Free Random Acts Of Crazy by Julia Kent Page B

his face.
    He swallowed hard. We stared into each other’s eyes for way longer than we should have. I broke away first and then laughed, the sound tinny and uncomfortable as I felt myself ruining this.
    Dammit. Dammit, Darla, why do you always do this?
    He swallowed a few more bites – good God, did the man ever chew? – and laughed, a throaty sound of something special, a vibration that I would save inside my heart forever, to pull out when I needed it most.
    “Darla,” he said quietly, nodding. “I’m a sure thing, too.”
    “Then there’s no rush, is there?” I said, letting myself go serious.
    “No rush,” he answered, reaching out, brushing a stray strand of hair out of my face. The sweetness of the gesture made me swallow and pull back, tenderness cutting through my shields and turning the entire night into something more than I could handle.
    He dropped his hand, finished eating, and then walked over and set the plate on the table. He looked funny in my uncle’s clothes, the pants hanging down so low I could see the top of his ass crack. It was mighty fine, with little dimples at the top of each buttock, his lower back tight. His spine was clearly visible, not from sickly skinniness, but because his well developed, well-formed tendons and bone had honed his body from the privilege of his life – just as his lyrics intuitively honed angst and heartache and pain into hope.
    He turned and he stood in the glow of the cheap Christmas lights that I’d scavenged from God knows where. And then he said the words that I never expected him to say.
    “I’m sorry, Darla but I need to use the bathroom.”
    Trevor
    Darla burst out laughing and I felt myself crawl in my skin a little bit but I couldn’t help it. I had ignored nature’s call for who knows how long, and something about sitting here and filling my stomach made me need to go. It felt like the least romantic thing I could have blurted out but dude, when a dude’s gotta go, a dude’s gotta go.
    Besides, I knew what was coming. We both did. We were exhausted, and horny, and tired, and horny, and frustrated. And did I mention horny? With the inevitable in front of us I figured maybe I could slip back into the trailer, take a quick shower, and at least be as ready and raring to go as possible.
    She looked me up and down and shook her head. “Of course, Trevor. Of course you can go to the bathroom. You probably want to shower too, don’t you? How long have you been on the road?”
    I looked around this little cottage, a hippie version of a hobbit home. “Well, there’s no clock. I don’t know what time it is.”
    She reached into her pocket and took out her phone. “It’s nearly 2 a.m..”
    “Shit,” I said as she opened the door and led me back out, over to her mom’s house.
    “That’s OK,” she said. “Besides, I probably should help my mom check her sugars.”
    “Her sugars?”
    “She’s diabetic,” Darla said, her eyes averted, her voice floating next to me in the dark.
    A cool breeze slipped across my neck, my body warm from the tiny space we’d just shared, by my full stomach, and by the clothing which I was starting to get used to again.
    The wall of cigarette smoke hit me again when we opened the door, but not quite as fiercely this time. Cathy looked up from her spot at the table and said, “What are you doing?” to no one in particular.
    Darla held a contraption like a label maker out to her mom. “Check your sugars, Mama. Trevor’s gonna go and freshen up.”
    Cathy looked me up and down and smiled, her face heavy but her warmth evident, making me smile back. “Well, I would imagine wherever Darla found you, you’re gonna be dirty.”
    “Mama,” Darla said, her voice scolding and a little bit ashamed. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want her to turn away from what I’d seen in her, from that creature who created something so good out of so much that wasn’t. She was a conundrum.
    She led me back to the tiny, cramped