Once my handsyfucking brother and Wylie Ogden left, I locked myself in my office and focused on paperwork rather than watching Daisy bravely smile her way into the hearts of Knockemout.
Business was good. And I knew how important staff was to that bottom line. But Jesus. Working with Naomi day in and day out? How long would it take before she’d spout off something smart, and I’d pin her to a wall and kiss her just to shut her up?
I kept an eye on the security monitor while I worked my way through the list of stuff Fi needed me to do.
Payroll submitted. Liquor order finalized. Emails returned. And I’d finally gotten around to working on the ads. It was midnight, closing time, and I was beyond ready to call it a night.
“Come on, Waylon,” I called.
The dog bounded out of his bed.
We found the bar empty of patrons.
“Decent night tonight,” Silver called from the register where she was scanning the day’s report.
“How decent?” I asked, doing my best to ignore Naomi and Max as they rolled utensils into napkins and laughed about something. Waylon charged over to them to demand affection.
“Good enough for shots,” Silver said.
“Did someone say shots?” Max called.
I had a deal with the staff. Every time we beat the previous week’s sales the entire shift earned shots.
She slid the report across the bar to me, and I flipped to the bottom line. Damn. It had been a good night.
“Maybe new girl’s our lucky charm,” she said.
“Nothing about her is lucky,” I insisted.
“You still owe us.”
I sighed. “Fine. Line ’em up. Teremana.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Let’s go, ladies.”
Naomi cocked her head, but Max jumped out of her seat. “I knew it was a good night. Fat tips too. Come on,” she said, pulling Naomi to her feet.
I didn’t miss the wince as Naomi stood. She obviously wasn’t used to being on her feet for hours at a time. But I respected her for stubbornly trying to hide her discomfort on the way to the bar. Waylon followed on her heels like a lovesick idiot.
“Boss called tequila,” Silver said, producing the bottle.
Max whistled and drummed the bar.
“Tequila?” Naomi repeated on a yawn.
“Tradition,” Silver explained. “Gotta celebrate the wins.”
“One more,” I said before Silver started to pour.
Her eyebrows winged up as she produced another glass. “Bossman is in. This is a first.”
Max looked surprised too.
“Wait. Don’t we need salt or lemons or hot sauce or something?” Naomi asked.
Silver shook her head. “That’s for shitty tequila.”
Shots poured, we held our glasses aloft.
“You gotta make the toast,” Max said to me when it became clear no one else was going to do it.
“Fuck. Fine. To a good night,” I said.
“Lame,” Silver said.
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up and drink.”
“Cheers.” We touched glass to glass and then to the wood of the bar. Naomi mimicked us, and I watched her as she knocked back her shot.
I expected her to start gasping and wheezing like a sorority sister during pledge week. But those hazel eyes went wide as she looked at her empty glass. “So apparently I’ve never had good tequila before.”
“Welcome to Honky Tonk,” Max said.
“Thanks. And now that my first shift is officially complete,” Naomi put her glass and apron on the bar and turned to me. “I quit.”
She headed for the door.
“Nooooo!” Silver and Max called after her.
“You better do something,” Silver said, pinning me with a glare. “She’s good.”
“And she’s trying to support a kid, Knoxy. Have a heart,” Max pointed out.
I swore under my breath. “Walk each other out,” I ordered and then went after Naomi.
I found her in the parking lot next to an ancient ten-speed.
“You’re not riding that thing home,” I announced, grabbing the handlebars.
Naomi let out a long sigh. “You’re lucky I’m too tired to pedal or fight. But I still quit.”
“No, you don’t.” Handing her the apron, I hauled the bike over to my truck and put it in the bed. She limped along after me, shoulders slumped.
“Jesus, you look like you got trampled by a herd of horses.”
“I’m not used to being on my feet for hours at a time. Okay, Mr. Pushes Paper From a Comfy Desk Chair?”
I opened the passenger side door and gestured for her to get in. She winced when she climbed up.
I waited until she was settled before shutting her door then rounding the hood and sliding behind the wheel. “You’re not quitting,” I said just in case she hadn’t heard me the first time.
“Oh, I’m definitely quitting. It’s the only thing that got me through the shift. I plotted all night. I’d be the best damn server you ever saw, and then when you had your change of heart, I’d tell you I quit.”
“You’re un-quitting.”
She yawned. “You’re just saying that so you can fire me.”
“No. I’m not,” I said grimly.
“You wanted me to quit,” she reminded me. “I quit. You win. Yay you.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t suck. And you need the money.”
“Your benevolence is astounding.”
I shook my head. Even exhausted, her vocabulary still hit high on the SAT scale.
She rested her head against the seat. “What are we waiting for?”
“Making sure the girls walk out together and get in their cars.”
“That’s nice of you,” she said, yawning again.
“I’m not a complete asshole all the time.”
“So just with me then?” Naomi asked. “I feel so lucky.”
“Cards on the table?” I didn’t feel like sugarcoating it. “You’re not my type.”
“Are you kidding me right now?” she said.
“Nope.”
“You’re not attracted to me, so that means you can’t even be civil to me?”
The back door opened, and we watched Max and Silver exit with the last bag of trash. They marched it to the dumpster together and high-fived after heaving it in. Max waved, and Silver tossed me another salute on their way to their respective cars.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t attracted to you. I said you’re not my type.”
She groaned. “I’m definitely going to regret this, but I think you’re going to have to break it down for me.”
“Well, Daisy. It means my dick doesn’t care that you’re not my type. It’s still standing up, trying to get your attention.”
She was quiet for a long beat.
“You’re too much work. Come with too many complications. And you wouldn’t be satisfied with just a quick fuck.”
“I believe Knox Morgan just said he couldn’t satisfy me. If only I had a phone to immortalize that statement on social media.”
“A. You’re getting a new phone immediately. It’s irresponsible to go without one when you have a kid to think about.”
“Oh, shut up. It’s been a handful of days. Not months. I didn’t know I was going to have a kid to think about,” she said.
“B. I could satisfy the hell out of you,” I plowed on, pulling out of the parking lot. “But you’d just want more, and that doesn’t suit me.”
“Because I’m an ‘uppity, needy pain in the ass,’” she said to the darkness out her window.
I didn’t have a defense. I was an asshole. Plain and simple. And the sooner she realized that, the farther she’d stay from me. Metaphorically speaking.
Naomi let out a weary sigh. “You’re lucky I’m too tired to slap you, jump out of this vehicle, and crawl home,” she said finally.
I turned onto the dirt lane that led to home. “You can slap me tomorrow.”
“Probably just make you want me more.”
“You’re a pain in my ass.”
“You’re just mad because now you have to find a new spot to pee in your yard.”
HISTORY LESSONS
Naomi
Waylay and I had survived nearly an entire week together. It felt like a monumental accomplishment as our lives continued to hang in limbo. There had been no contact from the court system or Child Protective Services yet.
But I’d ground up zucchini and green beans into last night’s meatloaf to sneak past Waylay Witt’s discerning nose just in case anyone was watching.
I’d worked two more bar shifts, and the tips were starting to add up. Another financial boon was the arrival of my new credit and debit cards that I got in the mail. I hadn’t gotten all of Tina’s charges erased from my credit card statement, but having access to my meager savings had helped immensely.
I’d had the foresight to pay the mortgage early this month in anticipation of being too deliriously happy on my honeymoon to worry about things like bills. That plus the fact that I no longer had a car payment or insurance to cover meant I could stretch a dollar surprisingly far.
To earn that free rent, I carved out a few hours to spend at Liza’s.
“Who’s that?” Waylay asked, pointing at a framed photo I’d found tucked into the back of one of the cabinets in the dining room.
I looked up from my dust rag and furniture polish to look. It was a picture of an older man looking proud enough to burst with his arm around a beaming redhead in a cap and gown.
Liza, who had said repeatedly she didn’t like cleaning but still insisted on following us from room to room, looked at the photo like she was seeing it for the first time. She took a slow, shaky breath. “That’s, uh. My husband, Billy. And that’s our daughter, Jayla.”
Waylay opened her mouth to ask another question, but I interrupted, sensing Liza didn’t want to talk about more family members that hadn’t been mentioned until now. There was a reason this big house had been closed up from the rest of the world. And I guessed the reason was in that picture.
“Have any plans this weekend, Liza?” I cut in, giving Waylay a little shake of my head.
She put the photo face down on the table. “Plans? Ha!” she scoffed. “I do the same thing every damn day. Drag my ass out of bed and putter. All day, every day. Inside, outside.”
“What are you puttering on this weekend?” Waylay asked.
I gave her a thumbs-up that Liza couldn’t see.
“Garden needs some attention. Don’t suppose either of you like tomatoes? Got ’em comin’ out of my ears.”
“Waylay and I love tomatoes,” I said as my niece mimed vomiting on the floor.
“I’ll send you home with a bushel then,” Liza decided.
* * *
“I’ll be damned.You got all the burnt crusty stuff off the stove top,” Liza observed two hours later. She was leaning over her range while I rested on the floor, my legs stretched out in front of me.
I was sweating, and my fingers were cramped from aggressive scrubbing. But the progress was undeniable. The mound of dishes was done and put away, and the range gleamed black on all surfaces. I’d taken all of the papers, boxes, and bags off the island and tasked Liza with sorting it all into Keep and Toss piles. The Keep pile was four times the size of the Toss pile, but it still counted as progress.
Waylay was making her own kind of progress. As soon as she’d fixed the errant e-reader that had eaten Liza’s download and a printer that had lost its Wi-Fi connection, Liza had handed over an old Blackberry I’d found in the drawer next to the sink. If Waylay could coax it back to life, Liza said I could have it. A free phone with a number none of my old contacts had? It was perfect.
“I’m starving,” Waylay announced, throwing herself down dramatically on the now-visible counter. Randy the beagle barked as if to emphasize the direness of my niece’s starvation. Kitty the pitbull was sound asleep in the middle of the floor, her tongue lolling out onto the floor.
“Then let’s eat,” Liza said, clapping her hands.
On the word “eat,” both dogs and my niece snapped to attention.
“’Course, I’m not cooking in here. Not with it looking showroom new,” Liza added. “We’ll go to Dino’s. My treat.”
“Their pepperoni is the best,” Waylay said, perking up.
“I could eat a whole pepperoni pie myself,” Liza agreed, hitching up her cargo shorts.
It was nice to see my niece getting comfortable with an adult, but I would have liked it better if I was the one she was sharing pepperoni preferences with.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was failing a test in a class I’d forgotten to attend all semester.
* * *