“Why the hell was she walking through the woods with prickers on her feet?”
“I guess they do things differently in Boston,” I tell him, taking another big swig.
“You gonna see her again?”
I know I shouldn’t be grinning since she needs surgery and shit, but the next day or so with her should be entertaining at the very least. “She has surgery scheduled for the morning.”
“You don’t work mornings,” Jack reminds me.
“Am tomorrow.” I wink quickly and take a swig of the beer.
“Nice, bro. Good luck with that. You love when a girl tries to get under your skin. You’re like some kind of chick masochist.”
“Keeps me on my toes.”
Another guy walks in and takes a seat a few stools away from me, so Jack leaves me with a good view of the TV behind his head. Nice. We’re up six-nothing in the seventh inning.
With the hum of the TV’s quiet static and the water pouring into a sink behind the bar where Jack’s cleaning glasses, it’s hard not to hear a couple of people bickering out on the street.
I lean back to see what’s going on. Another odd thing about this town is that people don’t argue in public, or if they do, it’s with a smile and the devil in their eye. Most folks save it for behind closed doors in fear of hurting their pristine reputation. I know the truth, as do most of the others who have lived here way too long, but people take the whole “peaceful” town thing very seriously, and undermining that façade could be bad for tourism.
The arguing seems to get louder, and it sparks Jack’s attention. He presses up on his toes and looks out above the bar’s sign. “Hey uh, what color of hair does Boston have?” he asks.
“I don’t know, like dark brown and reddish.”
“Big tits?” Jack continues.
“For sure,” I respond. Didn’t miss those babies.
“I think your girl is out there fighting with some uppity-looking guy.”
“She ain’t my girl, bro. I was her nurse today.”
Jack lowers back down and continues cleaning the glass he was working on but with a grin that says more than his brain could conjure for words. “Well, I don’t think she’ll be that dude’s girl for much longer, so you never know.”
I stop myself from telling him they’re not together because that would make it clear I found out a little too much about Scarlett today, which may be the case, but it’s boring as hell around here so I get to know all my patients, not just her.
When I hear the sound of a slap, I jump off the stool, causing a sharp scrape between the leg’s metal footing and the tile floor. I’m out the door in a matter of seconds, watching the hand wind up to slap again. My eyes widen in surprise, shocked at what I’m seeing. “Ah, you shouldn’t be swinging at people tonight. Or ever, for that matter,” I say.
“She hits me all the time,” Brendan says. “She thinks she’s hurting me, but she hits like a girl.” And the non-wounded hand slaps his shoulder.
“Shut the fuck up. Why are you being so stubborn today?” Scarlett asks Brendan.
“Me? I’m being stubborn? You have a broken wrist. You should be resting because you have surgery tomorrow. Yet, here we are meandering around town, but yes, I’m the one being stubborn.” Brendan is very calm and level-headed, and Scarlett is turning redder by the minute.
“Hey, hey, calm down.” I walk over to her and grab her good arm that’s swinging without a target to hit. “You’re going to hurt your wrist more if you keep swinging your body around like that. Why are you roaming around right now? He’s right. You should be home resting.”
“I need a few things from a pharmacy or whatever you have around here that comes close to that, and I have to get my prescriptions filled.” She continues to look around the street while she’s talking, but she isn’t going to find what she’s looking for within the next couple of blocks. “What about you? Do you just spend your nights roaming the streets looking for tricks?” she asks.
“Tricks?” I ask with a snort catching in my nose. “Did you not just see me walk out of the bar?”
She doesn’t orally respond, just squints one eye at me and contorts her face to look like she just tasted a lemon.
“Let me settle my bill inside, and I’ll escort you two to the drugstore.”
“No. It’s fine, really. If you just point us in the right direction, we’ll be okay.”
“Just give me a minute,” I tell them.
