Megan Hart - The Space Between Us

“Fucking hell,” Chance had said, breaking the moment. “That was awesome.”

That was just the first time.

“Wow,” Meredith said when I’d finished. “That is …”

I didn’t really want her to say crazy. It couldn’t dilute what had happened, couldn’t make it something it wasn’t, but still. I didn’t want her to say it like that.

“Fucking supernova hot,” Meredith said.

I flushed, heat creeping up my throat and down lower. I hadn’t told her the rest of it, but I thought I might, if she asked me. All about that long fall with the brothers Murphy, the three of us graduating from simultaneous blow jobs to cunnilingus and every combination of fucking that two cocks and a pussy can get into. It was over by Christmas.

“It’s absolutely not what I thought you’d say,” she told me with a shake of her head. “Wow. Not at all.”

“What did you think I’d say?” I’d finished my chai and break time was over, but I was curious exactly what she’d thought she knew about me.

“I told you. Hidden treasures.”

I blinked slowly under the heat of her gaze. She’d kissed a girl, sure, but what did that mean? Nothing.

There’s never any point in flirting with straight girls, you understand. Not even the “curious” ones. Straight girls have come to the conclusion that it’s perfectly okay to make out with their bestie on the dance floor as a way to get guys’ attention, or because they’re drunk, or because it’s trendy. Straight girls know that unless you eat pussy you’re just experimenting, and even if you do go down on another girl it doesn’t mean you’re a dyke.

I’m not a straight girl.

I’m not a queer girl, either. I guess you could say I’m sexually fluid. Love comes in all shapes and flavors, and I just want to be able to taste them all. But if there’s anything I learned from working at Morningstar Mocha, where the coffee flowed like Niagara Falls and waistbands expanded just by coming within a few feet of the dessert case, it’s that wanting and having are two different things.

“It was a long time ago.” I sounded lame.

“Can’t have been that long ago,” she pointed out, sounding wry. “You’re barely out of high school.”

I laughed. “Hardly. I’m twenty-six.”

“A baby,” she said, but fondly. “An experienced baby.”

Age didn’t mean much to me. “I have to get back to work. Darek’s giving me that desperate look that means someone’s ordered a drink he doesn’t know how to make.”

“Tesla to the rescue. You’d better go help him then. Anyway, I need to get going. I have some things to do.” Meredith gave another of her low, sultry laughs that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

We both stood at the same time. She’d been coming in here for months, but today was the first day she’d ever hugged me. For the first few seconds, standing startled in her embrace, I didn’t know what to do. She’d moved closer, and the smell of her was exotic and expensive and subtle. Her arms went around me, pulling me closer. Her sweater was soft on my skin, her hands warm on my back between my shoulder blades. We stood chest to chest and crotch to crotch for the span of half a heartbeat.

By the time I’d relaxed into her touch, closed my eyes and breathed in the deliciousness of her, it was over, except for the lingering heat in my ear from her breath where she’d whispered a goodbye, and the tingle in my cheek where I might’ve only imagined she brushed her lips.

“Tesla?” Eric said this from his place in front of the self-serve station, shaking me out of what must’ve been quite a show of shock. Meredith had already left the shop, the bell on the door jingling behind her. Eric cocked his head to give me the once-over. “You okay?”

“Oh, sure. Fine. Of course.” I held out my hand for his empty mug. “You finished? I’ll take it up for you.”

He looked amused. “Nah. Gonna have another, if that’s okay with you.”

I laughed, embarrassed that I was so out of sorts by something so simple as a hug that had lasted less than a couple of seconds. “Of course. Drink away. If you don’t, someone else will.”

“Isn’t that always how it goes?” He lifted the mug at me.

Then he turned to fill it with another round of coffee, Darek meeped out a cry for help up at the counter, and I got back to work.

When I got home from work, the house was unusually silent, with no sign of anyone else. Normally I’d have sent out a not-so-quiet little hoot of bliss—I loved the people I lived with, but also craved having, and hardly ever got, the house to myself. Tonight, though, I was totally bummed to come home with not even the porch light left on to welcome me. No dinner, either, and that was worse. I made myself a tuna sandwich with a side of mac-n-cheese, because there really is nothing better than that. Unless it’s hot dogs with mac-n-cheese, and sadly, we were out of hot dogs.

I couldn’t help wondering what they’d gotten up to, those Murphy boys. The memory of them was a small, sore spot in my brain I worried once in a while the way I’d have done with a slice in my gum from flossing too hard. But my thoughts of Chase and Chance hadn’t been close to the surface in a long time. Time has that funny way of smoothing out the rough edges of things, even ones that hurt a little bit. Or a lot.

“You’re a user, Tesla,” Chance had said to me the last time we’d been together. “Nothing but a user.”

It wasn’t true—I was more than a user. I was a lot of things we were too young and dumb to understand. And when he’d said it to me, I’d turned my back and walked away, burning with the self-righteous fury of being maligned. Now, with time and distance and experience between us, I understood why Chance had felt that way.

I hadn’t heard anything about them in years, though it would’ve been easy enough to find out what they’d been up to. My brother, Cap, three years younger, would probably know. I’d had friends; Cap had been popular. Football player, stage crew, homecoming king, voted Funniest in the yearbook. He’d had a good enough time in high school that he kept in touch with buddies from back then. Not that he’d been friends with the Murphys, but he could find out.

Calling my brother to get intel on a pair of guys I’d had sex with was right up there with walking in on your parents fucking. I mean, that had happened to me, but it wasn’t something I either wanted to think about or dwell on. Cap was probably the only other person who knew about me and the Murphys, but just because he’d known about it back in the day didn’t mean he’d be down for discussing it now.

So, because even monkeys have been known to use tools, I turned to what I had on hand. The internet. My laptop had crapped out on me a few months ago, and I hadn’t seen the way to buying a new one. Not until I’d saved up enough to get the biggest, fastest, sweetest Mac I could afford, which was going to take me a long time unless I could get over my addiction to cute retro clothes and glittery eyeliner. That didn’t seem likely. Until then, I checked email and stuff from my phone and used the ancient desktop upstairs.

I’d set up my own user account on the desktop not so much because I wanted to look at things little kids shouldn’t see, but to prevent them from messing up anything I’d saved. At four, Simone could expertly wend her way through the labyrinth of online kiddie games, but she also had a quick-draw delete finger. I’d lost documents and important emails more than once. Her brother, Max, at two and a half, was more likely to simply pound a bunch of keys, making the computer perform any number of wacky functions we had no idea it could do, and that it probably wasn’t meant to.