Big Man

“Are you paying attention?” he asks, and I startle, tearing my gaze from his biceps.

“Hmm?”

“You wanted to know how to get to the hardware store, didn’t you?” He rolls his eyes, but he’s smirking too. He’s enjoying how distracting he is, damn him.

I lean back in my seat. “Right.” I force my eyes on the road. Force my mind to stop imagining how it would feel if he swung this truck into a parking spot and used those thick, strong hands to reach for me instead of the gearshift. I’d bet he could pull me onto his lap before I even had time to gasp and tell him it was improper in public.

Then I imagine what that would feel like—kneeling across him while he wraps those strong hands around my firm ass and pulls me down into his lap. I picture the bulge in his jeans from thick cock; imagine grinding myself against him… Fuck, I could probably get off on that alone, like a horny teenager.

“You’re drifting again,” he points out, and I blink, startled to realize we’ve already gone three more streets while I wasn’t looking.

“No, I’m not,” I protest.

“Sure. And we’re where, again?”

I lick my lips. Frown. “I’m not great with directions,” I protest.

“Uh huh.” He swings a left in front of a site I do recognize, though—the church Mama used to go to. The church I went to growing up, and that helps me orient myself.

So many of the other stores have changed. Call me naive, but I’d have thought that in a little town like this, the big chain stores wouldn’t make much of a dent. But I spot a Starbucks on one corner and an IHOP across the way, and frown. “Where’d Billy’s go?” I ask, before I think better of it. Before I realize that’s a memory lane I don’t want to ride down. Fraught with all the things I remember after mass, heading there every Sunday for pancakes and coffee with—No.

“Not such a bad sense of direction after all.” Grant shakes his head with a sigh. “Billy’s closed down about ten years back. After Billy passed. Neither of his sons wanted to keep the place running. Rick tried to sell it for a while, but…” He shrugged one shoulder. “Not many people into the small town life these days. Everyone wants to run away to the big city. Forget their roots where they buried them.” He shoots me a sideways glance at that, and I clamp my mouth into a thin line.

“As long as they’re doing what they enjoy, don’t think you ought to blame them,” I say.

“Course not,” he says. “As long as it’s really what they enjoy.”

With that enigmatic statement, Grant pulls into the parking lot attached to Tulip Hardware, just a couple blocks up from where Billy’s used to be. At least that’ll be easy enough for me to remember.

We head inside, and Grant gives me a list of supplies to find while he hunts down the rest of the things we need. I manage to locate the nails we’ll need to finish the roof, as well as the various yard tools that have either rusted away or been borrowed from our shed and never returned in Mama’s absence.

I beat Grant to the counter and find an older couple chatting behind it. Their gazes slide over to me, at first with an absent glance, then narrowing in recognition and suspicion, in a way I’m getting used to spotting.

These people must know me. Or knew Mama, at any rate.

“Can we help you?” the man asks, a bite in his tone.

The woman doesn’t say anything, just stares.

“Er, I wanted to buy these.” I place the items on the counter.

He eyes them doubtfully. Doesn’t make a move to stand or start checking me out yet, though.

The woman leans over to pick up a cup of coffee from its perch on a neighboring stack of books and sips it politely for a long moment.

I stand there watching, eyes wide. Are they really just going to ignore me?

But after a long, almost never-ending moment, the woman finally sighs and pushes to her feet, grumbling like I’m asking the biggest, most interminable task of her. “Thirty for the lot,” she pronounces, without even looking at what I’ve laid on the table.

“But…” I bite my lip. I did the math already. None of this should add up to more than twenty bucks at most.

“Thirty,” she repeats, fixing me with a glare.

Just then, I feel a warm body approach behind me, and a thick, strong hand comes to rest gently on my shoulder. At the same time, the woman’s face transforms into a bright smile.

“Grant, honey, how lovely to see you.”

“How’ve you been? How’s the farm coming?” the man interjects.

“Great to see you too, Etna,” he replies to her first, bobbing his head. “And it’s coming along, Hank, slowly but surely. I see you’ve met my business partner, Sasha.”