“Perfect. I am so into grandma’s right now. You don’t even know.” I was trying to get a laugh out of her, and when I finally succeeded, I pulled her out of Debbie’s with the energy to run all the way to the dive bar that was Bunny’s. But since it was across one interstate and down a highway, I did the responsible thing and unlocked the car.
“I’ll meet you there,” she said, pointing to her aunt’s car on the other end of the parking lot.
“Oh, no, ho, ho you won’t.”
“What?” She held her keys mid-air as I approached her.
“Your keys are no good here,” I said, swiping them from her and putting them in my pocket.
“I don’t think it works like that.”
“It does tonight. Come on. I’ll drive you. I’ll be the sober, responsible one and you’ll be the drunk one. A role reversal always makes life exciting, doesn’t it?”
“Then how will I get home?”
Ah. She had me there. “We can pick up Isabel’s car in the morning.”
“If it was my car, I’d say yes. But I don’t feel comfortable leaving it in Debbie’s parking lot. It could get towed.”
“Good point.” I mulled it over for a minute. “How about this. Let’s park it at my house and then we’ll go to Bunny’s from there. You can sleep over, like we did back in the day.”
“It won’t be as fun if you don’t drink too,” she said.
“Okay. So, we both go to my house, get a ride to Bunny’s and then a ride back. Then no one drives.”
She thought about it a long moment before nodding. “I’ll follow you there,” she said.
“Maybe this is a mistake,” Navy said, pressed up against my side as tightly as she could. Her hand squeezed mine in a vise grip, like we were walking through a tornado and she expected to be swept from me any moment.
Granted, I hadn’t been to Bunny’s in a year or so, and maybe I had drunk goggles on when I’d imagined its charm. Right now, with the dozens of eyes staring at us as we made our way past whiskey-soaked patrons, I was wondering whether I’d ever even been here before.
“It’s fine,” I told her, pushing her into the last two seats at the bar. I understood why no one else was sitting at them, given that a giant structure-supporting column separated the seats. This was a bad idea.
Navy took her seat tentatively and once she was settled, I scooted my seat around the column so that I was pressed tightly up against her once again; the wall and I sandwiching her in. “See?” I said with a half-grimace and half-smile. “Cozy.”
“Mm-hmm. Like a murder mystery.”
“Oh, don’t even worry about it. You’re not gonna get murdered,” I said, with a confidence I didn’t one-hundred percent feel.
“I’ve seen him before,” Navy said, wrapping her purse around her wrist like it was a handcuff. She attempted to subtly shrug toward the reeking pile of cigarettes that vaguely resembled a human. “On the police department’s Facebook page,” she hissed in my ear. “I think they were looking for him.”
“Probably were. But being that this place has the reputation that it does, wouldn’t they know precisely where to look for him?” I was grasping for straws. If she was too uncomfortable to be here, we’d leave. “Just… don’t use the bathroom, okay? There’s a gas station next door if you need it.”
Navy comically shivered and I wrapped my arm around her.
“Look, if you want to leave, we can. I just wanted to get your mind off of things for a while.”
She brushed her hair away from her face, sending it sprawling down her back and over my arm. “No. It’s fine. But next time, I pick the place.”
“Knowing you, you’d pick the trampoline park.”
“And you’d love it.”
“Fuck yeah I would. Why did we leave me in charge of tonight’s plans?”
“Good question.” She leaned her head so that it rested on my shoulder. We might’ve been scrunched like sardines, but it was nice having her so close.
The bartender made his way down to us, and despite the definite chill of the clientele, the guy gave us a genuine smile. “What sounds good tonight?”
“What do you want, Navy Jane? My treat tonight.”
She ordered something called a climax and her cheeks took on the faintest bit of color as she side-eyed me. “I had one before,” she told me, as if she were underage and trying to play it cool.
“Okay, good. Let’s make that double then,” I said, two fingers held up for the bartender. After he left, I leaned in until my lips were at Navy’s ear. “Now, tell me. Does it taste like one?”
“I think I need a drink to answer that,” she said, turning until we were nose to nose. “You’re very close.” Her breath was warm and minty.
“It was either I practically sit in your lap or we talk around this bitch,” I said, gently tapping my head against the column at my back. “What’s in this climax?”
“Um.” She licked her lips. “Amaretto. Some banana alcohol, heavy cream, triple sec, and white chocolate.”
“Sounds like a girl drink,” I said, teasing.
“Which means it sounds delicious.”
“Precisely. But the heavy cream.” I rubbed my stomach, already anticipating the ache I would have.
“We’ll have to limit ourselves to them,” she said. “They’re dangerous.”
She wasn’t lying. Thirty minutes later, we each had three empty shot glasses in front of us and a serious case of the giggles. She was more of a lightweight than me, and soon she didn’t even seem to notice the other patrons. They’d all busied themselves with their cigarettes and bourbon anyway, none of them paid us any mind.
Navy’s eyes were bright and the pink in her cheeks had bloomed down her neck as well. Damn, she had the prettiest skin. Not in a Silence of the Lambs kind of way, but in the way that you wanted to keep looking at it, memorize all the freckles and beauty marks that made her so her. “What’s this from?” I asked, my eyes and then my finger grazing over the scar just above her left eyebrow. It was only about an inch long, but its stark whiteness stood out against the rest of her skin. How had I never noticed it before? It didn’t interrupt the hair in her eyebrow, but it intrigued me nonetheless.
“Oh!” Navy said with a laugh. “It’s from the summer after we officially moved in with Aunt Isabel. Violet hit me in the face with a shovel.” She erupted in laughs when my response was to stare at her, slack jawed.
“Like… on purpose?”
“No.” Navy signaled for another two climaxes—Jesus, what a sentence—and continued. “We were in the backyard, playing in the shed. She wanted to turn on the lawnmower and I told her no. Then she wanted to play with Aunt Isabel’s hedge scissors/clippers and again I told her no. She picked up the shovel and when I told her to put it down, it was too heavy. She lifted her face, all snooty—you know, she couldn’t be called weak by her big sissy. She said, ‘I am STRONG,’ and turned suddenly on her heel, the shovel over her shoulder, and it clipped me across the eyebrow.”