Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 7:46 am
Part 11
Dean let the doctor look him over. Let him listen to his heart beating out a steady forty-two. Dr. Gilbert sat back. “You’re doing well. I’m surprised how well. I know that it doesn’t feel that way but given the condition you arrived in… delayed medical treatment… this is good.” He took a breath. “Do you have any concerns or questions?”
“Get me a new face by eight?”
“Maybe you should seek out therapy. Adjustment to the changes in your body must be difficult.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s a pity-date, anyway.” Dean shrugged.
“Functionality of the joints is good. Whatever regimen you’re on, it’s helping… physically you’re doing well but psychologically… you don’t seem to have a healthy outlook and that can be worse than physical disability.”
“Plenty of women loved sleeping with this face.” He turned his right side the doctor, then turned his left side. “How many do you think I’ll get with this?”
“You got one, right? Maybe one is all you need.”
--
Nervous, anxious and dreading the night, Dean took a slug of bourbon as he got dressed. He was backed into a corner. If he wore his uniform of late, he’d get singled out in a bar for a fight and that was just because he’d look like he was hiding. If he wore his old clothes, his face would be open for everyone to see. That in itself could cause a fight. He could leave now and stay gone until Carmen gave up. Staring at himself in the mirror, the bourbon must have kicked in because he thought he didn’t look too bad. Flipping up the collar of his jacket, he grabbed his keys. He almost left his glasses on the table but he’d need them if there was trouble and… the way his life was going, there was going to be trouble.
He’d just strapped a knife to his ankle when he heard the honk. When he leaned over to look out the window, Carmen’s Cobalt was parking next to the Impala. There was no way they were cruising bars in that thing. He jogged down the stairs and motioned her to get out of her car.
“What?” She opened the door and stood but kept the engine running.
“We’re not taking your car.” He walked over and held out his keys. “I’m going to give you the keys to my car.”
“Okay.” She quickly locked up her car and reached for his keys but he looked scared. “What?”
“I don’t let just anyone drive my car. You have to swear that you will be careful with her.”
“It’s a car, Dean.”
“This.” He gestured. “Is a fully restored and well-maintained 1967 Chevy Impala. This is the granddaddy of all badass cars. Every car since… is just a pussy mobile that wishes that it was my car.”
“You’re such a guy.” She ripped the keys out of his hand and moved around to the driver’s side. She slid into the seat and felt around for the lever to adjust the seat.
“I took it off.” Dean informed her as he made himself comfortable. “Do you need a phonebook?”
“Shut up.” She slid forward until she could reach the pedals. Turning on the car, it rumbled through her bones. “Wow.”
“This is what a real car feels like.” He grinned and patted the dashboard.
“Okay, so… where are we going?” She turned to him, hand poised over the gearshift.
“You’ve lived here all your life…” Dean sat back. “So… just drive to the cheapest, most disgusting hotel in town and we’ll start from there.”
“Why?” She frowned but set the car in motion, a little freaked by the lack of sensitivity in the gas pedal.
“Usually, when I hit a town, I go for the cheap rooms and then I don’t go far looking for a bar because I have to find my way back while under the influence.”
“How many places have you been?”
“It’s probably shorter to say which places I haven’t been to.”
“How many states?”
“Every state in the continental U.S. and probably a dozen times each… except Alaska. That was a onetime deal.”
She turned the car down a seedy part of town. “This is the Rourke Motel… otherwise known as…”
“The Roach Motel… yep, that looks like a place I would stay in.” Dean nodded to the window and had a look up and down the street. “Head west.”
“Is that left or right?” She glanced at him.
“Left. There’s a bar on that side of the road that looks like it’ll be good for a drink.” He pointed and took mild satisfaction that her face froze for an instant. “Ever been there?”
“No.” She shook her head and steered the Impala into a spot outside the bar her friends had often sneered at. Old men and no decent prospects. But she had brought potential with her.
“Having second thoughts?”
“Maybe,” she breathed out.
“We could go somewhere else.”
“No… we can go in.” She shut off the engine and slid back flush against the seat. “Why do you come to these kinds of places?”
“You think I learned those moves in the boy scouts?” Dean opened the door and didn’t wait for her while he made his way into the bar. By the time he’d reached the bar, he felt her body heat against his back. He pulled out some cash and slapped it down. “Two beers.”
“I think you enjoy scaring me.” Carmen took her beer and glanced around.
“You did kind of trick me into this.”
She almost said something but bit her tongue. She sipped her beer and slid up onto a stool. “It’s not so bad.”
“Normally, I come in and chat up the bartender for leads on a case. Then Sam does the research while I pound some beers, play darts or have a go on the pool table…”
“Or pick up some random girl?”
“Maybe.” His eyes fixated on her mouth as it puckered to take another sip. This was inevitable. He should have known it would happen from the moment he heard her voice in his hospital room. Any other woman in any other circumstance and he would have already been there and done that.
“I like this jacket.” Her hand slipped up the leather. “Very broken in.”
“Hand-me-down.” He shrugged and leaned on the bar. “Won it in a game of poker.”
“How is that a hand-me-down?”
“I was playing my dad.”
“You took his jacket?”
“He took my favorite gun the night before and he never gave it back.” He pulled off his beer. “What a dick, man.”
“You talk about your dad that way?”
“You never met my dad.”
“When did he pass?”
“Two years ago.” Dean took another long pull off his beer. “He died saving my life.”
“The heroics run in the family, then.”
“I don’t know about heroics…” He glanced across the bar and noticed the pool table freeing up. “You play?”
“I mostly poke myself with the stick and never get any balls into the holes.”
“I haven’t tried to play since… maybe we go over and we both suck.”
Dean spent the next twenty minutes adjusting for his vision and teaching Carmen how to do something other than stab whoever was standing behind her. It was as he was adjusting her shot when the first comment came from what would appear to be this particular bar’s peanut gallery. He ignored it and took his shot and missed. The call came again and Carmen wouldn’t meet his eyes, so Dean straightened and turned around. “Play you for her.”
“What?” Carmen shrieked.
Dean ignored her protest and focused on the son of a bitch who had ruined his good time. “You win, you take her home… I win… I get the contents of your wallet.”
“You’re on, Blinky.” Came the reply from the guy with two inches and about fifty pounds on Dean. “We’ll even go two out of three… just to be fair.”
Dean lost the first game and slammed a beer in disgust afterward. He drank two more while he squeaked by in the second game. The third game… he killed. “So… how much do I win?”
“You and her got a racket going?” He tossed the stick on the table.
“You a welsher?” Dean finished off his beer and had to duck just in time to miss getting decked and slammed into the wall. A flurry of fists and pool cues soon enveloped the entire bar. Carmen ducked a beer bottle as it soared through the air. She tried to keep an eye out for Dean but he had gotten lost in the brawl.
Gripping the keys in her hand, she made for the door. She had left her phone in the Impala. She nearly screamed when someone grabbed her around the waist. It was Dean. “Go. Go. Go. Go!”
She ran straight for the driver’s side as Dean leapt over the hood to the passenger side. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.”
“Just go.”
She set the car in motion and realized that he was smiling, laughing even. “You’re crazy.”
“I know.” He rubbed his chin, which was red and turning purple.
“Where do we go?”
“To a much quieter place as fast as possible.” Dean was still laughing when Carmen pulled the car into an empty lot near the park. She put it in park but didn’t shut off the engine. He reached over to touch her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah… I’m just… waiting for my heart rate to slow down.” She breathed out slowly. “That was crazy.”
“And who says I’m not.”
“I’m convinced you are completely insane.” She laughed suddenly, then she was sliding over the seat to capture his mouth. Clenching the folds of his jacket in her hands, as she pressed as close as she could manage. Dean pulled her across his lap and let her set what he figured would become a slow pace. But when her hands began searching out the hem of his shirt and flicking open the buttons on his jeans, he panicked for a moment. When he lifted his hands to her shoulders, her hands found his and pressed them to her breasts.
Dean groaned as her mouth dived down his throat. After that, there was only one thing he could do. “Hey Carmen… the back seat is a better place for this.”
--
Forty-one, his heart pumped out as it slowed. It had been a long time since his bare and sweaty ass had gotten stuck to the backseat. He had probably never spooned in the backseat, though. That was new and tricky. All he really wanted to do was bury his face in her hair and sleep for a month. Been a long time since he was in a bar fight. His jaw was sore and he probably had some bruised ribs. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and shifted slightly to direct her voice to him. “You know… I once swore to my friends that I would never be the kind of girl to give it up in the backseat of a car… You made a liar of me.”
“I can honestly say that this is the best time I have ever had in the backseat of this car.”
She laughed silently and turned her face back to kiss his lips. “Liar.”
“Nope. Not today.”
She rolled her eyes at him and when she tried to sit up, he trapped her body beneath his. “What?”
Dean stared at her face. “I never dreamed of a woman before I met her and I never slept with a woman I dreamed about.”
“Are you still drunk?”
“Nope.” He had almost closed the distance again when they were startled by the tap on the window. “Damn it.”
“Could you step outside the vehicle, please?”
A beam of light blinded them both but Dean managed to find his shirt for Carmen before grabbing his boxers and opening the door. The cops didn’t want him to get dressed, just to get out when ordered. Holding the shorts over his crotch, Dean squinted into the flashlight. “What can I do for you, officer?”
“This is not an appropriate place for sexual exploits, sir. I’m going to have to take you and your lady friend in.”
“Oh, come on.” Dean scoffed.
“Andre…” Carmen had found her panties and pulled on Dean’s shirt. “We’re sorry… Things got out of hand but… do you really need to take us in?”
“Carmen?” The beam of light dropped as the cop choked on the name. “What are you doing out here?”
“It’s fairly obvious.” She leaned out the door, keeping her bare legs inside the car. “We won’t do it again. I’ll drive us straight home.”
“You stay there.” Andre pointed to the end of the car where Dean stood, ass to the wind. “What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t.” Carmen shrugged. “Look. We were having a night out. Acting like a couple of teenagers.”
“You’re with this guy?”
“Yeah.”
“Carmen, a car matching this description was seen fleeing from Johnny’s Juke Joint after a brawl.”
“It wasn’t us. We were here the whole time.”
“Your mom know about him?”
“Oh please. I don’t need her permission to go on a date and anyway… she loves him already. It’s not a big deal.”
“She likes this guy?” Andre snorted.
“Made him dinner.”
“Well, fuck.” Andre straightened, giving Carmen the opportunity to slide into her jeans. He walked around to face Dean, who had managed to get his shorts on without alerting Andre or his partner. “Look… I know there are like two of these cars in existence… so chances are pretty good that it was you who started that brawl. As a favor to Carmen… I’ll let you guys go but any witnesses come up with your description… and I’ll haul you in. Am I clear?”
“Crystal.” Dean nodded.
Andre started to go but he turned suddenly. “You take care of her or I take you out.”
“You got it.” Dean padded around to the passenger seat and slid in. Carmen handed him his jeans as she got into the driver’s seat. She waited until the cruiser was gone before starting the engine and setting it onto the road. “So… that was the ex?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Dated a cop… wow.”
“Well, we’re not going to jail in our underwear, now.”
“So… he was a strapping young man. Why didn’t it work out?” Dean watched her throat working. “Okay. Forget I asked.”
“No… he cheated on me,” she admitted. “This was… before I got the modeling gig. He came running back when I got back to town. It’s been most satisfying to keep shooting him down, now.”
“Oh yeah?”
“He used to have me convinced that he was the only one who thought I was beautiful and special… so when I met that agent in the bar… I was feeling spiteful and vindictive and so I agreed… imagine my surprise when I got the job and found out that other people thought I was beautiful, too.” She glanced at him. “I know. It’s sad. It’s like I didn’t know my own worth until someone pointed it out and shoved it in my face.”
“No… I get that, actually.” Dean averted his gaze. “About… 10 and a half months ago… everyone I knew was giving me the speech about how I’m not worthless and I should think more of my life.”
“You know… you’re the last person I would have thought had those issues.”
“I did spend a goodly amount of time avoiding you and your wiles… that wasn’t a clue?”
She stayed silent until long after she’d pulled the Impala next to the Cobalt. “So… you would have never made a move?”
“Probably not. Having too much fun feeling sorry for myself.”
“Why the change of heart?”
“Promised Ellen that I would try.” He stared straight ahead. “Enough Winchesters and Harvelles have broken their promises to her.”
“She talked sense into you?”
“She can be quite persuasive.” He laughed to himself. “The first time I met them… Jo had a shotgun to my back, she’d punched me in the nose and then when I called for Sam… Ellen had a pistol to the back of his head.”
“What’d you do to them?”
“Showed up at the bar without an invite, picked the lock on the front door and walked in like we owned the place.” He grinned. “We kind of deserved it. Once she knew who we were, she was smiles and rainbows.”
“Why?”
“She and my dad were like family once… that’s what she said. I’d never heard of her before… and I really wish I had.” He turned to look at her, wearing his shirt and her jeans and that flush across her skin from their previous activities, and took a breath. “Knowing now what I didn’t know growing up… I think Ellen would have been good for my dad… and he would have been better for us.”
“You think she would have been a good mom?”
“Hell, I don’t know and I know my dad wasn’t interested in other women after my mom died. Maybe if they had stayed friends… maybe I wouldn’t have broken Sam’s heart with some of the things I did…”
“Why did they stop talking?”
“The story I heard… comes from someone who wasn’t there who heard it from someone who wasn’t there. Dad and Ellen’s husband went on a hunt together and neither one had ever used a partner before… whatever happened… My dad lived and Ellen’s husband didn’t.”
“You think she forgave him?”
“I think she understood. It was probably wise for my dad not to go back after it happened but to never talk to her again or never see her again… maybe not a good idea. Given what we do for a living… Ellen knew the risks in Bill leaving for a hunt. She knew that on any given hunt… he might never come back and no one would know until she gave up waiting.”
“Is that how you grew up with your dad?”
“Pretty much except that even though I knew there was a chance he wouldn’t come home… I never believed it. I just… Always knew that he would come back. Like I knew it wasn’t an option for him not to come back. Sometimes he’d be gone longer than he said he would but he always came home.”
“It was just you and Sam?”
“Yeah. When we were younger, we’d stay with Pastor Jim. Once I hit… ten or eleven… Dad relied on me more because he could. I’d proven it to him.”
“That’s still young to be taking care of your brother. My mom did that to me. I was always taking care of the girls… until I hit about 15 or 16.”
“What happened?”
“My parents had gone out of town last minute. I had to stay home and watch the girls. I cried the whole weekend. I was supposed to get an award at school that Saturday… I was supposed to do a solo on my violin. That was for a grade. There was going to be a party afterward with a boy I liked. He ended up hooking up with one of my friends since I wasn’t there. I never even spoke up about it. When my report card came in, they were pissed at my grade in an elective because they knew I knew how to play. I was too scared to speak up. My teachers had to tell them that it was because I missed my performance. Mama and Daddy were really upset until they realized what day it had been.” She shrugged. “When they cut me loose, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I was too… timid to really go wild with my friends.”
“Having the space to go really wild isn’t always a good thing. It’s how you learn to start barroom brawls with a single sentence.” Dean raised his eyebrows. “Sam never went wild. He pushed the limits in defying my dad’s will. Me… I did everything he said. I’d toe the line but I never rushed across it.”
“You don’t think starting bar brawls is rushing the line?” She laughed.
“Dad got into quite a few of those himself. When I was 13 or 14… I started pulling him out of the bars… and got caught up in a few he’d started… it was a kind of… monkey see, monkey do thing.” He scoffed to himself. “Like I wasn’t a man until I could do everything Dad did.” He reached over and cut the engine. “C’mon. It’s late and it’s been a long while since I had a night this late.”
TBC
Dean let the doctor look him over. Let him listen to his heart beating out a steady forty-two. Dr. Gilbert sat back. “You’re doing well. I’m surprised how well. I know that it doesn’t feel that way but given the condition you arrived in… delayed medical treatment… this is good.” He took a breath. “Do you have any concerns or questions?”
“Get me a new face by eight?”
“Maybe you should seek out therapy. Adjustment to the changes in your body must be difficult.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s a pity-date, anyway.” Dean shrugged.
“Functionality of the joints is good. Whatever regimen you’re on, it’s helping… physically you’re doing well but psychologically… you don’t seem to have a healthy outlook and that can be worse than physical disability.”
“Plenty of women loved sleeping with this face.” He turned his right side the doctor, then turned his left side. “How many do you think I’ll get with this?”
“You got one, right? Maybe one is all you need.”
--
Nervous, anxious and dreading the night, Dean took a slug of bourbon as he got dressed. He was backed into a corner. If he wore his uniform of late, he’d get singled out in a bar for a fight and that was just because he’d look like he was hiding. If he wore his old clothes, his face would be open for everyone to see. That in itself could cause a fight. He could leave now and stay gone until Carmen gave up. Staring at himself in the mirror, the bourbon must have kicked in because he thought he didn’t look too bad. Flipping up the collar of his jacket, he grabbed his keys. He almost left his glasses on the table but he’d need them if there was trouble and… the way his life was going, there was going to be trouble.
He’d just strapped a knife to his ankle when he heard the honk. When he leaned over to look out the window, Carmen’s Cobalt was parking next to the Impala. There was no way they were cruising bars in that thing. He jogged down the stairs and motioned her to get out of her car.
“What?” She opened the door and stood but kept the engine running.
“We’re not taking your car.” He walked over and held out his keys. “I’m going to give you the keys to my car.”
“Okay.” She quickly locked up her car and reached for his keys but he looked scared. “What?”
“I don’t let just anyone drive my car. You have to swear that you will be careful with her.”
“It’s a car, Dean.”
“This.” He gestured. “Is a fully restored and well-maintained 1967 Chevy Impala. This is the granddaddy of all badass cars. Every car since… is just a pussy mobile that wishes that it was my car.”
“You’re such a guy.” She ripped the keys out of his hand and moved around to the driver’s side. She slid into the seat and felt around for the lever to adjust the seat.
“I took it off.” Dean informed her as he made himself comfortable. “Do you need a phonebook?”
“Shut up.” She slid forward until she could reach the pedals. Turning on the car, it rumbled through her bones. “Wow.”
“This is what a real car feels like.” He grinned and patted the dashboard.
“Okay, so… where are we going?” She turned to him, hand poised over the gearshift.
“You’ve lived here all your life…” Dean sat back. “So… just drive to the cheapest, most disgusting hotel in town and we’ll start from there.”
“Why?” She frowned but set the car in motion, a little freaked by the lack of sensitivity in the gas pedal.
“Usually, when I hit a town, I go for the cheap rooms and then I don’t go far looking for a bar because I have to find my way back while under the influence.”
“How many places have you been?”
“It’s probably shorter to say which places I haven’t been to.”
“How many states?”
“Every state in the continental U.S. and probably a dozen times each… except Alaska. That was a onetime deal.”
She turned the car down a seedy part of town. “This is the Rourke Motel… otherwise known as…”
“The Roach Motel… yep, that looks like a place I would stay in.” Dean nodded to the window and had a look up and down the street. “Head west.”
“Is that left or right?” She glanced at him.
“Left. There’s a bar on that side of the road that looks like it’ll be good for a drink.” He pointed and took mild satisfaction that her face froze for an instant. “Ever been there?”
“No.” She shook her head and steered the Impala into a spot outside the bar her friends had often sneered at. Old men and no decent prospects. But she had brought potential with her.
“Having second thoughts?”
“Maybe,” she breathed out.
“We could go somewhere else.”
“No… we can go in.” She shut off the engine and slid back flush against the seat. “Why do you come to these kinds of places?”
“You think I learned those moves in the boy scouts?” Dean opened the door and didn’t wait for her while he made his way into the bar. By the time he’d reached the bar, he felt her body heat against his back. He pulled out some cash and slapped it down. “Two beers.”
“I think you enjoy scaring me.” Carmen took her beer and glanced around.
“You did kind of trick me into this.”
She almost said something but bit her tongue. She sipped her beer and slid up onto a stool. “It’s not so bad.”
“Normally, I come in and chat up the bartender for leads on a case. Then Sam does the research while I pound some beers, play darts or have a go on the pool table…”
“Or pick up some random girl?”
“Maybe.” His eyes fixated on her mouth as it puckered to take another sip. This was inevitable. He should have known it would happen from the moment he heard her voice in his hospital room. Any other woman in any other circumstance and he would have already been there and done that.
“I like this jacket.” Her hand slipped up the leather. “Very broken in.”
“Hand-me-down.” He shrugged and leaned on the bar. “Won it in a game of poker.”
“How is that a hand-me-down?”
“I was playing my dad.”
“You took his jacket?”
“He took my favorite gun the night before and he never gave it back.” He pulled off his beer. “What a dick, man.”
“You talk about your dad that way?”
“You never met my dad.”
“When did he pass?”
“Two years ago.” Dean took another long pull off his beer. “He died saving my life.”
“The heroics run in the family, then.”
“I don’t know about heroics…” He glanced across the bar and noticed the pool table freeing up. “You play?”
“I mostly poke myself with the stick and never get any balls into the holes.”
“I haven’t tried to play since… maybe we go over and we both suck.”
Dean spent the next twenty minutes adjusting for his vision and teaching Carmen how to do something other than stab whoever was standing behind her. It was as he was adjusting her shot when the first comment came from what would appear to be this particular bar’s peanut gallery. He ignored it and took his shot and missed. The call came again and Carmen wouldn’t meet his eyes, so Dean straightened and turned around. “Play you for her.”
“What?” Carmen shrieked.
Dean ignored her protest and focused on the son of a bitch who had ruined his good time. “You win, you take her home… I win… I get the contents of your wallet.”
“You’re on, Blinky.” Came the reply from the guy with two inches and about fifty pounds on Dean. “We’ll even go two out of three… just to be fair.”
Dean lost the first game and slammed a beer in disgust afterward. He drank two more while he squeaked by in the second game. The third game… he killed. “So… how much do I win?”
“You and her got a racket going?” He tossed the stick on the table.
“You a welsher?” Dean finished off his beer and had to duck just in time to miss getting decked and slammed into the wall. A flurry of fists and pool cues soon enveloped the entire bar. Carmen ducked a beer bottle as it soared through the air. She tried to keep an eye out for Dean but he had gotten lost in the brawl.
Gripping the keys in her hand, she made for the door. She had left her phone in the Impala. She nearly screamed when someone grabbed her around the waist. It was Dean. “Go. Go. Go. Go!”
She ran straight for the driver’s side as Dean leapt over the hood to the passenger side. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.”
“Just go.”
She set the car in motion and realized that he was smiling, laughing even. “You’re crazy.”
“I know.” He rubbed his chin, which was red and turning purple.
“Where do we go?”
“To a much quieter place as fast as possible.” Dean was still laughing when Carmen pulled the car into an empty lot near the park. She put it in park but didn’t shut off the engine. He reached over to touch her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah… I’m just… waiting for my heart rate to slow down.” She breathed out slowly. “That was crazy.”
“And who says I’m not.”
“I’m convinced you are completely insane.” She laughed suddenly, then she was sliding over the seat to capture his mouth. Clenching the folds of his jacket in her hands, as she pressed as close as she could manage. Dean pulled her across his lap and let her set what he figured would become a slow pace. But when her hands began searching out the hem of his shirt and flicking open the buttons on his jeans, he panicked for a moment. When he lifted his hands to her shoulders, her hands found his and pressed them to her breasts.
Dean groaned as her mouth dived down his throat. After that, there was only one thing he could do. “Hey Carmen… the back seat is a better place for this.”
--
Forty-one, his heart pumped out as it slowed. It had been a long time since his bare and sweaty ass had gotten stuck to the backseat. He had probably never spooned in the backseat, though. That was new and tricky. All he really wanted to do was bury his face in her hair and sleep for a month. Been a long time since he was in a bar fight. His jaw was sore and he probably had some bruised ribs. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and shifted slightly to direct her voice to him. “You know… I once swore to my friends that I would never be the kind of girl to give it up in the backseat of a car… You made a liar of me.”
“I can honestly say that this is the best time I have ever had in the backseat of this car.”
She laughed silently and turned her face back to kiss his lips. “Liar.”
“Nope. Not today.”
She rolled her eyes at him and when she tried to sit up, he trapped her body beneath his. “What?”
Dean stared at her face. “I never dreamed of a woman before I met her and I never slept with a woman I dreamed about.”
“Are you still drunk?”
“Nope.” He had almost closed the distance again when they were startled by the tap on the window. “Damn it.”
“Could you step outside the vehicle, please?”
A beam of light blinded them both but Dean managed to find his shirt for Carmen before grabbing his boxers and opening the door. The cops didn’t want him to get dressed, just to get out when ordered. Holding the shorts over his crotch, Dean squinted into the flashlight. “What can I do for you, officer?”
“This is not an appropriate place for sexual exploits, sir. I’m going to have to take you and your lady friend in.”
“Oh, come on.” Dean scoffed.
“Andre…” Carmen had found her panties and pulled on Dean’s shirt. “We’re sorry… Things got out of hand but… do you really need to take us in?”
“Carmen?” The beam of light dropped as the cop choked on the name. “What are you doing out here?”
“It’s fairly obvious.” She leaned out the door, keeping her bare legs inside the car. “We won’t do it again. I’ll drive us straight home.”
“You stay there.” Andre pointed to the end of the car where Dean stood, ass to the wind. “What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t.” Carmen shrugged. “Look. We were having a night out. Acting like a couple of teenagers.”
“You’re with this guy?”
“Yeah.”
“Carmen, a car matching this description was seen fleeing from Johnny’s Juke Joint after a brawl.”
“It wasn’t us. We were here the whole time.”
“Your mom know about him?”
“Oh please. I don’t need her permission to go on a date and anyway… she loves him already. It’s not a big deal.”
“She likes this guy?” Andre snorted.
“Made him dinner.”
“Well, fuck.” Andre straightened, giving Carmen the opportunity to slide into her jeans. He walked around to face Dean, who had managed to get his shorts on without alerting Andre or his partner. “Look… I know there are like two of these cars in existence… so chances are pretty good that it was you who started that brawl. As a favor to Carmen… I’ll let you guys go but any witnesses come up with your description… and I’ll haul you in. Am I clear?”
“Crystal.” Dean nodded.
Andre started to go but he turned suddenly. “You take care of her or I take you out.”
“You got it.” Dean padded around to the passenger seat and slid in. Carmen handed him his jeans as she got into the driver’s seat. She waited until the cruiser was gone before starting the engine and setting it onto the road. “So… that was the ex?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Dated a cop… wow.”
“Well, we’re not going to jail in our underwear, now.”
“So… he was a strapping young man. Why didn’t it work out?” Dean watched her throat working. “Okay. Forget I asked.”
“No… he cheated on me,” she admitted. “This was… before I got the modeling gig. He came running back when I got back to town. It’s been most satisfying to keep shooting him down, now.”
“Oh yeah?”
“He used to have me convinced that he was the only one who thought I was beautiful and special… so when I met that agent in the bar… I was feeling spiteful and vindictive and so I agreed… imagine my surprise when I got the job and found out that other people thought I was beautiful, too.” She glanced at him. “I know. It’s sad. It’s like I didn’t know my own worth until someone pointed it out and shoved it in my face.”
“No… I get that, actually.” Dean averted his gaze. “About… 10 and a half months ago… everyone I knew was giving me the speech about how I’m not worthless and I should think more of my life.”
“You know… you’re the last person I would have thought had those issues.”
“I did spend a goodly amount of time avoiding you and your wiles… that wasn’t a clue?”
She stayed silent until long after she’d pulled the Impala next to the Cobalt. “So… you would have never made a move?”
“Probably not. Having too much fun feeling sorry for myself.”
“Why the change of heart?”
“Promised Ellen that I would try.” He stared straight ahead. “Enough Winchesters and Harvelles have broken their promises to her.”
“She talked sense into you?”
“She can be quite persuasive.” He laughed to himself. “The first time I met them… Jo had a shotgun to my back, she’d punched me in the nose and then when I called for Sam… Ellen had a pistol to the back of his head.”
“What’d you do to them?”
“Showed up at the bar without an invite, picked the lock on the front door and walked in like we owned the place.” He grinned. “We kind of deserved it. Once she knew who we were, she was smiles and rainbows.”
“Why?”
“She and my dad were like family once… that’s what she said. I’d never heard of her before… and I really wish I had.” He turned to look at her, wearing his shirt and her jeans and that flush across her skin from their previous activities, and took a breath. “Knowing now what I didn’t know growing up… I think Ellen would have been good for my dad… and he would have been better for us.”
“You think she would have been a good mom?”
“Hell, I don’t know and I know my dad wasn’t interested in other women after my mom died. Maybe if they had stayed friends… maybe I wouldn’t have broken Sam’s heart with some of the things I did…”
“Why did they stop talking?”
“The story I heard… comes from someone who wasn’t there who heard it from someone who wasn’t there. Dad and Ellen’s husband went on a hunt together and neither one had ever used a partner before… whatever happened… My dad lived and Ellen’s husband didn’t.”
“You think she forgave him?”
“I think she understood. It was probably wise for my dad not to go back after it happened but to never talk to her again or never see her again… maybe not a good idea. Given what we do for a living… Ellen knew the risks in Bill leaving for a hunt. She knew that on any given hunt… he might never come back and no one would know until she gave up waiting.”
“Is that how you grew up with your dad?”
“Pretty much except that even though I knew there was a chance he wouldn’t come home… I never believed it. I just… Always knew that he would come back. Like I knew it wasn’t an option for him not to come back. Sometimes he’d be gone longer than he said he would but he always came home.”
“It was just you and Sam?”
“Yeah. When we were younger, we’d stay with Pastor Jim. Once I hit… ten or eleven… Dad relied on me more because he could. I’d proven it to him.”
“That’s still young to be taking care of your brother. My mom did that to me. I was always taking care of the girls… until I hit about 15 or 16.”
“What happened?”
“My parents had gone out of town last minute. I had to stay home and watch the girls. I cried the whole weekend. I was supposed to get an award at school that Saturday… I was supposed to do a solo on my violin. That was for a grade. There was going to be a party afterward with a boy I liked. He ended up hooking up with one of my friends since I wasn’t there. I never even spoke up about it. When my report card came in, they were pissed at my grade in an elective because they knew I knew how to play. I was too scared to speak up. My teachers had to tell them that it was because I missed my performance. Mama and Daddy were really upset until they realized what day it had been.” She shrugged. “When they cut me loose, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I was too… timid to really go wild with my friends.”
“Having the space to go really wild isn’t always a good thing. It’s how you learn to start barroom brawls with a single sentence.” Dean raised his eyebrows. “Sam never went wild. He pushed the limits in defying my dad’s will. Me… I did everything he said. I’d toe the line but I never rushed across it.”
“You don’t think starting bar brawls is rushing the line?” She laughed.
“Dad got into quite a few of those himself. When I was 13 or 14… I started pulling him out of the bars… and got caught up in a few he’d started… it was a kind of… monkey see, monkey do thing.” He scoffed to himself. “Like I wasn’t a man until I could do everything Dad did.” He reached over and cut the engine. “C’mon. It’s late and it’s been a long while since I had a night this late.”
TBC