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“She does me. That’s why I will do anything for her now. Her asthma’s been real bad for a while now and I send her medicine with the help of Red and Roadkill. They’ve given me samples to send to her. To Red, the drug reps are vultures, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use them right back.”
Her impression of Red made him smile as his finger wiggled between part of the cross over and knot. With a big exhale, he arched his back.
The action made Topaz nearly double-over herself.
“That’s why you were in the clinic the other day?”
“Yeah. But you didn’t give me a chance to explain. You just teased me.”
“It’s my way,” he said. “When people hate me, I try to find ways of putting them at ease.” His confession was more to himself than her. “Plus, you’re easy, it’s like you have zero fucks left by the time you get to me and…well, if I piss you off, at this point so be it.”
“You do. But it’s because you remind me of someone.”
“Who is this someone?” Onyx worried they didn’t have much time alone, so he picked up the pace.
“I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Sounds like he’s an asshole,” Onyx surmised.
“Fuck you,” she replied.
“You’re the one not about to dredge up the past. Got some other place to be?”
“Yes, by the way, I do,” she replied. “Anywhere that isn’t by you.”
“Hey, how long have you been up?” he asked.
“I don’t know, why?”
“Trying for a timeframe, I’m still bleeding a bit, but that could be the damn aspirin a day regimen I’ve been on for a while. Oh and let’s see, we’re in a cabin somewhere in bum-fuck Montana. Doubt we were put here to Netflix and chill,” he continued, a little ire spiking his tone. “You wake up with just yours truly? Or did you hear voices? Shoes? A door? What woke you?”
“You snore,” she stated plainly. “Or more snort at times.”
“Thought you had to check my breaths,” he countered.
“Well, when it goes from road construction to a quiet nature path it takes a bit before you can hear the crickets.”
“Not me,” he replied. “Those little assholes are loud and annoying.”
“Really? I love them, they can be so soothing at night.”
“Yeah, but you grew up in a holler somewhere,” he joked. “Little Rock? You from Kansas, Oklahoma? Wait, is that in Tennessee?”
“Arkansas and don’t play dumb with me,” she replied. “I know most of the country has no idea where I’m from, but you’re not that person.”
“What makes you say that?” he questioned.
“Beno,” she stated plainly. “I saw you with him the other day.”
“Must have been someone else,” he joked, remembering the little game of name the state the nearly four-year-old was playing with him while he put together a puzzle.
Dreamer had ordered a number of puzzles for the elementary school she was organizing in town. Onyx had helped with some of the demo to combine classrooms, since there weren’t enough kids for a whole grade. Instead, she went back to the one room school house style of learning. Now, they called it homeschooling, but she was putting her teaching degree to use in a very different way. One that was making the parents of younger kids look at staying in Turnabout Creek, instead of heading west to Berrington.
“You didn’t just help him, you talked with him about every state.”
“What can I say? My mama said there was more to the world than Los Angeles.”
“Funny, never thought anyone from there believed anything existed in fly over land.”
