A slim smile brightens my face. “Absolutely.”

The cop pulls out ahead of us and leaves while we stay parked inside the car for a moment.

“ ‘You can search the car if you want’?” I repeat.

“I know!” she laughs and throws her head back against the seat momentarily. “I didn’t mean to say that. It just came out.”

I laugh, too. “Well, looks like your innocent rambling, which by the way scares me a little; I think that bipolar best friend of yours has rubbed off on you, but it charmed us out of that one.”

I rest my hands on the steering wheel.

She was smiling and probably about to comment on my Natalie joke, until she sees my bloody knuckles again. Then she moves over next to me and takes my hand carefully into hers.

“We need to clean this before it gets infected,” she says. She leans closer and carefully starts picking tiny pieces of grass and dirt from around and inside the open gash. “That’s pretty bad, Andrew.”

“It’s not too bad,” I say. “I don’t need stitches.”

“No, you just need to be slapped. Don’t ever do something like that again. I mean it.” She picks out one last bit of debris and then leans over the back of the seat, reaching for the small ice chest in the back.

I turn my head to the right, and all I see is her ass hanging out of those shorts. I reach up with my bloodied hand and slip my finger underneath her bikini bottom elastic and snap it back against her skin. It doesn’t faze her, but she rolls her eyes at me when she emerges from the backseat and sits down with a water bottle.

“Rinse it out,” she demands, holding the bottle out to me.

I open my door and take it from her, holding my hand out and pouring water over the wound.

As she’s rummaging through her purse for something she says, “The next time you get that pissed off and feel the need to take out your anger on inanimate objects, I’m officially going to jot your name down on my Psychotic List.” She holds out a tube of Neosporin to me.

I just shake my head and take it. Guess I can’t argue with her on that one.

She points at the Neosporin in my hand and tells me to hurry and put it on. I laugh and say, “You sure are a demanding little heifer.”

She play-punches me in the arm (which actually hurts her) and accuses me of calling her fat. It’s all in good fun, and I think it’s her way of helping take my mind off what happened. Within minutes we’re lost in conversations about music and what kinds of bars or clubs we might play in along the way to New Orleans.

Yes, we decided at one point that no matter where we stop on the way or how long we stay that eventually we’ll visit our favorite place along the Mississippi, no matter what.

*     *     *

That was two days ago. Today, we’re laid up in a decent hotel in the great state of Alabama.

Camryn

26

“Are you excited about tonight, or do you need a paper bag to blow in?” Andrew asks, coming out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist.

“Both,” I say. I set the remote control down on the nightstand and sit up in the bed. “I know the song, but it’s my first solo. So yes, I’m freaking out a little.”

He digs around inside his bag by the TV and finds a pair of clean boxers. The towel drops to the floor. I tilt my head to one side, watching his sexy naked ass from the bed. He steps into his boxers and snaps them around his waist.

“You’re going to kick ass,” he says, turning to face me. “You’ve had plenty of practice and you’ve nailed it already. Besides, if I thought you weren’t ready, I’d tell you.”

“I know you would.”

“Well, are you ready for work?” he asks, slipping on the rest of his clothes.

“Yep. I guess so. How do I look?”

I stand up and twirl around, dressed in a skimpy spaghetti-strap black top and tight jeans. “Wait,” I say, putting up my finger. I slip my feet down into my new sleek black calf-high boots and zip them up the sides. Then I retwirl and do my pose again, overdramatizing it a bit.

“Unbearably sexy as always,” he says, grinning, and then he steps up to me and runs my braid through his hand.

Tonight I may be performing solo “Edge of Seventeen” by Stevie Nicks, but for two hours before I go on I’m going to waitress and Andrew will be busing tables. Score! I get the cool job.

It’s a packed house when we arrive at seven. I love the atmosphere of this place. The stage is decent sized, but the table and dance floor are enormous. And it’s full, which makes me that much more nervous. I walk through to the back, my hand clasped in Andrew’s as we weave our way through the crowd. We got lucky with this temp job to be able to work together for a few nights. Every other side job along the trip since Virginia has been sporadic. I’d work cleaning rooms here and there while Andrew would bartend or even fill in as a bouncer. He may not be steroid-big (and I’m glad because that’s gross), but his muscles are big enough that they hired him easily. Thankfully he didn’t have to drag anyone out by their shirts or get into any fights.

Our boss for the next few days, German—it’s his name, definitely not his nationality, because the guy is as redneck as they come—hands Andrew a white apron and a pin-on name tag that says Andy.

I hold in my laughter, but Andrew sees the amused look on my face.

German rubs his chunky sausagelike hand across his nose, wipes it on his jeans and says, “A’soon as someone leaves a table an’ takes ther’ shit wit’em you get o’er ther’ an’ get that table ready fer anodder customer.” He shakes his finger at Andy, er, I mean Andrew. “An’ don’ touch tha tips. Dems’ de waitress’s, y’hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” Andrew says. When German looks down at his order slip book for a second, Andrew mouths the words What the fuck? and I try to straighten my lips into a hard line to keep from smiling when German looks back up at us.

German looks at me, I mean really looks at me, totally unlike he was looking at Andrew just now. He smiles a yellowed smile and says, “An’ you jus’ need ta look ’zactly like you do now. Put on dat sweet smile an’ rake in dem tips.”

I can only imagine what the other waitresses who work here full-time have to go through with this guy.

I bat my baby blues at him and say with a sweet, seductive country twang in my voice, “I sure will, Mr. German. And lata when my shift is ova’ I’m sure you will unda’stand that I’ll need to go in tha back an’ freshen up before I perform t’night.”

I notice Andrew’s eyes get bigger and more intrigued, but I keep my attention on German, who I already have so tightly wrapped around my finger that if I told him to lick the floor he would ask Fer how long?

Andrew

That Southern belle accent that came out of nowhere really turned me on. She and I are gonna have to talk about that later.

I pin on my name tag, tie my apron at the back, and grab the plastic tublike thing German points to when I look over. Hell, I don’t mind this kind of work, but German is a redneck dickhead who I hope stays out of my way for the next two hours. And he could use a stick of deodorant. I mean the whole fucking stick. He really doesn’t go with the place. He’s like a rebel flag hanging in the window of a $400,000 house. The bar-slash-restaurant is actually decked out pretty nice. On the inside, at least.

I head out onto the floor with my tub fixed underneath my arm and go to the first empty table I see. I clear away all of the trash and dirty dishes covered with uneaten fries and hush puppies, and toss everything into the tub. Then I wipe the table down with the rag in my apron pocket, and straighten the ketchup and steak sauce bottles. It’s all pretty straightforward, unlike waitressing, which I guess is why only Camryn had to get an hour’s worth of training yesterday before she could start today. She may have the tip job where she can work that sexy charm of hers, but she has to put up with the creepy perverted boss. And I’m lovin’ the shit out of it. It’s what she gets for making fun of me getting the busing job. She joked around by calling me the bar’s “bottom feeder.” Well, I hope she doesn’t expect me to save her skinny butt from German’s advances. She’s on her own with that one.