Chapter 9 #2
“Sure.” We rode in the quiet for a few minutes as I headed to the little coffee trailer that her aunt owned.
It was a few minutes out of the way, closer to the club than my place, but worth it.
Plus, it was practically a sacrilege to go to a different shop in Eugene.
No one in that family ever bought their coffee anywhere else.
Since it was Saturday there was no morning rush, and we were able to drive right up to the window. When we got there, Charlie’s head popped out.
“Well, you’re not who I expected to see,” she greeted with a laugh. “My brother-in-law know you stole his truck? I’m not hiding your ass when he figures it out.”
“Hey, Aunt Charlie,” Harper called, scooting across the seat so she could look out my window.
“This shit just keeps getting weirder and weirder,” Charlie replied, leaning down on her elbows. “Hey, Harp!”
“Can you make me something good?”
“You want hot or cold?”
“Hot.”
“Two shots or three?”
“Three, please.”
“You got it.” She looked at me. “What about you, Bas?”
“Drip coffee, please.”
“I don’t even know why I asked.” She rolled her eyes.
She moved in and out of view as she worked on the coffees. “So, what are you guys up to so early?” She paused and leaned to look out at me. “If you tell me you’re driving my niece home, I’ll come through this window.”
“We’re going up to Portland,” Harper said with a laugh. “Bas has an appointment in a couple hours. Why the hell are you working on a Saturday morning? Don’t you have employees?”
“Bishop’s at a job site this morning, and the kids stayed the night over at Cecilia’s, so I figured I’d come in and get some inventory done,” Charlie yelled over the loud espresso machine. “I wasn’t going to fall back asleep anyway.”
“You should’ve laid in bed all morning,” Harper chastised. “You had the house to yourself!”
“I should’ve, huh?” Charlie said with a laugh, handing us our coffees. “Ah, well. Too late now.”
“How much do I owe you?” I asked, opening my wallet.
“For you two? On the house,” Charlie replied.
There was no fucking way. If she started giving away coffee for free to anyone she knew, she’d be closed in a month. I was pretty sure that club members were her largest customers by far. Pulling out a twenty-dollar bill, I stuffed it in the little tip jar.
“Thanks, Auntie,” Harper called. “Love you!”
“Love you, too,” Charlie said. She nodded to me in thanks for the tip. “Drive careful, guys.”
“We will,” Harp chirped as I rolled away from the window. She scooted gingerly back over to her seat and buckled up with one hand. “I didn’t think this through.”
“What’s that?” I asked, glancing at her as I took a sip of my coffee.
“This stupid truck doesn’t have any cup holders.”
I grinned as we pulled back onto the road.
“What kind of music do you like?” Harper asked as we pulled onto the freeway a few minutes later. “You want me to turn some on?”
“I’ll listen to anything,” I answered as she reached forward to mess with the radio.
“My dad should’ve put a stereo system in here,” she complained, flipping through the stations.
“Talked about it,” I replied. “Instead, I scrapped one from a wrecking yard in Albany.”
“You did?”
“He had me runnin’ all over the state for shit.” I scoffed. “Drove out to Vale for this seat. Woulda cost less and taken far less time to just reupholster the old one.”
“He’s so persnickety,” she complained. “But you have to admit it turned out pretty good.”
“Yeah, it did.”
“He’s lucky he has minions to do his bidding,” she said dryly. “Sending you almost to Idaho for a seat. Pfft.”
“I got paid,” I reminded her. “Worked out fine on my end.”
She found a classic rock station finally and leaned back in her seat.
She was wearing a hoodie and baggy jeans with flowers all over them, and with a gun to my head I couldn’t have told you if I liked her better in the dress from the night before last. She was just gorgeous, no matter what she was wearing.
Of course, I also had the benefit of knowing exactly what was beneath those clothes, so I was probably a little biased.
We were quiet for a while, drinking our coffee as the music played. I was glad she’d shown up that morning. If I’d been by myself, I wouldn’t have been able to think about anything but the appointment I was headed to. The closer it got to the meeting time, the more I felt suffocated by the past.
I hadn’t let myself miss Bernice. I hadn’t felt like I’d deserved even thinking of the woman who’d taken me into her home and raised me.
Even the memory of my foster siblings had me teetering on the edge of depression for those first few years.
But now, knowing that she’d still been thinking of me over a decade after I’d disappeared, had me reconsidering every decision I’d made back then.
“How you doing over there?” Harper asked quietly, turning her head to look at me. “Freaking out?”
“Nah, I’m fine,” I lied. “Ready to get this shit over with.”
“I can understand that,” she said. “Completely different scenario, but the day I left my job, I knew I was going to do it. I spent the whole morning freaking out about what I would say and how it would all go. Once I was done, I felt so much better, mostly because I was just glad that part was over.”
“Were they cool about it?”
“The CEO wasn’t happy, that’s for sure,” she said with a shrug. “But what could he do? Nothing.”
“Have you heard anything yet?”
“About available jobs?” she asked. “There are a couple that people have mentioned something, but I’m not sure either of them is the right fit.
One is in Chicago—no thanks. Too far away, and I don’t think it’s a remote position.
The other is pretty much like my last job, traveling three weeks out of the month.
Even the idea of it feels exhausting now. ”
“The right one will show up.”
“That’s what I’m counting on,” she replied. “I have plenty in savings, and it’s not like I have a lot of bills while I’m staying at my parents’ house. I’m trying to just remember that it’ll all work out somehow.”
“You’ve got time.”
“This’ll all work out, too,” she said, waving her hand at the windshield. “You’ll find out what she left you, and then we’ll get some food and head home. By this afternoon, we’ll be naked in your bed.”
“Something to look forward to.”
“That’s what I’m saying.” She nodded.
“We’re getting food?” I asked, glancing at her as I turned up the windshield wipers.
“There’s a Hawaiian restaurant that I never get to go to,” she said, holding her coffee between her knees so she could clasp her hands beneath her chin. “I’m never in Portland. Please, please, please?”
“Noho’s or Grinds?” I asked, trying to think of any other Hawaiian places I could remember.
“Noho’s.” She grinned.
“We can make that happen.”
“You’re the best.”
“Then the bar must be super fuckin’ low.”
“You’d be surprised.” Turning in her seat, she bent her leg and tucked her ankle beneath her other knee. “I’ve been with some nice guys, but most of them are shit. The dating scene is rough.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“What, you don’t date?” she asked curiously. “I thought you and Lou—”
“I’ve been on dates,” I clarified. “Maybe I’m one of those shit guys, though, because it’s usually only a couple, and then things fizzle.”
“Oh, no,” she whispered dramatically. “We’re on borrowed time.”
“Why, you gonna ghost me?”
“It sounds like you’re the one doing the ghosting,” she argued. “Because I can tell you that you are not a shit guy, and also that women would put up with a shit guy if he fucked the way you do.”
I choked on the sip of coffee in my mouth.
“So, it’s clearly you doing the ghosting,” she finished, pleased with herself.
“Thank you?” I wheezed. “I think? But, with that logic, you should have a ring on your finger by now.”
“I know, right,” she said, smiling hugely. “I’m excellent in bed.”
“Truth.”
“And I haven’t even sucked your dick yet.”
“Woman, I’m trying to drive,” I shot back, shifting in my seat. “Don’t say that shit.”
“What? I’m great at blow jobs.”
“Unless you wanna give me one now, stop talking about it,” I joked.
When I glanced over, she had a contemplative look on her face.
“You’re not suckin’ my dick in this truck,” I said firmly. “That was a fuckin’ joke.”
“Why not? The bench seat would make it really easy, if you think you could manage driving while I’m doing it.”
“Because this is your dad’s truck. The truck I worked on with your dad.”
“And?”
“I respect him.”
“You’ve already fucked me. A lot.”
“Not in this truck.”
“Men are weird,” she said with a sigh.
“You’re the weird one,” I joked. “Tryin’ to defile your dad’s truck like that.” I patted the steering wheel.
“I’m guessing that this truck has seen a lot of bare asses,” she replied dryly. “My mom’s and dad’s most recently.”
“And that’s a vivid picture I coulda done without.”
“Have you ever had sex in a car?” she asked curiously.
“Nope.”
“For real?”
“I didn’t have a car before I left Portland,” I replied. “Didn’t even have my license.”
“Damn.”
“First thing I bought was a bike.”
“The one you have now?”
“Nope. An old piece of shit that I fixed up and sold to buy the one I’ve got now.”
“Playing the long game.”
“You know it. Have you?”
“Oh, yeah,” she replied with a chuckle. “The summer after high school. Me and my boyfriend used to go park any place that we wouldn’t be noticed. At the river, in the woods, the Walmart parking lot.”
“No.” I laughed.
“Oh, yeah. We both lived with our parents. His mom stayed at home, my mom worked from home—there was never a bed available in an unoccupied house. Ah, memories.”
“I got pretty good at doin’ it against walls,” I informed her, looking over as she giggled. “Every wall had potential unless it had ivy growin’ on it.”
“Scratchy?”
“Bugs,” I corrected. “Ask me how I know.”
“Oh, no,” she groaned.
“Not sure if she screamed louder or I did.”
“You’re afraid of bugs?”