Crazy, Stupid, Dead

by Wendy Delaney

  After I apologized for being late, I asked Eddie the same thing when I relieved him behind the bar.

  He gave me a satisfied smile. “Isn’t it great? And I thought it would be slow tonight because of the football game.”

  That was why a lot of the local merchants referred to Port Merritt High’s home games as “Friday night lights.”

  “Did the game get cancelled or something?” Because while having the baseball playoffs going on all the flat screens typically enticed Eddie’s regulars to stay and have another beer, it didn’t usually create a standing-room-only kind of crowd.

  “Nope. Since Byron’s in town, I invited him and Steve over for some free pizza. No doubt, word spread.” Shifting his gaze toward the sound of raucous laughter at the big center table, Eddie grabbed a plastic tub of dirty dishes. “What the rest of those freeloaders don’t realize is that they’re getting one free pizza.”

  I looked over and spotted Georgie sitting in between two former teammates who were almost his same size. “How many pies have they ordered?”

  “Seven, so the kitchen is hoppin’.” Eddie grinned as he set off for the kitchen. “And the beer is flowin’.”

  The bar made the majority of its profits from the couple dozen beers he had on tap, so I could almost hear the sound of a happy cash register over the din of the crowd.

  I could also see Steve coming toward me with an empty pitcher in his hand and a sexy smile on his face.

  “Hey, what’s the occasion?” I called out to the former high school quarterback over the cheers coming from the guys watching the game. “It looks like most of your offensive line is at that table.”

  Edging around one of the few unoccupied stools, he leaned against the polished oak railing and handed me the plastic pitcher. “Byron must’ve said the magic words ‘free pizza’ to Dog, who called the gang to tell ‘em we were meeting up.”

  “The usual?” I asked, heading over to Steve’s favorite brew on tap.

  Steve nodded, looking at me as if he liked what he saw, and then he said something I couldn’t make out over Springsteen singing about dancing in the dark. “Hold that thought,” I shouted.

  Seconds later, I slid the foam-topped pitcher toward him. “What?”

  He gave me a peck on the lips. “I said nice shirt.”

  I glanced down at how it was clinging a little too tightly to the roll above my waistband. “I must’ve had it in the dryer too long. It shrank.”

  Steve smiled, his eyes dark with carnal intent as he focused on the twin peaks north of my love handles. “Good.”

  I looked over his shoulder at Byron while Libby grabbed another empty pitcher from their table. “I’m surprised Byron’s still in town. I thought he had to get back to work.”

  “He does. By’s catching a redeye late tomorrow, so this is pretty much it for getting together with the guys.”

  “Hmmm.” Since Byron had told me that he wanted to wrap up the negotiations this week, I took his travel plans as an indicator that he’d had to extend his stay because of something happening tomorrow.

  “Speaking of work, where’ve you been?” Steve asked, stepping to one side so that Libby could pass me that pitcher.

  “Yeah!” my bar waitress grumbled, punctuating an amber ale fill-up request with a lot more attitude than I was in the mood for.

  I shot her a saccharine-sweet smile as I headed for the tap. “My day job.”

  Steve backed off as if I had fired a warning shot. “Catch you later.”

  I was counting on it.

  Unlike Steve, Libby didn’t take the hint and rested her elbows on the bar in a practiced way that revealed some pretty spectacular cleavage. “What do you do again? I didn’t really get it from the paper.”

  I didn’t particularly feel like sharing, especially when I spotted Gary Carpp coming in with a kid who looked a lot like the clone I thought I saw at the construction site. “Mainly office work.”

  “And Marietta Moreau is your mother?” She shook her head, a smug glint in her eyes. “Did you do something to get cut out of the will to have to work two crummy jobs?”

  I forced a smile when I passed her the pitcher of ale. “I like to keep busy.”

  “I can think of more fun ways to keep busy,” Libby retorted, adjusting her short black skirt before she sashayed back to the guys’ table to treat Little Dog to the next peek down her shirt.

  “So can I.” But I also didn’t want Rox and Eddie to stress about their business. Not when I could easily fill in for a few hours on the weekends. Plus, this watering hole provided me the opportunity to interact with some of the locals that I might not otherwise run into.

  I shifted my gaze over to where Gary Carpp and his young doppelganger were heading toward the back to grab a table that had just been vacated.

  Spotting one of those opportunities, I grabbed a plastic tub and a bar rag, and fell into step behind them.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” I said, clearing away the dirty dishes.

  Gary leaned back and smiled at me. “We meet again.”

  “I know. Small world, huh?” I turned to his look-alike who hadn’t demonstrated so much as a flicker of recognition, probably because I had my hair down instead of pulling it back in the ponytail he’d seen two days earlier.

  Good, I thought as I wiped down the table.

  “It’s Charmaine, right?” Gary asked without offering an introduction to the kid I assumed was his son.

  Meeting Gary’s gaze, I didn’t sense anything more menacing than a lack of social graces. “Good memory.”

  “I didn’t realize you worked here.”

  “I’m just helping out for a while,” I said and then paused to give him another chance to make that introduction. When it didn’t come, I balanced the tub against my hip. “Can I start you off with a couple of beers?”

  “Sure.” The kid rattled off the lengthy name of a pale ale I’d never heard of before.

  “Let me make sure that I’ve got that one.” I gave him an apologetic smile.

  Still nothing but cocky disinterest registered on his face, especially after he cast a glance at my thunder thighs.

  I don’t care because I’ve got nothing but professional interest in you. “And of course I’ve got to take a peek at your ID.”

  Expelling a stale breath that reeked of cigarettes, he reached for his wallet.

  “Take it as a compliment,” Gary said after he ordered a Budweiser. “No one asks for my ID anymore.”

  The kid pulled out his driver’s license and flipped it over onto the table like a jerk, making me work for it.

  Picking it up, I focused on the thing I wanted to know the most: his name. Sean Davis Carpp.

  I did the mental math to determine that Sean was twenty-two and handed the license back to him. “Any relation to the guy who doesn’t need to be carded here?”

  He gave Gary the same constipated look as my mother whenever she mentioned my “pasty-faced bastard” father. “Yeah.”

  Okay, his dad was clearly not the hot date Sean wanted to have sitting across from him tonight. “Let me check on that IPA. I’ll also grab you a couple of menus.”

  Libby met me at the bar, where she glanced back at Gary. “Who the heck is the hunk you were talking to?”

  No one she should be setting her sights on. “Family friend.” My mother liked him, so the characterization was close enough.

  “Here,” I said seconds later, placing the amber bottle I found in the specialty beer case next to the glass of Budweiser on Libby’s tray. “He gets the Bud, and they need menus. Don’t know if his wife will be joining them.”

  Libby groaned. “Figures he’d be married. All the good ones are.”

  Also the not-so-good ones. Which I couldn’t say for sure fit Gary Carpp, but there was still something about him that made the hair at the back of my neck stand on end. Nothing that had set off my lie-dar, but still … Something had told me to be
ware of the tree guy.

  Given what Mike Pollard had told me about some punk at the job site who could get him fired, possibly the tree guy’s son, too.

  After about fifteen minutes, I had settled into what had become my typical weekend routine of filling drink orders and working the register when I spotted Byron stepping away from the table.

  At first, I thought he might be coming over to talk to me since this might be our last chance before he left town. But instead of heading my way, Byron caught Gary’s eye and pointed toward the exit.

  Seconds later, I stood at the register, where I could see Byron pacing in the front parking lot while Gary seemed to be doing most of the talking. Then with a nod from Byron and a handshake, they retraced their steps back to their tables.

  What the heck was that?

  While Libby made her rounds at the other side of the bar, I grabbed a pitcher of ice water to give myself an excuse to do some reconnaissance at Byron’s table. Because after seven pizzas, those boys should have been awfully thirsty.

  “Hiya, Char,” Georgie called out as I reached past him to clear out an aluminum pizza pan that looked as if he had licked it clean. “No luck on your car yet, but it’s only been a day.”

  “I didn’t expect anything to happen overnight.” And really not what I wanted to talk about.

  Steve set down his beer glass. “What’s going on with your car?”

  Georgie puffed out his broad chest. “Technically, it’s my car now, and I’m selling it.”

  “What kind of car?” Byron asked while I collected a mass of used napkins and two empty pitchers.

  Since the Jag was now Little Dog’s problem, I let him do the explaining and headed over to the Carpp table to see if I could glean any useful information from the far side of the room.

  But with father and son watching the game in silence while waiting for their food, I returned to the bar with nothing more than two drink orders and more dirty dishes.

  After I poured two glasses of Chardonnay for the ladies at the table behind Gary, I looked up to see Steve sitting at Donna’s usual spot at the bar.

  “What’re you doing here?” I asked him on my way back from making the wine delivery. “Too much testosterone at the table for you?”

  Steve grinned. “Thought I’d enjoy the view from over here for a while.”

  Much as I wanted to believe that was his only motivation, I knew better. “And …”

  “And I was curious why you didn’t tell me that you sold your car to Dog.”

  “I didn’t see you last night so it wasn’t like the subject came up. Anyway, it was sort of a spur of the moment decision, which is now over and done with.”

  “So I assume you got here in the new ride.”

  I nodded. “But it’s going back tomorrow.”

  Steve narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, it’s going back?”

  What was confusing about that? “I’m returning it. Maybe they’ll have something used that I can afford.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not like returning a pair of shoes. Dealerships don’t usually take returns.”

  I swore under my breath. “I’m stuck with this gift horse of a car?”

  “Is that so bad?”

  I stabbed my finger at him as I headed for the Friday night regular shaking his empty glass at me. “Said by a guy who doesn’t have to deal with this kind of manipulative crap from his mother.”

  * * *

  After the playoff game ended, Byron, Georgie, and the rest of the team took off, leaving Steve and a pile of cash at the table.

  “I don’t know if there’s enough here to give you much of a tip,” he said, counting the bills while I cleared the table.

  I was used to his pals not being big tippers. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Actually, it doesn’t even cover the bill.” Steve pulled another twenty from his wallet and then handed the wad to me.

  “Eddie thanks you, even though the pizza for you and Byron was supposed to be on the house.” I looked over at the now-empty back table where Libby was collecting the tip money that Gary Carpp had left her. “Speaking of Byron, what was going on earlier?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “With him and Gary Carpp having that little meeting outside.”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  Right. Steve typically didn’t miss a thing. “When Byron stepped away for a few minutes, it was to talk in private with the Cascara group rep he’s probably been negotiating with.”

  Steve gave me a pointed look. “No doubt because he didn’t want someone like you listening in.”

  Resenting the fact that Steve had to be right, I pushed him aside so I could wipe down the table. “Tomorrow must be it for getting this deal done that Bryon’s been working on, don’t you think?”

  “I couldn’t tell you,” Steve said with a little curl of amusement at the corner of his mouth.

  “I’m sure he must’ve mentioned something about it to one of the guys.”

  The curl extended into a smug grin.

  I wanted to wipe that grin off his face with my grungy rag. “Really? You’re not going to tell me?”

  “Do you tell me everything?”

  I set down the tub of dirty dishes I was balancing at my hip and glared at him. “Not everything. Didn’t think you want to hear the girl stuff.” I couldn’t quite bring myself to go so far as Lucille and mention woman parts.

  Steve hooked his finger in the V of my shirt and gently pulled me close. “Who says I don’t?”

  If he held me any closer I thought my woman parts might start to melt. “I’m not saying—”

  “Good.” Steve pressed his lips to mine, giving me a sizzling kiss that he broke off way too soon. “I think you’re being paged,” he said, turning me to face Libby’s scowl.

  “Duty calls.” I picked up the tub of dishes and started for the bar. “Want to come over later?”

  Steve smirked. “Not if you’re gonna want to play Twenty Questions.”

  “I might not even ask you one question. Heck, I might not even talk to you at all!”

  “There you go not talking to me again,” he said, walking past me toward the door.

  “I’m sure we can find something else to do.”

  “I’m sure we can.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  THREE HOURS LATER, I was curled up next to Steve while the sci-fi movie he had picked out flickered in the low light of my living room.

  I felt warm and safe and loved, with my dog resting his head on my thigh and softly snoring. But that didn’t keep my restless brain from niggling at me about what I had witnessed at Eddie’s.

  Grabbing the remote and jostling Fozzie awake in the process, I paused the movie. “You know when we talked a few nights ago about how the Pollards have received some threats in connection to Ryan testifying?”

  Steve hung his head. “I thought you agreed we wouldn’t be playing Twenty Questions.”

  “We’re not. There’s just something I noticed tonight that I thought I should run by you. As a good citizen,” I added like a cherry on top of the conversation I needed if I wanted to have a prayer of sleeping tonight.

  “A good citizen.” His jaw muscles tightened as he turned to me. “Right.”

  “Lighten up on the sarcasm and just listen.”

  Steve folded his arms, and Fozzie immediately jumped off the sofa as if sensing that trouble was brewing.

  “Remember how I was saying that Mike Pollard was concerned that someone might try to get him fired?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What if that someone was Sean Carpp, who I happened to card at Eddie’s tonight.”

  Steve’s brow furrowed. “Char—”

  “Just hear me out. I’m pretty sure that I saw him at the same job site as Mike. Might even have been on the same crew as Ryan, so what if Sean was involved somehow with the guys you arrested and—”

 
“No,” Steve interjected, shaking his head.

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “I mean no. We aren’t going to talk about this again.”

  “But think about it. Who better to try to get Mike fired than Gary Carpp’s punk-ass son?”

  Steve’s chocolate brown eyes hardened as if they had been flash-frozen. “Unless Mike Pollard would like to talk to me about this himself, I don’t want to think about it. Do you know why?”

  I was pretty sure it was the same reason he gave me three nights ago. “Because there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “So will you drop this, please?”

  Heaving a sigh, I slumped back on the sofa.

  “And do me a favor and stay away from that job site.”

  The husky quality of his tone informed me that this wasn’t solely a professional request. “I’m right about Sean Carpp, aren’t I? He’s trouble.”

  “And I don’t want you to get on his radar,” Steve said, as good as confirming that Sean Carpp had been the one hassling the Pollards.

  “I didn’t do much more than drive by on the way to see my mother.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Now it was my turn to fold my arms tight to my chest. “You sound like you don’t believe me.”

  “I know you. You’re looking—”

  “Don’t you dare say that I’m looking for trouble again.”

  Steve grabbed the remote. “Then I guess we’re done talking,” he said, pointing it at the TV.

  “Remember what I said about finding something else to do if you’re not gonna talk to me?”

  Pausing the movie again, he turned to me with a lopsided smile. “Yeah?”

  “Good luck with that.”

  Steve set down the remote and wrapped his arm around me. “Did I just hear a challenge?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “I’m always up for a good challenge,” he said as he lowered his lips to mine.

  Stretching out on the sofa to get more comfortable, I pulled him on top of me without breaking the kiss.

  After he came up for air, Steve settled on an elbow and grinned down at me. “Something tells me that my luck just changed.”

  “Now it’s time to stop talking.” I pulled him back down to claim his mouth and vanquish all thoughts of Carpps, drownings, ex-husbands, and problem cars from my mind for a few minutes.