She was sore from hauling books out to the dumpster, which arrived Thursday, and that was just going up and down the porch steps. She couldn’t imagine how much pain she’d be in when she had to go up and down two flights of stairs from the attic. She’d considered throwing the books out the attic window, but she could just envision them disintegrating on the way down, and pages flying everywhere.
She was so lost in thought, she didn’t see the large bearded man in a leather vest growing clearly irritated in front of her until he shouted practically in her face.
“Hey, I want a pitcher. Now.”
She jolted, grabbed a scarred plastic pitcher, overfilled it, then placed it on the counter in front of him, letting it slosh over the rim and onto his beefy arms. She set her teeth, prepared to be berated for that. Instead he just lifted his forearm to his hairy mouth and gave it a long lick, holding her gaze.
“How many glasses?” she asked, stepping back, her hand on one of the bumpy plastic glasses on a tray beside the tap.
He scowled. “None.” Then he picked up the pitcher, lifted it to his lips, and drained it in just a few swallows.
She was sure her eyes were huge when he set it back on the counter and gave her a foamy grin. “Another.”
Did he think he was Thor? She wondered at the wisdom of serving him more, but she wasn’t going to argue. This pitcher he took with him back to one of the rickety tables, sitting so he could face her. That creeped her out a bit, and she automatically checked to see where Samson was.
At the pool table, naturally. She wondered if he would teach her how to play. Maybe she could make some money that way.
Not with this crowd, though.
Okay, as long as she knew where he was, she could relax.
“What are you doing looking at my man?”
A woman a head shorter than her and so thin a good breeze would blow her away, charged up to the bar and slapped both hands on it as she glared at Erielle.
Erielle frowned, looking back toward Samson. Was he…taken? By this tiny woman in low-slung jeans and a tight crop-top? On closer inspection, the woman appeared old enough to be Samson’s mother, so maybe she was misinterpreting?
“I’m…sorry?” Erielle was asking for clarification, but the question incensed other woman.
“You better be. You may be new here, but you need to tread lightly. I don’t know where you’re from, but around here we don’t ogle other women’s men.” She said it “oogle” and Erielle had to fight a smile. She didn’t exactly feel threatened by the pixie.
“I have no interest in your man. In any man,” Erielle said.
The pixie spat out an epithet of her opinion of the truth of that. The word sounded so funny coming from the sprite, Erielle didn’t think she did a very good job hiding her smile this time.
Which made the woman angrier. “Are you laughing at me?”
“I would never!” Erielle said, more concerned about hurting the woman’s feelings than being hurt by her. “But let me buy you a beer to show we’re on the same side.”
The woman’s shoulders relaxed marginally. “Give me a bottle of that, please.” She pointed behind Erielle to one of the pricier beers they carried. Not that they were running a craft brewery or anything, but it was no cheap draft.
Fine, anything for peace. Erielle dug one out of the cooler, popped the top and slid it over. “I’m Erielle.”
“Marie,” the other woman said grudgingly, and took a healthy swallow of beer.
Man, these people drank beer like it was water.
“I know who you are,” Marie said. “Old Man Benoit’s precious granddaughter.”
“I don’t know about precious,” Erielle said on a humorless laugh.
“Left you everything, didn’t he? Not even his own kids got anything?”
“They…did not get along.” She didn’t want to discuss her family’s dynamic with a stranger. Well, she didn’t know if she was a stranger. She was just a stranger to Erielle.
She didn’t want to tell Marie that her mom and aunt had left home as quick as they could and didn’t look back. The only reason she knew her grandparents at all was because both her parents were ambitious and didn’t know what else to do with their only child but send her to the bayou every summer while they worked. Then they would decry the fact that she came back to them sun-browned with a penchant for running barefoot, a taste for Cajun food, and a longing to return to the swamp.
A longing she’d buried as she grew up, went to school, found different dreams, and stopped visiting her grandparents.
