Free Crawl by Edward Lorn

1.
     

    He loved her. She had no doubt. But he’d also betrayed her. And now they were on a road trip from Alabama to Georgia so she could spend some time with her mother in Warner Robins. Mom would comfort her and lead her in the right direction. After Colton returned home, he would make-do by himself; he’d feed the dog and write his books and watch his Doctor Who . And she, Juliet, would find out whether or not she still loved him. And if she didn’t? Perhaps she’d ditch her Judas and find herself. Or whatever it was that divorced thirtysomethings did.
    Colton had been quiet since they’d left Mobile, and now he stared straight ahead, the red lights of the dashboard painting his stone face crimson. She thought, not for the first time, that he looked like Stonehenge. Or a Stonehenge. She wasn’t sure which the proper use was. Maybe Colton looked like a damn henge made of stone. His eyes had become baggier since his infidelity had been discovered. He also slumped more. Frumpy was the word that came to Juliet’s mind. His entire skin looked looser. Her big strong man had become a rotting pumpkin.
    She imagined stress could do that to a person. But that’s what he got for slipping his dipstick into another Buick’s engine. There was nothing wrong with her. As far as she was concerned she had been more than active enough in the bedroom. Colton didn’t necessarily have a ferocious sexual appetite, and that was part of what confused her so. When they’d first met they’d been like any other couple, fornicating like pubescent rabbits. Even after they married a year and a half later, sex was something done more than once a day and never out of routine. They made love. They fucked. They tasted each other. Were each other. Nine years later, coitus had become a weekend practice. Friday or Saturday night, sometimes Sunday morning, they’d give porn stars a run for their money. Fun sex. Freaky-deaky bang-a-rang kind of bumpity-bump. Sometimes the cuffs came out. Other times, flavored gels were on the menu. But Juliet was always the instigator, the coach, directing Colton’s QB into the pocket. Never did it occur to her that maybe Colton didn’t want her, that he hungered for new scratch. Had he asked, she would have done anything to make him happy. But no, he’d cheated. And with the dog sitter of all people.
    Colton tapped the dash’s display. “We’re running low on gas.”
    “Then pull over.” Her statement came out sterner than she’d meant. She almost apologized, but thought better of it. Best to make him believe he was skating on thin ice with white-hot flatirons strapped to his feet. Colton had to think she was never coming back from her mother’s. That was the only way this was going to work.
    “Right,” was all he said, drifting onto the first Opelika exit ramp.
    The radio said it was quarter past one in the morning. Because of this, the only gas station open wasn’t truly open at all. It did, however, allow you to pay at the pump. Colton pulled the Subaru into the first row of tanks by the road, killed the engine, and hopped out. Juliet tracked him in the mirror all the way around the back of the car and to the rear fender on her side. He walked with a slow gait, his head down and his shoulders rolled in, concaving his chest. He looked so depressed she wanted to spit. She kept repeating her mantra, That’s what you get, Colton. That’s what you get. What you get—
    He knocked on the window, jarring her out of her thoughts.
    “Gimme the card out of my wallet. It’s in the center thingie.”
    She popped the latch on the console’s lid and dug around inside until she came across his leather billfold. She yanked the American Express out of its sleeve and inserted it through the crack in her window. Colton grumbled a thank you, and swiped the Am Ex through the pump’s reader. He jammed the card into his pants pocket, lifted the nozzle from the base, and rammed it into the side of the car. The car