Page 3 of Hot Mess Express
I guess it’s best to leave well enough alone. Pete has a basket full of anxieties he’s working through in his own weird way, and there’s only so much I can do for him. Maybe he’s right and I’ve forced him here to face his savior Cody for reasons I didn’t even realize until now.He’ll thank me when it’s over.
I leave Sleeping Beauty in the driver’s seat and step out of the car. The humidity swallows me whole, so I take Pete’s advice and shed my jacket, tossing it back into the car. My skin is still hot and sticky as I take a step in the gravel, shoes crunching, and stare at the 19thcentury contraption I think is supposed to be a gas pump and realize there’s no touchscreen or card reader. I’ve never seen this kind of pump in my life and don’t even knowwhere to begin. After fiddling with it for a minute, I shoot a quick “Gotta run in” to Pete in the window, who mumbles something I don’t understand because I don’t speak half-baked gibberish, then head toward the rundown building and brave its creaky door.
Inside is a one-aisle supply of random roadside munchies, a buzzing fridge with a mismatched assortment of beverages inside, and a freezer stuffed with packaged ice cream treats, one of which has a happy face on the front, but it melted and refroze into a demented smirk, one eye drooped. A wet floor sign is propped up in front of a rack of gum, but I don’t see what’s wet to warrant it.
I’m still figuring out the wet floor sign when a ball of paper smacks the side of my head. I flinch, lift a hand, and catch the crumpled wad unintentionally.
“You’re in the way.”
I turn to the counter, still clutching the ball one-handed.
White ribbed tank top ripped across the chest, like a rat got to it, slices of skin showing. The tank comes short, showing the wide waistband of his underwear above his low-hanging jeans. A loose blue vest drapes open over his tank top with a nametag pinned to it, uneven. Lips hanging open like the effort of those few words he just said were so exhausting he can’t bother to close them. Blond hair flattened by a threadbare ball cap. Dopey blue eyes.
There is, and I can’t stress this enough, no reason in the world I should find him attractive. He’s not gorgeous. His nose is crooked just enough to notice, with a skinny hot pink Band-Aid strapped right over the bridge. He has bad posture, slumped against the back wall as he is, with a face that, while I wouldn’t describe it as at allugly, is a far throw from any kind of conventional handsome.
But those dopey eyes of his defy all the brokenness,revealing a surprising sensitivity, giving context to the scars, to his lopsided scowl, even the hot pink Band-Aid somehow, these imperfections writing the guy’s history across his face.
Wait. Did he just say I’m in the way? “Huh?” I grunt back.
“Move.”
I glance the other way. Against the wall opposite the counter squats an empty yellow mop bucket with wads of paper all around it—evidence of the clerk’s poor aim. I’m still staring when another ball sweeps past my face close enough to kiss my eyelashes. It hits the back wall and drops to the floor, missing.
“Shit,” he mumbles.
“I need to pay for gas.”
“And I need to make a shot. Scooch back a bit, will you?”
I come to the counter instead, blocking him. “$20’s worth.”
“I saidscooch.”
I toss the wad I’m holding backwards over my shoulder, blind. It plops into the mop bucket. I don’t even need to turn around to verify. “The pump right out there. $20.” I pull out a bill and slide it across the counter. “If you don’t mind … Duncan.”
His eyes are still stuck on the mop bucket like he can’t believe I made it, distracted. “Uh, who?”
“Duncan. Your nametag.”
When he peers down, the discovery that he’s wearing one at all catches him by surprise. “Oh, right. Nah, I’m not Duncan. Do I look like a Duncan to you?Youlook more like a Duncan.”
I’m already done with this chat before it’s started, and maybe it’s something to do with the morning I’ve had and my sulky pal pretending to powernap in the truck and leaving me to deal with this guy, but I’m just not in the mood. “Can you put in $20 for me so I can get outta your hair? I’m just passing through.”
“Yeah, yeah, everyone’s just passing through. Passing righton through, all of you out-a’-towners. Where’re you even from, huh? Never mind, don’t care.” He squeezes shut his eyes, rubs a spot on his head. “Fuck, when will this day end?”
“It’s not even noon yet.”
His sleepy eyes fly back open. “You serious?”
I glance through the glass door. Pete is leaned so far back in his seat, he isn’t even visible. “Look, I just need some gas so I can get on my way, and I can’t even say with confidence I know how to operate that weird thing out there. Can you just—”
“You don’t know how to pump your own gas?”
I frown at him. “I didn’t say—”
“Fuckin’ out-a’-towners,” mutters the clerk to himself, though I hear him perfectly, then crumples up another wad, leans to the side, and tosses it around me. The ball sticks somehow on the rim of the mop bucket, not quite falling in, not falling out. “I’ll count that.” He comes around the counter leaving my $20 sitting there, grabs a key off the wall, and slips through the door, nearly shoving me out of the way.
What the fuck is up with this dude?
