Page 24 of The Significance of Moving On

“I know why you’re here. Shewantsto dance with your friend.” The girl gestures with her chin. “I’m not going to get in the way. You can go back and enjoy yourself.”

“I’d enjoy myself if I could dance with a pretty lady.”

“Don’t be mean. This isn’t my first bar, I’m the fat friend. Your buddy sent you to occupy so he could get with my friend.”

“Not going to lie, that’s why he asked me, but it’s not why I said yes. I’m Casey.”

“Spencer.”

“Well Spencer, would you care to dance?”

She smiles a guarded smile while standing to lead us over to the floor, periodically looking back over her shoulder to make sure I’m still walking with her, I suppose. We begin to sway and shuffle our feet. In all fairness, I begin to sway and shuffle. This girl has moves. Really good ones. Better than her friend Nick was obsessed about meeting.

We dance, shoes sticking to the decade’s worth of pin~a co-mai tai fruity concoctions girls love to hold in their hands while they grind on one another because it looks damn sexy and gives a good excuse for when their moment of bravery gets shot down by some frat boy dickhead without a bit of conscience that these are real people, human beings putting themselves out there. Dickheads like Nick and Chris.

“Want another drink?” I ask.

She shakes her head yes and we move to the bar.

“So, you like sports?”

“Nah. Although I do love to watch soccer. I’m here because Vic—Victoria—my friend thinks this is a good place to meet guys. What about you?”

“I’m a guy. Sports are part of my basic DNA.”

This makes her laugh.

From the bar we move to pool. She’s stripes, I’m solids. And then we finish up at darts. The plan is in motion, Spencer is cool, and I’m a douche because my mind is stuck on getting Tally that car. When her friend is ready to leave, she thanks me for a great evening and asks if she could give me her number.

It takes a second to register what she’s asking for, but I pull it together enough to slip an old receipt from my front pocket and flip it over. “Got a pen?” I ask.

Spencer digs around her purse until she finds a small black Sharpie. I write down the numbers as she rattles them off.

“I hope you call,” she says, patting my chest before she leaves.

“All right, boys,” Nick looks too happy, skeevy happy. “We have to get going. Victoria and I are hooking up later tonight.” Apparently, some women don’t mind body odor and pit stains, my bad.

I’m ready to go anyway. Tal’s been at home by herself all this time and yeah, she’s been getting better with the panic attacks, but no point in pushing it. Even in Indian Summers evening comes when it comes, and the streets are lit up by street lamps, passing cars and the setting sun off to the west.

I make Jesse take the center seat on the way back. Nick can’t get us to the office fast enough. Guess he really likes this one. I hadn’t paid too much attention because I’d been enjoying myself with Spencer. But we’ll get a play by play recap tomorrow whether we want one or not.

My plan just might work.

Chapter Thirteen

Our Indian summer went south for the winter, as we went from living in Michigan to Myanmar by way of the monsoon-like rain making roof tarring impossible and lawn maintenance a real pain in the ass thanks to several areas of flooding, all this week. But every soaked shirt, pair of damp shoes and cling-to-me pair of jeans has been worth it because today the Rabbit is mine, well, Tally’s, but mine.

I swing the key ring around my finger looking like a damn fool with the cheese-grin plastered to my face. But I’ve been working under the table every weekend for the past month, ten to twelve-hour days doing every handy man job Dr. Noonan could come up with around his massive estate to work off the difference between what I could actually pay him for the car and what I was willing to pay, which would’ve been just about anything to buy Tally a car.

Did he take advantage? Sure. But people like him always do. I drove the Rabbit back to the office instead of hitching a ride in the company truck, now I get to set Tal up for the surprise. Things have already started getting better between us, but I bought her a car. I’m in.

The guys shoot out a torrent of “pussy-whipped” synonyms when I exit the little white Rabbit dashing for my truck. That’s where they’d be wrong. I’m quite sure you have to be receiving the pussy in order to actually be pussy-whipped.

Even as I think it, the glorious image of being pussy-whipped by the likes of Tal gets all tangled up with the shit image of the nightmare I had again last night. They’re getting worse. Luke moved from the darkest part of my brain where I tried to keep him hidden, when Tally moved in. Because it’s not just any image, it’stheimage, the one that slaps me across the face hard, leaving handprints and reminding me exactly of why I can never be pussy-whipped by Tal or anybody, for that matter. Not that I’d want just anybody. But it really makes no difference.

Even with the wipers on high, it takes me thirty-five minutes to get home with visibility dropping to the point I can’t see the taillights in front of me. My foot hits the breaks for far too many hard stops.

When I finally turn down my street, I could kick myself for picking up her car today instead of coming right home. The whole of Tom’s porch is stacked with drenched boxes, and whoever owns those boxes have one of the long U-Hauls parked in the driveway.

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