14
Ain’t Clumsy
“Hello, stranger.” Mari looked up from the camp stove she was setting up on her tailgate, and smiled at Jack as he got out of his truck. “I was starting to think you had a hot date tonight and you weren’t coming home.”
He ducked his head, scratching the back of his neck. “Ran by the store,” he mumbled.
“Well, you missed a lot of good stuff. Room 102 came out, realized the vending machine was out of cheese puffs, and kicked a couple of new dents in the bottom.” She pulled her cutting board out of one of her milk crates, flattened a cereal box on top, and lined up her vegetables on it.
“Ain’t pot legal in California now? How does that kid still have a job?”
“I get the idea he’s a little cheaper than the dispensaries.” Mari started chopping, a smile teasing at her lips at the memory. “After the vending machine, one of his customers stopped by and 102 apparently forgot to collect money for his, um, goods, so he chased the car out to the road. The running, of course, would have worked better if he’d tied up his pajama pants first.”
Jack looked disturbed. “Fall clean off?”
“Yup.”
“Kid ever buy him some drawers after the last time?”
“Thankfully, it appears he did.”
Jack’s mouth lifted at the corners. “Did he fall?”
“Nah, just stumbled a little. Does it make me a bad person that I was hoping for a full face-plant?”
“Nope. Idiot deserves it, if he can’t keep his damn pants up. Or get money for his drugs.” Jack grabbed a piece of carrot and popped it in his mouth, then froze. “Shit, you probably needed that, huh?”
“I think one slice of carrot probably won’t be the gateway to starvation. Hungry, huh? I was going to pull the truck out so you’d have some shade to work on the bike, but I can just start cooking, if you’d rather.”
“Don’t have to feed me.” His boots scuffed at the parking lot. “I don’t need any shade, either. Be fine.”
“What, did you finally run out of things to fix on that bike? As long as you’ve spent working on it, I was starting to think that thing was one step away from the grave.”
Jack glanced at the motorcycle in its normal spot between their trucks. “Ain’t nothing too wrong with it. Just gives me something to do after work that ain’t sitting on my ass.”
She peeked up at him, a smile playing around her mouth, but didn’t tease him further because she didn’t want him to think she didn’t like him keeping her company while she cooked dinner. She looked forward to that more than she probably should. Not that it was official, or a plan or anything. They just sort of . . . naturally ended up there. Every day.
It was nice for her because she didn’t have to define it or think about what she wanted, when their paths just accidentally crossed. Besides, somehow it was easier to talk to Jack when her hands were busy. Better than at work, when he always had a hundred things to do and her eyes needed to be on things that weren’t his bare arms. Even now, the sun-browned muscles stretched the short sleeves of his shirt and . . .
Mari cleared her throat and banged a frying pan onto her camp stove, then grabbed an olive oil bottle out of a milk crate and dashed a bit over the bottom of the pan. “So how’d it go with Joey? How badly did he fail his first apprentice evaluation tonight?”
“Bad.”
A laugh slipped out of her at his staccato answer, but then it turned to a frown as she turned on the burner. “Oh no! He’s not fired, is he? He’s been trying so hard to impress you this week, I’m surprised he hasn’t brought you flowers yet.”
“You think he’s trying?” Jack crossed his arms and leaned against her truck.
She told herself a dry mouth was normal in the desert.
“I think that kid would drive the forklift better if he was drunk,” Jack said. “He climbs like he just got those feet put on his legs last week, and he damn near bolted Kipp to the tower on Tuesday.”
“Yes, but he’s getting really fast at organizing the tower pieces.”
“You on his side or what?” Jack scowled at her, his Good Mood Scowl.
“I’m just the bio!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t have an opinion at all.”
“Right.”
“I mean, it’s not an opinion to point out that he’s an apprentice and he’s there to learn and of course he wouldn’t be perfect yet. Those are just facts.”
“Facts.”
“In fact, one could even argue that a lot of mistakes made at this point might help him later, because he’d know exactly what not to do.” Mari leaned over the tailgate to reach into the drawer under her bed.
“Exactly, because he already did everything you ain’t supposed to do. He fucks up any harder, those towers are gonna start unbuilding themselves.”
She frowned at the contents of the drawer, then sighed.
“Quit. I didn’t fire him.”
She glanced up. “Quit what?”
“Sighhhin’.” His accent drew it out into three long-suffering syllables. “Didn’t fire the kid. Gave him another damn chance, so don’t even start about it.”
“No, it’s not that.” Though “that” was enough to make her bite the inside of her lips against a smile she knew would make him blush and grouch even harder. “It’s just that I forgot to get more curry powder, so this stir-fry is going to be really bland, and I know you’re hungry, and now I feel bad.”
“Ain’t gotta feed me,” he protested, turning to his truck.
“What, and bear the guilt of eating delicious stir-fry while you microwave three packs of ramen noodles in your room? Well, semidelicious now that I was an idiot and forgot to buy spices and—”
“Ain’t an idiot!” The bark came out a little louder than their conversation, and her brows went up a touch.
“Okay, sorry.”
He came back from his truck, frowning harder. “Don’t apologize. Didn’t mean to snap. I’m just saying of course you don’t wanna go to the store for one thing after a long day of work. Doesn’t make you an idiot, makes you human. Store’s twenty extra minutes up the dang road. Here.” He passed her a little paper sack that rustled as the wind caught it.
“What’s this?” She waggled her eyebrows. “You been buying from Room 102?”
He snorted. “I keep giving that apprentice one more chance, people gonna think I’m smoking something for sure.”
She laughed, opening the bag. “They’ll think you have a big heart and he has a lot of promise and you’re training him, which is what apprenticeships are all about.” She took out a little plastic spice shaker. “Curry! Jack, how did you—”
“Said last night you used the last of it and needed more.” He shoved his wrist across his mouth, still mumbling. “Had to go to the store anyway, so I just got some. Sorry if it’s the wrong kind. It’s yellow, like the other one you had. Might not be the right yellow.”
She squeezed the little spice container, her vegetables starting to sizzle in the skillet as she smiled at him, unable to help herself. “You bought me spices.”
Now he was really blushing. “Ain’t a big deal. I’d better go shower. I’ve got plenty of food, don’t make any for me.” He was already hightailing it for his room before he finished grunting the last sentence.
“Too late!” she called after him. “I’m afraid I’ve gone and spilled too many vegetables into the skillet already. I’m so clumsy, you’ll just have to take some off my hands.”
His door was already closing, but she grinned when she heard the last words he shouted over his shoulder.
“Ain’t clumsy!”
The wind was hot today. Blasting and scouring everything it slapped past. Sucking all the life and moisture out of the whole damn world. Even so, Jack had lingered outside with Mari as she cooked, polishing his motorcycle while the wind coughed dirt all over it.
He didn’t mind. Gave him more to do.
He’d eaten two helpings of whatever sweet-spicy vegetable curry thing she’d made, too. After she told him she’d made too much and that sort of thing didn’t keep well, and she really had plenty to spare. He’d have gobbled it off a sidewalk without a spoon, it tasted that good, but he asked for seconds partially just to buy time. They ate dinner together just about every night now, but she hadn’t yet been back to his room. They just watched the same shows on two sides of the same wall.
He was hoping she’d ask first.
But she hadn’t. Just smiled and cooked and listened to the little he had to say. Didn’t even seem to notice the wind.
And then dinner was over, they were standing in front of their side-by-side doors and he was out of time.
“Do you wanna . . . I mean . . .” He reached up to yank at his hair, some of it already blown out of whatever thing he’d stuck it back in. He was gonna have to hack it off soon.
At the moment, though, it wasn’t his hair he wanted to take scissors to. More like his own fumbling tongue.
“Think you might wanna—”
“Stop listening to your TV through the wall?” She brightened. “Absolutely I would. My place or yours?”
He’d already unlocked his room before she got to the second sentence. He stopped, the door hanging open just enough to see the socks that he’d forgotten about on the rug. “Maybe yours’d be nicer.”
He hadn’t been sure she’d want to come back, after how awkward he was last time. But she was already following him, so he had to open the door the rest of the way, kicking the socks behind it as she flipped on his light.
“Pfft. I’m sick of my room. I like visiting yours. Unless you left your pornos out.”
He choked. Twitched. Recovered. His pornos couldn’t be out because they were hidden on his ancient laptop in a folder entitled “Tax Paperwork Shit.”
“They still make pornos that come on tapes? Or DVDs, I guess?” Fuck, he felt old. He was on the light end of his forties, but the first porno he’d ever seen was one of those booths where you plugged in a quarter for a peep show. He and Leroy had snuck in and got it started with stolen tokens from an arcade.
Tokens were worth nothing, pretty much just like the pair of brothers had been, too. Shit, he didn’t even know where his brother was these days. He’d show up again sometime, though, probably talk Jack into doing some stupid shit like he always did. It was hard to say no to the big brother who’d taught Jack how to use a can opener so he wouldn’t have to stay hungry until his dad remembered to come home.
Jack stopped, realizing he hadn’t heard whatever she’d answered about pornos. He rattled the key in his palm, the plastic diamond-shaped marker on it loud against the brass key. This motel was as old as he was. Everyplace else had switched to those credit card keys.
He thought he heard Mari suck in and let out a big breath, but she plopped on his bed all casual like they’d known each other since they were twelve. “You want fix-it-up or buy-it-new?”
“Fix it,” he said, pulling the rubber band out of his hair and fisting it back into a fresher kind of wad.
Mari’s eyes flicked toward him once, then twice.
He frowned. “Can watch the other channel, if you’d rather.”
“No, this is good.” She grabbed a pillow and stuffed it behind her shoulders, cozying in. “I like seeing all the old, broken places made nice again.”
“Yeah.” Something in his gut lifted when she said that, and he tried to remind himself that he wasn’t one of the broken things she liked.
No matter how much he was starting to wish he were.