[City Limits 01.0] Roots and Wings

by M. Mabie

  When he saw what I was getting, his eyes grew to the size of saucers. They followed her all the way across the room until she placed the plate down in front of me. If it had been a cartoon, he would have had one of those thought bubbles above his head with my plate in it.

  “Hi there, honey. You want some pie? I’ve got the kitchen shut down, but you can have whatever you like under there.”

  Diana danced around grabbing a bottle of ketchup and mustard off of the table behind where I sat and handed them to me.

  “You want some tea, Mutt?”

  “Yeah. Extra ice, please.”

  “Okay,” she said, handing me a knife and fork rolled in a napkin.

  “See anything in there that looks good to you?” she asked the guy.

  He tapped the glass as he studied the pies. My eyes were drawn to him, trying to figure out who he might be and what he was doing in Wynne.

  “All of them are good, but her apple is the best,” I offered as I stared at the heaping pile of fries. Then, just before I spread out my napkin to begin hacking at the colossal sandwich, which was impossible for me to eat in one sitting, I caved.

  “Do you like tenderloins?” I asked, knowing there was no way I could eat all of it anyway. It was almost humiliating having that much on one plate when this guy was clearly as hungry as a bitch wolf with nine pups.

  “I do,” he answered, looking at me over his shoulder.

  “I’ve got a little over half of this that I can’t eat. I’ll split it with you, if you’re that hungry.”

  Diana crooked her head to the side and opened her mouth, about to make a bigger deal out of my gesture than necessary. Then she snapped it shut just as quick. She knew better.

  I rolled my eyes at her and asked, “Can we get an extra plate, please?”

  “Sure, honey. And what do you want to drink?” she asked the guy as she set my tea down.

  “I’ll take a glass of milk,” he answered and walked over to my table. Then with the same pointing thing he’d done a minute ago, he silently asked if he could sit on the empty side of the booth.

  What was it with this guy and finger pointing questions at me?

  Dramatically, I nodded again, trying to hide my smile. Even if he was grouchy, he’d be nice to look at while I ate.

  Diana came back with his milk, silverware, and the extra plate with a bun on it, setting all of it in front of the guy.

  “I’ll be in back. Holler if you need me,” she said as she winked and walked off. When she got to the kitchen door, I glanced her way and she wafted her hand in front of her face and mouthed, “He’s hot.”

  It was almost comical how he was looking at my sandwich. With my knife and fork, not knowing his stance on strangers touching his food, I cut the tenderloin in half and forked it over to his plate. Then I lifted my plate and spilled half of the fries over to his.

  “So what’s your name? I don’t know you,” I said.

  “Vaughn Renfro,” he answered, but he was more concerned with his food. He smiled up at me, but quickly went back to his full plate, popping a lattice fry in his mouth as he reached for the ketchup.

  I squirted mustard on my bun and placed the pickles on it just how I liked. By the time I was applying ketchup to my fries, he was already digging in to his half. I doused my plate in ketchup, not missing a single bite.

  Observing my overuse of ketchup, he looked at me questioningly with his mouth full. His face had changed from the hungry, frustrated one that walked in to a friendly, more likeable one. Now I could see what Diana was saying.

  He was seriously hot.

  Blue eyes. Short, dirty-blond hair. I watched the muscles in his jaw work as he hauled ass on the sandwich. I also took note of his forearms and big hands.

  We ate in almost silence, except for the moaning and grunting coming from the other side of the booth. And I’m not proud to admit it, but the sounds he made were kind of hot, too.

  “Pretty good stuff, huh?” I asked, capturing a piece of ice and giving it a loud crunch.

  He cringed immediately at the sound, then swallowed.

  “Oh my God, I thought I was going to die.”

  “Yeah, I could tell. You had that hungry man thing going on.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, sorry about that. It’s been a hell of a day.”

  “I hear you.”

  “So how is it that you can get served food when the kitchen is closed? I need to learn your trick.” He sat back and took a long drink of his milk. It left a little white ring on his lip before he licked it off. Under normal circumstances, it would have looked dumb. But him doing it? Well, it was hot. I’m not going to lie.

  “I’ve known Diana my whole life. I work across the street. No trick. I just called her a while ago and had her keep it warm for me.”

  He looked thought the window at our building across the street. “You work at that garage over there?”

  “Yep,” I answered as I kept eating. I was hungry too, but, unlike this guy, I liked to enjoy my food.

  “Did she call you ... Mutt?” he asked, his facial expression confessing he thought he’d heard wrong.

  “Yep.”

  “Why would she call you that?”

  I hated that question, but I gave him my stock response anyway.

  “It’s a family name.”

  Which was true. If my mom hadn’t been such a friendly lady, I’m sure it never would have stuck. Before he could say anything more about it, I asked him a question to change the subject.

  “What were you shitting about in your vehicle when I walked in?”

  He leaned forward, propping his elbow on the table and ran his fingers over his head. Something he’d done a few times already. Must have been a nervous tick.

  “Well, I’m the new dentist in Dr. Carver’s office, and I’ve been moving all day.”

  That was all he needed to say. I hated moving. Not that I’d ever moved, but I’d helped friends move plenty of times, and it was total bullshit. He could have stopped there and I would have called that justification, but he continued.

  “I had a flat on the U-Haul about two hours into the drive. Then when I got here I realized I’d packed the new house keys in the trailer. I had to unload some of the boxes on the driveway until I found the one they were in. I don’t have any food in the house and I was starving. So I drove here, remembering there was a restaurant on this corner, and just as I pulled in, my check engine light came on.”

  Shit. That was a bad day.

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah, but, honestly, it doesn’t seem near as bad now.” His eyes locked on mine and a flutter of something came to life in my stomach when he smiled at me again. “Everything looks a little better on a full stomach. You know?”

  He sure as hell looked better to me on a full stomach.

  Just before I let those exact words slip from my mouth, Diana called from the kitchen.

  “You two doing all right out there?”

  “Yes, that was amazing,” Vaughn answered.

  “Diana, this is Vaughn. He’s the new dentist, and he’s moving into the old Robinson place, right?” I knew that was right because I’d seen the for sale sign was gone from the yard the other day and hadn’t heard of anyone else buying it. It was the last house in town on the road out to our place. I loved that house, but it was going to need a lot of work.

  “I guess. It’s the house just south of town on this street.”

  Diana came over to shake his hand and clean up our plates. “Well, it’s nice to meet ‘cha. Welcome to Wynne. I’m Diana. I’m always open ‘til eight, but I usually shut the kitchen down at seven, seven thirty. We’re closed on Mondays and only open from eleven to five on Sunday. You can always call something in if you’re running behind.”

  “I appreciate it, thank you. I’ll remember that,” he said, his voice calmer than it had been before. “By the way, that was incredible. I’m sure you’ll see a lot of me.” He was much more charming once he ate a meal and stoppe
d to catch his breath—even after his shitty day.

  Diana blushed and waved a hand at him.

  “You have my ticket, Di? I’ll settle up with you,” I said, knowing she wanted to get the hell out of there. She had a new grandbaby at home, and since her daughter, Faith, was now living with her, she probably had a ton of things to do before she even sat down herself.

  “No. Honey, your daddy got yours earlier when he and Dean were in. Dean said he was probably gonna clean up and head down to Sally’s or The Tap. You ought to go down. I think there’s a band somewhere tonight.”

  Although that sounded fun—or as much fun as was possible on a Saturday night in a small town, population 3,400—I was ready to take my shoes off and just have a beer in the garage at my workbench.

  “Not tonight, I’m licked.” For those of you not from Wynne, that means tired, but in that moment I knew what I’d said and who I’d said it in front of. I quickly glanced to the man I’d only known for about thirty minutes and fire burned under my embarrassed cheeks. “I’m tired,” I corrected in case he thought I’d meant something else.

  He failed at hiding his amusement, but didn’t laugh at me, which I appreciated.

  In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I was rough around the edges for a chick. I always had been. I was raised by my grandpa and dad, in a town where kids didn’t go to the arcade, they went to a creek. Where we didn’t go to the beach and get a tan, we bailed hay for the neighbor and got burned. I barely wore makeup, and most days my hair air-dried from my rolled down truck window on the way to the shop.

  I only dated one guy in high school, and he turned out to be a real ass, which was okay because the poor dope was as bald as a knob and his wife slept around on him with the bartender at The Tap. Other than him, I’d had my share of hits and misses, but nothing major. The dating pool in Wynne was shallow, a lot like the gene pool.

  I could out-fish any man in our county. Clean my catch twice as fast.

  It was known that I could change a tire faster than Dean, when push came to shove.

  I even killed all my own spiders, and I wasn’t afraid of the dark.

  Yet, there in Diana’s diner, I was blushing like a Barbie doll because I said the word licked in front of a man whose face I couldn’t quit staring at. I’d be lying if I said saying it hadn’t brought up certain explicit images in my mind.

  Simply put, I was a bit hard up and it had been awhile. A long while. I needed to get out of there before I really made an ass of myself.

  In my reverie, I’d missed what Vaughn and Diana were saying. My thoughts had drowned out their words. I got up and headed for the door.

  “I’ll see you Tuesday, Diana. Nice to meet you, Vaughn,” I said as I stepped out into the warm spring night about to cross the street to my old pickup truck.

  Before I knew it Vaughn was outside, too, saying, “Hey, you said you worked over there. You think they’d be able to take a look at my Escalade next week? Like I said, the check engine light just came on. Hopefully it isn’t anything major, it’s not that old, but I need to get it checked.”

  I turned around and walked backwards, not wanting to stop in the middle of the street, but not wanting to be rude.

  “Sure, bring it up on Monday. I’ll see if my dad or Dean can hook it up to the diagnostic thing. Shouldn’t take too long.” I spun back around, jumped up on the curb and opened my truck door. It creaked—which I thought of as an anti-theft feature, even if I never locked it—then I hopped in. I chanced a look back at Vaughn, who was still standing there by the door of the restaurant.

  I cranked my grey beast to life and rolled down the window.

  He shouted, “Thanks for the sandwich.”

  “See you Monday. I hope tomorrow runs a little smoother for ya,” I shouted back as I pulled out and headed for home. He lifted a hand and gave me a little wave as I drove off.

  I slowed a little as I rode past the old Robinson house. We lived on the same road, but we were out of town about a mile and a half and they were the first house on the edge of the city limits. I drove past it nothing short of twice each day.

  I saw the boxes he’d unloaded to get his house keys on the driveway, stacked neatly against the garage door. The whole bungalow needed a new coat of paint, and maybe even a new porch. As far back as I could remember, it had always been that color and it had never been remodeled, only maintained—if you could call it that. There were dowels missing from the railing on the porch and the screen door on the side was never shut and latched all the way. Sometimes it would swing in the wind if the weather was bad. It needed a new roof, too.

  I’d been in it a few times as a child, and I was sure the inside was just as dated and neglected. It was nice that someone was going to fix it up.

  I smiled to myself and my boot pushed down on the gas pedal, speeding up on my way out of town.

  I didn’t know Vaughn, but anyone who would move to Wynne—from anywhere—and fix up one of its oldest houses, and take over for a dentist who’d been a lifelong resident ... well, he had to be pretty ambitious. And sadly, that’s one thing our little town lacked.

  Ambition.

  I pulled into our shed, where I normally parked, and killed the engine. It was only a little after eight, but I knew if I started on the lures I’d be up all night. And I had to get those invoices straightened out in the morning.

  So instead, I grabbed a beer from the old fridge next to my workbench, let the tailgate down on my truck, and sat there in the dark, thinking about the new guy and watching the stars.

  Chapter Two

  Vaughn

  I’d had the day from hell. I take that back, I’d had the month from hell.

  My ex-girlfriend Rachelle, the woman I’d been with for nearly two years, left me about a month before we were moving to Wynne to start our life together. Or what I thought was going to be our life together.

  Turned out the old saying, easy come, easy go, rang true for us.

  Therefore, all of the paperwork for the closing of the house had to be re-filed, which caused the closing date to be pushed back and only left me with about a week to work on the house before I was supposed to begin at the office.

  I didn’t mind going back to work. I loved what I did.

  What I hated was the upheaval of it all. Having my things in boxes. Having a mile-long list of things that needed completing.

  Mostly, I hated the new idea of doing it all alone. Of course I was capable, a thirty-one-year-old man who’d accomplished many goals.

  What it boiled down to was I was one of those guys who was ready for a partner. I wanted a family, and I wanted a community like the one I’d visited when I was younger.

  Besides, I liked the idea of taking a leap of faith with someone. To me, it was an adventure.

  I’d always lived in bigger cities, but I never actually knew anyone. Never had a real connection, or a sense of belonging to a community. In Cleveland, Rachelle and I got along fine, but I looked at the move as an opportunity to get closer.

  To build something together.

  To finally put down some roots somewhere where children grew up the way I’d always wanted to.

  It wasn’t like I was destitute. Things would work out. I knew that. I just had to think of it as part of the ride, and if the people in Wynne were anything like the woman I’d met at the diner, offering half her meal to me without expecting anything in return, I was in the right place.

  Some days I thought I missed Rachelle, then I’d think maybe it was just the idea of her. Other days, the harder days like today, I was angry I’d tricked myself into believing someone else might actually want what I did.

  When I pulled up at the house, and saw the mess I’d left, out in the open for anyone to take, I wanted to give up for the night and just go to bed.

  Then I remembered the furniture we’d picked out and paid for wasn’t there yet. I’d had to reschedule the delivery, and it still wouldn’t be there for a few more days.

 
; I opened the garage and unloaded the rest of the trailer, sorting boxes by room. After I had every piece out and organized to move into the house as I’d need them, I opened the back hatch to my SUV, pulled out my sleeping bag and the duffel I’d packed for myself, and went inside.

  Tomorrow would be a better day. It had to be.

  ⟡⟡⟡

  I woke up early after dreaming about the wavy haired girl from the restaurant. It was one of those dreams I couldn’t really remember, but I was sure I’d looked at her face all night. Remarkably, I woke up feeling pretty good about the day.

  I’d moved all of my things across part of the country by myself.

  I had a new house.

  A new job.

  And it was a new day.

  I wasn’t going to start my new life in Wynne with a chip on my shoulder. It didn’t feel right unpacking all of the last month’s baggage from Cleveland here. So I chose to let it go the best I could.

  I showered in my empty upstairs bathroom, put on the clothes I’d packed, and headed to the garage in search of my coffee maker.

  All I needed was water and power, and even if I didn’t have much more than that in the house, I did have those.

  I could drink it black.

  My coffee mug, a few coffee pods, and the maker found, I made my first cup of coffee in my new home and listened to a light rain shower pass over through the screen door.

  As I waited for the rain to stop, I took out my phone and made a list of things I had to accomplish in the next few days.

  It was a long list.

  It would have been much easier if I’d had more time, like the original plan. And it would have been easier if I’d had a partner to help, but nonetheless, it was my list and the only way to work my way down it was to start.

  I found my radio in the garage, plugged it into an outlet in the living room, and opened all of the windows.

  At only nine in the morning, I decided painting the laundry room was my first task. It was the smallest room to tackle, and if I could accomplish at least one whole room, it would be the momentum I needed to confidently attack the rest.