Page 21 of Small Town Hunter

“What?” Crash calls from the bathroom.

“I didn’t realize the time.”

“Yeah, you knocked out. Hold on a minute.”

That’s when I notice a big fat spider getting comfortable in a corner of the ceiling.

“AHHHHH!”

Crash erupts out of the bathroom. “What the devil—?”

“That spider! It’s disgusting!”

He snorts, rudely, and throws a T-shirt at me. It doesn’t smell clean. But it smells like him, which is maybe even better.

“That’s just Stella,” he says. “Leave her alone, she’ll leave you alone.”

“Can’t you kill it?”

“What for? She’s minding her business over there and you can do the same.”

“This shirt isstained.”

“As long as it keeps your tits and ass covered,” he says, and after that filthy comment turns his back on me, returns to the chair and puts up the TV, loud. They are still talking about these parakeets.

“So, Crash, why don’t you tell me about yourself?” I say, moving to the edge of the bed. I think he’s the most attractive man I’ve ever met and I don’t know what to do with that information. Every time he looks at me I get goosebumps.

“What?” He says, his eyes flicking to me, then quickly away and back to the birds on TV.

“Who are you? Maybe, your hobbies.”

“I’m from Virginia. I don’t have hobbies. I work.”

“Well what is your job?”

“Birds. Birds is my hobby,” he says. “Would you button it and let me watch this?”

“Your hobby can’t bebirds.”

“What’s yours, church girl? Making apple pie? Knitting hats for orphans? Saying the rosary?”

“I don’t cook, and I’m not aCatholic, for your information.”

I shake off some more dust from the bed. The ceiling is crumbling like a cracker. How is this place still standing?

“I’m Catholic,” he says, looking at me.

“Well,” I reply with sympathy, “You can still be re-baptized and Saved in the name of Jesus.”

He laughs out loud.

I frown. He should be more concerned about the fact that he’s going to hell.

“If you start quoting scripture I’ll take you back to your husband,” he warns.

“That’s not funny.”

“I ain’t laughing.”

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