Chapter 6 Ash #2
“Just in one car? Or a bunch?” The way he speaks of it, almost awestruck, makes it sound far more exotic than it really is. The simple act of sticking out one’s thumb on the side of the road and waiting for some merciful soul to pull over.
I shift in my seat. “Just one this time. But I mean, yeah. You hitch as many rides as it takes to get to where you’re going.”
He stretches his long legs beneath the table until they reach my side of the booth, letting his feet rest on the seat beside me.
He’s wearing a scuffed pair of high-top Reeboks, one of them coming unlaced.
I’m itching to tie it. “Crazy,” he says, folding his arms behind his head.
“I wouldn’t have the guts to try that shit. I’d be afraid someone would murder me.”
I stifle a snort. I don’t think anyone would try to murder Sam, not out of hand, unless they had both weapon and intent. He’s just too tall, too fit, the lean and practiced muscle obvious even beneath his cotton tee. He looks like he can beat the absolute shit out of you.
And sort of without thinking, and maybe because I can no longer resist their siren song, I start retying the loose laces of his sneaker. It’s only after I finishing knotting them neatly that I realize it might be a weird thing to do without asking.
He nudges my thigh gently. “Tying my shoes together?” he asks. “Oldest trick in the book. And meanest.”
“The opposite,” I assert with a quick glance up. Seeing the playful look on his face, how the edges of his mouth quirk at the corners and the way his eyes glitter beneath his hair, I realize he’s teasing me. “It was coming untied,” I say lamely.
“Aw, thanks.” Sam crosses his ankles. “So,” he remarks conversationally, “What if we make it ten things I know about you?”
God, really? It figures I have to be hitching a ride from not only the friendliest guy out there—who, I remember, like a bolt from the blue, has a fat hog (thanks, brain)—but also a real nosy one.
That’s an uncharitable thought, I guess, because it actually seems like genuine interest. He is curious about me in the way that I am curious about him, except I don’t want to be. I’m trying hard not to be.
Perhaps sensing my disquiet, Sam says, “It can be anything.” He takes his legs back and leans forward, chin in hands. It’s a stupidly cute affectation. “I’m not asking you to bare your soul or anything.”
“I like 311.”
He rolls his eyes. “I kinda already figured that out—but sure, I’ll let that count. I also like 311.”
I smile a little. “Yeah, I figured that out, too. It’s why I know you can’t be that big of a douchebag.”
“Me?” I can’t tell if he’s just pretending to be offended or if he’s actually a little hurt. “I’m not a douchebag. I’m not even a little bit of a douchebag. Name one douchey thing I’ve done.”
“Picking up some random chick in a bar? Like, five minutes after you were dumped.”
“Ash. Come on. Have you not heard the old adage, the best way to get over someone…”
I’m unimpressed. “It’s still douchey behavior.”
“Seriously? Man, whatever.”
Now he is put out and the stupid people-pleaser in me is only all too eager to make it up to him. “Harper,” I say quickly, veering us from this subject. “That’s my last name.”
It works well enough to distract him. “Harper?” He tries it out. “Ash Harper. I like it. Suits you.” It’s a dumb compliment to get fluffed up over, but I find myself preening a little anyway. “Is Ash short for something?”
“Ashton.”
“Fancy.” His face scrunches. “Hm, nah. I like Ash better. It’s cuter.”
Is he calling me cute, or just my name? “Hey, so,” I say loudly. “I’m really, really hungry. But I don’t have a clue what to order.”
He leans across the table and jabs my menu. “Fried chicken and gravy. Everyone likes that.”
“Why is there gravy on everything?”
“Because gravy on everything is good! It’ll fill you up.
Stick to your ribs, as mi madre says.” Then he gives me an utterly charming wink that makes me feel sick to my stomach, or well, not sick, but fluttery and weird and it’s such a foreign sensation that it might as well be sickness.
Sorta feel like puking, anyway, but in a good way.
As another waitress comes around to take our orders, the bell above the door rings out and a trio of men clomp inside, their voices loud and carrying.
They sit at the counter, a row of broad backs and thick, sunburnt necks.
Sam pays them no mind, replacing both of our menus back into the metal holder by the napkins and condiments at the end of the table.
It’s like someone clapped their hands over the dizzy butterflies inside me, killing them dead. The feeling is instead replaced with a familiar dread. I slide across the bench to huddle nearer to the window and hope they don’t notice me.
Sam notices, though. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
Out of the corner of my eye I watch them.
They’re early thirties at most, though they have that roughneck appearance to them—strong, rugged and crude.
One of them currently seems to be engaged in harassing the girl behind the counter, her face getting redder and redder as he speaks.
Loud as they are, I can’t hear the exact nature of the exchange, but she turns abruptly on her heel and disappears into the kitchen as all three of them laugh. I wonder if they’re drunk already.
Our waitress, an older woman with reddish hair and a name tag that reads Darlene, returns with our drinks. Her smile is tight, harried. “Won’t be much longer,” she assures us. Her eyes leap sidelong.
By now Sam has recognized the issue. “Is everything okay?” he asks her in a low voice.
Her smile remains frozen in place. “They don’t mean any harm. You know how boys can get.”
Boys, as if they are ten instead of full-grown adults. As if they are getting a little noisy with their Tonka trucks in the sandbox instead of bedeviling the employees.
“They’ll get bored soon,” I say to Sam. “They’ll stop.”
But they don’t get bored. They don’t stop.
Their vicious laughter and taunts continue until our food is brought out, and then well beyond.
They have a comment ready for every person that walks in or out, largely directed at the women, and I catch a few of them: Fat.
Ugly. Slut. I’d like to pork her. Hey baby, gimme a smile.
You wanna ride with a real man, honey? Whistles, catcalls and jeers.
It’s endless. My fight or flight has long kicked in, all but ruining my appetite. I’m nauseous to the core.
“Eat,” Sam tries, and I tilt my head in the direction of the men at the counter. He looks at them. “Alright. Let me see if we can get it boxed up and eat back at the room.”
One of the men swings around on his stool. The moment the bastard sees me, he hones right in. As I knew he would.
“Heyyy,” he calls out loudly. “Get a load of this.”
I try to ignore him. I stare down at my basket of mostly uneaten food, hair hiding my face. But the hair is the whole problem, of course, the hair is what galls the motherfucker in the first place, and of course it does. Even though I’m far from the only guy around with long hair.
Undeterred by my attempt to make myself small, he rises, crossing the black and white checked floor in a few lumbering strides and slamming his hands down on the tabletop. Our cutlery jumps.
“Hey, homo,” he demands, and I can smell the rank liquor on his breath.
“What’s the matter? Dick got your tongue?
” His friends roar with laughter behind him.
When I say nothing he seizes a fistful of my hair, right at the root, and I can’t stop the pained whimper from escaping no matter how desperately I try swallow it and give him nothing.
“I’m fucking talking to you,” he snarls into my face.
“Hey.” Sam’s voice is almost unrecognizable in his sudden anger. “Let him go.”
“Sam, don’t.”
Too late. The man rounds on him, the new target presenting itself—food that plays back.
He has a broad face, jug-shaped with ears that stick off either side like handles.
Not the ugliest specimen, but his demeanor makes him hideous.
“You actually speak English?” he marvels.
“What else can you say, huh? C’mon, bitch. Dance for me.”
There’s a hard smile carved out on Sam’s mouth. He angles his knees out of the booth. “Tu puta madre1,” he says sweetly, and before the man can react, Sam’s fist meets his nose.
I gasp as Jughead staggers backwards with a grunt, blood spurting forth, and Sam nails him again right in his surprisingly solid brick shithouse of a stomach.
His thick hand flashes out, knuckles ramming the side of Sam’s head hard enough that he must’ve seen stars.
The impact practically rattles my teeth.
There’s commotion all around us, the other diners yelling out in dismay and the familiar voice of good ol’ Darlene telling us to cut it out.
Which isn’t happening because Jughead is still upright and coming at Sam, who has recovered in time to avoid the attempt to hook his knee, but not quite fast enough to evade the swipe to his mouth.
“Sam!” I cry out.
Sam spits blood at him, which only enrages the big idiot more. He swings with a wild roar and the only advantage Sam has over him is that he isn’t drunk. He’s fit, but this other man is bigger, stronger, all solid and angry muscle from long days of manual labor.
I grab the metal napkin holder off the table and smash it against the back of his skull. Bewildered, he turns that big gourdly head of his with a furious gurgle, and in the confusion Sam kicks him squarely in the groin as hard as he can. He dissolves to the floor like wet tissue.
His companions, who had been content to holler from the sidelines on their stools, now rise to menace us. We’re both outmatched and outnumbered. Hell, I’m not worth shit in a fight. I might as well be counted out.
So I do. I’m in motion, swinging my backpack over my shoulder and skittering across the tile like an oversized spider.
I throw a crumpled fifty onto the table—more than enough, least I can do for contributing to the chaos—and reach for Sam.
He catches my hand and together we dip out into the night as the clamor falls away behind us.
1 Your mother (is a) whore