St. Nacho's by Z. A. Maxfield Page B

work.” He turned his back and walked away.
    My gear was stowed when Shawn finally came upstairs. He didn’t look at it, but rather pressed his lips firmly together and came to me. He pulled me toward him in a crushing hug, which I returned, imbuing it with everything I was feeling. I started to speak.
    “Don’t say anything,” he commanded me, taking my face between his hands. “No words, okay?”
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    I nodded. He made love to me then with a desperation I felt through my skin to my bones. I know I strained against him, hoping I could just melt into him. I pulled his hair and bit his skin. I wanted to devour him. He didn’t hold back a thing, and when he shuddered to a climax in my arms I thought I’d never see anything more beautiful than that for the rest of my life. I prepared myself for that. He touched something deep inside me. I didn’t want anyone, ever, to touch me that way again.

    * * * * *
    I swallowed the burning in my throat when I said good-bye at breakfast the next day.
    Jim smiled a bittersweet smile and assured me that I’d always have a place in Santo Ignacio. I shook my head as though it were a joke. Oscar and Tomas looked at me, concerned, and made lame jokes about cutting up their own onions again, until they could find some other stupid gringo to do it for them. Shawn followed me to my bike.
    Neither of us spoke for a long time. He pulled my hand out of my jacket pocket and put something in it. The cell phone.
    “I can’t take this,” I said.
    “Take it. Text me,” he said. “You could keep in touch. Send me text messages so I’d know…”
    “I can’t take this. You know that.” I was shaking my head as he caught it between his hands. I hated the way hope died in his eyes. “I can’t,” I said.
    He took his phone back. “This is really good-bye?” I nodded.
    He pulled me to him and pressed his cheek to mine. “No,” he whispered. “It doesn’t have to be.”
    I said nothing. What could I say?
    “You don’t have to go to him,” he spat, holding my face so we were eye to eye. “There for him, so he can make you feel responsible, when you did nothing!”
    “You don’t know!” I said, wondering if it made any sense to talk without a phone or at least a paper and pencil.
    “You handed your keys over. You knew better.”
    “Once,” I said, holding up my finger. I shook my head. I knew he’d never understand why I was leaving. The one time something bad had happened Jordan was behind the wheel, but there had been hundreds of other times it could have happened when I’d been driving.
    “Go,” he said.
    Was it wrong of me to want to kiss him? I put on my helmet. I got on the bike and kick-started it. It roared to life. I knew even though Shawn couldn’t hear the roar of my Harley, he could feel it in the empty spaces of his body.
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    I began to ease away, out of the alley by the boardwalk where I parked my bike behind Nacho’s, onto PCH. Hardly a soul was driving there this time of day, as dawn still glowed a little bluish through the marine layer. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw Shawn tearing down the street after me, chasing my bike, chasing me, his arms pistoning, his long legs pumping as he followed at a dead run.
    I stopped on the side of the road and had my helmet off in seconds. “What?” I shouted as he ran up, as if he could hear me. “What is it?”
    “Kiss me,” he cried, throwing himself into my arms. “Kiss me, kiss me,” he murmured against my skin, as he held me that last time. He kissed me deeply, pulling me to him as if to draw strength from the embrace. A car went by, honking its horn, startling both of us. I looked into his amber-colored eyes and discovered desolation and wet lashes. They told me everything I wanted to know, and maybe much, much more. Finally, he ended the kiss, giving a last lick to my lower lip.
    “’Bye,” he said again, and stood to watch me ride away.
    I raised my gloved hand and