followed by I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. He had to keep her steady and move himself, breathing out her name followed by the words I can, her hips clamped between his hands. Both he and she tried desperately not to make any sounds that would make the people putting gas in their cars 50 feet away call the cops. The convertible heaved. The shocks made a sound, hissing in, hissing out. Stephen Marley made a sound. The guitar behind their seat made a sound. The bass strings vibrated their humming rhythm pounding on every half beat, then every quarter beat, then every semi-quaver. And then Zakiyyah made a sound.
“Well, you were certainly right about one thing,” she said after it was barely over, still on top of him, clutching his wet neck.
“What’s that?” Ashton murmured, his head back. “Oh, yeah. If you see something that needs doing and can be done in under two minutes, do it immediately.”
They both laughed.
He opened his eyes. “I saw something that really needed doing.” Her body was in his hands.
“And you did it immediately.”
“Woman, I think I love you,” said Ashton.
She gazed at him. “You’re very fickle. A minute ago you hated me.” She rubbed her breasts back and forth against his bare perspired chest.
“Do that for two more minutes.”
“Ashton!”
He fondled her, he kissed her.
“Do you know when I knew I loved you?” Zakiyyah said. “When I stepped into your store and you were wearing your stupid Free Licks shirt and I was yelling at you for it, as you deserved to be yelled at, and you opened your arms like you could do no wrong—and I realized even as I was infuriated that all I wanted was to be in them.”
“That’s why I opened them.”
Eventually, they got going. With their lips pulpy and Zakiyyah’s neck and chest inflamed from his stubble, they got themselves dressed and sorted, got cleaned up as best they could, and pulled out onto the highway, but not before Ashton leaned over and put his face into her outrageous breasts, pulled down her dress, kissed her nipples again, kissed her lips. You’re a goddess, he whispered. He drove with one arm. His other arm lay in Zakiyyah’s lap.
“I hope Mia and Julian don’t kill us for what we’re doing,” she said.
“For what we just did,” Ashton said, “or for throwing them a surprise wedding with a hundred people, not twenty?”
“Yes,” she said. “Wait, did you get the right flowers? Mia said he’s really . . .”
“You don’t have to tell me. A bear. Ridiculous. Nuts. They nearly wiped out my bank balance, but yes, I ordered them some white asphodel. He keeps telling me the asphodel is the forever flower.”
“That he even knows that is weird.”
“He knows a lot of weird shit, pardon my language.”
“Oh, when you spoke to him yesterday, did he tell you he punched a guy?” Zakiyyah said.
“If Julian told me about every man he punched,” said Ashton, “we’d have no time for any other conversation. What did the guy do?”
“Oh, great. Sure. Defend Julian.”
“Um, did you want me to defend the other guy?”
“Whatever. Mia said they were in the casino and some drunk said something to her. She said the words had barely come out of the man’s mouth when he got his shit quaked. Julian hit him so hard, he knocked him out. MGM had to comp the guy like two years’ worth of visits so he wouldn’t press charges.”
“What did he say?”
“Mia said something like aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”
“Come on,” Ashton said, “there had to be more.”
“That’s the thing—there wasn’t. Julian couldn’t explain it. He told Mia the phrase just set him off.”
“Well, the drunk should’ve kept his trap shut.”
“Oh yeah? What if Mia says something that sets him off?”
“Let’s all calm down. You know she can do no wrong in his eyes.” Ashton cleared his throat, let a mile of road go by. “But he has been having really bad dreams lately.”
“I know. She told me.”
“I don’t think she realizes how bad it’s been,” Ashton said. “She’ll know soon enough. Several times a week, I find him sleeping on the floor in my room. I had to put an air mattress in the corner.”
“Because that’s not weird,” Zakiyyah said.
“You know what’s weird? That the dreams only started after he met your friend.”
“Um, do you know what the word coincidence means?”
“Julian says there’s no such thing. First time coincidence, second time happenstance, third time enemy action.”