“But I could stay awhile. I think they need –”
“To get on with their life, babe, and it’s a life you don’t share with them. They need to learn to lead it without you there mowin’ their lawn.”
“These are my parents,” I reminded him.
“You movin’ home?”
“No.”
“Then what good’s it gonna do them gettin’ used to you dealin’ with all their shit only for you to up and leave? Then they’ll have to learn to deal with all their shit. They might as well learn now.”
“My Dad just had a heart attack, Tate,” I said softly.
“Yeah, and he survived it, Laurie,” he said softly back. “And he’s gonna recover and you won’t be doin’ him favors by fussin’ over him. He needs to get back to life as it’s gonna be, your Mom too.”
I considered this.
My father didn’t like idle children and we had chores. We worked in Mom’s garden, we cleaned the house, we helped him with his many “projects”. But I’d never mowed the lawn that was man’s work (according to Dad). His head would explode if I tried to mow the lawn when he was in the house. Or do anything else that would even give a semblance of “fussin’ over him”. He’d rather the grass get hip high than one of his girls mowing it (of course he would never allow the grass to get hip high, he’d call one of his buddies to do it, of which there were a million).
Instead of telling Tate he was right, I remained silent.
Tate knew my ploy. I knew he did when he asked, “So when you comin’ home?”
“I’ll talk to Mom tomorrow.”
He was silent a moment then he said gently, “Good.”
It was good. Home meant Tate and me being in his vicinity when he talked like that.
Tate kept speaking. “Though, I’m gonna be gone for awhile.”
All thoughts of home meaning Tate fled my head.
“Gone?”
“Had two files come in. High bond skips, both of ‘em. I been bleedin’ money too long. I need to take ‘em.”
“Where are you going to be?” I asked.
“Wherever they lead me,” he answered.
“How long are you going to be gone?”
“No tellin’.”
Well this sucked!
“So I might as well stay here for awhile,” I decided.
“Babe, you ain’t comin’ back for me. You’re comin’ back because this is your life. Right?”
It was mostly that.
Okay, well, partly that.
“Though,” he went on and his voice got a hint growly but the good kind, “good to know you wanna get back to your old man.”
“Mostly I need to get back because I don’t want Krystal to scare all my high tipping customers away with her bad moods.”
“Right,” he said through a smile. I obviously couldn’t see he was smiling, I just knew it.
“Are we done talking?” I asked because it freaked me out a little that he knew I liked him. Though he couldn’t miss it, what with me snuggling up to him when he was awake and asleep, texting him constantly at his order and there was also the way I showed I liked him during our last night together and I did it with my mouth. Then again, he’d liked that too, a lot more than me and he’d proved it by using the part of him I was showing I liked and using it on me in a way that I loved.
“You tired?” he asked.
“Yes,” and it wasn’t a lie.
“Then sweet dreams, baby,” he whispered.
I felt my stomach pitch.
I got that every night too. Tate telling me to have sweet dreams proving he liked me too.
“You too, Captain,” I whispered back.
He waited to hear the words and then he disconnected. He didn’t say good-bye, he never said good-bye. He just said “sweet dreams, baby” then he waited for me to say “you too” and then he disconnected.
I touched a button, the screen went blank, I put the phone on my nightstand and stared at it in the shadows.
His voice came to me in my head.
Sweet dreams, baby.
I closed my eyes and, within minutes, I was asleep.
Chapter Thirteen
Buster
“What? Your brain in your boots? I said seven-fifty,” Twyla said to a customer.
Twyla was one of our two new waitresses. She was fifty-three, had the body of a pit bull, short, graying, very curly salt and pepper hair that was cut into a female mullet and she made Krystal look like she had the disposition of a happy fairy.
I heard her. Heck, everyone heard her and my eyes flew to Bubba behind the bar.
He was biting his lip and, being Bubba, this was because he was trying not to laugh out loud.
If it was Krystal, she’d be doing the same thing but only to stop herself from firing Twyla’s ass.
“I gave you eight dollars,” the tough guy, leather wearing, Harley boy customer returned.
Twyla’s eyes narrowed and she leaned into him so she was leaning over him as he sat in his chair. “You’re tellin’ me you’re givin’ me a fifty cent tip?”
He fidgeted in that chair. “Well, yeah.”
Her loud voice got louder. “You think I bust my hump schleppin’ drinks for fifty cents?”
“No, I think I’m givin’ you a dollar and then movin’ my ass to a table that other one waits on. The one who’s got a great ass and smiles when she brings out a f**kin’ beer,” the Harley guy shot back, ceasing his fidgeting and jerking his thumb at me.
“Uh… gorgeous,” Bubba stage-whispered to me where I was standing in front of him at the bar, “I think that’s your cue.”
I sighed.
I’d been home in Carnal for two weeks. After my conversation with Tate, I’d stayed in Indiana the three further days that it took to get Dad home and a nurse visiting morning and night.
Now I was back at the hotel with Ned and Betty. Back to my boot camps and the other camps I did, namely camping out by the pool or with a latte at La-La Land. And back at Bubba’s.
Amber, one of our new waitresses, was twenty-two, five foot two with lots of wavy blonde hair and she was a baby biker babe in the making. She confided to me that she was saving for a boob job, this and her scant wardrobe in the face of a crazed serial killer who targeted scantily-clad waitresses were my evidence Amber was a biker babe in the making but maybe not a very smart one.
Twyla, our other new waitress, was an ex-marine and the antithesis of Amber, of Wendy, of me and of most every female I knew.