Chapter 1
Nick
I love tacos.
Not any kind of tacos, but the type where you sink your teeth into that crispy shell and the grease runs down your chin, puddling on the paper.
There is only one place in town where I can get my fix. It doesn’t matter that it is after midnight, I am getting the damn tacos, the grease, and all the goodness.
I park my bike and stalk up to the window outside the converted ice cream joint which now serves the most slammin’ Mexican within fifty miles. I’m behind a drunk guy who’s ordering a shitload of food and swaying back and forth like the ground is moving underneath him.
I glance around, crossing my arms, and zero in on a pretty girl, jamming nachos into her mouth, crying in between each bite.
Not my chick. Not my problem.
Besides her, me, and the workers, the only other person here is the drunk guy. He’s leaning against the counter at the closed register window next to me, talking to himself in tongues.
“One sec.” The woman on the other side of the glass and wearing a sombrero holds up a finger.
The damn hat is twice as big as her head, pink and yellow woven together, and has cotton balls hanging from the edges that shake every time she moves. When she finally glances up from the cash register and makes eye contact, she says, “Well, hey there, handsome.” Her eyes move away from my face and hungrily trail down my chest and then sweep back up my arms before her face breaks out in a smile. “What can I get you tonight?”
“Five tacos with extra meat and a bottle of water.” I reach into my back pocket, not looking to flirt with the sombrero girl, and grab my wallet.
I came here for tacos, not pussy.
And even if I were in the mood for pussy, she isn’t my type, and it has nothing to do with the sombrero.
“A guy like you looks like he could go for something…bigger,” she flirts, her voice all breathless and flirty.
“Only the five,” I tell her, not wanting to be rude and definitely not wanting in her pants.
“A girl can dream,” she breathes as she punches the buttons on the register. “That’ll be $15.70.”
I toss a twenty on the counter and hold up my hand. “Keep the change,” I tell her, figuring she deserves a tip for working this shit shift, dealing with drunk idiots like the guy who ordered in front of me.
She snatches the bill off the counter, staring at my face and no longer my body. “Thanks, big guy. It’s my first tip of the night, and I’ve been here five hours.”
“People suck,” I offer, rubbing the back of my neck and hoping to make an exit as quickly as possible.
“They do.” She turns her back, yelling something in Spanish to the guys working in the kitchen. When she turns back, the smile is on her face again. “It’ll be a minute. The dumb shits are slow tonight. Sorry.”
“No worries,” I tell her, stepping back. “I got nothing but time.”
“You can take a seat, and I’ll call you when your order is ready,” she says, making change from the money I gave her and stashing it in her pocket instead of the empty tip jar.
Now I have a dilemma.
Do I sit at the table closest to the drunk guy rambling to himself or the chick who’s crying in her nachos like her dog just died?
I look back and forth between the two and pick the chick because the guy isn’t something I want to deal with. He is talkative, although he is only talking to himself, but I’m not about to risk that changing any time soon.
The safer option is the chick who hasn’t bothered to look up from her nachos, is continuing to cry, and hasn’t stopped eating. Between those tears and her chewing, the likelihood she is going to try to chat me up is slim to fuckin’ none, so I pick her.
As soon as my ass hits the wood, the drunk guy, still swaying, breaks out in song like he is performing for a crowd at a stadium.
“Christ,” I mutter, shaking my head.
“Jimbo,” the sombrero girl says, leaning over the counter, stretching her neck to see him. “You didn’t drive here, did you?”
He shakes his head. “Walked, babe. No license, remember?”
“Only making sure.” She nods, pushing his bag of food out for him to grab. “Need a ride home?”
His headshake is immediate. “It’s the type of night where you need to take in the stars.”
“Shitshow,” I mumble, rubbing my forehead and avoiding the tragic disaster of a human being in front of me.
“Don’t be watching those stars while you’re walking, Jimbo. Liable to end up in a ditch or hit by a car if your head is tipped upward, drunk, and not watching where you’re going.”
“God will show me the way,” he answers, digging into his bag with one hand and pulling out a taco.
Sombrero girl narrows her eyes and twists her thin lips. “God wants you at home so you can be at church tomorrow and not late for your daddy’s sermon.”
Preacher’s kid. Not surprising. ’Round here, they go one of two ways. Devout or rebellious. Based on Jimbo’s current situation, he is stuck somewhere in the middle. He is a believer but has different feelings on God than his father probably taught him.
“I’m never late, Tina Marie.” He sways as he backs away from the building and gazes upward with his first bite. “I’m right where God meant me to be.”
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