But on time.
There were three other waitresses working. Missy and Maya were identical twin sisters with long blonde hair and matching gap-toothed smiles. They stood off to the side, I caught an exchange of knowing glances between them while I dried some glasses.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Missy just wanted to know…” Maya started.
Maya nudged her in the shoulder and spoke between her teeth. “No, I didn’t. YOU wanted to know.”
“Know what?” I prompted, setting down the glass.
“About your clothes,” Missy and Maya echoed.
I glanced down at my long denim skirt and button-down shirt. “What do you want to know?”
“They want to know why you’re wearing them,” another voice jumped in. Kayla, another waitress who I assumed was around my age. Her skin was flawless and she had a big red lipped smile that showed off stunningly bright white teeth.
They all wore tight tops and short shorts, paired with sneakers or boots. Kayla’s entire outfit looked as if it were painted on, showing off her tiny waist and perfectly round breasts.
Just like Finn’s body, I wasn’t appalled by their form as I was always taught I should be. That women should hide their figures, but one look at these women and their beautiful curves and I knew that way of thinking had to be wrong. Why hide the very things that makes us women? That makes us beautiful.
It had me wondering what Finn might have thought when he’d seen all of me that morning. Did he think my naked figure was beautiful?
As beautiful as I thought his was?
“I come from a conservative family,” I said, using the same simple explanation I’d given Josh.
“You all go back to work and mind your own damned business,” Critter chimed in. The girls scattered like roaches under a light.
I considered what the other girls were wearing. “I’m sorry. Should I be wearing something else?” I glanced down at my skirt. “I forgot to ask about the dress code.”
Critter held up his hand and cut me off. “If that’s what you want to wear, then that’s what you should wear.” He shrugged. “It’s really as simple as that. No dress code around here except just, you know…wear some damned clothes.”
“It’s not what I want to wear,” I admitted, glancing back over to Kayla who had a tray of glasses raised above her head. She walked from table to table with confidence and a smile.
“Then I recommend heading to Bebe’s. She’ll take care of you.” Critter tapped out some numbers on an ancient calculator under the even more ancient looking register and jotted some notes down in a receipt book.
“Josh said the same thing.”
“And that girl knows her clothes. Despite the police uniform and that look in her eye like she’s about to cut you,” Critter joked.
He went back to the kitchen and put Kayla in charge of showing me the ropes. She was patient with me while I tried to grasp the concept.
I hadn’t eaten out much in my life, never mind waited tables, but toward the middle of the day I was finally catching on and knew the abbreviation for most everything on the menu and how to write them down on the order slip.
“So where are you staying, Sawyer?” Maya asked. She threw me a rag and I followed her lead, wiping down tables and refilling the ketchup and mustard bottles. We were in the middle of shifting gears between the lunch and dinner crowd.
“Off Orange Grove Blvd. If you ever want to come by, just look for the old shack in the middle of nowhere. I’m the camper across the way under about three feet of mud,” I said.
“Mud is our town mascot,” Kayla chimed in, grabbing a broom and sweeping up around the bar, sliding the stools in and out, the feet making a horrible scraping noise against the concrete floor.
“So I hear.”
“Have you gotten a chance to meet anyone else in town?” Maya asked, spraying the front window with glass cleaner and wiping it down with a big coffee filter. “Less streaks than paper towels,” she explained when she saw me staring.
“I met Josh,” I started.
They all nodded. No further description needed. “Critter, of course.”
An image of Caribbean blue eyes and an angry scowl came to mine. “And…Finn?” His name came out like a question.
All three girls stopped what they were doing. Kayla dropped her broom. Maya set her spray bottle down on the floor. Missy looked up from filing her nails.
“Finn Hollis?” Maya asked.
“Unless there is another Finn?” I tightened the lid on a ketchup bottle.
“Are you sure it was Finn? Blonde hair. Tall. Rugged. Come-hither eyes attached to a come-hither body?” Kayla asked.
“That’s him.” I nodded.
“And he TALKED to you?” Maya leaned her chin on her hand. “He doesn’t talk to anyone. Not anymore.”
“Uh, yes. He talked to me.” If you considered threats to be talking. “But only briefly.” I wasn’t about to tell them about what had happened earlier.
Before I knew it, they were all standing around the table I was wiping down. “What? What is it you aren’t telling me?” I asked.
Kayla rested her elbows on the table. She folded her hands together, creating a steeple. She lowered her voice so the three of us had to lean in to hear what she had to say. “Let me tell you a story. A fairytale, if you will.”
“All right.” I set down my rag and took a seat across from her. The twins followed.
Kayla dramatically looked between the three of us like what she was about to tell us was classified information.
“Once upon a time,” Kayla started. “Finn Hollis was known as the lord of the swamp. He was a do-er. Someone who could get anything done in a moment’s notice. Some of the things he did were on the up-and-up. Others were only mentioned in the softest of hushed whispers after Sunday church. You either loved him. Hated him. Feared him,” she bit her lower lip, “or lusted after him.”
The twins giggled.
“Regardless, Finn WAS Outskirts. Our golden boy. More popular than our own mayor. Then one day, a terrible tragedy drove him deep into the swamp to wallow in his grief. He still comes around from time to time, but sightings of him are almost as rare as the Swamp Ape, although told between residents of Outskirts with even more surprise and awe.”
“Swamp ape?” I questioned.
“Think of it like a redneck Yeti,” Maya chimed in.
“Okaaaay.” I slid my chair back and stepped away from the table. Suddenly feeling the need to put some distance between myself and the legend of Finn Hollis. Although one more question lingered in my mind.
“What happened?” I asked. “What was the great tragedy that made him run off?”
Maya emptied a dustpan into the trash and glanced back over her shoulder. Her smile was a sad one. “The lord lost his lady.”
Chapter Fourteen
Finn
Sixteen Years Old…
It was Jackie’s sixteenth birthday and the two of us had snuck away from the bonfire where most of the kids from school were keeping the party going.
John Anderson sang “Straight Tequila Night” through the speakers of Miller’s Honda over the less pleasant sound of Josh and Miller mouthing off to one another.
Miller, in his drunken state, had scared off Josh’s date, Scott, by telling him that Josh was pregnant with his baby.
When he followed Josh into the trees my money was on that Miller wouldn’t be making it back out alive. That was on him though. I had other more important things on my mind.
Jackie and I slipped into the tent I’d assembled before the party got started. We were kissing and touching. Making out without coming up for air like we always did.
After only a few minutes, I was already in some serious pain. I knew that the night was going to end with a non-stop ticket to blue balls express land. But it was always worth it. Jackie was always worth it.
Even when things weren’t great and she was going through one of her phases where she was either mad at me all the time, or she’d skip class and stay home to sleep all day, things were still great.
There were more good times than bad, and that night wasn’t just a good night.
It was a great night.
“What do you want for your birthday?” I asked, needing to stop what we were doing before I embarrassed myself in my pants.
Jackie bit her lip and looked away shyly. Her blonde hair was splayed out all around her. I picked up a lock and rubbed the softness between my fingers.
“Come on,” I tickled her ribs. “Tell me.”
Jackie giggled and the sound shot straight to my aching dick. “I…I want you,” she whispered.
And just like that, whoosh, the air was ripped from my lungs.
Jackie blushed and her green eyes glimmered.
I swallowed hard. “You…you do? When?” I asked, trying not to sound too eager. Meanwhile, my dick was doing cartwheels against my zipper.
Jackie reached under the sleeping bag. I shifted off of her and onto my side to give her room. “Is now okay?” she asked, handing me a condom.
With no thought of a word in the English language that could convey my excitement, I simply nodded and waited for my heart to calm down so I wouldn’t die from a heart attack before I had the chance to lose my virginity.
We undressed and I climbed over her between her spread legs, lifting up to give myself just enough space to attempt to tear open the condom wrapper.
“I don’t really know what to do,” Jackie admitted, giggling nervously.
“We’ll figure it out,” I reassured her, sliding on the condom, wishing that porn videos didn’t skip that part so I’d be better prepared. When it was finally on, I lowered myself onto her.
We were both shaking.
When we finally came together it was a lot of forehead bumping, teeth clanking, and accidental hair pulling. Awkward at best.
It was by far the greatest night of my entire life.
Or so I thought.
Nineteen Years Old
Jackie and I were sitting around with a group of friends on my parents’ back deck while they were out of town.
It had been a bad few weeks. I had to practically pry Jackie out of her house to get her to come hang out with me. And for a while, I was glad I had.
We’d both had a few drinks and Jackie was snuggled on my lap as we listened to our friends tell their small town crazy stories.
When Miller brought up the subject of losing our virginities I couldn’t help but smile at the memory. I squeezed Jackie’s hip.
Her shoulders shook against me when she laughed. Her voice when she spoke came out high-pitched. Shrill. I’d never heard her sound that way before.
“Oh please, everybody lies about losing their virginity. Am I right?” she asked, clinking her beer bottle to Josh’s which remained still in her hand. “I mean, I told Finn he was my first and he actually bought it. Remember that, baby?”
I froze.
Jackie looked up at me, but I wasn’t smiling like she was.
Nobody was.
Jackie didn’t seem to realize that everyone else around us had gone silent.
“Come on. Let’s go,” I said, pushing her off my lap and grabbing her by the hand. “I’m taking you home.”
“Now?” she asked, pushing against me. “I’m not going anywhere. You drag me all the way here and expect me to sit and talk and make nice with these people.” She looked around the table with disgust. “People that I haven’t even liked in years.”
I tugged harder, but she pulled her hand from mine. “And we were just starting to have fun, weren’t we guys?”
Miller and Josh looked to me. The others looked to the ground or each other.
“I mean,” Jackie laughed. “I gave it up to Anthony Steward like six hours before you.” Her laugh died in her mouth and she looked at me. Instead of humor on her face, there was only bitterness. Contempt. Her gaze narrowed. “I told him the same story about him being my first that I told you, but unlike you, he didn’t buy it for one second.”
Jackie cackled. “I mean really, Finn. How stupid can you be?” I wanted to blame her behavior on being drunk but she’d only had two beers.
This wasn’t the alcohol talking.
This was Jackie.
“Enough,” I ground out, grabbing her by the wrist and yanking her toward my truck.
She continued to laugh maniacally even as I picked her up and hoisted her over my shoulder. She laughed throughout most of the drive home too.
It wasn’t until I could hear my own voice again that I realized she’d finally stopped.
When I looked over to the passenger seat she was fast asleep against the window.
I slammed my hand against the steering wheel. Tears pricked at my eyes.
It was the first night I realized Jackie’s little problem was a much, much bigger problem than I’d ever imagined.
It was also the first night I ever questioned my feelings for her.
The first night I felt guilty for doing so.
The rope of our relationship, the one I thought couldn’t ever be cut, began to fray.
It was a turning point, but not just in my life, in all of our lives.
Mine, Josh’s, Miller’s, and Jackie’s.
One we never saw coming.
That night was the beginning of the end.
Chapter Fifteen
Sawyer
Critter’s was a much busier place than I’d expected. Most of the time I was there, I helped Critter behind the bar, taking simple food orders and washing glasses while he topped off the drinks.
“Hey Sawyer, do you want to go do something after work?” Sterling asked, setting down his beer.
Sterling was a regular. I’d seen him almost every day since I’d started. He’d introduced himself the second he sat down as the owner of the feed store and made sure I knew that the meatloaf Monday special was his absolute favorite.