Bounty (Page 33)

“Why do they need the keys?”

“So they can deal with your flat and not have to roll that old-ass fucker out of a bay to park it while they wait for you to come pick it up.”

“Deke, I’m not leaving the keys to my truck right here.”

“Jus, no one’s gonna steal that wreck and not just because they can’t without changing the spare themselves, a spare that doesn’t exit. But because they won’t have enough time and no one would want that wreck in the first place.”

He was ticking me off.

“It’s not a wreck,” I snapped.

He looked to my truck and back at me.

“Jus.”

That was it.

Just Jus.

Like that said it all.

Sure, my faded red old Ford pickup looked like a wreck.

But it was no wreck to me.

“Maybe I’ll wait until they get here,” I suggested.

“You wanna hang at the garage while they find time to fix your tire?”

This did not sound fun and I had things to do that day.

“Deke—”

“Keys. Truck. Now, Jus. It’s gonna start comin’ down and soon and we want that cement in your house, not in my truck turnin’ into concrete while we argue about somethin’ stupid.”

Shit.

With no other choice, I stomped to the driver side and put my keys under the front seat (for he was correct, I had no floor mats).

I then stomped to the passenger side of Deke’s truck. He was already at his side.

We climbed in.

Deke started up his behemoth and we took off.

“Need to get a new ride, Jus,” he advised me.

“I do not. My truck’s perfect.”

“Perfect for that gig you got goin’ on. Not perfect for a woman who lives alone in a remote location like this with an unpredictable climate like the one we got in Carnal.”

“It’s fine.”

“Unless you take serious good care of it, you’re lucky you only got a flat.”

“I take serious good care of it,” I assured. Then asked, “The gig I got going on?”

“The whole gypsy princess thing.”

I looked from the road to him. “It’s not a part of my gypsy princess thing. My gypsy princess thing isn’t even a gypsy princess thing. It’s boho.”

“Whatever,” he muttered.

But I was still put out.

“Not whatever, Deke.”

He glanced at me before looking back to the road and ordering, “Calm, Jus. Not bein’ a dick. Just looking out for you and that truck is thirty years old, it’s a day.”

“You’re correct. It’s also the truck my granddad owned when I was two and my family was visiting him and we took our first special just-grandfather-granddaughter trip to go get ice cream. That first being the first of many. Something that was special to me for years, but started off special, if the story my folks and Granddad often told that, when I was three and he said he was getting a new truck, I demanded he give the old one to me. I guess I was pretty adamant about it and made an impression. No matter how many trucks came later, we never went for ice cream in anything but that truck. He kept it for decades. The last time we went to get ice cream, I was twenty-nine, and it was in that truck. And he left me a lot when he died, most of that really good memories. Part of that was that truck.”

When I was done telling my story, Deke had no reply and the interior of the cab felt strange. Not good. Not bad. Just strange.

And I guessed I wasn’t done laying it out because I continued to do so just as I’d been doing, sharply with unhidden temper.

“On the sad day that truck dies, I’m parking it in my front yard, filling the bed with dirt, and planting flowers in it. In other words, I’m keeping that truck forever, Deke. Forever. And ever. And ever.”

“Baby, calm,” he urged softly, not taking his eyes from the road.

I sucked my lips between teeth and felt the sting of tears hit the backs of my eyes so I turned my head immediately to look out my side window.

Baby, calm.

And with just that, I was calm.

About what he said about Granddad’s truck.

Everything else that was Deke, I was not.

God, why didn’t he remember me?

Why could he not be mine?

Why couldn’t I have his voice in my bed in the morning, feeling that in my cunt when he could do something about it?

Why did I have a life that gave me so much, so fucking much, all of it meaningful, all of it amazing, and yet the one thing I ever saw that called to my poet’s soul in a way that I knew only it could feed it, nurture it, give it peace, I could not have?

Baby, calm.

“Shouldn’t’ve said dick about your truck, Jus. Wasn’t cool,” Deke said quietly.

I drew in a deep breath and replied, “It’s okay. You didn’t know.”

“And sorry you lost your granddad.”

God, seriously, he just had to stop.

“Thanks,” I murmured.

Deke said no more.

We got home. I brought in the paint. Deke brought in the other stuff, doing it while the skies sprinkled water.

It wasn’t until five minutes later, when I was behind closed door in my bedroom, when the heavens opened.

I sat on my bed sideways, staring out the two-story slanted wall of windows into the storm, thinking the visual I had was sheer beauty and hoping I never got used to it at the same time counting my blessings, the only two I could come up with at that moment was that I had that view and that I had a roof.

Then I got my shit together, opened my nightstand, and took out my leather-bound notebook. A different one than the one Deke saw me scribbling in when I wrote a gold record song about him seven years ago.