Free Fire Down Below by Andrea Simonne

interstate.
    “I was just thinking about how we
both like the same kind of music even though we’re so different in other ways.”
    “Yeah, it’s funny isn’t it? I
guess we both have good taste.”
    I leaned back in the seat looking
out the window, listening to the Red Hots. We’d been playing this album a lot lately
and it had become “our” album.
     I switched from gazing out the
window to watching Ben drive. He was a good driver—relaxed and in control behind
the wheel. Occasionally I offered to take a shift, but he always turned me
down, saying that he liked to drive and didn’t mind doing it all the time.
    I studied his hands and the way his
fingers hugged the steering wheel. They were long and well-shaped with squared
nails that he kept clean and cut short. They were so familiar that I’d gotten
to know them as well as I know my own hands. I thought of all the pleasurable ways
they touched me and realized in some ways they probably knew my body better
than I did. I ran my gaze up to his shoulders which were probably my favorite
part of him. I always teased Ben and told him that his cock was my favorite
part of his body, but really it was his shoulders and back. He had broad shoulders
and a beautifully muscled back. All that rock climbing sure had its pay offs. I
thought of how things had been unfolding between us these past months and I
felt relaxed when I was with him in a way that was entirely new for me. There
was still all that sexual intensity, but I realized now that sex was just a
starting place for something much deeper. “I Could Have Lied” came on. The
music filled the small space as the lyrics seeped into me.
    I put my hand on Ben’s leg, wanting
to touch him in some way. He immediately put his hand over mine.
    “Hey,” I said softly.
    “Hey.”
    “I love you.”
    Ben met my eyes. He was driving,
so he couldn’t hold my gaze for long, but I could see that he was pleased. We’d
been saying ‘I love you’ a lot to each other. He gently squeezed my hand.
    “I love you too, Kate.”
    Ben continued to drive, holding my
hand, and I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes. I thought of all those
college applications I’d been filling out lately, but then decided I didn’t
want to dwell on them and what they implied for my future. I was here with Ben
and, for right now, that was good enough for me.
     
    ***
     
    I woke up the next morning to the
sound of water running and wondered why on earth Ben was in the shower, instead
of having raunchy early morning sex with me, but then I remembered.
    I’d agreed to go hiking with him
today.
    Ugh.
    I groaned and rolled over on my
side, grabbing a pillow to muffle out the sounds of his shower. Why did I ever agree
to go on a hike? He’d been clever enough to catch me during a weak moment,
post-coital glow and all, and so, yes, like an idiot, I’d agreed to go.
    I had gone hiking with Ben one
other time and it was a complete and utter disaster, mostly because I’d been
hung-over. He’d shown up at my house early one Sunday morning and dragged me out
of bed in that stubborn relentless way of his and forced me to go on a trail
with him. I kept telling him—I have a hangover, I drank too much, I feel sick—but
he didn’t get it. Ben had never experienced a hangover in his entire freakishly
straight, disgustingly healthy life. He thought I was being lazy. Well, you can
guess what happened. About a third of the way into the hike I threw up, and let
me tell you, it was not pretty. Afterward I laid flat on the ground, staring at
the sky as I begged the clouds to stop spinning.
    “You don’t look so good,” he said,
standing over me.
    “No shit, you bastard! Why did you
drag me out here?” 
    “Hey, don’t get pissed at me. Why
on earth would you drink so much that it’d make you sick?”
    “I don’t know,” I moaned, “because
I’m stupid, because it seemed like a good idea at the time, because it was fun
until I woke up this morning