Thursday. They meet.
**** This story will get way smuttier within the next chapters. I would like to know if readers are interested in the backstory too, though. I started with the intention of just writing a quick smutty story but found myself getting attached to my characters en developing their story arc more. So if you like that, have some patience to see where they end up...
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It was a slow afternoon at the bar, a perfect time to restock, Leah thought while filling the beer fridge back up. Her colleague Jim was out back, helping unload the delivery van in the pouring rain. The shitty weather hadn’t stopped most of the bar’s regulars coming in of course. Mostly old guys, friends of her 75 year old uncle Zeke who owned the bar, all sitting at the bar’s counter to talk to and watch Leah.
At 32 she was at least 40 years younger than them but she enjoyed hearing the old guys stories. They grew more elaborate and wild each time they told them and with each beer or whiskey partaken. She was even entertained by their joking flirting with her. Placing joking remarks usually starting with something like, ‘If only I were 50 years younger…’
The younger guys at the pool table in the back were a rowdier crowd though. Not regulars, but they came in every now and then. They were working their way through pitchers of beer at a rate that was impressing no one in a good way but themselves. They knew better than to stir up trouble in the bar, but Leah avoided getting within an arm’s length when serving them their pitchers. To them, the height of manliness and seduction was groping Leah’s ass or so it seemed..
When the entrance door opened, Leah looked up. A lightning bolt illuminated the sky, for a moment perfectly silhouetting the tall guy coming in. She had to grin, since his cowboy hat and the thunderclap immediately following the lightning had made it look quite cinematic.
She wouldn’t claim to know everybody in town, but she was pretty sure she’d never seen this guy around before. Definitely not in this bar in the two years since she joined Zeke when he’d started having mobility issues due to an old back injury. He had despaired about having to give up the bar, because it meant a lot to him. After a messy break up she could use a change of scenery so she left Detroit without giving it a second thought. The town of Backwater wasn’t exactly what you’d call a vibrant place but she’d never regretted it.
As Zeke’s wasn’t a big bar that stayed open late every night and it was closed on Wednesdays and Sundays, with the team of Zeke, Jim and Leah, they could easily run it. She could even keep working as a freelance decoder and website designer, taking just the jobs she wanted.
When the stranger reached the counter, brushing rain from his shoulders, she greeted him jokingly with, “That was quite a dramatic entrance there, cowboy.”
He looked up at her from under the brim of his hat and quipped back, “Thanks. Been waiting outside for ten minutes to get the timing just right.”
She noticed that he, unlike her, had a local’s Western drawl and a nice, deep voice. He looked around the room a moment before sitting down at the counter. His blazer fell open and Leah saw he had a Marshal’s gold star badge clipped on his belt.
“So, not a cowboy then,” she said. “What can I get you, Marshal?”
He tipped his hat to her with a smile in answer to her quick observation, and asked for a shot of their best whiskey, his eyes scanning the room again.
As Leah served him, the guys at the pool table shouted out for another pitcher. When she brought it over to them, all the old guys at the counter simultaneously turned their necks to fix their eyes on her denim clad ass swaying. The Marshal observed this little choreography with an eyebrow raised in amusement.
As the old guys turned back again in unison, the guy closest to him caught his expression and gave a self-deprecating shrug. “We may be too old to do anything about it, but you can’t blame us for looking. Even she doesn’t.” Frowning slightly as he focused on the Marshal’s face, he added ’Might I have seen you around here before, young man?”
“Might be. But that would’ve been at least eighteen years ago. Nate Jackson’s the name,” the Marshal said by way of introducing himself. He looked for, but saw no recognition of his name registering on the old guy’s face. The old guy didn’t appear to be interested in a backstory and just gave a shrug and turned his attention back to his beer.
Leah was still on the other side of the room, collecting dirty glasses from the guys at the pool table. Suddenly one of them grabbed her waist and pulled her to him. Nate noticed this and was standing up to intervene but Leah had already dug her nails in the guy’s arm, twisted loose and rebuked him. He rubbed his arm muttering an excuse as Leah walked back to the counter.
As Leah passed Nate, he asked if they were causing trouble and she replied, “Nothing I can’t handle. They just need reminding to behave themselves sometimes. But thank you, Marshal” He tipped his hat to her with respect and took a sip of his whiskey.
One of the old guys at the other side of the counter asked for a refill and as Leah walked away from him, Nate now caught himself looking at her ass. Tearing his eyes away lest the old guy closest to him would now notice him staring, he finished his whiskey and contemplated getting another.
Technically he wasn’t on duty yet but in his line of work, you could always be called in. Even if he’d just arrived in town and he hadn’t reported to his boss yet. His first stop had been the bar.
Leah had come round to him again and he said to her, “I was hoping to find Zeke Ransom here. Is he around?”
Leah was surprised a US Marshal would be looking for her uncle. “I can’t imagine you’re here to arrest my uncle for anything,” she said, “so… can I ask why you want to speak to him?”
“Your uncle? Huh, I never knew Zeke had family around here,” Nate replied.
“I was just hoping to catch up with him. Been a few years.” He held out his hand over the counter to shake hers and gave his name. He saw no recognition of his name registering on her face either.
“Nice to meet you, Nate. I’m Leah, Zeke’s niece as I mentioned.”
“Pleased to meet you, m’am.”
Once more Nate tipped his hat to her.
It surprised Leah how sexy she found this on him. It wasn’t an uncommon gesture ’round these parts, but damn…, this man really pulled it off.
“So I gather Zeke’s still around but… not running the bar anymore?” He was silent for a beat, “I’d always imagined he would have to be carried out of here in a casket. Pardon my crudeness.”
Leah smiled at that because it was actually an astute statement.
“As a matter of fact, you’re not that far off. It wasn’t a casket but a stretcher. He sprained a hip and broke a wrist falling off a ladder, changing a lightbulb a few days ago. He’s in a hospital bed right now.”
“Giving the nurses a run for their money, I imagine,” Nate replied.
“You seem to know Zeke quite well,” Leah said, her expression making it clear she hoped he would elaborate.
She gazed at him with big green eyes that looked like they would see every cheap thing he’d ever done if he let her, Nate thought.
He didn’t necessarily want to explain his life’s story to a complete stranger, albeit a very attractive one. And family of the man he’d always kinda regard as family.
His own parents had seemed to consider him a nuisance, standing in the way of their drug habit, if they even considered him at all. Zeke had saved his life, he felt, by giving him a place to crash if times grew even tougher at home when Nate was a teen, and pushing him to stay on the right track and finish High School.
In the end he settled on explaining, “Zeke kinda took me under his wing when I was a teen and lived here. I got out of here as fast as I could when I was eighteen though, didn’t stay in touch. Never been back since but now a case I’m working brought me back. I’m not even sure if Zeke’ll remember me after eighteen years, but just wanted to look him up. Say thanks I guess…” his voice trailing off.
Leah was sure she didn’t recognize Nate or had ever heard Zeke mention his name.
She calculated that Nate would be 36 by his statement of returning after eighteen years.
The timeline their ages brought up, suggested that Nate had left town the same year she’d come to live with Zeke, so apparently she arrived after that.
Zeke had taken her in when her mother, his estranged younger sister, suddenly died when Leah was fourteen.
By the fondness in his voice, she gathered Zeke had meant a lot to Nate. Which wasn’t totally strange going by Zeke’s character. People might easily mistake him for a red-neck hillbilly by his looks but he was in fact a bit of a left wing, hippie kinda guy. As long as she’d known him, Zeke had always helped other people, especially those who seemed outcasts or in need.
Her colleague Jim had been one of those people too. Openly gay and African American, Jim represented a world, if not exactly scary, at the least exotic to some folks ’round here. The town’s name of Backwater still seemed to fit the attitude and beliefs of some who were unwilling to look beyond things like skin color or sexual orientation. Like the guys at the pool table in fact.
But most people trusted and admired Zeke so his opinion of a person went a long way and Jim got no weird looks, or worse, in the town anymore.
A buzzing sound roused Nate from his own thoughts and he excused himself, turning away to answer his phone.
Leah started to wipe down the bar and noticed Lonny, one of the guys at the pool table staring intently at Nate. As Lonny started to swagger towards him, Nate’s call ended and when he turned back ’round he found himself face to face with a guy he’d hoped to never see again.
“Lonny,” he said, a cold infliction in his voice that caught the attention of Leah.
Lonny looked at him and, slurring his words said, “I thought it was you… I also thought I told you never to come back here.”
With that he tried to shove Nate who could easily sidestep him, which infuriated Lonny and rage came over his face. Just when he was about to take a swing at Nate, Jim who was back inside and closest, grabbed Lonny’s arm and twisted it around his back.
“I know you don’t come here that often but you know the rules, Lonny. No fighting on these premises.” As Jim had also spotted Nate’s badge, he asked him, “You want to arrest this man, Marshal?”
Lonny looked surprised at the mention of Nate being a Marshal. He was still on probation so he couldn’t afford an arrest. He gave up struggling against Jim’s hold who released his arm. Everybody was looking at them now and Lonny’s crew had come closer.
“Nah. I don’t think so. Don’t want to waste taxpayers money or my personal time on something… someone so insignificant,” Nate said, steel in his voice and in his eyes, turning away as if to dismiss Lonny.
Jim told Lonny to get out of here, reminding them he was now banned from entrance for a month as per Zeke’s rules. Lonny and the other guys stomped off, but not before Lonny spitting out to Nate that he’d better watch his back while in town.
Nate just shrugged at that and turned to shake Jim’s hand in thanks who grinned, “No problem, I actually quite enjoyed that.”
As Jim got behind the bar, the old guys turned back to their drinks but Leah raised her eyebrows in a question to Nate who only offered, “We weren’t the best of friends, I’d guess you could say.”
His eyes fell on a flier on the bar announcing that night’s performer. ‘He any good?’, he asked Leah.
“Best singer in town”, she replied, “But stay around to judge for yourself.”
“I have to run some errands,” he said, “but I’ll be back if I can. Should you speak to Zeke in the meantime, would you let him know I’d like to see him if he remembers me?”
Leah nodded and slid back the five dollar bill Nate put down on the counter, stating the first drink was on the house for Zeke’s friends.
Nate put the money in the tip jar on the counter instead, tipped his hat again to Leah and walked out.
Leah couldn’t help but notice he had a fine ass that she wouldn’t mind getting another look at. Naked perhaps... She grinned when she noticed Jim was staring at it too.
