I wasn’t getting a good feeling about this.
Daisy grabbed my arm and power-walked me the few blocks to a fast-food burger joint on the corner of Broadway and Alameda.
While we were standing in line waiting for my order which consisted of an ultra-sized cheeseburger meal and four extra orders of ultra-sized fries, she said to me, “Al right, tel Daisy all about it.”
“About what?” I asked.
“About whatever’s making your eyes sad.”
Holy cow. Was I that obvious?
“Nothing’s making me sad,” I lied.
She looked at me for a while. The counter guy passed me my bag and then she said, “When you’re ready to talk, I’m here, comprende?”
I nodded.
She let it go. Left it at that and I liked her al the more.
Though not enough to share, but I did feel badly about it.
We walked back a lot slower, mainly because I was consuming my ultra-sized cheeseburger meal and Daisy was programming phone numbers into my cel phone (just in case).
When we got to Fortnum’s I handed out the fries, sucked down my diet cola (because even if I’d just hoovered through an ultra-sized meal, there was a girlie law that said you had to have it with a diet drink) and ordered another caramel latte.
The customer crush was mostly gone, Daisy and Indy were talking at the book counter, Duke had disappeared and Uncle Tex was alone behind the espresso machine.
“I’m takin’ it that your loser boyfriend is your loser f**kin’
ex-boyfriend since you were holdin’ hands with Hank last night.”
I sighed. “Can we talk about it later?”
“Got a lot of respect for Hank, he’s good people. Tel me you’re done with that weasely motherfucker.”
“I’m done with Bil y, I’ve been done with him for a long time. He’s just not done with me. I’m having dinner with Hank but only because he’s persuasive—”
“I bet,” Uncle Tex broke in.
“It’s just dinner. Nothing more, not until I can finish up with Bil y.”
“Dinner may be just dinner in Chicago but it ain’t in Denver. These boys don’t f**k around, you know what I’m sayin’?” Tex asked.
I’d already learned that.
He went on anyway. “Indy was livin’ with Lee after ‘bout a day. Jet was with Eddie from my count, after less than a week. The way Hank’s lookin’ at you, I’m guessin’ less than forty eight hours.”
Good God.
He continued. “I’m your f**kin’ uncle and I like that boy enough to say I’d be doin’ cartwheels, you end up with him.” Boy was I in trouble.
“We’l talk about it later, okay?”
He stared at me awhile then he said, “Hang out in here for a few hours then we’l go someplace and talk. I don’t want you wanderin’ off and gettin’ abducted or car bombed.”
My eyes bugged out and he shrugged. “It’s been known to happen.”
Good grief.