Chapter Three
Rumours
Tequila is one of those things you always regret, like dropping out of school or eating that third doughnut. My head is throbbing, my pulse a heavy rhythm in my ears. I know I need a shower and some greasy food to feel better, but I can’t seem to make myself get out of bed. A bright rectangle of light glows behind lace curtains, and I know I’ve slept in late.
After my shower and some ibuprofen, I get dressed. Lacing up my boots, I swipe at the scuff marks and dirt on them, knowing I’ll need them to face lunch in this town on a Saturday. Of course I realize they are only shoes, but they make me feel like a bad ass. Some girls have power panties. I’ve got boots.
I pass Preston’s door in the hall and stare, hoping it will reveal something about this guy. It doesn’t say anything but 2B. At the bottom of the stairs, I walk through the storage closet and push past the swinging door. There are three customers in the store flipping through records.
Bennie sits behind the front counter, while her favorite Fleetwood Mac album plays over the speakers. She sees me and waves.
“Morning, kid. How’s that tequila treating you?”
“Like shit,” I say. “I’m heading to the diner for greasy food and subpar coffee. Want anything?”
She laughs and hands me a twenty. “Bring me back a lemon square. Lunch is on me.”
I take the money, slip my shades down over my eyes, and exit the store. The walk to Millie’s is short, but the sun seems to draw out the alcohol through my pores. I smell the place before I can see it. French fries and apple pie float on the breeze. It smells like home.
I push through the doors and take a seat at the counter. A redhead in the traditional waitress uniform with apron walks over and lays out a napkin and silverware. She leaves, retrieves a glass of water, and sets it down with a menu.
My eyes scan the breakfast food, searching out bacon and hash browns.
“I heard you were back,” the waitress says.
I look up and read her name tag. Angela Louise. I wrack my brain for an Angela and come up empty.
“I’m sorry. I don’t remember you.”
She smiles, but it’s forced. “No, you wouldn’t. We only went to school together our entire lives. It’s okay. I imagine I’m fairly forgettable.”
I stare at her and smile. I know it must seem rude, but I like this girl. She’s got a kind of honesty that’s refreshing.
“I’m really sorry. I’ve done a lot of things and met a lot of people in the past three years. There’s only so much room up here,” I say, tapping my temple. “I guess some stuff gets deleted to make room for new memories.” She gives me a doubting look, not amused by my theory. “Actually, you do look familiar. Didn’t you go by Angie in school?”
“Yep. That was me.”
“Well, I like Angela Louise. Has a nice down-home feel to it. Now that we’re reacquainted, can I get some coffee?”
“Sure thing.”
She fetches a mug and coffee pot, pouring me a cup. As she’s handing it over, another waitress—an older lady with jet-black hair and a permanent grin—leans into her ear and rolls her eyes.
“He is so strange. I can’t get him to try anything new.”
Angela looks across the room, and I follow her gaze to find Preston seated in a booth alone. “I don’t know why you keep trying,” she responds.
I return my attention to the menu and quickly decide. “I’d like the bacon cheeseburger with fries. Thanks.”
Angela nods and strolls away to put my order in. I pour a ton of sugar into my coffee and stir before picking up the mug and carefully making my way across the diner. When I reach Preston’s table, I notice it is clear of all condiments. He is leaned over a moleskin notebook, writing in an extremely neat cursive.
“Hi,” I say when he doesn’t look up.
“Hello,” Preston answers, his pencil pausing momentarily before finishing the word he’s writing.
“Mind if I join you for lunch?” I ask while sliding into the booth opposite him. Preston sits up, his back stiff and shoulders high. He stares, unblinking, at my cup of coffee. “Or not?” I say, but make no move to get up.
“I don’t really. I mean, I’m not used to…” He stops. His gaze drops to the notebook and then comes back to my face. He takes a deep breath and blinks slowly, while his hands lay awkwardly folded on the table. His next words are spoken very carefully. “Sure. You can join me for lunch.”
“Great,” I say, setting my coffee down. “So, what are you writing?” Preston folds the notebook closed and slides it from the table. “Okay. We’ll start with something easier. Where are you from?”
His posture relaxes a tiny bit as he laces his fingers together on top of the table between us.
“Pittsburgh.” His answer is clipped, but I press on.
“Whoa, Preston-who-writes-in-notebooks is a big-city guy. I went through there about a year ago. I liked it a lot. That cheesesteak sandwich at Primanti’s? Wow.”
Preston gives a weak smile and nods.
“So why’d you move here? I mean, people leave all the time, but I question the sanity of those to come to Crowley willingly.”
“I went to college in Franklin. I liked it here, so I stayed,” he says, shifting in his seat. His fingers twitch, and my eyes are drawn to those large hands, white-knuckled from gripping each other so tightly.
I shake my head, not understanding. It’s like everyone in this town was brought into this world with the predisposition to love it and want to stay. I was born without that part, like a defect. Preston and people like him baffle me.
“I don’t get it. But who am I to judge?”
The older waitress comes to the table with three plates of food. She stops when she sees me sitting there, her eyes practically falling out of her head and rolling onto the table. Preston waits patiently as she sets one plate down. There’s a hamburger steak on an otherwise empty plate. The second plate holds only mashed potatoes, no gravy. And the third has onion rings. I watch, fascinated as he lines the three plates up so that they are equal space apart and perfectly aligned.
“Thank you, Audrey,” he says as the waitress disappears.
Before I can comment, Angela Louise appears with my bacon cheeseburger and fries crowded together on one plate and sets it down in front of me. She looks back and forth between the two of us. “Did you want something else to drink?” she asks.
“No, thanks.”
She hands over a few napkins and heads back toward the kitchen, but not before glancing over her shoulder at us.
“What the hell are they gawking at?” I ask while grabbing ketchup off the next table and squeezing some over my fries.
Preston stares at my plate, a tiny line appearing between his heavy brows.
“I’ve never eaten here with anyone else,” he says.
I stop, a glob of ketchup balanced on a french fry suspended halfway between my plate and my mouth.
“Never?”
He shakes his head.
“Huh. No big deal,” I say. Though somehow I know that it is a very big deal. I glance at the counter and find both waitresses blatantly staring. Preston notices them, too, and drops his eyes to his plate, seeming embarrassed by their gawking. “Take a picture or something,” I shout. The two women scramble away.
I grab my cheeseburger and take a huge bite. A long and low, almost pornographic moan escapes my lips. I’m sure there is a mess on my face, but I don’t care. This tastes amazing and just what I need to feel human again. When I glance up, Preston is staring.
“What?”
His posture is still rigid, and his eyes leave my face only to snap back a second later. His lips part, and I wait for words, but nothing ever comes. I wipe my mouth with a napkin and continue eating while Preston does the same.
“You don’t talk very much,” I point out.
He eats all his mashed potatoes first, cleaning the plate with his spoon. Next, he eats the onion rings one by one with a fork and knife. There seems to be a rhythm to his lunch, and I find myself getting caught up in the number of times he chews.
“Why did you come back?” he asks between bites.
I put down my burger and sip my coffee. I’m running from a huge mistake named Dylan. I was scared. I wanted to be with people who care about me. I needed something familiar. All these confessions race through my head, but they don’t make it out of my mouth. I don’t want to lie to him, so I stick with what’s simple.
“It was just time.”
I watch as he cuts the onion ring with the knife and spears the bite with his fork. His lips close around the prongs, and he pulls the fork from his mouth. Preston chews twelve times.
“What happened?”
“Why do you think something happened?” I respond defensively. Of course something happened. I throw a couple of fries into my mouth in an effort to buy some time, before licking the ketchup off my fingers. Preston stares at me again. His eyes follow each and every movement. “Maybe I was just tired of traveling and wanted to sit tight for a while.”
“Maybe.”
He takes another bite. I count. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, swallow. There are thirty seconds of silence in which we chew, we stare, and silently challenge each other.
“So, do you have a girlfriend? A wife? A lady friend? Please tell me you’re not gay. All the pretty ones are gay.”
“Why do you insist on calling me pretty?” he asks without meeting my eyes.
“Because you are. There are other words I could call you, but you’d be equally offended by all of them.”
“It’s just not the most accurate word,” he says, laying his fork down on top of the paper napkin.
“Are you critiquing my choice of adjective?”
“I am.”
“Fine. What should I call you, Preston-who-avoided-the-girlfriend-question?”
“Ruggedly handsome.”
I tap my chin and look at the ceiling before snapping my gaze back to him. “No. I think I’ll stick with pretty.”
Preston narrows his storm-cloud eyes and frowns. If he’s trying to be intimidating, it’s completely ineffective. Instead, it stirs a deeper, more primal feeling inside me.
“How do you like working with Bennie?” I ask.
“Gave me a job, a place to stay. She’s good in my book. Bennie is pretty much my only friend here.”
He frowns again, eyes darting from the diner window to my face and back. There is so much behind his guarded expression, so much swimming in those eyes that he won’t share. Preston presents a challenge, and there’s nothing I like more.
“Bennie’s the best. She’s the only thing I missed from this place.”
“What about your family?”
I frown at him and drop my eyes to my plate. “What about yours?” I ask.
“Okay.” Preston shakes his head. “No talk of family.”
“What are you hiding?”
“What are you hiding?” he repeats. He slides his fork back and forth in the same spot four times before abandoning it.
“Nothing. Bennie’s my sister. I’m sure you knew that. She’s the only family I claim.”
He saws at the last onion ring with his knife. It is cut into eight equal size bites. I’m fascinated as he lines them up in stacks of two before proceeding to eat. When he notices me watching, he sets down his fork.
“Do I make you nervous, Preston-who-lives-in-my-apartment?”
“No, Wren.” The way he says my name, the sound of that one syllable wrapped up in his baritone voice forces a sigh from my lips. Preston doesn’t seem to notice. “And if we’re being honest, it’s my apartment now.”
“I hope we are,” I say.
“Are what?”
“Being honest. Always. Honesty is at the top of my list.”
Preston smirks. “What list is that?”
“You know,” I answer, popping a fry in my mouth and chewing. “The list of absolute most-important qualities in a fellow human being.”
“Ah. That list,” he says. “What else makes the list?”
I look up at the yellowed ceiling of the diner, thinking. “Kindness, compassion, and a great ass.”
Preston unleashes a full-on smile at me. It is perfect white teeth and a spark in his bottomless gray eyes.
“A great ass?” he asks.
I return his smile. “That might be more of a subsection of the list, but it’s still important.”
“What’s the age difference between you and Bennie?” he asks, changing the subject.
“Twenty-one years. I was an oops baby. My mom was forty-three when she had me.”
His brows rise high on his forehead as he chews the last bite of onion rings. Preston swaps the plates out, so that the burger sits before him now.
“It was a miracle from God,” I say, imitating my mother’s monotone voice and the sentiment I’ve heard a thousand times.
With half my food gone, I finally start to feel better. My head is clearer. I watch Preston, wondering what’s going on in that constantly toiling mind of his.
“You’re not working today?” I ask.
He nods. “I’m on lunch break. Bennie leaves for the day when I get back.”
“Man, you get lunch breaks? I never got lunch breaks. Where’s she going?”
Preston slides a bite into his mouth. He squirms in his seat, shoulders tense. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, swallow.
“I don’t know.”
I nod and make a mental note to ask her about it later. When I’m full, I thank Preston for the company and order a lemon square for Bennie. I take the shortcut back to the store, weaving through Tiny’s used car lot. I see Tiny through the dirty window into his office. He’s six-foot-six and easily three hundred and fifty pounds. The name is ironic in a way that these folks think is funny. He used to scare me when I was a kid, but looking at him now, after seeing all the things I’ve seen, he’s not scary at all. He’s just a man selling cars—or, how I see it, tickets out of this place. And I’m a girl who’s going to need one of those.