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From there, I’d kept an eye on her physically as she’d done the sleuthing—making sure to unlock the truck for her by popping the lock using my slim Jim before she’d even gotten there—and making sure nothing got to her while she did her business.
After she went and stole the spark plug, I followed her all the way to her house—which was really fuckin’ close to my own—and waited until she got inside to head back to my own home.
I did, however, make sure to put a tracker on her car before she left, so I knew when she was headed to the shop. Which had spurred me to head that way myself to explain to my good friend what was about to happen.
He’d agreed readily since I rarely ever asked him for favors, but then had to put me on the spot when I hadn’t wanted her to know that I was there.
It was easier that way.
A clean break.
I worked on my car for the next hour after she left, listening to Butch give me shit every five minutes or so about how I was a pussy for not pursing the hot. Or whatever the fuck that meant.
After about an hour of listening to him annoy the piss out of me, I got a text from my brother asking me if I was going to come to lunch with him or skip out.
I’d forgotten in my whirlwind of a night and packed up my tools with a fast goodbye to Butch before leaving and heading to the one place that Tide loved that I didn’t.
Subway.
Gross.
Tide was already sitting at the table, waiting impatiently for me to arrive.
The moment I walked through the door, he started to unwrap his sandwich.
I rolled my eyes and went for my cup, grabbing a Dr Pepper and sitting back down. By the time I arrived at my seat, Tide was halfway through his first sandwich.
I grimaced at the sound of his eating, already feeling that familiar form of panic starting to take root.
But before it got too bad, he stopped and took a sip of his drink.
A long time ago, my family had realized that I was different.
So, as much as they could, they conformed their eating and drinking habits into such that I would be able to eat around them and still be comfortable.
But there was only so much one could do to eat quietly.
Tide, however, had somehow mastered the art of drinking.
He could do it quietly to the point where I barely ever heard him.
He was also very careful to never let his drink get empty, so that I didn’t hear that gurgling noise when one reached the bottom of their drink.
That wasn’t the same for the asshole kid behind me who was shaking his ice in his mother’s face and sucking loudly on his empty drink, letting her know that he was empty.
I felt my eye twitch.
Which only caused me to get irritated with the wrong person.
When Tide went back to eating, he did it as quietly as he could… yet it still wasn’t quietly enough.
“Would you shut the fuck up?” I grumbled.
Tide looked over at me with his mouth halfway wrapped around a footlong sandwich. “I’m eating, jackass. As quietly as I can, might I add. Get the fuck over it.”
“You know I don’t like it,” I said through gritted teeth.
Tide sighed and grabbed his drink, then walked his sandwich and himself halfway across the room to sit at a different table.
I was beyond grateful.
I didn’t go out to eat much because of my disorder. Misophonia.
According to a psychiatrist I saw when I was small, it was negative emotions toward everyday sounds.
That meant throat clearing, coughing, chewing. Hell, there was even one time that my mom sang in the car that had driven me almost bonkers to the point where I’d cried for hours afterward.
Now, older, I’m able to control my environment a lot better.
Hell, the only reason that I was where I was was because of a certain woman that was going to see her best friend’s stepsister.
Tide took less than five minutes to eat and come back to the table as I was still looking at my Subway sandwich, untouched.
“I saw a research article on Subway’s tuna,” I told him, wishing he hadn’t ordered for me and assumed I wanted tuna. “They said that there is so little tuna in their tuna that they can’t even quantify it as tuna anymore.”
“Just because it’s not tuna, doesn’t mean it’s not some sort of fish,” Tide promised.
I sighed. “I know.”
I picked my one sandwich up and took three bites, chewing fast before moving on to the chips, which I actually liked. Nacho cheese Doritos.
I was halfway done when she walked in.
I froze, sandwich to my mouth, and watched as she walked across the floor and went directly to the cash register with her hat pulled low, and her eyes downcast.
