Sweet Dreams

  I opened my mouth to speak.

  “She died this mornin’,” Tate announced.

  I closed my eyes and mouth then opened my eyes and started to him.

  “Don’t,” he gritted and I jerked to a halt. “Don’t come near me, babe.”

  “Captain –”

  He cut me off. “Called me my name yesterday, Ace.”

  I swallowed then mumbled, “Um… Tate –”

  “Talked to Betty and Ned,” he interrupted again. “They’re movin’ you to a room closer to their place. Don’t want you on the end. Too far away.”

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  “You walk to work today?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “I’ll be here at seven, take you home,” he told me.

  “I’ll ask Jim-Billy –”

  “I’ll be here, Lauren.”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  He stopped speaking and we stared at each other.

  Finally, I got brave enough to say, “You aren’t responsible, Tate.”

  He didn’t answer.

  I took a step toward him and stopped when his hard face got harder.

  “You aren’t,” I whispered.

  “Why do you swim at night?” he asked and my head tilted to the side at his change in topic.

  “Why do I swim at night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I have insomnia,” I answered. “Always have, even when I was a kid.”

  “You can’t sleep?”

  I shook my head. “Sometimes I can’t drop off. Sometimes I wake up, two, three times a night. Sometimes when I wake up, I can’t get back to sleep.”

  “So you swim,” he stated.

  “Well, not normally, though at home I had a pool, I just never used it for some reason. But here…” I didn’t finish because I didn’t know why I rarely ever used Brad and my pool or why I so often used Ned and Betty’s.

  “Your man, he didn’t help you sleep?” Tate asked and I drew in breath.

  This wasn’t any of his business, none at all.

  Still, I answered, “I’m not sure he could do much about it. It kind of…” I paused then finished, “annoyed him so in the end if I knew I was going to have a rough night, I’d move to the guest bedroom.”

  “He let you do that?”

  “Let?” I was confused. “He asked me to.”

  “He asked you to leave the bed he shared with you,” Tate stated like Brad asking me to move to another bed so he could get a good night’s sleep was like asking me to give up our life, pack a few belongings in a big bandana, tie it to a stick and become hobos.

  “Why are we talking about this?” I asked quietly.

  “You sleep after you swam?” Tate asked back, not quietly, still shooting questions at me like this was an interrogation.

  “Sorry?”

  “Those nights you swam, when you got in, did you nod off?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you wake up again?”

  “No.”

  “Exhausted yourself,” he surmised.

  “Maybe, listen –”

  “So, maybe, if he exhausted you, you wouldn’t have had trouble sleeping.”

  “Exhausted me?”

  “Yeah, Ace, fucked you so hard you couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but sleep. Exhausted you.”

  I couldn’t move at that moment, couldn’t do anything but stare.

  “You were in my bed, couldn’t sleep, that’s what I’d do,” he told me.

  “Tate,” I breathed.

  “Wanna come to me now?” he asked like it was a dare.

  “I…” I swallowed, “I don’t think so.”

  “That’s probably a good call.”

  “You’re angry,” I said softly, deciding that was it. That was why he was acting in this alarming way, saying these insane things. He told me he said a lot of stuff he didn’t mean when he was angry, that had to be it.

  “Yeah, babe, I’m angry. I was angry when I fired her ass and said shit I shouldn’t say. She left, got nabbed by a goddamned psycho who tied her up and cut her up, inside and out. She was alive while he was doin’ it, all the time he was doin’ it. He cut all her hair off at the scalp, he even cut into her scalp and it didn’t bleed all that much because she didn’t have all that much blood left to give. Then he left her, naked, exposed to the elements and covered in blood, to be found by an old lady walkin’ her fuckin’ dog. So now I’m angry about that.”

  I hated what he just told me, hated knowing it, hated the images it invoked, hated that it happened to Tonia and her beautiful body and her gorgeous hair. I hated everything about it.

  But I knew he had to let it go. I didn’t know why he trusted me to let it go with but he did so I also knew I had to take it.

  “You aren’t responsible,” I repeated.

  “I kicked her ass out and she was as good as dead not an hour later.”

  “Tate, you aren’t responsible. It wasn’t Tonia, it would be someone else.”

  “But it was Tonia.”

  We stared at each other awhile longer.

  Then I whispered, “Can I come to you now?”

  “You ready for that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You gotta cross the room, Ace, I ain’t movin’.”

  I didn’t think. I just crossed the room.

  When I made it to him, I fitted myself to his long body, wrapping my arms around his waist and pressing my cheek against his chest. When I was done, his arms came around me so tight, he squeezed the breath out of me.

  I felt him rest his cheek against the top of my head.

  “Now, how’d I know you’d do that?” he asked a question he didn’t expect an answer to which was good because he might have known but, until I did it, I didn’t know.

  “You aren’t responsible, honey,” I whispered to his chest.

  “Keep sayin’ it, baby, maybe it’ll sink in.”

  “You aren’t responsible.”

  He gave me a squeeze.

  “Betty told me what you do,” I said quietly.

  Tate didn’t reply.

  “Are you gonna find him?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m gonna find him, though they think they want me to but they sure as fuck don’t.”

  I tipped my head back to look at him and his head went up when I did.

  “Why not?”

  “I find him, Ace, I’m gonna rip his dick off and shove it down his throat.”

  I couldn’t stop my face from scrunching together and my mouth muttering, “Gross.”

  He smiled at me, my face unscrunched and I stared at his mouth.

  He released me with one of his arms so his hand could come up to my cup jaw.

  “Laurie, I’ll find him,” he promised.

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “So you don’t worry,” he said.

  I nodded and my nod didn’t disengage his hand. “Okay.”

  “You believe me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I answered and I did.

  “So you’ll have sweet dreams?”

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  My body melted into his of its own accord.

  “Tate,” was all I could say.

  I watched and held my breath as his face dipped close to mine, he used his hand at my jaw to tip mine further up toward his and I closed my eyes at the last second, thinking, even hoping he was going to kiss me but I felt the side of his nose brush the side of mine then I felt his lips against my forehead.

  “Seven o’clock, babe, on my bike,” he muttered there then kissed me, let me go, set me away, turned and disappeared out the door.

  I stared at the empty hall for very long moments.

  Then I stared at it for more.

  Then I asked the empty hall, “What just happened?”

  There was no reply.

  * * * * *

  At a quarter to four, the door opened, Krystal walked in and I stared.
br />   Her hair was no longer platinum blonde but ebony. The change was startling and it looked good on her.

  When I could unglue my eyes from The New Krystal, I saw there was a man at her heels and then I stared at him.

  He was huge, as in mammoth. He had to be nearly seven foot tall; he had light brown hair and a full, thick beard. His shoulders were broad, his legs like tree trunks, his arms like stout branches and he had a big belly that worked on him because it, too, looked solid and it fit in with the rest of his massive physique. He was wearing a loose-fitting white t-shirt, faded jeans and Carnal’s requisite motorcycle boots.

  His eyes hit me and got big then he boomed, “Right on!” and came right at me.

  I didn’t have time for an evasive maneuver before his fingers curled around my shoulder, giving it a rough jerk and my body collided with his. His arms wrapped around me and he swung me side to side.

  “Lauren, Super Waitress!” he shouted over my head and I tipped it back to look at him when he stopped rocking me.

  “Um… hi,” I said.

  He looked down at me and introduced himself, “Bubba.”

  “I guessed that,” I told him and he smiled and his smile was as huge and overwhelming as everything else about him.

  “Krys told me about you. Told me you were the shit,” he informed me and my eyes slid to Krystal who was standing by Jim-Billy at his end of the bar and she was watching us with an expressionless face (outside of looking mildly annoyed).

  I was pretty shocked by this compliment. Krystal seemed a hard nut to crack. I couldn’t imagine she was at home telling Bubba I was good at my job. I imagined when she was at home she spent her time contemplating the numerous things that annoyed her, why they did and how they’d never stop or, if Bubba was home, she’d spend her time giving him stick. Not praising me.

  “Thanks, that’s nice,” I said to Bubba and he let me go.

  “Finally, a decent waitress,” he declared, lumbering behind the bar and going straight to a fridge to pull out a beer. He turned around and twisted off the top. “Uh… not to speak ill of the dead.”

  I looked at Jim-Billy and saw him wince. Then I looked back at Bubba to see Krystal, fast as lightning, was at his side and reaching up to curl her fingers around the wrist he had raised to down some brew and she yanked on it. Beer sloshed out and got in Bubba’s beard and down his shirt.

  “Woman!” he shouted, swiping at his beard.

  “You’re here to work, Bub, not tie one on,” she snapped.

  “What’s the point of ownin’ a bar if you can’t have a freakin’ beer?” he shot back.

  “I don’t know. Maybe to sell them so we can pay our mortgage?” she suggested sarcastically.

  Bubba scowled at her then asked, “Again, darlin’, you wanna know why I fish so goddamned much?”

  “Bub –”

  He looked at Jim-Billy. “Bustin’ my balls in front of an audience. Shit.”

  “I did the stock take,” I put in in an effort to defuse the situation and Bubba and Krystal looked at me. “It’s finished, I finished it this morning. I wrote a report and put it on the clipboard. Everything was good, a few things here and there, nothing big except there seems to be a case of Jack Daniels missing. I figured there was a mistake in the entry and I tried to track it but…”

  I trailed off because the atmosphere got thick and I was watching Krystal’s head slowly turn and tip back to look at Bubba.

  Uh-oh.

  “You take that case?” Krystal asked.

  “Darlin’ –” Bubba started.

  “You take it?” she snapped.

  “I’m not goin’ fishin’ without my Jack,” he declared.

  “Fuck me,” she muttered, turned and stomped from behind the bar and down the hall.

  I looked at Bubba to see he was watching her go. Then his eyes came to me.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, “I didn’t –”

  He shook his head. “Don’t worry ‘bout it, gorgeous. She’d eventually find out. She’s already pissed as hell at me. Might as well get it over with all in one go rather than her gettin’ over her ‘tude then gettin’ somethin’ new to have ‘tude about it. Figure you did me a favor.”

  “Well, I’m glad you can look at it like that,” I said.

  “Bright side of life, Lauren. You live with a storm cloud, you learn to find the bright side,” he replied then followed Krystal.

  I looked at Dalton then at Jim-Billy.

  “Um… eek!” I said to Jim-Billy.

  “You said it,” Jim-Billy muttered.

  “Is it like that all the time?” I asked, moving closer to him.

  “Chalk and cheese,” Jim-Billy answered. “Bubba’s a good ole boy, laid-back, mellow, all about havin’ fun, not about havin’ responsibility. Krystal’s had it rough, she’s worked all her life, it’s made her hard and she wanted her piece of something that was just hers. Thought she’d get it with the bar, bein’ the boss, not havin’ to eat shit for a livin’. As you can see, she’s still workin’ hard and Bubba’s fishin’. He sees nothin’ wrong with that, not one thing. She does double shifts a lot. I don’t see good things.”

  “Didn’t she know –?” I started.

  “’Bout Bubba?”

  I nodded.

  He nodded back. “She knew, Laurie. But he made promises to her, to Tate, he’d tow the line, he’d do his bit, he’d grow up.” Jim-Billy shook his head. “Tate gets in his face, Bubba goes on the wagon but he always falls off.”

  I got closer and asked quietly, “Does he like fishing that much?”

  Jim-Billy stared at me.

  Then he leaned in and whispered, “Honey, he ain’t fishin’.” I didn’t reply and must have looked confused because Jim-Billy went on whispering. “Why you think you broke through that stone around Krystal’s heart and made her take a chance on you?”

  “I don’t –”

  “He fucks around, Laurie, with anything that moves, anything that breathes. Off here there and everywhere, partyin’ and gettin’ himself laid. Folks around town call him Bender Bubba. He’s on a bender and anything goes.”

  I looked to the doorway of the hall, asking, “Why does she put up with it?”

  I looked back to Jim-Billy to see him shrug. “She loves ‘im.”

  I could understand that. Many women who hadn’t been cheated on didn’t understand other women who put up with it. When Brad came clean, told me about Hayley, my very first thought was I forgive you. I couldn’t see a life alone. I couldn’t abide a life without him in it. I wanted him so bad and loved him so much, I would have taken him any way I could have him.

  He just didn’t want me.

  “Poor Krystal,” I whispered.

  “Don’t let her hear you sayin’ that,” Jim-Billy whispered back.

  I looked at him, bit my lip and nodded.

  The door opened and customers came in. I knew them, they’d been in before.

  I grabbed my tray, headed their way and smiled, calling, “Hey Steg, Bob, what’s up?”

  * * * * *

  “Need two Bud drafts,” I said to Krystal as I hit the bar.

  “Gotcha,” she replied, turning to nab some mugs and turning back, her hand going to the tap.

  I studied her.

  There was a lot on my mind, primarily Tate, who was coming to put me on the back of his bike so he could drive me the five blocks to my hotel. Also on my mind was his rampant desire for my safety and willingness to secure it.

  His words in the office, though, were flipping me out, scaring me and other, very different things besides. I didn’t get it. I wasn’t certain what happened in there or why it happened. All I knew was that it did.

  But now, I was thinking about Krystal.

  She put a mug on my tray and went for the other one.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  She didn’t look at me when she answered, “Yeah, why?”

  “Tonia,” I said softly and her eyes slid to me then back
to the mug she was filling.

  “Girl was a waste of space,” she muttered and I felt my face flinch. Then she went on, “Still, Christ.”

  “Yeah,” I said and she put the other mug on my tray.

  Then she surprised me by asking, “You okay?”

  “About Tonia?” I asked back and she nodded. “No,” I answered.

  “No one deserves that,” she stated.

  “No,” I agreed. “No one deserves that.”

  “Folk sayin’, way she dressed, way she acted, brought it on herself,” Krystal told me.

  “Really? People are saying that already?”

  “Yep,” she nodded.

  “Do they know all that happened to her?” I asked.

  “All that happened to her?”

  “The, um… thing with her hair,” I explained.

  “What thing with her hair?”

  I looked at her a second and then muttered, “Nothing.”

  She examined me. Then her face changed in a way I couldn’t read.

  Then she said, “Tate.”

  “What?”

  “Tate tell you what happened to her?”

  “Um… yeah, he popped by earlier and –”

  She cut me off. “No, folk don’t know all that happened to her.” Then she mumbled, “Fuckers.”

  “Got that right,” I replied.

  She caught my eyes and surprised me again. “Thanks for doin’ the stock take, Lauren.”

  “Um… you’re welcome.”

  “And Tate says you wiped down most of the bar,” she went on.

  “It was a slow day,” I told her.

  She nodded. “Speakin’ ‘a that, with Tonia gone and Tate on the hunt, we’re losin’ the waitress durin’ the day. I’ve redone the schedule, copies of it are on the desk in the office. All the girls are nights now, even you.”

  I nodded back again. “Okay, that’s fine with me.”

  “You can handle it,” she said and I smiled at her.

  She didn’t smile back.

  Instead, she informed me, “Got ads in papers all over the county and then some. Gnaw Bone, Chantelle, everywhere. Hopin’ we’ll get a couple of girls in soon.”

  “Okay,” I replied.

  “It’ll be tough for awhile –”