Hard Bastard(92)

It was getting harder and harder to deny. What I wanted, what I desperately wanted, kept threatening to overwhelm what I was doing. Every new step, every turn, every time I breathed in his smell and felt his strong hand against my hip.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice cutting through the music.

“Yeah, fine. Just hot I guess.” I looked away from his rain-green eyes.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he practically growled into my ear.

“I can’t. I mean, Jules would kill me.”

He reached up and snatched the radio from my ear. I barely had time to register what he had done before it was pushed into his ear. He pressed the button to broadcast.

“Jules, it’s your son. I’m taking Brie home. She’s not feeling well.”

We kept dancing, keeping up appearances as he listened to her response. After a second, he grinned at me and pulled the earpiece out.

“All clear,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“Come on. This shit isn’t getting any better.”

I sighed. “Fine. Let’s go.”

We moved off the floor, Lincoln’s limp a little more pronounced. I grabbed his cane for him, and he wrapped his hand through my arm. He was leaning a little more on me than he had before, but he wasn’t letting any pain show on his face. I could tell that the dancing had taken a lot out of him, though. The jerk wasn’t going to complain about it, he was just going to let me literally torture him with dancing.

We pushed out into the cool night air, Boulder’s downtown stretching out to our right.

“You drive here?” I asked him.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Okay. Where to then?”

“Let’s just walk.”

“Lead the way.”

He took off toward downtown and I tagged along, not trying to push the pace too fast. He was quiet as we moved along, his face unreadable, and I wasn’t sure what we were doing or where we were going. Not that I minded all that much; the night was comfortable and there weren’t many people out on the wide central walking path that wound its way between businesses. He looked stern and serious and probably in pain, and I wanted to reach out and touch his jaw, but instead I just kept my mouth shut and my hands to myself and enjoyed the night.

In the distance, the mountains loomed over everything.

I almost walked directly into his back before I realized that he had stopped moving.

“Whoa there,” he said, catching me as I stumbled around him.

“Sorry. Didn’t realize you stopped.”

He grinned at me, his hand clutching my waist. Neither of us moved for half a second, and he cocked his head at me.

“Let’s sit.” He nodded at a bench.

I shrugged and moved away from him, out of his grasp, and lowered myself down onto the bench. He sat next to me, letting out an audible sigh.

“Legs hurt?” I asked him.

“Fuck yes. I’m not too proud to admit that they hurt like a motherfucker right now.”

I laughed. “Very descriptive.”

“What can I say. It’s hard to be witty when walking hurts.”

I leaned back on the bench. “What are we doing here, anyway?”

He reached into his jacket, pulling out a flask. I looked at it and laughed.

“Didn’t have to steal this,” he said.

I blinked at him, letting the reference sink in. I reached out for it and he passed the silver metal off to me. I flipped open the top and took a long drag. It was whisky, but not the cheap stuff. It went down like honey and oak, smooth and delicious. I passed it back.

“That’s good,” I said.

“Yeah. With shit like this, it’s either tough to drink or it’s delicious. Not much middle ground.”

“Though the ending is always the same.”

He laughed and toasted me. “Here’s to that ending,” he said, taking a pull.

“Careful. I think you’re my ride.”

“I didn’t drink more than a glass back at that rich person’s funeral.”

“You mean the charity event?”

“Was that what it was? Sorry, I guess I couldn’t tell.”

I laughed and shook my head, looking out across the city. We were pretty alone on the bench, with a large hedge behind us and empty, open space ahead. I looked up at the mountains again and sighed. Out in Indiana, the only thing in the distance was more distance and snow. Usually just snow when it fell enough to block out the distance. And for most of the year, there was a thick, dark, permanent cloud cover that sucked the joy out of everything and blocked out the sun.

As much as I was bored at home, I had to admit that Colorado was pretty beautiful.

“Not bad,” Lincoln grunted.

“What is?”