Without You Here by Carter Ashby

outside a gas station eating a honey bun, some guy came up to me. He acted like he knew me. He looked a lot like that guy with the rifle whom Wyatt had faced down—amazing Wyatt who didn't bat an eye at anything. I wished there had been a Wyatt that day at the gas station.
    My heart warmed when I saw him stroll out of the Sheriff's station. The warmth spread to the pit of my belly and tears sprung to my eyes. I wanted more than this weekend and there was no sense denying it. Leaving for home tomorrow was going to hurt. Bad.
    He climbed in the truck and shot me a quick wink. "Alright. That's settled. Off to Cal's."
    "Does he live far away?"
    "Nope."
    I scooted over to the middle of the bench and slid my hand along his thigh. It was fun to watch him grin.
    "I keep thinking I'm going to wake up from this amazing dream that is you, Ettie," he said.
    I got to my knees and stuck my tongue in his ear. I only meant to throw him off his game a little, but he ended up gunning it and turning off onto the first, backwoods road we came upon. He threw the truck into park and then threw me onto my back. It took about five minutes but that didn't mean it wasn't amazing. While I was still lying there panting, he was back up and reversing back towards the highway. "Teach you to tease me, little girl," he said, all macho, like he could ever fool me into thinking he was a jerk. I could see the satisfied smirk on his face. He was getting lucky big time this weekend and it was clearly a much needed ego boost.
    We drove for another ten minutes until we got to this little farm house off the highway. There was a fenced-in field and a couple of out buildings in back. "Should I wait out here?" I asked.
    He shut off the engine. "Nah. Come on in."
    I looked down at my bare legs and back up at him. “You’re fully clothed. I look like a street urchin.”
    “There’s no dress code at Cal’s,” he said, as though that helped me at all. He climbed out of the truck and came around to open my door. I stepped out and tugged the t-shirt further down on my thighs and I think the bastard was holding back laughter.
    I held his hand as he led me to the front door. Cal answered. He was a tall man Wyatt's age. Handsome with blond hair and blue eyes. He grinned real big when he saw us. "What the hell, Wyatt?" he asked, still grinning and looking me up and down.
    Wyatt introduced us and we shook hands. Then Cal led us inside. He was obviously a bachelor, but he was a tidy one. I was surprised at how neat the living room was. There was an empty beer can on the coffee table and an open magazine on the couch, but that was about the extent of the clutter. I made sure there was plenty of t-shirt covering my ass as I sat down. Wyatt grabbed an afghan off the back of an armchair and draped it over my lap. He sat next to me with his arm around my shoulders.
    Cal smiled at me. "Jesus, Wyatt. I know we all been telling you to put yourself back out there, but this is above and beyond."
    "Aww, thank you,” I said, “But it's nothing. Just a fling. I'm going home tomorrow and never see him again."
    Wyatt nodded. "She's just using me to get back at her boyfriend."
    "Sounds like fun. Can you give me the name of the place where you two met?"
    "Just up at Crowley's," Wyatt said.
    "No shit? I go up there all the time and never seen anything as pretty as this one."
    Wyatt smiled at me and squeezed me close. "Just good luck, I guess. We were wondering if your cabin's available for the night."
    Cal's eyebrows shot up. "Sure. You two gonna go play house?"
    "That's the plan. We had a pretty upsetting run-in with a few rednecks that took the wind out of our sails." He described the encounter to Cal who frowned and shook his head. "So anyway, I thought I'd take Ettie, here, some place cozy to relax the rest of the night."
    Cal shrugged. "No problem." He stood and grabbed a key off a row of pegs on the wall next to the door and tossed it to Wyatt. They chatted on for a few minutes and