this chapter came out of nowhere!
also, whenever i write, i always find myself adding in a line or catchphrase from other movies/shows. Most of the time its one of normans characters because it helps me visualize him better. I can imagine him and the way his voice sounds if ive actually heard him say it before (like "people in hell want slurpees") and it helps to keep everything rolling. I put one in this chapter, see if you can find it :) i also added something from another movie which maybe you guys will recognize. let me know when you find them ! its like an easter egg hunt and i should probably add that i dont own red canyon, or any of normans characters, or anything that is copyrighted.
: )
Mac drove them to the next town over. It was bigger, but it was still a shit hole small town by the rest of the world's standards. The only difference, was that this one had a 24-hour store. They smoked a joint on the way, and by the time they arrived, Eddie was very stoned. She hadn't been smoking because she had always gotten it from him, and it was awkward as fuck to try and buy drugs from the guy you had told someone else to call the cops on. Her tolerance was lower than it had been in years.
She was busy trying to figure out if the word 'weird' had always felt so strange coming out of her mouth, repeating it over and over to herself, touching the tips of her fingers together and flexing her knuckles. Beside her, Mac was stubbing out his cigarette and mumbling something to himself as he patted his pockets.
"fucking wallet" he grumbled, searching the bench seat nearby for it. "musta left it at yer house"
Eddie rolled her eyes and barked out a laugh.
"what is this? trying to get me to pay? or just a clever tactic to end up back at my place?"
They had agreed that they would go back to Mac's house to eat after this. Eddie had only consented to cooking on the terms that she not have to clean up afterwards and that he give her painkillers for her foot. Both conditions were met by going to his place. She could abandon whatever dish she dirtied in his sink, and he had a practically never ending pain killer supply from that time that chick pushed him off the cliff.
"much easier to keep you trapped at mine" he said leaning into her. She froze, thinking he was going to kiss her, but he only smiled and reached to unlock the glove compartment. He opened it and grabbed a few of the bills he had stashed in there, grinning at her when she looked at him curiously.
"its fer making change when im working" he told her, locking it back up and then popping his door open. "c'mon"
"you fixed the door handle at least" she teased him, letting herself out and jumping down to the pavement.
"yeah, well, i got sick of having to open the door fer everyone like sum kinda gentlemen" he retorted.
"i doubt anyone would confuse you for that"
She grabbed a basket once they crossed through the automatic doors, but he quickly stole it away from her. He pushed her towards the motorized scooters instead, insisting that she use her injury as an excuse to ride one.
"theres no fucking way" She laughed, cringing when he sat on one and started testing out the controls. He went backwards and then tried to correct himself, zooming forward and crashing right into her. It collided with her knees and she jumped back, cursing loudly and making him snicker.
Eddie grimaced and massaged her legs, her anger reviving like an ember thats been fed oxygen. He was such a dick. Yet, somehow, here she was, grocery shopping for him. She wanted to throw in the towel, to tell him to fuck off and walk out, but she was worried he would leave her here if she did that. It had taken twenty minutes to drive here, and Eddie wasn't too keen on having to make the walk back on her sliced up foot.
"lets just get this over with" she told him. Her foot ached and now her knees were sore too. She should have just stayed home.
She heard the motor of the scooter whiring and she shut her eyes to try and compose herself, glad he was behind her and couldn't see her face. On the one hand, she was pissed and he was annoying as fuck. On the other hand though, the sound of him riding that thing slowly behind her was pretty funny.
Mac sped up and pulled around to the side of her. He looked ridiculous on the machine, his shoulders were rounded forward and he had to hunch over the handle bars just to fit. She really had to concentrate to not succomb to the giggles. Not long into the journey, the battery started to fade and he began to fall behind, which only made it harder to stay composed. In typical Mac fashion though, he just abandoned it when it died in the center of the store, getting off and walking away. It was someone elses problem now.
"you can't just leave it there" Eddie exclaimed, finally giving up the chirade and dissolving into laughter.
"sure i can," he told her as he caught up. "that things heavy as fuck, aint my fault they didn't charge it"
They were headed to the back of the store where the fridges were, playfully shoving each others shoulders and tripping eacothers feet up, when someone called Mac's name. He turned but Eddie didn't. She knew without looking that it was Jameson.
"what are you guys doing here?" Jameson asked, walking up to join them in front of the dairy section.
It was a stupid question and Eddie rolled her eyes. They were on the grocery side of a big box store, there was only so much they could be up to. She walked away to get cheese, leaving the men to themselves.
Even though she was high, and even though she knew she shouldn't care, Eddie couldn't help but feel annoyed. Not only had Mac broken into her apartment and basically kidnapped her, but he had also flirted with her the entire way here. She lied to herself and said going along with him was just to get him off her back, but in reality, she knew what she was getting into.
She had already forgiven herself for being weak, and now it was looking like she had jumped the gun. The disappointment was palpable. It washed over her like a nauseating wave. She felt so stupid.
Edde dug around in her head for her usual mantras, trying to tell herself that soon she would be leaving, soon he would miss her, but nothing was working. She felt duped, tricked into letting her guard down and believing he could be interested in her. Now he was just going to let her down again. It was all he was capable of.
To make matters worse, she quickly ran out of arm space since Mac had fucking insisted on the motorized cart and not let her take a basket. She was walking back towards where she had left him with Jameson, when she heard the sound of girlish laughter. It grated on her ears, the high-pitched sound of it, and she sighed. She knew who it belonged to. She knew the endless gaggle of girls had to be around here somewhere. Jamo was an even bigger slut than Mac, if that was possible, and she cringed at the sound of the elastic, female voices.
Rounding the corner just to be sure, Eddie saw Mac and Jameson right where they'd been when she first walked away. Except this time they had the added company of Georgia and Cindy. Watching Mac talk and laugh with them, standing there forgotten while he idly touched whatever part of Georgia he could, Eddie felt herself sway between anger and sadness.
She looked down at the groceries in her arms and her first instinct was to throw them. She wanted to pelt him with all the stuff he had insisted he wanted, including her.
Instead, mostly because she was irish and would deal with something being wrong for the rest of her life, Eddie turned and went back the way she came. When she passed the cart that Mac had left, she emptied what was in her arms into its front basket. Then she went back towards the front and passed through the sliding glass doors without looking back.
xXxXxXxXxXx
She was almost home by the time he pulled up beside her. He honked but she didn't slow down. Her animosity for him had gotten her this far, and even though her foot was throbbing, she had already proved to herself that she didn't need his help. She could see the lights of the truck stop that was attached to the diner from here. It was only a few more miles to her apartment.
She kept walking, determined to ignore him, but he wasn't ready to give up. His next move was to cut right in front of her, and she had to stop short when he almost ran over her foot.
"Eddie!" he yelled at her, killing the engine and jumping from the cab. "what the fuck are you doing girl?"
"get away from me Mac!" she shouted back at him, her voice coming out so harsh that it hurt her throat. "leave me alone, im sick of you wasting my time"
"what are you talking about? ive been fucking lookin' for ya"
"fuck off" she spat when he came towards her. "go hang out with Jamo and his groupies, im done with you messing with me"
"i aint messing with ya" Mac sneered, catching her shoulders and squeezing when she tried to jerk loose. "i like ya, is that so hard to believe?"
It was what she wanted to hear, but she was already too far gone in her anger to turn back. She was commited to burning this bridge, and it was going to happen right now. He couldn't see it in the darkness, but she was holding her keys in her fist. She had angled them all up between her fingers in a make-shift freddy krueger hand, and when he refused to let her go, she swiped at him as hard as she could.
He roared in pain and released her, recoiling and holding his face in his hand. While he was cursing and checking his hands for blood, Eddie took a step back. She wasn't stupid enough to try and run. He knew where she lived anyway so there wasn't anywhere to go.
"got-dammit!" Mac yelled. "the fuck if yer problem?"
He was pacing back and forth in front of her, grunting and looking at his bloody hand in a kind of disbelief. Continuing to retreat away from him, Eddie noticed the bags of groceries in the back of his truck. It made her heart hurt. She wished he could just consistently be an asshole so she could get past him, but he kept surprising her. All she wanted was to go with him and go about the evening as planned. She had to stick to her guns though. This man was an animal who only understood dominance.
He took a step towards her and she held up her weapon again, warning him not to. He thought about it for a moment, the pupils of his eyes darting back and forth, before his face contorted and got red.
"fine!" he shouted at her, the blood from his wound drying like war paint. "fuck you Eddie, i shoulda let Mikey fuckin' do what he wanted with ya"
He was saying the meanest thing he could of, but Eddie was grateful for it. As long as he was acting like a dick it was easy to remain firm in her decision to get away from him. It was all these unexpected moments of humanity that were throwing her off. She needed him to be a monster. Otherwise, she was going to want to curl up next to him for the rest of her life.
"get away from me Mac" she told him, the adrenaline leaving her body and making her limbs shake. She didn't really want him to go, but she felt like she had to follow through.
He furrowed his brow at her one last time, clenching his jaw so tight that she could see his heartbeat pulsing at the hinge of it. Eddie wondered if she had ever seen him this mad. She couldn't believe he hadn't retailiated yet.
Mac didn't say anything else, but she could tell by the way he stared at her that he wasn't done yet. After a moment he even smiled, holding his hands up in surrender and walking back around the hood of the truck to get to the drivers side door. On his way he pulled out his cellphone and punched in a number. He climbed into his truck but held off on starting it until the person on the other end had picked up. He wanted her to hear, she realized. He wanted to hurt her in a way that only he could.
"Jamo" he said, pressing the phone before his ear and shoulder to free his hands up to find a cigarette. "yeah, im on my way, no, I got rid of her. Yeah, tell Georgia I'm coming"
He started the engine after that, laughing at whatever Jameson had responded with and reversing to get back on the road. Eddie had to jump to avoid colliding with the tailgate, and the grit from the road pelted her when he spun his tires. The tactic worked. She felt miserable. He had been coming to hang out with her, and she had ruined it. She watched his tail lights disappear and sighed, hating herself. After a moment, knowing there was no other way to get there, she started walking towards her apartment again.
When she got back home, she sat at the table for a little while with the bottle of whiskey. The energy of the apartment had hit her hard, and she was still recovering from it. She had left the house so excited to be going with him, and now that she was back, she was drenched in disappointment. Reminders of the way she felt when she had left were everywhere.
She found his wallet just outside the door. She surmised that he had probably dropped it when retrieving the keys from his pocket, and she felt another pang of guilt her chest. When she bent to pick it up, it was as if it weighed a hundred pounds. He had come here, to be with her, despite the countless other things he could have been doing on a friday night and she had fucked it up. To say she was miserable would have been a dilution of the word.
Sighing, trying to purge the energy from her body as she exhaled, Eddie eyed the brown wallet in front of her. The leather was worn smooth from years of use, and the corners were rounded in. She wondered how long he had had it. Then she wondered what was in it.
Embolded by the liquor, she flopped it open in her palms and began to dig through it. There was a considerable amount of cash, something she was tempted to help herself too, but ultimately resisted. She looked at his license and grumbled to herself about how irritatingly handsome he was. Only Mac could look pissed as hell but somehow sexy.
Trying to distract herself from the way the image of him stared back at her, Eddie looked through the random reward clubs stashed where one might store credit or debit cards. She felt something lodged in the very back that had a glossy texture and she pulled on it. When she saw what it was, she stared dumbfounded at it as the chemicals in her brain surged and churned.
It was a picture of her. It was her mugshot.
xXxXxXxX
Eddie took a shot of whiskey, if only to try and calm herself down enough to process what was in front of her. Her face, smug as fuck, was grinning back up at her. She hadn't seen this picture in years, and the memories flooded into her like a river cresting its banks. Soon everything was saturated.
She wasn't ashamed to admit that she looked cute as hell in it. She was a bondafide hot mess, complete with smudged eye makeup and a hickey on her neck. Her hair was messy and her eyes were wet and glazed looking. She was obviously high, but she was easily on the good side of the "before" pictures you see in a long line of head shots, the kind where someone starts out beautiful and then slowly degrades over a decade of arrests.
This had easily been the best night of her life, or at least the most fun, and she couldnt believe he had this. Hell, she didn't even have it anymore and it was her favorite picture of her. This was the night that she had broken into the cop shop.
There had been a party in the canyons that night. Mac had been flirting with Eddie, feeding her wild turkey, and she was giddy with excitement. He had a pretty steady rotation in town but tonight was her turn and she was thrilled. So when he got pulled over on the way back to his house, Eddie was understandably disappointed. He got arrested for drunk driving and since Eddie couldn't operate stick, they had towed his truck. She had felt like such a loser, and she knew he probably resented the fact that she couldn't just drive it home for him and save him the impound fee. She didn't want him to remember her that way, so she came up with a plan.
Instead of waiting until he got out the next day, Eddie took it upon herself to climb in through the open window someone had left open in the summer heat. Originally she had thought they would just leave when she let him out of the holding cell, but Mac had been so worked up becaue of the the surprise jailbreak, that he ended up fucking her right there in the station.
Eddie blushed and covered her face in one hand, remembering how mad Greg had been when he'd found them. He'd arrested her to try and scare her but it only made her feel even more badass. Since he couldn't trust them to be in the same cage, Greg handcuffed Mac to the chair and left Eddie locked in it. It didn't matter though, they spent the whole night laughing and egging eachother on through the bars. Mac had been so impressed by her that night. She could tell in the way he looked at her, it was in the temperature of his eyes.
xXxXxXxXxXx
Eddie lay awake in her bed the next day, debating about whether or not she should keep the picture. She wanted it, but she wasn't sure what would happen when she returned his wallet without it. It was like a game of tug-of-war with her ego. When she worried about him realizing it was gone, she felt cocky. He probably didn't even know it was in there. She was kidding herself if she thought he had kept it on purpose.
Except when she went the other route and imagined him not mentioning it, her heart all but fell apart. The way she had felt last night when she discovered it, that rush of hope and promise, was almost too incredible to forfeit.
In the end though, mostly because she absolutely needed to know if he only had it accidentally, Eddie stashed the mugshot in her book. She resolved to keep it unless he specifically asked for it back. It seemed fair enough, and she deserved the image as a consolation prize if the truth had to be so devastating.
She had the day off so she went to the bar around lunchtime to try and find him. It wasn't too of a far walk, but Eddie could see his truck from a long ways off so she had the time to steal herself for any possible outcome.
He was sitting at the bar, hunched over an almost empty plate, when Eddie walked up to him and offered him the wallet. Mac quickly realized what she had and snatched it out of her hands, rifling through it quickly and making a face when he realized that things were out of order.
"you go through this?" he asked her.
"why?" she snorted at him. "is anything missing?"
He slammed the wallet down on the bar but Eddie didn't flinch. She was too busy floating away to be intimidated by his usual antics. Pleasure fizzed in her chest like soda. It was as if her very blood were carbonated, the way her heart swelled with a feeling of pure happiness.
It had been there on purpose. He carried a picture of her in his wallet. He liked her.
"where is it?" Mac growled at her.
"wheres what?"
He chuckled to himself and put a cigarette between his lips. All his movements were so fluid that sometimes it was like a magic trick, watching him produce those things out of seemingly nowhere.
"you know what im talking about Eddie, now give it back"
She stared at him, raising one eyebrow and feigning ignorance. He dipped his head down towards the flame of the zippo and then exhaled the smoke in her direction, snapping it shut with a flick of his wrist.
"wasn't easy to get you know, He never officially booked you"
She couldn't help it, she smiled. He watched it race all the way up to her eyes and his own pupils dilated, blood pumping faster in and out of his heart. He was like an animal that had smelled blood and was getting closer and closer. Soon she was going to be his, no matter how much she thought she could get away.
"so ya guna give it back or do i hafta come get it?"
"why do you even have it at all?"
Mac huffed and turned away from her then, facing back to the front and returning to his whiskey. He wasn't about to get into it with her here in front of all these people. Eddie, sustained by the knowedge that he cared about her enough to even have it, didn't bother pushing the subject. She didn't need him to say it outloud.
When he continued to ignore her, she turned and went back towards the door. She had accomplished what she set out to do, and even though a cold beer sounded really good right now, she wanted to quit while she was ahead. This was the closest thing she could expect to a 'pleasant' encounter with the man, and she might as well leave on a good note.
He didn't follow her. His cheek still ached from last night and he was still pissed. She may be ready to make ammends but he wasn't. Besides, he needed to distance himself from her publically. He didn't want to be implicated when she went missing.
xXxXxXxXxXx
let me know what you think !
3/ magz