7. Mac
Damn, I almost forgot how pretty she was.
That’s a bald-faced lie. I didn’t forget a thing. How could I when she kept turning up in my head every day since I met her? Worse, every night? Not to mention every other second on the way over here.
“Stare much?” Nate mutters.
I glare at him. “Manners, kid. Come on and introduce yourself.”
“Why? And why are we here? I thought we were visiting the old guy today.”
I turn to him as we walk. We had to park halfway down the long gravel driveway since these assholes have monopolized the whole front area with their trucks and trailers.
Would he have been like this if I’d raised him? Is it normal teenage behavior? I have no fucking idea. But I do know I need patience. That’s what Lana keeps telling me. Kids require patience, Mac, and sometimes you’ll have to pull from your stores to get it.
“You mean your grandfather?”
Nate’s head bobs. “Sure.” He looks away like he’d rather be anywhere else.
I suddenly feel like shit. This whole life has been foisted on him by his mom. He’s doing the best he can.
“Please take out the headphones,” I say, my tone shifting enough that he rolls his eyes but plucks them out and shoves them into his pocket.
We finally reach the bottom of the stairs. Shelby’s come down a couple of steps but pauses, her hand on the banister.
When I look up at her face again, for a moment, I forget what words are.
No, she’s not just pretty. She’s…perfect. She’s wearing jeans and a white button-down shirt, with my wool sweater in place of a coat. Fuck, she looks good in my sweater. Pink high-top Chucks that look like they’ve never been worn and are going to be as muddy as my truck the minute she steps off a curb around here. A fucking ponytail that swings when she moves.
Shelby smiles at Nate, which knocks me out of my stupor.
“You remember my son, Nate?” I grumble.
“Of course.” Shelby’s smile broadens.
Nate doesn’t smile back, of course, but he has the decency to at least give a slight nod.
Shelby examines the two of us for a moment, like she sees the tension I wish wasn’t there. Then she smiles, leaning on the porch railing. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
The way the railing presses into the plushness of her hips is a study in fine art. I need to stop staring. But when I force my gaze upward, her ponytail lifts in the light breeze. Her light brown hair is soft and shiny now, though it looked just as good when it was still kinky with salt. Her cheeks are rosy with the crisp springlike day, her freckles looking extra bright.
I walk up the steps just far enough so she can reach the manila envelope I’ve been clutching in my hand. “Papers you asked for. For the job.”
She wanted my financials and all the menus from the past few years, failed and successful.
I move back to the safety of the bottom of the stairs next to Nate.
“Thank you.” She slips the envelope into her giant purse.
We could leave now. We didn’t have to come this morning at all; I could have dropped the stuff off anytime. I could have emailed it like she asked.
But the papers aren’t why we came.
I look back over my shoulder at the array of vehicles strewn disrespectfully across Ben and Diane’s lawn. “I take it you know about the shithead brigade?”
Nate snorts beside me. I always forget about swearing around him. Not like he doesn’t do it enough when he’s gaming—I hear him through his door.
Shelby’s pretty lips flatten into a thin line. “Unfortunately.”
“I’m sorry. I should have known they’d be here,” I say. I don’t know if that’s true; they don’t usually stay here, so I didn’t even think about it. But the run-down motel at the edge of town they normally stay at—the only place that tolerates their raucous nonsense—has been shut down for the past month for some kind of fire code violation. I was shocked when Lana told me Diane and Ben let them stay here instead, and I rushed right over when I realized I’d let Shelby camp out right in the hornet’s nest.
I’m not even upset with the BB owners. I know they’ve been struggling lately.
“I should have helped you figure something else out.”
“I’m just glad I got a room,” Shelby says. “And they’re only here for a few days.”
I run a hand over the back of my neck. Then I say, “I can’t let you stay here.”
The words are out before I think of a better way to say it.
Her eyebrows go up, and I’m not sure if that’s because of how I phrased that or because of the words themselves.
“I just mean…I don’t think you should stay with them here. They’re dicks.”
“Do you think they’re…dangerous?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. But they sure as shit won’t leave you alone.”
She looks ill. “No one else had any room. Except this place called Widow’s Walk, but they didn’t even have a website, and they were way up the mountain. Plus, someone said they were possibly haunted and?—”
I clear my throat. “We have a spare room.”
Shelby’s eyes go wide. “Oh. Uh…I couldn’t?—”
“Nate’ll help me get it into shape today.”
Nate’s agog.
“Mac—” Shelby looks genuinely shocked.
“I know, you don’t know me. But the room’s got its own entrance. Your own little bathroom. It looks out over the water. It’s nice.” It will be nice, once we haul all the shit out of there and attack it with some cleaning supplies.
Just then, the door to the BB opens with a bang. We all look up.
I grimace as those sorry excuses for men start pouring out onto the porch. My temper immediately rises. Without thinking, I reach up and take Shelby’s hand, gently pulling her down the stairs close to us.
When she meets my eye, something inside me does a little flip, like the road’s dipped while I’m going at speed. I let go of her hand. “Sorry,” I grumble. “I don’t trust them.”
She looks up at me, sending heat skittering through my chest.
“If you don’t want to stay with us, I’ll ask Lana or Chris.” At her confused expression, I say, “My staff.” At this point, I don’t care where she stays, so long as it isn’t here.
One of the guys on the porch starts hollering about a woman, along with a lewd blow job gesture.
It’s like a dark lens has dropped over my vision. Whether she’s here or not, that shit can’t stand.
“Nate, get in the truck.”
Nate’s eyes go wide, but he doesn’t move. Guess this’ll be a teachable moment like those parenting books I’m trying to mainline talk about.
“Mac!” Shelby’s warm hand lands on my forearm, cutting through my anger.
I turn back to her.
“Okay,” she says.
It takes me a second to register what she’s okaying, since there’s smoke coming out of my goddamn ears.
Did she?—
“Yes, please, I’ll take you up on your offer. Just until these guys are gone, though.”
Relief washes over me like a tsunami.
Though after I kicked the shit out of these assholes, I wasn’t above throwing her over my shoulder like a caveman.
“Great,” I say. “Great. Nate.” I jerk my chin at the truck. He listens for once and heads sullenly for the truck.
Once he’s gone, I look down at Shelby. “We can come back for your stuff later.”
“No,” she says, lifting her chin. “It’s bad enough they’ve run me out of here. Plus…I’d like to say goodbye to Diane.”
With that, she straightens her shoulders and heads up the stairs. I have to admire the pair on her—I wouldn’t blame her at all for not wanting to set foot in this place again. I’ll have to have a long talk with Diane and Ben. Maybe see if I can apply whatever I learn from Shelby to their business so they can refuse to house these fuckers next year.
When Shelby reaches the porch, she’s met with a wall of men’s backs she has to try to squeeze past. “Excuse me,” she says.
They ignore her.
I glance back to make sure Nate’s in the truck.
“Excuse me!” she says louder.
“Why, hello, honey,” that flat-top asshole says.
Then I take the steps two at a time.
“Excuse me!” She tries again. Some of them step sideways, though flat-top only smirks. One of them takes a good, long look at Shelby’s backside as she passes.
When I reach the top, I restrain myself from making fists, but I don’t bother keeping my voice down. “Give the lady some fucking room.”
That gets their attention quick enough. Shit, I might have flattened the leaves on the nearby trees.
They part like the fucking Red Sea.
I poke my head in the open door to see if there are any more in there. The coast looks clear.
“You okay?” I ask Shelby once I join her inside.
She nods. “Thank you.” I can hear the anger in her voice. And that’s what truly makes me simmer.
I head back outside and go straight for Flat-top.
There’re two of them this year, I see, as I spot a gray-haired version of the younger one sitting back in a porch chair, chatting with another dude as if this is just a nice, normal gathering and they weren’t just harassing a fucking innocent woman just trying to exist.
Tweedledee and Tweedledumbass.
“A moment of your time?” I ask the younger flat-top, since I know he’s the ringleader. Tweedledumbass.
He snorts derisively. “Your girlfriend gonna mind?” For all his bravado, when I take a step toward him, he flinches. I wasn’t even moving fast.
Another guy says, “She killed Lola!” He shakes a peach-colored flap of plastic at me.
I meet that one’s eye. It’s a look my weekend server Christine calls the Withering Willie. She very much means it both ways.
The guy slinks back into the crowd.
“You’re going to want to hear what I have to say,” I tell Flat-top.
He rolls his eyes but shrugs, coming my way.
I don’t often leverage my height, but it’s handy when I need it. I act like I’m giving him room to pass but stand close enough that he has to go out of his way not to touch me.
On the other side of the porch, I lean in far enough that he has to plop down on the railing.
“What’s your name, son?” At thirty-eight, I’ve probably got about fifteen years on him. I use every one of them.
“Slick.”
For once, I don’t hide my smile. “That’s strange. In that police report my buddy down at the station happily shared with me, they called you Cecil Beaufort.”
Cecil pales.
“She’s leaving today, because you fuckfaces don’t know how to behave around a lady. But it doesn’t end here. If you see her in town, you’re going to avoid her like she’s got a communicable disease. Because she does.”
“What?”
“It’s me. I’m the disease.”
“You can’t make us?—”
“Cecil. I’m more than happy to toss you off the side of this porch now and tell everyone you’re the clumsiest asshole I’ve ever met. I’m slightly more well-liked in this town than you all. They’d believe me.” I run a hand over my chin, as if considering. “Though even that sounds like more effort than you deserve. Another option is I could send your uncle the CCTV footage from the tackle shop on Main. You know, the one that faces the town hall, where someone painted a giant dick on the building? That is your uncle’s office, right?”
The one I used to play in when I was a little kid. My initials are still scratched into the underside of that desk. How that office has fuckin’ fallen.
Flat-top sputters. “You don’t have footage?—”
“You mean it was someone else who painted a dick on the side of the mayor’s office? ’Cause he sure did look like you. Hell”—I glance down at his boots, which are untied but have a distinctive stripe on the side—“he even had boots like yours.” I shrug. “Well, whoever it was blamed another kid. Your uncle pressed charges. He had to pay a fine. But I bet that kid’s family would be real happy to see that tape. They’re truckers, you know. Big, mean fucks.”
In fact, they’re kind people with a fishing boat, but Cecil doesn’t need to know that.
“Okay! Fuck. I won’t talk to her.”
“None of you will talk to her. None of you will so much as look at her or any of the women in town. I’m putting you in charge of that.”
“What? I can’t?—”
“Same goes for the owners of this fine establishment,” I say. “You will treat them like goddamned royalty. If I hear of any shit going down here or anywhere in Redbeard, this will be the last year you descend on my fair town like the fucking locusts you are.”
I didn’t mean that to come out quite so menacingly, but the asshole goes so pale I almost worry about his circulation.
“We clear?”
He glances over at the silver-haired flat-top. I get the feeling he’ll be in shit if he gets himself booted out of this town. If I can even do that.
Finally he ekes out a “fine.”
I grin. Christine says I look scary when I grin.
Cecil’s bulging eyes concur.
I wait for Shelby at the door as the men disperse to their vehicles.
When she appears at the top of the stairs with her suitcase, I jog up and take it from her, walking out onto an empty porch.
“What did you say to those guys?” she asks, slightly agog as the last of them peel out of the driveway.
“I told them to be nice.”
When we get back to the truck, Nate has the same question, his eyes bugged out in the rearview. “Did you pull a weapon or something? That one guy looked like he shit—pooped his pants.”
Shelby makes a little snorting sound in the passenger seat.
Even I have to fight a grin. “Nathan, I would never propose violence.”
I pull out of the drive, flattening my palm on the steering wheel to do a tight U-turn, then speed up and pass the ATVs hogging the right-hand lane. I pass the biggest, shiniest one at the front with an inch to spare and not slowing down for a second.
“Jesus,” Nate mumbles from the back.
I feel Shelby’s eyes on me. “You don’t mess around, do you?” she asks, laughter in her voice.
When I glance over at her, I suddenly feel like a squirrel’s built itself a nest in my esophagus. She looks a little too good sitting in the passenger seat of my truck. No one ever sits there, not even Nate. He prefers to huddle in the back like he is now.
Then Shelby does the most amazing thing: she bursts out into laughter.
And goddamn if that isn’t the prettiest sound I’ve ever heard. She laughs with her whole body, her eyes sparkling as she looks disbelievingly at me.
I could live in that sound. When I look back in the rearview, Nate’s grinning too, and that—that—is when I know I’m in real trouble.
My son, smiling. This woman, leaning back in my passenger seat, a place I’ve purposefully kept vacant for years.
What the hell have I done?