Forget You(46)
Author: Jennifer Echols

"Salty dogs don’t use words like abstinence ," I corrected him. "They would say laying off the sauce. "

He gave me a dark look and very slowly popped his neck. Then he looked up and addressed the circle with his honeyed sarcasm. "Hey, everyone, look who’s here! It’s Zoey!"

"Zoooooooeeeeeeeeyyyyyy," the men cheered. They had heard about me. Only Doug’s dad stayed silent, eyeing me and exhaling cigarette smoke.

"Hello," I called back, suddenly aware I was wearing very short gym shorts and a long-sleeve V-neck T-shirt that showed my cle**age. This was what I wore after swim practice. Bullying Mike, chasing down Officer Fox, bonding with the chief of police, I hadn’t given my clothes a thought. Now I did. I shifted to one side so Doug was in front of me.

"Do you like raw oysters?" he asked me over his shoulder.

"I’ve never tried one."

Seven of the ten men hailed me at once, offering to shuck me one if I sat beside them. I suppressed the urge to take another step backward.

"Y are too, too kind," Doug told the men. "Zoey and I have some business to take care of–"

Two wolf whistles.

"Frank, Barry, thanks for making Zoey feel comfortable and welcome," Doug said. "Zoey and I will have a t�te-�-t�te."

Two more men grumbled, "Teat-a-what?" as they found two folding chairs and dragged them behind the circle for us. They also left a bucket of oysters.

I sank with relief onto one of the chairs. "This property must be worth millions of dollars," I whispered as I reached up to steady Doug.

"Easily," he agreed, gripping me hard for balance. He sat down.

"Couldn’t your dad get a loan on it to send you to college?"

"Oh, God! My dad doesn’t own this." He dropped his crutches to one side, picked up a glove and a dagger the men had dropped, and pried an oyster open with a flick. "He freeloads. He got in good with an admiral while he was in the navy. He’s squatting in this house until the admiral retires and builds on the property." Doug tossed the top shell aside. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the dark, I saw the driveway was paved with these shells.

"My dad operates the admiral’s fishing boat," Doug went on, "and the admiral gets the profit from the charters. See, that’s why my dad wants me to go into the navy, to find an admiral of my own to freeload off. That’s how Foxes spell success." Expertly he slid the knife between shell and oyster with one smooth motion. He handed the bounty to me.

Several of the men in the circle turned around to watch me. I stared down at the glistening oyster, psyching myself up. I’d seen people do this a million times. My dad sucked down raw oysters by the bushel.

Doug’s elbow was on his good knee, chin in his hand, watching me. "Y don’t have to."

I glared at him, then dumped the oyster down my throat and swallowed swallowed swallowed, trying to keep my tongue out of the way so I wouldn’t taste it. It was my bottle of beer, fortifying me for what was coming. I was capable of all things when I was angry.

Several of the men clapped for me.

"Impressive," Doug said. "And you didn’t even have the condiments that make oysters go down more easily. Crackers. Tabasco. Lemon. Civilization. Do me a favor."

I swallowed once more to make sure the oyster didn’t come back up. "What," I croaked.

"Promise me you will never, ever come over here on Thursday night again. What are you doing here anyway?"

I nodded toward the bucket. "May I have another?"

He raised one eyebrow at me. "Uh-oh. What happened? Is it that bad?"

"I’ve just been to the police station," I told him. "I found out you were in my car."

Suddenly the men cheered, and Doug hadn’t even handed me another oyster yet. A police car ground across the shells paving the causeway and parked behind the Benz. Officer Fox got out and ambled across the clearing. He waved and called to the men as they called to him, but he made a beeline for me and for Doug, who fixed Officer Fox with that laser-stare of his, even through the alcohol.

"Where’s your phone?" Officer Fox snapped at Doug.

Doug eased forward, slipped his cell phone out of his back pocket, and handed it to Officer Fox.

Officer Fox peered at it. "It’s off, dumbass. I’ve been trying to call you to warn you she was coming. Why’d you turn your phone off?" He pressed a button and handed the phone back to Doug.

"I didn’t want Zoey to call me while I was drunk," Doug said self-righteously, "because that would be embarrassing." He pocketed the phone.

Officer Fox put his hands on his hips. "Y ou’re f**king wasted. Y didn’t take a Percocet before you drank beer, did you?"

"Come on, Cody, I never do anything foolish." He watched his brother angrily until Officer Fox sauntered over and joined the circle around the fire.

Then Doug plucked another oyster from the bucket and popped it open. "Y I went in the Benz."

es,

I opened my mouth to tell him I meant the Bug and the wreck, not the Benz. I closed my mouth, realizing I needed to know about him going in the Benz too. As always, there was even more going on with Doug than I’d imagined.

"Actually, my brother did it for me," Doug went on. "He used his official police door unlocker hook thing to bust in. Then he took out a fuse to keep the engine from starting. He swore to me it was safe and wouldn’t do any permanent damage. He even laughed at me for thinking it might." Doug handed me the oyster.

I slurped it down whole and wiped the juice from my chin with my hand. I thought I’d fortified and collected myself before I spoke, but my words still came out as a splutter. "Y ou–Doug–Y broke into my car ? Y sabotaged my car ?"

ou ou

"Well, I wouldn’t use either of those terms when a policeman did it for me. My brother’s friend never towed it to his garage to fix it, because there was never anything wrong with it. My brother just put the fuse back. I think they really did drag race it on the way back to your house, but I told you that already." He sucked down an oyster himself.

"But, Doug, why did you mess with my car?" My outraged squeal echoed against the walls of the house, and men turned to stare at me again.

"To stop you from going parking with Brandon." Eyes narrow and vicious, Doug said quietly, "I knew you would."

"All this is news to me," I said. "What I meant was, I got the accident report from the police station. Y were in the Bug when I wrecked."

He blinked.

He shucked me an oyster.

I sucked it down.