Strays

Chapter 1

Lindley thrummed her hand on her steering wheel, suppressing a grin and bobbing her head to whatever song was on the radio. She had just turned in her last paper for her last class of her second to last semester of college, and she was that much closer to whatever else there was—whatever came next. No matter what, it would get her out of this shit hole town, and that's all that mattered to her.

As she pulled down her street, seeing the pink slatted houses and homes with lawn chairs in their front yard, she noticed her mom's boyfriend's truck in the drive to her house. She paused. Was it worth going in and risking it, or...

"Nope," she said out loud as she drove past the house. She turned her radio up to wake herself up on the way to Ole Rick's. She threw her car into park when she got to the dirt parking lot. There was a motorcycle she didn't recognize in an employee spot, she noticed as she walked in, her backpack over her shoulder. Lindley strode through the heavy metal door and into the repurposed silo. She sat down at the bar, dropping her backpack onto the ground in front of her.

"ID?" a guy behind the counter asked her, wiping down a glass.

"Um..." Lindley looked at him for a moment, laughing awkwardly. The man in front of her had never worked here before. He was tall, but not very—maybe 5'10, with hair long enough to fall into his face in curling tendrils. He had a worn beanie on his head, despite the unusual muggy Texas heat during December. His arms were likewise clad in a long sleeved denim jacket over a black t-shirt with a flannel tied around his waist. How was he not overheating? His face was tan, but his most striking feature was his eyes—not because they were some piercing color, though they were a nice shade of green. What made them striking was the shadow they cast over his cheeks. They were set deep into his face, and seemed to know much more than they let on. Having them on her unsettled Lindley, and she found herself trying to look anywhere but at his eyes.

"Listen, if you don't have ID, you have to go." Lindley was about to force out a response when another girl down the bar broke out in sinister giggles, interrupting her.

"You seriously brought your backpack to a bar and thought you wouldn't get carded?" The girl was also foreign to Lindley—she was much blonder than Lindley, whose hair was a light brown with uneven natural highlights. Rather than Lindley's long, wavy hair, this girl had a shoulder length shaggy style and a deep, sultry voice.

Lindley's mouth was agape dumbly. She was regretting not wearing makeup to Rick's for the first time, and aware that her lack of sleep was halting her mental process.

"'S Lindley," a gravelly voice called. Old Rick himself walked to the front-of-house from the back office. "She's a regular." The old man winked over at Lindley as he shuffled over to the bar.

"Lindley!" Upon hearing his father's voice, the other bartender perked up, dropping the towel he was holding and walked over. "I didn't see you come in. How'd it go?" Rick's son Wyatt came over. He worked behind the bar full time. He had even met the mother of his kids by serving her at the bar.

Now more at ease, Lindley ignored the two newcomers and answered, "It went well!" She reached down into her backpack and pulled out a stack of paper held together with a gold binder clip. "I have a backup copy that I printed to flip through to check for errors this morning if you want to see!" She was grinning as Wyatt reached for the paper.

"Well, ain't that something," Wyatt regarded, holding the paper in front of him so he could read it. "Silent Aggression, Passive Resistance," he read. Old Rick shuffled slowly behind him to read over his shoulder. "Pa, do you know half of these words? Shoot, I couldn't pronounce that one if I tried! That's how I know you got an A." Old Rick smiled at Lindley, a dimple appearing in his white-stubbled cheek.

"Thanks!" she told them bashfully. "I haven't slept in fifty-two hours, but if I get the A, it will be worth it. Only one more semester." She smiled to herself looking down at the bar countertop.

"Sorry," the strange bartender told her from where he stood in front of the strange girl, his weight on a hand resting on the hard wood. "I didn't realize you were related to Old Rick."

"Oh," Lindley answered, honestly having forgotten they were there. Those dark eyes were appraising her response, and in the back of her mind Lindley was already devising a plan to see this guy at little as possible. "I'm not—we just—"

"Lindley and us go way back," Wyatt interrupted. "There's your next training lesson: if Lindley ever comes in, she's as much your boss as we are, so if she walks in here needing somethin'—you do it, no matter what." Wyatt looked sternly at the guy, his eyebrows raised to almost give the impression of scolding.

"Noted," the stranger said, saluting her casually before turning back to his friend.

"Y'all are too much," Lindley laughed to diffuse the tension.

"Now, you, young lady, need to get some rest. You did good." Old Rick pressed his withered hand briefly on Lindley's shoulder.

"You're right," Lindley responded, dejectedly. She had been hoping she'd be able to kill some more time before going back to her Mom's place. "I just wanted to tell you guys the good news that I got my paper in. See you guys." As she was about to leave, Wyatt grabbed her arm and gestured toward the back office. His amiable features softened her shell a moment, and she breathed a sigh of relief, Lindley smiled at him and made her way through the gap in the bar to the back office. Beside the cluttered desk and stacks of boxes was a cot with a blanket and pillow. Lindley set an alarm on her phone and got into the cot. She fell asleep almost instantly.