She dropped a hand to her belly, looking down at it, and saying, “What if I fuck this up?”
“You sitting alone in your car, my guess, tough as nails, yet worried to the point of tears, I’m not thinking that’s gonna be a problem.”
She looked again to me but didn’t move her hand from her belly.
“Shit like that can rear up, you don’t even know it.”
“Don’t let it,” I returned.
The impatient snap was back. “Simple as that, you think?”
“I don’t think anything about parenthood is simple and, I don’t want to fuck with your head, girl, but even if you get beyond thinking stupid shit like this, you’re still gonna have other stuff rear up.”
The snap was now angry. “This shit isn’t stupid.”
I leaned close and hissed, “Yes it is. Because, Krystal, if you can build that wall to protect yourself, what are you gonna do for your child? Whatever happened with your mom did not break you. You’re still standing. You got a bar. You got friends. You got a man. You got a baby on the way. You’re hot. You’re crazy, but you’re funny. You don’t take any shit and got the balls to give it. Not sure a baby doctor would list all those things in the pro column of how to be a good mother and live your life in a way you teach your child valuable lessons of how to be a survivor. But the way this world runs and all the fucked-up, crazy-ass shit in it a parent has to shield their kid from the best they can, especially in this burg, which seems like a magnet for it, I’d say that doctor didn’t know shit from Shinola.”
She’d tucked her chin in her neck as I spoke but when I was done, it came out and she declared, “Jesus, girlfriend, don’t beat around the bush.”
“I don’t like to see women crying in their cars and being down on themselves. And for future reference, even though you won’t need it, just so you know, I can be sensitive. It’s that I’m just as good, swinging both ways.”
“Well, if you’d swing your ass out of my car, I could get home before the ice cream melts and ruins my trunk.”
I grinned.
It was all good now.
She lifted her eyebrows as a prompt to exit said vehicle.
I grinned bigger and opened the door.
I’d swung out but hadn’t cleared the door before I heard her call, “Jus.”
I bent down to look at her.
“Thanks,” she muttered, but she did it looking me right in the eye.
“Don’t mention it, Krys, but do put me on your babysitting list. I love babies.”
She rolled her eyes, turned forward and kept muttering as she said, “Whatever.”
I grinned again but only because I saw her lips were quirked up.
Then I moved out of the door, shut it and made my way to the sidewalk.
I didn’t watch her pull out and drive away but I saw her go as I made my way back to my truck.
I threw my plastic bag in and then wondered how to kill more time while Deke blew insulation into the walls of my house.
I got in my truck and wondered why I wondered how to kill time.
There were two always ready answers, just one that required the right time of the day.
That being booze.
The other was food.
So I got right back out of my truck and headed to the diner.
* * * * *
It was dark by the time I got home since I moved from food to booze and spent the afternoon and early evening shooting the breeze in Bubba’s with Jim-Billy, meeting Izzy, another bartender, and the female-mullet-haired Twyla—who did make Krys look like a friendly Girl Scout selling cookies—and eventually talking Jim-Billy into going to dinner at the Italian place with me (my treat, which meant talking him into it took two seconds).
The afternoon and dinner with Jim-Billy was awesome. He was a hoot, a sweet-as-heck guy, and I learned quickly why everyone looked at him and talked about him with such affection.
Now, I was home and I couldn’t see much because I didn’t have any light in the main space because I had no working outlets in there.
What I had was moonlight dimmed by tall pine.
And warmth.
I could see the creamy white foam in the walls.
And as I carefully made my way to the thermostat (that still had plastic wrapped around it), once I smoothed it over the screen, I saw Deke left my furnace set at seventy degrees so I’d come home to a warm, snug house.
I was grateful for thermostats and a new deck and creamy foam in my walls.
I was grateful for Jim-Billy.
I was grateful for fate setting my feet on that sidewalk so I could be there for a woman I barely knew, but she was a woman that needed me.
I was just grateful that the life I’d been born into already giving me so much, continued to offer me bounty.
I went back to my bedroom with my Twang magazines, my Baby Ruth bite-sized and jumped on top of the bed in my cozy, snug, gorgeous four-poster so I could munch chocolate and read an article that sang the praises of my bestest bestie.
Bounty.
Chapter Four
Prime Rib Sandwich
Justice
Upon Deke’s banging the next morning, I threw open the door, and in lieu of a greeting, I jerked a pointed finger to my nose and demanded, “See this?”
His gaze narrowed and he clipped in return, “Got eyes, don’t I?”
“Well, thanks to you,” I turned my finger and jabbed it his way, “it’s still where it’s supposed to be and didn’t freeze off last night.” I gave him a big grin I didn’t even know I had in me to give that early in the morning and cried, “I love insulation!”