A good cock sucking didn’t sound half bad but I hadn’t enjoyed one in a while and sex had nothing to do with my midnight hours. Kellan would flip his shit and he would have good reason, considering our family history. But I wasn’t Derek. There was never an urge to numb the hard edges with drinking or drugs. I didn’t touch either one and the temptation was nonexistent.
Kel would just assume that I was trying to dull the pain.
He’d be wrong. That wasn’t the reason at all.
I was just trying to feel like myself again. I was trying to feel alive.
Gracie
The girl hogged the entire coffee counter while she released individual pink sugar packets into her cup. She was college aged, likely a student at the university. She wore a t-shirt that was two sizes too small and advertised a nearby Irish themed bar called Doyle’s. The nametag pinned over her right breast said ‘Kortni’. It was six a.m. and she wore that grubby up-all-night look.
I stood four feet away, patiently waiting without making a sound. After the seventh sugar packet she finally glanced up. Her brown eyes, heavily ringed with smudged eyeliner, conducted a sweep and became annoyed.
“Just waiting for the counter,” I said because there was a hostile quality to her glance. I didn’t mean to stand too close.
“It’s all yours,” she mumbled and swept her trash aside.
I said nothing as I stepped in to fill my oversized Game of Thrones cup with equal parts dark roast blend and hazelnut creamer with three quick dashes of cinnamon. I knew I would drink less than half and toss the rest but the habit of treating myself to the same drink every morning before work provided a comfortable sense of routine.
Kortni the moody sugar fan waited at the door while another girl wearing the same bar tee was paying for a fistful of prepackaged breakfast pastries. Once they were together they grew bolder and threw superior smirks in my direction.
I pretended not to notice. My hair was swept up into a loose bun as usual and under their gaze I became self-conscious about the tattoo on the right side of my neck. Sometimes it felt like a living parasite with a pulse all its own. Viktor had offered to pay for the removal but I refused. It was my history. And therefore my burden.
The girls finally sauntered out with their arms touching. They were absorbed with something on Kortni’s phone screen and did not look my way again. I relaxed and added some ice cubes to my coffee. I’d probably been the same way once; laughing with girlfriends and behaving carelessly. But a long time had passed since I had friends or said more words than necessary to anyone except Viktor.
The clerk rang up my transaction with a static expression of boredom. She nodded over my muttered word of thanks and I darted out the door with my head down. There used to be a lot more sparkle and fun included in my personality. I used to smile and understand how to be pleasant. My uncle had been on my case about this lately.
“Give people a chance,” Viktor would say. “You’ll find your crowd if you try.”
“No thanks,” I’d reply and either sprint out of the room or stick my ear buds in so the conversation would end.
And then he’d sigh but would let the matter drop until the next time he became concerned over my lacking social life. I wished he wouldn’t because I was just fine in my small world of work and books and television shows. I didn’t need friends. I didn’t need a relationship. I didn’t need complications or trouble or sex. I didn’t know how to avoid being destroyed by them.
Most other girls my age seemed to be preoccupied with things like college grades and boyfriend drama and family commitments. Not me. I’d belatedly finished high school, recoiled over the thought of real life romance and most of my family pretended that I didn’t exist. Except for Viktor I didn’t really have a family anymore. I’d last talked to my mother on Christmas Day; a ten minute phone conversation filled with unnatural pauses. I was unsurprised when my father did not come to the phone. He had not spoken to me directly in nearly three years. And my brothers were strangers now. I’d been asked to keep my distance from them and so I have.
Fretting over these sad details did no good. It was only salt in the wound.
I leaned back into the front seat of the company pickup truck, sipping my iced coffee with the comfort of Bob Marley’s voice coming through the speakers while I ironed out my thoughts. The day was already off to a lackluster start. Dawn had broken and the rest of the crew would be waiting, likely grumbling to one another and wondering over my whereabouts. Hopefully they knew better than to call Viktor. His surgery was only a week ago. I’d left him at home, resting comfortably on the sofa with instructions to call the nurse who lived down the street if he was feeling bad. He gave me a grin and a thumbs up sign before I closed the front door. Nothing was worse than the thought of letting Viktor down.
With a determined sigh I began steering the truck out of the small parking lot. Only when I was turning into the hardware store to meet up with the crew did it occur to me that I should have bought some coffee for them too. I’d worked side by side with all these guys before but the dynamic had changed now that I was their temporary leader. The responsibility made me slightly uneasy but there was no way around it. Viktor’s right hand guy had returned to El Paso to care for his dying mother and the other three crew leaders all had their hands full.
Three men wearing company shirts that said ‘Viktor’s Landscaping Services’ were clustered beside a tall light pole and they turned their heads at the sound of tires scraping the asphalt. Two of them were brothers; the Encanto boys, aged eighteen and nineteen. Their father used to work for Viktor but last winter he took a better paying job in construction. The two boys only needed jobs during school breaks. They were hardworking and polite and I didn’t expect any trouble from them. The third man, Gus, had recently served time for something drug related. He’d known Viktor for years and even though he was sometimes unreliable, Viktor had a soft spot for those in need of second chances. Gus’s bloodshot blue eyes rarely blinked. He always wore a scowl no matter who he was talking to so I tried not to be insulted when he directed it at me.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said through the open window and pressed the button to unlock all the doors.
“You’re not late,” said Mark, the younger and friendlier of the brothers. “You’re right on time.” He and Ralph deposited their large lunchbox coolers in the pickup bed and climbed into the backseat of the cab.
Gus did not appear to have brought anything with him other than a grimy orange thermos. He did not utter a word as he took the passenger seat up front and stared straight ahead. A stale odor rolled from him; old cigarette smoke and sour sweat.
I eased my foot off the brake. “We will be working at Dream Fields first.”
The comment was unnecessary. I cringed at the quaver in my voice. This leadership role was new to me. I’d worked for Viktor’s landscaping company sporadically and sometimes committed to random shifts when he required an extra pair of hands. I was stronger than I looked and I tolerated the heat well. Viktor had always hoped I would try college at some point instead of bouncing between retail jobs. At least I’d finally taken the exam to earn my high school diploma. The bookstore where I’d been working had closed a month ago when the owner of the strip mall decided to lease the space to a sporting goods chain. At the same time Viktor began having more trouble getting around. His arthritis kept getting worse and his doctor warned him that he was long overdue for a hip replacement. He couldn’t manage the company from the couch so I volunteered to wield hedge clippers, oversee admin details, and direct work crews until he was back up to speed. He didn’t like the idea but he lacked another alternative.