my cut off the seat in between us and shrugged into it as soon as my boots were firmly on the ground.
I hated driving cages of any variety, but it was too cold and too wet to expect Aspen to get on the back of my bike to get her here. She would have frozen her ass off.
She went to the rose bed in front of the house and looked around flipping over random rocks until she found what she was looking for with an ‘ah ha!’ She jerked her head for me to follow and I went up the path as she slid open the false bottom of the clever hidden key rock and retrieved the key.
“If you give me just a minute, I’ll find my phone book, call Lindsay, and give you your shirt back.”
“Sounds good,” I said with a nod. I was in no hurry. She could call her friend first if she liked.
“Home sweet home,” she said and followed it up before I could get through the door with a gusty sigh and a “Sorry, it’s such a mess.”
“Mess isn’t the word I’d use to describe it,” I said, stepping through the door and laying eyes on the scattered packing materials and piles of boxes.
“Oh, yeah?” she asked, rooting through one before shifting it to the floor and opening the one beneath. “What would you call it?”
I shrugged. “A state of transition, a moment of flux, you got a lot going on.” I put my hands into my back pockets for a lack of anything else to do with them and to resist the urge I had to start going through shit. I found myself wanting to learn more about her.
She was on her knees going through a third box when she suddenly let out another triumphant, “Ah ha!” and held up a little black address book.
“Nice,” I said.
“Let’s hear it for being paranoid,” she said, clambering back up onto her feet. “I hate to ask, but can I borrow your phone?”
“Paranoid?” I asked, digging in my inside pocket for my cell. I was having an ‘oh, duh,’ moment realizing she needed my phone to call her friend. The paranoid comment still threw me, though.
“Yeah, I write everyone’s number down in my book in case my phone ever decides it wants to purge my contacts or something,” she said, flipping it open and flashing through pages.
“Good idea,” I said and nodded. She was having a hard time juggling the book and the phone to turn pages so I took the book from her and held it open. She found the page and frowned at my phone.
“Shit, sorry, it’s five-four-seven-three,” I told her so she could unlock it.
“Um, you didn’t have to tell me that,” she said with a nervous laugh.
“It’s cool,” I said with a wink. “I trust yah.”
She blushed a bit and pulled up the keypad and entered her friend’s number and I smiled as she turned her back and took a few steps away. While she waited for the call to ring through, I slid a pen out of the inside pocket of my jacket suddenly inspired.
I flipped through her book until I got to the ‘F’s and wrote my name and number on an available line, even threw the address for the farm in there. I put the pen back, slipped one of the farm’s business cards out of my inside pocket and bookmarked the page with it, leaving it sticking out the top of her book.
If she ever needed anything, she could find me.
“I ended up at the bouncer’s house last night,” she said and there was hostility in her tone. I looked up to her hunched shoulders and had a quick moment of regret that quickly turned to pleasure at her next words – “And thank God, he was there to take care of me, because you sure weren’t. I just want my stuff back.”
There was a long pause, and she pinched the bridge of her nose.
“One of those yahoos put something in my drink, Lindsay. I’m glad you had a good time, but I really didn’t.” She turned and looked at me and said, “At least not until this morning. I just really want my purse and my phone back.”
Another pause.
“I’m at home. I had a hidden key… Yes, that’s fine. Okay. See you in a few. Bye.”
I was proud of her. She wasn’t taking any shit from her friend and letting her gaslight her. I held out her book