I really didn’t want to be thinking about this. I started my car and drove to the grocery store and then made my way to the bar. Mel was already there when I walked in. She was positively glowing. When she looked up from behind the counter, she grinned at me from ear to ear.
“And just what might you be so happy about, Ms. Smiley?” I laughed.
“Giiirl…” she drew the word out. “I have some oversharing for you.”
“Uh oh. From the look on your face, I’m almost certain I don’t want to know.”
She shook her head. “No way, you get to know every juicy little detail. Bring those bags of fruit over here and have a seat. We can cut it while I dish.”
I made my way to the counter and sat down on a bar stool in front of her. She bent down to grab a knife and cutting board and we divvied up the work.
Mel began slicing and talking. “Do you remember anything about last night?”
“Yeah, some. Why?”
“You basically told Beaver and me that we should just fuck and get it over with.” She stopped cutting to look up at me, raising her eyebrow. I vaguely remembered saying something along those lines, but played dumb and kept working on making lime wedges. “Anyway, I think it came as quite a shock to Beaver because he asked me if it was true.”
“If what was true?”
“If I liked him and wanted to do ‘the dirty.’ He accused me of toying with him. I ended up slapping him across the face and told him that he could take his amazing mouth and go fly a kite, and that any interest I’d had was now off the table. Would you believe that the only thing he’d heard me say was ‘amazing mouth’?”
I laughed. “Yeah, I could totally see that.”
“Yeah, me too, cause after a bit of back and forth fighting, when Timber had taken you upstairs, he ended up picking me up, laying me down on this bar and having his way with me.” She sighed dreamily. “It’s true, you know. How he got his nickname and all.”
My smile was promptly wiped off of my face and replaced with disgust. “Ewww! You two fucked on the bar? This bar? The one that we are cutting fruit on? Oh God. Please tell me you bleached it.”
She gave a really ditzy giggle. “I wiped it down, you spaz. Calm down.”
“You wiped it down? With what, soap and water?”
“I’m going to slap you if you keep ruining my ‘I just got the best tongue job of my life’ moment. And it was… the best tongue job I’ve ever gotten.”
I gagged. Plugging my ears, I started singing, “la la la… I can’t hear you. I don’t want to know anything else.” We both started laughing and sliced faster, needing to finish before The Hole opened in a couple of hours. “No more over sharing, okay?”
“Psh, if I’m getting laid, you’re going to know about it.”
Oh God.
That night I’d kept glancing at the front door, expecting to see Timber. I found myself hoping that he would come in and sit down, just like he had for the past several evenings.
Night after night passed and no Timber. It really became obvious when, after a full week had gone by and he still hadn’t stepped foot in The Hole, that he was avoiding me. I thought maybe he had been busy and just didn’t have time. Bull shit. I knew why he hadn’t come in.
I debated a few times about going and finding him, but I wasn’t sure if that was the appropriate thing to do. So he had showed up at the beach, once. So he had stayed the night to take care of me, once. That didn’t give me an excuse to go tracking the guy down and demand to know why he was avoiding me.
By the beginning of the next week though, I could no longer hold myself back. I told myself that I was just going to make sure that he was okay, nothing more. I went to the A&S Emissions oil field to find him. I had no idea what I was going to say when I got there, but I figured it would come to me when I saw him. When I drove up to the trailer that my uncle worked in, I noted that I didn’t see Timber’s motorcycle anywhere. Getting out of my car, I walked up the metal steps and stepped inside the cool building. Cindy, the receptionist, greeted me with a warm smile.
“Hey, Kat, what brings you out here this afternoon?” Her accent was very strong and rich.
I shrugged my shoulders, trying to play it casual. “Just thought I’d surprise Uncle Roger. Is he in?”
“Aww, that’s sweet honey, but actually he’s out having a meeting with the big wigs.” She leaned over the desk and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Between you and me, I think the big bosses are here in town to check things out and make sure we’re still on track.”