“Pippa!” brayed Wolf. “Are you at all interested in hitting that hay bale? I’m not walking down to that berm. I’ve spent enough time crawling around behind dirt walls.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but it was fine talk coming from a guy with Utility Belt Syndrome. Even when engaged in a sport, Wolf Glaser insisted on strapping every possible device to his belt. In addition to his quiver, an arrow puller, can opener, level, binoculars, Allen wrenches, water bottle, and a rangefinder jangled when he walked. Then again, he had made five of six bullseyes. I’d just turned a dirt wall into a porcupine.
I was trudging back to the shooting line when I noticed June’s Jeep coming down the runway from the direction of the hangar. She kept driving off the tarmac in puffs of orange dust, heading to where our cages and scoots were parked. That traitor. I turned my back on her.
I was surprised that Wolf came down to the berm to help me collect my wild arrows. He was harrumphing up a storm.
“God damned bobble-headed nerd boy,” it sounded like he was muttering as he handed me an arrow. “Fucking shiznit gameboy.”
He induced me to finally turn and look at June’s Jeep. There was Tracy, the subject of all of Wolf’s angst, and Tobias, the office manager for Leaves of Grass. He was the target of Wolf’s wrath. And I kid you not, my heart literally skipped a beat when I caught sight of Fox, leaning into the back of the Jeep to grab some bow cases.
Fox! The focus of all of my passion! And Wolf was so self-involved he couldn’t be bothered to mention that part.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, whipping an arrow from Wolf’s hand. “I’m starting to think you enjoy bitching and whining about not having Tracy. She’s not that stuck on Tobias, from what I’ve seen. Why don’t you just talk with her?”
Wolf was wide-eyed. We started back. “She isn’t? How do you know she’s not? What makes you say that?”
I sighed. “I don’t know, just a sixth sense women have. I’ve never seen her being physically affectionate with him.”
“But they share a bedroom at the plantation house.”
“Well, yes, they do. But you know what? Not everyone is single when you wish they were. Talk to her! Or look, I’ll just ask her, like grade school kids.”
Wolf clutched my arm. “No! Don’t! Wait! Yes, do! Oh, I don’t know!” He hit himself in the forehead with his palm.
“Hi, Wolf!” called Tracy, waving. She had a down-to-earth Midwestern wholesomeness to her, and I could see her appeal.
I elbowed Wolf. “See?” I whispered, before going off to do some charming of my own.
“You’re still here,” I stated. Fox was at a picnic table taking a tube of bowstring wax from the bow case, probably Lytton’s.
He looked sideways at me and grinned, but didn’t stop his work. “I’m still here,” he agreed affably. I liked the way he put his boot on the bench to prop his bow while he waxed. “Not done with my job yet.”
“Your job…doing the same thing Santiago Slayer does?”
Now he looked at me. Assessing, sizing me up. As if wondering how much to entrust me with. What the hell. I was just a lowly pot store employee. He must’ve decided I was too lowly to be dangerous. “Not this time, not really. We’re just checking up on your rivals, the Ochoas.”
“Oh, the ones with that godawful Mi Manera weed? People like it because it’s so damned cheap, but we don’t tell them how many pesticides the Ochoas spray on it.”
He laughed sunnily. He was even more handsome when he was relaxed like this, looking forward to some good shooting. “Well, they’ve been riding us lately, so we’re hitting back. I wouldn’t look forward to any more Ochoa pot in your store.”
I wanted to talk about more than pot, but I had to at least let him shoot a few rounds before asking my questions. He was a sight to behold, all muscles and sinew, with the string drawn fully back. I took some surreptitious pictures of his back, then I became sad when I realized I had no one to send them to. Oh. Madison. I sent the photo to her, and typed:
Does anyone know who he is and where he came from? I’m dying over here. <3
I grinned. That’d get her attention. Sure enough, she instantly texted back:
Ford probably knows, but he’d never tell me. I know Fox lives in Nogales, so he must work for beaners. Or a club that deals with beaners. He is one smoking hot cool drink of water.
PIPPA: Whores and metaphors don’t mix. :)
Nogales. That told me approximately nothing. I vowed to discover more. I just wanted a cheap roll in the hay with him, but still, it’d be nice to know who I was rolling with.
After he’d shot—expertly, of course—a few rounds, I went up to him.
“Fox.” He’d know I was serious because I used his name. “I have a sort of sensitive question to ask you.”
“Oh yeah? Shoot.”
“Can we go over there?” I waved toward a shed of some kind.
“Sure.”
He hung his bow on the rack and we walked to the shed. “Wolf sure is chatting up Tracy,” I said mischievously.