"Ester?"
"I'm sorting through that request," she said carefully. They all expected him to implode. It wasn't a matter of if, but when.
"I'm still sober," he said.
"Of course...sorry. I'm sure it's terrible for you when we assume the worst but crashing the bus, and now driving off with Linda's car…. It's hard to know what to think."
"There might be a girl."
"You mean Angie?"
"No, a girl I like."
"Elizabeth? I thought you said they were on their way."
"They are. With me."
Ester sighed. "You're driving them home? What about the insurance stuff?"
Tommy's eyes stayed glued to Elizabeth. She leaned forward to make sure Granny could hear her, and the two of them made each other laugh. Her hair was tossed around in the breeze and she kept pushing it out of her face. She caught him looking and crushed him with that smile again.
He didn't know what to say next. "I need...something right now. One good thing."
"Did you tell her about your issue?"
She meant not drinking. Tommy didn't answer.
"It won't matter to her. She was falling for your sweet brown eyes the minute she stepped through the door."
Ester was right, though. He had to tell her. "I will," he said.
"Isn't she kind of vixeny for you?"
Elizabeth picked that moment to yank the fleece over her head. The shirt she had on underneath rode up to show a slender band of brown skin at the waist. She shook the fleece out, and the neckline of her top gaped enough to reveal a pale pink bra strap.
"Or just vixeny enough," he said.
"Oh. Has anything happened?"
All this information gathering was to appease Rayanne, but he wasn't about to cooperate. "I'll fill you in later."
"I'm all for you, bud, but is this the best time?" He knew what she meant.
"I thought that part of me was dead and it's not. I want to, you know, help them out."
"Good for you. I'll cover for you. Now give me something. A nibble. A tiny hint."
"Gotta go," Tommy said.
"Wait! You have to talk to Linda after everything that's happened."
"I'll have the car back to her tomorrow night. I'll do it then. Tell her ‘leave without pay’ is fine. We've got Auntie with us. We're on a mission. Thanks, E."
He returned to the table.
"What did Linda say?" Elizabeth asked.
He shrugged, trying to convey a sense of mystery. "You ladies ready to go?"
"I'm missing my work," Granny said. The elder had slowed down. She still had half a doughnut on a napkin in front of her.
"Oh yeah?" Tommy said. "Where's work?"
"When she goes to the casino, she calls that work," Elizabeth said.
"It is my work," Granny said.
"I can take you to work," Tommy said, pulling out his phone. "There are casinos up and down this highway. You want to stop at lunch or do you want to stop for dinner?"
Granny tapped her finger at him. "I knew you was one of the good ones."
Even as they were on the road, Elizabeth expected Tommy to reconsider this road trip. A couple of times she said, "You can still change your mind." But he shook his head.
The afternoon passed quickly. As they headed south, the sky was clear except for a few puffy white clouds. Tommy found a classic country station and Granny napped in the back as they sped down the highway.
"What did you study in college?" she asked.
"You know, the usual. This and that," he said.
She leaned over and playfully punched his arm. "We're road tripping now. Knock off that mysterious stuff."
He rubbed his arm, pretending he was in pain.
She tried again. "What kind of student were you?"
"Struggled." He took his time, carefully choosing his words. "I wasn't much of a student. Easily distracted, I guess. How about you? Were you a brainiac like Linda?"
"My issue was that I was homesick all the time. Then Leo died and I felt guilty because I wasn't there. I came home. The only reason I even finished was because Granny insisted. I didn't want to let her down." Elizabeth left out the part she didn't want to talk about.
"Did you ever think about grad school?" he asked.
"Ugh. No more school. I want to be home and with my family."
"I agree with you on the school. Linda sat me down one time. Since I like working with the kids, she thought I should be a teacher."
"What do you think?"
Tommy paused, trying and failing to picture it. "It took a platoon to get me through a two-year degree. Not sure I'm capable of more. We're about an hour away from the casino I had in mind. Granny can punch her time card, and we could get some dinner."
Elizabeth nodded. "At first, I wanted to discourage it but the casino is a good idea. We can stay there and get a decent room. Usually when we go somewhere, Granny wants someplace cheap. Like, the most terrible bargain lodge with torn curtains and flimsy towels you can see through and road construction outside so that jackhammers wake you up before the sun rises."
"Sounds like my apartment," Tommy said.
"Then we have to go to the horrible restaurant that's attached. Not a good greasy spoon like that place this morning. No, a terrible place where everything comes out of the same fryer. She orders the same thing–a patty melt with French fries. And she never complains no matter how terrible it is."
"Does she like those places because no one asks whether she has a reservation?"
"Hilarious," she said with a groan.
Granny snickered in the back.
Elizabeth turned around. "We're stopping in an hour, so you can make some money, that okay?"
Granny reached up and patted her arm. "Thanks, Lizzie."
12
They walked through the casino doors and into the tiled entry. Tommy was amused to see Granny a few steps ahead of them.
"You play? Elizabeth asked.
Tommy shook his head. "Never interested me."
"I think it's fun in small doses like a weekend out of town with the girls, but no more than that."
"So, it's not your job," Tommy said.
"Very funny," she said.
Granny elbowed her way past elders decades younger and straight to the machine she wanted. She plopped herself down in a chair and dug around her fanny pack for her wallet.
"You want me to hang out with Granny, so you can wander around?" Tommy asked.
"Go!” Granny said with a dismissive wave. “I don't like people watching me."
"She lives for this." Elizabeth glanced at her phone. "Granny, we'll come back and get you for dinner, is that okay?"
All of Granny's attention was on the screen.
"We'll come back in about forty-five minutes and take her to the buffet," Elizabeth said.
"That's precise," Tommy said.
"It's more like an hour, but it usually takes some time to find her," Elizabeth said. "Shall we get a drink?"
Tommy hesitated before he shook his head. "Why don't you school me on how these crazy machines work."
"Certainly." She wandered through the various banks of machines before deciding on one. "Sit."
Tommy did as instructed. The machine had an image of a wolf howling at the moon at the top. The screen in front of him was a grid that displayed a random assembly of symbols and shapes: a caldron, something that looked like a lumpy basket, a bow and arrow, numbers in multiples of one hundred.
"What is all this? Do I need a row of wolves to win?"
"All will become clear shortly," Elizabeth said. "Do you have money?"
Tommy pulled out his wallet to see if he had any cash. His secret wad of twenties would have come in handy on this trip. Too bad he hadn't planned this better. All he had on him was a twenty and two singles. At least Angie had left him something. He didn't have money to lose but he was the one who’d asked to see the machines. The demonstration would not last long. He pulled out the twenty and
fed it into the machine. Elizabeth leaned over his shoulder and touched a finger to a round glowing button in a line of confusing buttons. He couldn't focus his attention with her chest pressed into his back.
"You want the maximum bet. Your credits show in the corner of the screen. That button makes the bet." She rested her hand on his shoulder.
He took a deep breath. The buttons were different sizes but the labels meant nothing. He hadn't heard a word. He pressed the round button in the middle, and the images on the screen moved around in a dazzling display of changing lights while the speakers played sounds that meant his money was being chewed up and taken away. The animation stopped and a series of neon lines crisscrossed the results.
"Great job," Elizabeth said.
"Did I win?"
"Yeah. You got some gold coins, what looks like a raccoon tail, a stack of barrels and a bunch of sharp silver rods. Spears?"
"How much?"
"Nothing monetary."
She leaned against him again. His body was responding predictably.
"Try again," she said in his ear.
Lust for a woman who gave him her complete attention. When was the last time that happened? His heart thumped in his chest. His eyes stared at the symbols without seeing them.
Tommy did as he was told and watched the symbols reassemble in front of him. Elizabeth remained pressed against him while she went through the results. "Even better. You got trolls, two kinds of owls, a box of jewels, and what looks like a pile of sticks, kindling perhaps."
"You have no idea how this works, do you?" Tommy said, twisting around to face her.
"I have an idea," she said, making it sound like she was talking about something else. She held his gaze until his groin went tight.
A wolf howl came out of the speakers. Tommy felt like he was panting. He returned his attention to the screen. "I press the button, and the money goes away."
"This is how our people make money. Stick with it," she said. "It takes the machine a while to warm up."
"I don't believe you," he said, but he pushed the button again. The same jangle of sounds and flashing lights. He identified a different sound, an owl hooting?
"See? You won credits that time." Elizabeth pointed to one corner of the screen where the credit count zipped upward.
A thrill surged through him. His luck was changing. "How much?"
Elizabeth squinted at the numbers. "Seventy-five cents."
He tried to hide his dismay. "I thought it would be more."
"Isn't that how it always is?"
He dutifully continued to play, watching his credits dwindle. He was down to his last play when Elizabeth stopped him.
"We need some magic voodoo," she said.
"I hope you've got some because I'm fresh out."
"Last one, together." Elizabeth hugged him from behind, grabbing his hands and threading her fingers with his. She held their hands above the button. "Sorry. Too familiar?" she said, her breath in his ear.
"I'm good," he said, but his hands would have been shaking if she wasn't holding on to them.
"Think good thoughts." She held him tight. He throbbed with longing. The thought that sprang into his head was of him spinning Elizabeth around and pushing her back against the machine, pulling her legs around his waist and using his hands to cup her ass and rock her hips against his. How about that for magic voodoo? An unintended gasp snuck out of him when she pushed their hands on the button. He hung on to her while the screen went through its pulsing lights and chirps and beeps.
Elizabeth pulled away from him and squealed. "We won!"
Tommy didn't see anything new on the screen but the credit count rolled up again.
"What now? A dollar? Five dollars?"
"One hundred bucks," Elizabeth said. She gave him a high-five.
"For real?" he said.
"For real," she said.
There was a brief moment when he was going to hug her from the front but he stopped himself. "Show me how to cash out."
"Are you sure?"
"I know everything I need to know about the slot machines," he said, surprised by his relief. A hundred bucks in his pocket, while they were on the road, would come in handy.
She pressed the button and held up the ticket once it had printed. "You want to try some table games?"
"Perhaps you've mistaken me for one of them rich Indians. You might have to shift your attention elsewhere if that's what you're looking for."
"My attention is fine where it is, thank you very much." She grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him on the lips, like it was something they did every day, and then pulled away to gauge his reaction.
The noise and lights of the casino floor faded away until it was only Elizabeth in a warm glow in front of him. He leaned forward, and she kissed him again, this time with intent. She put her arms around his neck and gently bit his lower lip. He couldn't help the gasp of surprise, and she smiled and pulled him closer and dipped her tongue into his mouth, peppermint and good fortune.
His arms circled around her and she was exactly as soft and sweet-smelling as he imagined. He couldn't remember the last time anyone kissed him. Only a few times since he got sober.
"You taste like a mountain," she growled in his ear.
"That's good?" Tommy asked, suddenly self-conscious about everything.
"It's insane," she said and focused back on his mouth again.
It seemed obvious that this was what he was hoping for when he volunteered for this trip, but now that it was happening, it was a surprise the way she felt in his arms and the confidence with which she made this decision.
"We have to get out of here," Elizabeth said.
Elizabeth slid her hand down his arm and threaded her fingers into his. She pulled him along, not sure where she was taking him. She couldn't wait to get that shirt off of him. He wasn't a huge guy, but he was all tight muscle wherever her hands landed. Her eyes darted around the casino. She needed a plan. These situations where two people had a connection always managed to resolve themselves. They'd get a room.
"Elizabeth," Tommy said. He squeezed her hand. She squeezed back, understanding his impatience. Now that they knew they wanted the same thing, it couldn't happen fast enough. She stopped again. Casinos were all the same–confusing mazes of machines and ugly carpet. She wanted the hotel lobby.
"Elizabeth," Tommy said again. He pulled her to a stop and faced her, those sweet, mournful eyes looking deep into hers. She leaned up to kiss him again. She was ready to climb onto him right there in the lobby.
He put a hand on her shoulder, not pushing her away, just enough pressure to hold her in place. "Granny?"
Granny.
"Right," she said, her desire not quelled in the least. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth in a feeble attempt to change the course of her thoughts, but all her desire was balled up and focused on this one warm-blooded gorgeous man. Her head flipped through the possibilities. She'd planned extracurricular fun around Granny before. "Dinner first. I can sneak into your room after she goes to bed."
Tommy took a moment, as if he had to swallow a golf ball. He chuckled to himself, a private joke she didn't get. "I'm not going to have a room. I'm sleeping in the car."
"Why would you sleep in the car?" There was no way this guy was sleeping in the car.
"That hundred bucks is the majority of my wealth at the moment," he said. "I can't get a room here. I don't even have a toothbrush. I didn't think this through at all."
Elizabeth's lust waned with the uncertainty. "Are you sorry you're here?"
"No," he said unequivocally, "it's not that."
"Okay, we won't fool around." She hated the idea but they would figure something out. "Tonight, anyway," she added.
Tommy's body made a funny little tremor.
"You don't have to sleep in the car. We can get a room with two beds. I'll sleep with Granny." There was something unbearably sad about him thinking sleeping in the car was a possibilit
y.
"Don't you think it's weird to all stay together?" They still stood face to face. He reached up to push her hair over her shoulder, his fingers brushing over her throat. A different, more uncertain feeling rose in her, a growing fondness. She wanted more than a tussle.
"It's not weird," she said. "It's part of our tradition."
"It's part of your tradition to invite the guy who works for your cousin to stay with you and your Granny? I've slept in a car lots of times."
"Linda's like your family, and now you're like our family," she said.
"If you think Granny won't mind. Shouldn't we get her for dinner?"
From somewhere across the casino there was a chorus of celebratory cheers. She grinned at him, as if the joy of strangers meant something good for them, too. She kept his gaze and kissed him one more time, with a promise of more to come.
By the time they found Granny, she'd secured a casino club card and sweet-talked someone into giving her coupons for the buffet and a discounted room.
"One of the advantages of traveling with a famous elder," Elizabeth told Tommy.
"What are the disadvantages?" he asked with a playful smile.
"As if you didn't know," she said, her hand grazing his ass.
She followed Tommy as he walked Granny through the buffet, two plates balanced on a tray. He never ran out of patience with her. And Granny hung on to him, too. He was worming his way into everyone's heart.
Granny schooled him on how to work a buffet. "Don't waste your time on those salads at the beginning. They take too much room and then you don't got a place for the good stuff." Tommy made sure she got both prime rib and salmon like she wanted.
After dinner, they dropped Granny off in the room and went back to the parking lot to get the bags.
"See, she doesn't care," Elizabeth said. The parking lot was huge, but Tommy led them right to the car.
"I think she wants me for herself," Tommy said. He handed her one backpack and threw the other over his shoulder.
"You might be right."
"I gotta figure out what I'm doing," he said. "No bags."
"You can wear one of my T-shirts," Elizabeth said.
Sweetheart Braves Page 9
