Page 34 of Money Shot

“Yum,” I said as I turned toward the register.

As we placed our order Vince pulled out his wallet and thumbed through the money inside.

“Twenty-two forty,” the man said after ringing up the total.

“Here’s fifty,” Vince said as he handed the man a fifty dollar bill. “That’ll cover whatever the guy behind me is getting.”

“Him?” the cashier asked as he tilted his head toward the guy who was still studying the menu.

“You got it,” Vince said with a nod.

“And the change?” the cashier asked.

“Keep it,” Vince said with a nod as he reached for his glass of tea.

As I reached for my tea, I turned toward Vince and grinned slightly. He was looking away and he didn’t notice my admiring stare, but I didn’t do it for that reason. He was different than any other man I had ever met, and I liked it.

I liked it a lot.

I dreaded the day he found a woman who actually interested him. The thought of ever losing him, especially to another woman, scared me to death. In his presence, nothing else mattered. There was no real concern with time, where we were, or what we were doing. I was as satisfied as I had ever been, and I wanted nothing else but for our time together to stand still. It never did, and always eventually ended, but one thing I could always count on was that he would return the next Sunday for lunch, to sit, talk, and enjoy time with me.

And for that, I respected him.

But, because of who he was and what he stood for, I was slowly falling in love with him.

“So, they bring it to us?” he asked as he sat down.

I shrugged my shoulders as I removed my coat. “I guess?”

“Tea’s good,” he said as he raised his glass.

I took a drink of the tea and nodded my head. It had a slight hint of peach, but it wasn’t overbearing. “That isgood.”

“So, what happened since we last met?” I asked.

“Other than my watch crapping out?” he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders and grinned. “I dunno, anything. I just like hearing about what you’ve done. I mean, the stuff you can tell me.”

“Well, we went on the toy run, donated a bunch of toys. All of us rode except Tater, and he drove a truck full of shit. Fucking Axton went insane this year buying and trading for toys. Crazy fucker traded a shipment of guns for toys last July, and kept ‘em in the shop for the last six months waiting for this deal to happen. He loves Christmas about as much as I do,” he said.

“Best holiday of the year,” I said. “Saddest, but the best.”

“What’s sad about Christmas?” he asked.

“My dad’s gone. He isn’t here to keep me company. It’s not really fun unless you can share it with someone,” I said. “But I still like it.”

“And you said your mother’s gone too, right?” he asked.

I nodded my head as I reached for my tea. My mother had a condition called placenta previa when she was pregnant. The placenta was positioned in such a manner that it covered the opening in her cervix making giving birth an impossible task without serious complications.

The main problem was that my father couldn’t afford insurance at the time, and they were initially going to have me at home, naturally. When she went into labor, her placenta ruptured, and by the time the ambulance got there, she was barely alive. The paramedics did an emergency cesarean section, and delivered me alive, but my mother hemorrhaged, dying immediately after my birth.

My father raised me, alone. He never got married, nor did he so much as ever have another woman in the house.

I always admired him for his devotion to my mother, and I spent a lifetime wishing other men were more like him.

As I stared blankly at Vince, I realized he was like my father. Probably more than I cared to admit. I smiled again, wondering how much of the similarities I had noticed, and how many I didn’t bother to notice, but let influence my feelings for him.