Rank. D. Graham R.
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opened the door. She waved before she went inside. I pressed the defogger button. As I waited for the windows to clear, a girl came out of a second floor room and ran along the veranda to the stairs. When she reached the sidewalk, I noticed that she had strawberry coloured hair.
“Shae-Lynn?” I shouted out the window.
Her head spun to see who had called her name. She was crying. I left the truck engine running and got out.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She wiped her palms across her face. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. What happened?”
“Nothing. What are you doing here?”
“Dropping someone off.”
“Who? Tawnie?”
I frowned and looked up at the door on the second floor that she came out of. “Is this where Blake is staying?”
“I have to go. Lee-Anne’s going to be worried about me.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“No thanks.” She rushed across the parking lot headed towards the highway.
“Shae-Lynn, get in the truck. I’m not going to let you walk along a pitch black highway.”
She waved her arm over her head in a don’t-worry-about-me way and kept walking. I hopped in the truck and pulled out onto the highway. I drove slowly on the shoulder behind her with my head hanging out the window.
“Leave me alone, Billy.”
“I’m going to drive two kilometres an hour all the way back if you don’t get in the truck.”
She kept walking. A couple cars passed and honked.
“Uh, Shae-Lynn, I’m pretty sure it’s not all that safe for me to be driving like this.”
“Then go,” she snapped.
“I’m not leaving you here, so unless you want to witness me getting killed when a semi-truck rams up my ass, I suggest you get in the truck.”
She stopped and looked up at the sky. After an eighteen-wheeler honked at us, she shook her head in exasperation, then got in the passenger side.
“What happened?” I asked again as I shoulder checked and pulled out into the lane.
“None of your business.”
“Did Blake hurt you?”
She stared out the side window for a while before she mumbled, “No.”
“I’m going to beat the truth out of him if you don’t tell me.”
“It wasn’t that big of a deal. He wanted more from me than I felt like giving, so I left.”
“Didn’t he offer to drive you back?”
She didn’t answer.
“What an asshole. I’m going to beat his ass.”
“I didn’t give him a chance to offer to give me a ride. I just left.”
“I didn’t see him running after you.”
She shook her head, unimpressed. “What kind of guy expects a girl will sleep with him after one date? A girl doesn’t do that unless she is a complete slut. You know that, right?”
I glanced at her and gripped the steering wheel, wondering if she saw right through me and already knew what I’d done with Tawnie.
“Why would he even think I was like that?”
“He was just hoping you were. You did go back to his room with him.”
“So? He said we were going to watch a movie.” She glared at me and her lip curled. “You think it’s my fault.”
“No.”
“Is ‘let’s watch a movie’ code for ‘let’s have sex?’”
“No, not necessarily.”
“Do you hope that girls will be slutty enough to sleep with you after just one date?”
I winced, positive that she had already figured it out. What the hell. If she already knew I was a dirt bag, I might as well be honest with her. “If a girl is going to offer sex on the first date, I’m not going to turn it down. But I don’t expect it.”
“Do you ever end up liking the girls who give it away on the first date?”
I knew what the answer was, but I didn’t say anything. My non response obviously confirmed what she already suspected. She sat back and stared out the passenger side window. We drove for a while in silence before I said, “I’ll take care of him.”
“No.” She pointed at me in a threatening way. “I don’t want you talking to him about it.”
“I’m not going to talk to him about it.”
“I don’t want you fighting with him about it either.”
I turned into the arena grounds and drove over the grass field. Most of the participants had left, so there were only a few campers and trailers speckled around.
“I’m serious,” she said. “If you do anything, I will never speak to you again.”
“That’s too bad, but I guess that’s the way it’s going to have to be.”
She groaned and fought to hold back a scream. “Don’t be an asshole, Billy.”
“Making sure Blake knows that it’s not okay to treat you like that doesn’t make me an asshole.”
She stared at me, letting what I said sink in. Her expression fluctuated and I had trouble reading it before she said, “He didn’t do anything wrong. He was just too eager. I want to forget about it. Promise you won’t do anything.”
“What do you care what I do to him? You weren’t even into him in the first place.”
The crease deepened between her eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”
“I could tell.”
“How?”
“I just could. Turns out Cole might actually know as much about women as he claims to.”
She rolled her eyes to disagree. “You guys don’t know anything.”
“So, you did like Blake?”
“No, and I don’t want everyone knowing that I was stupid enough to go to the hotel room with him. It’s embarrassing and it makes me look bad. Please don’t make it into a big deal.” She started crying. “Promise?”
I didn’t like seeing her cry, so I nodded.
“Say it.”
Although Blake needed to be set straight, the hurt tone of her voice was killing me and I wanted to make her feel better, so I gave in. “I promise.”
Satisfied that I’d given her my word, she got out of the truck, swung the door shut, and ran over to the motorhome. There was a little red truck parked in front of our camper, which meant I had no place to sleep. I stretched out on the bench seat and spent the rest of the night thinking about Tawnie, Blake, and Shae-Lynn.
By the morning, the only thing I had figured out was how I was going to handle things with Blake, while still keeping my promise to Shae-Lynn. The door to the camper opened at about six and Cole kissed the curly haired girl goodbye. As she got into her little red truck, I walked over to the camper.
“Hey,” he said, still sounding half asleep. “Did you sleep in the truck?”
“I wouldn’t call it sleeping.” I stepped inside and undressed to take a shower. “You have to drive back to Saskatoon.