Chapter 6 Jonah - Present
six
Jonah - Present
VODKA LIME SECRETS.
I didn’t see Pink-Sweater again over the next two days, but his car stayed in the lot, unmoving.
I wasn’t sure what he was doing here, but as far as I was concerned, no news was good news. He would probably just move along like everyone else who came through here always did.
I only needed to be here for the weekend. Marty would pay me on Monday morning, and then I’d be out of here. I’d decided my next destination would be Darkwater Cove, but not for any other reason than that I’d seen the name on a map.
Another rule of running was to remain unpredictable, and I tried to be as random as possible in where I stopped.
I also lived out of a bag, so I didn’t have to worry about packing anything and was always ready to leave at a moment’s notice.
Of course, I wasn’t going to tell anyone I was leaving. I’d just stop showing up the moment I got paid and block Marty’s number. There wasn’t anyone else here who had mine. There wasn’t anyone anywhere who had mine.
The list of contacts on my blocked list was far longer than the number of contacts I’d had saved before all this started. In fact, there were only two numbers I’d saved that weren’t blocked—Bee and Devil.
I would never call either of them, but I couldn’t bring myself to go without them.
Even though I’d changed my number, changed my phone, and they wouldn’t be able to contact me, I still couldn’t let them go.
Often I wondered about Bee. What did she think happened to me? Was she worried or maybe just angry? What had happened in Port Skelton after I left? Nothing was officially published or reported on, but surely there was… something.
On my weakest nights I would stare at her number, fighting everything in me not to call it and hear her voice. To tell her I was okay. To tell her when I wasn’t. Would I ever get to speak to her again?
Had she reported me missing? I doubt Dad would have done it, but Becca seemed like the type to report me missing and then go searching for me herself when the police came up blank. She probably had a better chance of finding me. She would certainly be more dedicated to it.
Not as dedicated as him, though. Knuckles—inked and bruised—passed through my mind, making me shiver. HELL BENT. Yeah. He’d be hell-bent on getting me back… if he was still alive.
With work not starting until late afternoon, I made a trip to the laundromat.
There was only one in town. It was small and aged, and the machine gave my clothes that musty old laundry smell, like fabric that had been left damp for far too long.
Probably because the dryer seemed incapable of ever drying them fully, overheating and shutting off before it ever got the job done.
Didn’t matter much what I smelled like, though.
It was always empty. Not once had I seen anyone using it. So when I walked in, my bag slung over my shoulder, it took me by surprise to see that one machine was already going. And further still, when I noticed the figure sitting on one of the three chairs against the wall.
He was sitting on the middle seat—well, he was crouching—with his feet up on the chair, hugging his knees. His legs were exposed by tiny shorts once again, and he was wearing the pink sweater Hank had thought suspicious.
He was looking at me.
Bright blue eyes, one surrounded by an even bluer bruise.
I stalled, staring back at him in silence.
For a moment he looked me up and down, taking me in before his eyes met mine again. He made a little huff of a noise I wasn’t sure how to interpret and looked away, eyes focusing back on his clothes in the machine.
Alright, then.
I unglued myself from the spot and headed to another machine to unload my clothes. With literally nothing to do in town or until my shift started, I’d intended to just sit here and wait for them to be done, but now I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Then again, maybe this was an opportunity.
When the machine started up, I took a seat to the left of Pink-Sweater.
He didn’t turn to look at me again, still hugging his knees and far more interested in watching his clothes spin than in me.
I was always awful at starting conversations, didn’t know where to begin at the best of times, especially when I actually wanted to find out information from somebody without making it seem too obvious.
“New here?” I finally asked after a long silence.
“Yep,” came his response. Only that.
Shit, what else could I say? He didn’t seem as though he wanted to talk to me. I wondered how the fuck Becca had always got me to talk when I didn’t want to. Had I also been this off-putting?
“Visiting family?” I tried.
“Nope.”
Well, this wasn’t happening. Whatever. If he didn’t want to talk to me, that was probably a good thing anyway. Meant I had nothing to be suspicious about.
After twenty minutes of me scrolling on my phone and him watching the washing machine like it was a cinematic masterpiece, he finally broke the silence.
“Do you live here?” His voice was soft, and his eyes remained on the machine rather than turning to look at me.
“No,” I answered simply. Then after a moment, “I’m just passing through.” He nodded but said nothing more, so I continued. “Kind of shitty town to be honest.”
He huffed in amusement. “Yeah. I’m not sure how it’s possible for an entire town to smell like mold.”
I couldn’t help the genuine chuckle that earned. “Even the people.”
He huffed again, this one almost sounding like a laugh. The leg closest to me dropped from the seat to the floor. “Shit, my clothes are gonna start smelling like yours, aren’t they?”
So maybe it did matter what I smelled like because apparently I found that offensive. At least until he side-eyed me and his lips pulled into a brief smirk like he had to force himself to stop it.
I laughed.
How long had it been since I’d laughed?
“Hope there’s nothing expensive in there.” I gestured to his machine. “Because you’ll never get the Hollow Creek stink off it.”
“It’s only Prada,” he groaned.
Prada. Somehow I wasn’t surprised by that. Not just because of the car he drove, but from the overall vibe of him. He seemed… expensive. Polished. Refined. He didn’t fit here, and I was all the more curious to figure him out.
We fell back into silence, until his clothes were ready and he moved them to the dryer.
I tried not to be obvious as I took him in, but those legs seemed so long when his shorts were so small, and he definitely caught me looking at his ass. He said nothing about it, but I definitely noticed him smirking. When he sat back down, he seemed more relaxed.
“So, what is there even to do around here?” he asked.
“Drink, mostly.”
“You do a lot of that?”
“I don’t do any of that,” I answered honestly. I told myself I didn’t drink so I could stay alert, keep my mind sharp. It had nothing to do with him.
“So what is it you do around here, then?”
“Work.”
“In the mines?”
“At the pub.”
“Ah.”
We fell into silence again, each of us no doubt trying to figure the other out. “I’m working tonight. You could stop by if you’re bored.”
“Maybe I will.”
Was this normal? Was I making friends? It had been so long, I couldn’t really tell.
Pink-Sweater did stop by the bar that night. I really needed to find out his name or something. It hadn’t come up at the laundromat. Conversation had died off again until his clothes were ready and he’d left me there with a “See you around.”
It was late, an hour until closing time, and I’d assumed that meant he wasn’t coming. But then in he walked, booty shorts and pink probably Prada sweater.
Hank was here and gave him a glance over that wasn’t at all subtle with his disdain. It made me wonder if I could get away with spitting in his next beer unnoticed.
The guy didn’t seem to notice or care about the looks he was getting, though, as he made his way over and took a seat at the bar right in front of me.
“Hello again, Mr. Bar Man.” He smiled at me, seeming far more friendly than he’d been this afternoon in the laundromat.
“Hello again,” I grumbled back, trying not to seem pleased—to him or myself—that he was here.
“Know how to serve things other than beer here?”
“Not usually, but I’m sure I can figure it out.”
“Vodka lime soda.”
“Wow, so complicated.” I rolled my eyes and started making his drink as he huffed in amusement.
I set his drink in front of him and went back to polishing glasses, serving a few beers here and there as I kept a subtle eye on him.
He didn’t seem like he actually wanted the drink, occasionally taking a sip, but mostly just running slender fingers up and down the sides of the glass, leaving trails in the condensation.
When he started impaling the lime with his straw rather than drinking, I shuffled closer on my side of the bar.
He just seemed… lonely. Like someone who shouldn’t be alone. Becca had recognized that in me back then. She said it was because she was the same. Maybe that’s why I recognized it in him now.
“You look like you have a story,” I tried.
“Can’t possibly imagine what would make you say that.” He rolled his eyes, that slight smirk pulling at his lips before he forced it away and frowned again. “It’s not a nice one.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, figured it probably wouldn’t be.”
His eyes remained fixed on the straw as he mashed the lime wedge into the bottom of his glass until it made the drink cloudy. “Why do you care?”
I shrugged one shoulder as I reached for a glass that didn’t need polishing, but gave me something to look at other than him in case he found the attention too much.
I knew all too well what that was like. “You just…” I smiled softly to myself.
“You seem like someone who shouldn’t be alone right now. ”
He seemed to consider that for a long moment, and although I could feel the weight of his gaze on me, assessing me, looking for… something, I kept my eyes on the glass as I wiped it clean of nonexistent smudges.
“It’s… complicated.”
I nodded. “Most things are.”
“You really want to know?”
I shrugged one shoulder as I put the glass back down.
“Well look, in a place like this I’m as close as it gets to a psychiatrist. It’s pretty much part of my job description here.
So why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind, and I’ll prescribe you something to make it better.
” I held up a bottle of vodka in my left hand and tequila in the right, swishing the liquid around invitingly.
He huffed a laugh and rolled those pretty blue eyes again, wincing slightly at the discomfort he must have held in the bruised one.
“You’re cute,” he said with a sigh, like he was trying to pretend he was annoyed when he really wasn’t. “Alright, Mr. Bar Man”
I held up a hand to stop him right there. “Ah, that’s Doctor Bar Man, actually.”
“Alright, Doctor Bar Man.” He laughed again, shaking his head softly before eyeing me up, considering his next move.
A pink tongue darted out to lick a slow stripe over perfectly straight white teeth.
Too perfect. Were they veneers? “I’ll make you a deal, then.
I’ll tell you my story, and if you haven’t heard one more complicated in the last…
” He looked around, trying to determine just how complicated the people of Hollow Creek could be.
“Six months… then that ‘medication’ is on the house.”
He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who needed free drinks, but I was so desperate to know what brought him here, to understand him, that I was willing to go with it.
I snatched up two shot glasses and placed them on the bar between us as I poured the tequila. “Alright.” I pushed one toward him. “A little incentive.”
He smiled brighter this time as he took it. We clinked glasses, and both downed the harsh liquid in one go. One drink wouldn’t hurt. I winced through the taste, but he seemed completely unaffected by it. “Go on, then.”
“Well… my name… is Harper Lorens.” He gave me another assessing look, like he seemed to think he’d already revealed something.
“Is this one of those ‘do you have any idea who I am’ moments?”
He huffed. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. Basically… my family is in the spotlight a lot.”
“Like celebrities?”
“Something like that.”
“Alright. Proceed.”
Harper’s family sounded like a bunch of pricks.
A different flavor of shitty than mine, but shitty all the same.
They’d tried to put him in a box they created for him.
They didn’t like that he didn’t fit. His dad didn’t like that he was gay and tried to set him up with a woman, so he’d told him to fuck off and left to live with his boyfriend.
It sounded like that was a big deal. With his family allegedly being in the spotlight as much as they were, it meant he had reporters following him everywhere.
He got quiet after that, and he hadn’t explained why he was here alone.
“So… you know I’m going to ask. Who did you piss off to get that beauty?” I gestured to his bruised eye.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Someone else I’m supposed to have heard of?”
“Maybe. Ever hear of Benny Forrester?”
“Oh, shit.” Alright, so I actually had heard that name before. “As in MMA champion Benny Forrester? Wait, you got hit by an MMA fighter?”
“Former MMA fighter. His shoulder’s all fucked from a fight last year. Now he just runs a gym.”
“Okay. I’m starting to see what might have pissed him off, but proceed.”
“Yeah, well, he’s my boyfriend.”
Oh. Oh. So he’d left his family for his boyfriend, and his boyfriend had given him that bruise. I was starting to get the unpleasant picture. What a piece of shit.
“So you’re on the run.”
“So I’m on the run.”
“Me too.” I wasn’t sure what made me confess it, but I regretted it immediately.
“Yeah? What are you running from?” he asked, leaning in closer, attention obviously piqued.
My scalp prickled with unease, but I feigned nonchalance. “Mmn, I’m the doctor here, remember? I’ll ask the questions.”
Harper rolled his eyes. “Alright, then. Keep your secrets.”