I was staring at my phone with my lips pressed firmly together. I was having an intense internal debate about calling James. I could call Gavin, but I didn’t want to send a false signal. Knowing that James had a very specific type, I figured choosing him for this quasi-experiment would be the safest choice. I was jonesing to shoot some pool, and it was a Tuesday evening. Natasha wasn’t able to get out of the house without far more advance notice. I had thought about calling Jackie, but I knew that would lead to either Cal finding out about it or Jackie would want us to hit a biker-friendly spot. I would go alone, but I was looking for company. I wouldn’t have thought twice about calling James except Cal’s comment about me having the guys eating out of my hand had been niggling me. Worse than that, Natasha agreeing with Cal had been running through my mind all day.
“Oh, screw it!” I told my hand holding the phone and pressed the little telephone icon.
James answered on the third ring, “Hey, Mal. What’s shakin’?”
With a deep breath, I said, “Not much. Are you busy tonight?”
James was silent a beat and said, “No. Why?”
“I’m just jonesing to shoot some pool. Wasn’t sure if you’d be interested?”
James chuckled, “What about biker boy?”
What? Gossip spreads at the speed of light with men! “You mean, Cal?”
James gave me a deep-voiced, “Yeah.”
“Well, I don’t know why you would ask about him, but Cal is definitely not my type.”
James blew out a breath, “Mallory, I’m not Gavin.”
“I know that. It’s just pool.”
“Yeah. It’s always ‘just’ something with you, Mal. Just trivia, just pool, just a leaky faucet or something that Greg would have taken care of if that pinhead hadn’t plowed into him and Landon. But, you won’t pull the wool over my eyes. Cal seemed like your type when you were kissin’ him next to his bike after trivia. I don’t step in on another man’s lady.”
“James, I’m not part of your dating demographic. I’m not blonde, I’m over thirty and I’m damn sure not stick-thin.”
James snorted, “Are you saying I have a type? Don’t answer that. Let me make something clear to you, I don’t. I’m also not down with trying to corral you back into the living world. You needed time, I get that. We gave it to you. But, you’re young and beautiful and funny. Any man can see that. I just don’t know why you don’t see it too. Bottom line, yeah. I’ll shoot pool with you tonight. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. And as a nice bonus, I’ll give you the play you’re making here. The ‘just friends’ card from the chick that used to spout lines from When Harry Met Sally to me. Be warned, though. The next time you call, or the next time I call, that friend shit is going to the wayside.”
With that parting shot, I was listening to dead air. What the hell? I thought about calling Natasha, but I wasn’t in the mood to eat crow yet. I wasn’t sure what bugged me more, the fact that Cal figured out after one night that the guys were all about me, or the fact that apparently Natasha knew and never mentioned it. That had to break a law in the girlfriend handbook. I looked at what I was wearing, jeans, a grey t-shirt with a rhinestone embellished skull surrounded by roses jutting out of each corner. The bottom had a scroll script banner that read ‘Las Vegas’ in purple glitter letters. I was planning to pair it with my high-heeled black boots, but went with my new faux Doc Martens instead. Hopefully my outfit didn’t say something I wasn’t intending to say to one of the guys.
Ugh! How did I get myself into these murky, tumultuous waters? How had I missed the signs? I thought I knew when guys were into me. Now in the span of a week I had three guys expressing interest in me. This stuff never happened to me. Well, never until now.
* * * * *
I hitched myself up into the silver Chevy Silverado truck James drove. It smelled of pine trees from the cardboard air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror. James shot me a grin from the driver’s seat and put the truck in reverse to take us to the pool hall. I looked out the passenger window at the passing homes in my neighborhood thinking how I hadn’t been able to look too closely lately since I was always driving. When Greg was alive, I took note of little things going on in each house or each yard. It was a luxury I had lost, until now. I sighed thinking about how different things were.
James said, “Don’t get weird on me, Mal.”
I gave him a sideways glance, “Well, you laid some shit on me over the phone, man!”
James was wearing a shirt with sleeves for once, a navy-blue polo with the collar popped up. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, “No. I’m keepin’ shit real. You’re movin’ on a little bit at a time. I’m not averse to seein’ if there’s something here.”
“You can’t be--”
“Don’t tell me what I can or can’t be,” James clipped. “Let’s keep things cool. Have a beer, sink some balls, and just be.”
There it was. Have a beer, the end-all, be-all solution. I wanted to laugh and I wanted to scream. I managed not to do either of those.
I muttered, “I feel like I don’t know you guys anymore.”
We were stopped at a traffic light; James looked at me with his bluish grey eyes and said, “We only see you once a week. Of course you feel that way.”
The pool hall was located in a small strip mall off of Blanding. It catered to the blue collar residents of the neighborhood. The best thing they had was a high tech TouchTunes jukebox which allowed me to upload my own playlist from my phone. While I was waiting for James to pick me up, I had put together a five-song playlist starting with “Devils” by Say Hi, Michael Franti’s “Hey World,” “Dreams I’ll Never See” by Molly Hatchet, “Black Betty”by Ram Jam, and, just to bug James, “The Humpty Dance” from Digital Underground. I could not wait. Shooting pool with good music in the background kicked ass. James parked the truck and I noticed there were three motorcycles in the parking lot.
We went inside and ambled up to the counter to get a table. I glanced around and saw three men at a table in the corner. They were wearing cuts for the Leatherneck MC. I briefly remembered Cal’s warning about leaving a restaurant if I saw men with cuts. Since this wasn’t a restaurant and Cal and I were over, I ignored them. We were assigned to a table two tables over from the MC guys. Our table was close to the counter. I was sure this made James happy, since it would shorten his trips to get beers.
James paid and took the balls to our table. “You rackin’ or am I?”
I smiled, “You rack. I’m gonna program some music. You want me to get beers on my way back?”
He smiled, “Nope. I’ll get ‘em. You get the next round.”
James didn’t get beers. He got a pitcher, which meant that just into our second game, I had to use the bathroom. When I came back out, “Hey World!” had just started playing and all seemed right in my life for once. Singing along about ‘You got to put up a fight,’ I found myself throwing hooks and jabs from my kickboxing class, because really, how can you hear that song and not fight right along? I had just put my hips behind a left hook when I noticed the three motorcycle guys in the corner had been joined by a few more of their brethren. One of them was wearing a winter cap, and I realized it was the line cook from Grumpy’s wearing the cap that said Prank on it. A couple of the Leathernecks were smiling at me, but a nearby table was now occupied by some mechanics from the local Toyota dealership and those guys were smiling at me too. I blushed and stopped putting on a show.
James was practically running the table on me when the music went from “Dreams I’ll Never See” to “Black Betty.” Surprisingly, the guy wearing the Prank hat yelled into the room, “You gotta be joking!” I wasn’t sure if it was his outburst or just bad luck, but James missed sinking the four ball. Before I lined up my shot on the ten ball, I said to the room in general, “Couldn’t joke about Ram Jam if I tried.” James had a shy smile on his face as he shook his head at me, and I shrugged after I took my shot. Luckily the ten went in the pocket I indicated, but my shot at the eleven went wonky and James was up again.
The timing was actually fairly decent as it turned out. I liked to think my musical selections could distract my opponent. Especially if the music was conducive to dancing, which the “Humpty Dance” certainly was. I loved that song, and I could lip-sync it like nobody’s business, which meant that my hips, shoulders, and ass were moving practically of their own accord. James had seen me dance to this song many a New Year’s Eve or post-Fantasy Football draft party, but I still managed to distract him from pocketing the one ball, which was all he had left besides the eight.
I was dancing and rounding the corner of the table near the wall. James smiled indulgently at me but said, “I gotta hit the head.”
“Gotcha. That’s what happens when you order a pitcher, dude.”
I had just taken a bank-shot on the eleven ball, when I noticed two Leathernecks were approaching. One of them was Prank, if his cap announced his name. I had my back to the doors and I thought they were headed for more beer from the counter. They came up the aisle directly to me. They stopped within six inches of me and eyed me up and down. I took a deep breath, trying not to react in anyway. They had not said anything to me, but one of them had noticeably bad breath, reeking of garlic, onions, and coffee. Bleh.
Prank was tall and skinny, wearing a grey Def Leppard t-shirt under his cut, which also had a patch declaring his name to be Prank. His jeans were faded to the point of almost being white. He had a brown goatee that was so long he had it braided at the bottom with a small red elastic band at the end. His eyes were a light shade of brown and there were little crinkles around his eyes. His companion had a full head of bushy brown hair. It looked like if he didn’t keep it cut, it would bloom into an afro. He had a full beard, a pierced nose and an eyebrow ring. His eyes were such a deep shade of brown that they bordered on black. His cut had a name patch that read, “Bush.”
He arched a bushy eyebrow at me and when he spoke I knew he had halitosis, “Except for Hatchet, you got shit taste in music, but you sure can shake that ass, doll.”
I was a breath away from ranting on Bush and his buddy Prank, when I felt a thick warm arm settle on my shoulders, “She ain’t your doll, fuckface.”
Bush looked almost scared. I looked up to see Cal standing next to me. I was working on my glare at him when I heard Bush say, “Sorry, Callous. Didn’t know you had a claim on her.”
I whipped my head back around to Bush and Prank, and heard Cal say, “Now you do.”
My mind was putting pieces together. Cal not wanting me to call him Calvin, just Cal. I heard myself whisper, “Callous? Cal. Callous.”
Prank looked me up and down, “She ain’t wearin’ your cut. And she doesn’t even know your road name is Callous. Pretty sure that makes her free game.”
Cal’s arm tightened on my shoulders, “She’s my property, Prank.”
I’m his what? Seeing red, I rounded on Cal and got out of his hold, “No! Not just no! Oh! Hell! No! I am not your property. I am not your woman,” whipping my head back to Bush and Prank, “And I’m damn sure not your doll or free game to you.”
Prank looked at Bush and said, “This bitch is high-maintenance. Let’s get a fuckin’ beer.”
I was surprised that could be the end of it so quickly, and I was wondering what the hell was taking James so long. A strong cologne wafted through the air and I looked to my left to see Razor standing there. Just what this situation needed, another caveman type to wade into it.
He looked at Prank and Bush approaching the bar area, looked at Cal, and then leveled his gaze at me, “Told you to call about any unpleasantness.”
I arched an eyebrow at him and said, “Can’t say I’ve got that napkin on me right now.”
Cal rumbled, “Leave her alone.”
Razor gave Cal an arched eyebrow, “I heard her say she’s not yours.”
I threw my hands out in agitation, “Of course I’m not. We’re done. Finito bandito! I don’t belong to anybody. You can’t call me property and shit like that. God, did the nineteenth amendment not happen? Did your mothers not burn their bras back in the day? It’s like I have no voice, no say! And where the hell is James?”
At this rant, both Callous and Razor were giving me stern glares. In keeping with the going trend of ignoring me and my thoughts, Callous turned to Razor and said, “As far as any Leathernecks or Riot brothers are concerned, she’s mine.”
Razor looked at me and gave me a smirk. Turning his attention back to Cal he said, “We’ll just see about that, Cal.”
I looked to the ceiling hoping for a swift lightning strike from the heavens, but no such luck. Since in my world, when it rains it definitely pours, James came back from the restroom to hear Cal claim me and Razor challenge it. He took in me, Callous, and Razor with a firm jaw. A bigger cluster, I could not have planned. James took in a breath and looked at me, “You okay, Mallory?”
I arched an eyebrow at him, but nodded my head, “Hunky-dory, James. It’s your shot, by the way.”
Razor took a look at James, looked back to me, and smiled big. He approached me, put his index finger and thumb on the side of my jaw and turned my cheek and kissed it. He pulled away and said, “You’re a real fireball, baby. Give me a call if you want some pleasantness in your life.”
Cal’s hazel eyes were glittering at Razor’s backside as he walked away from us. I looked at James, and he didn’t seem any happier than Cal. I took a step away from Cal, because I got the feeling he was going to try to pull me toward him somehow. Cal looked from me to James and back again. Then he said, “You makin’ a play, James?”
James was intently watching the tip of his cue as he chalked it. I thought Cal was talking about the pool game between me and James. James shifted his lips to the side a little in contemplation, then he gave Cal a hard stare and said, “Might be. That going to be a problem?”
Cal returned the stare, gave a chin lift and said, “Time will tell.” Cal stepped toward me, chucked me under my chin and said, “Nice shirt, sweet cheeks. Later.”
When Cal left our table, James hit the cue ball into the one ball with a sharp crack. He sunk it and easily put the eight ball in the left side pocket. He put the plastic ball holder on the table top and said, “Bring me the eleven and the nine, please, Mal.”
I walked over to him with the two balls and when I was close he said, “They’re bad news, you know.”
I pursed my lips slightly, and then said, “You missed my tirade about how I didn’t belong to any of them and wouldn’t be their property.”
“I’d still steer clear. And I’m not sayin’ that because of what I laid on you earlier. I’m saying that because it’s taken you a long damn time to come back into the world. I wouldn’t want a guy like Cal or that other dude to screw you over, then you waste another year of your life licking your wounds.”
I nodded, and said “Let’s just get outta here.” So we did.