Chapter 20
Oliver
The town we ended up in didn’t have anything but a dollar store and a tiny little bar/gaming room, and they just so happened to be right across the street from one another.
I didn’t want to ditch the car at one because then the other would see.
I was hoping to find someone willing to give us a lift to the next town, and I knew they wouldn’t do that if they saw us pull up from across the street.
So, I drove past both, and we hid the car behind a silo that wasn’t too far up the road.
We walked back to the bar, where only two cars were parked outside.
One I assumed was the bartender, and the other belonged to an old lady who was chain-smoking as she sat behind a video gaming machine.
“What can I get you two started with?” the middle-aged woman asked from behind the bar.
Amelia and I sat down at the small bar. “Just water for me, thanks,” Amelia said.
“Make it two,” I agreed. I was thirsty after our walk.
The bartender placed two bottles in front of us. “That’ll be four bucks.”
Amelia passed over five.
“Thank you,” the bartender said, taking the money. “You two don’t look like you’re from around here. You just passing through?”
I lowered the bottle from my lips. “Yeah, we hitched a ride, and this is as far as they were going. We stopped in, hoping to catch someone going a little further south. You know of anyone?”
“Rose there will be going south at some point. It just depends on how long she wants to stay and gamble,” she said, nodding toward the old woman.
Crash and I both turned and looked back at the lady.
She was at least seventy years old, and every single line on her face screamed it.
Her gray hair was short and curled—the way all old women wear their hair—but she was still dolled up with her smudged blue eye shadow and bright red lipstick.
She attempted some eyeliner, but it was obvious her hand was no longer steady, as the line wiggled across her upper lid.
Her eyelashes had all but fallen out, or they had turned gray and were nearly invisible.
She wore a purple button-up shirt, red slacks, and black slip-on flats.
Pearls were hanging from her neck, and every finger had a ring on it.
In front of her, she had a half-full glass that was sweating and a totally filled ashtray—each cigarette butt had a ring of matching red lipstick.
I looked back at the bartender. “Can a woman her age hold her liquor and still drive?” I asked quietly, not wanting the old lady to hear me and grow offended.
“Oh, Rose never drinks. That’s just club soda with some cherries for added flavor.”
“How far south does she go?” Crash asked, leaning in a little.
“About fifty miles,” the bartender answered. “She drives to the city once a month for a doctor’s appointment. She stops here on her way back home.”
I looked at Crash, and she looked at me, shrugging. I took that to mean that she was approving of the ride this time. I took a deep breath and moved to stand up, but the bartender tapped the bar, stopping me.
“Don’t ask her now. She gets really cranky when her gambling gets interrupted. Wait until she’s done. Then ask her. Trust me, it will get you a lot further. And cross your fingers for her to win. She’s always in a good mood after she wins a few bucks.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Amelia said.
The bartender nodded and smiled before turning to put the money in the drawer.
I stayed in my seat and looked around. The entire bar wasn’t any bigger than a large shed you ordered from Home Depot to have delivered on a flatbed trailer. There was a bar that could only seat four. Behind it were two video gaming machines. And there was a single bathroom.
“This place is tiny,” I thought out loud.
The bartender turned back and nodded. “Yeah, we’re a tiny little town.
Only have about one hundred and sixty-five residents.
I think the dollar store was only put in because of the highway access.
And my dad put this place together for him and his buddies mostly.
He passed away a few years ago, so I took it over.
Even with as small as we are, I still usually turn a profit every day, so as long as it’s not costing me money… ”
The video gaming machine started going off, and the old lady behind us yelled, “Jackpot!”
The bartender smiled. “You hit it big, Rose?”
“You can say that again! Mama’s getting a new pair of shoes tonight!”
A moment later, the old lady stepped up to the bar. She put down her glass and the ashtray with a five-dollar bill.
“Here you go, honey. I’d better get going. I don’t want to blow all my winnings in one place.” She laughed.
“Rose, this nice couple here was hoping you’d be willing to drive them south.”
The older lady turned and looked at us. “Well, hello there, sugar. Where are y’all going?” She grinned, showing the red lipstick on her yellowed teeth.
“As far south as you’ll take us,” I answered.
The old lady raked her glassy blue eyes down my chest and back up. The whites of her eyes had yellowed, and they were bloodshot. “What’s in it for me?”
The bartender smiled widely and shook her head, almost like she expected this.
I looked from Rose to the bartender to a grinning Amelia. “Wh-what do you want?” I asked, shuddering.
She stepped closer. “You know, sugar… It’s been a very long time since I’ve had the attention of a man.” She wagged her brows.
I wanted to gag at what she was implying. Not to mention, her smoker’s breath made my stomach heave, but I held back the urge to vomit to keep from offending her.
“I… I don’t know what you mean by that, but I’m not having sex with anyone for a ride.” I held up my hands.
The bartender threw back her head and laughed.
Rose chuckled, too. “Oh, heaven’s no. At my age, and with the way you look,” She looked me up and down again.
“I’d be afraid you’d break me in half.” She leaned over to look at Crash.
“You’re a very lucky lady. If I were a few years younger…
” She grinned as she ran her eyes down my arms to my hands.
“Boy, those sure do look like some strong hands. I bet they can work magic.”
“Oh, they can,” Crash said, sitting forward.
I glared at her.
“How about a foot massage?”
“What?” I asked, jerking my attention away from Crash.
“A foot massage,” Rose repeated. “You need a ride, and I need a foot massage. Seems like a fair trade to me.”
“A foot massage?” I repeated.
“Take one for the team,” Crash whispered in my ear.
“Sit the fuck down,” I said under my breath as I turned my head toward her so only she could hear me.
It only made her laugh, and I knew she was enjoying this way too much.
I guess it’s what I deserved, though. I talked her into letting some creep touch and sniff her hair.
I deserved to massage some old lady’s feet.
“Alright, fine.”
“Ten minutes per foot,” Rose said, holding her index finger in the air.
“Alright, fine. Let’s do it.” I clapped my hands and then rubbed them together to amp myself up.
Rose sat two seats down from me, then she kicked off her shoes and turned to stretch her legs across the open seat between us. I turned toward her and looked down at her bare feet.
I wasn’t ever ashamed to admit when I found a woman’s feet beautiful.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t some creep who wanted a foot-shaped pocket pussy or anything, but feet are like any other feature on a woman.
Some were pretty, and some were ugly. But the feet in front of me were something I would normally never, ever touch.
Only this time, I had to.
They were wide and fat. Short in length but just as wide as they were long. Her big toenail was long and discolored with patchy white and yellow spots. The tops and sides were covered in blue varicose veins, while the bottoms had a hard, thick layer of callus.
I couldn’t even watch my hands reach for them. I had to turn my attention to the bar.
“Start the clock,” I said as I picked up her first foot.
“Clock starts now,” the bartender said, looking amused and creeped out in equal measure.
Rose melted in her seat, making noises that no old lady should ever make. She was wiggling and moaning in pleasure and pain.
“You really gotta dig into those corns, sugar.” She whimpered. “Yeah, just like that. Don’t be scared. They won’t bite.”
I heard Crash chuckle from beside me, and I turned and looked at her from over my shoulder. “After this, we’re even.”
Her face was red from trying to hold back her laughter, but she nodded. “We’re even,” she agreed.
Ten minutes later, I was done with her first foot and was switching to the second. I was just as grossed out by the way Rose would would, shout, and wiggle. At one point, she was damn near panting. Crash stood up behind me, and I felt her lips at my ear.
“Keep going on like that, and those magic fingers of yours will be making her moan louder.”
I smirked. “Don’t be jealous, Crash. They’ll be back on you later.”
She laughed softly and slid past to use the restroom.
When I finished, Rose was fully relaxed and fanning herself. I spent a good five minutes washing my hands in the bathroom, scrubbing them with soap and some spray cleaner I found under the bathroom sink. Then we all climbed into Rose’s old Buick and hit the road.
“Ya’ll like Elvis?” she asked as Don’t Be Cruel played over the car’s speakers.
“I love Elvis,” Crash said from behind me since Rose insisted on my riding shotgun.
Rose looked over at me. “You remind me of him, you know?”
I frowned. I looked nothing like Elvis. I think Rose was still lost in the afterglow to see things clearly.
“I bet he had strong hands, too. Those musicians usually do. I should know. I’ve had them all. Guitar players, drummers, pianists. Whooo, the pianists have some quick fingers—I’ll tell you what.”
“Didn’t you… I don’t know, ever get married or have children or something?” I asked.
“I married. I was fifteen, and Daddy needed the cattle Lester offered. He was an awful man—always drinking, smoking, gambling, and sleeping around. It didn’t take long for his lifestyle to catch up with him, and once he passed, I inherited everything. Been a happy little whore ever since.”
I widened my eyes as I looked at her.
She grinned and nodded. “I got around now. There wasn’t a musician in a two-hundred-mile radius that didn’t know me by name.” She smoothed her hair into place. “That was a long time ago, though. Things have changed.”
“Wow. You have a very colorful past.”
She grinned. “You have no idea. It was a lot easier to get away with things back then.”
“What’s that mean?”
She shrugged. “I just meant that we didn’t have a camera in our hands at all times.
Nowadays, you kids can’t do anything without documenting it.
It’s a shame, too. Some things you just want to do and forget about.
Now you can’t learn any lessons in fear, a picture of it will bite you in the ass down the road. ”
I chuckled. “You have a point there.”
“If I could go back to the way things were, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Nobody needs internet access all day long. Go out, cause trouble, and have fun. That’s the way I grew up.”
Rose kept going on and on about the good old days. She was so happy to be talking that she didn’t even seem to care that we weren’t talking back. Listening to her stories was entertaining as hell, though.
At one point, she had me believing that she even got away with robbing a bank and murdering her husband, but it was hard to tell what was true and what was only true in her own mind.
Either way, I didn’t give it a second thought because she was just a little old lady.
She wasn’t a danger to society. Not anymore, at least.
She dropped us off on a corner of Main Street, and she carried on down the road.
“I don’t know about you, but I kind of liked that lady. She had one hell of a life,” Crash said.
“That she did,” I agreed. “Come on. Let’s find some place to chill for the night.”
We walked through town, taking it all in.
Neither of us found a motel, so we finally asked a local.
Of course, there wasn’t one in town, and the closest one was a thirty-minute drive away.
We accepted the ride he offered, wanting to get as many miles as we could.
The town he took us to was much bigger, but still not big enough to be considered a city.
We purchased a new disposable cell phone, grabbed some dinner, and rented a room.
“Hopefully, we get things done soon because we’re running low on cash,” Amelia said, sitting across the table from me as we ate our canned ravioli.
“How much is left?”
“Three hundred and forty-seven dollars,” she answered, bending down and untying her boot. She kicked it off. “How long do you think it’ll take us to make it to L.A.?”
I shrugged and took a sip of my water. “If we leave first thing in the morning and we drive all day, we might be able to make it by late tomorrow night.”
She kicked off her other boot before peeling off her socks. I watched as she wiggled her toes. “You know, that foot massage looked pretty nice. What’s a girl gotta do to earn a massage from the magic fingers?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t fucking remind me.”
I grabbed the drawstring bag from the table and dug inside until I found the bottle of vodka. I uncapped it and took a swig.
She held out her hand for the bottle, and I handed it over.
She took a sip as she stood. I thought she was going to walk away, but to my surprise, she put the bottle on the table before taking her place on my lap, straddling me.
My hands instantly moved to her hips as she leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to my lips.
“I know it’s silly,” she whispered against them. “But that old lady really did make me jealous today.”
I smirked against her lips. “Don’t like my hands on another woman?” I teased.
She nipped my lower lip. “They better not touch anyone but me ever again.”
Her words sent a jolt straight through my heart.
I laced my fingers into the back of her hair, fisting it as I sat forward.
“Mm, never, Amelia.” I kissed her throat. “How do you think I felt watching another guy run his hand through your hair?” I kissed her before trailing my nose up her jaw. “I wanted to rip his arm off and beat him with it,” I whispered in her ear.
She shivered, and goosebumps prickled her flesh. “We’re so messed up.”
I chuckled and stood with her in my arms. “Yeah, but I like that you’re just as fucked up as I am. You’re my kind of crazy, baby.”