Chapter 8 #2
Everyone who’s asked has gotten the same answer out of me—that I wanted to get away from the city, needed a change.
There’s no reason anyone should think or suspect that I’m here for any other reason, but Doc Jones sounds like he’s thinking something else entirely.
Like he knows I didn’t show up here in Great Falls randomly looking for a change of scenery but that I was sent here by Mom. For Unc.
“He’s needed someone for a long time, Willow. Well before now, but he’s old and grumpy like me. Old fellas like us don’t much like figuring out that we can’t do what we once could. Hurts our fragile egos.” He smirks as he talks about his ego, like the word alone is funny.
“Your ego is probably the only thing fragile about you. And Unc’s the same. Tough as shoe leather down to the core,” I tell him, hoping the compliment eases over the truth of Unc’s fragility. Especially given that he’s not here.
He’s usually the first one in and the last one out, but he called at noon and asked if I’d be okay on my own, saying he had some ‘shit to do’.
He’d been sketchy when I asked what he was doing, and I suspect it includes a whole lot of nothing.
But I keep that quiet, not telling Doc because I would never throw Unc under the bus, even with his friends. I’ll cover for him, always.
Doc nods, adding sagely, “We’d like to think so.
We’d like for everyone else to think so even more.
” He finishes up his pork chop and sips at the last of his drink before flagging me down again between rounds of helping Olivia.
“Will you see if Ilene will make me a plate of scrambled eggs and toast to go? Or something bland like that? Think I’ll run by the house and see if I can get that stubborn mule to eat something. ”
He’s not talking about a donkey and we both know it.
He’s going to check on Unc, which means he knows something’s up. Actually, looking at the ‘nothing to see here, move along’ blank stare on Doc’s face, I can see why he’s good at poker. He’s got a great bluff. But I read him loud and clear, as he intends for me to.
He doesn’t suspect, he knows something is up, especially with Unc not being here, and he’s following up with his friend.
Hopefully, Unc will take the support from Doc better than from me, though he’s leaving his baby in my capable hands today and I doubt he’ll be in tonight.
So we’re essentially babysitting for a weekend night too, a major trust move on Unc’s part.
Or desperation. One of those. But I’m choosing the positive .
. . that he trusts me, Olivia, Ilene, and Daniel to take good care of the bar.
“I’m sure Ilene won’t mind a bit,” I answer, leaving the rest for later examination. “I probably won’t have a chance to check on that mule until tomorrow morning, so thank you for going by.”
Doc nods, and dismissed, I go back to get him a full box of goodies for Unc, hoping he’ll eat something.
“Three JDs and Coke, two Girly Beers, and one draft Miller Lite. Got it,” I tell Olivia, and though she looks like she’s not listening, her nose buried in the tickets she’s flipping through, she nods affirmatively.
“Lemme run this to table twenty, and I’ll be back for them,” she says, and she’s off.
I have no idea how she can work this whole floor alone, but she does.
I’ve worked at bars half this size that would have three waitstaff running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
But Olivia is cool as a cucumber and everybody’s happy.
Maybe it’s the slower pace and the friendlier vibe in town, or maybe she’s that good, or some combination of the two, but it makes working the bar with her a pleasure.
I pull her drinks, setting them on the end of the wooden top for her to grab, and turn back to check my own spaces at the bar.
Everyone’s drinks are full and they’re talking among themselves.
Not even Richard is here tonight, and I wonder if he’s at Unc’s too.
Maybe Doc pulled the lunch shift and Richard took the dinner one?
Since I’m not sure, I’ll go by early in the morning, maybe take Unc some of those doughnuts Bobby told me about and see if some sugary, greasy goodness tempts him to eat.
I’m unloading my third run of the dishwasher when I sense him. My smile is already spreading on my face when I look up to find Bobby leaning over the bar. I have less than a heartbeat to react before he grabs me around the back of my neck and pulls me toward him for a proper hello.
His kiss is a mint-flavored claiming of my mouth that leaves no corner unexplored or possessed.
I feel more than hear him hum, “Mmm.” With two quick smacks that promise much more, he pulls back, and I fall back to my heels, only now realizing that I’d lifted to my toes to reach him too. “Missed you today.”
His tone is heavy, but even so, I think he’s kidding.
I mean, I know what he said last night and this morning, but it’s seriously been maybe ten hours and he’s been working, same as me.
I’ve thought of nothing else all day, but he probably hasn’t given me a thought until he was on his way here.
But that’s okay, he’s here now and quite obviously happy to see me.
His eyes scan me from head to toe, seemingly in awe of what he sees.
I don’t understand why—I’m just me—but the intensity in the depths of his eyes, the relief at merely seeing me again, is near palpable.
From behind him, a deep voice barks out a laugh. “That’s putting it mildly. Dumb fuck wouldn’t shut up all day. Willow-this and Willow-that. If he hadn’t been talking about you all damn week, I would’ve thought he’d taken up with a tree.”
Bobby takes the teasing good-naturedly, to my surprise, throwing up a middle finger behind him to whoever spoke but grinning as he does so. He explains, “I’ve been holding ’em back with promises of introducing you when you were ready. Well, ready or not, here they come.”
He steps to the side, and I realize that the group of folks behind him aren’t the latest rush for the bar to grab a round of beers but Bobby’s entire family. The extended one. I can tell who is whom from listening to his stories.
His oldest brother, Brody, dark and broody, and Rix, short and savage and currently picking what looks to be grease from beneath her nails. I hand her a napkin, which she takes with a dip of her chin.
Brutal, the teaser who is, to put it nicely, scary as hell and as tall as a tree.
Not just any old tree, either, but one of those Christmas trees you think looks grand until you get it in the house and the top bends sideways because it’s smooshed up against the ceiling.
That’s Brutal. Even with several feet between him and the ceiling, he just feels .
. . big. Next to him is a blonde wearing white frayed-hem shorts, a blingy tank top, and a kind smile. That’d be his wife, Allyson.
Another lighter version of Brody, grumpy and seemingly put out at being out, so that’d be . . . Mark Bennett. He’s got his arm locked around Katelyn, a curvy blonde whose eyes haven’t left his. They seem to be having some sort of silent conversation that even from here feels private.
A blonde guy wearing a big belt buckle and holding hands with a pretty brunette, who’s eyeing me curiously. That’d be James and Sophie Bennett. She works for Doc Jones, and he speaks highly of her intelligence and work ethic.
And last but not least, a younger-looking woman with honey brown hair, who is currently bouncing on her boot-covered toes and being held back by another blonde guy. Luke and Shayanne Bennett, A.K.A. Bobby’s sister.
“Let me at her. I’m a hugger, it’s who I am!”
“Shay, she’s working. And she doesn’t even know you. Hugging could be construed as assault,” Bobby warns.
“Pshaw,” she argues, as if that’s an actual argument. I get the feeling that in her eyes, it is. And that it usually works and she gets her way. But I already like that she’s a hugger, even if she’s on the other side of the bar.
“Hi,” I say, waving awkwardly. “I’m Willow.”
Smiling faces greet me, and almost in tune, they answer, “We know.” Brutal adds, “Fuck, do I. Nonstop, I tell you. Non-fucking-stop.”
Allyson lays a hand on his forearm, and he looks to her and shrugs. “What? It’s the truth.”
Bobby isn’t as nice and backhands his brother’s arm with a smack.
“Shut up, man. Did I go around telling Allyson when you were all boohooing over her and whining about how you couldn’t live without her?
No, I did not. So don’t fuck this up for me or I’ll never babysit Cooper again and you’ll be forced to sneak in quickies while he’s watching a twenty-minute cartoon.
God knows I love the kid, but he’s got the attention span of a gnat, so twenty is pushing it. Maybe . . . eight at most.”
Brutal glowers. “One, low blow, man. Not cool. Twenty minutes is not enough time, ever. Two, you didn’t tell Allyson all that crap because you were pissed at her and pulling out the silent treatment like a pouting toddler throwing tantrums, so payback’s a bitch.”
I’m watching the exchange like a live-action play right in front of my face. I don’t know what Brutal’s talking about, not having heard that story, but Bobby shrugs. “Fair enough. But leave Willow out of it like I left Allyson out. You can give me all the shit you want, though.”
Seeming to have reached some agreement, they shake hands, though I have zero idea what just happened.
Bobby turns back to me. “I promised them I’d buy the first round, but I didn’t promise they’d get to pick. Did I see you making Girly Beer when I came in?” He gives me that cocky smirk that says we’re in on this together.
I return the grin, leaning on the bar and casually wiping at a nonexistent spot. “You did see some Girly Beer. You thinking on the rocks or frozen?”
“Oh, frozen. The only thing better than seeing these assholes drinking pink drinks is knowing they can’t chug them without getting a brain freeze.”
“Pink?” a deep voice says. I’m not sure who because I’m caught in Bobby’s dark eyes, loving the way he’s lighter and sillier with his family around him. Silly is not a word I thought I’d ever use to describe Bobby Tannen, but there you go.
“Ooh, I’m in,” Allyson says.
“Table,” Mark says and moves off toward a freshly empty booth. Everyone follows him, though he didn’t order, or even ask, them to.
Bobby hangs back with me, draped on the bar like he couldn’t be more comfortable if he were in his own living room.
“We’re a lot, I know. But it’s fine. They just wanted to meet you.
I promise we’ll drink and eat and dance, and it’ll all be fine.
See you when it slows down. I’ll be the guy over there” —he points the direction his family went then to his eyes with two fingers— “watching you like a creeper.” He winks after he says it, but I think his eyes will be on me all night.
Pretty sure mine are going to be drifting his way too, then to the clock, counting down until two o’clock when I can be with him again.
I don’t realize until he’s walking off that maybe he was telling me that it’ll be fine that his family is all here, given their rather wild reputations and all. Or maybe that it’s fine that they’re all here . . . for me.