Love Fast

I stay on the bus until the stop in town after my shift. The first place I’m going to check for Athena is the vet’s office to see if she’s been handed in. Then I’ll go check at home, do laundry, and figure out what to do about the ceiling in the cabin. Byron said he’d call Mike and Beth, but he’s got bigger things to worry about. The truth is, I want to make sure I have a place to stay tonight without having to rely on Byron. He shouldn’t feel any obligation to put a roof over my head, despite the way things have… shifted since last night. I want to be able to stand on my own two feet. I don’t want to have other people solve my problems. I want to figure this out for myself.

As I arrive at the vet, Donna is just putting up the Closed sign. She opens the door for me anyway.

“Hey, how was the storm for you?” she asks.

“Okay. A leaky roof. You?”

“A few things in the yard got tossed around. I’ve seen worse.”

“Athena—you know, the cat that adopted me—disappeared. She was with me during the storm but fled right after. I wondered if someone had brought her in.”

“Oh no. I’m sorry. No, no one brought her in. Honestly, we haven’t had any animals brought in at all. I thought there might be some injuries.” She shrugs. “Fred had some callouts to the ranches farther out of town. That’s it.” She closes the door behind her and locks up. “I’ll let you know if anyone brings her in tomorrow, though.”

“Thanks. You off work now?” I ask.

Her eyes grow wide and she smiles conspiratorially. “I am. I’m headed over to Valley Park.” She says it like I should know what that means. “Apparently a huge RV parked up there, just showed up out of nowhere. Marge says it’s so big and fancy, it must have cost more than a million dollars. I want to see it for myself.”

“Tourists?” I ask.

She leans forward. “No one knows. No one has seen anyone come or go from there. Marge says it’s the government, but I don’t see why it can’t be someone just wanting to spend some time in this beautiful town of ours.”

Her phone rings and she answers. We start to walk toward the market.

“Are you serious?” she says. “There are two? I’m definitely coming. I might just knock on the door and see who the hell is in there. Okay, I’ll see you in ten minutes.” She hangs up. “Did you hear that?” she asks. Before I can answer, she adds, “There’s two of ’em now. Two million-dollar RVs. Another one pulled up right next to the first.”

“That’s weird,” I say. “Could be tourists passing through on some kind of cross-country trip.”

“Right. But maybe not,” she says conspiratorially. “You wanna come see?”

A warm feeling nuzzles inside me at the thought of going with her. She likes me. And from what little I know of her, I like Donna, too. “I can’t,” I say. “I have to fix up the cabin. But thanks for asking. You’ll have to let me know what you find. Be careful.”

“Oh, I’m going with Marge. She’s used to hunting wild boar. I’ll be completely safe with her.”

Wild boar? Is that… a thing around here? I make a mental note to ask Byron when I see him.

“You don’t know where I might buy a dehumidifier, do you?” I ask.

“Go see Betty in the hardware store.” She nods her head to the left. “She’ll fix you up.”

Ron the taxi driver helps me bring the dehumidifier up the steps. Before I go inside, I check around the outside of the cabin for Athena.

“Athena!” I call. Maybe I’ll set out some food for her on the porch and see if that entices her back. “Athena!”

I wrestle the dehumidifier into my bedroom, which thankfully still has an intact ceiling, then check the pot I left under the leak. I emptied the overflowing pot this morning, before I went to the Colorado Club. There’s been no rain since, but I expected residual water to drip through the morning.

But the pan’s almost dry.

I glance up at the ceiling. The wet patch is still there, but it doesn’t look as bad as it did this morning. Maybe the dry mountain air is speeding the process along.

I plug in the dehumidifier and it hums to life. Then I drag the bedding from the pile on the floor, put it in the washing machine, and start a cycle. There’s too much bedding to fit it all in one load, but I’m sure I can get enough washed and dried for me to have something for tonight. Maybe I should have bought a sleeping bag from Snail Trail.

I’m not sure I want to sleep right under the leak, even if it has dried up. Like Byron said, there’s no telling if the entire ceiling is going to collapse. But there’s no room for the bed frame to fit somewhere else in the room.

I lived in a trailer with four other women; I can figure out how to make the most of this space. I can sleep on the couch if necessary, but… I check out the mattress propped against the wall, running my hands up and down each side. Where I expect to feel sodden fabric, I only find dry softness.

Huh.

That unexpected piece of luck means I can sleep on the mattress in the living room. I maneuverer it away from the wall and pull it along the floorboards. It’s heavy, but it’s moving. My muscles are still sore from doing… everything with Byron last night. Images flash through my mind. It was so incredible and dirty and freeing. I half expected people to stop me and ask me what happened, because I’m sure I look different to how I looked yesterday. Sex with Byron altered my biology—I’m just not sure how yet.

I pause and pull down the neck of my shirt to reveal the hickey that he left me. It’s still there. I shudder at the image of his determined mouth over my breast, his large hands holding me in place.

I don’t want what we started to stop, but I don’t know how we can keep moving forward either. I don’t want to jump from the frying pan into the fire. Byron and Frank are completely different in so many ways, but they also have things in common. They’re both much more established, powerful, and wealthy than me. For all the ways Byron made me feel amazing last night, I don’t like the feel of an uneven power dynamic. It’s uncomfortably familiar, even in the afterglow of what we shared.

I give the mattress a tug and slide it into the living room. There’s not enough space to lay it down, so I spend the next hour configuring and reconfiguring the couch, dining room table and chairs, and side tables. Partly, I want the mattress to fit, and also, I like that I can decide where. Our trailer was too small for anyone to have a choice about where things went, but even if we’d lived in a mansion, Mom would have made all the decisions. Frank was very particular about his place, too. I was only ever a guest at the house that was meant to become my home. It never felt like a place where I could move the furniture around.

Finally I settle on putting the dining room table flush against the back of the sofa. It’s not like I’m throwing any dinner parties anytime soon. I really only need to use one chair. Then I put the side tables either side of the sofa, leaving me plenty of room for the mattress against the wall of the living room.

I put my hands on my hips and survey the new arrangement. My chest lifts with pride. It feels good to solve a problem on my own, even if it’s just a problem of interior design.

Someone knocks on the front door, and I jump.

“It’s Mike,” a man’s voice says through the front door.

“And Beth,” a woman’s voice calls.

Shit. I just moved all their furniture around. I hope they’re not mad. I pull in a breath. I can move it back easily enough. I open the door. “Hi. I’m Rosey.”

“Hi, Rosey!” A woman with long dark hair and a really tall guy with blond curly hair grin at me. “We’re here to have a look at the roof. What a lot of rain, right?”

“For sure. Though I’m from Oregon, so…”

Beth laughs. “You thought you’d escaped, but you brought it with you.” She laughs again, but something about what she says makes me want to remember it later. “We’re going to take a look. That okay?”

Mike has a ladder, which he moves around to the side of the house. He holds it while Beth goes up. I hang back on the porch, scanning the area for Athena while I wait for the verdict.

“It’s stopped dripping inside,” I say. “I bought a dehumidifier since the ceiling’s still a bit damp.”

“Mike, you’re going to have to come up here,” Beth says. “Rosey, has someone been up here today?”

“Up on the roof? I don’t think so. I’ve been working all day, so I haven’t been here, but who would have been up there?”

“Maybe the damage just isn’t visible,” Mike says, climbing the ladder.

“No, someone’s put a membrane up here and sealed it. Look.”

Both of them move out of sight, but the sound of their voices suggest they’re happy with what they find. Maybe I’ll be able to sleep back in my bedroom before I have to abandon this place for staff housing.

I hear a cell going off and Mike answers. “Yeah, we’re just here. Ohhh, that’s real good of you. I appreciate that. Can we pay—” He listens to whoever is on the end of the phone. “Yeah, we have buckets all through our house at the moment. We really need a new roof. Maybe we’ll get to it this year. Okay then. I might swing by with a pie for you later. Thanks, Byron.”

My heart skips in my chest at the mention of Byron’s name.

Mike and Beth descend from the roof, all smiles. “Your neighbor there sent some of his men down from the Club to fix the roof.”

“Byron?” I ask.

“Said he had a few construction guys who weren’t busy, so he directed them to fix the roof of the cabin,” Mike says.

Byron’s trying to launch the Colorado Club on time. I can’t imagine his construction team has a bunch of free time, especially after the storm. I wonder if Byron just saved Mike and Beth, or me. In reality, he saved all of us. Though I’m grateful, worry pulls in my chest. I don’t want a man who feels like it’s his job to save me.

Beth grins. “I told you. He was always the nicest guy in high school.”

“I don’t remember him,” Mike says. “He’s been away a long time.”

“You went to high school with him?” I ask Beth.

“A thousand years ago,” she says on a smile. “He had a rough time of it by all accounts, but you’d never know it. Nothing ever seemed to ruffle his feathers. He was always the sweetest.”

“Well, he’s saved us a few days’ work here,” Mike says. “And a bunch of money.”

“Which means that we can focus on our house,” Beth continues. “You should run a pie up to him later.” She turns to me. “Mike makes the best apple pie.”

“Don’t tell Nancy,” Mike says with a wink. “She’s the town cook. No one dares compete.”

I laugh. I’m going to have to get someone to point out Nancy to me.

“Did your home get badly damaged?” I ask.

“The roof leaks every time it rains,” Beth says. “We need to replace it. The tiles lift in the slightest breeze. It’s crazy.”

“We’ll see about it this year,” Mike says.

“You said that last year,” Beth says.

“Can I get you a coffee?” I ask. “You’re welcome to stay.”

“Thank you so much,” Beth says. “But we’d better get going. Will we see you at Grizzly’s tonight?”

I look at her blankly.

“Everyone goes to Grizzly’s after a storm,” Beth says.

“Why is that?” Mike asks. “I know we do it, but I’ve never thought about why. To celebrate not dying?”

Beth laughs. “I guess. It’s a way for the town to come together. Or something. And I want to hear the latest thing about those two government RVs in Valley Park. Donna and Marge said they were going over there to check them out. I want to know what they found.”noveldrama

“There are three of them now,” Mike says.

“Three?” Beth asks.

“Apparently. That’s what Jim told me.”

“Someone’s screwing with us,” Beth says. “It’s either the government, or someone wants us to think it’s the government.”

“I think our government has enough to do without parking RVs in Star Falls,” Mike says.

“You know that. I know that. But Marge certainly doesn’t. She won’t rest until she knows who the hell’s in there.”

“I think Donna has it covered,” I interrupt. “I saw her in town earlier. She said she was going to knock on the door. But maybe she’ll have second thoughts, now that there are three of them.” I stop when I realize I’m getting sucked into this RV drama, when what I really need to do is sort my laundry.

“Let’s go,” Beth says. “What if something happens to Donna?”

Mike turns to me. “Wanna come?”

The warm feeling from earlier returns. It’s so nice to be asked. “Maybe later. I have a few chores to do. I can’t wait to see what these RVs are all about.”

“See you at Grizzly’s later!” Beth calls as she heads back to their truck.

The RVs are a bit odd. I add it to my mental list of things to ask Byron about. Maybe he’s organized them to be in town to house more construction workers?

I shake off the thought. I probably won’t see him tonight. He’s going to be busy. And am I really going to head to Grizzly’s on my own? Last time I was there, I was wearing a dirty wedding dress. I’m not sure I’m ready to show my face there again so soon—or ever.