This time was taken up with me inspecting Buck’s place, unpacking my stuff that his boys delivered, picking up Buck’s bedroom, doing some laundry and watching daytime television with Driver.
It was enough.
Moving around to keep my body from getting tight was one thing, but overdoing it was bad. I learned that clearing Buck’s floor space. I was still tender, but after succeeding in that feat, I felt pain.
So when I was done, Driver and I fired up the television and watched soaps and reruns of Dynasty.
Most of the soaps we watched were Mexican because Driver thought all the screaming, dramatic music and narrowed looks were hilarious (and I agreed). Neither of us spoke a word of Spanish, but still, they were funny.
We watched Dynasty because it was even funnier.
Buck was not around this whole time. He left me with Driver to get work done at Ace and to do Scary President of an MC Things.
I learned to spot the difference quickly.
If he was going to Ace, he’d share this with me.
If he was doing Scary President of an MC Things, he didn’t share.
The first night of my first full day in his house, Buck came home early with a pizza.
Driver was not invited to stay.
We ate it in front of the TV. Buck drank beer, I drank Coke, and Buck talked, mostly updates about my issues.
These included that Esposito was laying low…
“But darlin’, he has no choice. I was pretty thorough.”
Yikes!
Also no word from anywhere about Tia.
Which I was trying not to think about, planting visions firmly in my head each leg of her imaginary journey on her road trip to freedom in Seattle (I decided she’d gone to Seattle, just because that was where we’d planned to go).
When we were done eating, I cleared the box away (Buck didn’t do plates with pizza either, something I found difficult—eating pizza with nothing but my hands and a paper towel—but I mastered it on my third and final slice), and I brought him another beer.
I fell asleep again with my head on his thigh, and as such, there was a repeat of him carrying me to bed where I woke up just long enough to feel my head hit the pillow.
The second night, he came home late, had a beer and gave me another update on my issues (brief, since nothing was happening, which included no sign of Tia). He then told me he’d talked to his kids, he’d spent the day at Ace and that was the extent of our conversation.
I was learning Buck needed to unwind at night and unwinding didn’t mean deep, soul-bearing conversations.
It meant greasy food, beer and zoning out in front of the television.
This was okay since he liked doing the last with my cheek on his thigh and his fingers playing with my hair.
And anyway, I wasn’t up for soul-bearing conversations. I had enough of that for a while.
I needed a rest.
Although all of this was uneventful, the state of play of my life had shifted substantially.
I had my stuff, such as it was, but at least I had conditioner and clean underwear. And I didn’t have my unpaid rent hanging over my head.
I also didn’t have my car. I’d left it sitting too long, and in one of his updates, Buck informed me the repo men got it before his boys could get it.
This stunk.
Buck told me to kiss it good-bye and stop thinking about it, and since I really didn’t have any choice, I did that.
Though, I did worry that they took the homeless man’s tarp when they took my car. He needed it. It didn’t rain much in Arizona, but when it did, I suspected a tarp came in handy.
And not incidentally, when I shared this fear with Buck, he told me, “The boys’ll handle that too.”
Later, after he got a phone call, he confirmed that they did handle it.
I mean…
This guy.
And “his boys.”
Seriously.
On Mrs. Jimenez front: she was back at home. Buck’s men had located my purse and returned her nest egg. She reported to me she was fine—though Raymundo was looking for new accommodations for her.
She promised me this was not about me except for the fact she liked me next door and whoever might replace me might not be a quiet neighbor.
Unsurprisingly, Dallas didn’t expend a great deal of effort vetting his renters. Except for me, Mrs. Jimenez and Mrs. Ramirez, who lived on the first floor, all of our neighbors were loud due to screaming matches or being rowdy or both.
“Sometimes, life gives you signs,” Mrs. Jimenez told me over the phone. “You get tied to a chair, that’s a big sign.”
Well, at least she could be philosophical about it.
My bruises got angrier on Thursday, but now they’d begun to fade, as had the aches and pains. I was days away from being back to myself, but the healing was kicking in.