His mouth felt as dry as a pizza box. A tin of orange juice would go down well, but he’d take coffee and she was spooning the stuff into a percolator. He turned over his hands and looked at the cuts on his knuckles, badges of a good ol’ Saturday night rumble. He watched her bend over and poke sticks into the wood stove. He chuckled, thinking, she carries a wide load but’ll keep a guy warm on winter nights. Oh man, I hope I’m long gone before winter comes. He wondered how she found him after the bar, climbing all over in him in the truck while the sun pried his eyes open with a crowbar. He woke with a tent pole in his jeans, but was sure nothing happened. I would have remembered, he thought, I wasn’t that drunk. She’d been talking like something happened, but the girl seemed strange in the head, which was probably why she lived alone way out in the boondocks. She filled the percolator with water from the tap on the washstand and then flicked water on the stove and watched it bubble and roll away. She slid the percolator onto the hot spot.
He leaned forward, loosened his work boot laces, and then pushed his hand into his jeans and pulled out a sheaf of scratch and wins. He thumbed through the tickets. “Try again.” “Try again.” “Not a winner.” He tossed the pile on the table. He looked up to see her sitting across from him.
She raised an eyebrow. “No luck?”
He laughed.
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” she said.
“Say what?”
Then she said, “Every other guy on your crew wants to date me.”
He chuckled. “Date?”
She walked to the cupboard above the wash stand, her curves moving together like clockwork. It would be so easy, he thought. She took out two mugs, brought them over to the table and set them down, then reached over and touched his face. Her brown skin felt smooth and smelled like… coconut. She took her hand away. Her hands were beautiful, not slender but well shaped, her fingernails perfect. He wondered how she got them to look like that.
Bitches Brew
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