“Okay, everyone just –” I started.
Joe cut me off by ordering Tina, “Write a check. Five hundred dollars. Made out to Violet Winters and do it now.”
“You’re fuckin’ crazy?” Tina screeched.
“You do it, this is done, no more,” Joe stated. “You don’t, I’m in this war and, trust me woman, you do not want me in this war. I’m done with you, you’ll move to the next fuckin’ county.”
“Are you threatening me?” Tina snapped, leaning forward, clearly having a death wish.
“Yep,” Joe replied, calm as could be.
“You can’t break in my house and threaten me!” Tina yelled.
Joe looked around then back at Tina. “Pay attention, bitch, I just did.”
Oh Lord.
I walked across the room and got close to Joe, wrapping my hands around his bicep which was usually firm but now it was flexed and it felt like steel.
“Joe, honey, go home. I’ll talk with Tina.”
He twisted his neck and looked down at me. “Gave you that chance, buddy. I told you she fucks with your yard, we got problems.”
“But, Joe –”
“She fucked with your yard, we got problems.”
“She toilet papered my yard!” Tina shouted. “It took me hours to clean that shit up.”
Joe looked back at Tina and I could only see his profile and it scared me. She got the full face and shrank back.
“She didn’t do that to your yard, woman, she was in bed with me. You shit where you live, pissin’ people off, you gotta expect retribution. And you make a habit of shittin’ where you live. Who fuckin’ knows who did that to your yard? All I know is, it wasn’t Vi. You retaliated against the wrong person that person is my woman and your retaliation crossed a line. She can’t clean that shit up without it costin’ her and you’re gonna fuckin’ pay for it.”
“Fuck you!” Tina shouted and Joe shrugged, dropped his arms and turned away.
“So be it,” he muttered, sliding a hand along my shoulders and moving me to the door where he stopped and turned back to Tina. “I was you, I’d think about it. You got until tomorrow mornin’ to put a check in Vi’s mailbox. You don’t, it’s on. You get me?”
“I’m callin’ the cops,” Tina returned.
“You think Mike Haines and Alec Colton and the boys who work with ‘em are gonna be fired up to help you?” Joe asked, this finally penetrated and Tina’s face twisted. “Yeah,” Joe murmured as he noticed Tina was realizing maybe she should have made some friends along with all the enemies she created along the way. “Five hundred dollars, Tina, in Vi’s mailbox by nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” he finished then he turned us again and walked us out the door.
When we hit the fence, he picked me up and lifted me over setting me on my feet. Then he jumped it, took my hand and walked us to the dead grass in my yard where the girls were standing.
“It smells of bleach,” Keira informed us, Joe’s mouth got tight, Kate saw it and shoved Keira’s arm.
“All right girls, take the shopping bags in the house,” I ordered, wondering if I’d have time to do anything about my yard before Bea and Gary got there and thinking I wouldn’t considering I only had one day and I’d be working that day.
“Should we –” Kate started and I looked at her.
“House, baby,” I said softly, “we’ll worry about this tomorrow, yeah?”
She nodded, tagged Keira, they went to the Mustang, got the bags and went into the house. Joe stood staring at the word in my lawn.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Hope that check isn’t in your box, buddy,” Joe said to the yard then looked at me. “Be my pleasure to fuck with that bitch.”
I looked at his face and hoped the check was in my box. Tina was indeed a bitch and her writing the same with bleach in my beautiful grass proved it. But I reckoned no one, not even Tina, deserved the fury Joe looked ready to unleash.
“You want a beer?” I asked and Joe stared at me.
Then he shook his head but answered, “Yeah.”
We walked in the house, my arm around his waist, his around my shoulders.
“It’s just grass,” I told him softly.
He stopped us at the front door and curled me into his front. “Yeah, Vi, it’s just grass. And your brother just died. I’d have a lot more patience with her shit if it was two months ago or six months from now. She’s not gonna change but she should be human enough to pick her times. She wasn’t so I hope that check is not in your box. She needs a lesson and I’m in the mood to give her one.”
“Joe –”
His head dipped down and he touched his lips to mine before saying, “Don’t worry, baby, whatever I do won’t blow back on us.”
“But, she’s alone, Cory hasn’t been back for ages and she’s –”
He interrupted me. “A woman who needs a lesson.”
“Joe –”
“Vi, beer.”
I studied him and I knew enough to know Joe had made up his mind.
Therefore, I sighed, walked in my house and got my man a beer.
*
It was dark, the girls were asleep and I was cuddled into Joe’s side.