Colorado 02 Sweet Dreams (13 page)

I was pretty shocked by this compliment. Krystal seemed a hard nut to crack. I couldn’t imagine she was at home telling Bubba I was good at my job. I imagined when she was at home she spent her time contemplating the numerous things that annoyed her, why they did and how they’d never stop or, if Bubba was home, she’d spend her time giving him stick. Not praising me.

“Thanks, that’s nice,” I said to Bubba and he let me go.

“Finally, a decent waitress,” he declared, lumbering behind the bar and going straight to a fridge to pull out a beer. He turned around and twisted off the top. “Uh… not to speak ill of the dead.”

I looked at Jim-Billy and saw him wince. Then I looked back at Bubba to see Krystal, fast as lightning, was at his side and reaching up to curl her fingers around the wrist he had raised to down some brew and she yanked on it. Beer sloshed out and got in Bubba’s beard and down his shirt.

“Woman!” he shouted, swiping at his beard.

“You’re here to work, Bub, not tie one on,” she snapped.

“What’s the point of ownin’ a bar if you can’t have a freakin’ beer?” he shot back.

“I don’t know. Maybe to sell them so we can pay our mortgage?” she suggested sarcastically.

Bubba scowled at her then asked, “Again, darlin’, you wanna know why I fish so goddamned much?”

“Bub –”

He looked at Jim-Billy. “Bustin’ my balls in front of an audience. Shit.”

“I did the stock take,” I put in in an effort to defuse the situation and Bubba and Krystal looked at me. “It’s finished, I finished it this morning. I wrote a report and put it on the clipboard. Everything was good, a few things here and there, nothing big except there seems to be a case of Jack Daniels missing. I figured there was a mistake in the entry and I tried to track it but…”

I trailed off because the atmosphere got thick and I was watching Krystal’s head slowly turn and tip back to look at Bubba.

Uh-oh.

“You take that case?” Krystal asked.

“Darlin’ –” Bubba started.

“You take it?” she snapped.

“I’m not goin’ fishin’ without my Jack,” he declared.

“Fuck me,” she muttered, turned and stomped from behind the bar and down the hall.

I looked at Bubba to see he was watching her go. Then his eyes came to me.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, “I didn’t –”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry ‘bout it, gorgeous. She’d eventually find out. She’s already pissed as hell at me. Might as well get it over with all in one go rather than her gettin’ over her ‘tude then gettin’ somethin’ new to have ‘tude about it. Figure you did me a favor.”

“Well, I’m glad you can look at it like that,” I said.

“Bright side of life, Lauren. You live with a storm cloud, you learn to find the bright side,” he replied then followed Krystal.

I looked at Dalton then at Jim-Billy.

“Um…
eek!
” I said to Jim-Billy.

“You said it,” Jim-Billy muttered.

“Is it like that all the time?” I asked, moving closer to him.

“Chalk and cheese,” Jim-Billy answered. “Bubba’s a good ole boy, laid-back, mellow, all about havin’ fun, not about havin’ responsibility. Krystal’s had it rough, she’s worked all her life, it’s made her hard and she wanted her piece of something that was just hers. Thought she’d get it with the bar, bein’ the boss, not havin’ to eat shit for a livin’. As you can see, she’s still workin’ hard and Bubba’s fishin’. He sees nothin’ wrong with that, not one thing. She does double shifts a lot. I don’t see good things.”

“Didn’t she know –?” I started.

“’Bout Bubba?”

I nodded.

He nodded back. “She knew, Laurie. But he made promises to her, to Tate, he’d tow the line, he’d do his bit, he’d grow up.” Jim-Billy shook his head. “Tate gets in his face, Bubba goes on the wagon but he always falls off.”

I got closer and asked quietly, “Does he like fishing
that much?
”

Jim-Billy stared at me.

Then he leaned in and whispered, “Honey, he ain’t fishin’.” I didn’t reply and must have looked confused because Jim-Billy went on whispering. “Why you think you broke through that stone around Krystal’s heart and made her take a chance on you?”

“I don’t –”

“He fucks around, Laurie, with anything that moves, anything that breathes. Off here there and everywhere, partyin’ and gettin’ himself laid. Folks around town call him Bender Bubba. He’s on a bender and
anything goes
.”

I looked to the doorway of the hall, asking, “Why does she put up with it?”

I looked back to Jim-Billy to see him shrug. “She loves ‘im.”

I could understand that. Many women who hadn’t been cheated on didn’t understand other women who put up with it. When Brad came clean, told me about Hayley, my very first thought was
I forgive you.
I couldn’t see a life alone. I couldn’t abide a life without him in it. I wanted him so bad and loved him so much, I would have taken him any way I could have him.

He just didn’t want me.

“Poor Krystal,” I whispered.

“Don’t let her hear you sayin’ that,” Jim-Billy whispered back.

I looked at him, bit my lip and nodded.

The door opened and customers came in. I knew them, they’d been in before.

I grabbed my tray, headed their way and smiled, calling, “Hey Steg, Bob, what’s up?”

* * * * *

“Need two Bud drafts,” I said to Krystal as I hit the bar.

“Gotcha,” she replied, turning to nab some mugs and turning back, her hand going to the tap.

I studied her.

There was a lot on my mind, primarily Tate, who was coming to put me on the back of his bike so he could drive me the five blocks to my hotel. Also on my mind was his rampant desire for my safety and willingness to secure it.

His words in the office, though, were flipping me out, scaring me and other, very different things besides. I didn’t get it. I wasn’t certain what happened in there or why it happened. All I knew was that it did.

But now, I was thinking about Krystal.

She put a mug on my tray and went for the other one.

“You okay?” I asked.

She didn’t look at me when she answered, “Yeah, why?”

“Tonia,” I said softly and her eyes slid to me then back to the mug she was filling.

“Girl was a waste of space,” she muttered and I felt my face flinch. Then she went on, “Still, Christ.”

“Yeah,” I said and she put the other mug on my tray.

Then she surprised me by asking, “You okay?”

“About Tonia?” I asked back and she nodded. “No,” I answered.

“No one deserves that,” she stated.

“No,” I agreed. “No one deserves that.”

“Folk sayin’, way she dressed, way she acted, brought it on herself,” Krystal told me.

“Really? People are saying that already?”

“Yep,” she nodded.

“Do they know all that happened to her?” I asked.

“All that happened to her?”

“The, um… thing with her hair,” I explained.

“What thing with her hair?”

I looked at her a second and then muttered, “Nothing.”

She examined me. Then her face changed in a way I couldn’t read.

Then she said, “Tate.”

“What?”

“Tate tell you what happened to her?”

“Um… yeah, he popped by earlier and –”

She cut me off. “No, folk don’t know all that happened to her.” Then she mumbled, “Fuckers.”

“Got that right,” I replied.

She caught my eyes and surprised me again. “Thanks for doin’ the stock take, Lauren.”

“Um… you’re welcome.”

“And Tate says you wiped down most of the bar,” she went on.

“It was a slow day,” I told her.

She nodded. “Speakin’ ‘a that, with Tonia gone and Tate on the hunt, we’re losin’ the waitress durin’ the day. I’ve redone the schedule, copies of it are on the desk in the office. All the girls are nights now, even you.”

I nodded back again. “Okay, that’s fine with me.”

“You can handle it,” she said and I smiled at her.

She didn’t smile back.

Instead, she informed me, “Got ads in papers all over the county and then some. Gnaw Bone, Chantelle, everywhere. Hopin’ we’ll get a couple of girls in soon.”

“Okay,” I replied.

“It’ll be tough for awhile –”

I interrupted her. “We’ll cope.”

She held my gaze a long moment.

Then I said, “Better serve these.”

She turned away, muttering, “Yeah.”

* * * * *

 I was in the bathroom studying myself in the mirror.

I was still in research mode in order to find ways to be the best waitress I could be in an effort to make a living when the time came when I actually had to make a living. Day tips weren’t great, as Krystal had warned. On Saturday and Sunday, when the bar was busy, tips were fantastic. Even fantastic, they didn’t make up for the weekdays. It would be good to work nights.

In my efforts at research, I was experimenting with makeup. Today, it was slightly heavier. Not Krystal, Jonelle and, rest her, Tonia heavy but not my normal subtle either.

I was also experimenting with footwear.

I’d dug into my clothes and pulled out a top that I bought a few years ago but it hadn’t fit in awhile. Seeing as I was constantly missing meals, on my feet and swimming regularly, my clothes were fitting loose. So I’d tried it and found it fit though it was just a smidge snug at the cleavage. A cream blouse, a bit see-through (so I wore an off white, stretchy camisole under it), it also fit snug up my midriff but it was supposed to because it had two darts at both sides under my breasts and the same at both sides in the back. It had a collar and such short sleeves they couldn’t really be called sleeves as they were just an inch of material. I’d also added a layering of a bunch of silver necklaces that I usually only wore one at a time, all of them having daisies or flowers dangling from them or pendants with daisies and flowers stamped on them. I’d put on my daisy stud earrings and my flower-dangling bracelets. I’d paired this with jeans, a tan belt and, the new tactic of the day, high-stiletto-heeled sandals. They were tan leather that almost matched the belt and they had five thin straps that led into a big rose at the toe and a wraparound ankle strap you couldn’t see under the bootcut of my jeans (which was too bad because I always thought it was sassy and Brad had agreed, he’d loved those sandals and he especially loved the sassy ankle strap).

Being on them all day, my feet were killing me which I decided to take Bubba’s advice about and look on the bright side. Focusing on my feet, I could stop thinking about my whole body aching. Also, when I walked up to a patron, I found they were giving me a head-to-toe and an easy smile, even if I didn’t know them.

I couldn’t be sure as I hadn’t counted them but I thought my tips might have taken a turn for the better. Maybe not a massive one that would allow me to add a manicure to my schedule every week once I settled in, bought a house and furnished it but I could at least maybe buy groceries.

At that moment, however, I was wondering about wearing high-heeled sandals on the back of a bike.

Was that okay?

I was also wondering if I should put on lip gloss.

I was wondering this because it was passed seven and I was waiting for Tate to come and get me.

And I was wondering all of this while wondering about me wearing a little cream blouse, jeans that were not tight but a bit loose and a pair of sandals that cost over two hundred dollars. Neeta’s whole outfit probably cost half that and Tate had carried her into a hotel room, kissing her.

I was not Neeta by any stretch of the imagination. I was not the kind of woman who was bad news, who made a man change careers because of whatever, who met him at a hotel at night.

I was the kind of woman who wore cream blouses, not tank tops, and needed a ride home because her boss, who might be a jerk on occasion but he’d certainly demonstrated a fair degree of assuming responsibility, knew she was a woman alone with no one to look after her.

So he was looking after me. That was it.

Thus, I decided, no lip gloss.

But that didn’t stop me from being incredibly nervous but I was nervous in a belly-fluttering, excited way – like I’d just made it to the top of a roller coaster and was about to take the plunge.

This, I told myself, was not because Tate informed me the way he’d cure my insomnia was by fucking me until I couldn’t move – a comment, I decided, he made because he was upset about Tonia and was trying to put his mind to other things.

This, I told myself, was because I was going to ride on his bike.

The door opened and one of the female clientele walked in, dressed and made up a lot like Krystal. I hadn’t seen her before so I just smiled and moved to the door.

The minute I hit the bar, I saw Tate standing at the other end by Jim-Billy. That belly flutter escalated and I thought I might either pass out or vomit.

Then I was rocked back on a foot when a strong force hit me.

I looked down to see Wendy had her arms wrapped around me.

“Oh Lauren,” she whispered.

I put one arm around her and I slid my other hand along her short hair as I tipped my head so my mouth was at her ear.

“Baby,” I whispered.

“I didn’t like her but this
sucks,
” she whispered back, not letting go of me.

“I know.”

She released me, stepped back and looked up. “Feel like a bitch, laughed when she got fired.”

“Take your mind off that, Wendy,” I advised.

“Right, how?” she asked.

“I don’t know, honey, just… if your mind wanders there, visualize a stop sign and don’t go down that path. You didn’t know what would happen to her.”

Her eyes slid slightly to the side before coming back to me. “I bet Tate’s feelin’ like an asshole.”

She would win that bet.

“He’ll be okay,” I assured her with more confidence than I actually felt.

“Yeah, he’s a tough guy. They shoulda fired her ages ago. Only could do it, really, if they had you… which they did so he did it. Still, shit timing.”

“Yes,” I agreed then my eyes moved to him to see he was openly watching Wendy and me. I looked back at Wendy. “I have to go, honey, he’s here now because he’s my ride.”