Chapter 40
Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.
I turned onto my street and gave myself the familiar scolding to pay absolutely no attention to Buck’s house as I passed. Easier said than done, considering the two houses’ proximity. Still, I got the sense that if I wasn’t so tuned into his doings, I’d be better off.
The last few times I’d caught evidence of him at home had damn near broken me. I’d walked out to water the garden last week to find him loading boxes. Loading boxes, as in, packing up his truck. He’d waved a sad hello but it reminded me that time was marching on, that his lease was marching toward its end, and that we were marching away from one another. Dwelling on that fact just sucked.
I did a squinty thing with my eyes, trying to see without seeing. Not the best idea for someone trying to drive a car. I counted it as a victory when my car made it into my garage unscathed and I’d seen neither hide nor hair of Buck.
I made it, I congratulated myself as I walked into my kitchen through my garage door, ready to shed the day. All I needed in order to transition to self-care mode was a glass of wine and a shower. But first, I would water my plants. I set down my bag and my keys and headed out to the back. I slid on my gardening gloves and trotted down the steps when I noticed something unusual: they didn’t creak.
I turned and crouched down to inspect my back steps. I turned on my phone’s flashlight to get a better look. Sure enough, the rotting planks on the bottom step had been replaced. Just when I thought I’d made it home unaffected and unscathed, Buck had done it again.
Who the hell does he think he is?
I was hard at work, trying to resent him when my phone rang. My heart rate always spiked when I got after-hours calls from the sheriff.
“What’s up, Jeff?”
“Sorry to call you so late, Loretta. You still fit to work?”
He needed me sober to put me on a scene.
“I’m fine. Just fixing to have something to eat.”
“Jackson needs an assist. It’s an 1808. I think you’d better head down to the Pink Pony.”
Fifteen minutes later, I made my way into the back door of the strip club, giving a nod to Hank Weller, the owner, as I walked in. Apart from the dancers, I was one of the only women in Green Valley who went there with regularity. I’d been there dozens of times staking out suspected cheaters.
Like Cletus, Hank and I had an understanding. He got me in the back door and sometimes served as my eyes. He much preferred my quiet comings and goings to the intrusions of suspicious wives.
“Still looking good, Loretta.”
His interest in me was purely professional. He’d invited me to go under deep cover more than once. The Pink Pony might well have been the most multicultural enterprise in Green Valley. Black women were good for business, or so he said.
“What the hell happened?” I walked toward the champagne room and Hank fell in step.
“A customer got mad about a refund. He called the cops to complain.”
“What kind of person asks for a refund at a strip club?” I wondered aloud.
Hank answered grumpily. “The kind who has his lap dance cut short when he breaks the rules.”
“He didn’t put his hands on her, did he?”
Hank shook his head. “Not that rule. The other one. Couldn’t keep Mr. Winky in his pants.”
Sadly, I wasn’t surprised. But it didn’t explain why I’d been called in. “What’s Jackson have to do with it?”
“Jackson caught a punch breaking up the guy and the bouncer. When his head reared back, it hit the stripping pole.”
I winced empathetically as we reached the entrance to the room in question. Jackson sat on a velvet couch with an ice pack pressed to his left temple. The blackening eye below it didn’t look good, nor did the skin above his right eye, which was split above his brow. The firefighter I recognized as Mr. June shined a flashlight to illuminate the wound that was being stitched. It was being tended to by none other than Buck.
“Deputy James, Lieutenant Rogers,” I greeted, giving both men a short nod. “PFF Weeks.” I greeted the flashlight holder based on the name sewn onto his shirt. But I couldn’t help my gaze sliding back to Buck.
He looked good—of course he did—the man didn’t know how not to. He paused long enough to take me in. His eyes warmed in the way they did whenever he saw me, and I damn near smiled back, forgetting our circumstances for a minute. Reminding myself that we were not alone and that he was in the middle of a minor medical procedure, I managed not to melt under his gaze.
“What do we have here?” I asked, getting down to business.
Jackson glared with his good eye at a man who sat on the floor. Rather than glaring back at Jackson, the man—presumably the assailant—was busy looking with interest at me.
“A new girl...,” he slurred. “You gonna arrest me, sexy cop?”
“No.” I swung my gaze to Jackson. “But I’m pretty sure one of his friends will once another officer can make it to the scene. Busy night in the department.”
“Was there an accident or something?” the guy asked.
“Just too many people abusing department resources—endangering officers and the community with petty calls.”
I cast a quick glance back at Jackson, who wasn’t too hurt to roll his good eye. The guy was so out of his head, he didn’t pick up on the dig.
“I’m here to question you about an incident,” I continued. “Did you call the sheriff’s department tonight?”
He jutted his chin toward Jackson. “That guy ain’t a cop. He didn’t even help me.”
“What did you need help with, sir?”
He craned his neck to see out the door. “To get that girl to give me back my money. She barely even gave me a dance.”
“Did she tell you why she cut it short?”
“She told that bouncer I exposed myself. But it’s not like I whipped it out. It was my junk’s fault. It just slipped.”
“It slipped,” I repeated, glancing back toward the stitching operation to watch the reactions of the other men. Jackson was still scowling, but the faces of Buck and his probie were more animated. The latter’s eyebrows had raised to his hairline. The former smirked as he worked his needle and string.
“Can you please tell me what you mean by your junk?” I asked.
“You know.” He used his free hand to motion vaguely to his midsection. “My guy down there. Bubba.”
“Sir, if you’re talking about your penis, I need you to say the word ‘penis’ for the police report.”
“But Bubba?—”
“I can’t write Bubba. No one other than you knows who Bubba is.”
“Alright...” He sobered somewhat. “Well, my penis, he slipped out of my pants.”
“It slipped?”
“More like, he jumped.”
“So you’re telling me you have a jumping penis,” I repeated back.
“Well it sounds stupid when you say it.”
It sounded twice as stupid when you said it first.
“Sir, can you read what that says for me, out loud?”
I pointed to a large sign with clear lettering that hung on the wall of the room.
“I can’t see it from here,” he lied.
I shot him a look to let him know I didn’t believe a word. “Number one: no touching,” I read out loud. “Number two: no propositioning employees. Number three: keep your dick in your pants.”
Snickers came from behind me. I looked over in time to see that even Jackson had cracked a smile. Humiliation was the result, but shaming hadn’t been my intention. I had no tolerance left for men who made excuses for their bad behavior.
“The dancers here are paid to do one thing. What do you think that thing is?” I quizzed.
“To dance.” He said it through a clenched jaw.
“Do you think they come to work every day excited to see your junk?”
He just glared at me instead of answering.
I turned toward Jackson and saw Buck packing up the sutures while Mr. June applied a bandage. Before I could ask Jackson about the charges, his assailant muttered under his breath.
“Fucking bitch.”
“What’d you say to her?” Buck dropped the items he was putting in his bag and stepped forward. At the same time, Jackson shouted, “Whoa!” He tried to stand up, but swayed on his feet the second he did.
PFF Weeks set a hand on Jackson’s shoulder and sat him back down on the bench. But Buck didn’t stop advancing. The customer did his best to cower. Easier said than done when you were handcuffed to a pole.
“Do you kiss your mother with that dirty mouth?” Buck growled.
The assailant didn’t answer.
“So I guess you’ll step to her, but not to me.”
Buck drew closer until he was just a few feet away. “Sounds to me like you’ve got a problem with women. You can trust me when I tell you, you picked the wrong one to mess with.”
I was halfway to jumping in and stopping him from doing something that would get him in trouble when he turned back toward me.
“You got your Taser, Loretta?”
Five minutes later, Buck, Mr. June, and I were walking out of the building. Another officer had shown up to drive Jackson’s car. His partner was busy arresting the assailant. He’d be charged for indecent exposure, drunk and disorderly, and assaulting a police officer. And he wasn’t welcome back at the Pink Pony.
“Well, that was unforgettable,” PFF Weeks remarked congenially as we walked toward our respective rigs. “You really handed him his ass.”
For the first time since I’d slipped out of bad-cop mode, Buck looked at me directly. His humor had dropped my defenses. The sting of his rebuff was all I’d been able to think about for the better part of three weeks, but hurt wasn’t what I felt right now.
“Almost as good as the guy who called the cops on his girlfriend for stealing his drugs.”
His eyes lit with humor and, suddenly, I wanted to laugh. It wasn’t uncommon for a situation to hit you on a delay. I’d had many a chuckle—and shed many a tear—right after leaving a scene.
“Yeah. Almost as good as that.” I couldn’t tear my gaze away from Buck, and my voice was shy. We must have created a weird vibe, because Dan looked between us quizzically now.
“I’ll meet you back at the rig, boss,” he said to Buck, then gave me a polite nod. “Nice to see you, Loretta.”
And then, we were alone.
“You had to mention my Taser, didn’t you?” My scolding didn’t have teeth.
Buck chuckled. “Hey, he backed right off.”
“He backed off because you looked like you were gonna murder him.”
I thought again of when he had come to my defense at Genie’s. It did something to me, to see him smack down anyone who failed to show me respect. That night was the first night I’d admitted to myself that Buck might actually have real feelings for me.
“You’ve got to stop doing things for me,” I commanded quietly at the same moment he looked like he was about to slip back into the flirtatious banter that had once fit us like a sleeping bag—cozy, warm, and inviting in its embrace. “You can’t keep cooking my meals, and fixing my steps, and texting me good morning and good night. We’re not together anymore.”
Buck had the nerve to look hurt, like me pointing out our status was somehow worse than him having put us there. Hurt quickly turned into pleading and he leaned in close.
“All of that’s my way of being there for you, even when I can’t be with you.”
Part of me wanted to admit it was sweet, him thinking enough about me to extend himself with gestures. But it didn’t compensate for the fact that he’d been a virtual ghost.
“Buck.” I sighed in exasperation. “I already knew how to fix the pipe under my sink. When you’re as broke as I used to be, you learn to do your own repairs.”
He frowned. “Then why did you ask me to do it?”
“So I could see you with your shirt off, all stretched out underneath my sink.”
Buck looked genuinely astonished, which made me want to roll my eyes.
“So, wait. Do you know how to change light switches, too?”
Now, I did roll my eyes. “A trained monkey could change a light switch. And you’re missing the point. Doing my handiwork and feeding me good meals isn’t why I kept you around. The only thing I ever wanted was your company.”
When comprehension took hold, he looked as miserable as I’d felt all these weeks.
“Loretta...,” he pleaded. “I told you. I just need time. Give me a few weeks to sort myself out.”
But it still didn’t make any sense. There was no reason on God’s green earth why any of what he said he wanted to do meant we had to physically be apart. And any man who needed weeks of physical separation from his woman when he was going through something was not the man for me.
“Buck, I can’t do this. I was widowed by a man who was leading a double life,” I said. “Secrets aren’t how relationships work. And it doesn’t matter either way. We did what we said we’d do by giving it a try. We failed. And it’s time to let go.”