When We Touch

Bucky climbs in and waggles his eyebrows at me while stretching his arm across the top of the bench seat.

“Want to sit in the middle? I have a third seatbelt.”

“Oh, no!” I sing out. “I’d better stay here with the shoulder strap. Safer.”

He nods and again checks out my boobs before turning to the front and starting the engine. It takes about fifteen minutes to get to the Tuna Tiki. The soft, melodic strains of Bob Marley greet us at the door. It’s the live house band playing all their standard tunes. I’ve only been to the Tiki a few times, but they’re always playing that same old list.

“We’d like a seat near the stage.” Bucky leans across the hostess’s counter, and she recoils frowning.

“Oh my goodness!” Her eyes fly to me, and my frown matches hers. “Right this way.”

The nice thing about the Tiki is it’s outdoors. The ocean breeze sweeps Bucky’s deviled-egg, formaldehyde, body odor up, up, and away, and the proximity to the band makes talking difficult.

My date orders us a pitcher of Natural Light on tap. I mentally calculate that’s probably three dollars total. Oh well, I’m not here to be spoiled. I’m honoring a commitment—and making another commitment to myself never to get in this predicament again.

A waitress puts the watery beer in front of us and we shout our orders to her. I get the California roll with a side of tuna sashimi. Bucky orders the grilled tuna sandwich, and waggles his eyebrows in that creepy way.

If he thinks he’s getting anywhere near my tuna…

The song ends, and the band takes a break. House music fills the air, and sadly it’s too quiet for us not to have a conversation. I wrack my brains trying to think of anything I might want to know about Bucky Pepper that I don’t already.

He’s leering at me with that weird smile.

“So,” I begin, lifting the small plastic cup of beer in front of me. “How did you get interested in taxidermy?”

“My dad did it.”

I’ve just taken a big gulp of watery brew, and I realize that’s it. He’s done. The house music drifts between us. Shit, I would’ve thought that would at least buy me a few minutes.

“Okay… that thing you made for me. The squirrel, or squirrels—”

“I invented it. It was my own creation.” He smiles again, and I nod.

“I thought you must have made it.” As if. “Is that a specialized technique? Fusing two bodies together like that?”

“It’s just stitchin and stuffin.”

Heaven help me. I look around for Tabby, wondering when an hour from the start of that party might roll around. Trying again. “Did you see a squirrel like that in a book, or did you—”

“I imagined it.”

“Okay…” It’s like I’m on a date with Slingblade. Only Slingblade was slightly more interesting. “How old were you when you stuffed your first animal?”

“A

bout ten or eleven. My daddy was working on an eight-point buck, and I asked if I could help him. The rest is history.”

I almost do a fist pump. I just got a whole three sentences that time. “What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever stuffed?”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I wish I could take them back. No telling what he might say. I need to slow down on the beer.

“One time an old lady wanted angel’s wings on her dead cat. She wanted it to look like it was jumping through the air.”

I’m totally buzzed, because that answer makes me start to giggle. The server appears just in time to block me with the tray, placing our orders in front of us. I’m still snorting when she finishes and relieved to get some food in my stomach.

“Can I get y’all anything else?” the girl asks.

“Another pitcher’d be good,” Bucky says, and she nods before I can say no thank you.