Chapter 20
CHAPTER
TWENTY
HOW DID MY BORING LIFE BECOME A TARANTINO FILM OVERNIGHT?
Sterling
After loading the truck with what I think will be all the supplies we need for today, I head back inside, my mind still a mess.
Juniper wanted me to be her boyfriend all these years? I could’ve sworn she was into Dash. I mean, I’d catch her looking at him the way I looked at her. Hell, she’s always looking at him the way I want to look at him.
I just never do.
I’ve always been afraid of being the creepy garbage man roommate who stares a little too long. So I’ve been the loyal best friend who ignores the sexiest man alive when he takes a shower next to me outdoors in the dark. The pal who pretends not to see his buddy’s erection while he’s working out. The friend who puts his feet up on the couch on movie night because he’s afraid of what he’ll feel if he sits too close.
Being that peripheral buddy… that’s what felt logical, right even.
Knowing what’s on the table, though.
I can’t even believe it.
Pushing the door open, I spot Juniper at the kitchen sink, a glass of water wobbly in her grip. She faces me, eyes rimmed with red, a shaky smile barely hanging on.
The door swings shut behind me as I rush to her, holding her in a way that I thought I never would just weeks ago. Now, though, not comforting her this way feels wrong. Not holding her when she’s hurting feels like a sin. And it’s since her confessions, not since any of the physical stuff. As dark as her truths are, her sharing brought us together emotionally in ways I can’t explain.
After a long hug, she peels off me as I ask, “What’s wrong?”
She shakes her head as if she needs a second, sniffling and wiping her eyes. My stomach lurches at the prospect that she could bring up the conversation we had earlier.
I’m not ready to talk about that. I don’t know what to say. In fact, as I stroke my hand up Juniper’s back, I cringe when I recall what I said in the moment. I told Dash he’s not gay.
I told Dash he’s not gay? Why did I say that? Juniper looks up at me. “I’m just nervous to revisit everything today,” she finally says. “And ashamed. Ashamed that I did these bad, bad things.”
I swipe at her tears. “We’ll be with you the whole time, so if you feel anxious or upset, we’ll handle it together, okay?” I nod, turning to lock up so we can head out, but she steals my wrist, halting me.
I look down at my sneakers, feeling hot and uncomfortable in my jeans and sweatshirt. “What’s up?” I ask, infusing my tone with a calm I don’t feel, my stomach still in knots at being confronted about that conversation earlier. I grab a baseball hat from the counter and tug it down, smoothing my fingertips along the edges of hair that pokes out. Her hand stays out even though I’ve tugged mine back.
“I don’t want to get caught,” she whispers, staring at her empty hand. Well, now I feel like an asshole for pulling away.
Resting my hands on her shoulders, I say, “Hey, bad girl, look at me.” Her gaze rises to mine. “When was the first? The very first guy, when did you say that was?”
“Years ago. Four plus,” she says quickly, her eyes searching mine. She wants relief from her worry, and I’m about to give it to her.
“Okay, so in the last four years, there’s not been a single peep about any of these guys. So don’t worry, okay? If you haven’t been caught so far, you won’t get caught now.”
She nods, reassuring herself, wiping beneath her nose. “And Dash is a cop, so he’ll be extra helpful on the cleanup.”
I nod. “Right. So, see? It’s going to be okay.”
Juniper nods again. “And you’re the sanitation king. You’ll know just how to dispose of everything we collect.”
Bobbing my head I say, “Garbage God, that’s me.”
She chuckles, and the joke at my expense was worth every hearty note of her laughter.
“It’s going to be okay. All right?” I press my lips to her forehead, my heart throbbing at the notion.
Dash opens his bedroom door, showered and dressed, and ironically wearing a baseball hat too. Not awkward in the slightest and acting as if he didn’t just expose himself to me only to be ignored, he smiles and points at my head. “Great minds.”
I shrug. “On TV when people are going to do nefarious things, they usually dress like this.” I stick out my arms and let them take in my black jeans and black hoodie.
“Yeah, but that’s, like, in style now,” Juniper says, reaching out to pluck a piece of lint off me.
“Is it?” Dash asks, cocking his head. “I don’t think it’s in style, he just makes it look good.” His eyes come to mine as my throat clogs and sweat breaks out along my forehead, beneath my cap. “Why are you upset?” he asks Juniper, veering the flirtation to safety, back on course.
Thank God. I had no idea what I was going to say to that.
She waves his question off. “Just nervous but Sterl reassured me.” She outstretches her arms. “Group hug before we go.”
We crush together the way we always hug after bowling, only now, it feels different.
It feels possible .
Juniper sits in between us as we drive through town, headed toward her place. She wants to check in at home, see if Ivy or Dolly came by, and then we’re onto cleanup.
I’m trying to stay focused on that and not everything else. But it’s hard.
The cab of my truck is alive with their casual conversation and as I glance across the cab to Juniper and Dash, I get hard.
Not just at seeing them. No, I’ve trained myself to focus on other things when the way they look and make me feel gets to be arousing.
What has me twisted up is thinking that they like, love and want this, too.
I have to shake my head if I let myself really think about it, because it seems so far-fetched. And yet, unless I’m hallucinating everything the last few days, Juniper said it. Multiple times. And Dash did, too, in his own words.
“Hey,” Juniper’s soft voice taps my shoulder as she nudges my ribs gently with her elbow. “Dash asked you something. Are you okay?”
Pulling onto the road leading to Juni’s place, the wheel slips through my fingers as I apologize. “Sorry. Just working through the plans in my head.”
“I was just gonna see if you wanted to drive the truck out to the first site, since it’s quite a ways,” Dash offers as he props a foot on the dashboard, his lean fingers working on tying his shoe again. Watching him, I envision his hands in Juniper’s hair, his gentle coaxing dancing over her skin as she rolls on her back between us. “You okay?” he asks, pulling his pant leg down over his laces.
“Yeah. And, uh, I think we should lock the truck in the barn. If anyone is out here today, besides Hudson and Dolly, they may find it notable that the sanitation truck is out by the well.”
“No one really comes down here unless it’s a farmers market day,” Juni adds.
“Better safe than sorry,” I tell them as I put the truck into park in front of the barn. Juniper slides over Dash’s lap, leaving a few baited, uncomfortable moments of silence between my best friend and me. We watch her through the windshield as she twists the lock, putting in the combination until it pops open. After pulling open the doors, she waves us in with one hand, and her tits jiggle beneath the sweatshirt she’s wearing. Dash clears his throat and I roll down my window, favoring a lungful of fresh air.
After we park and get out, Juniper runs into the house nearby to check on everything, and to change into her own clothes. I love Juniper in anything. If she wore a potato sack smeared in shit I’d still find her beautiful. But when she returns wearing only her clothes and not the combination of mine and Dash’s like she has the last day and night, there’s a tiny twist of sadness in my gut.
“You know where Bear and Honey like to play in the creek? By that sagging old oak? The well is about four miles from there. We can take the four wheelers and hide them in the brush, you know, in case anyone comes by. Otherwise we’ll be walking for an hour and a half or two.”
Dash and I exchange glances. “Are they in the barn?” he asks.
She shakes her head. “They’re parked just behind the house,” she says, motioning behind her. “Dolly and Hudson took them out and didn’t put them back. They got… sidetracked.”
I wrinkle my nose. I’ve been around Dolly and Hudson at the farmers market enough times to understand the subtext. Dash, too.
“So we should wipe them down first?” Dash questions.
Juni nods. “Not a bad idea.”
With that, we head around the backside of the house and wipe them down using rags Juniper brings from the house. We drive them to the barn where Dash and I unload supplies from the truck, strapping them to the cargo hold on both ATVs. Once we’re done, Dash slides into the seat of one, and I take the other, while Juniper stands between us, hands on her hips.
“Ride with him,” I tell her, “you’ll fit better.” My cheeks flame with that admission, but it’s true.
Only, she shakes her head no. “You ride with him. I’m driving on my own.”
A laugh escapes me as I caution a look at Dash, who is also smirking. “Funny, sweetheart. Now, c’mon, hop on with him.” Dash pats the seat behind him as we both stare, waiting.
She only shakes her head again, folding her arms over her chest. Dash pats the back of his seat again and Juniper looks my way. “Climb on. He’s waiting.”
I look over at Dash who is now looking at me, shrugging. “C’mon, let’s just get out there. It won’t be more than fifteen minutes.”
“I won’t fit on there with you,” I say, hating that I have to say those words out loud, again, and be embarrassed by them.
“Get on behind me and hold on,” he says, voice bordering on impatience. Maybe even angry. “Now.”
I look to Juniper for help but she’s only nodding me on, reaching for the handle to take over my ATV. Quickly I get off and when I’m standing next to Dash, Juniper is already riding off into green, her blonde hair tangling in the air behind her.
I swing my leg over the seat, my groin crushing Dash’s backside, my chest pressing into his back. He’s tight with muscle, hard against me, our bodies contrasting in a way that sends a thrill through me, leaving my limbs tingly and my face numb.
“You ready?” he asks over his shoulder. “Hold on.”
“I don’t need to hold on,” I say, my voice more husky and masculine than it’s ever been. Dash snorts, kicking the vehicle into gear.
We surge forward, and my balance is tested as my arms fly through the air and I go tumbling backward, rolling through the dry grass a few times until I’m discombobulated on my ass. Dash turns around, grinning. “I told you to hold on, dummy.”
A smirk sweeps my lips. “I felt stupid holding on to you,” I admit as I get to my feet, swiping my hands down my jeans to get rid of debris.
“You realize we’re cleaning up corpses. Doesn’t matter if you have some grass on you.” He pats the back of the seat again. “C’mon. And don’t feel stupid holding on to me.” He lowers his voice, adding, “I’d hold on to you.”
As my cheeks heat, I clamber on the back and wrap my arms around him, finding his body radiating heat and the faintest traces of soap and cologne. My face tingles as my fingertips sink into his chest, chiseled and defined. He’s one of those guys that looks like a photoshopped model without his clothes on. But I try to think about dead bodies on the bumpy quad ride out to the well, because holding him while envisioning him without a shirt will make the trip too hard.
Standing around the well, the three of us stare at it in silence. I may be the sanitation guy, but garbage is a different beast than this .
“There’s a lot of spiders,” I comment, watching one black widow crawl to a fly stuck in its web. Piece by piece, the spider feasts on its prey. Jesus Christ.
I glance over at Juniper and Dash to find them smirking at me. “You afraid of spiders, Sterl?” Dash asks.
“Psh.” The back of my neck grows clammy.
“How do I not know this after two years of living together?” He snaps his fingers. “That’s why you get the extra spider package on our bi-monthly pest control.”
“I’m not afraid of spiders,” I reason, hands on hips as I watch the little red-backed monster polish off the fly. “I just… prefer not to come into contact with them.”
Juniper, who looks gorgeously windswept after riding out here, links her arm with mine, smiling up at me. “I think it’s adorable that you’re afraid of spiders.”
“I’m not afraid,” I whine, “but look.” I point at the black widow. “Who wants to be around that ?”
Juniper shrugs. “I don’t mind.”
I bite my lip, casting a cautious glance at Dash. His smirk is more charming than it should be as he sifts a hand through his hair. “Yeah, but, baby, you kill people.”
She laughs. “True.”
“We’re laughing about it?” I ask, swiping my hand over my head, my sights set on that same murderous spider.
“Laugh or shit our pants,” Dash says. “And this is already likely to be a messy cleanup. We don’t need the latter in the mix.”
I get to work unclipping the bags from the ATVs, and once they’re off, I toss one to Dash and we unzip. While unloading rope and other supplies, Juniper explains why she should be the one to go down the well.
“I’m the lightest, and I did this so I should be the one to have to retrieve the remains,” she reasons, watching as I loop the rope around my arm, trying to figure out how much length we’ll need.
I hadn’t thought about who would be the one to descend the well, but I know without question it won’t be her. “No fucking way,” Dash interjects. “You’re not going down there. No way.” He slices his palm through the air with finality. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Why is it too dangerous for me but not for you two?” she asks, bracing her hands on her hips, green eyes flared with heat. I love how passionate she is, though her passion is what brought us here.
“We’re men,” Dash says, puffing out his chest. He thumps a closed fist to his pecs. “I’m tough. I can handle it.” He deflates a little when Juniper seems unimpressed.
I turn to Juniper, telling her the truth. “Can you do a pull-up, sweetheart? Because I can pull up my own weight and so can Dash, which means if the pulley system fails, he or I will have a chance to scale the well wall to get back up. But if you can’t do a pull-up and we can’t, for some reason, get you up, you’re stuck until we figure things out.”
Dash points at me. “That, too. The man thing and the pull-up thing.”
Juniper eyes him with teasing disdain pinching her gaze. “ Fine .”
After dropping the rope until it hits the bottom, I keep my hand secured on where it rests along the rim of the well, and pull it back up, measuring depth. “Thirty to thirty-five feet deep,” I tell Dash, who is working on loosening the safety harness we brought. We’ve had one in the garage ever since we rented a scissor lift to paint the house and trim trees last year.
“Do you have a pocket, for a flashlight, for when you’re down there?” I ask him as I pull my gloves on to have better leverage on the rope. Juniper works on spreading out a tarp where Dash will unload the bagged remains he collects. She puts a rock on each side to hold it down.
Dash doesn’t respond, so I look up to find him staring at me, eyes wide. “ I’m going down?”
“You’re a man, aren’t you?” Juniper teases from her spot bent over near the ATV, collecting burlap bags from the back.
Her ass looks phenomenal in those leggings, and my dick would stiffen at the sight, normally. But with a corpse needing retrieval, it proves fickle.
“Uh.” My focus slides to Dash, whose head is tipped sideways. He’s staring me down with a knowing glint in his eyes. He caught me checking out Juni’s ass, no doubt.
“ Anyway ,” he smirks, “I’m, uh, I’m the well guy, eh?”
I nod. “My thinking is not far from what I just told Juniper. If something happens, you can likely climb out. But if you get injured, I can pull you out. If I go down and get hurt, the two of you, you can’t pull me out.”
“I think we could,” he argues.
“I don’t. And I’m not willing to risk all of our freedoms. I’ve been this size for a long time. Not many people can help a hurt guy my size. So let’s play it safe here.”
He stares at me for a long moment. “If that’s how you feel.”
“I do.”
“Okay,” he says, slipping the harness over his chest. Juniper brings over the burlap bags and stuffs them into an empty backpack, along with a pocketknife, hand shovel, balaclava and extra pair of work gloves. “So whatever's left goes in the burlap. After you bag it all, tug the rope and we’ll pull you out. Strap the remains to the carabiner on your backpack.”
“Why can’t I just call up?” he asks as he clicks another part of the harness into place.
I blink at him, having thoroughly considered today’s events. I’m starting to wonder if he has. Maybe he’s been just as preoccupied as me? As much as the fleeting thought puts a shimmer of ease in my veins, I remain focused. “He’s been down there, exposed to the elements, for quite some time.” I glance quickly at Juniper, not really wanting her privy to these details. I don’t want to upset her. I lower my voice when I say, “It’s not going to be a place you want to have your mouth open, even with the gaiter on.” He blinks at me with confusion knitting his brows. “It’s going to likely smell unbearable.”
The wind picks up right then, sending strands of Juniper’s hair across her face. She tugs them away, making her way to the well. She looks over and draws back, bringing her hand to her face. “Oh god,” she groans. “That’s unpleasant.”
“That’s death,” I tell her, looking at Dash. “Tug the rope when you’re ready. I’ll be at the edge the whole time.”
He nods, cautiously positioning himself on the edge of the well after securing his backpack and gloves. With his baseball hat turned backward, we hold eye contact as he sits on the edge. With the rope wrapped around my fist, I nod. “I’ve got you.”
Dash’s nostrils flare. “I know you do.” And with that, I drop the end of the rope. We wait till it thuds against the bottom and Dash grabs the slack, wrapping it around one palm as he carefully lowers himself down. My biceps and torso tighten with strain as more and more weight is leveraged against me the lower he descends. After what feels like an eternity, with Juniper standing a few feet away from me, silently observing, there’s a small tug on the line.
“He made it down,” I tell her over my shoulder. She sighs with relief, draping a hand over her chest.
“Thank God.”
But our relief is short-lived as an echoing shout reverberates through the well, out into the night.
“Fuck!” Dash shouts, his tone more panicked than I’ve ever heard as I peer down into the darkness, my own gaiter pulled over my mouth and nose.
“Talk to me,” I call, panic stirring in my veins. “What’s going on, D?”
His flashlight turns on, illuminating the well and the portion of his face that is uncovered. “It’s fucking nasty down there! There are maggots and critters everywhere! Jesus Christ, get me the fuck out!”
Juniper joins me at the edge of the well, unable to stand back a moment longer. She coughs, bringing her shirt to her nose to diffuse the stench. “He’s panicking,” she says to me quietly. “I get that way, you know, right after, ” she says, referencing her murders. “I calm myself down by taking it a step at a time. That’s what he needs to do,” she says, her voice so soft I question if she’s faint or not.
I take over, shouting her orders down the well. “Focus, D. It’s going to be okay. First things first, get the burlap sacks from your bag. Can you do that?”
He nods, making the light move along the rotted old cinder blocks. A moment later he calls up, his words echoing. “I got the burlap.”
“Okay, now assess the area. Do you need a hand shovel, or can you collect it with your hands?”
He steps around things I can’t see, my scope limited. A moment later he says, “I can get it with my hands. I think he’ll fill two bags.” He makes a choking noise, then coughs, gagging. “Oh god, this is so disgusting.”
“Hang in there. One thing at a time. Get the bags out,” I advise, a shiver racking my spine at the reality of the situation. Someone’s loved one is decomposed and their remains are going into old potato sacks for me to burn later.
How did my boring life become a Tarantino film overnight?
There’s movement at the bottom of the well and less than five minutes later, a hard tug on the line. Wrapping the ropes around my hands, I take a step back and begin intermittent, hard tugs.
After a few minutes, Dash still hasn’t surfaced, so I implore Juniper to look over the edge. With sweat clouding my vision, dripping down my face, I pull with all of my might.
A moment later, a backward baseball cap appears, and then gray eyes. “Lean over!” Juni tells him, reaching over the edge to grab the harness around his hips. I pull, she pulls, and he leans, and a moment later, he’s toppling over the side of the well back to the ground, his pack and the burlap bags following.
He clambers to his feet, coughing and sputtering as he yanks his gaiter down, mouth gaping as he sucks in fresh air. “Fuck!” he breathes, spitting and swiping at his nostrils. “That smelled putrid,” he gasps, nudging one of the burlap bags with his foot.
Juniper gasps, bringing her hand to her mouth, and from my spot on the ground where I fell over, I get to my feet. “What?” I ask, but I follow her gaze because she doesn't answer, and?—
“Oh fuck,” I quietly gasp, at first reaching toward Dash but then letting my hand come back down, unsure of what to do.
“What?” he asks, panic widening his pupils as he looks between us frantically. “What? Why did you gasp? Why did you say that?”
I level my hands in front of him, stepping nearer, attempting to calm him with a steady, controlled gaze. “Okay, just relax, but?—”
His eyes turn to saucers. “What?” The question is shaky.
“There is…” I glance at his shoulder where a decomposing finger rests, stuck to a clump of… Jesus Christ. I don’t know what that crap is. Guts? No, guts would dry out. That finger looks like it must've found a wet, shady spot in that well because it still looks human. The other burlap bag, open with its contents scattered from the fall, seems to be mostly bones and critters.
I motion to his shoulder. He rears back in a wince just as I say, “There’s a finger on your shoulder.”
Then all hell breaks loose.