Hard Rock Improv

by Ava Lore

  * * *

  Manny took me to a place called The Earthly Realm of the Waffle Gods, which I had never heard of before but was apparently huge with the late-night/early-morning party crowd. Like a Denny’s but with weirder decor. There was a waffle altar on the front of the “Please Wait To Be Seated” dais, and the woman who took us to our table had a necklace with a golden waffle iron dangling from it. I wasn’t entirely certain I wasn’t still dreaming.

  I sort of hoped I was. That would mean that Manny hadn’t just discovered my secret.

  It was...an interesting place. There were people there who looked like winos, people who had obviously just gotten off of work at the strip club, people who looked like they sold weed for a living. We even passed a table full of BDSM scene kids dressed—barely—in black leather fetish gear. I’d managed not to stare. I was quite proud of that.

  Manny said nothing to me about the shotgun incident or the fact that I’d pulled out a whole new outfit—a more comfortable outfit, complete with flip-flops—from my car as we sat down and perused the menus, and I was grateful for that. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was starving—and thirsty. I ordered water and coffee and downed the whole glass of water before the waitress was even finished taking the rest of our order.

  Manny ordered pancakes. I ordered a skillet full of meat and cheese and onions and bell peppers and all the mouthwatering things I hadn’t had since...well, since forever. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone out with a friend. Oh wait, that’s right, I didn’t have any friends because I had wasted the last few years of my life working ninety hours a week and all the people I knew were lawyers, and none of them wanted to associate with me now.

  I wondered if there were some sort of lower-than-lawyer social designation, because so, it was definitely me. At this point I was probably just above violent criminal, and I didn’t even have any cool tattoos to show for it.

  I blinked, realized I’d been staring bitterly off into space, and that Manny was watching me, his mouth hidden behind laced fingers. I couldn’t tell if he were smiling or not. His eyes had a twinkle to them.

  “What?” I snapped at him, then mentally kicked myself. Dammit! I needed to learn to hold my stupid tongue more often. Here was a man willing to pay for my food. Out of pity, sure, but, well, what else did I have going for me? “Sorry,” I apologized. “I’m tired.”

  “Yeah?” he said. “I bet you are.”

  I didn’t answer him, just looked down at my water glass, now refilled. I took another sip and set it down.

  “So...” I said after a minute.

  “Why are you living out of your car?” he asked.

  I jumped. I hadn’t expected the question to be that blunt. “Um. Er. Um.” My mouth babbled as I tried to think of a plausible explanation for sitting in my car at, jeez, at three thirty in the morning in my pajamas. For the life of me, I couldn’t come up with one, except for the truth.

  I sighed. “I got evicted.”

  There. I said it. I’m a loser.

  But Manny waved a hand. “No shit,” he said. “What I mean is, why aren’t you sleeping at Rebecca’s?”

  I sucked air through my teeth. “I couldn’t impose on her like that!” I said. “There’s already four people living in that house already.”

  “So?” He grinned. “I once lived in a house that size with ten other people, on a good day. Why are you sleeping in your car instead of on the couch?”

  I looked away and bit my lip. “I...well, it’s not really Rebecca’s house, is it?” I said. “It’s Kent’s. I’d have to ask him.”

  Manny chuckled. “Why? Rebecca and Carter do whatever they want.”

  I stiffened and frowned at him. “Well, I don’t.”

  He leaned back in the booth and tilted his head, his golden eyes soft. “Rebecca’s your sister. Why don’t you ask her?”

  I wanted to bang my fists on the table in frustration. “Because I don’t want her to know, okay?” I said. “There, happy now?”

  “No,” he replied. “That doesn’t make me happy at all. How long have you been living out of your car?”

  In for a penny, in for a pound. “Six months.”

  I don’t think he’d expected that. His eyes widened and he leaned forward. “Six months!” he exclaimed. “Are you... did you lose your job?”

  I sniffed primly. “Got fired,” I said, “not that it’s any of your business.”

  He shook his head. “Six months.” He pursed his lips, appearing to think about this. “You got kicked out before Christmas?”

  I shrugged. Gee, I wanted to say, make a big deal out of it, why don’t you? People become homeless every day. And that was true. I’d just never thought it would have happened to me. I was a good girl. I played by the rules. I did my best to please. I knew the game.

  And yet here I was, homeless, jobless, and sitting in some sort of fever-dream diner with one of the hottest, sexiest men I’d ever met.

  ...All right, that last part wasn’t so bad. I mean, it could have been worse. It could always be worse. In fact, when you took the long view, my life wasn’t so bad. At least I wasn’t a sex slave in Thailand or a child soldier in Darfur. I had no right to complain, really.

  Manny, however, didn’t seem to be taking the long view.

  “When did you lose your job?” he asked.

  For a second I chewed my lip, trying to decide if this was any of his business or not, but there’s something very persuasive about a handsome man with golden eyes who’s buying you dinner in the wee small hours of the morning. “Thirteen months ago,” I said.

  Manny smacked his forehead. “Thirteen months!” He stared at me as though I had just sprouted new hands from my nipples. Or something. “How have you been keeping it a secret?”

  I shrugged. “It’s not hard. When I need to meet someone, I have them meet me at a nearby coffee shop, or, like tonight, I park my car in my old apartment lot and stand outside and wait for my ride.” I shrugged.

  “Do you stay in the old apartment lot?”

  “No, someone would notice.”

  Dismay showed clear on his face. “Then where have you been staying?”

  I waved my hand. “Here and there.”

  “Where is here and there?”

  He was not giving up, was he? “Church lots are a good place,” I said. “And Wal-Mart lets you camp overnight if you buy something. You just can’t stay in one place for more than one night. You have to move around.” I shrugged, trying to act as though this was no big deal. “I keep all my stuff hidden, and tonight I was going to crash in the apartment lot. It was late enough that no one would notice.”

  “And you sleep in your car?”

  “In the back. I’m lucky to have a hatch. If I didn’t it would be way more uncomfortable.” I tried to smile.

  Manny did not smile. “Does Rebecca know you lost your job?” he demanded. “She has to know, right?”

  I shook my head violently, panic suddenly spiking through the confusion and exhaustion. “No,” I said, “she doesn’t know and if you know what’s good for you you’ll keep this to yourself!”

  “What?” He seemed taken aback. “Why?”

  I shook my head again.

  I was a failure, but the way I saw it currently it was only a quantum failure. As it stood, I could find a job any day now, really, and then no one would ever have to know about what had happened or that I’d lived out of my car for six months. Then it wouldn’t be a failure. It’d just be a bump in the road.

  But if anyone found out now, while I was at my lowest...well, then I’d be an enormous failure. The outcome would be changed by observing it.

  And Manny had found out.

  But, I thought hopefully, if you can keep him from talking to anyone about it...

  “But...” he began.

  “I’m leaving,” I said. It was a very bad threat, but the only one I had. “I’m leaving if you make this into a thing, okay? It’s not a thing. It’s a temporary setba
ck.”

  His eyebrows rose. “I’m not so sure a full year of this is temporary,” he said. “What happened to make them fire you?”

  Anger lanced through me. “What?” I snapped. “You stick your face in some girl’s pussy and you think you get to be privy to everything that’s going on in her life?”

  From the corner of my eye I saw heads turning in our direction. Mortification burned my ears. How could I be so rude?

  Manny scowled. “No, I find out the sister of one of my best friends is fucking homeless and I want to help. It has nothing to do with sticking my tongue in your pussy.”

  My ears glowed red hot and I scowled back at him. Unfortunately I couldn’t meet his golden eyes for long, and after a second I turned my head away, just in time to see the waitress waft by with our food.

  “Fine, fine,” I heard him mutter over the sudden growling of my stomach. “I get it. I’m sworn to secrecy, I won’t ask why you got fired. It just seems weird to me, that’s all. Rebecca’s always talking about how hardworking you are and how much time you put into your job.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said as my skillet landed in front of me. “Not anymore I don’t.”

  “Hmm,” he replied, and then I had no more time for talking because there was a skillet full of food in front of me. It even had potatoes.

  Before he could ask me any more questions, I dug in.

  * * *

  Food can do wonders for your mood. No sooner had I polished off the last of my cheesy skillet than I immediately felt better about the world and my place in it, and I didn’t even have to compare myself to sex slaves or war orphans to do it.

  I had food. I would have a job again someday. All of this was just...a detour. It would be okay.

  Manny sat across from me, holding his coffee cup in front of him as though he were about to pray to it. I could see he was struggling with something. Well, that was fine. Other people struggled. I strove. That I appeared to be struggling was entirely beside the point. Appearance was of no consequence; where it counted I was doing well. I had a car that worked, and a law degree, and clothes and all sorts of things that others didn’t. It just wasn’t right to complain.

  “Why are you doing this to yourself?” Manny asked finally. “I just don’t get it. You have family that...that loves you and cares about you.” His voice was troubled. “Not everyone has that, you know? You should lean on them when things get bad. That’s what family is supposed to be for...”

  I shrugged.

  His mouth twisted into a half smile. “Didn’t you give Rebecca a place to stay when she was in need?”

  I frowned. “That was different.” That had been back when Rebecca had been running from an abusive relationship with no money and only two trash bags full of possessions. She’d come to stay with me, and I’d happily let her stay on my couch. Then I made her get a job, and on that job she met Kent and the rest of the Lonely Kings. So things had worked out pretty well for her, all things considered. Hot rocker boyfriend, crazy money, crazy fangirls, crazy lots of things.

  “How was that different?” Manny asked.

  My shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug. “I don’t know, it just was.”

  “Because it was Rebecca and not you?”

  I blinked. Ouch. When he put it that way...

  But that wasn’t true, was it? I shook my head. “No, I don’t think that’s it. Rebecca was having a hard time. I’m just between jobs.”

  He quirked a brow at me and smiled, and it was the sexiest come-hither look I’d ever seen. Deep in my stomach something went ba-bump. “In between jobs in your car,” he said, and I realized he wasn’t come-hithering at all, he was being dubious. Ugh. Jerk. I hate it when pretty people look pretty. It’s so hard to tell what they’re thinking.

  But yes. “That’s it. In between jobs in my car.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

  I looked down at my napkin and began to fiddle with it as I tried to think of a way to explain it to him. Then it hit me: my twenty year plan! No one could argue with the Plan. The Plan was foolproof. “Well, I have a Plan...” I said.

  His other brow raised and he leaned back and crossed his arms. As he did so, he stretched his legs out under the table, and one booted foot nudged my bare toes. Even that contact, so removed, made me shiver deliciously, though now I was starting to dislike this attraction. It was distracting me from my goal, which was to get him to leave me alone so I could get on with my Plan.

  “You have...a plan.” Was that a hint of a Spanish accent I detected? He’d been speaking fairly unremarkable English up until a few seconds ago. I remembered how it had come up when he was kissing me

  “Yes,” I said. “A Plan. With a capital P, thanks.”

  His mouth twisted as he suppressed a smile. “And how does living out of your car fit into The Plan?”

  “Well...” I trailed off, staring down at the table in front of me. “It doesn’t really, but the Plan was to work at my firm until I was thirty-five, saving all my money and then buying a condo somewhere or something, and somewhere in that time I’d meet a nice, financially stable guy and we’d get married and then I’d have babies and my husband would stay home to take care of them while I went off and made us millions by establishing my own firm, and...” My voice petered out. The Plan seemed so far away at that moment that it might as well have been on another continent.

  “But you’re not doing the Plan,” Manny pointed out.

  “Yes, I am!” I said. “I just have to get another job and then I’ll be back on track. It’ll be fine.” I looked up and glared at him. “And no one would have even known anything was wrong if you hadn’t come along and found me out!”

  “I see. Clearly it’s my fault your plan is falling apart,” he said. Yes. The accent was there, very faint.

  I straightened up and squared my shoulders. “I know you’re trying to be sarcastic,” I told him, “but yes. The Plan was fine until someone found out it wasn’t working.” Even to my own ears it sounded ridiculous, but I couldn’t help it. It was The Plan. I’d followed it since middle school. If I didn’t have the Plan...what did I have?

  To my shock and shame, Manny’s face began to blur as tears welled up in my eyes at the thought of having no plan, no way forward, nothing to carry me into the future. Abruptly I felt lost, like a bird blown off course. It had been fine up until someone had asked me if I knew which way I was going, and now it was a disaster. I looked down and blinked rapidly so that Manny would not see me cry, but he did anyway.

  I heard him shuffle as he slid along his booth. I wanted to look up to see what he was doing but I was too busy trying to hide my stupid emotions.

  Then my booth bounced a bit as he sat down next to me, and, instinctively, I scooted over, though whether it was to make room for him or to get away from him I couldn’t tell. My body warmed at the smell of cloves and spice and cinnamon and beer, and I realized that I still wasn’t wearing any underwear. The insides of my thighs grew slick and I pressed my knees together, hoping to suppress my reaction somehow.

  Then Manny’s arms slid around me and pulled me close, and I forgot how to think.

  “Oh, Rosa,” he said. My head was pillowed on his chest and the rumble of his voice sent bright sparks across my skin. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to push you like that. It’s just...I don’t like it. This plan...it’s all wrong.” His hands were in my hair, stroking curled strands away from my face, and I shoved my own hands between my knees and pinned them there, afraid that they might start wandering to places that were entirely inappropriate for the setting.

  Not that getting head in a bar parking lot is very appropriate, I thought.

  This was different. So, so different from my life as it had become.

  Where were we again? Oh. Right. The Plan.

  “It’s not wrong,” I said. “It worked great.”

  “Right up to the point where it didn’t,” he said.

  There was nothing for it b
ut to nod sadly. “Right up until it didn’t,” I echoed.

  He pulled back. For a long moment he watched me, and I could barely stand it. I couldn’t be the one who was looked at with pity. I had a Plan.

  Stupid Plan. It worked perfectly in my head. Why was real life so difficult?

  Manny sighed and then leaned his head down until his cheek rested on the top of my head, and I had a sudden vision of him reaching down and tilting my chin up until we were face to face, and then he would lean in, his mouth opening and his tongue slipping out to flutter over the seam of my lips and then I would part them and invite him into my body—

  Oh god. I swallowed as the world went haywire for a moment. Why was I so horny? Why did I want to kiss Manny Reyes again? I mean...aside from the obvious reasons? I had problems. Big problems. Huge-ass problems that required my full attention, and now, when I most needed my brain to be functional, all I could think about was sex.

  To my relief—or possibly disappointment—Manny showed no signs of noticing my pounding heart and sudden shallow breathing. He just held me, and the silence between us grew thicker and thicker until finally I pulled away.

  Manny let go immediately and retreated, getting up and going back to his former seat across from me and the oxygen seemed to return to the room. He took a sip of coffee as I fought my disappointment at once again being able to breathe.

  Abruptly he set his coffee cup down. “We’re going to Hawaii,” he announced.

  I blinked at him. Between stifling my hormones and battling my bitter regrets, I was not keeping up with this conversation. “What?” I said.

  “The Lonely Kings,” he clarified. “We’re going to Hawaii to shoot a video and hold a concert. Tomorrow. Or actually—” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and glanced at it. “—actually we’re leaving today in about...six hours.”

  I blinked again. “Oh,” I said. “I knew that. That’s...that sounds nice.”

  “You think Hawaii sounds nice?” He seemed to be enjoying himself a lot, as though he were taking pleasure in my misfortune.

  I scowled at him. “Yes,” I said. “Hawaii does, in fact, sound nice.”