Free Eye to Eye by Grace Carol Page B

going to want to snatch that skinny Katie bitch baldheaded.” But since I’m trying not to be jealous, I don’t say a word. I just tell Earl to go on and give me his story. “So?”
    Earl scratches at his wavy, sandy hair and then folds his big arms across each other. “I was all set to go out with Jake…” Earl pauses and looks at me for what seems like longer than he needed to, as if he were considering something.
    I nod. Jake was hot, though I didn’t say much about that to Earl. He was a tall, lanky brother with a shaved head and dimples not dissimilar to Earl’s. He’s always greeted me with a smooth, “Whas happenin’, sistah?” whenever I came through the door. His smooth, flawless, dark skin puts me in mind of Lavarian Laborteux, who I knew was for sure by now Dr. Laborteux and never letting anyone forget it.
    â€œSo me and Jake and them had made plans, but they had to cancel, except I hadn’t heard all about them needing to cancel before I said yes, when Katie asked if she could come along, ride with me on the back of my bike.”
    What a pro, that one.
    â€œAnd so I said yeah. I didn’t see no harm in it, and then when we was all set to head out the door after work, Jake says hadn’t Katie told me they wasn’t going to go.”
    I raise my I-told-you-so eyebrows at Earl, because I’m always teasing him about his very well-fitting, tight -fitting Wranglers that show off everything Earl doesn’t mean to advertise about himself. Earl wears them like the good old boys wear them, and shakes his heads at the hipsters with their jeans sliding damn near down to their ankles.
    â€œI know it,” Earl says. It’s a phase he always uses when he gives me credit for being dead-on right. Earl strokes his face and stares at nothing in particular for a bit. He used to stroke his beard but now it’s his face out of habit. “Anyway,” he goes on, after a while, “Katie was standing right there and was put on the spot, said she thought they were talking about something else, not tonight. ”
    â€œSo you blew her off then?”
    â€œYep.” Earl held my face by my chin and kissed me on the nose. “Told her I wasn’t going out with only us two and then she said, ‘What’s the matter, Mr. Earl? Scared of your girlfriend? ’ And I knew she was making a joke, but I didn’t like the way she said that. Something about it made me mad so I just had to get on away from the bar and come on home.” He levels his eyes at me and then closes them. He sinks down into the couch. “I’m beat,” he says. “Need to rest my eyes some.”
    I stare at Earl’s face, then kick off my flip-flops so that I can lie down lengthwise on the couch and stretch my legs across his lap. He runs his fingers up and down my thighs, but keeps his eyes closed. “This is all I want to do for the night. Sit here like this with you. Beer or no beer.”
    I think about everything that he has just told me and he was half-right. I hadn’t liked what he told me, but it really isn’t Katie trying to pull her crap that bothers me, it is more the fact that something about it really bothers Earl. He was a good sport, quitting the Midwest and coming to crazy L.A. for some broad (me) that he’d met bartending. But it isn’t that alone. I knew from the moment I took my first ride on Earl’s Harley that we weren’t going to ride off into the sunset, that we would have to work at this. And now, it’s happening, the work. Something is up because Earl is confused over some puny little girl who’s chasing after him.
    â€œErardo.”
    â€œMmm-hmm?” Earl murmurs. His eyes are still closed and he is still touching my legs. He smiles. “Am I in trouble about something? You calling me Erardo. I cut the shit like you asked me to.” Has he?
    â€œSomething else is bugging