Page 21 of Ghosted By Texas

“Do you have a cleaning rag back there or something, so I can wipe the tables down?”

“Sure.” Austin tossed me a white, damp towel and I turned immediately to get busy cleaning so we could get the hell out of… well… hell.

Once the bar was cleaned, chairs put up on the tables, and everyone was out, Austin wandered through the place locking everything up until it was just the two of us standing at the backdoor. He peeked his head out there first and looked around.

“Okay, hop on out, it’s safe. I have to set the alarm and then we’ll head out.”

I did as the man asked and left to stand just outside the door to wait for him. Two minutes later, he came out and locked the deadbolt with a key before he turned to me and nodded to his newer model pickup truck.

“That’s me.”

“Great. I don’t live far from here.” We got into his truck, and I immediately noticed the hair elastic that hung from his gearshift. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it since the man had a mother and two sisters who he was close to. After seeing that he and Jordan were still close as well, and in fact worked together, I imagined it was hers and wanted to vomit. Instead, I gave Austin my address and turned to watch the dark scenery out the window. Unfortunately for me, nighttime meant that I saw more reflection in the window, than scenery. I saw enough to know that Austin kept looking my way, whether to get my attention or because he couldn’t believe how incredibly unlucky he had been to be stuck with me, I didn’t know.

Clearly, he loved his brother as much as I loved Clea, since he volunteered to be my driver for the night. “Becs.” His gentle voice was almost startling in the quiet of the truck cab. He hadn’t even turned the stereo on.

“Hmm?”

For the longest time, he didn’t respond. I thought maybe he hadn’t heard me at first, so I turned to see him grinding his teeth together in apparent agitation.

“Look if this is a problem for you, I’m close enough. I can walk the rest of the way.”

“No, the fuck you can’t. Do you know what time it is?” He asked just as an inadvertent yawn hit me. I glanced at the dash anyway. It was almost four in the morning.

I shrugged my shoulders at him. “What’s your problem then? I realize you were just doing Houston a favor by letting him have his night with Clea that Jeff robbed him of six years ago. Me too, buddy. There’s my place up ahead. It’s almost over. Then, you can go back to pretending I don’t exist. I’ll even ask the powers that be to make sure you are still crowned hide and seek champion of the decade. It takes great skill to drop off the face of the earth and remain unseen for six years.”

Oops, I think a little bit of my angry sarcasm may have slipped out.

“Yeah, well then I think we tied, since I don’t seem to recall you picking up a phone or showing up at my place like you said you would.” I laughed and finally turned to look at the man as he pulled the truck next to the curb in front of my apartment.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” I unbuckled as I spoke and turned to open the truck door when he slammed the auto lock down. I glared back over at him.

“What am I wrong about?” He waggled a completely different phone in my face than he had back then. “Different phone, same number though.”

“I showed up,” I blurted out. “I was there.”

“You were where?”

“Outside of your house that night. It took me a little longer to get there because I was dealing with Clea for being a bad friend and leaving me behind. Plus, she just left the party with that douchebag and didn’t know if she would be safe with him. Sometimes, I think that woman thinks there aren’t any bad people at all in the world.”

Austin stared at me, jaw agape, as I continued to prattle on. “So, I was late by about thirty minutes. Unfortunately for me, that made me right on time to see the show you had set up for me by the time I got there.”

“What show?” He asked, though his words came out slowly, as if they’d been dipped in molasses.

“The show your girlfriend put on for you for Valentine’s Day.”

“My girlfriend never showed up,” he countered.

“No? That’s not possible because I saw it all through your living room window. I hope you and your brother grew up some and bought curtains at some point. I watched you sitting there, sprawled out in your chair with your beer and your lap dance partner doing her little strip tease. Though, I have to say, a good strip tease usually requires a few more layers.”

“You had it all wrong,” he tried to deny.

“Really? So, I guess that means I missed the part where you got up, pushed her coat back over her scantily clad body, and threw her ass out before things went further?”

“Nothing went further.”

“You didn’t kick her out or ask her to get dressed though, did you?”

“What?”

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