For You

by Kristen Ashley

  But I had other things to worry about.

  I couldn’t say I liked Lore, I couldn’t say I disliked him. He was a good guy mostly, funny, interesting. Still, I avoided him, for different reasons than I avoided Colt. Loren was persistent and I didn’t want to give him the inkling he had a way in because if he had it, he’d never let it go.

  This wasn’t easy for me, pointing a finger at someone, even a jerk which Loren definitely was. But we were talking murder.

  “No, there’s nothin’ you don’t know.”

  “Don’t keep shit from me, Feb, not with this.” His voice was still pissed, actually now it was more pissed.

  “You think this is easy for me? Lore’s got kids. Jessie slept with him in high school. Turns out it’s him, Jessie’d be creeped out for years. Those kids –”

  Colt interrupted me. “That all you got?”

  I pulled my hair away from my face, holding at the back and stayed quiet.

  Then I let my hair go and repeated softly, “This isn’t easy for me, Colt. It’s not only not easy, I don’t like it,” I paused and swallowed before I finished, “not at all.”

  We were both quiet then.

  Colt broke the silence and he didn’t sound pissed anymore. “Go back over the list, Feb. There are three men on that list still in town or close to town who fit the profile. And they have silver cars.”

  I was a little surprised he knew that much and was that thorough. He knew what he was asking me to do that morning, he knew exactly.

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  “Not sayin’, just look at the list.”

  “I thought you weren’t working this case?”

  “Not officially but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna sit on my fuckin’ hands when you’re findin’ dead bodies, cryin’ in my arms and my dog’s dead.”

  That made me go quiet again.

  Colt wasn’t quiet. “Feb, go back to the list.”

  “All right.”

  He didn’t say anything for awhile and for some reason I didn’t let him go just stood in his kitchen with him on the other end of my phone.

  He again broke the silence by saying, “I’ll talk to Sully. Someone’ll look into Lore.”

  That didn’t make me feel better at all but I was glad he trusted me on it.

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  “Later.”

  “Later.”

  I flipped my phone shut and went back to the list.

  * * * * *

  She walked into J&J’s when I was behind the bar.

  It was late afternoon but it was Saturday and we had a decent crowd, nothing overwhelming but enough to make me think people had not yet cottoned onto the situation, therefore avoiding J&J’s and me like the plague.

  I felt my neck get tight when I saw her.

  Susie Shepherd.

  I’d never liked her because she wasn’t easy to like. Won every competition going, had so many tiaras she could convince herself she was queen of the world (and I suspected she did). She was also head cheerleader since she was a sophomore. It was unheard of for a sophomore to be head cheerleader the top spot always went to a senior. But Susie’s Daddy made it so, meaning Susie had cheated girls out of the top spot for two years running. I was no cheerleader but I thought that was low.

  Since then I kept in loose touch with Wyatt Taylor sharing a drink with him every once in awhile when I hung at J&J’s while I was home. Wyatt had been in Colt and Morrie’s crowd but he drifted away after school mainly because he got a Master’s degree and a great job that meant a lot of travel, even some of it out of the country. Though they remained friendly, he wasn’t exactly in with cops and construction workers.

  Wyatt had dated Susie, fallen deep and asked her to marry him. Then she thought she’d nailed it and showed her true colors so he called it off. Told me he got a visit from her Daddy and a trip to Hawaii if he kept his mouth shut about dumping her. He went to Hawaii. Still everyone knew he was the one who dumped her mostly because she was a bitch.

  She sidled up to the bar, eyes on me and I was surprised, the way she was acting, that she hadn’t put on rubber gloves and donned a contamination suit and mask. Beer and shots at J&J’s was not Susie’s style.

  I’d often wondered how Colt got caught up with her but looking at her I no longer had to wonder. She was always beautiful when she was young and now. A knockout.

  However, considering all the shit that had come at me the last few days, I totally forgot about her. Now I was going to be sleeping in her boyfriend’s bed.

  This was not good.

  Morrie was in the office, Dad was down the bar and Ruthie was casing the crowd, getting drink orders.

  It was up to me mainly because she came right at me.

  “Hey Susie,” I greeted, taking a step toward her as she slid on a stool with a look on her face that said she’d rather the stool was disinfected before she put her immaculate ass on it. “Get you a drink?”

  I was trying to be casual. She knew all about me and everyone knew Colt wanted nothing to do with me. Furthermore, her boyfriend was a cop, he’d need to talk, let shit go and she, in my mind, was that source. She had to know the way it was.

  “Diet,” was all she said and I turned, leaned, nabbed a glass off the back of the bar then twisted back, grabbed the beverage gun and dunked the glass in the ice bin. “Lots of ice,” I dunked it again, “add a lemon.”

  No “please” nothing. I was her minion, this was an order.

  I could see she was still a bitch.

  I pulled a lemon out of the tray and slid it onto the side of the glass. I even threw in two thin, red straws just to cap it off. That night I was going to be sleeping in her boyfriend’s bed, she deserved more than one straw.

  She took the glass, sucked on the straws and turned away. I saw Joe-Bob was watching her like he was a flightless chicken in a coop and a fox just dug under the wire.

  Thankfully I was dismissed so I took off, going to office, telling Morrie I was going to restock the fridges then hightailing it to the back storeroom.

  When I got out carrying a mixed box of beers, Morrie was behind the bar, his eyes on Susie (who was ignoring him) and his cell to his ear. Conversation in the bar was muted. People were waiting. They knew there was going to be a showdown, Susie was itching for it.

  I ignored all this and got down to business with my box and the fridges, crouching low and rotating the new with the old.

  It took five minutes from Morrie’s call to Colt arriving at J&J’s. I wanted to escape but I didn’t want what my escaping would say to be said so I just slid the box down to the next fridge and kept right on restocking.

  “Colt,” I heard Susie say.

  “What the fuck’re you doin’ here?” was Colt’s not-so-friendly response.

  This surprised me. I thought he’d ask her outside to go sit in his GMC or take her to the back office. That was Colt’s style. Not confronting her in the bar.

  “Having a drink,” Susie replied.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Now, Colt –”

  “You want this, let’s do it,” Colt invited and I kept right on rotating, pulling the old bottles out, setting them aside, putting the new bottles back, setting the old ones in front of them.

  “You aren’t answering your phone,” Susie told him.

  “I am, I’m just not doin’ it when you call.”

  Oh Lord. Maybe she wasn’t his girlfriend anymore, what did I know? Colt, nor Morrie, nor anyone kept me in Colt’s romance loop.

  “What’d I tell you?” Susie said, her voice now nasty. “Wound up with February. Three days it’s been and she’s already in your house.”

  Fuck, I just knew this was about me.

  I decided that was my cue to escape. I stood up and closed the fridge with my foot, preparing to make good on my plan.

  “Don’t you move,” Colt ordered, his voice hard, my eyes went to him to see he was addressing me.

  “What?” I asked.

>   “This is your place. It’s not hers to make you feel uncomfortable in it,” Colt said to me.

  “Thinkin’ you two should take this into the office.” Dad was now there.

  Susie ignored my Dad. “Tina Blackstone called, said she saw you carrying her cat and her bag into your house.”

  I also forgot Tina Blackstone was Colt’s neighbor and Susie’s friend (though Susie probably didn’t know that Tina tried it on with Colt on a variety of occasions). And I forgot Tina wasn’t only a bitch, she was a busybody and she drained her ex dry which meant she didn’t have to work but part-time which meant she had time to spy on Colt for Susie.

  “And this is your business because…?” Colt asked.

  “This is my business because I don’t want to see you make a fool of yourself. Not even a week, Colt, and you’re publicly gagging for it. It’s sad.”

  I felt my head get light while visions exploded in it of my fist connecting with Susie’s face.

  I knew Morrie felt the same way because he suggested, “And I’m thinkin’ that our soda’s flat, Susie. Maybe you should go to Frank’s, see if you like his soda better.”

  Susie ignored Morrie too. “So let’s see if my guess is correct, Colt. Ask her. Ask her to get down on her knees and suck your cock. She’ll be over that bar so fast–”

  I moved in, so did Morrie and Dad and the whole place went quiet, already listening, now they were doing it openly but Colt put his hand up, palm out, toward me never peeling his eyes from Susie’s face and for some reason me, Dad and Morrie froze.

  “Daddy’s gone Susie,” Colt said in a voice that rang loud in the big, silent bar, “so you got only your money to protect you and since I don’t give a shit about your money then I’ll give it to you straight. I fucked you because I was drunk and actin’ stupid and you reminded me of February. I kept doin’ it because I could keep pretending that was true until you proved yourself to be the bitch you are and I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Puttin’ up with your shit wasn’t worth getting off. I gave you too many chances to turn my mind to you and you never took a single one. So like I said three days ago, it’s over. I’m done. You wanted a scene, there it is. You got it.”

  I was trying not to think of the fact that Colt just told me, my brother, my Dad, his ex-girlfriend and around twenty citizens in our town he fucked Susie because he could pretend she was me but it was impossible not to think about it because he did it. Right then, right there, right in front of me.

  Susie leaned toward Colt. “You’re a fool.”

  “Only one thinks that is you. Fuck, probably half the guys who’ve fucked you think of Feb when they’re doin’ it,” Colt replied.

  Morrie laughed at this, so did others, several of them, I just didn’t see who they were because I couldn’t tear my eyes off what was happening in front of me.

  Susie had no ready retort because there was none to be had. She’d played out a faulty strategy and right then she knew it.

  Finally she tried another faulty strategy, false bravado and she hissed, “Don’t think after this Alexander Colton, you can come crawling back to me.”

  “As ever, you got a creative memory, Sooz. Wasn’t me who did the crawlin’. I figure, I asked, it’d be you who got down on your knees.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “You’re in my space, means I’m already there.”

  Colt was good and I made a mental note not to get in verbal fisticuffs with him. Susie had made an art out of being a bitch. I was surprised he’d bested her. He’d wipe the floor with me.

  She slid off her seat, hitching her bag on her shoulder and throwing a glare at Colt as she went.

  I decided not to remind her she owed us for the soda. Colt had already rubbed enough salt in her wounds, we could do without the buck fifty.

  She exited with her head held high and a flounce of her hair. Joe-Bob breathed an audible sigh of relief. All eyes in the bar swung to Colt and me.

  “In the office,” Colt clipped at me and then started walking toward the office.

  I figured my best bet was to follow him so I did. I closed the door behind me and leaned my back against it. Normally distance from Colt was paramount though lately this wasn’t working for me. But after what just happened and what he’d said, distance was fundamental.

  “Sully and me have managed to keep the town from talkin’ about the notes, The Feds and your involvement with all that shit. People seein’ you and me comin’ in and out of this office, what happened at the Station and Tina Blackstone’s big fuckin’ mouth, we got no control over. With all that’s goin’ on, you gonna be able to deal with this?”

  Colt had evidently decided to ignore what he said to Susie which I thought was a good play and I let him have it.

  “Yeah,” I told him.

  “They’re gonna jump to conclusions.”

  “They always do.”

  “I need to know you aren’t gonna lose it.”

  “Lose it?”

  “Lose it.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Go off half-cocked.”

  I stared at him then I repeated, “What do you mean?”

  “You’re not exactly known for havin’ a level head, Feb. You got a lotta stress. Shit’s gone down before and it didn’t involve murdering psychos and bitches like Susie and you disappeared for fifteen years. Can’t keep you safe if you haul ass.”

  Now I was losing my temper and that mental note I made not to get into verbal fisticuffs with Colt got lost somewhere in the flutterings of my brain.

  “How did this get to be about me?”

  He ignored my question. “I need your assurance you’re gonna be able to ride this out.”

  “I can’t believe this shit.”

  “Just promise me, it gets too much, you’ll talk to Morrie, your Mom, Jessie, Mimi, whoever the fuck and you don’t just take off.”

  It was then I lost it. Covering the distance between us in three pissed off steps, I got right in his face and when I spoke I did it loud.

  “Colt, I was twenty-five and had just been beaten to shit and humiliated by my husband when I took off. Half the town feelin’ sorry for me, the other half thinkin’ I’m an idiot. I couldn’t hold up my head. You have no clue how that feels but, let me tell you, it feels shit. You hear me?” I shouted. “I had nothin’ to keep me tied here and so I left. Now I got ties. I got this bar. I got my respect for my brother. I promised him I’d pull my weight as a partner and that’s what I’m gonna do and I don’t fuckin’ appreciate you insinuating I’d do anything different.”

  His voice got low and conciliatory when he spoke again but he didn’t back down or move out of the space I’d taken. “I appreciate that, Feb, but you gotta appreciate that I know you aren’t exactly known for sharin’ and they don’t make a break in this case soon this shit is only gonna get worse before it gets better.”

  “I’m not an idiot, Colt, I realize that.”

  “Then you can’t think you’re gonna go it alone. You try, you’re gonna collapse under the weight of it or you’re gonna feel that pressure and disappear.”

  “You don’t know me well enough to say that.”

  His voice lost its conciliatory tone when he said, “You know I do.”

  “I’m not who I was, Colt.”

  “Fucking hell, Feb, I know that too, been livin’ that nightmare for a long fucking time.”

  “Poor you,” I spat, so lost in my anger I didn’t even begin to think what I was saying or if I should be saying it, “try livin’ my nightmare, you asshole.”

  It was his turn to get in my face. “You’d share it with me, I’d take that shot.”

  “Why are you doing that?” I shouted. “I don’t need to share what you damn well know.”

  “That’s your constant refrain, Feb, is it sinkin’ in yet that maybe I’m not lyin’ and I have no fuckin’ clue?”

  “Not even for a second!”

  “Christ,” he bit off but I was done and I too
k a step back.

  “This is so over, why we’re still talkin’ about it is beyond me.”

  “Maybe because it means something?”

  “To who?”

  “Fucking hell,” now Colt was yelling, “you think two people don’t give a shit about something would be shouting about it?”

  I had no answer to that mainly because I had no intention of even thinking about that.

  He read me and closed the distance I’d gained, getting back in my face. “There’s a lot of people we both care about tied in this shit and now it’s in their face. Again. We need to talk it out so we can finally shut it down and move, the fuck, on.”

  “I’ve moved on, Colt.”

  “Bullshit, Feb, you’re stuck, same as me.”

  I turned away from him toward the door but he caught my arm and whirled me right back.

  “We’re not done.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I snapped and then told him what he already knew, “we are. We have been for twenty-two years.”

  I caught his flinch before I yanked my arm from his hand and walked right out the door. It was embarrassing knowing that everyone heard. Some of them pretending they didn’t; others not bothering. But taking a page out of Susie’s book, I kept my head held high and lifted my hand to slide it under my hair, pulling it off my neck and shoulders to let it fall down my back.

  I went right behind the bar and asked, “You need another, Joe-Bob?”

  “Always need another, Feb,” Joe-Bob answered quietly and I knew his eyes were gentle on me but I didn’t meet them when I got him his beer.

  I spent a lot of time with Joe-Bob. He was mostly a silent drinker, looked older probably than his years; wife had left him, kids long gone. He didn’t talk much when he got loused, he’d sometimes get in the mood to share but it was rare so I didn’t know him all that well. Still, he was a fixture in my life and had been awhile and seeing his eyes gentle on me I knew would undo me.

  Colt wasn’t through with me, I should have known he wouldn’t be by the way he treated Susie.

  As he walked down the bar toward the door, he said loud enough for everyone to hear, “See you at home, Feb.”

  Two could play that game.