She shrugged. “I know. Sounds made up. But it’s not. Justice, I’ll take a double espresso to go,” she called.
My future husband raised a hand without turning around from the order he was working on. “You got it, Fi.”
“So, as I was saying. In my head, we’re already friends. Which is why I have a job for you,” she said, biting the cookie in half. “Hey, Way.”
Waylay studied Sherry over her smoothie. “Hey.”
“So what do you say?” Sherry asked, shimmying her shoulders.
“Huh?”
“Aunt Naomi’s kind of a planner,” Waylay explained. “She wrote three lists so far today.”
“Ahh. A look before you leap type,” Sherry said, nodding sagely. “Okay. I’m a business manager, which puts me in charge of several small businesses in the area. One of them is down a server and desperately needs someone who can deliver beer and be generally charming.”
“A waitress?” I’d spent the last five years of my life cooped up in an office answering emails, pushing papers, and settling human resource issues via carefully worded emails.
Being on my feet and around people all day sounded like it might be fun.
“It’s honest work. The tips are great. The uniforms are cute. And the rest of the staff is a hoot. Mostly,” Sherry said.
“I’d need to arrange childcare,” I hedged.
“For who?” Waylay demanded, her forehead scrunched up.
“For you,” I said, ruffling her hair.
She looked appalled and dodged my hand. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Just because you’re used to doing something one way doesn’t mean it’s the right way,” I told her. “You’ve spent a lot of time looking out for yourself, but that’s my job now. I’m not about to leave you alone while I go to work.”
“That’s stupid. I’m not a baby.”
“No, you’re not,” I agreed. “But adult supervision is a necessity.”
Waylay muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “bullshit.” I decided to pick my battles and pretend I hadn’t heard.
“If that’s your only reservation, I can easily find someone to hang out with Way here while you rake in the tip money.”
I chewed on my lower lip. I wasn’t a fan of having to decide things on the spot. There were pros and cons to weigh. Research to do. Routes to calculate. Schedules to firm up.
“I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving Waylay with a stranger,” I explained.
“Of course not,” Sherry chirped. “I’ll arrange a meeting, and you can decide then.”
“Uh…”
Justice whistled from the counter. “Order’s up, Fi.”
“Thanks, big guy,” she said, jumping up from her chair. “Well, I’ll see you two ladies later. First shift’s tomorrow night. Be there at five.”
“Wait!”
She cocked her head.
“Where is this job?”
“Honky Tonk,” she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Bye!”
I watched Sherry Fiasco strut out of the cafe with the confidence of a woman who knew exactly where she was going and what she was doing.
Even when my five-year plan was intact, I hadn’t had that kind of confidence.
“What just happened?” I whispered.
“You got a job and then turned me into a dumb baby.” Waylay’s face was stony.
“I didn’t call you a dumb baby and I didn’t officially accept,” I pointed out.
But I needed income, and the sooner the better. My checking account balance wasn’t exactly going to support us indefinitely. Especially not with rent and security deposits and utilities to worry about. Not to mention the fact that I had no vehicle, no phone, and no computer.
I picked up another cookie and took a bite. “It won’t be so bad,” I promised Waylay.
“Yeah, right,” she scoffed and went back to kicking the table.
A PUNCH IN THE FACE
Knox
“Where you think you’re going?” I asked lazily from my lawn chair parked in the middle of the lane.
The SUV’s bumper had stopped a generous foot from my knees, a cloud of dust rising up behind.
My brother slid out from behind the wheel and rounded the vehicle.
“Shoulda known I’d find you here,” Nash said, his jaw tight as he pulled a slip of paper from his uniform pocket. He crumpled it and threw it at me. It hit me square in the chest. “Harvey said to pass this along to you since it was your fault he was speeding through town this morning.”
It was a speeding ticket written in my brother’s scrawl.
“I have no idea what Harvey’s jabbering about,” I lied and pocketed the citation.
“I see you’re still an irresponsible asshole,” Nash said as if there’d been a chance I’d changed in the past few years.
“I see you’re still a law-abiding dickhead with a stick up his ass.”
Waylon, my lazy basset hound, wandered his stumpy legs off the porch to greet his uncle.
Traitor.
If he thought he’d get more attention or more people food somewhere else, Waylon wasn’t weighed down by loyalty and didn’t hesitate to wander.
I pointed toward the cabin with my beer bottle. “I live here. Remember? Didn’t look like you were slowin’ down to pay me a visit.”
Nash hadn’t set foot in my place in more than three years. I’d done him the same courtesy.
He hunkered down to give Waylon some love. “Got an update for Naomi,” he said.
“And?”
“And the fuck what? It doesn’t involve you. You don’t need to stand sentry like some ugly gargoyle.”
Waylon, sensing he wasn’t the focal point, meandered up to me and nosed at my hand. I gave him a thump on his side and the dog biscuit I’d stashed in the chair’s cup holder. He took it and pranced back to the porch, white-tipped tail a blur of happy.
I raised the beer to my mouth. “Saw her first,” I reminded Nash.
The flash of anger I saw in his eyes was gratifying. “Oh, fuck you, man. You pissed her off first.”
I shrugged carelessly. “Same thing. Might as well just wander that law-abiding ass of yours back to Liza J’s. I’ll bring Naomi and Waylay to you.”
“Can’t stop me from doing my damn job, Knox.”
I got out of my chair.
Nash’s eyes narrowed.
“Give you one free shot,” I offered, then drained the rest of my beer.
“One for one?” my brother clarified. He always did pay too much attention to the rules.
“Yep.”
He placed his watch on the hood of the SUV and rolled up his sleeves. I put my beer in the cup holder and stretched my arms overhead.
“Never used to need to warm up before,” Nash observed, adopting a boxer’s stance.
I loosened up my neck and shoulders. “Fuck off. We’re over forty. Shit hurts.”
This was overdue. Fists were how we’d settled countless arguments for decades. Fight and move on. Until the thing punching each other in the face couldn’t settle.
“What’s the matter?” I taunted. “Having second—”
Nash’s stupid fist plowing into my face cut off the rest of my sentence. It was a bell ringer. Right in the fucking nose.
Shit, that hurt.
“Goddammit,” I hissed, prodding my face for deformities.
My brother bobbed and weaved in front of me, looking a little too fucking proud of himself.
I tasted blood as it trickled onto my upper lip.
“I got shit to do. I don’t have time for conversation and kicking your—”
I let my fist fly, catching him in that goddamn mouth he was always running. The mouth he’d used to lay on the charm with Naomi. His head snapped back.
“Ow! Fuck!” He swiped his arm over his mouth, smearing his own blood up his sleeve. Another bead dripped onto the shirt of his uniform. It made me feel perversely accomplished. Messing up Nash was always gratifying.
“We really gonna do this?” he asked, looking up as his tongue darted out to taste the blood at the corner of his lip.
“Don’t have to. You know how to stop it.”
“She hates your guts. You don’t even like her,” he pointed out.
I used the hem of my t-shirt to stem the flow of blood from my nose. “Not the point.”
Nash narrowed his eyes. “The point is you always wanna call the shots. Some brother.”
“You’re the idiot who doesn’t know how to say ‘thank you,’” I shot back.
He shook his head, looking like he was going to back down. But I knew better. I knew him better. We both wanted this. “Get out of my way, Knox.”
“You’re not gettin’ past me today.”
“I’d be happy to run you down with my truck. Say you were drunk and passed out in the middle of the lane and I didn’t see you.”
“Your ass would be behind bars before they even got mine to the morgue,” I predicted. “Something happens to either one of us ‘round here, everyone knows the first place to look is the other one.”
“And what does that say about our happy fucking family?” Nash spat.
We were circling each other now, hands up, eyes locked. Fighting a man you grew up tumbling with was like fighting yourself. You knew all the moves even before they were coming.
“I’ll ask you again, Knox. Why are you in my way?”
I shrugged. Mostly to annoy him. But partly because I didn’t really know why I’d planted my ass between my brother and Naomi “Doe Eyes” Witt. She wasn’t my type. He wasn’t my problem. Yet here I was. The whole introspection thing was another one of those time wastes that I didn’t bother with. I wanted to do something, I did it.
“You just want to put your hands on something fine and mess it up, don’t you?” Nash asked. “You can’t take care of a woman like that. She’s got class. She’s smart.”
“She’s needy as fuck. Right up your alley,” I shot back.
“Then get out of my way.”
Tired of the conversation, I threw a jab to his jaw. He returned it with a shot to my ribs.