Bounty

“Deke, I don’t get—”

“Come April, Jussy, snow starts thawing, weather turns, I’m gone and there ain’t nothin’ that can hold that back.”

I slid away from him.

I had this reaction even though I knew this. He’d mentioned it during our night by the fire pit, how he’d take off, how he didn’t stay put for long.

I just didn’t know that it was something that might someday affect me.

I barely got an inch before his hand curled tight behind my knee and he jerked me right back.

“I go, Justice,” he started, his voice low like a warning, “this keeps like it is with us, I want you with me.”

I go, Justice…I want you with me.

More wet hit my eyes and didn’t linger.

It slid right down my cheeks.

Deke watched it then looked at me.

“Think that’s an answer, baby, but you gotta give it to me with words.”

“I’d go anywhere with you.”

It was then I felt Deke go solid as a rock.

“You make me happy,” I told him something he knew.

But maybe he didn’t know.

It was on the tip of my tongue to explain my poet’s soul, to share that “Chain Link” was for him, when his hand left my knee. He bent to put his beer on the floor then he twisted to me, his hand coming up. He caught me at the back of my neck and pulled me to him. His other hand lifted and cupped my cheek, thumb sliding through the wet as he stared into my eyes.

“So fuckin’ pretty, girl with all your hair, sittin’ in a corner of a biker bar with her notebook, writing poetry,” he murmured.

He was talking about way back in Wyoming.

His gaze shifted, watching his thumb move through my tears.

As for me, I was having trouble breathing.

His eyes came back to mine.

“You walked into Bubba’s, you were different. Whole new girl. You’d come into you. Smelled the money on you, Jussy. Knew I wanted to tap your ass but was goin’ nowhere near you because, I let you in, when I had to go, knew in my gut you wouldn’t go with me and it’d tear me up, leavin’ you behind, but it’d tear me up worse if I stayed.”

“You thought that at Bubba’s?” I asked breathlessly.

I watched his eyes grin. “Okay, maybe it was after your rant about buyin’ me prime rib sandwiches, somethin’ I’ll note now, you have not done.”

Mental note to take care of that ASAP.

“That first time at Bubba’s, just wanted to tap your ass,” he finished.

“You barely looked at me,” I reminded him.

“Learned a long time ago not to look too long at somethin’ you wanted you couldn’t have. Served no purpose and only settled the shit in deeper that life was just mostly a lot of somethings you’d never have.”

“Life’s a lot more than that, honey.”

He slid his thumb along my lower lip, not, I sensed, to shut me up.

Just to touch me.

And when he replied, he did it with gentleness, but the words still dug deep. “That right there, baby, is shit people like you say to people like me when we know more than you because we lived that difference.”

It sucked, it sucked so huge it was impossible to process.

But I could not argue that.

“I don’t want…” The words came out choked so I cleared my throat. “I don’t want you to think you’re a different type of people than me.”

“Everyone’s different, Jussy. That don’t mean different is anything but that. Different. And I think we’re proving that. And just to say, in order to make this shit clear we’re talkin’ about right now, I hope what we’re proving keeps goin’. In other words, who we are might not fit but it can still work.”

More tears filled my eyes and I didn’t clear the hoarse from my voice when I said, “I hope that keeps going too.”

“I get that, Justice. You haven’t hidden you been into me from the start. Or, if you tried, you’re shit at it.”

That didn’t make me keep crying.

I jerked my head back, my eyes narrowing.

Deke let my neck go but only to use that hand to grab my beer, put it on the floor and then he hooked me behind the back of one knee with his arm, scooping up the other along the way. He lifted from the couch as he did, taking me with him. He then dumped me on my back on the couch with him on top of me.

When I had his weight on me, his face in my face, he said, “Teasin’ you, Jussy.”

I wasn’t in the mood to be teased.

I was in the mood to know for certain that Deke and I were where we needed to be.

Because I was falling in love with him.

And he’d given me indication that the same was happening for him with me and it was safe to say I loved that.

A whole lot.

But there were things unsettled, big things that might fuck up our future.

So now we had to get past that.

“So this talk you wanted to have boils down to something I already know, you like me,” I declared. “And although you have some serious baggage in your life, stuff you lived through that breaks my heart, you’re not letting it hold you back living that life. You do what you do and you want me to know when you get on with the part of doing that that puts your ass on the road, you want me with you.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Something you knew I’d do because you knew I was into you.”

“Yep.”

“So I was nervous for nothing.”

“Jussy, you’re all about settin’ up house. Can’t say I didn’t have a big fuckin’ clue how you lived your life with your dad, all good with makin’ home about him, that you get life on the road better than anybody. It still was not a given that you weren’t done with that and ready to lay roots.”