Free At Peace by Kristen Ashley

and asked me to put in a few hours. She might
have gotten a good full-time worker when Sabrina quit but that
still meant she was down a part-time worker and hadn’t found anyone
she liked to replace me and since Bobbie didn’t like many people
that would probably take awhile. Overtime was beginning to be a
regular thing but I wasn’t complaining.
    “When are you done?” Keira shouted back.
    “I’ll be home after five,” I answered, again
on a shout.
    “Cool! Later Momalicious,” Keira shouted.
    “Bye Mawdy!” Kate yelled.
    “Be careful!” I yelled back, flicking the
covers over my bed and a small, white business card flew up into
the air.
    I stilled and stared at the card as I heard
the door slam in the other room.
    The card had settled back on my bed. I saw
the print on it and it was blurry because I was not focusing as I
stared at it. I was feeling the bitterness and humiliation that
leached into my bones last night, bitterness and humiliation I’d
made a huge effort to ignore all morning, start burning.
    My breath started coming fast and shame bled
into the acid that had taken root in my marrow.
    Last night I wasn’t so drunk I didn’t know
what I was doing. I wasn’t so drunk I had a hangover. I wasn’t so
fucking drunk I shouldn’t have stopped it.
    But I didn’t. I not only let it happen, I
participated and I’d begged .
    Not thinking (I never did when I got angry),
I snatched up the card and then went to my jeans which were still
on the floor. I pulled the fifty out of the pocket then I dropped
the jeans on the bed and marched out of my room. Then I marched
through the house out the side door.
    Joe’s truck was in the drive.
    I had no intention of facing him but I had
every intention of making a point.
    I was heading toward his mailbox when I heard
the music and I switched directions, walking up his yard to his
drive, instantly changing my mind about facing him. I saw the
garage door open, the music coming from there. Black Sabbath, not
Kenzie Elise loud, just loud enough to hear.
    There was a car in the garage, the hood up. I
couldn’t see what kind of car it was, all I could see was Joe bent
over it, working on the engine.
    I walked right up to him and when I got
close, his head turned to me but his torso stayed bent over the
engine. When it did, before he could say a word, not that he was
going to, I stopped and tossed the card and fifty in his direction.
They fluttered through the air but I didn’t wait to see his
reaction, didn’t say a word, didn’t watch where the card and bill
landed, I turned and walked away.
    I didn’t get very far. A firm hand curled
around my upper arm and I was yanked back.
    “ What –?” I snapped not finishing because
he whirled me around and pulled me into the garage. “Let me go!” I
demanded as he reached up and, with a violent wrench, he pulled on
a cord causing the apparently well-oiled garage door to rumble on
its rails and crash down.
    There we were, alone in his dark garage with
his car and Black Sabbath.
    Me and my stupid temper.
    “Take your hand off me!” I bit out, twisting
my arm and he did, he let me go.
    He took his hand off me but only to lift it
and, as he did the night before, exactly the same, his fingers
fisted in my hair and his other arm wound around my hips, pulling
me into his body.
    “What are you –?” I started but his mouth
came down on mine in a punishing kiss that surprised me, scared me
and excited me, the last one far, far more than the first two.
    I didn’t want it to happen, didn’t expect
it would happen, not in a million years. In fact, looking back at
it later, which I did a lot, too much, I didn’t know how it did happen. But one second he was
kissing me, the next second he was shuffling me to his car, he
yanked the rod out that was holding the hood up and it came
crashing down. The sound jolted me but not with fear or surprise,
with excitement as Joe pulled my jeans skirt up to my waist, yanked
my panties down