Afterburn

He picked up a beer that had been sitting on the coffee table and took a swig. “Nah, not anymore. She called it off.”

“Why?”

He shrugged again. “Who knows? She was a psychoti

c bitch anyway. That’s all I seem to get caught up with. My first wife was a slut and this one was sick. I need to reevaluate my criteria when it comes to women.” He put his hands on my thigh. “Or possibly revisit the past.”

I couldn’t believe it. After all that time, his mere touch still made me weak.

I moved farther away from him on the sofa. “What’s taking Chance so long?”

“You know she washes her hair every time she takes a shower.” He moved down also; closing the gap. “Relax, Rayne. I won’t bite.”

“I’m seeing someone, Ruiz,” I told him. “It’s serious.”

He glanced down at my legs. “Can’t be too serious; the way you’re moving your leg back and forth. Stroking that clit because I excite you, huh?”

Damn, he was right! I immediately froze my leg.

“Ruiz, I’m flattered that you still find me attractive, but I’m involved.”

“And?”

“And I plan to see where things can go with him.”

“What if I want to see where things can go with us?”

“That can’t happen.”

Ruiz pulled me toward him by the neck. “What can’t happen?”

Before I knew it, we were kissing. Next thing I knew, I was laying on Chance’s couch, with Ruiz on top of me, his hands under my sweater fondling my breasts. It was getting intense; I was rubbing his dick through his jeans and he was rock hard. If Chance hadn’t come in the room and cleared her throat loudly, we may have ended up fucking right there.

“Ahem, what the hell is this?” Chance asked as we both got up and tried to straighten up our clothes.

“Hey, Chance, I’m here,” I said, giggling with embarrassment.

“Ruiz, you said you wanted to see Rayne; not jump her damn bones in my crib.”

“I brought some salads,” I told her.

The three of us stood there, in the middle of the floor, in complete silence for a few seconds.

“You know what,” I added. “I suddenly remembered that I need to run an errand before all the stores close.” I headed for the door. “I’ll call you a little later, Chance.”

Normally, Chance would have talked mad shit and cursed me out in Spanish for making plans with her and then canceling them. She let me off the hook for once because she realized the situation was out of hand.

I got on the elevator and panicked. What had I done? All that time I’d been worried about Yardley caving into his past and there I was, within a matter of minutes, about to fuck Ruiz again after all those years. What if Will came back sniffing around me? Or Bryant? Would I be weak enough to fuck them too?

I arrived home around ten and took a long, hot bath. I felt so unclean; even though I hadn’t actually slept with Ruiz. I’d called Yardley from my car, asking if I could see him. He said his friends had come over but he could either kick them out or leave them there and come to me. I assured him that I would be okay, but I think he sensed something in my voice; hopefully not the guilt I was feeling.

Chance had been blowing up my cell phone but I didn’t take her calls. There were three messages on my home voice mail. One from Chance, asking me what the hell was really going on between me and her brother. The second one was from Ruiz, saying he had pressed redial on Chance’s phone because she refused to give him my number. He wanted to know if I would consider seeing him again before he left in a couple of days. He claimed he wanted to talk but he wanted much more than that and we both knew it. Ruiz and I could go absolutely nowhere and I wasn’t about to lead him on in any way. The final call was from Basil, wanting to know why he and I weren’t hanging out anymore. I did miss chilling with him but Basil couldn’t fit in my life at that moment with everything else going on. I was planning to start attending church on the regular again. I had kind of fallen from grace but intended to ask Yardley to start going with me; at least every other Sunday.

By midnight, I was starving. The latest version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had just finished playing on cable. It was truly gross and I wondered how many times they planned to remake the same film. What was really sick is that the storyline was partially based on fact, which made it even more disturbing to watch.

I could’ve kicked myself for not stopping by Horace and Dickey’s anyway. Since I wasn’t going to be helping Chance do any work, I could’ve easily thrown down on that bomb ass fish and passed out. To top it off, I’d left my damn salad and I had extra caesar dressing at home that I could’ve hooked it up with.

I was in the kitchen settling for a bowl of Frosted Flakes—since cereal is a quick fix 24/7—when I heard a knock at my door. I grabbed a knife out the block on my counter. There had been a serial rapist in the district recently and I wasn’t expecting anyone.