“That’s fucked up,” Little Bird uttered, and I smiled. We’d been a bad influence on her in a couple ways – her letting fly with the f-bomb regularly being one of them but then again, the girl had needed to loosen up some. She certainly hadn’t been in Kansas anymore once D.T. had picked her ass up from Vegas.
She’d been a good girl. It was kind of why I wanted to talk to them both. See if there was a chance worth taking when it came to Aspen for one, and for two, getting some kind of advice on how or if I should proceed.
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
I told them everything, pausing only long enough to get our drink order in and once again when the bartender returned to serve it up.
“That’s… that’s a lot.” Little Bird leaned back against the high wooden booth back and gave me one long, slow blink.
“I don’t really know what to think,” I said. “About the dishes. Like, am I supposed to make the next move or was that like, the end – thanks but I never want to see you again kind of a thing? I just don’t know.”
“Yah got me,” Dump Truck said with a shrug of his massive shoulders.
“I figured if anyone would know, it’d be you with all the romance novels and bullshit you read.”
He laughed and gave me the finger from across the table, and I grinned savagely.
“I don’t think she knows what she wants.” Little Bird said. “I mean, it sure puts my situation into some perspective. I don’t even know how she’s standing after all of that! First her mom, then her brother, and I know her husband didn’t die but yikes! Talk about the icing on the cake! Her whole life went down in flames one thing right after the other, after the other, with no time to process.”
Little Bird looked like she had a fractured heartache going and it made me love her just a little more that she could feel so strongly a sense of empathy for someone she didn’t even know. She was a rare one, and she and my best friend just fit in a way I couldn’t begin to describe and as much as I wanted that for myself… I just didn’t know if it was meant to be. Not with some of the shit that I’d done.
“She’s had no time to process,” I agreed and traced a runic pattern with a fingertip in the spilled beer foam from my lager on the warm golden lacquered wood of our table.
“So, give her time,” Dump Truck said judiciously.
I gave him a dirty look. I mean, clearly, he was right but how the fuck long? I turned back to Little Bird who gave me an apologetic look and a little shrug.
Neither one of them had the answer I was looking for. I guess that made three of us.
“Mind helping me out sometime?” I asked her and she gave me a raised eyebrow.
“Like how?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “Like go into the shop and feel things out in a few days or something?”
She smiled and said, “What, like you pay for a paint night for me, Marisol, and Dahlia?” she asked sweetly, and I scowled.
“Why you gotta bring those two into it?” I demanded. I liked ‘em both well enough but they were a couple of hard cases.
“Because they’re my friends and you’re asking me for the favor. You know I’m a lover not a fighter,” she said with a wink. “And I like to spread the love.”
Dump Truck chuckled.
“You been taking lessons in manipulation from Dahlia?” I asked.
“Chess, not checkers,” she said softly and her gaze unfocused as she stared over in the direction of the bar. “And no, these particular lessons were learned a long time ago in my old life.”
I nodded, my irritation diminishing.
“Fine,” I grated out. “If I don’t come up with a better plan, or I don’t hear from her first in like a week, I’ll pay for your girls’ night or whatever.”
“Thank you!” she said cheerfully and perked up in her seat. “I’ve always wanted to do a ceramic paint night with some girlfriends. It’s just not something you do all on your own.”
I grunted and picked up my beer, taking a pretty big swallow and clearing at least a third of the glass with it. Dump Truck laughed softly at my expense and I shook my head.
Well played, Little Bird, I thought to myself. Well played.
Chapter Five
Aspen…
“So…” Amber trailed off and gave me an impish look and I rolled my eyes.
“Out with it,” I ordered my lone employee. Her grin widened and motorcycles went by outside the shop. She waited for the roar of the engines to dissipate into the distance before she picked up where she left off.
“I totally know it’s none of my business,” she said, holding up her hands. “And you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but…” and she made an adorable, skeptical little face and squeaked out, “Fenris?”
I gave a light little laugh that edged on nervous and sighed.
Amber was a bright girl. She’d attended a round of my pottery classes, had a natural talent at it, and so I had hired her when she’d said she was looking for a part-time, after-school job. She was a student at South Seattle Community College and I needed someone to run the counter for walk-ins while I ran the evening paint nights and classes.
She was nineteen, mature for her age, and I found myself surprisingly desperate for someone to confide in, so against what should have been my better judgment…
“I don’t really know what to say,” I told her. “I went out with Lindsay—” She wrinkled her nose in distaste and I frowned but glossed over it for the time being. “And the next thing I know, it was the next day and I woke up at the bouncer’s house.”
Amber’s dove gray eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open.
“Aspen!” she cried. “That is totally not your scene! What the hell?”
“I know, I know!” I cried. “I don’t know what happened, I swear. I only had a drink or two, but Lindsay went off with these couple of cowboys and I know I had to have been a total drag with everything going on with—”
“Stop!” she cried and held up a hand. “With he-who-shall-not-be-named,” she said firmly before I could utter Charles’ name. I rolled my eyes but smiled.
“Yes, with everything going on with him,” I said and sighed. “Anyway, the bouncer thinks they maybe slipped me something to make it easier to take Lindsay or for the three of them to get away from me but it was really bad, I guess. I mean, I don’t remember any of it at all.”
“Oh, wow… was Lindsay okay?” Amber dropped onto the stool I kept behind the register while I counted the money.
“Oh, yeah,” I said following it up with an explosive breath. “She had the time of her life, apparently.”
“Yeesh.” Amber made a face, and I nodded.
“My sentiments exactly,” I said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong – I know how awful that just sounded and oh, my God! Not how I meant it to come out, I just mean—”
“How could you leave your vulnerable and emotionally shattered friend to her own devices so you can go off and ride a couple of cowboys?” Amber asked, and she winced adorably as she said it.