner with her." Jessie sounded small and deflated.

"You're not making sense." I released her and she spun away, sat heavily on the bed.

"I'm not going." She looked up at me and tears and makeup streaked her face. My heart broke just from looking at her. "It's a test, for you. I want you to go have dinner with her. Have a great time with her. And I want you to sleep with her. Hell, bring her back and bone her on this bed right next to me while I sleep."

"You need to start making sense. I'm not doing that. Why the FUCK would I?"

"Because the moment I saw her, I knew I was gonna lose you to her. I know you still love her, Gary. You have to. You as much as said it. If you come back, I'll know you love me."

I ran my hands through my hair. "This is idiotic. I'm not going to dinner with my... With... With Tori. And I'm sure as hell not going to sleep with her. She wouldn't sleep with me, she told me she doesn't love me, and she sure as shit hasn't spent the last three years pining for me."

"If you guys have the connection you said, you could get her into bed. I NEED you to."

The thought of Tori against me, beneath me, riding me, the feeling of being inside her again was guiltily intoxicating. I HAD missed her. "No."

Jessie stood and glared at me, death in her eyes. "If you don't go to her, I will call the police and tell them you hit me."

The temperature in the room dropped about twenty degrees, and my blood ran colder, shock and anger pounding through my circulatory system, deafening in my eardrums. Part of me WANTED to hit her. "Why... Why would you do that?"

"Because I'd rather you hate me, rather you fucking LEAVE me, than spend the rest of my life wondering if I'm your second choice. Wondering if I'm your fucking consolation prize."

"You're not. I'm with you."

She pulled out her phone. "Wanna bet I won't do it?"

I slammed the door behind me, and it felt good.

I punched the button in the elevator, and it felt good.

I stormed through the lobby, leaving confused attendants in my wake, and it felt good.

My feet hammered the street, and as I passed the Brotherhood's encampment, I wished a dozen of them would take a shot at me. That would feel GREAT.

I didn't have to wait long in front of the tower for Tori to show up." Hey Gary. Where's Jessie and mic, mec, whatsername?"

"They're not coming."

"Everything ok?"

I didn't feel the need to drag her into my domestic mess. "They thought it would be better to give us time to catch up." I forced a smile and cheerfulness into my voice. "Where was that restaurant?"

We walked together through the dimming city, past shoppers, joggers, people going home or to dinner. Streetlights came on, and the office building and hotel windows glowed brightly against the dusk-darkened brick and steel and the deep blue sky.

I wanted to reach out and take her hand.

I wanted to run away.

I wanted to turn her towards me, take her face in my hands and kiss her, let out all the pain and anger and longing and confusion and fuckedupness I felt, resolve it in the way we'd worked so well together years before.

I didn't do shit. I just kept walking.

The restaurant was set in the corner of a two-story block. The décor was wood and ancient metal fixtures, white and red tiles checkering the floor, a balcony overlooking the empty dining area. It felt like there should be a bunch of wiseguys smoking in the corner, planning to whack out some capos over plates of stromboli.

Tori ordered us a table and I went to the bar and ordered alcohol. I felt like vodka, didn't want whiskey that would remind me of a lean pale girl who hated my guts right now. The highest vodka they had was Titos, and I have never desired to drink swill. I ordered a double of something called Glenfiddich, got a screwdriver for Tori, and crossed the scuffed tile floor to sit down next to her.

She was sitting so she could see the front door, and I wanted to see it too. She took the glass from me, grinned at my seating arrangements. "Old habits die hard."

"They do." I sipped at the alcohol. Tasted like burned dirt. And fruit. And it was cold and watery and it would get me drunk.

I drank more.

"You carrying?"

"Nah. Colorado's got their head in their ass. Don't want to go to prison. You?"

"Walther forty five and a Microtech. What SHOULD you be carrying?"

"Custom Sig three twenty in three fifty seven, custom Emerson Karambit. The college payout was really nice to me."

"I believe it."

We drank in silence for a while, then ordered when the waiter came around. Enchiladas for her, a massive burger for me. "Your leg is still giving you trouble I see."

She grimaced. "Didn't heal as well as your arm."

"Still burns in the cold. My hand is still numb. Ish."

"Microsurgery ain't like microcircuitry."

"Yeah."

"So you were in Florida? What for? When?"

I didn't want to think about that time span, but I forced my mind back. "December twenty seventeen through March twenty eighteen. Doc said my arm would heal better where it was warm, so I transferred down with my bank. Spent four months in a hotel down there. Jessie came down to meet me for like a week. I moved up to Milwaukee, bought a house... The rest, as they say, is history. Where all have you been?"

"After I moved out in November, I went back to Cali to see my mom. Lived there until I got the job in Vail."

"What are you doing here? Someone wanted you to make sex furniture full time?"

A flush infused her golden brown skin. "Facility manager for a resort. I make sure the grounds are shipshape, make sure the damage the guests do gets fixed rickytick, oversee any expansions. It's exhausting but fun."

"Nice." I high fived her.

"What are you doing now?"

"Just got promoted like five levels up from where I was at the bank last month. Overseeing all of our commercial loans department. That's an entire two floors."

"Hot damn."

"Yeah. And Jessie is out here trying to sell her company's product to another, much bigger tech company. She stands to make a LOT of money."

The food arrived and we tucked in. The enchilada looked delicious and I stole a bite, engaged in a laughing fencing match with Tori's fork afterward.

"It sounds like you're doing well for yourself," Tori said around a mouthful of food. "No fallout from the shooting?"

I shrugged, chewed. "I'm not welcome in any mosques. City and state cleared me for the shootings. Minnesota AyGee was briefly looking at a civil rights case against me for shooting an entire minority family, but Deirdre helped me shut that down. No ones really looked at that as a liability when hiring me. You?"