Free Ridge Creek by C L Green

them bother to interact with us.
    “Where’s Zane and Pops?” I ask Jake as he rattles around
under the bar before producing a bottle of Wild Turkey and two shot glasses.
    “Gone home.  Zane’s been sleeping here all week while Ma nursed
you.  Both he and she needed a break.”
    I nod as I silently decide I need to do something big to thank them both.  What big thing that is, I have no idea.  I’m hoping
it will come to me.  Perhaps Ems can help me think of something when she gets
here.
    Pouring the shots, Jake slides one to me as he grabs his
phone from his back pocket.  Raising his voice he calls out, “Bill, Luke, you
in on pizza?”
    Two heads lift from the pool table where they have both been
studying what seemingly was a complicated pool shot and nod. 
    “Do they talk?” I ask Jake in a quiet, barely there voice.
    “Only if you want them to,” he replies as he hits some
buttons on his phone. 
    He then places an order with a man named Jerry for the
‘usual’ for four.  (Jake appears to know Jerry well because he asks after his
wife and kids during the order placement.)  Finishing the call and sliding his
phone into his back pocket again, he points at my shot glass.
    “Beer?” I ask hopefully.
    I figure there is no point in even asking for a wine.
    “Bourbon,” he replies with a deep rumble that makes my skin
tingle.
    “One way to wean me off painkillers I suppose,” I mutter as
I tip the shot back and swallow.  I don’t even choke.  I’m getting good at
this.  I think I’m becoming an alcoholic. 
    I instantaneously decide being an alcoholic could be a good
thing.  Walking around with green eyes, a new hair color and drunk off my ass
all the time, there is no way Tony or his thugs will recognize me. 
Apart from the changes to my shell, Tony would never expect me to become a
drinker.
    Watching as he slides a stool over and settles himself
opposite me at the bar, I ask, “Where have you been all week?”
    His face activates momentarily before he replies, “Away on
business.”
    “You’re mother said you went home.”
    “I did, for a night.  Then I had to leave to attend to some
business.”
    Studying his face I feel an icy chill run through my body. 
My sixth sense is telling me he is holding something back.  Deciding that he’s
a biker and bikers are badasses, I decide that it’s probably a badass thing . 
A badass thing that I don’t want to know about.  The equivalent to not wanting
to know what Tony was doing when he took calls at two in the morning that saw
him leave our house in the middle of the night and not return for days.
    “You have a home.  Why do you have a bedroom here as well?”
I ask.
    “Sometimes I work late and need to crash,” he replies
without hesitation.
    Okay then.
    “Do you need me to move into another room so you can have
your crash bed back?” I ask as I start lamenting internally that I should have
bought two Queen sized beds online today and not just the one. 
    Dammit.
    I should have planned for this.  The furniture outlet that
had promised next day delivery had had a fantastic deal on two beds for the
price of one.  With the kickass latex mattress that I’d bought Emma, it would
have been the deal of the century.  Now I’m going to have to order a second bed
for full price. 
    Damn. Damn. Damn.
    “Fuck no,” his deep gravelly voice snaps me from my revelry.
    “Where are you going to sleep then?  Do you have another
room?”
    I hear a snort and a grunt from the pool table behind me and
swing my eyes.  I do this just fast enough to catch the two men at the pool
table staring at me.  Aware that I can see them, they drop their eyes back to
the pool table.
    “There’s other rooms,” Jake mumbles as he pours another
round of drinks.  “But I don’t sleep in them.  Ever.”
    Why not?
    Wondering why he said ever , I decide to clarify.  “Do
you plan to go home tonight?”
    “Maybe,” he replies warily, his eyes becoming