Bounty (Page 47)

Bonus, stuff would get done faster at my house.

“You want me to ask him or do you wanna tell him I’m down with it?” I said by way of answer.

Deke smiled at me.

I let that feed my poet’s soul the only way it could and smiled back.

“I’ll ask him if he’s up for it, tellin’ him you’re wantin’ as much progress as you can get so you’re down with it. But I know he’ll be here on Saturday.”

“Cool,” I replied.

Another brush of his fingers on the back of my hand before he said, “Awesome of you, Jus.”

“I want as much progress as I can get, Deke. So this is not a big sacrifice.”

Right then he gave another gift.

More pleasure.

More pain.

Deke winked at me.

Then he muttered, “Gettin’ back to work,” turned and walked out my bedroom door.

I stared at the door thinking “Pleasure and Pain” would be a great name for a song.

So I grabbed my notebook, my guitar from its stand in the corner of my room, and I went out to my deck.

* * * * *

I was strumming, and alternately jotting, when I heard a deep, “Yo.”

I turned in my Adirondack chair and saw Deke standing there, a few steps outside my opened French door.

“Yo,” I returned. “Time to knock off?”

He said nothing. He just stood there staring.

Not at me. Not at me with my guitar.

At the notebook balanced on the arm of my chair.

“Deke,” I called when the nothing he said stretched.

His body gave a weird jerk and his eyes came to mine.

“Yeah, time to knock off,” he grunted, sounding just as weird as his body jerk had been.

“Right,” I said, standing and resting my guitar on the chair, feeling funny for a lot of reasons.

I’d definitely worked when he was around but he’d never seen me do it.

I’d also been writing out lyrics to a song the first time he’d met me.

So there was a lot of evidence there of a number of things he might figure out that could be uncomfortable because I hadn’t shared them with him.

I didn’t know what to do because he just stood there, his gaze moving from me, to my guitar, to my notebook.

“Deke,” I said softly.

His attention sliced back to me.

“Back with Bub tomorrow at seven, Jussy.”

Jussy.

That indicated it was all good, even if he still seemed removed in a way he hadn’t since the beginning.

And I knew looking at him the time for my peace that came with being just Jus was over.

Deke and I had become friends. And friends didn’t keep important things from friends. Such as the fact their father was a famous, alas now-dead rock star. Their grandfather was the same. And they’d followed in those footsteps, however short that path had been.

This bringing on giving him my first name and coming clean we’d met before.

It was ten minutes seven years ago, but if he remembered the name Justice, that would have to happen.

“Krys says Bubba’s has a band coming in tomorrow night,” I told him. “Feel like meeting there, throwing a few back?” And me sharing a bunch of shit that might piss you off but you need to know and my best bet is to tell you in a public place so if you lose your mind, our location might help contain it so I’ll have the chance to explain, I didn’t say.

“Got plans.”

Arrow through the heart.

Plans on a Friday night for a man who looked like Deke.

I didn’t want to know, and there were other options, but if the one I figured it was actually was…

I didn’t want to know.

“Okay, Deke,” I replied but kept trying. Sooner rather than later. Don’t procrastinate. I’d done enough of that already. “Wanna come over tonight?” I shot him a forced grin. “Go into town, get takeout from the Italian place. I’ll drink wine out of a red Solo cup, doing it with guilt heavy at what that cup will mean to the environment. You can have beer. And we can toast to my addition of kitchen utensils, that being after I buy a wine opener.”

“Wiped, Jus. Thanks but work like today takes it out of you. But just so you know, talked to Bubba. He’s on for Saturdays as long as that lasts.”

He wasn’t being an ass and he wasn’t being closed off.

Yet he was for that last.

With no other choice, I nodded. “Sounds good.”

I said that but I did not like this. Bubba coming tomorrow through Saturday, I wouldn’t have alone time with Deke until Monday.

Maybe I could get Krystal or Jim-Billy to tell me where he lived and pop by on Sunday.

Though, if there was a woman, a woman who, say, packed bologna sandwiches for Deke’s lunches, I didn’t want to hit his place on Sunday (not a circumstance I’d considered after he’d picked up the chick at Bubba’s that day I’d closed on the house—then again, that chick might have had staying power, another reason he held us at friendly).

But what woman would let her guy go for hot dogs and s’mores with another woman, alone, even if they were friends, especially if her guy was Deke?

Maybe they were new and she didn’t pack his bologna sandwiches for lunch every day. Just the mornings after the nights she stayed after he fucked her.

Shit.

“Jus?”

It was me who gave a weird jerk when I focused on him.

“You good?” he asked.

I was not.

“Yep,” I told him.

“Good. See you tomorrow.”

“Okay, Deke. See you tomorrow.”

He did a farewell head tilt and off he went through my door, into my bedroom, sauntering through it like it was his bedroom, and he disappeared into the shadows of the house.