Good God.
Luckily, before I could get to martini number six, or Puking Girl Martini, Uncle Tex took me back to my hotel. I laid in bed until the room stopped spinning and fell asleep.
I woke up feeling like I’d been run over by a truck. I stood under the shower until I could pry open my eyes without them burning gaping holes into my skull. I did my massive Get Ready Preparations, full on makeup and flippy hair. I opted for jeans because everything went with jeans and I didn’t have the brain capacity to pull together a complete outfit. It was a Monday, Hank would be working and I wouldn’t run into him. I didn’t need to be Glamorous High Maintenance Girl until six thirty that night.
I topped the jeans with a fitted, white, collarless shirt that buttoned up the front and had several rows of miniature ruffles along the chest. I completed this with a Me&Ro choker on my neck and Me&Ro dangly hoops at my ears and a pair of silver ballet flats.
I stumbled into Fortnum’s after maneuvering the four lanes of traffic on Broadway and Uncle Tex, Duke and Indy all looked up at me through the line of customers.
“Shit, girl,” Uncle Tex grinned as I made it to the counter, cutting in front of everyone and not giving a good God damn.
“Coffee,” I breathed.
“Hey, I’m next,” the man at the front of the line said.
I turned to him.
“I had five martinis last night and kissed a seriously hot guy I barely knew. Twice,” I told him.
“You can go first,” he said.
Indy laughed.
I got my caramel latte and found out why Indy hired Uncle Tex. The latte was sublime.
“Uncle Tex, this is beautiful,” I told him.
“You got foam on your mouth,” he said.
I licked it off.
Duke was staring at me.
Then he looked at Tex. “Couldn’t we have, like, maybe a week before the next one rolled in the door?”
“Gotta take life as it comes,” Uncle Tex said with a shrug.
I looked between them.
“What are they talking about?” I asked Indy, taking another sip.
She was digging in her purse. She pulled out a pill bottle, shook out two ibuprofens and handed them to me.
“Tex tell you about Jet’s troubles?” she asked.
I sucked down the pills with another gulp of latte. “You mean the rapist and the loan shark and her Dad being in the hospital after being thrown from a moving car?”
The eyes of the customer next to me bugged out of his head.
I ignored him and Indy did too.
She said, “Well, that all finished up on Friday. You came in on Sunday. Seein’ as you and Hank, um… seem to be, um—”
I interrupted her, “Yeah, and…?”
“Well, I think Duke’s a little gun shy.”
“Gun shy, hell. Hank is fucked,” he looked at me. “No offense but you’re gonna run him through the mill, I can tell. And no doubt, we’ll all get ground up with him.”
I blinked.
“I’m only in town for a couple of days,” I said.
“I can see it comin’,” Duke said.
“Hallelujah!” Uncle Tex boomed. “No lag this time, keep ‘im hoppin’, darlin’ girl, that’s what I say.”
I looked to Indy.
“I think I might throw up,” I told her.
“Hungover?” she asked.
“That too.”
She laughed again but I couldn’t figure out what was so funny.
At that point, Daisy powered in the door wearing a hot pink, velour, skintight, Juicy Couture track suit with the top’s zipper unzipped to what could only be called the Cleavage Danger Zone and a braided terry cloth bandana around her forehead, looking like Dolly Parton halfway morphed into Jackie Stallone, but younger.
“Hey Roxie! Popped by to see if you wanted to do a power walk with me while Tex is working,” she said.
My stomach roiled. “I’m going to get a cheeseburger,” I replied.
Cheeseburgers (with fries) were the only hangover cure I knew that worked. It only lasted fifteen minutes after the last fry was chewed and swallowed, but it was fifteen minutes of nirvana.
Daisy frowned. “Sugar bunch, cheeseburgers kinda defeat the purpose of a power walk.”
How did these people avoid hangovers? They’d all been right with me, drink for drink. It was unreal.
I figured it had to be the altitude.
“Maybe you can power walk to the burger place and back,” Indy suggested.
“Maybe you can power walk to Siberia and stay there,” Duke put in.
I turned and scowled at Duke.
“Shee-it,” he said when he caught my scowl. “Hank is fucked.”
“Hank’s gonna be fucked, you ask me,” Daisy giggled and it sounded like tinkling bells.
“I’ve entered a loony bin,” I told another unwitting customer, this one a female.
“It’s always like that around here,” the customer replied. “That’s why I come, it’s like walking into a sitcom that could only air on HBO.”
I wasn’t getting a good feeling about this.
Daisy grabbed my arm and power-walked me the few blocks to a fast-food burger joint on the corner of Broadway and Alameda.
While we were standing in line waiting for my order which consisted of an ultra-sized cheeseburger meal and four extra orders of ultra-sized fries, she said to me, “All right, tell Daisy all about it.”
“About what?” I asked.
“About whatever’s making your eyes sad.”
Holy cow. Was I that obvious?
“Nothing’s making me sad,” I lied.
She looked at me for a while. The counter guy passed me my bag and then she said, “When you’re ready to talk, I’m here, comprende?”
I nodded.
She let it go. Left it at that and I liked her all the more.
Though not enough to share, but I did feel badly about it.
We walked back a lot slower, mainly because I was consuming my ultra-sized cheeseburger meal and Daisy was programming phone numbers into my cell phone (just in case).
When we got to Fortnum’s I handed out the fries, sucked down my diet cola (because even if I’d just hoovered through an ultra-sized meal, there was a girlie law that said you had to have it with a diet drink) and ordered another caramel latte.
The customer crush was mostly gone, Daisy and Indy were talking at the book counter, Duke had disappeared and Uncle Tex was alone behind the espresso machine.
“I’m takin’ it that your loser boyfriend is your loser fuckin’ ex-boyfriend since you were holdin’ hands with Hank last night.”
I sighed. “Can we talk about it later?”
“Got a lot of respect for Hank, he’s good people. Tell me you’re done with that weasely motherfucker.”
“I’m done with Billy, I’ve been done with him for a long time. He’s just not done with me. I’m having dinner with Hank but only because he’s persuasive—”
“I bet,” Uncle Tex broke in.
“It’s just dinner. Nothing more, not until I can finish up with Billy.”
“Dinner may be just dinner in Chicago but it ain’t in Denver. These boys don’t fuck around, you know what I’m sayin’?” Tex asked.
I’d already learned that.
He went on anyway. “Indy was livin’ with Lee after ‘bout a day. Jet was with Eddie from my count, after less than a week. The way Hank’s lookin’ at you, I’m guessin’ less than forty eight hours.”
Good God.
He continued. “I’m your fuckin’ uncle and I like that boy enough to say I’d be doin’ cartwheels, you end up with him.”
Boy was I in trouble.
“We’ll talk about it later, okay?”
He stared at me awhile then he said, “Hang out in here for a few hours then we’ll go someplace and talk. I don’t want you wanderin’ off and gettin’ abducted or car bombed.”
My eyes bugged out and he shr
ugged. “It’s been known to happen.”
Good grief.
I settled into the couch, chose Springsteen and made it through “Candy’s Room”, “Incident on 57th Street” and was enjoying “Thunder Road” even though my hangover had come back with a vengeance when I felt movement beside me on the couch and something pressed against my hip.
My eyes opened.
Hank was sitting next to me, his hip against mine.
Shit.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
For some reason, this made him smile and my stomach clutched.
He plucked the MP3 player out of my hand and turned it to look at the display. His eyes went lazy at what he saw but he touched it with his thumb and the mega-blast of music powered down to seriously un-rock ‘n’ roll levels.
Then, he leaned down, his fingers found the cord to the earphones which was resting against my chest, he tugged it and my right earphone popped out of my ear just as his lips made it there.
“You’re shouting,” he whispered
Goddammit.
I was such a loser.
“Though, Springsteen is worth it,” he finished.
“Don’t you have a job?” I asked, when his head came up and his hand went away from my chest and settled opposite my body on the couch by my hip, making him lean into me all the more.
I was trying to ignore the fact that although it wasn’t even noon, I’d made a fool of myself at a used bookstore in Denver at least half a dozen times.
“Came by to get coffee,” Hank answered.
“Oh.”
“Want to have lunch?”
“I’m having lunch with Uncle Tex.”
He looked at the coffee counter. I moved my head on the couch seat and looked too. There were four people in line and two people waiting at the end of the counter for their coffee. Uncle Tex was working the espresso machine like a mad man, banging and crashing like each coffee needed to be created with as much violence as possible.
“He might be delayed,” Hank said, looking back at me.
“I just had an ultra-sized cheeseburger meal,” I told Hank, “I’m not hungry.”
His eyes drifted down my body then up to my face again. It’d been a long time since I’d done it but I was pretty sure I was blushing.
“Then maybe you’ll keep me company while I have lunch,” he suggested.
“I don’t want to be around food, it’ll make me sick. I’m hungover. Probably too hungover even to have dinner. I haven’t been this hungover since Purdue beat IU at Ross-Ade my senior year.”
“Then we’ll have a quiet night.”
He had an answer for everything.
Before I could say anything, he noted, “You’re a Boilermaker.”
“Hoosier by birth, Boilermaker by the grace of God.”
It came out of my mouth by rote; I’d been saying it since I was three, nearly as long as I’d been saying, “Go, Cubbies, go”. I didn’t mean it to be cute, or flirty, or funny.
Hank’s look told me he took it all three ways.
I sat up, putting my elbows behind me, so I was (somewhat) face to face with him. “Whisky, don’t get any ideas. My reflexes are slow. I’m still not sure about this dinner.”
“You’re sure.”
“I’m not. I’m in Denver on personal business, business with Uncle Tex. I don’t need you complicating matters.”
“What kind of personal business?”
“Business that’s personal,” I said in answer.
He grinned. “Why don’t you walk me to my truck and I’ll do some more convincing that you want to carve some time for me out of your busy schedule,” he pressed.
“No more convincing!” I shouted, and everyone looked our way, customers and all. I lowered my voice and hissed. “You promised, not until tonight.”
“I can wait until tonight.”
Good God, I’d walked straight into that one.
“You’re an arrogant sonovabitch,” I told him, flat out.
What could I say? I was hungover and, at home, there was another man sleeping in my bed. Okay, so maybe Billy was on the road, looking for me and not sleeping in my bed. And maybe Billy and I hadn’t had sex in over a year (even though he tried and was beginning to get pretty pissed off about my lack of response). But still, I had to sort out Billy before any Hanks entered my future and definitely my present.
“Sunshine, you’re sensational even when you’re bein’ a bitch.”
I gasped.
Then I narrowed my eyes.
“Don’t call me a bitch.”
“Let me get this straight, you can call me a sonovabitch but I can’t retaliate in kind?”
“That’s right.”
He smiled again.
I was majorly in trouble, there was no shaking this guy.
Maybe, it was because I didn’t really want to shake him.
All right, it was time to get serious.
“Whisky, you have no idea what you’re getting into with me.”
His other hand came down to the couch and he leaned into me, so close his face was just an inch away. “Roxanne, listen closely. One look at you and I knew trouble was on your heels. I’m willin’ to give it time for you to tell me. That doesn’t happen, I’m willin’ to wade in when that trouble catches up. Right now, I’d be doin’ it for Tex and out of curiosity about you. After tonight, I reckon I’ll be doing it for other reasons.”
Holy cow.
I didn’t know what to say, so I did the smart thing for once and didn’t say anything.
He went on. “I can understand you protecting yourself, but you have to know, you’ve no reason to protect me. I have my eyes wide open…”
I was beginning to find it hard to breathe.
“Hank—” I whispered, interrupting him but he kept going.
“And I like what they see.”
Yowza.
“I’m in trouble,” I said.
“I already know that.”
“I’m talking about you.”
“Good to know you’ve got your eyes open too.”
He didn’t even let that sink in. He kissed my nose, moved away, grabbed his paper cup of coffee off the table and he was gone.
“Holy cow,” I breathed.
“Sugar bunch, you can say that again,” Daisy called. She was sitting on the book counter, legs crossed and leafing through a copy of Us magazine. Though her hands were moving the pages, she was looking at the door that had just closed behind Hank.
“Holy cow,” I said again.
“We’re all fucked,” Duke’s gravelly voice said from somewhere in the books.
I had the feeling he wasn’t wrong.
* * * * *
Uncle Tex got off work and took me to a Middle Eastern restaurant on University Boulevard called Jerusalem. We both ordered the combo platter, which arrived brimming over with rice, baba ghanoush, hummus, fattoush, tabbouleh, stuffed grape leaves, falafel, gyros meat, three kinds of kabobs and pita bread.
“Holy cow. I’m never going to be able to eat this,” I said, staring at my plate.
“Then don’t eat, talk. What’s goin’ on with you?”
I started eating.
“Roxanne Giselle…”
“Jeez, Uncle Tex, you sound just like Mom.”
His eyes flickered, pain slicing through them and I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.
“Okay, I’ll talk,” I said, mainly to take his mind off whatever it was that was hurting him.
I told him about Billy.
Halfway through the story, around about the sledgehammer part, he boomed (pita bread and baba ghanoush flying out of his mouth). “I’m gonna fuckin’ kill that motherfucker!”
I looked around at our gawking neighbors.
“Uncle Tex, calm down,” I whispered.
He swallowed.
“Finish it!” he demanded, circling his fork at me.
I finished the story.
Then Tex said, “You don’t
gotta be on the run from that asshole. One word to Lee and he’d fix his sorry ass and good.”
No way. No way in hell.
“No, Uncle Tex, no words to Lee, to Hank, to Eddie, to Indy, to anybody.”
“Lee’s one badass individual. Lee’d make Hitler shake in his silly, shiny boots, even with the whole German army standin’ at his back.”
“No.”
“Roxie, darlin’, your plan is shit.”
“I’ve been working on this plan for years!”
“It’s still shit.”
I scowled at him.
“Uncle Tex, I got myself into this mess. I’m getting myself out.”
He shook his head.
“Not gonna fuckin’ happen. I’m talkin’ to the boys,” he said like that was final.
I slammed my palm on the table to get his attention and Uncle Tex’s eyes locked on mine.
I took a deep breath and said, “I appreciate your concern and I need your help but I’m fixing this my way.”
“Roxie—”
“No!” I closed my eyes and tilted my head to the table. Then I looked up again. “Uncle Tex, I have to look myself in the eye in the mirror every morning. After I fucked up seven years of my life, do you honestly think I can just hand over my problems to some guys I barely know and be able to wake up and look in those eyes?”
He stared at me.
Finally, he said, “Jesus Jones, but you’re a MacMillan.”
“Damn right I am,” I told him with more than a little bit of pride.
He stared at me some more.
“Fine,” was all he said.
I felt my body relax. “Thank you.”
“One thing, darlin’ girl. I get even the niggliest fuckin’ inklin’ that this shit plan o’ yours is goin’ south, and mark my words, it’s gonna go south, I’m callin’ in the boys.”
I felt my body get tense again.
“No,” I said.
“That includes Hank.”
“No!” I shouted, now ignoring our gawking neighbors.
“I should fuckin’ say that especially fuckin’ includes Hank.”
“You do that, I leave,” I threatened.
“You leave, I’m siccin’ Lee on your ass. He’ll send Vance or Mace to track you down. You won’t even make it to the Colorado border.”