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“Fine.”
He releases the phone.
I slip it into the pocket of my cut-off shorts. The victory flares in my chest but shrinks fast, leaving emptiness.
“Don’t call it in,” he says, and leaves me standing there.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“I thought you wanted me to leave.”
“I do.”
Taylor rubs his palm over his shaven jaw, pulling the skin and releasing it. He opens his mouth, shuts it, then slams the door behind him on the way out. He turns back and points at the lock on it, then leaves.
I sink onto the barstool, the sudden quiet so stark that my ears ring.
What the hell happened? One second, I’m cleaning, and the next…
I’m going to have to talk to Billy about this. Or find a way to come up with a lot of money fast. I shouldn’t bail my brother out again, but the picture on the wall behind the counter is a constant reminder of what should be. What could have been.
My father stands in the middle, his arms around me at age eighteen, and my little brother, eight years old. It was taken two months before Dad died.
Billy is my responsibility and has been since then.
I’m still sitting there, gathering myself, when the purr of a car engine intercepts my thoughts. A squad car, bearing the sheriff’s department logo in black and white, pulls up outside the bar.
“Oh no,” I mutter. “Oh, hell no. No, no. no.”
I scoot off the barstool and exit onto the sidewalk.
Jesse ignores me. He switches off the engine and then reclines the driver’s seat way back and tucks his hat over his eyes.
I rap on the window and he slides his hat up, over his forehead, and looks at me.
“What do you think you’re doing? You can’t do that.”
He doesn’t answer me but closes his eyes.
“Hey! Hey, you can’t do that, Taylor. Get out of here.”
But I can’t tell him to leave. The street is public property.
I let out another undignified and incredibly immature shriek, and Jesse smiles, eyes still closed, which only makes thingsworse. I go back into the diner, shut the door, and lock it, hating the fact that the car outside provides me even a modicum of comfort.
Seven
JESSE
I pullup outside Ganny’s house at noon the next day and take a minute to collect myself before going in.
Because Marci’s going to be there.
Last night isn’t the first time I’ve slept in my patrol car, but I spent most of the night caught between arousal and concern for Marci. I spied on her while she cleaned up the mess, her body unreal under the fluorescent lights in the diner. Isn’t that kind of lighting supposed to make you look bad?
Curvy around the hips, slender, bouncy tits, tall, her hair falling past her shoulders. Fuck.
The rest of the night was spent watching the street, making sure whoever threw a brick through the diner window didn’t come back.
