A/N: Caution, this contains some blunt references to rape in the context of addressing unanswered questions from the main story. It's light-hearted overall, but does have these couple of dark moments. Feel free to skip it entirely if you're not into that, you're missing nothing. Also, this is a bit long. Thanks for looking in. This story is now completely complete. :)
EPOV
Friday, June 1
I'm going to marry Sookie Stackhouse. I've known this since about three days after I found her in the first class lounge at Sea-Tac Airport, of all places. I don't personally subscribe to all that crap about fate or kismet or whatever you wish to call it. Sookie is a spiritual person. I'm not sure the full extent of that; whether she believes that God has a plan for her. If He does, then that was definitely part of it. Either way, it had been one hell of a coincidence, both of us turning up there that night, and the events that followed.
From the men I've known who have gotten married it seems to occur in one of two ways. Either they know immediately, like me with Sookie, that the girl is marriage material, or they eventually just decide that it is time for them to be married and so they marry whoever they happen to be with at that time. That's basically what Sookie's brother is doing. Cut and dry, those are the options. Some people like the idea of love waxing over time and romance blossoming. Maybe that's how they perceive it happening, but as far as I'm concerned, that's bullshit. You know right away if you've got a perfect girl in your hands. Guys in the first group may bide their time, taking it slow to ensure there are no hidden deal breakers, but in point of fact the decision has already been made. It's just a matter of following protocol in order to lock it down.
I am in the process of doing that. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, this is what's happening. Sookie has just signed a one-year lease on her rental house. This is perfect for my timeline. I'll propose in another four or five months, and we can take our time looking for a house. I'm not terribly concerned about the wedding itself. If I have my choice, I think I'd like to go away somewhere to do it. Maybe on this beach I'm buying in Hawaii. I've shown her the pictures and she said it is breathtaking.
Sookie is younger than I am, so we will not need to rush into having kids. We can enjoy each other for a few years. We have not yet talked about the logistics of that, but thanks to my drunken rambling, she is aware that I would like some children. I would be alright with two or three if she doesn't want four. I definitely don't want just one though. I don't know if she is going to want to try to go back to work after she has them, or not. In our situation, she'll have the luxury of a choice. I already know it will be very important to her to make that choice for herself, so I haven't bothered forming an opinion. Suffice to say, I've got plans for us in the long term.
I need to clarify that it hadn't been love at first sight with Sookie and I. Lust at first sight, yes. And every sight thereafter, for that matter. The girl is hot. Beautiful. She is my ideal in terms of looks and body type. I am a large man, so all women are small to me. Sookie is not so short that I feel like I am fucking a child or something. It's happened. It's a turnoff. I could not leave fast enough when we were done. Some of these shoes women wear are fucking devious. Sookie's got the whole soft, feminine curves thing going for her. Her legs, her hips, her ass. Her breasts are spectacular. You see ones like hers all the time of course, but you get used to the idea that they only exist in two dimensions with the help of editing software. The real life version is awesome.
I met Sookie when she was still dating Bill Compton, who'd come part and parcel with his company when we bought it. He took every opportunity to show her off. I didn't mind that a bit as it had certainly added some enjoyment to a number of otherwise tedious events for me. She is confident without being conceited and demure without being diffident. She's also got a hearty streak of sass. It was pretty fun to shake her calm and try to draw that out. I imagine that if I had ever just grabbed her and kissed her, she would have hit me with one of those little beaded bags they carry and stormed off in a tirade. I would have found it cute. I had no idea how that asshole had ever bagged a girl like her nor why he'd been stupid enough to blow it, let alone for that she-demon.
Lorena had been with Area Five for a couple of years before she brought Compton's start-up to our attention. She had made good advisements in the past. She was cold and dispassionate, not like a lot of these software people with their pet projects that are theoretically cool, but ultimately unmarketable. She had always seemed suited to her position. When it came out that Bill was her ex-husband, of course I questioned her. She'd made it clear that they hadn't parted amicably, and that this was just good business, not favouritism. I'd accepted that. Being candid, if it came up again, I would have flagged her earlier as being dishonest but still gone ahead and made the deal, because it was good business. I'd guessed there was something going on there pretty quickly, just from seeing the casual contact between Bill and Lorena once he came on board. But it was always... what had Pam called her? Barbie... that he brought out for show.
When I first saw her, I'll admit I assumed that was all she was. Wittingly or not, I found myself quickly corrected, which is what first piqued my interest. I stood by impassively as my own date was ridiculously rude to her and I thought we were going to have some kind of hot girl cat fight on our hands, which would have improved the boring evening dramatically. When instead, Sookie had just stuck her chin out and taught my date a lesson in decorum, I was intrigued. She was with that dipshit long-term, however. From then on, I could politely say that I'd played the rake where she was concerned. Or as she put it, I behaved like a lecherous ass. I didn't really have anything to lose though, so yes, I practically propositioned her at every opportunity. Win for me if she ever spontaneously said yes, right?
I'll admit that I did hold it against Compton that he had her and I didn't. This is really just one in a longer list of reasons why I came to dislike him, however. He was a pretentious prick and social grasper with delusions of grandeur. He was also something of a brownnoser. He did write good code, though, which was ultimately what mattered to me at that point in time. I didn't have to be friends with the guy.
I don't really keep up with friends in general. Don't get me wrong, I've had friends before. My upbringing was not so devoid that I never had any buddies. I have never been antisocial in the way that commonly characterizes people very interested in technology, as I am. I just hadn't many whom I would consider friends lately, unless you count Pam. I'd managed to lose touch with my school friends. Actually, that would imply that I'd tried and failed. I didn't try and accepted the consequences of that. In my work, it was for the best. Case in point, the situation with Sookie and Tara Thornton. I know Sookie still feels conflicted about Tara, which is why I have avoided discussing my plans for Arkansas with her in any detail.
I'm a little older than the Facebook generation that will move forward through life keeping permanent tabs on every person they have ever interacted with. I don't really have time for that even if I were so inclined, which I'm frankly not. Sookie is not on Facebook either, because of her work. As an educator, she needs to be concerned with her appearance in the face of scrutiny from students and parents, not to mention her employer. That includes her internet presence, so she just avoids it entirely. She has some sort of secret pink sorority network that fills this void for her.
The sorority thing can be amusing at times. She once got us a table at a restaurant by whispering some magic pass-phrase to the hostess after recognizing a pin the girl was wearing. I kid you not, that actually happened. Fucking frats and sororities. Sookie apparently loved her sorority experience. She is still in touch with all of them. It has to be different for women. I also credit the fact that she wasn't exposed to them until she got to university with her inability to see their negatives, unlike me. She thinks I hate them because of the stereotypes. She's half right. I hate them because stereotypes are formed from truths. Hazing? Try coping with that shit when you're fourteen years old and the ritual of initiation consists of getting held down by a gang of upperclassmen and fucked in the ass. That happens. Maybe not everywhere. Maybe not always like that. I'm sure there are plenty of fraternal orders where you're merely bound or flogged or shat and pissed upon or forced to drink yourself unconscious. I'm sure somewhere there's that bright side. This is not a subject we'll have to revisit until our kids go to school. Maybe by then I'll have gotten around to sharing the truth of my misgivings with her. I'm in no particular rush.
Back to the point of the discussion of friends and brotherhood; I'm going to marry Sookie, and she's got a brother. I've never had a sibling, so I'm going to attempt to treat this guy like a friend. Jason Stackhouse seems pretty mellow. Goofy, at times. Like a dog or something. In a good way though. I like the guy. I've been thinking about getting a dog. His resemblance to Sookie is in looks, and honesty, and the fact that they're both hardworking people. He does not seem to have her brains, compassion, or selflessness. When we met before, he'd been very welcoming. I hadn't expected it. Considering I was arriving on the heels of Bill Compton, I'd expected to be judged harshly. That hadn't been the case. We'd had the chance to talk about him briefly on that first meeting. I quickly realized that the mere fact of my being not-Bill had been a hundred points in my favour from the get go. The only male-relative intimidation he'd fronted was when he asked me point blank if I was serious about his sister and if I was treating her right. I'd told him yes on both accounts, and that seemed to settle the matter for him.
We'd gotten up to Sookie's Bon Temps house in the afternoon and I'd convinced her we should get a start on moving the boxes that were still already packed. It kept us busy for while. When Jason had turned up after work, Sookie went inside and left us to talk. He showed me his burned leg which was pretty disgusting actually. I was surprised. When Sookie had said that her brother's leg had been on fire and she had thrown herself on him to put it out, I was somehow not picturing anything as bad as this. I realized I was supposed to respond in kind, so I shared my broken leg skiing story, leaving out the details of the hospital stay. He started telling me about this one time he'd fallen out of a tree trying to get a ball that Sookie had kicked up into the branches. At that point, she came out and told him all about how I missed the call that the sail was swinging around on my great uncle's yacht one summer and gotten hurled into the ocean.
"What would have been wrong with a good old fashioned call of, 'Hit the deck?'" I asked rhetorically. Clearly Fahma and Sookie had discussed a much broader range of topics at their luncheon than either had initially let on.
Jason laughed and slapped me on the back.
"How about 'hit the showers?'" Sookie suggested. "If you guys want 'em, take 'em now, cause Crystal's going to be home soon and I am starting on dinner."
"Shower sounds good," Jason said. He lifted his arm and smelled his own pit, and pulled an exaggerated face of disgust.
I watched as Sookie shoved him toward the house. "You gotta do that when we have company?" she hissed. He laughed at her. I followed them both inside.
Sookie's shower is awful. I'd never say that to her of course. It serves her well enough, but I've got to crouch down to get my head under the spray and it's just too small in general. It's going to need to be replaced at some point if we are going to keep coming up here, hopefully sooner rather than later. I have no idea what her budget was like in terms of renovations for this house, especially considering that nightmare next door that Compton has dumped on her. Worst case scenario, I would just take the liberty at some point, once we were official and she wouldn't be able to argue. Rather, at that point, I'd have grounds to argue back. This is a nice old place in general. It has a lot of character. It's very fitting of her. It could use a lot of updating, though. At least the water pressure is good and there are no issues with two showers running simultaneously.
I know from experience that the hot water doesn't last very long so pull myself away from my thoughts and finish up pretty quickly. Stepping out of the steamy bathroom, the smell of whatever she's cooking hits me and my mouth starts watering. That line about the key to a man's heart being through his stomach is a crock. It's not like that works if there isn't already attraction. Having a girl who can cook though, seems like a serious plus. I'd had some of Sookie's food the last time I was here and it was great. I'm definitely looking forward to having more of it on a regular basis. She genuinely enjoys cooking too. She misses doing it when she stays with me. I don't feel like I'd be imposing on her if I let her cook for us in the future.
I quickly braid my hair back and put on some clean jeans and a shirt. I head out to the kitchen and take the beer Jason offers and sit down to salivate while I watch my girlfriend buzz around her kitchen turning chicken and mushrooms and seasonings into food. She's even wearing a little apron. The bow is tied right at the small of her back and the little ends swish back and forth across her ass. I don't think she did this deliberately. It is distracting. Jason is talking about football now and I force myself to focus. I do not watch a lot of television, which includes sports. I don't have a lot of extra time for it. I try to follow things in an oblique way, treating sports news like any other news.
Despite the fact that I don't care for a lot of media, I do find myself compelled to pay attention to the news. It's very useful to be able to speak with authority on a variety of topics. I do not like finding myself in the situation where I'm disadvantaged by a lack of general knowledge. Keeping myself abreast of current events is something I have found serves me well in general, so despite the fact that I don't really follow football, I'm aware of the controversy with the coach of the New Orleans Saints this year, and the alleged bounties issued for injuring the players on the opposing teams.
"Definitely a lousy thing to do from a P.R. standpoint," I observe.
"Whaddya mean?" Jason asks, taking another sip of his beer.
"Well the team has been a great source of pride in the city, and the scandal certainly robs people of that," I say.
"It's messed up," Jason agrees. I remember that Sookie has told me he used to play ball when he was in school.
"Makes it seem like we can't win without being thugs," I continue. "It definitely detracts from the athletes' achievements."
"That stuff definitely happens. Even I used to get hit pretty hard. Unnecessary roughness," Jason remembers.
"Yeah, but you don't want to encourage that on an organizational level," I say. "Did they say who's going to replace Williams yet?" I ask. Williams is, or was, the defensive coordinator of the Saints, who was most embroiled in the scandal. I do not actually know the first name.
"Nah, they're still dicking around. I'm hoping we get Del Rio, but they're saying it's Spagnuolo now," Jason says.
I nod as though I agree with Jason's assessments on both the dicking around and the suitability of Del Rio over Spagnuolo. I make a mental note to look up these names. The Saints are the home team. They come up in conversation frequently.
Crystal arrives and joins Sookie at the counter to fix a salad while Sookie turns her attention to the pasta. It's getting progressively warmer in the kitchen so Jason gets up to open a window and grab us some more beers. I'm surprised that these are actually good. I think I'd mentally pigeonholed Jason in the Budweiser camp, but he's serving Dixie.
"I don't think I would have pegged you for a microbrew man," I comment.
"This is all I'm allowed to keep in the house," he explains. "Crystal's pissed she can't get none of the Strawberry Abitas this year. So we all have to suffer," he finishes, aiming his last comment at Crystal, a little louder. Abita is the large and ubiquitous Louisiana brewery. They have a seasonal Strawberry Wheat beer. Crystal takes exception to his remark and tosses a carrot at him which he deftly catches and pops into his mouth with a grin. Sookie turns around to view the exchange and I catch her eye for a moment and she gives me a little smile before turning back to whatever she's making, which is now filling the air with a thickly sweet aroma. That is unexpected. Maybe it's sweet and sour chicken or something.
It turns out to be Chicken Marsala which she serves over pasta and it's amazing. I guess the Marsala just smells sweet, but it's not really in the taste. The girls are talking about the recipe and Jason suggests that we all go out to Merlotte's again once we're done eating. I agree that this sounds fine. Sookie seems to be up for it, but Crystal is not. Once she voices that, Sookie decides that she is tired and wants a shower, so I guess Jason and I will be going alone. That will be fine. I end up having three helpings of the chicken and spaghetti. Sookie seems happy with the fact that we leave no leftovers. Once we have cleared the table, Crystal pulls Jason off to lecture him about being a good boy while we are out. He takes it like a man. I take the opportunity of her brother being distracted to grab Sookie to me.
Nuzzling into her neck I ask, "Aren't you going to warn me to behave tonight?" I ask her.
"Do I need to?" she asks as she brushes a stray strand of hair behind my ear. I nip at her neck in response. She knows exactly what she is doing with the fingertips brushing my ear like that.
"I don't think we'll be late," I answer. She's right, she doesn't need to worry. I've been pretty clear with my intentions here.
"Don't let him drive if he shouldn't though, or call me if you're both in no shape, yes?" she asks.
"I don't plan to get drunk, but yes, I will if necessary," I assure her. I hear Jason coming back down the hall so I take my chance and give her a good and proper kiss goodbye, dipping her back a little. It's amusing the way she always slightly panics like I'm going to drop her or something. I feel Jason slap me hard on the back.
"Cut that shit out in front of me," he says. Oh right. This is his sister I'm making out with. I can hear that he's joking though.
"Jason be nice," Sookie scolds. I smirk, because that's twice. I do not get scolded by Sookie.
It's a short drive over to the bar and it's a lot busier tonight than it was when we were here before. It seems to be the same sort of local crowd. Jason and I take a booth and when the waitress comes over I go ahead and order a pitcher of the Strawberry Abita, which the little chalk drawn sign told me was newly on tap. He gives me a look.
"I'm man enough to drink strawberry beer," I shrug. "Besides, it sounded good."
"Yeah, it is," he admits, chuckling. "Alright Dawn, that, and two mugs, and then let me get an order of fries." It's my turn to give him a look. I'm definitely still full from dinner.
"It's the salt," he explains, offering nothing further. Okay then. The man's got his habits, I suppose.
I watch as Jason rests back in the bench and throws an arm up over the back. As before, a couple of the other waitresses come over to say hello to him. They both flirt in a familiar sort of way, though one asks after Crystal.
"She's home with Sook," he explains. "This is Eric, Sookie's man," Jason explains.
"Eric, this is Dawn Green. She went to school with Sookie and me."
I shake hands with the waitress who's not really being shy about the appraising look she's giving me.
"My my my, Sookie's doing well for herself isn't she?" Dawn says with what I think is supposed to be a sultry smile. She's talking to Jason but she's still looking at me. I drop her hand.
"She is," I confirm, ignoring her look. "She's just been hired at Peterson Academy down in New Orleans."
"Oh that's right, I heard she was teaching up here at the high school sometimes," Dawn says vaguely.
"Yeah, she had to give them her notice that she's not in the substitute ring anymore," I say. "We're up this weekend to move the rest of her stuff into her new place."
"Dawn, you got J.B. calling you," Jason nods with a sidelong glance at another table where a man is indeed straining to get the waitress's attention.
She offers me another smile before wandering off.
"Ex?" I ask Jason.
He offers a sheepish grin and a nod. "Something like that. Small town," he offers in explanation. "That's one of Sookie's over there," he says with a smirk, nodding to the same guy at the other table who is now placing an order with the very hands-on Dawn.
"Sookie dated that guy?" I ask to confirm. He's a good-looking guy, probably closer to Jason's height than mine. He's in a t-shirt that's a bit tight across his chest and arms. He definitely goes to the gym.
"Well, he took her to a couple of dances back in high school. He's a good guy," Jason offers.
The guy catches us looking at him, though I suppose we weren't exactly being covert about it. Jason gives him a wave and he sends Dawn on her way and stands up to come over and say hello.
"Hey Jas," he offers coming up to the table. "J.B. Du Rone," the guy offers to me with his hand extended.
"Eric Northman," I say, shaking.
Jason slides over as our beer and the fries arrive and J.B. takes a seat opposite me. They chat for a little while about Jason's work. Apparently they're going to be closing a road intermittently next week. I ask him how it is in the summer when it's so hot, and he explains that union regulations are pretty strict about break times when the heat index is over certain points, and that there are some other restrictions on their hours of labour as well. J.B. is nodding along as though all of this is known to him already. I feel as if I'm gaining a certain insight into why one tends to see road workers standing around all the time doing visibly nothing.
"So what's that pretty sister of yours been up to?" J.B. asks.
Jason smirks at me before telling him that she is moving back to New Orleans. I don't think J.B. catches the look. They talk a little bit about Sookie for a few minutes to Jason's amusement, which is only obvious to me. This guy is clearly curious to catch up on how she's doing and he hasn't been informed of who I am in relation to her. It's pretty harmless, but I get tired of keeping quiet after a few minutes.
Steering the conversation, I ask Jason how it's going in management and he tells me the young guys are still giving him shit. This baffles all of us. He's only a couple of years older than Sookie and this J.B. guy, and I am only a few years older than him, and we all still consider ourselves to be young guys. I guess he's referring to kids right out of high school. Surely we were more focused at that age? I mean maybe it's a road crew and not college, but for fuck's sake, it's your life. Whatever you're doing, do it well.
"Jas," J.B. says, elbowing Jason and jutting his chin up in the direction of the door. His eyes have gone cold and squinting which is an odd expression on his amiable face.
Jason looks up and his face darkens to a steely pall. He gives me a hard look, which I don't understand. I lift my eyebrows and crane my neck around to see two guys in the doorway who look, if I'm being blunt, a deal grimier than most of the clientele. Low class, not working class. I make an effort not to be a snob as a general rule. I really dislike the attitude that wealth somehow makes you a better person. I assure you, it does not. In fact, it's much more likely to make you a worse person, since it means a shitty attitude is less likely to be corrected in the normal course of life's adversity. So despite the fact that both Jason and J.B. have gone hostile across from me, I say nothing about the two guys, and merely turn back to them to wait for an explanation. I don't get one.
Dawn appears again and shoots Jason a warning expression before showing the guys to a table well away from us, in a different section. She leads them back around the far side of the room so they come nowhere near us. Once they're out of anyone's eye line Jason slams back the rest of his beer and pours himself another, which he resumes sipping casually.
Not caring to wait anymore, I ask, "Who are they?"
"Mack Rattray and Tom Hardaway," J.B offers. Thanks, that explains nothing.
Jason is giving me another stern look. Finally he says flatly, "They messed with Sookie back in high school."
This is not a story I know, but Jason and J.B. both remain tense, so I can presume it's no very nice story. Another of Jason's buddies appears then, and I am introduced to Hoyt Fortenberry and his girlfriend Holly. She settles in beside me while Hoyt pulls a chair up to sit at the head of the table. Our waitress comes back to take an order from Hoyt and Holly and we all settle in to a conversation about a live band playing next week at a bar in Monroe that Holly wants to go see. I don't miss the silent exchange between Hoyt and the other two guys that indicates Hoyt's recognition of Mack and Tom in the bar, nor the fact that Hoyt has positioned himself in such a way that he's effectively blocking J.B. and Jason in.
Holly turns to me during a lull in our conversation. "So what do you do, Eric?"
"I'm with Area Five down in New Orleans. Well, Seattle technically, but I'm in New Orleans for now."
"Oh you're Sookie's Eric!" she recognizes. I had been introduced simply as myself to everyone aside from the flirtatious waitress, Dawn.
"That I am," I grin. I see J.B. shoot Jason a look as that sinks in which Jason responds to by cracking up laughing.
"I told you not to bother me about my sister man," I hear Jason say.
The conversation then shifts to New Orleans and the party agrees that none of them get down there as often as they would like. Holly remarks that though she loves the city it's just such a far drive. Hoyt and J.B. admit that they've only been there once in their entire lives. Being pretty well travelled, I'm having a bit of a culture shock moment here, so I counter with the fact that I haven't spent much time in small towns like this. They discuss the benefits of small town living, as told by people who have never known anything else. I'm happy to listen and hear what they have to say until Hoyt notices that the pool table has opened up, and as a group we decide to go and have a few games.
I make a stop on the way over to piss out some of the strawberry beer. As I'm washing up, the two guys, Mack and Tom, appear in the bathroom. They're carrying on in raucous conversation and I catch only the name Stackhouse before I duck out. I'm not the type of guy who gets into fights. I haven't been in one since I was maybe fifteen. The only martial art I've ever studied is fencing, which is little use in an actual fight. It gave me good reflexes and a knowledge of my reach and how to position my body in relation to opponents, but outside the bag at the gym, I've never thrown a punch as an adult. It's a natural reaction to physically assess other people. One of these guys is fairly weedy. The other is built a lot more thickly. I'm not exactly expecting an altercation, but I'm fairly confident that any two of the guys in our group could take them out easily. I'm actually more concerned with the idea of Hoyt and I being able to restrain Jason and J.B. in case anything occurs. I figure Sookie will not be pleased if I let her brother get into a fist fight or something. I've got some inches on Jason, but he's a solid guy. Then again, if these guys used to bother Sookie, maybe my heart won't be in it.
I rejoin the others and find that Jason and Hoyt are already mid-game, so stand with Holly and J.B., who've taken the liberty of transferring our beers over to the little ledge here. They finish their game and while I offer to let Holly play, she waves me on, so I pair up with Jason and J.B. pairs up with Hoyt. About twenty minutes goes by before Mack and Tom make their appearance by the pool table.
"Jason Stackhouse," one drawls.
"Mack," Jason answers.
"How you been doin'?"
"Better for not seeing you, shithead. Why don't you go ahead back to your table now," he answers coolly before taking his shot, and sinking it.
"You got no time for old friends, Jas?" the other guy, the bigger one, Tom, asks. "How bout you, J.B.? How you doin' Holly?"
Holly gives the faintest nod, then turns away to focus her attention on the pool table.
Mack, the thinner, and clearly the drunker, of the two, takes a step toward Holly and I. Instinctively I pull myself out of my slouch and set my beer down. He hasn't come any closer, and I'm not exactly putting myself between he and Holly, but it's a matter of a step to body check him. I catch Hoyt's eyes for a moment. He is on the far side of the table for now.
"Who's this big fucker then?" Mack asks, turning his attention on me.
"That's Sookie's boyfriend Eric," J.B. offers, also from across the table. Jason is down a few paces from me, but he's nearest.
I take advantage of my height and look down at Mack, feeling free to let my disdain show, since the rest of the group has no bones about showing theirs.
"Sookie Stackhouse, huh? Now that's a hot piece of ass." He actually looks to me as he says it, hopeful for camaraderie. I say nothing. "Crazy bitch, but I definitely see why you'd hit that," he concludes, giving me a smarmy little smirk. He glances back at Tom, and then to Jason and then lets out a laugh. I look at Jason, who is staring intently down at the pool table and I can see that his knuckles have gone white around the pool cue.
"I think it's time for you to go Mack," Hoyt says, stepping forward. He's got his arms up slightly, almost using the cue stick to ward them off. I do go ahead at this point and take up a defensive stance in front of Holly. I see Dawn come up behind Tom then.
"Hey guys, I got your wings up at your table," she coos. Tom does not respond to her. Even this dumb fuck is aware of the tension that the erstwhile barmaid is trying to diffuse, and is standing at the ready.
"Come on, Mack," Dawn says, stepping further into it. "Leave these boys to their game." She starts to reach her hand up to his arm and he swats her off, causing her to stumble back a step. In a matter of seconds J.B. comes up between them and pushes Mack back, and then the bartender is there with his bat in hand, looking every inch like he's ready to use it. He's ordering Mack and Tom out of the bar.
"You don't touch the waitresses," the bartender informs. "And you don't come back here."
The pair of them take one look at the odds, which apparently include the four of us, the man with the bat, and whoever else might be paying attention on the other side of the bar at this point (likely everyone), and leave without another word. The bartender watches from the door until they've driven off out of sight, then turns around and calls, "Show's over," to the general occupants, before heading back to his station. I see Dawn make a quick trip over to the juke box and the Allman Brothers Band comes on and in another moment the volume of the bar comes back up. The waitresses run their drinks, seeming to put a little effort into bopping along to the tune. I guess they've got a routine down for this sort of occurrence. Little disruptions like that are probably pretty common in bars. Before the song is up, our waitress appears with five bottles of beer on her round tray. We hadn't ordered them, but which she told us were on her.
"Thanks Amy," Hoyt offers. He'd made his way around to Holly, and we still hadn't resumed our game.
I take a beer and hand it to Jason, and when he looks up, I hope that my expression is clearly reading, "What the fuck?" since it's about the only thing on my mind right now.
"Not now," Jason tells me. I keep glaring at him. I am not feeling like a patient man right now.
"Hey Jas, I got ten bucks that says you can't clear this table," Hoyt calls down.
"I got twenty says I do, and me and Eric beat you next game too," he replies, sounding a little more like himself.
He shrugs off my hard look and moves toward the pool table. I'm basically forced to step back and leave him to it. He clears the table and I stand there like a sulking man-boy waiting to find out why we almost threw down with two skeezy hillbillies, and more specifically why one of them felt compelled to refer to Sookie's ass. We make it through the next game and the rematch. We come out twenty dollars ahead, which Jason keeps. He heads off to men's room and I go ahead and settle the tab for everyone. I leave a nice tip for our waitress, and one for Dawn as well, since she'd put herself in harm's way.
Holly and Hoyt head out after that, thanking me for getting the drinks and telling me it was nice to meet me. They seem like an alright couple. I'll probably be seeing them again at some point. J.B. heads back to the bar to appreciate the renewed attentions of Dawn and Jason and I head out to his truck.
"You good to drive?" I ask him. He seems pretty in control of himself, but I check anyway. He responds by standing on one foot, holding out his arms and tapping his two index fingers back and forth on his nose a couple of times. I can't resist the urge to slide my foot toward him across the gravel, not hitting him, but close enough to make him flinch and stumble from his showing off. We get in his truck after that. He's fine to drive.
He backs out of the parking lot and starts the drive back to Sookie's house.
"So who were those guys? Mack and Tom?" I ask.
Jason gives me a sidelong glance before letting out an uncharacteristically heavy sigh. "That's not really a story you should hear from me."
It clicks then, and I really have no fucking excuse for it not clicking before, except for the fact that I assumed whatever bad thing had happened to her had happened to her at college, or really, any other place than this tiny little town where everyone's a freaking friendly neighbour. Well, almost everyone, apparently.
"He's the one that attacked her," I say flatly. "Mack?"
"Both," Jason confirms.
"In high school?" I hiss, outraged.
Jason lets out a long sigh. "Look, I don't know what you know about this, and I don't want to be the one to tell you her business," he says firmly. After a moment of silence he relents, "Neither do I want you bringing this shit up to her, though, so..." he trails off.
"I know she was raped, and I know it was dark and in a shower," I say bluntly. More to the truth, that's what I had surmised, since of all the sex we'd had, that's the only very specific situation where she'd ever reacted with anything but sheer enthusiasm. It had happened twice, though I only connected the dots about the first time after the more noticeable second instance. That's a whole separate issue actually, the fact that when I'm in her proximity I am half-fucking-oblivious to anything but my desire to be even nearer to her. I am still kicking myself over the fact that I was too busy licking her neck and smelling her hair to notice armed muggers stalking us through the streets of New Orleans. Even last week, with Ranger Rick sneaking up on our sexy picnic. Maybe that's why things didn't click sooner. Surely at some point this will wear off.
I hear him draw a wincing breath, like you might if you touch a hot stove or something, and then he sighs. "It was when she used to play volleyball. The uniforms they wore uh. Well you've seen it on tv, I'm sure. And Sook's always looked uh, like Sook does," he explains. Yeah, I get the picture. The sixteen year old version of her perfect tits and ass encased in small amounts of spandex. Any other fucking context and I would have enjoyed the mental image. "So that's always been a popular spectator sport around here," he says quickly. "Anyway, they got her in the locker room after a game. It was one we couldn't go to, cause I was in football then, and Gran and I were at the other game, so she'd stayed late of all the team. She was alone."
"Why aren't they in jail?" I ask.
Another sigh. "Well we didn't find out until later. Uh. I guess they had left her, and she cleaned herself up and walked home. Six miles. We were already home and Gran was making supper in the kitchen when she came in, and Gran knew something was wrong, but she didn't tell us what. I guess they didn't beat her, they just held her down. So there weren't really any marks for us to see. And she'd been playing, so maybe even if there was something... we just didn't... Then she wouldn't go to school for two days, and then when she was going to go back she said she was quitting volleyball so Gran set her down at that point and coaxed it out of her. Sookie didn't want to do anything at first, but Gran went to the coach and the principal and they said it was hard to prove anything."
"Bullshit," I call.
"Yeah. It would have been really easy to prove, considering she'd never been with anyone like that before. But I guess that's just her word. There's a lot of girls everyone knows are good girls, but it turns up they're really not. So her just saying she was, I guess it's not enough."
I slam my fist into the door at that point. Jason shoots me a look, but is smart enough not to say anything else.
"Anyway, Sookie didn't want to be uh...examined... any more than that. So Gran just let it lie."
"And that's it?"
"Well, that was it for a week or two, but then Mack and Tom started bragging. I heard that, then I laid out both of them, and we all got suspended. They got it for more than me, cause they believed me when I said I was defending my sister, and they knew damn well why, too, but it was still only a couple of weeks. So Hoyt and me went up to Monroe and bought a lot of pot and put it in little bags and stuck it in their lockers, enough so it looked liked they were selling it. So they got expelled."
"Fuck."
"We didn't know what else to do. I told Gran afterwards, but she gave it her blessing."
"It's not enough."
"No."
"If I had known..." I start to say.
"That's the reason no one said anything," Jason says. Then after a moment, "Look, don't mention this to Sookie. I mean if it comes up again, fine, tell her what I told you, but don't just drag shit out of her and make her talk about it. I think that's the only time I ever saw her mad at Gran, was after she made Sookie confess it."
"No." I agree. I hadn't planned on that at all. "No," I say again.
"And don't go in there acting all weird."
"Right," I say.
"You need a minute?" Jason asks. I guess at some point we'd gotten back to the house.
"Yeah," I agree.
He leaves me alone then and I sit in his truck for another minute or two before getting out and pacing the perimeter of the property. It's a cool evening and the dew from the grass is soaking my cuffs but I'm not terribly concerned about that. I can see that the light in the back bedroom is off, so she's gone to sleep. This is a good thing. Unless she's up and is wondering what I'm still doing out here. No, she probably would have come to check by now. Jason and I hadn't really agreed what, if anything, to mention, so I'm just going to go ahead and mention nothing, and try to act as though that's what's wrong. Nothing.
Is anything wrong? No. No, I guess not. It certainly answers a few lingering questions. Why a seriously hot straight girl would spend the bulk of her college years doing charity work on the weekends with other straight girls, for example. What she had meant about it taking her a long time to be comfortable with her body. Fuck, that was another red flag that had flown right past me. I thought maybe she meant because she's not model-thin or something, unless you mean a pinup model. But I should have known she's bright enough to realize she's a knockout. Maybe why she'd been with someone like Compton. Because though it was clear he treated her like an object, it was at least a very precious object.
The circumstance itself isn't a revelation at this point, but the details are. That makes it feel like something I have to deal with. I know that I don't. I know myself that she would probably prefer not to have to think about it. That I shouldn't think about it, and should emphatically not call attention to it. Maybe some night we will have this talk. Not tonight. I go inside and the house is quiet. I creep down to the end of the hall to her bedroom. Fuck, it's dark in here. I take very careful steps, letting my feet come down slowly so I don't trip on anything.
"Hey," she says in the darkness. Damn it. "Did you guys have fun?"
"Sorry if I woke you," I whisper. Why am I whispering? She's clearly still awake. Well, at least I can turn the light on. I quickly strip my clothes off and answer her questions about our boys' night out. What can I talk about? Everything that happened before Mack and Tom came in, I guess. So I mention J.B. and I slip into bed with her, responding to her questions with nonsense about playing pool and my being, as she puts it, "boyfriend-y." I try to shift the conversation back to her.
"Did you girls have fun?"
"Nope," she says. So much for that. Then she tells me that Crystal intimated that Sookie is a gold-digging whore, which is absurd, so I laugh, and that is apparently the wrong thing to do because she gets very defensive. I try to comfort her, but apparently I get that wrong as well because now she's telling me she wishes that I had no gold for her to be accused of digging. This is just going from bad to worse. She realizes it too because now she's back-pedalling. Fuck this. I pull my arms around her. At least this bed is incredibly comfortable. I just want to fall asleep holding on to her so that one thing in the last two hours can be right.
"Sookie, I'm going to go to sleep now," I tell her. And I do. I'm out within minutes.
I wake exactly as I'd fallen asleep, wrapped around her. I feel like a dick for just passing out while she was still awake and fretting, and speaking of my dick... no. Not going to wake her up for sex with her brother in the house. I do need to piss though, and that's pretty urgent, so I get up. I'm also very thirsty and there's no cup in the bathroom so I go out to the kitchen. Jason's already up. I glance down. Oh good. I am wearing pants. I don't usually, when I sleep.
"Morning," I mutter, as I get a glass of water and then proceed to drink it down like I'm coming out of the desert.
"Sookie talk to you?" he asks.
"About what?" I ask, refilling my glass from the tap.
"She and Crystal had words last night," Jason clarifies.
"Oh yeah. I brushed it off. I had other shit on my mind last night."
Jason gives me a nod before continuing, "Crystal's real upset. She said Sook took something the wrong way, but I think that means she said it the wrong way."
"If I'm being honest, I don't want to deal with this at all today," I say bluntly.
"Yeah, that's about how I feel."
I get my third glass of water and I'm finally able to drink at a normal pace. We hear one of them moving around in the hall. It's closer, so it's probably Crystal.
"So I'm going over to the other house in a bit," Jason tells me. "Just to check in on things. You can come. Leave them to sort themselves out."
"Sounds fine," I agree.
"Alright. Half an hour then."
I nod and put my glass down in the sink and head back to the bedroom. Sookie's still asleep. She's got her arm sprawled out on the bed where I was sleeping, like she was looking for me. That is cute. I get in the shower. Out of habit I rub one out, slouched against the wall of this tiny shower with the water hitting only my chest. It is unsatisfying given that my girlfriend is laying a dozen feet away. I could have her, but for the fact that her family is here, and that I've just been reminded she's probably going to wake up in a lousy mood anyway because she's fighting with one of them. I finish with nary a grunt or a groan. This is basically scratching and itch or blowing my nose. Obviously it feels good, but it's more about relief. I try to remember what Sookie said last night. Apparently Crystal perceived me to be slumming here. Well, that only indicates some serious insecurity on her part. I don't consider this house or this town a slum. Clearly a case of misery demanding company on Crystal's part. Not my problem.
Jason has the right idea about us getting out of here until they can work this out. I'm not comfortable being around Crystal at this point, and I'm not thrilled with her for making Sookie feel uncomfortable either. I know that Sookie is not completely at ease with the disparity between our respective incomes and wealth. I have gathered this from a few offhand remarks she's made as well as the way that she keeps paying for things when we go out. I believe she does it to show that she cares enough to spend her money on me and us. I try to take it that way anyway, as opposed to seeing it as her wanting to maintain separateness and distance between us. It also seems to be a matter of pride for her, which I am disinclined to rob her of. Sookie seems to get more out of my pulling out her chair for her than paying for our meal, which I suppose is a good thing. I am looking forward to reaching the point where these things are no longer a concern.
I hear a knocking on the wall just outside the shower so I pull back the curtain to see Sookie. The knocking in itself verifies that I had called it right about her waking up in an off mood. She is frowning and looking nervous, which I do not like when it comes to me. And of course she wants to talk about Crystal, and I do not. And we're not having sex, so I see no point to her joining me in here, and besides, I'm almost done. I tell her so and she looks crestfallen, so I quickly grab her hand and remind her that we are okay before telling her to go get dressed.
I do finish up quickly, and I can hear that they're all in the kitchen. I assume that whatever smells so good is Crystal's doing, just based on the timing. Maybe it's a peace offering. I'm fine with the plan which involves not sitting through an awkward meal where nobody is talking and leaving immediately instead. I go ahead and take my time getting dressed and towelling dry my hair a little bit. It would probably be overkill to shave too. Besides, Sookie likes the weekend stubble.
Damn Crystal. I can smell bacon, and either pancakes or waffles. Nope, sticking to Plan A. I'm just getting consistently more annoyed the more I dwell on this subject. As an adult, I've never really had an issue with spending money on women in the past. I have it to spend, and some have enjoyed spending it. Perhaps this might have bothered me if I cared any more about them than they did of me. It's never come up before, so I consider myself fortunate in this way. School was slightly different, particularly once we were old enough to realize that there were some big differences in people's home lives. Again, I don't consider that I ever allowed myself personally to be taken advantage of in this way, but I suppose it's fair to say that I've always stayed aware of the potential for that.
I head to the kitchen and offer Jason a pointed glare when I see he's eating. I suppose I would have eaten if Sookie had cooked, but I had hoped he wouldn't so we could stop and get something. I give Sookie a quick kiss and ask Jason if he's ready to go and he finishes up quickly while I head outside. I completely ignore Crystal and I'm glad that Jas isn't making an issue of that.
At my request we stop for coffee at a gas station convenience store. It's surprisingly good. In lieu of a proper meal I also get a protein bar. These things are nasty but they fill your stomach. Jason's house isn't large, but it's definitely large enough for a small family. It's a lot bigger than the place Sookie's renting, though hers is two storeys, and possibly more compact. I can see a little bit of blue tarp sticking out over the roof in front, but other than that you can barely notice the damage. You wouldn't, if you were just driving by. I can see some smoke stains in a couple of the front windows. Around the back is a different story all together. First of all, the smell. I catch it as soon as we get near the house, faintly, but it intensifies around the back, and no wonder. There's a sort of burned out shell where it's clear a deck used to be, with some yellow tape surrounding the remnants of what was once the back wall, barring entry.
Jason heads off to his shed a little distance from the house and untouched by the fire, and I continue circling the back of the ruin. I know Sookie's pretty torn up about the fact that this place is going to have to be torn down, but it's pretty obvious why that has to happen once you see it.
"Well so much for that," Jason calls, heading over to me. I look up, waiting for his explanation. "Crystal had her cousin come and get her and go up to Shreveport for the day."
"They didn't talk then?" I ask.
"Seems not."
I give a pained sigh. "Do we go back then?"
"Nah," Jason says. "Hey, come down, I'll show you the lake."
I can see the lake through the trees at the base of the property. There's a little dock and a little boat with a little motor. Jason motions to get in the dinghy and I probably look skeptical as I watch him. It doesn't really seem large enough for two.
"Relax, there's no sail to hit you upside the head," he calls over. Hilarious. I guess I have to get on this fucking boat then.
Jason is crouched at the back to operate the motor, leaving me to occupy the bow. It's cramped but seems to be just large enough for two. I squat down pretty quickly. I actually do not care for this at all, but apparently forced calm is the theme of the weekend. He starts up the motor and we skim out into the lake at a slow pace.
"You fish out here?" I ask conversationally.
"Yeah, I keep it stocked," he says. "You fish?"
"I never have, no."
"Ah, too bad. It's relaxin'," he says.
I ask him how that works, since I have no idea. He explains that the fishery brings in a couple of hundred pounds of small fish of different varieties so there's a balance. He says that he hasn't had to do it in couple of years as he's got a nice population going now. I'm surprised to learn that he's actually able to eat what he catches in here, it's not just catch and release.
"I guess you never learned to gut a fish then," he observes.
I chuckle. "No."
"I'll show you some time. Sookie does Gran's battered catfish, but she won't clean the fish."
"Sure," I agree. Why the hell not? I can chop off fish heads, probably. "You hunt too, right?" I ask.
"Just deer," he says, then, "Crap. Just realized I lost all that good venison from the freezer."
"Have you tried on that land she's got next door yet?" I ask.
He gives me a funny look. "Uh, hunting season doesn't start until November," he chuckles. "Not exactly an outdoorsman, are ya?" he asks, in response to what is apparently my lack of common knowledge. I've got nothing to offer here, so I just shrug. "That's alright. We'll learn ya up," he smirks at his own joke, or possibly his own phrasing.
I try to relax a little bit and enjoy what actually is a pretty peaceful ride. He does not feel compelled to chat much more and that is also nice. We stay out for about twenty minutes, maybe half an hour before he decides we should be getting back. On the way up past the house I ask him if he's planning to rebuild or buy elsewhere, and he tells me he's not sure. He also admits he's not thrilled to be staying at their Gran's house again, but he's grateful for the place in the interim. I nod to that. On the way back he identifies where the land that Sookie got from Compton begins. I'm not yet terribly familiar with the area here, but it seems like it's a fair ways from her house. I ask if he's seen the old house that's being surveyed today and he turns us in to the very narrow non-road that is apparently the driveway of the ruined house. We see another large pickup truck parked out in front of a semi-dilapidated plantation house and Sookie is there, talking to a big guy in a green shirt and a blue construction hat.
"Heh, this guy," Jason chuckles. "Watch this guy," he says, and I take his tone to be slightly warning.
"I thought he was supposed to be good?" I ask. Sookie had spoken well of her dealings with this firm so far, and I know Jason and Crystal also used him to assess the fire damage.
"Oh yeah, he knows his business," Jason agrees. "I meant watch him around Sook. He brought her up like three times when he was out at the house the other day," he laughs. Screw that.
"I see," I answer flatly.
"Yeah, so does everybody else and I never fail to hear about it," he says, rolling his eyes. I've also gotten this impression.
We get out of the truck and I head over to Sookie, curling my arm around her hip and pulling her to me. Just so we're real clear about who in this party is entitled to bring things up re: my girl. Jason starts chatting to this Alcide and I return the appraising look he gives me with a slight nod and a faint smile. I listen to her tell me all about mosquitoes and the fact that she saved me breakfast in the oven. That's right, guy. Because I'm being shamelessly possessive at this point, I let him watch as my hand lingers on her ass when I help her up into the truck as we leave. Hopefully he saw the sexy little smile she shot me over her shoulder as I did it, too.
We spend the rest of the morning rearranging the truck and packing up the remaining boxes, then carrying out everything else as she packs it. She's apparently promised Alcide lunch, and rather than taking it over to him, she calls him to come over and join us. It's chicken pasta salad with peas and carrots and onions and it's welcome. Alcide starts telling her all about the "creepy crawlies" down underneath the house and she starts squirming in her seat a little bit so I take the opportunity to reach over with a comforting hand on her thigh. He's either stupid or attempting to rise to the challenge because he just keeps on talking and grinning at her, his attention coming to Jason and I only sporadically. She seems pretty blind to what he's doing so it's ultimately harmless.
Jason goes back with him after lunch. They're planning on laying some board down on the porch so it can be safely walked on. I'm left more or less to watch Sookie pack, carrying away boxes as she finishes them. I notice at some point that she's posted a list on the fridge with stuff she needs to buy immediately for the new apartment. Jason turns up again and she suggests that he and I work on cleaning some of the stuff that was brought over from his house and is now sitting here in her living room. Unfortunately, this is my limit. I do not find any sense of calm or restfulness in doing housework. At home, I have a housekeeper who comes a few times a week. I have limited free time, and this is not how I choose to spend it. This is also not really a skill I have. In short, I'm not interested in doing this. One look at Jason and I realize that we are on exactly the same page. She leaves us with some cleaning supplies and goes back to the bedroom.
"She needs a microwave," I tell Jason. "We should go and buy her one."
He'd opened a box and had started resignedly wiping down some of the objects therein with the orange-scented spray she'd left us.
"What kind?" he asks.
"Uh. One for the counter. The kitchen is mostly white but her stove is black."
"Sounds like a two man job," Jason agrees, catching on quickly.
"Oh definitely," I deadpan. "It's an important appliance."
Jason grins and I duck into the kitchen and grab her list off the refrigerator and hand it to him with a little push back towards the hall.
"Tell her you want to get her a present for the house," I advise. He chuckles and goes off to do just that. A moment later, she returns with him and gives me a look to indicate that she knows exactly what this is about, and her awareness relieves me of any guilt I might have felt about shirking her brother's cleaning. I kiss her solidly before we go and she just smirks at me and tells me to have fun.
It's about half an hour's ride to the big appliance store a couple of towns over. Jason has decided that since we're doing this, we will do it properly. I glance at my watch and agree wholeheartedly. We can easily kill a couple of hours on this little errand. I don't actually do a lot of shopping. This is something that Pam does. She is the one who got my place set up for me in Seattle, and she'll probably end up setting up my place back here, too, if I go that route. I'm still undecided. As an interesting point of reference, there are a lot of different microwaves on the market. It's unclear to me why there are so many, as this seems like a fairly standard piece of equipment. There are small and large sizes, and ones that mount over the stove. They come in black, white, or stainless steel. That would seem to indicate nine choices. We browse through at least fifty. We choose a mid-sized white one that to me looks sort of retro, insofar as a microwave can look retro, so I think it will fit in well with her kitchen. I go for my wallet when we reach the register since this was my idea, but Jason gives me a hard punch and tells me no.
On the way back to the house he flips on the radio, unselfconsciously singing along. I am surprised to hear that he sings well. Sookie sings along to the radio sometimes, and I'm being generous when I describe it that way. I suppose I'd expected her inability to carry a tune to be a family trait. I don't judge. I'm not musically inclined myself, but then again, I know that and I do not try. I guess I was staring.
"What?" Jason asks.
"Oh. You can sing," I explain lamely.
"Eighteen years worth of Sunday service will do that to ya," he grins. He'd been made to sing at church, I take it.
Thinking of Sookie again I say, "You sure about that?"
He must catch my meaning because he lets out a huge bark of laughter. "It's funny 'cause she tries so hard. Gran used to get on me for teasing her. Sook's never been a singer. She used to like to dance."
"Still does," I agree.
He nods. "This one time, she and her friend went in the talent show at school..." and then he proceeds to tell me a story about a very naïve Sookie and her friend doing a very grownup, very provocative music-video dance in front of the entire student body of her high school. To the tune of Love is a Battlefield. He's laughing it off of course. I don't know if I'd find it as funny, my own sister unwittingly behaving like jailbait. Apparently it's the part where she saw a recording of it a couple of years later, as part of the "video yearbook," and her mortification then, that was so amusing to him. I find myself chuckling along. I would have liked to see that, and I tell him so. This is definitely an integral part of coming home to spend time with the girlfriend's family, is it not?
Sookie doesn't have any proper yearbooks from when she was in school. I don't either, though the reasons we didn't get them were different. I didn't particularly care to buy one, whereas she had never wanted to ask her grandmother for the money to do so. I guess in small schools like theirs had been, the leather-bound books with their glossy photos can be quite expensive. She'd seemed embarrassed about it (needlessly), and I hadn't brought up the subject again. There are a bunch of photos of the child version of Sookie in her house. I would like to see more of these embarrassing high school moments though. Affectionately. Suddenly I'm back to the other association I now have with Sookie and her high school experience, and it sobers me. And that makes me angry. Somehow I think Jason picks up on it, because he starts talking about something else. We are unlikely to speak directly on the sobering subject again.
Back at the house I see Crystal's car is back, and I'm hoping that Sookie and she have had their chance to talk now. I get the door for Jason as he carries the microwave. I can see that Sookie's left a few more boxes for us to carry out to the truck. Jason sets the package down on the kitchen table and Crystal comes in, obviously having heard whatever noise we made on entering. Jason gives her a quick kiss in greeting and asks where Sookie is, and Crystal grabs a note off the counter. Jason takes it, scans it, then hands it to me. Sookie is over at the house next door getting the report from the surveyor. I find myself frowning that she's over there alone with that guy. Jason tells me there's a path up through the cemetery. I'm vaguely aware of the fact that Crystal and Jason are talking about going to pick up pizzas for dinner as I head back out the door.
I'm not sure if Sookie now owns this little cemetery, or if it's just in the middle of her land at this point. It seems to be fairly well maintained, but that could easily be Jason's doing. Sookie has mentioned coming here to tend to the graves of her family members. This is not something I have ever had occasion to do. Come to think of it, prior to Grandfather's funeral, I can't remember having ever been in a cemetery before. There's a path on the far side leading uphill which is overgrown but showing some signs of being recently used, so I assume I'm heading the right away. I catch sight of the roof of the house and my feeling of sureness lasts about thirty more seconds until I come upon Sookie in the embrace of that fucking Alcide guy right there on the porch.
She locks eyes on me immediately and is already stepping away from him by the time I'm two steps onto the driveway. She looks...startled. Not quite scared, which is good for him. I've seen her scared. This isn't what it looks like. She doesn't look guilty, either, which is good for both of them. Unable to draw any actual conclusions, I just make a bee-line for her. This guy is backing off, good. He's telling me she tripped. I scan her for signs damage and see nothing. She's going pink in the face now. Normally I find that adorable but not in this context. Is that the guilt? Embarrassment that she's been caught? I don't believe she has been cheating on me, but was she about to? She's just not the type of person who would ever, so honestly, what the fuck? This asshole is now talking about emailing her and I round to face him.
"Thank you. Please send us your bill," I tell him. Is that clear enough? Since my hands all over her whenever you've seen us all day were ostensibly not? By the way, leave. Now. I feel her hands on my back, tugging at my shirt. Does she actually think that will stop me if I decide to deck this guy? I'm reminded that I wish I'd laid out either or both of those fuckers from last night. I should have had Jason come up here with me. I am confident he would back me up in this situation. Alcide does the brightest thing I've seen him do to date, getting in his truck and driving away. I watch him out of sight before I round on her and demand to know what happened. She says she did trip, in the house, and was going to trip again and he caught her. Again I look her over. She's got dust and dirt on her, but she's had dust and dirt on her all day from her packing efforts.
"Can you walk?" I ask. I just need to get her, and myself, out of here at this point. When she nods I just take her hand and lead her. Answers will come when I'm back on familiar ground. I know I'm walking too fast. I'm accustomed to the sound of her quick steps behind me and think nothing of it. Most of the time I try to walk slower for her sake, but we're not exactly out for an evening stroll here. Jason and Crystal are still gone when we get back to the house. She pulls her hand free of mine when we enter and I'm halfway down the hall to the bedroom when I realize she's no longer behind me. I double back to see her hunched in a chair pulling the leg of her jeans up.
Fuck.
She's bleeding, and her knee is definitely swollen. "You did fall," I say stupidly. She looks hurt when she answers, asking if I thought she was making that up. Fuck. I stand there watching as she gets up and makes herself an ice pack and then takes some aspirin. She moves gingerly past me, teetering down the hall on her hurt knee. Was she walking like that the whole time? Fuck. I stand there thinking back and trying to determine how to proceed, and the best I come up with is to go and apologize, and possibly explain. I don't feel completely wrong, but not making sure she was alright was definitely an error, although she hadn't looked injured and she had told me she was fine. I'm not going to walk in there and grovel. She's not receptive to anything disingenuous. I should probably go in there now though.
I do, and I tell her where Jason and Crystal are, and that Alcide has indicated his interest in her to Jason, so she knows that I wasn't acting like an ass just out of the blue. She tells me again that on her part at least, what I saw was nothing. I apologize for overreacting, and that's not what she wants to hear. She's laying on the bed icing up her knee and she turns away from me looking disappointed. Fuck. I go to her and force her to look at me, and I apologize for doubting her. I did. Even if logic kicked in and told me she wasn't up to anything, I'd still had the thought, and let it fuel my anger, and probably gotten her more hurt physically in the process, let alone her feelings, which are clearly also injured. I can see that as she tries to turn away again. Fuck. Forgive me. I ask her with my eyes possibly more than my words which are failing me at this point. I see her relent, with a physical reaction, sighing out and nodding.
I lay down next to her and try to bring us back to normalcy by asking her about the house. I listen as she tells me all the things which need mending, all the things Alcide had shown her. Her account is detailed and thorough. There is nothing going on there from her end. She only mentions the house. She's going to offer it to Jason and Crystal, and I agree that it's a good solution. I would actually agree with more or less anything that she is saying right now, but I do happen to think her idea is a good one. She would never want to live there both because the house came to her from Compton, and because she likes this house. I might not be entitled to voice an opinion at this point, but I do have one, and I agree with her on both counts. Jason is definitely a "doer" and that house will be a good project for him. She hints that she'll help them with money for the renovations, which will make her feel good. That probably means she's not looking to buy her own house in New Orleans any time soon. This would be a good thing. When the time comes for me to buy a house for us, I won't be pissing on her parade when I overwrite her plans with grander ones of my own.
Her stomach growls under my hand, and since I'd heard Jason and Crystal come in, I offer to bring her some food. She agrees, so I head out to the kitchen where Crystal and Jason are sitting at the table eating a quiet dinner. I want to start by fixing her a fresh ice pack. I don't know where they keep the plastic bags so I just start opening drawers and cabinets.
"Whaddya need?" Jason asks.
"A bag for ice?" I ask. "Sookie fell and banged her knee next door, and I'm an asshole and dragged her back across the cemetery on it without checking to see how bad it was," I admit.
"She okay?" Crystal asks.
I glance over at her, and she's standing and walking to the pantry and retrieving a box of freezer bags for me.
"Thanks," I say. "And yeah, she's okay, but she's going to stay off it for the night. Hey, do you think we could borrow a couple of movies or something? Hers are all packed."
"Sure," Jason agrees, but it's Crystal who retreats to their bedroom to retrieve a handful of selections. I bring them to Sookie along with the ice and ask her to set them up on her laptop, which I hand over to her so she doesn't have to get up. I go back to get us some pizza, and Jason tells me just to take one of the boxes, so I do, along with a couple of cans of soda. That's how we spend the evening, with her getting up only to get ready for bed, an opportunity I take to rid the room of the remnants of our dinner and her ice pack.
I wake up to banging on the door followed by someone shoving my arm.
"Get up," someone tells me. Male voice. Jason.
"What? Your brother," I mumble. I reach for Sookie so she can banish him but my arm finds only the cool and vacant mattress.
"The girls went to church and left nothing for breakfast," he complains. Oh yeah. Come to think of it, Sookie did tell me she was leaving, but I guess I thought that was a dream. "I want doughnuts," Jason declares.
"Then go get some," I say, turning back over.
"I found this. I think you'll be interested to see," he says, hitting me with something light.
"What's 'this'?" I grumble, face in the pillow.
"Video yearbook." I turn over. He's standing there with a big broad grin. I go to grab the dvd box from him but he pulls it out of my reach. He's already heading for the door. "Get up," he calls over his shoulder. I do.
I trudge out to the kitchen and meet Jason who seems abnormally energized. I will add 'morning person' to the sibling similarities. I'm not not a morning person per se, I just strongly dislike being robbed of sleep. I've found in the past couple of months that I mind significantly less when I'm waking up to Sookie. That is not the case this morning so I let myself be lethargic. In the truck, Jason starts singing along to music again as he cruises us down the vacant roads. It's a crisp clear morning, not very hot yet. We pull up to a little bakery that looks like it's out of the fifties or something, with an old fashioned pink sign and fresh baked goods in the window. I breathe in the confectionary aroma wafting through the air out here and there must be an appreciative look on my face since Jason hits me again and grins saying, "Right?"
There's a line inside, but a girl asks us for our coffee order right away so we can sip while we wait. It's a nice touch. The girl is young, but she's still got an extra big smile for Jason, who she knows by name. This guy really does have the attention of every woman in this town. She's got a smile for me too, but I don't return it. I'm probably nearly twice her age. Lest I seem hypocritical in this moment, considering the lure which even got me out of bed this morning, I will clarify. The prospect of getting a glimpse of the high school version of my future wife is, to use her own phrasing, a different kettle of fish than the non-prospect of returning the flirtations of a random young woman. I sip my coffee. Gruffly.
The older woman at the counter also greets Jason with a smile and scolds him for not being in church. He calls her Toots. I am put forward as his excuse, and introduced as belonging to Sookie. This earns me a more appraising look and finally a nod of approval. We order a dozen doughnuts, and she ends up giving us each an extra glazed one, "to eat now." I take a bite and it is amazingly good. The pair of them laugh at me as I quickly finish the pastry. My response meets their approval. Toots declares that I will fit in fine. Charlsie Tooten, Jason clarifies when we're back in the truck, had been a friend of their parents'. I make to open the box and get another doughnut but Jason snatches it away.
"What?" I ask.
"I don't know how you treat that sweet little blue Corvette of yours, but there's no eating in here," he tells me. Ah. Well yes. Of course not.
"Right, sorry," I offer.
He lets about a minute go by before he reaches over and takes a doughnut out of the box at random, taking a huge bite. I let him have his snicker before joining in. Then I help myself to another doughnut.
Back at the house I decide to brew a pot of coffee, having finished the cup I got at the bakery. On my asking, Jason shows me where the measuring equipment is kept, then watches as measure the tap water into the carafe, then add the twenty leveled tablespoons into the little mesh basket. He's got his head cocked to the side and seems fascinated, so I'm assuming that normally Crystal makes his coffee. The coffee maker I own uses the pre-packaged containers to brew a single cup, but I have used coffee makers like this before. Pam has one. They're pretty easy, and the instructions are on the side of the coffee tin anyway. Once I push the button to get it started, I turn to him and demand my copy of the video yearbook. He takes it out of the freezer, where he had apparently hidden it in the event that I had tried to search it out instead of accompanying him to get breakfast. I would not have thought to look for it there.
He goes off to watch the ESPN morning shows, and I take another couple of doughnuts with me and head back to the bedroom to turn on Sookie's laptop. The video is short, only about forty-five minutes total, and I stream through it at four times normal speed until I catch what looks like a stage, but this is only some footage of a play or something. It takes a bit more searching until I find the actual portion of the tape that I was curious to see. Sookie and a friend are dressed in matching short jean shorts and baggy red t-shirts knotted at their waists, thrusting against each other to the garbled music of Pat Benatar. The scene ends abruptly with a close-up shot on a man holding a microphone, red faced and mouthing at the air like a fish out of water. I suppose he had been the MC of the event. There's an eruption of cheering and hooting before the video cuts away again, this time to a football game. I shut off the rest of the stream of her high school's collective memories.
It was pretty tame. For some reason I'd been envisioning a burlesque show or something. The girl in the video had been clearly recognizable as Sookie, but the actual Sookie has a much better body. Her legs are far more toned, and she'd do a better job of filling out the shirt. I wouldn't mind seeing the now-version of her in those shorts. On impulse I go to her dresser and started looking through it. Everything she's taking to New Orleans is already packed away, but I know she's left some old things behind here. I find a pair of tiny shorts that look like they could be the ones I'd seen. Then I hear the crunch of gravel on the driveway. I duck out of the bedroom and go out to the porch to check. Sookie and Crystal are sitting in Crystal's car, and Sookie waves me away, so I suppose they're finally having their talk. Good. I go back to Sookie's room and set her things to rights, tucking the video yearbook away in my suitcase. I'm just setting Sookie's laptop bag over with the rest of our luggage when there's a knock at the door.
"Yeah?" I ask to the open air, and Crystal comes in.
"Um, Eric, do you have a moment?"
I raise an eyebrow at her, but beckon her to go ahead.
"I just wanted to apologize to you, for what I said to Sookie on Friday night," she begins.
"Look, it's really Sookie you need to talk to. I'm happy to ignore you, but she can't. She actually gets upset, because she's nothing like what you said she was."
"I know that," she says. "I did talk to her, and apologized for upsetting her."
I cut her off again. "That doesn't cut it with her. You don't apologize for her getting upset. If you apologize to her for anything, apologize for pushing your insecurities in her face, and forcing her to feel bad. I don't really care what you think of me, but for the record, I'm not "slumming," here, or with Sookie."
"I know that, and I'm sorry," Crystal says contrite, but I'm not finished.
"She's going to be your sister in a month, and her family is important to her, what little she has."
"I know that."
"Good," I relent. Maybe I could go on and make her feel worse, but it's just not worth it. She needs to deal with whatever issues she has internally. Pushing her at this point will likely only make her lash out again, and that's not the note we need to leave here on.
"Family is important to me too." Then after a moment, "By the way you two seem, I reckon that could apply here as well some day," she says, gesturing between she and I.
I look at her for a long moment, and then nod. It is true. I suppose she's going to be my sister as well. Odd. I hadn't actually thought of that prior to now.
"So I'm sorry, Eric, for misjudging you both, and for being hateful in that moment. It's not how I really feel. I just wanted you to know that."
She moves to leave but I feel compelled to say something else, in light of my little revelation. "Crystal," I say, and she turns back around. "I...accept that. And... we're fine then."
She gives me a nod and then departs. I wait another moment before going out to find Sookie in the kitchen hovering over the pastry box. I wrap my arms around her and she asks me how our talk went, and I reassure her that we're okay. We need to get going pretty quickly since we still have a couple of hours of unloading the truck ahead of us once we make it back to New Orleans. She nods and we head back to the bedroom so we can change. Idly I toss her the pair of shorts I'd found.
"I think I got most things straightened up in here," I say casually. "I didn't know if you meant to pack those."
She holds them up and laughs, "I haven't worn these since high school." You don't say.
"Do they still fit?" I ask casually.
She shimmies out of her sundress and slides them on, turning to look down at herself. They definitely still fit. They're tight, and even shorter than expected. The curves of her cheeks are plainly visible as she twists around, trying to catch a glimpse of her own backside. She looks up at me, asking for my opinion.
"Like a caterpillar embraces a butterfly," I say, letting my voice drop low, stepping over to her and planting a kiss.
"More like Daisy Dukes," she smirks. She pulls away from me and strips the shorts off, opting instead for a pair of jeans that fit her equally snugly, though less revealingly. I snatch up the shorts and pack them away into my bag. She lifts her eyebrows and I merely grin.