Booze O'clock

by Bijou Hunter

  “Your brother and dad look a lot alike,” I say, still smiling.

  “Technically, Hayes is Cricket and my stepfather, but I like him better than my biological father who I never had much of a relationship with. So I claim Hayes as my father, but Cap is his bio kid which is why they look the fucking same.”

  “Was your bio dad mean to you?”

  “No. He’s just a dull little dweeb who never wanted my sister and me. I don’t care about him, and I doubt he cares about me either. We have a perfect relationship.”

  Nodding at his reasoning, I can’t get over how relaxed Chipper remains. Last night, he never lost his temper or cool either. I’ve waited all day to return to the chilled vibe of this man, and I can’t deny it feels great.

  “What are Cricket’s babies’ names?”

  “Murphy is the boy. Minnow is the girl. Their fifth birthdays are in December.”

  “Minnow?” I ask. “Like a fish?”

  “No, like the boat.”

  “What boat?”

  “The one from ‘Gilligan’s Island.’”

  Frowning, I remember hearing of the show but never knew the plot. “I didn’t see it.”

  “Oh, well, you’re not missing much. Poet and Cricket have a weird love affair with the show. It’s their thing, but I’m not a fan of it personally.”

  I feel a little awkward as if not knowing about an old show puts me at odds with his family. Now his sister will hate me. Or I could just watch the show and then I’d be in the know. Or I could stop worrying about dumb stuff long enough to enjoy my time with Chipper. Of course, should I really enjoy anything when my mom’s dead? Would she want me to swoon over Chipper? I think she would, but I don’t know. Every question feels unanswerable.

  Before I fully panic at my current situation, I inhale Chipper’s clean scent. More than just soap, I smell the unmistakable rawness of a man. I glance at Chipper and take notice of his neatly trimmed beard. I wonder what it feels like. I even lift my hand to touch his face before regaining my senses.

  What message do I want to send to Chipper? That I’m a hot-to-trot harlot he can take home and plow? No, I’d never pull that off, and I’m scared of sex anyway. I bet it hurts especially with a large man like Chipper. I’m probably the only woman in the world who prays for a tiny dick.

  Ugh, I should not have thought of that word. Now I imagine Chipper naked, and my cheeks are flushed red. He’ll figure out what I’m thinking. How could he not?

  “Do you like orange chicken?” he asks rather than pointing out my tomato-colored cheeks.

  “Sure,” I lie, having never tasted it. “Why?”

  “I’m ordering it from Panda Express for dinner at Bonn’s. I said I would bring food so Ruby wouldn’t have to cook. Back in the day, I used to spend a lot of time with Bonn and Ruby, and they liked orange chicken. Their son, Adric, does too. He’s your nephew which kills me since he’s not that much younger than you.”

  “Oh,” is all I can muster.

  I’ve never eaten Chinese food, not even from a fast food place like Panda Express. I don’t know if I’ll like it or if it’ll make me puke. I have a sensitive stomach and puke easily. Chipper learned this fact last night after I tried to be badass by drinking whiskey. I can’t puke again tonight, or he’ll think I’m a killjoy.

  Chipper pulls into the Panda Express parking lot and then reaches over to take his phone still in my hands. “I’ll order and then go inside to pick it up.”

  “How old are you?” I ask, sounding half-asleep because my throat is so dry.

  “Twenty-six. You?”

  “I turned twenty-one in May.”

  Without looking away from his phone as he types, Chipper smiles. “Cricket was your age when she got knocked up by Poet.”

  I imagine his sister skating confidently through life. A wife and mother, she doesn’t freak out over choosing shirts. Then again, her beautiful mother is alive and well while mine died too young. Soon, I’ll meet Chipper’s family, and I know they’ll hate me.

  “Quit it,” I mutter to myself when Chipper walks inside to pick up the already packed food. “Think happy thoughts.”

  Playing the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” in my head, I close my eyes and think positive thoughts. I’m eating new food and meeting new people. I have this super handsome man interested in me, and he’s been really sweet and hasn’t tried to stick his probably huge dick in my body. Everything is great, and I’m not freaking out at all.

  Once Chipper returns, I open my eyes for the short drive to Bonn’s brick-front house. My half brother lives in a nice neighborhood with two newer cars in the drive. He’s probably handsome and smart. His wife is likely beautiful and smart. What will they think of me in my five-year-old shirt and beat-up sneakers?

  “Why did I agree to come here?” I scream in my head. The happy song gone now, I’m in full-blown hysterical, fight-or-flight mode.

  “I can’t go inside,” I cry as the panic attack tightens around me. “I can’t. No. I can’t. I don’t know. I want to stay here with you. I want to stay with you. Here with you. No. I can’t.”

  The panic eats away everything around me. My past is gone. The world outside the SUV is gone. I can see nothing beyond Chipper, and even the image of his strong, handsome face fades around the edges. I’m about to pass out. I know the darkness is coming, and there’s nothing I can do to free myself.

  CHIPPER

  I’m no expert on women. People often think I should be since my best friends are Cricket and Bianca Bella. I also spent the first part of my life raised by only my mother. All that means is I’m comfortable with women, but I don’t understand them any better than any man does.

  Like now, I’m at a fucking loss. For some damn reason, Tatum has gone cuckoo on me. I handle her in the same way I do Cricket or Bianca Bella when they lose their female marbles.

  Leaning her against me, I gently pat her head with my palm while humming “Wild World” by Cat Stevens. It’s one of the few songs I know the words to, but I don’t break out and serenade Tatum in my horrible singing voice. She’s suffered enough today.

  “I can’t go in there,” she says weakly. She stares up at me, and I notice her dilated pupils are normalizing. “I don’t know him.”

  “I know, but you know me.”

  “Yes,” she says, sighing as if relieved I understand her situation.

  “I rushed you into this moment. I hoped to keep you safe by giving you a hundred reasons to live, but you’re not ready for a hundred. You only need one.”

  Nodding, Tatum sighs again and her quick breaths slow. She’s calmer now, and I am the reason. On the other hand, I read her wrong last night. I’d seen a woman so angry she’d die to get her revenge. Except Tatum isn’t angry. She’s depressed, pure and simple. Sorrow is an entirely different beast than rage, and I need to change my game plan if I want to keep her with me.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, sounding tired.

  “Do you want to go back to your house?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to hang out with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then don’t apologize. We’re both getting what we want.”

  Tatum sits up and stares at me. “I’ve never eaten orange chicken or any other Chinese food. Mom didn’t like it, and I never thought to try it on my own.”

  “There’s something addictive about how you confess minor secrets as if you’re revealing your soul.”

  Tatum gives me a grumpy frown, and I can’t keep my fingers from caressing away her furrowed brow.

  “Let me drop off the food and tell Bonn we’re bailing for tonight.”

  “Will he be angry?” she asks as if she’s a kid rather than a grown woman capable of telling anyone and everyone to fuck off.

  “Who cares?”

  “I do.”

  “Oh. Well, don’t worry about Bonn. He’s my father’s minion, so his feelings don’t matter.”

  “I don’t want to make him
hate me,” she insists, no longer sounding as uncertain, and I catch a hint of her temper in the way her jaw tightens.

  “As a wussy bitch, he’s incapable of hating a sweet gal like you. It’s not in his DNA. So stop worrying and wait here.”

  Tatum doesn’t complain when I get out of the car, but her breathing quickens, and her eyes widen. Like a jackass, I smile at how much she needs me.

  Carrying the bags of food to the front door on Ruby and Bonn’s modest home, I use my elbow to hit the doorbell. Bonn answers almost immediately as if he’s been waiting with his hand on the knob.

  “Where is she?” he asks, opening the screen door.

  “Change of plans,” I announce and receive an annoyed frown from Bonn. “Tatum is intimidated by the idea of you. I tried to tell her how you’re not at all scary. I even called you a wussy bitch, but she isn’t ready to embrace her fellow Howler bastard.”

  “Did you even ask her before coming to my office today?”

  “Sure, but women are allowed to change their minds, Bonn. Hasn’t Ruby taught you that?”

  “You’re an ass.”

  Ruby appears next to Bonn, looking smoking hot for a woman my mother’s age.

  “I dig the Farah Fawcett hair,” I say, giving her a wink.

  “It’s popular again,” she says defensively while her hand caresses her dark locks.

  “Yeah, I heard. So here’s the dinner I promised,” I say, handing the bags to Bonn. “Orange chicken with all the fixings. Enjoy.”

  “You’re not staying?” Ruby asks and cranes her neck to see past me to where my Range Rover idles.

  “Tatum got cold feet,” I explain. “She thinks Bonn might be like Howler. She just can’t accept how much of a pussy your husband is.”

  “Still an asshole,” Bonn says, walking away with the food.

  “Should I talk to her?” Ruby offers.

  “Not tonight. She’s all wound up, but soon she’ll want to know you and Bonn. Chevelle and Adric too. Tatum needs to know Howler doesn’t ruin lives. She can be happy like Bonn is.”

  “You’re sweet,” Ruby says, patting my cheek. “Anytime you want to bring her by, just let us know, and we’ll be here.”

  Smiling, I remember how Chevelle used to bitch about her mother. Typical teenager shit. We’d sit around, talking tough about our asshole parents and how they didn’t understand us. Adults now, we’re very aware we hit the parental lottery. Ruby’s concern of a stranger is another reminder of this fact.

  Leaving Ruby so she can eat before the food gets cold, I return to Tatum.

  “Were they mad?” she asks instantly.

  “Of course not. They’re great people.”

  Tatum watches me in the dark SUV, and I suspect she’s thinking of her mother.

  “Let’s go eat at Panda Express,” I suggest. “You can try each dish and see what you like and what you hate.”

  “What if I hate it all?”

  “Then we don’t eat at Panda Express again.”

  “But you like Panda Express.”

  “Yes, and I’ll eat there without you. One day, you’ll find something you like that I don’t, and you can enjoy it without me. It’s not a huge deal. My parents don’t agree on everything. They compromise when they can’t. Bitch when they can’t. But differences aren’t the end of the world. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”

  “My mom and I were very similar.”

  “By choice or because she was the only important person in your life?”

  “Both,” she says, sounding close to tears at the thought of what she’s lost.

  Pulling away from the curb, I head back to Panda Express where I plan to teach Tatum to embrace her wild side—one sample at a time.

  TATUM

  My mother wasn’t wrong about Chinese food, but she wasn’t right either. I end up finding orange chicken too spicy while pepper chicken makes me gag. Sweet and sour chicken isn’t bad, and I really like teriyaki chicken. Fried rice and chow mien are good too.

  “I think Mom probably tried something and didn’t like it and figured everything tasted the same way,” I say after setting aside what I can’t eat in my to-go container.

  “Do you have a fridge at your house?” Chipper asks, leaning back in his chair and looking too flawless for a fast food restaurant.

  “Of course.”

  Chipper reaches back to toss his plate in the nearby trash. When he looks at me, I shiver at the sly grin on his face. “I mean a safe one where the homeowners won’t steal your shit.”

  “There’s a mini-fridge in the attic where I sleep.”

  “Is it creepy up there?” he asks, and I love the playful meaning behind his words.

  “Not really. Well, yeah, a little at first, but I’m above Paige’s room, and she plays her TV really loud. I think if the house was quiet, it might be creepier.”

  “What kind of place did you live in back in Florida?”

  “A three-bedroom ranch,” I say, immediately deflated at the thought of crying again.

  “Did it have that stereotypical Florida feel?”

  “We had tile floors in a lot of rooms. We also had a palm tree in the front yard. Otherwise, it looked a lot like the houses here.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  Exhaling unsteadily, I’m afraid I’ll cry soon. “I miss her. She knew I couldn’t afford to stay in the house after she died, so she put it on the market and got it sold fast. That way, I’d have money to support myself until I figured things out.”

  Standing suddenly, Chipper takes my to-go container and gestures for us to leave. Even startled, I’m quick to follow him out the door and back to the SUV. Once there, he doesn’t start the car but asks me a question I’m grateful he didn’t ask in the restaurant around strangers.

  “How did she die?”

  “Cancer,” I whisper, hating the word. “Pancreatic. She found out in June and died last month.”

  Somehow, I don’t shed a tear, though the heat behind my eyes tells me I’m close.

  Chipper takes my hand. “She did everything she could to prepare you to be alone.”

  “Yes,” I say, gripping his hand. “She cried for a week and then she started getting things in order. She gave our daycare clients three weeks’ notice. Found a realtor and priced the house aggressively. She had a garage sale to get rid of everything we didn’t need. I kept thinking something would happen to save her. She was so young and didn’t really seem sick. Like you think of cancer patients as being bald and pale, but that’s the chemo, and the doctors said it was too late for that. She was going to die soon. That was it.”

  I wipe my eyes but don’t sob like I expect. My sorrow eases by sharing with Chipper. No one’s talked to me about my mom since she died. All of my toxic pain remained inside where it’s festered until I can barely breathe.

  With Chipper, I release a little of the pain. Something else happens too. Talking about my mom makes her real again. She exists outside my head.

  “When people die,” I whisper, staring at his hands, “they just disappear from the world, and no one cares. It’s almost hard to believe they ever existed at all.”

  “The only person of value I lost was Hayes’s father, Balthazar. For ten years, he was my grandfather. I saw him nearly every day. His caretaker too. Then he got sick with pneumonia. One day, he was sick with a cold. The next day, he was at the hospital. A day after that, he died. Balthazar was an old man, and he lived a good life, but it still shocked me by how quickly he was gone.”

  Chipper pauses to caress my cheek. “His death wasn’t as hard to deal with as how quickly no one mentioned him. His caretaker, who I’d known for most of my life, got another job, and I rarely saw her. She ended up leaving the state to be closer to her family. Balthazar’s house wasn’t his anymore. Hayes sold it to a young family with fat kids whose clothes never matched. I still drive by the house sometimes, even though the fat kids are off at college and probably not even fat anymore. It’s just weird to me how
he’s not there, and someone else sleeps where he slept.”

  “So you do understand.”

  “I wasn’t close with Balthazar like you were with your mom, but I do understand how people want to forget the dead.”

  “My mom’s life revolved around me,” I say and bring up a picture of her on my phone. “She tried dating a few times over the years, and I remember one boyfriend when I was young, but he went away at some point. It was just Mom and me after that.”

  “And you think if she didn’t focus on you, more people would care that she’s gone.”

  Nodding, I exhale unsteadily. “She gave up so much for me. If she had done what Howler wanted, she could have stayed here with her family and friends. She would have met a good man eventually and had kids with him. Her life would be so much fuller.”

  “Your mom wasn’t a child when she chose to keep you. She could have dated more and had girlfriends. Except she enjoyed spending time with you. You said she was your best friend. You were hers too. She chose that. It wasn’t forced on her.”

  I’m so grateful for Chipper’s words that I nearly jump across the seat and attach myself to him forever. I don’t, though, because talking about my mother zaps my energy, and I’m exhausted after crying again.

  “I chose her over other people too. With her gone, I’m alone. The world feels too big and crowded. I’m surrounded by strangers, and I don’t know how to survive.”

  “You have me now.”

  Despite grinning at his words, I say, “We just met.”

  “I know, Tatum. I was there when it happened,” he says, smirking.

  I smile at his snide comment. “Are you taking me home now?”

  “No. It’s boring at your house. You want to spend more time with me.”

  “I do. I can breathe when I’m with you, and I haven’t caught my breath since Mom was diagnosed.”

  Chipper starts the car. “Let’s go to my house, and I’ll introduce you to my cats. We’ll talk more, and I’ll kiss you some, and you’ll swoon because I’m a great kisser. Then I’ll take you back to your house if you want or you can stay in the guest room again. My place is relaxing, and no one will expect anything from you.”