Page 40 of A Real Goode Time

I shrugged. “The day he shipped out overseas, he called me. Said, ‘well, buddy, I’m off to get myself killed. You be good, now, hear?’ So, I think he knew, somehow.”

She was quiet a long time. “My dad…the week before he died, we were working on the MG. He stopped, looked at me, and said, ‘Torie, I hope you know I love you, more than anything. And that I’m sorry.’” She sniffled. “I asked what he meant, but he wouldn’t say another word. One week later to the day, he died of a heart attack.”

“God, Torie. I’m so sorry.”

She swallowed. “I’ve never told anyone that—what he said to me. It just…it’s always freaked me out. Like, did he know? Why would he say that? I don’t think he really knew why he said what he said, because he seemed…confused. I don’t know.”

“Death is a weird thing,” I said.

“Sure is.”

A silence. Long, and profound.

“I think I’m going to go to bed,” she said. “I’m so tired.”

I shook my head. “Go to sleep. I’ll putz around downstairs for a while.”

She blinked, swallowed, eyed me. “You don’t have to. I can usually fall asleep pretty easily.”

Wish I could say the same. I had trouble falling asleep under normal circumstances—but with Torie only feet away, it’d be damn near impossible.

But, I was tired too, and I didn’t feel like dicking around in the shop.

What I felt like doing was climbing in with Torie and getting her naked and kissing every inch of her…

I had to look away from her. Nodded. “Yeah, all right.”

And so we went to our separate places.

Sleep was a long time coming. I heard every sound she made—I was hyperaware of her. Her sniffles and snorts, each time she rustled and rolled. I fought my imagination tooth and nail, trying to keep my mind off her, to keep her clothed in my mind.

I failed.

Miserably.

I kept seeing her, again and again, standing there with her shirt in her hands, looking at me, breasts bare and pale and plump and upturned and perfect and begging to be kissed and touched.

I tossed and turned, trying to blank out my mind.

Hours passed.

Eventually, I gave up. I heard Torie doing her soft light snore, not really even a snore, just a loud breathing. I went downstairs and grabbed a socket wrench and attacked the front bench seat of my F-100, freeing it and hauling it out, dragging it outside to the salvage yard. I stood out there in the late night or early morning cool— I wasn’t even sure what time it was. I looked up, missing the wash and spray of stars I used to be able to see back in Kentucky. Here, there was too much light pollution. I could only really see Venus and few brighter stars.

Lost in memory, in thought, I didn’t register the sound of the door opening and closing. Or of Torie’s presence until she was beside me. “Not many stars to see,” she said.

I jumped. “Oh, hey. Sorry, I hope I didn’t wake you up.” I gestured up at the sky. “Nah, not too many, not around here.”

“I’ve never been out of Connecticut.”

I eyed her. “So you’ve never seen the stars, like for real? Out in the country, where there ain’t no lights, you can see just about every damn star there is in the galaxy.”

She shook her head. “Nope. Suburbanite born and raised.”

“Damn, girl.” I shook my head. “This road trip, we’ll do a section at night and stop somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. Ain’t nothin’ like it.”

She smiled. “I’d like that.” She glanced at me. “Sometimes you sound more country than other times.”

I laughed. “Yeah, it comes and goes. Been up here long enough I’m starting to lose the accent, and honestly I get less shit from folks if I don’t sound like a backwoods Kentucky hillbilly. Clients question me less, and take me more seriously. Fewer dumb questions. So I guess I’m working at losing it. But if I’m tired or whatever, sometimes it just…comes out.”