Chapter 7

Pacey

 

 

I needed to fuck. So good and so hard and for so long that I had no choice but to sleep afterward. For several days. But falling asleep after bagging a random never happened for me; actually sleeping with someone required a level of trust that I didn’t associate with someone whose last name I didn’t even want to know.

So I had to settle for throwing myself into work. The day was shaping up to be another scorcher, and while it did nothing to ease my cranky mood, if I played my cards right clearing the brush from the empty lot that Tugger and I were tackling that morning, I’d be so exhausted by the end of the day I would have no choice but to finally get a good night’s sleep.

Tugger held a travel mug of coffee out to me when I pulled up at the lot, slamming the door of my truck behind me. The truck didn’t deserve me taking my frustrations out on her, but they had to be channeled fucking somewhere.

“Jessie made it just the way you like it,” he smiled. “Strong and bitter. Just like you.”

“Ha ha,” I responded dryly, accepting the mug and taking a long sip. It didn’t cheer me up, but it went a long way towards waking me up. “I’m not bitter; I’m stoic and manly.”

“Stoic and manly?” Tugger laughed, brushing his hand over his short dark hair. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

“I’m two weeks younger than you, asshole,” I said, dropping the side of the bed of the truck so we could move the equipment we needed off of it.

“Two weeks is a long time; think of all the things you can learn in two weeks, and how much things can change.” Tug heaved a commercial-grade chainsaw from the truck.

I rolled my eyes toward the deep blue sky. “Stop trying to be deep, brother. Philosophical isn’t a good look on you.”

He set the chainsaw down and jabbed a thumb at his chest. “Look at me; everything’s a good look on me.”

Making a gun with my index finger and thumb at my temple, I pretended to pull a trigger and mimed my head exploding. Tugger’s lips hiked up into a smirk. “I’m going to have to remember to tell Jess to stop feeding your ego.”

His’s obsidian eyes flashed with amusement before he threw back at me, “Or, you could find yourself a good woman to feed yours.”

“My ego doesn’t need feeding,” I told him. “I don’t need validation.”

“It’s not about validation, brother,” he started, then narrowed his eyes slightly and shook his head. “Never mind.”

“Thank God.” I grabbed a pair of shears from the truck and headed across the lot to throw myself into the work that needed to be done. I could feel Tugger staring after me, but he didn’t follow. He knew me well enough to know when to leave it be.

We worked mostly in silence for the rest of the morning, and soon, the blazing sun and the physicality of the work started lifting the dark cloud that had been hanging over my head since the night before. It brought with it the clarity of mind that only the burn in my muscles brought about these days.

I knew that Tugger meant well with all of his seemingly offhand comments and invitations to do something other than hooking up with a different woman every night. He didn’t approve of my lifestyle, and I didn’t blame him, but I couldn’t change it because I had no alternative. I’d tried to find one, but it simply didn’t exist, not for me.

Sure enough, while we were eating our lunch in the shade of a tree that wouldn’t be there by the time we left for the day, Tugger’s expression turned contemplative. He was almost surely trying to think of a way to distract me, even if it was just for that one night.

“You wanna go to the movies tonight? There’s a new action flick out that stars that hot gal who played Wonder Woman that you like so much.”

I wondered if he would still have invited me if he’d known the only reason I liked her was because she reminded me a little of May. It was a pathetic way to try and feel close to her, and I knew it, but it wasn’t like there was any other way.

Sometimes, when the emptiness inside became nearly overwhelming, and the tightness threatened to strangle me, I did stupid shit to get through it. Like watching action movies and allowing my mind to draw comparisons between their scenes and similar situations that May and I had lived through.

For just a little while, I relived the memories, allowed them to wash over me, and for just that tiny, otherwise insignificant moment in time, I felt close to her again. Tugger had been close to May too, so he knew what losing her had meant to me.

He knew how much her loss had irrevocably changed the person that I was, but he wasn’t giving up on me. Every day, subtly and without overtly confronting the issue, he was pushing me to move on.

In my head, however, May was alive and well and I wasn’t ready to let go of her. Nor was I ready to let those memories wash over me in a movie theater with hundreds of other people around me. The memories were mine to relive and mine alone.

“Can’t, sorry,” I said, turning him down yet again.

The corners of his mouth dipped down in disappointment, but I ignored it. I was just trying to survive, and survival meant that I had to do things my own way.

Tugger smoothed his expression and looked thoughtfully into the middle distance while he munched on his sandwich. When he was done with whatever it was he was thinking about, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned his gaze on me.

“How was last night? You end up at Rennie’s?”

“Yeah, I did. Same shit, different day, like I said.” Then I remembered that one thing out of the ordinary had in fact happened. Tugger was going to love the story, and since I’d disappointed him by turning down his invitation, I owed him a laugh.

“Get this. During halftime, I went to take a piss, and when I got back to my seat, there was some asshole sitting in it drinking my beer.”

Tug laughed incredulously, the last traces of disappointment falling away. “How hard did you punch him? Just tell me his head is still attached to his body. It has to be; surely you wouldn’t have deprived your old friend the opportunity to help you bury him if it wasn’t.”

“I wouldn’t have, no. Don’t worry, if I ever need that kind of help, you’re still on the top of my list.” I joked, without really joking. Tugger and I had been through plenty together, though it had all been sanctioned, unlike ripping the asshole’s head off would have been. “I didn’t hit him, actually. So yes, his head is still attached to his body.”

I purposely didn’t mention the asshole’s blonde girlfriend who drifted into my mind every so often, heating my blood and calling to my cock like she had a direct line to it.

Tugger frowned suspiciously, raising a dark eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like you at all.”

I shrugged, giving him a cocky smirk. “I’m trying to cultivate a sensitive side.”

His eyes widened, then he busted out laughing, and I couldn’t help but join in. “Did they change the meaning of sensitive without my knowledge?”

“Don’t think so,” I laughed, then crumbled up the wrappers from my sandwich and threw it in the trash bag we kept on hand. “Okay, enough frivolity. Let’s get back to work.”

Tugger threw out his lunch trash too, then handed me a bottle of water from the small cooler we kept, then took it and the trash bag back to the truck. We resumed our work in silence, taking only short breaks to grab more water and lather up with sunscreen, as Jessie insisted.

The end of the day rolled around before I was ready for it to. Fridays didn’t mean what they used to mean. All they meant was the weekend looming wide and empty since relaxing had become a cuss word in my book. I had to keep moving.

“You sure about that movie?” Tugger asked as we loaded the truck.

“Yeah man, thanks. Believe it or not, I’m not in the mood for gunfire and explosions.” Or the strange longing that came with them—for a life that was no longer mine.

Tugger had settled back into civilian life without too much hassle, presumably because it’d had always been the plan for him, and he had something to come home to. He’d gone through the same shit as everyone else when he’d first gotten home, and occasionally still had a hard time with it, but he was mostly okay. As okay as anyone was.

I was restless. It was almost like a part of me was perpetually waiting on marching orders that would never come again. There were times when I considered going back, but I couldn’t. I knew that I would be a liability and I couldn’t allow that.

Tugger frowned at me again, a deeper crease than before digging into the skin between his eyebrows. “You sure you’re okay? You seem a little out of sorts. Do I need to be worried?”

“No,” I said immediately. The last thing I wanted was for Tug to have to worry; I wasn’t a goddamn kid. “No, I’m fine. Just tired, you know?”

Tug’s eyes narrowed for a split second, then he sighed and rested his hand on top of his head. “It has been pretty hot this week.”

“Exactly. I’m going to hit up the bank on the way home and then maybe take a swim later.”

“You’re hitting up a bank, and you didn’t invite me?” he laughed.

I flipped him off but grinned anyway. “Tell you what, I’ll share the take with you anyway and Jess won’t have to worry about visiting your ass in prison.”

Tugger broke out laughing again. “She loves my ass so much; she’d visit me anywhere. Bank’s on the other side of town from here though, you sure you don’t just wanna go on Monday?”

Waving off his concern, I loaded up the last of our equipment. “Nah, I’d rather get it done before the weekend. There’s gotta be a branch around here somewhere; I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, I think there might be one on Cooke. Let me know if you feel like coming over or getting a beer or something over the weekend?”

“Will do; have a good one, brother.” We slapped palms, said our goodbyes, and Tugger headed off to his truck, identical to mine with our company signage on the side.

I blasted the air conditioning in the cab on the way to the bank, finding the branch on Cooke that Tug had mentioned easily. The place was in a drab strip mall and had shitty security, but nothing exciting ever happened in Stone Mountain.

Pushing through the brown glass door, my eyes fell immediately on the one and only clerk manning the desk. And I’d be damned: the girl was none other than Blondie from the night before. Even in her hideous uniform, there was that something about her that called to me. To my cock.

Well, what do you know, maybe the weekend wouldn’t be so bad after all. I could definitely see myself spending it in her. Her boyfriend was an asshole and since taken was my new type, well—if at first you don’t succeed and all that.