Ridge Road, Chapter 9 · Chili Again

Hank had the key cut at the Ace on Lewis on Tuesday morning and handed it to Sam still warm from the wheel, with no string on it. Sam worked it onto his own ring next to the Camry fob out in the parking lot, then sat behind the wheel for a minute with the whole bunch in his fist.

By Sunday he had carried two boxes over from the Harvard apartment and left the lease papers on the kitchen table for Monday under a sticky note that said DO NOT RENEW in Hank’s block capitals. He had stood in the empty Harvard bedroom on his last trip and waited to feel something like grief. All he felt was the draft from the window that had never sealed.

At four he put on the shirt Hank had ironed for him without being asked and found Hank in the front room with the cedar box under one arm and his beard trimmed close for the occasion.

“Ready?” Sam said.

“As I’m going to be.” Hank shifted the box against his side. “You’re supposed to make me. That was Walt’s instruction.”

“I know.” Sam took the box from him to feel the weight, which was less than he’d expected for nine years, and handed it back. “He opens it or he doesn’t. Either way we eat chili and come home.”

Hank nodded. He put a hand at the small of Sam’s back to steer him out the door and kept it there across the porch, under the yellow bulb that wasn’t lit yet.

They took the Camry, Sam driving, the box on Hank’s knees. Mrs. Pruitt was already standing at the bottom of Walt’s two steps when they pulled up, holding a foil pan of cornbread in both hands like a document she meant to file. She looked at the box and then at the two of them, and her mouth did something that was nearly a smile.

“Hank,” she said. “Sam. He’s been stirring since three. I could smell it from the curb.”

Walt opened the door before anyone knocked, leaning on the cane with the dish towel over his shoulder. The cumin came out around him and hit them in the face. He looked at the box like a bill he already knew the total of.

“Come in. Not the green chair, Ortega, you know better. Eunice, the pan goes on the counter. Doyle, put that on the table where I can see it and quit holding it like it bites.”

Hank set the cedar box in the middle of Walt’s small table on a folded newspaper. Sam dropped his keys beside it, and Walt’s eyes rested on the new brass one next to the Camry fob a moment longer than they rested on anything else. Then Mrs. Pruitt put down the cornbread and held out her hand, and Walt went into the kitchen and came back with a blue enamel casserole dish and laid it in her palm.

She weighed it. “Witnessed,” she said, and looked hard at Hank and then at Sam until they both nodded. “I have waited a long time to say that in front of people.”

“Sit down, Eunice,” Walt said. “Chili’s ready.”

They ate. It was the same chili as last Sunday with a little chocolate somewhere at the back of it. Mrs. Pruitt did most of the talking, mainly about a roofer who had quoted her twice what the job was worth, and Walt let her run. Hank ate steadily and didn’t look at the box, and Sam watched the muscle work in his jaw and kept his own mouth full so he wouldn’t fill the quiet with the wrong thing.

The box sat in the middle of the table like a guest nobody had served. Once Hank’s knuckle brushed the lid, and he pulled his hand back off the cedar fast.

When the bowls were empty Walt wiped his mustache with the dish towel and tipped his chin at the box.

“You brought it.”

“You told me to,” Hank said.

“I did.” Walt’s cane hung from the edge of the table. He didn’t reach for the lid yet. “Eunice. You want to stay for this, or you want the porch?”

“I’ll take the porch.” Mrs. Pruitt stood, picked up her dish, and stopped behind Hank’s chair with a hand on his shoulder for half a second. “You did right bringing it. He’d have asked you about it till the day he died.” The screen door banged behind her, and the three of them were left with the cumin and the box.

Walt opened the lid himself. He took out the strip of grey-green canvas first and held it up between two fingers.

“Ninth stroke,” he said, mostly to himself. “It went like a sail tearing. You started apologizing on the way down to the floor, and I told you not to stop.”

He laid the canvas on the newspaper and took out the glasses. He put them on. The taped arm sat crooked over his ear, and he looked at Hank over the cheap lenses for a while before he took them off again and set them on the canvas.

“I hunted for these the morning of the bus,” he said. “Figured I’d left them in some diner. Turns out I left them on your windowsill and didn’t let myself know it.”

The photograph came out last of the objects. It showed the two of them on the Lewis porch under the yellow bulb, their little fingers touching in the shadow on the step. Walt held it a long time with his thumb on the place where the fingers met, and his face didn’t move at all. Then he turned it face down on the newspaper.

“Mrs. Pruitt took that,” Hank said.

“I know who took it. Eunice always did have a long lens for other people’s business.” Walt’s mustache twitched. “Thank her for me the next time she invents an errand.”

“The letters.” Hank’s voice was flat. “Nine of them. One a year, the week the bus left. I never mailed any. You don’t have to read them.”

“I know I don’t.” Walt slid the brittle rubber band off the stack. He opened the first one, read it with his lips pressed together, and gave a short grunt at the question at the bottom. “Are you eating. You always did fuss about food like a hen.” He opened the fourth and read its question out loud in a voice as dry as the paper. “‘Do you have somebody.'” He let it sit. “No, since you ask. Nine years late. Yours I can see from here.” He glanced at the keys by the cornbread, then at Sam, not unkindly, and Sam held very still.

Walt skipped the middle envelopes and went straight to the ninth.

“‘Was I any good at this, ever.'” He folded it back along its crease. “You were good at it, Doyle. You were terrible at leaving. And the third co-driver quitting was no verdict on you. You don’t talk, and not everybody can ride with that.”

Hank’s hands were flat on his thighs. “There was one question I never wrote down.”

“I know that one too,” Walt said. “Can I come with you. The answer then would have been no. I had the duplex lease signed and more pride than knee. A month later the answer might have been different, and neither of us gets to check. That’s what the box is for. It’s so you quit checking every time you drive past a bus station.”

He put the letters back under the rubber band, laid the rest on top, and closed the lid. It made a small click. He pushed the box an inch toward Hank.

“Keep it at the house. Or burn it. Just don’t put it back on that closet shelf like a sentence you’re serving. And Doyle.” He waited until Hank looked up. “You found somebody, and he’s carrying your key. That’s more than I said out loud in eleven years, so try not to waste it. Ortega, you make him bring this kind of thing out where people can see it. He’s stubborn.”

“I noticed,” Sam said.

Walt gave one short nod, and Sam found he could breathe again. Walt brought out canned peaches in thin syrup, too sweet and exactly right. Mrs. Pruitt came in for a glass of water, glanced at the closed lid, and didn’t ask. She told Walt his cumin was still too heavy, and he told her she was still nosy, and she looked pleased about it.

At the door Walt tipped the cane at them. “Come back next Sunday if the road lets you. If it doesn’t, text me, so I don’t sit here making up a wreck.”

“We’ll text,” Sam said.

“Doyle. Not in a drawer, either. Drawers are how you end up with nine more letters.”

“I won’t.”

They left at a quarter to seven with the box and Sam’s keys back in his pocket. Mrs. Pruitt walked them to the Camry and patted its roof once, like a mule she trusted. Sam drove home with the box on Hank’s knees, and neither of them said anything until they turned onto Lewis.

“He took it dry,” Sam said. “All of it.”

“That’s Walt. Whatever he feels, he does it later with the door shut.” Hank’s thumbs moved on the lid. “He read the three that mattered, and he looked at the picture. The middle ones can stay shut forever for all I care.”

“Are you all right?”

“I will be when I get you inside.” Hank glanced over. There was a chili spot on his clean cuff. “I’ve had all the history I can stand for one day. Tonight I want you in that bed, and I want to hear you say yes out loud before I lay a hand on you.”

“Yes,” Sam said, right there in the car. “Ask me again inside. I’ll keep saying it.”

---

Hank switched on the porch light on the way in, and the yellow bulb hummed over the steps. He carried the box down the hall to the back bedroom and set it on the dresser with the lid shut, where it could be seen from the bed. He stood looking at it for a slow count of five and then turned his back on it on purpose. Sam locked the front door with the new key, felt the tumbler roll over, and liked it more than he’d expected to.

In the doorway of the back bedroom Hank stopped him with a hand flat on his chest. “Word’s still wait. You say it, I stop. Now tell me you want this.”

“I want this.” Sam put his own hand over Hank’s and pressed it harder against his chest. “I want you to fuck me, Hank. Hard. Walt opened a box and I didn’t break, so don’t handle me like I might.”

Hank’s mouth twitched at the corner. “Shirt off.”

They undressed without hurrying, belts first, then the ironed shirt with the chili on its cuff. Sam’s jeans hit the floorboards and the keys in the pocket chimed. Hank sat on his own side of the mattress, the right side, and pulled Sam in to stand between his knees. He kissed Sam’s belly, slow, in the soft part above his hip, and stroked Sam’s cock with a dry, unhurried hand until Sam was leaking over his knuckles. Then he bent and took just the head into his mouth, tongue flat and patient underneath, and Sam’s hand found the big round of his shoulder and dug in. Hank took him deeper, slow, his beard rough against Sam’s balls, and sucked slow and steady until Sam’s knees started to go.

“Keep that up and I’m done before you’re in me,” Sam said. “Hank. Hank.”

Hank pulled off with a wet sound. “Tell me how you want it.”

“Sit up against the headboard,” Sam said. His voice had gone rough. “All the way up. I want to ride you sitting in your lap, chest to chest, so I can see your face when you get in me. Hands on my hips. Don’t push until I say.”

“All right.” Hank moved back and propped himself upright against the headboard with both pillows stuffed behind him, thighs spread, his cock standing thick out of the grey fur under his belly with the foreskin already slipping back off the shining head.

Sam got the Walmart box out of the nightstand, tore a foil open with his teeth, and rolled the rubber down Hank with both hands while Hank watched him do it. Then he uncapped the new tube from the Walgreens, the water-based stuff, slicked Hank first, and reached back to work himself open, two fingers and then three, kneeling up over Hank’s thighs with his free hand on the headboard. Hank breathed through his mouth and watched every second of it, and when Sam’s arm started to shake he reached round with his own slick hand and pressed one thick finger in alongside Sam’s, so that Sam was full of both of them at once and swearing into Hank’s hair.

“Christ,” Hank said, low. “That’s the two of us in there, and you’re opening up for me like you’ve done it for years.”

“Only in front of you,” Sam said. He pulled his fingers free and wiped them on his thigh.

He straddled Hank’s lap with his knees sunk deep in the mattress on either side of Hank’s hips, reached between them, and held Hank’s cock steady. The blunt head pressed against his hole. He let his breath out and let his weight go.

The stretch knocked a noise out of him that was half a curse. Hank’s hands landed on his hips and stayed there without pulling, thumbs rubbing slow in the crease where thigh met groin. Sam came down a little and stopped, then came down a little more. Halfway he had to stop and pant with his forehead resting on Hank’s.

“Big,” he said. “Every time I forget how big, and then you remind me.”

“We can stop.”

“No. I want it.” Sam let the rest of his weight go and slid all the way down until he was sitting flush in Hank’s lap, completely full, his chest pressed into Hank’s chest hair and his arms over Hank’s shoulders. Hank’s eyes had shut. Sam could feel him throb deep inside, a thick, heavy heat that made his thighs shake, and he rolled his hips in one small circle just to feel it press against the spot that made his mouth fall open.

“Sam.”

“Hold still,” Sam said. “I want to feel you twitch first.”

Hank twitched. Sam groaned out loud, and Hank did it again on purpose, and then a third time, watching his face.

“You like that,” Hank said.

“I can feel it all the way up. Do it again.” Sam’s fingers tightened on his shoulders. “Talk to me while you do it.”

“You’re sitting on all I’ve got,” Hank said, low against his mouth. “And you’re clamped on me like you’re not giving it back.”

Sam lifted and dropped, slow at first, testing how deep he could take it sitting this upright, letting himself feel the thick ridge of him sliding out and back in. The mattress took up the rhythm. Sitting up like this there was nowhere for Hank’s belly to go but against him, furred and soft on top and solid underneath, and Sam’s cock was trapped there, dragging through the fur every time he came down. He reached past Hank’s head, wrapped both hands around the top rail of the headboard, and used it to haul himself up and drop back down, harder now, his thighs burning. Precome smeared a shiny trail up Hank’s belly.

“Fuck. You’re deep,” Sam said. “Hank, use your hips. Push up under me. Walt told you not to waste this, so don’t waste me either.”

Hank caught his hips and held him down, all the way, and Sam groaned at being stopped.

“Hey. Sam.” Hank’s voice was rough. “Still good? Tell me straight.”

“Still good. Better than good.” Sam rocked once against the grip to test it, and they both swore. “Yes, Hank. Yes. Now let go of me.”

“In a second.” Hank held him there, deep, and rolled his hips up in one slow grind that pressed right where Sam needed it. Sam’s mouth fell open. “That’s what I wanted to see. You sitting on me in my house with your key on the floor in your jeans. Nobody gets you like this but me.”

“Nobody,” Sam said. He kissed him then, deep and slow, and Hank opened his mouth to it and kept up that grind underneath, tiny rolls of his hips that barely moved him inside Sam and pressed hard every time. Sam moaned into his mouth. He could taste the cumin on him. “Just you,” he said when he came up for air. “Now fuck me.”

Hank let go of his hips and drove up.

The angle changed and Sam shouted, loud and raw. They found a pace with nothing careful in it, Sam dropping and Hank thrusting up to meet him, the headboard knocking the wall in a dull steady way that Mrs. Pruitt would politely ignore from across the street. Skin slapped. The lube made wet, loud sounds that would have embarrassed Sam anywhere but this house. Hank’s voice dropped low and filthy, with nothing fancy in it.

“That’s it. Take it. Sit all the way down on it. I can feel you shaking. Your ass grabs me every time you come down, like it doesn’t want to let go. Christ, you’re soaking my belly. Tell me you want it.”

“I want it. I want your cock. I want you deep in me and I want you to keep going till I come.” Sam was panting. Sweat ran down the small of his back and into the crease where they were joined. “Harder. Fuck. Right there.”

“Then take it. Wait if you need to. Otherwise keep moving.” Hank’s fingers dug into his hips. “Keep riding. I spent all afternoon in that duplex remembering how to leave, and I’m not leaving this bed till you’re done.”

Sam didn’t stop. He leaned in, mouth open against Hank’s cheek, beard scraping his lips, and fucked himself down on him until his thighs trembled and his hole fluttered around the thick base. Hank’s hands slid from his hips to his ass and spread him on the next drop, and the stroke after that went so deep that Sam made a noise he didn’t recognize as his own.

“God, the noise you make,” Hank said through his teeth. “That’s you taking all of me. Say you want it again.”

“I want it. I want you fucking up into me till I can’t sit in the Camry without thinking about this.” Sam’s voice cracked on the last word. “Harder. Please, Hank.”

Hank gave it to him. He planted his heels in the mattress and fucked up into him in short, hard thrusts while Sam tried to meet them, the rhythm going ragged and getting better for it. Sweat glued their bellies together. Hank’s breath came hard through his nose, and every thrust pushed a grunt out of him that Sam could feel through his chest. “That’s my house you’re shouting in,” he said. “Go on and shout.” Sam shouted. He threw his head back and ground down in a long, slow circle, and Hank swore in a voice that was mostly breath.

“Fuck me,” Sam said, plain as a dispatch call. “Fuck me like the truck can wait.”

“It can wait,” Hank said. “It can wait all night.”

“Then make it.” Sam hauled on the headboard and dropped faster, chasing the drag of Hank’s cock across the spot that made his legs shake. “God, that’s it. Right there. Keep your hips up. I can feel all of you.”

“You’re taking all of it,” Hank growled. “Every damn bit, and you’re asking for more.”

He got his mouth on Sam’s chest and found a nipple with his teeth, and Sam’s whole body jerked down onto him so hard the headboard banged. “Again,” Sam gasped, and Hank did it again, sucking hard while he pumped up into him, until Sam was talking nonsense into the top of Hank’s head about how thick he was and how he’d feel it all week on the road.

Sam’s cock was trapped and slick between their bellies, rubbing through Hank’s fur on every stroke. Hank reached down for it once, and Sam pushed his hand away.

“No. Like this. I want to come just like this, on you, with you in me.”

“Then do it.” Hank wrapped both arms around his waist and pulled him down tight, belly to belly, so every thrust up ground Sam’s cock between them. “Grind on me. Rub off on me and squeeze my cock while you do it. I want to feel you come apart on me.”

“Hank, I’m close. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop. Keep fucking up into me.”

“I’m not stopping. Come on. Come on, Sam.”

Sam came hard with his arms locked over Hank’s shoulders and his face in Hank’s beard, spilling in long hot pulses between their bellies while his hole clamped down in waves. The sound Hank made came up from deep in his chest. He held Sam down and thrust up through it three times, four, five, chasing his own edge through Sam’s aftershocks, and then he locked deep and shuddered, coming hard with his face turned into Sam’s throat and Sam’s name the only word he had left, said twice, low.

For a minute neither of them could talk. The headboard settled against the wall. A car went by on Lewis. Sam’s thighs wouldn’t hold him.

They stayed wrapped together until the shaking stopped, Sam’s forehead on Hank’s temple and Hank’s big hands moving slow and heavy up and down his back. When Sam finally lifted off, the emptiness made him hiss. Hank eased him down into the dip on the left side, cleaned them both up with his undershirt, and dropped it on the floor. Then he curled along Sam’s back, heavy and warm, beard scratching Sam’s shoulder blade, one arm across his waist.

“All right, sweetheart?” Hank said into his hair.

“All right.” Sam found Hank’s hand and laced their fingers together. “Box stays on the dresser.”

“Box stays on the dresser.”

Out on the arterial a truck geared down. Hank’s phone buzzed on the nightstand. He almost let it go. Then he reached over Sam and thumbed the screen, and the glow lit up the dark window.

The message came off the Tulsa yard’s load board, the automatic kind with no name at the bottom: a load north, Denver first and then on past it, with a yellow weather tag for freezing rain over the plains by Wednesday and a motel stop marked optional.

Hank read it twice and laid the phone face down. His arm came back around Sam’s waist.

“We’ve got a run north,” he said against Sam’s shoulder. “I’ve driven that stretch in ice. Optional is a lie.”

Sam smiled into the pillow. “Then we get stuck.”

“Might be a day. Might be three. Motel food and a lot of waiting.”

“I’ve waited for worse.” Sam squeezed his fingers. “Bring a clean shirt. I’ll bring the tube.”

Hank huffed a laugh against his shoulder. “Walt’ll text when the radar goes red. He always does.”

“Let him.” Sam turned far enough to find Hank’s mouth in the dark and kissed him. He tasted of chili and canned peaches. “I’m not renewing Harvard. I’m here. Say it back.”

“You’re here,” Hank said. “I’m here. We go north together.” He pressed his mouth to the top of Sam’s shoulder and settled. “Sleep an hour. Then we check the radar.”

Out front the yellow bulb burned on over the steps, and the cedar box sat on the dresser where Walt had told them to keep it. Somewhere out on the plains the freezing rain was still only a line on a forecast.