Page 7 of Roadrunner

It didn’t last long enough to feel ordinary, and it didn’t end fast enough to leave me wanting.

When he finally pulled back, he caught my bottom lip lightly between his teeth before letting go, like he was putting a period on the end of a sentence.

It was unoriginally perfect.

Perfect in my house always came with a receipt. This didn’t.

I stood for a moment, trying to catch a breath that wouldn’t come easily. In the dark I couldn’t see much of his face.

I didn’t need to.

I gazed at the mountain range. Beyond it, in the valley, Tucson’s outline was illuminated. The scene was photo worthy.

A shallow breath escaped me without asking permission.

The mountains. The smell of him. The kiss. The distant Tucson skyline. The stars. The motorcycle. The day had the makings for what might become a very good summer.

I closed my eyes.

I let it be everything it was.

CHAPTER FOUR

Alex

Now

Hatred sat in the room like something you could smell. I swallowed against the lump in my throat. “All I wanted was—”

“I’m not doing this again,” he said. “You keep at me with this ‘stay home, I need you here’ shit, you’ll be sorry. That’s a promise.”

“I wanted one weekend. Martina’s gone. That’s all I was asking for.” I heard myself, and hated how small it sounded. “I don’t think that’s too much to—”

“Goddamn it, Alex.” The tan he’d built up on the golf course turned a deep red. It was the color he went before things got physical. His eyes went flat. “I said stop.”

Joshua and I had been married ten years. The first nine months were bearable. Everything after that felt like something being pulled out of me a little at a time. I told myself I’d made my bed. For better or worse. I said it to myself every day, the way you’d check a wound to see if it had gotten worse. It hadn’t, yet.

“Fine,” I said, waving a hand. “I’m done.”

“Done? You don’t get to decide that. I decide.” His eyebrow went up. “Understood?”

There was no version of a conversation with him that didn’t end this way. If I said up, he said down. Steak, he wanted seafood. Blue sky, he’d swear it was green.

“I’m done asking,” I said, turning for the kitchen. “Done hoping. Done waiting for the day you wake up and see what you are.” I took a cup down from the cupboard and turned to face him. “I’m not leaving. I made a promise and I intend to keep it. But I’m done pretending I like it.”

“What do you think you’re doing, walking away while I’m talking to you? How many times have I told you not to do that?”

I wasn’t going to apologize for ending an argument I hadn’t wanted in the first place.

“I’m done apologizing just to keep you happy.” I put a pod in the machine and set my cup under it. “Go do whatever makes you feel better. I’ve been alone this long. One more weekend won’t kill me.”

“You push and push,” he said. “You can’t just leave it alone.”

He wasn’t wrong. I’d rather push than fold. “No,” I said. “I can’t.”

“I’m sick of this.” His eyes cut toward the hallway that led to the garage. “Fuck it. I’m gone.”

He turned and walked out, one last look thrown over his shoulder before the door slammed behind him.