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“How you been keepin’?” he adds. “That truck of yours holdin’ up alright?”
Billie bites down on the insides of her cheek—that fucking name—before she straightens herself out then turns to him. She smiles all sincere for him. “What’s up, Dusty?”
This one is ‘call me dad’ number three, from her younger years. He wasn’t around much then, but he wasn’t bad or anything. Never hurt her mom, wasn’t as much of a drinker, either.
He just wasn’t drama enough for her mom.
Decent fella. Always stained with oil from fixing up rundown cars then selling them for a small profit. Bikes, too.
“You seen Tammi-Lynn lately?” he asks.
Billie shakes her head. “Nah, mom hasn’t been around in a month or so.”
“Yeah, well if you see her, you tell her about the vigil tonight, won’t you?”
Billie’s face furrows with a frown she turns on Tonya. “First we’re hearing of a vigil.”
He swigs back the drink, then—with a sigh—says, “Puttin’ some candles out for him by the swamp.”
Billie’s mouth turns down. Probably the crap candles, those cheap little white things from the hardware store.
Crappy candles for a crappy guy.
That’s as close to poetic as Billie will ever understand.
“Christ knows why he gets a vigil,” Dusty mutters as he pushes the glass towards Billie. She grabs a bottle of house bourbon and pours him another. “Piece of shit if there ever was one,” he adds, taking the glass, but just nursing it in his loose grip. “Your ma liked him, though. She’ll wanna know. He looked out for her from time to time, you know? Looked out for a lot of us.”
Tonya mutters under her breath, “Look where that got him.”
Dusty only shoots her a look, but not one of question or anger—just a look. A lot of people will feel that way about Cletus. Only, not many of them will say thatout loudtoday of all days.
Billie just nods and forces some twisted sort of smile. “I’ll see if I can get ahold of her.”
With that, she heads back to the floor with Preston on mind.
It’s another thirty minutes—just past 3PM on the clock—when Heather and Justin roll in through the door. Looks like they came together, what with that cheap-ass pink lipstick on Justin’s collar, so apparently no cops were holding them back from their shift.
Tonya gives them an earful, but Billie just stashes her bundle of tips in her bag, then fishes out her cell (a plain black Nokia that cost her a whole shift’s worth of tips to get).
Stolen, of course. But works good.
She presses her thumb down on the central button, her eyes narrowed in on the dimly lit screen. How in the hell Carmine can watch this screen for a solid hour while she playsSnakeis beyond Billie—the screen is just too damn dark. And the green tones hurt her eyes.
But it lights up enough that she can see some missed calls and a couple of texts. No credit in her phone to make a call or send any texts out, but she wouldn’t if she could—since they’re all from Preston.
He’ll know.
Preston’s figured out that it’s different this time around. But how different? Once he realizesthatpart, all bets are off.
In their pattern, she would have sent a tirade of hateful texts or called him in sobs, tried to fight some more.
Now, she’s gone silent. Because she knows that one text, just one, could break her and she could so easily run back to him.
That’s the problem. She wants to. Wants to be with him, wants toorbithim.
He’s the one with the life, with the future.
He can survive and thrive without her.
