Chapter 9: Playing it Cool
Melanie's Diner
Sabal, Florida
The Next Day
12:10 PM
As promised, Rachel had picked up Ricky the next day in her silver 2010 Chevrolet Suburban to take him to lunch with plans to bring him back to their auto body shop and pick up Dawn's now fully repaired Traverse afterward.
She took him to Melanie's Diner, an establishment that was pretty much a local institution in the small town of Sabal. This 1950's boxcar-style diner was a very well-known meeting place for the local Miccosukee residents and tourists alike, offering good food as well as friendly and prompt service.
Ricky and Rachel sat down at a booth, where they were soon greeted by the diner's longtime owner, Melanie Rivers. Melanie was a tall and well-built dark-haired Miccosukee woman in her mid-40's. Coincidentally, she was also the wife of Jack Rivers, the gentleman from whom Ricky had purchased Old Man Jack's Fish Camp.
"Hi Rachel!" Melanie tenderly greeted.
"Hey Melanie," Rachel replied, "How are you doing?"
"Good," Rachel said before gesturing across the table to Ricky, "This is my friend, Ricky Harper. He and his sister, Dawn, are visiting from Colorado." She then gestured back towards Melanie. "Ricky, this is Melanie Rivers. She's the owner here."
"Hello," Ricky cordially greeted with a wave, "Very nice to meet you, ma'am."
Melanie smiled in retort. "Likewise," she replied, "I've heard your name before, actually. Jack Rivers is my husband."
Ricky nodded. "Oh," he said, "Okay, cool."
"Jack was very pleased to find someone so eager to buy his family's old camp," Melanie said, "It's so nice to put a face to the name."
Ricky smiled. "I appreciate that, ma'am" he said.
Melanie then took out her ordering pad. "What can I get you guys to eat?" she asked.
"I'll have a grilled cheese," Ricky replied, "With French fries and a Coke if you have it, please."
"Sure do," Melanie said before turning her attention to Rachel. "And what can I get you, honey?" she inquired.
"I'll have the same thing as Ricky," Rachel replied, "But I'll have a Sprite to drink, please."
Melanie finished jotting down their order and smiled at them. "Okay," she said, "I'll put that stuff right in for you guys."
The pair nodded and Melanie went off to put their order in the system.
Rachel smiled at Ricky. "So," she said, "What do you think of Sabal so far?"
"It's nice," Ricky replied, "I haven't been to a town this small in a while, to be completely honest. I guess you get a little too used to the hustle-and-bustle when you grow up in a place like Denver."
"They call Denver 'the Mile High City', right?" Rachel inquired, "Are you guys fans of the Broncos?"
Ricky shrugged his shoulders. "Our dad, Dawn, and our two brothers are," he candidly replied, "I'm more of an academic triathlon type of guy."
Rachel, now enamored by the intriguing young man, giggled. "You're funny," she said, "Funny and cute make for a great combination."
Ricky gave the young Miccosukee woman a nervous smile in retort. "Heh," he said, "Thank you." He cleared his throat and decided to change the subject to avoid any awkwardness. "So," he continued, "Are all the people who live here members of the Miccosukee tribe?"
Rachel nodded. "Most of us," she replied, "We have about fifty or so older folks here who've come from other places, but for the most part, we're all Miccosukee born and bred."
"Cool," Ricky replied, "So this really is tribal land, then?"
"Yep," Rachel said, "Our people were actually part of the Seminole tribe until Nineteen-Sixty-Two when we ended up getting recognized as our own independent tribe. This village was established a few years after that in Nineteen-Sixty-Seven and our grandparents were the one of the first couples to settle here."
"Neat," Ricky replied.
Melanie returned to their table, laying out plates containing two delectably made grilled cheese sandwiches with freshly made French fries. She also set down two glasses with Coca-Cola and Sprite, which Ricky and Rachel promptly took for themselves.
"Here you go, guys" Melanie warmly said, "Is there anything else I can get you?"
Ricky and Rachel traded looks before the latter shook her head. "No," she said, "I think we're good. Thanks, Mel."
Melanie nodded and left them to enjoy their meals. Ricky took a big bite of his grilled cheese.
"How is it?" Rachel asked after a few seconds.
Ricky nodded with approval. "Delicious," he replied, "I definitely can tell why you called it 'awesome' on the phone."
Rachel giggled, starting to become as smitten with Ricky as Dawn now was with her brother. Better still, the feeling was mutual from Ricky's perspective as well.
Old Man Jack's Fish Camp
20 Minutes Later
With Ricky out of the house having his lunch with Rachel, the chores associated with Ricky's intention to renovate the cabin fell solely to Dawn.
She had spent most of the afternoon scraping the old paint from the porch railings with a paint scraper, dressed in a scroungy white t-shirt with torn-up denim shorts and beige steel-toed work boots with work gloves on her hands and plastic safety goggles on her face.
Scraping the last bit of paint off the right-side rail became difficult, as the material proved stubborn and didn't scrape off. As such, Dawn grunted in anger, but didn't scrape any harder for fear of damaging the wood underneath.
Dawn's transitory feeling of malcontent went away when she heard a diesel-powered vehicle pull into the driveway.
She removed her safety goggles and work gloves and turned to look, smiling with desirousness when she saw that it was the Double Thundercloud tow truck that had pulled in. Timmy Thundercloud climbed down out of the driver's side and smiled back at his paramour.
"Well," Dawn said, "Hello there handsome."
Timmy smiled and went over to her, stroking her face. "Hey cutie," he said before kissing her passionately on the lips.
"Mm," Dawn replied after they broke the kiss, "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be towing wrecked cars off a highway somewhere?"
Timmy chuckled. "It's funny you should say that" he said, "That's what I was just doing a while ago. We aren't expecting any new cars in the shop until a little later, so I thought I'd take my lunch break and come say 'hi'." He kissed her once again. "Hi," he said before giggling.
Dawn kissed his forehead in retort. "Hi," she parroted before turning back around to resume her work. She donned her work gloves and safety goggles and once again tried to scrape the obstinate paint from that final railing.
"Need some help?" Timmy inquired as he came up onto the porch behind Dawn and looked over her shoulder to observe what needed to be done.
"Well," Dawn replied, "I've actually been doing fine with this except for this stupid-ass final railing. The freaking paint won't come off."
"Hmm," Timmy said as he put his hands on Dawn's shoulders, "Looks like you could use a little extra leverage. Why don't you start scraping again and I'll pull you back a little bit. Maybe that'll help."
Dawn did as suggested, scraping the railing with the paint scraper. As Timmy had predicted, the added leverage from him gently pulling her back did result in the old paint being successfully scraped off without the wood beneath it being damaged. She smiled once the task was finally finished.
"Huh," Dawn said as she gave the railing a good once-over, "I'll be damned. That was a big help."
Timmy shrugged his shoulders as Dawn turned back around and faced him. "Hey," he said, "You did say you liked guys that worked hard. Like my dad and grandpa before me, I've been doing that my whole life."
Dawn giggled as she tenderly caressed his jawline. "Ricky's in town having lunch with your sister," she said.
"I know," Timmy replied, "She just texted me about ten minutes ago. She says that lunch is going really well. Ricky's a cool dude."
Dawn nodded. "Yeah," she said, "He also could use a lucky break. He was having a sort of 'friends-with-benefits' thing with my best friend for a while, but then she moved out to LA to go to college. Ricky's been really downplaying that, but I know he misses her a lot."
"Well," Timmy replied, "If the attraction between them is like ours, Rachel will take really good care of him." He cleared his throat. "I actually wanted to ask you something," he continued.
"Shoot," Dawn said.
"I know that things between us happened pretty fast the other night at the shop," Timmy began, "I was wondering if you'd like to come out for dinner with me tonight. I'd really like to do the gentlemanly thing."
Dawn smiled. "That's so sweet," she said, "And yes, I'd really love to." She then opened the cabin's front door and stepped slightly back inside the doorway. She pulled her shirt off over her head, revealing that she was completely bare-chested underneath. "But, uh" she continued, "Why don't you come in for a while and start with dessert?"
A now enticed Timmy smiled and walked toward her, at which point they went further inside, shutting the door behind them.