The Other Side of the Street

by Nicole Thorn

  Helen and Stanley had to park an extra thirty or so feet away. I could feel her fuming as she stepped out of the truck, glaring at the cars across the street. When she looked at us, all of Bea’s friends started waving with both hands, yelling out kind greetings to her. Helen did not look amused.

  “This is about to get ugly,” Bea said, a grin of anticipation on her face. “I sort of hope the cops get called.”

  Helen bent down, picking up her damaged sign. When she looked our way again, I gave a smile and waved.

  Was stealing my spot worth it? I warned you.

  “You have vengeance in your eyes,” Hammy purred in my ear, his hand gripping my thigh. “I like that.”

  In a moment of adrenaline filled foolishness, I turned to Hamilton and purred back. “Do you?”

  He nodded, and I noticed how easy it would be to close the distance between our mouths. I could have shoved him over and crawled on top of him right there in the dirt. He wouldn’t have minded. I knew that and it made this a hell of a lot harder. It got difficult to remember why I couldn’t kiss him.

  I stood up fast, my heart pounding as I grabbed Hammy by the arm and yanked him up with me. “Emergency meeting!”

  “Oh,” Sam said. “Okay, I guess.”

  “No!” I shouted, pointing at him. “Not you! Just the CEOs. Hammy!”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, and then I pulled him around the RV.

  I shoved him against it, harder than I’d meant to. He didn’t seem to mind, already reaching for me. His hand clasped the back of my neck while I had handfuls of his shirt in my grasp. Aggressive kissing might have been the best kind of kissing. It made me think we needed to try all the different kinds so I could pick properly.

  I cleared my throat when we got back to the others, and they all watched us. Half of them tried not to laugh as I sank into my seat, feeling more relaxed than I had been in an hour.

  “How was that meeting?” Angela snickered.

  “Good,” I said. “We discussed many things.”

  “Like erections?” Sam asked, making the others burst out into laughter. Hammy too, that bastard.

  “Excuse me!” I said loudly. “We were having a meeting.”

  “A meeting of the tongues,” Bea said.

  “Lies!”

  “We literally heard you making out!” she yelled back at me. “I’ve listened to my insensitive friends make out at the movies enough to know what it sounds like.”

  “Fuck you!” Rachael and Paul said at the same time. Then they both smiled at each other as if that had been a bonding moment. I wondered if they would call a business meeting too.

  Our conversation ended when a car pulled up and wanted something for lunch. Hammy popped up from his chair, a pep in his step as he sold the guy two sandwiches, a soda, and a piece of wrapped cake. I watched all that money go into the lock box, wondering how the hell I’d never thought of this before.

  “I like your shirt by the way,” Paul said, pointing to the worn-out Wheel of Fortune shirt my dad got me years ago. “I kick ass at that game.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  Beatrice rolled her eyes at me but said nothing. Good, because I was amazing at the game. I might not have said the puzzles in time, but I always knew the answer in my heart.

  Across the street, I saw Helen and Stanley doing their best. She tried to fix their sign but stopped to write in chalk on the board under their window. They had new menu items, most of which I couldn’t even understand. It felt like she wanted to test random crap out on the poor and unsuspecting customers.

  I sold five jars of honey in an hour, which made me feel better than I had in a long time. While I was grateful the sandwiches did well and I would have taken any success that came, it would have been a little heartbreaking if the honey stopped selling. It was my baby, that stuff.

  I felt Hammy’s hand on my back as I locked the money box. “I see you’re doing well over here.”

  “I am. I might have to get some more jars before the week is over.”

  “I can take you.”

  I hadn’t even planned on asking him that. Even without a truck, I could make my way down to the store. My parents would have brought me.

  “It’s far away,” I warned him.

  He shrugged. “We can make a day of it, if you want. Get lunch, go grab your stuff, maybe see a movie. I don’t know.”

  That sounded better than anything I could have imagined. Just a day with him where we didn’t work out in the sun. “You wanna, like… hang out with me?”

  He laughed. “Of course I do. I’ve said I want to be your boyfriend, so how is this surprising?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I don’t really see myself as someone people would want to spend time with if they didn’t have to. I’m not all that much fun.”

  “I have a lot of fun with you.”

  I ended up staring at him for a long few seconds, unsure of what to say. Then it hit me.

  “Meeting!” I called again, grabbing Hammy and pulling him into the RV.

  We ended up on the couch this time, with me on top of him. I fit pretty nicely between his legs, and it turned out I accidentally broke buttons on shirts when trying to get them off people. I only broke one, but right in the middle of his chest. He left the shirt undone three buttons so no one would notice. That only had me staring at his chest while trying to sell jerky and honey.

  From across the street, I could see Helen coming our way. She had on sunglasses and about ten leis. They looked like they came from as party store and one good tug would rip them.

  “Afternoon,” she huffed at Hammy and I. “Do you by any chance know where those random cars came from?”

  Hammy shrugged. “No idea. They showed up all on their own.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Totally uninvited. They just took my spot like they owned the place. Assholes, huh?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “It’s bad sportsmanship to try and sabotage.”

  “I agree.”

  “And it really says something that you don’t believe in your product enough that you wouldn’t stoop to such a pathetic level. If you thought you were good, you wouldn’t be doing this.”

  Hammy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I got it the first time you said the sentence, but thanks for repeating it in case we didn’t. Hey, it looks like your hubby needs help over there. You might wanna head over.”

  She looked over her shoulder at Stanley, who attempted to take orders, cook, and hand out food all on his own. He ran around, making the truck rock wildly. He did that every single day, since Helen would mostly stand outside talking to customers and throwing away the trash some left behind. Even from across the street, I could see how stressed out he looked. I would have been stressed too if I married a person like Helen.

  “He’s fine,” Helen said, completely oblivious. “What’s not fine is the two of you. I would appreciate it if you would both knock this off. We take our job way more seriously than you seem to, and I think it’s about time that you leave.”

  “Hmm. No,” Hammy said. “I think you should be the ones to leave. You showed up, took my boyfriend’s spot, and act like you own the place. Take your shitty food and your dumbass looking uniforms and get the hell out of his spot.”

  My heart sang at the defense. No one seemed to see that it was in fact, my fucking spot. But Hammy did. Hammy did because he knew how much it meant to me. I didn’t even mind that he called me his boyfriend. Actually, I liked it a lot more than I wanted to admit.

  Helen snarled like an angry animal. “You brats aren’t going to last another two weeks. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

  She stormed back over to the truck, putting on a fake happy face the second a customer came up to her. Amazing how she could turn it on like that. It must have been her demon powers.

  Hamilton sighed, reminding me that he sat right at my side. As if I could have forgotten when I still felt buzzed from the joy over his admission the spot across the street belonged to me. I yelled that we
needed another meeting, and we ended up back in the RV.

  We stayed in there for a while this time, hidden away in the back while we occasionally heard whistling from outside. It hardly mattered to me, because Hamilton was on my side. Wholly and unwaveringly on my side.

  When we came stumbling out from our third meeting, we got right back to work. A small flood of people came in, dividing between us and the enemy. I got angrier and angrier at every car I saw parking over by them. That gave me another idea.

  “Do you have a lot of friends?” I asked Sam after pulling him aside.

  “Um, I think I have a respectable amount.”

  “Great. Would any of that respectable amount be willing to come and take up all those parking spots so no one could get to that food truck?”

  Sam eyed it, probably calculating how many cars it would take before the spots got taken up. I thought another four or so before it wouldn’t be worth it for someone to pull over. It had gotten too hot for a long walk up hill, and especially for fish. It felt like it would have been easy to take them out now. One more killing blow before Helen lost her damn mind.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Sam said. Then, more determined, he added, “I’ll get it done. Just go have another meeting with Hamilton while we wait.”

  I felt my face get red. “We don’t need another meeting. We have met about every single issue we needed to meet about.”

  “Have you? Have you really?”

  “…yeah.”

  I walked back out from alongside the RV, Sam staying back there as he made his calls to his friends. Hamilton waited at the table, selling off another bag of jerky. He glanced at me as I got to his side.

  “What were you and Sam talking about over there, all tucked away?”

  My eyebrows lifted. “Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  Is he?

  I smiled, leaning in. “What, are you worried he might make a move on me?”

  Readjusting the items on the table, Hammy said, “No, I know you wouldn’t do anything with him.”

  “Oh.”

  Hammy stopped, turning to look at me. “What? Did you want me to be jealous of the him?”

  I shrugged. “I mean… it wouldn’t have been, like, a turn off.”

  He smirked to himself. “Really?”

  I nodded, trying not to smile.

  Hamilton put his hands on the table, leaning down close to me. His voice came out quiet, but almost raspy. “I sure do hate it when other guys look at you.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah, I really do. Especially Sam. I don’t even know what I would do if I thought he was trying something with you.”

  “No?”

  “No. In fact, I might even get a little angry. I might have to threaten him or something, warning him to stay away from my man.”

  “But I’m not yours.”

  Hamilton skimmed my jaw with his lips, then moved toward my ear. “Aren’t you?”

  When he backed away, I didn’t know what came over me. Something must have snapped because I grabbed him by the face right there and kissed him like we had hidden in the RV again. Everyone around us whistled and hollered but I didn’t care. I didn’t mind the heat, or the noise, or the fact that I shouldn’t have been kissing Hamilton. I did what I wanted to do, and nothing else mattered.

  I let go of him, feeling dizzy as I tried to right myself. He at least looked happy, if not a little smug. I could only assume he thought he won the bet he made with himself.

  “Ah,” Bea said, “so I see your meetings are going to take place in front of us now. Well, I hope you’re prepared for what kind of business that might bring.”

  I sighed, turning to her. “Lay off. I have a lot of shit to deal with. First off, there are crazy people in my spot, second, I just remembered I forgot to do my laundry and I am completely out of underwear, and third, my boyfriend is my sworn enemy. Cut me a break.”

  “Boyfriend,” I heard on my other side. I turned, seeing Hammy with a lifted eyebrow.

  I let out a breath I’d been holding. Yeah, that was it. I had to still keep myself from smiling, pretending I didn’t have excitement coursing through me. Hammy could get smug. “And sworn enemy.”

  “I can work with that.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Hamilton

  “It’s almost like he cares,” I said, stretched out in my chair and watching Sam. He walked up and down the street with a sign held over his head that had a list of all our products on it. He had stopped wearing his superhero shirts and had switched over to bright yellow ones, claiming that it would be easier for people to see him in bright yellow. It had the added benefit of making Jay think of honeybees.

  Jay grunted. He had leaned back in his chair with his head tilted up so that he could get blasted in the face with the mister. He didn’t seem to be aware of anything else happening around him.

  A smirk appeared on my face. “Are you having a good time over there?” I asked.

  He grunted again.

  It had been a slow day so far. After the windfall we had gotten the day before, with Bea’s friends helping sell all our goods, it didn’t surprise me. We couldn’t do business like that two days in a row, because we just didn’t have enough variety. People didn’t go through honey fast enough to buy more than one jar a day… unless they happened to be attracted to the kid selling the honey, in which case they sometimes went overboard. The same went for the jerky. Even if these people ate enough to buy more than one bag a week, how often did they get a jerky craving?

  Until we hit the lunch rush, it would be a slow day.

  That didn’t stop Sam from walking back and forth in front of the table with that sign, calling out to anyone who passed us on foot or on a bike. It worked a few times, but for the most part, we just sat back and hoped the sun didn’t burn us to a crisp.

  A snore came from my left as I took a drink of water. Blinking, I turned to stare at Jay, who still leaned back in his chair and let the mister pummel him with water.

  Finishing my drink, I leaned toward Jay. He looked almost peaceful, really, with his eyes closed and his jaw slack. Too bad I couldn’t let him sleep out in the sun. With my mouth just an inch from his ear, I said, “If you want to lay down, there’re better places to do it. You could be naked in the RV, for example.”

  Jay snorted, shooting forward. The motion sent him toppling over to the side and hitting the ground with a small plume of dust. I smirked as he sat back up, blinking at me stupidly.

  “You’re adorable, freshly awake,” I said, sitting back again. “Just think. I’ll eventually get to see you rumpled and adorable every morning.”

  He glowered at me. “You’re awfully confident in yourself.”

  “Why shouldn’t I be?” I asked. “We made out like four times when you were still insisting that we’d be nothing but sworn enemies.”

  “This,” he said, gesturing to me. “Is not endearing.”

  I put my hand to my chest. “You wound me.”

  Jay stood up and bent his body forward. I had little doubt that he wanted to say something scathing, but I just couldn’t help myself. I kissed him, hard. Immediately, Jay pushed me into the chair, his hands gripping my shoulders so tightly that it wouldn’t surprise me to find bruises there later.

  Who knew what we would have done next if Sam hadn’t shouted at us through his megaphone, which Jay had stupidly returned to him. “This is not the time or the place! We are trying to sell food, not porn!”

  Jay glowered at him. “You’re fired.”

  “No, I’m not,” Sam said. “You didn’t hire me, so you can’t fire me.”

  “You’re fired!” I shouted at him.

  “No, I’m not,” Sam said. “If you fire me, then who will watch the stand when the two of you want to make out behind the RV.”

  I frowned. “I think he’s got it.”

  Jay huffed in disgust and released me. He slumped into his seat, still glaring at Sam. “I hope you
know that you aren’t as clever as you think you are.”

  Sam just smirked. “I am the cleverest.” With that, he turned back to the street and waving his sign at every passing car.

  “He is trying hard,” I commented.

  “I haven’t forgiven him for dating you before we met, so excuse me if I refrain from commenting.”

  I let out a burst of laughter. “Is that the problem that you have with him? I assure you, there’s nothing that you have to worry about. He was a nightmare of a boyfriend. Kinda like he’s a nightmare of a friend, now that I think about it. But he’s still working harder than we are right now.”

  “We were up until two in the morning trying new recipes,” Jay said.

  True. We hadn’t had much luck coming up with something new, but we had made barbecue sauce using his honey, and it tasted fantastic. We thought that we could probably sell the jars, but people needed to taste it first. Which meant that we needed to put it on some kind of product… which in turn meant that we needed to make that product. It had been two in the morning when we came to this conclusion, about two seconds before both of us passed out on the couches in my living room.

  “Maybe we can figure something out tonight,” I said.

  Jay didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t outright contradict me, either. Sam walked past us again with his sign in the air.

  “Did you have other friends?” Jay asked. “Does that sound like an incredibly insensitive thing to ask?” He stared at the middle ground, a horrified expression on his face for several seconds.

  I shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me, if it is insensitive, and not really, no. I had a few before my father got sick, but after that, they all went away. It’s hard to maintain friendships when you’re going to the hospital every day and you don’t have nice stories. It didn’t help that when I was dating Sam, he’d get into fights with everyone.”

  “On purpose?” Jay asked.

  “Sometimes, but not usually,” I said. “Sam is just a lot to take sometimes, and people don’t like him.”

  “Ah,” Jay said. “Well, I didn’t have friends either, if that makes you feel better.”