Free The Bayou Trilogy: Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, and The Ones You Do by Daniel Woodrell Page A

hair, with traces of red when in sunny silhouette, was tucked in a bun. Her waist was thin, her breasts indisputably there, although not garish, all set atop a length of leg that was extravagant and winning.
    Shade tossed the towel into the tub, then put his arm around Nicole, and whispered, “I have something to show you.”
    They started toward the bed, the tangling energies of their affections making for awkward strides.
    “I hope it’s something I’ve seen before,” Nicole said.
    As the sun began to ruin the day with heat, Nicole traced her fingers over Shade’s variety of acquired imperfections. There were tiny pale nicks above both eyes, evidence of his former livelihood, and a long gash beneath his chin, put there by the dangerous mix of a too-large bicycle, a small boy, and a hill of challenging steepness. Behind his left shoulder there was a puckered horseshoe, hung there by the doting mother of a busted drug dealer and the avenging end of a broken ketchup bottle.
    Shade looked up at Nicole, then rolled over.
    “How’d you get in here, anyway?” he asked.
    “I came through from downstairs.”
    “Hunh.” Shade stood and began to gather his clothes. “Ma let you up, or did you sneak?”
    “We had a cup of coffee, then I came up.”
    “She never lets anybody come up those stairs. You start up those stairs, usually she hits you.”
    “She likes me,” Nicole said with a grin. “And I don’t have a key to the other door.”
    In his pants now, Shade walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a can of juice. He popped the top, drank, then wiped his mouth.
    “That ought to tell you something,” he said.
    “What ought to tell me something?”
    “That you don’t have a key.”
    Groaning, Nicole twisted away from Shade and smirked at the opposite wall.
    Shade went on: “You don’t have a key because I’ve never given you one. You didn’t call or anything before you came over, you just showed up. That’s why I don’t give out keys.”
    “Ho, ho,” Nicole said. She slid into her shorts, then turned her T-shirt right side out, hunching away from Shade. “I’ve been presumptuous. There are crowds clamoring for your house key, and I circumvent your rationing plan by coming in the door that doesn’t lock.”
    “You don’t have the right to just come in anytime you want, Nicole.”
    Nicole pulled her shirt on, then cocked her head and smiled sarcastically.
    “Your privacy wasn’t so precious an hour ago. You could’ve sent me packing right at the start.”
    Bent over to tie his shoes, Shade said, “I guess I was still groggy.”
    Nicole laughed, though it wasn’t the sweetest laugh in her repertoire.
    “You could’ve told me before you fucked me.”
    “Before I fucked you? You mean before we fucked, don’t you?”
    “That’s a pretty modern concept for you, Rene.”
    Shade’s face drained of personality, and a dull commonness became his expression.
    “Yeah,” he said. “I can also use a telephone, plug in a toaster, identify airplanes—stuff like that.”
    As she wagged her head, and dazedly smiled at this intrusion of romantic debate, Nicole searched the floor for the panties that had been furiously abandoned earlier, when privacy had been a secondary desire.
    In the small kitchen, Shade turned the fire on beneath a kettle of water, then put a filter in the coffee pot and scooped in a pile of Yuban. He set two cups on the counter, then turned to Nicole.
    “This is crazy,” he said. “I don’t even mind, really. I don’t know why I barked at you. A hard-learned habit, I guess.”
    Spotting the wad of her red panties on the top shelf of the bookcase, Nicole did not respond.
    “You want a key?” Shade asked. “You want a key, you should have a key. I’m not pokin’ anybody else, anyway.”
    “Poking?” Nicole said, the panties now in her hand. “Is that what you’re doing? You’re poking me? Is that what you tell people?”
    “Ah, shit,” Shade said. He concentrated on