I come down the stairs and walk into the kitchen as Darlene cooks. Smells swirl into my nostrils, and I can't make a solid guess as to what she's making. I'll just have to wait and see. "Darlene, I need to ask something."
"What is it?"
"Do you know where I can get a pair of goggles for Dell? You saw that he cracked his again, and I wanted to get him a new pair."
She laughs. "Yeah, I gotta pair. Gotta get rid of 'em. Belonged to his grandaddy, Fred's father." She talks and beckons me to follow her into the hallway. Salvador and Josie sit on the back porch with the beagles. He has two in his lap and one his arms, all of them deciding it's naptime at the moment. I wish I owned a Polaroid, it's very cute. We come up to a hallway closet, and as she pushes coats aside to get to a mound of boxes in the back. "Maybe you'll get to meet Fred sometime."
"Maybe,"' I suppose.
"Speakin' of meetin'," she grunts and pulls out a box to inspect it and sets it aside when she comes to find it doesn't have what she needs. "When do I meet your folks? Would be mighty rude of me to have my son tie the knot and they don't even know who's across the pond."
I don't know if I should tell her outright or sugarcoat it. I'm not comfortable talking about them, but I don't think she'd appreciate being told a lie, either. "We, uh," I take a deep breath and whisper as I rub the back of my neck, "we don't have parents."
She turns to me, hand on her chest and an apologetic look. "My goodness," she exasperates. "Bless your heart, I'm so sorry I asked."
"No, no, it's alright. You didn't know. It's alright Darlene, it's oka-- Oh, we're hugging now."
"Oh, we're just making ya all unwelcome-like, aren't we? I'm sorry, Mona."
"It's fine, I got used to it."
"No, no, no. Uh-uh, not in my house," she sternly opposes. Her hands are on my shoulders, and she has a scrunch in her nose. "If somethin' is bothering you, you let me know."
"Uhm... I will. But you're okay. I just- I just really want those goggles."
She recollects herself and continues to search, soon marking triumph. "Found 'em. A bit dusty, but I'm sure you'll clean 'em up real nice like."
I hold them in my hands, rubbing the gray covering off of the lenses. I smile. "Thank you, Darlene."
"No problem. I know you're gonna head up and help 'im, so have fun, be civil," she says as I walk off. I quietly step around the two on the porch and make my way to the honey barn, but I come to find it empty. There's a giant churn in the middle of the lot, and a table is off to my right when I walk in. Honey jars, full and empty, rest on the top with labels strewn about on the wood. Many curtains cover things like machinery and shelves, and I suppose it's to protect it from winter chill. I don't know what's in the other barn, and I don't want to stick my nose into places it shouldn't go.
It reeks of cedar and sucrose. A gentle cough peeps from above in the loft. "Dell?" I call. A chair moves across wood and heavy footsteps move to the other side. A hatch opens at the top of a ladder.
"Come on up, dear." I walk over to the metal ladder and climb up, grabbing onto his hand when he offers it to help me up. An attic. Or rather, a hayloft with no hay. It's homey with a couch, two workbenches, and Christmas lights spiraling up a support pillar. The floor creaks when I step, but someone has recently replaced the panels given that the wood above is a weather-tired brown. A chilly breeze blows in through the spaces in the walls and the opened shutter at the other side of the space. Engie pulls up a chair at the workbench. "Just making the stun glove right now, needed your help with fitting and assembling."
"I'm your gal, then," I try my hand at my Texan lingo. And he enjoyed it.
"That you are," he purrs, pressing his lips to my forehead.
We build a stun glove. There's not much that I was aware of was happening as I was simply doing as told. We started with him comparing my hand shape to a pair of electrical gloves he had previously. They fit, that's what matters most, but they're a bit bulky. I prefer them that way, so I don't shock myself. We then got to disassembling a taser, and Engie put me to sticking and attaching metal probes on the fingers and palms of the glove. The sharp prod goes through the material, and then I stick my finger into the other side and attach the flat stopper to the other side. Then I make sure it's insulated by fitting a rubber cap to the back of the probe.
We're only making one, so- in terms of combat- I'd have to make every punch with this thing count. I thought the concept was a bit stupid at first because we could've just had me use a real taser, but then I figured it out in my mind. Engie is very hands-on, and he obviously crafted a mechanism to help him do such a thing. He mentioned it by name to compare, and he calls it the Gunslinger. It's a given that it helps him shoot a gun faster, but he said it also helps him around the garage with how strong the grip on it is and the fact it can withstand a high voltage current in the event he gets shocked. He didn't wear it for our activity today, but he knows what he's doing.
Once I got done prepping the glove, he gave me few tasers he either bought or received for free since they're all burnt out and broken. He believes in salvaging what he can since I remember the piles and piles of scrap metal he had in his garage. I am given a screwdriver, wire cutters, and tweezers. If I'm unsure if it's salvageable, I just put it aside for Engie to judge. I also use this time to clean the goggles Darlene gave to me, trying to be discreet as he looks over my shoulder every half an hour to forty-five minutes and picks through the scrap pile, tossing bits- which feel at random to me. Soon, I get the goggles clean, but I put them in my hoodie pocket for now until later.
This process is taking longer than I expected. The sun is at its highest point now, and Salvador wandered into the barn below to tell us to come in for lunch. Just as we came in, the phone rings.
"Fr-- Cuh-Conagher residence...?" Salvador hesitantly answers in the living room. His face drops and he hangs up.
"Eh- Salvador," I gasp. "Who was it?"
"Miss Pauling."
Engie and I look at each other, and he shrugs. "Probably for the best. I'm not on the clock."
Darlene sets the table, and I grab plates to help her. "Well, what if she needed Mona?"
"She doesn't," I snidely laugh. "She fired me. I'm currently unemployed."
Darlene puts her hands on her hips, determination pointing her eyebrows with venom in her voice. "Let me talk to her and soon enough you won't be."
I shake my head as the ceramic of a plate hits the hardwood table-top. "No, it's okay, Darlene." The phone rings again. I sigh and move Salvador aside before he time to hang up again. "Conagher residence."
"Ah, Accomplice, hey!" Captain's voice spills out of the speakers. I hear laughing in the background, Heavy's hearty guffaw the most easily recognizable. "It's Captain."
"Oh, hi, Merry Christmas!" I smile.
"I didn't know you were going to spend your holiday with Engie," she playfully teases. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think he likes you. With how quick he was to give you one on the lips in his garage--"
I scoff with a smirk. "You and Ludwig are the same: Children. You planned that."
"Maybe we did, maybe we didn't," Captain muses. "It happened either way."
"What do you need, Sandra?" I ask.
"Well, Miss Pauling called me since she said you hung up on her. Break is getting cut short this year and we'll be back on Monday. New Year's marks trouble, and we're doing employee reviews soon along with ceasefire ending."
"I'll tell Dell."
"Hey, Mona, don't worry. I'm sure Stronghold can find a position for you, or maybe you could work with Metalworks?"
Air evacuates my lungs, and I lower my voice. "You're not responsible for me, you don't have to keep doing things for me."
"Please," she begs. "At least consider." We're both quiet. Medic and Heavy continue to laugh in the back with other people.
"I'll look."
"Thank you. Can I talk to Engie, though?"
I lower the phone and turn around. "Dell." He makes his way over, and I hand it to him. "Neuro."
"Watcha need?" He answers, and I make my way back to the kitchen. Lunch is breakfast tacos. As contradictory as that may seem, breakfast tacos are a convenient food for folks down south that are never far away. Mexican restaurants are around every corner and they're made-to-order. Bean and cheese is the default, and it's the food you'd never tire of.
We took the time to sit on the back porch for a while. Engie has his arm around me on the porch swing, Salvador with us as he holds a sleeping dog on his lap. I'm on his left side, and Salvador is on his right. Josie and Samuel had a couple of friends come over, and they race around the field past Darlene's vegetables playing tag.
Serenity surrounds us from all sides. Quiet rustling of trees fills in the rest of the noise as the four kids try to avoid each other as I'm sure they've lost track of who's 'it.' Engie turns to Salvador who keeps twitching and scratching his ear. "You doin' alright over there?"
He shrugs. "Yeah."
"If something's wrong, you can say so." I hear faint whistling, and he spazzes out.
I stand up. "His hearing aid is bothering him," I tell. Salvador turns his head away from me as he tries to fix it himself, but I grab his chin and turn his head. After removing the device, I use the back end of my shirt to wipe it. "Where's your Zenith?"
"I didn't bring it, I like the Audiotone better," he sighs, bouncing his leg.
"It's clearly giving you issues."
"I don't want a battery pack strapped to my chest."
I exhale. "Okay, I'll ask Dr. Erin next time we see him. Turn your head."
He holds his hand out and takes his hearing aid back, putting it in his jacket pocket. "My ear hurts anyway." It's red, and I know that side is sensitive. I rub my hand on the top of his head as Darlene calls him inside. He sets the dog down and goes in, Engie and I resuming our venture in the hayloft.
We're slow with experimentation. We're messing around with deadly electricity, so we can't make any wrong moves. Assembly comes along, and I sit next to him as he uses a box cutter to open up the insulation of the glove halfway. He imbeds wires and circles them around the metal prongs to connect them to the palm board that has steel bearing balls to keep my palm flexible. I put the glove on and flex my hands, grab things, and throw a few punches in the air to verify that everything needed to stay inside the glove stays inside. Then it's the chrome skeleton on the back. It looks like a gauntlet now, and it's getting heavy like one. The power cell is on the back on of my hand, and a 9-volt battery is my power source. They're easy to get ahold of but might not be the easiest to find if I were amid a fight.
Now that I think about it, I wouldn't need the glove unless I'm walking home alone at night. Even then, I'm looking into buying myself a car so there's a less likely chance I run into this situation. There's not much more I can do to help him but continue to disassemble the old tasers since he's begun to backtrack. I don't get a single thing we're doing, but I'm just glad to be doing something with him. I promised him all that time ago to help him in his garage, and we never had time to do that until now.
"Hell," he breathes under his voice after a couple of hours. "Done went and-- Shit."
"What's wrong?" I get up from my bench and put my hands on his shoulders as I peer over him.
"Iron got too hot again, gotta wait."
I smirk. "We could take a break? The sun is gone."
"It is?" He turns around. The room has an amber hue as the desk lamps illuminate our spaces. He stands up and stretches with his hands above his head, groaning and swinging them at his side. "Damn, got real late." He turns off the desk lamps in favor of the Christmas lights. He hugs me and starts swaying us in a circle. "You can dance every dance with the guy who gives you the eye, let him hold you tight."
"Oh, no," I giggle and push his goggles off, singing as I replace them with the one in my pocket before resting them around his neck. "You can smile every smile for the man who held your hand 'neath the pale moonlight."
"Oh, thank you, Mo, but you didn't need to."
"I wanted to. They're your grandfather's."
He picks them up and studies them. "I thought..." He scoffs. "Yep, that's Mama for ya."
"Guess that means you have to be extra careful now."
"Guess it does." We move again. "But don't forget who's taking you home," he hums, putting his forehead on mine. "And in whose arms you're gonna be." We stop swaying, and he dips me. "So darlin', save the last dance for me."
I snort and laugh, holding onto him as he won't let me up. "Dell--"
"Hey, promise me," he urges. "I'll always be your last dance."
"Let me up." I pat his cheek and continue to laugh.
"Promise this ol' ruffian here that I'll always get to dance with ya no matter what," he grins.
"Okay, okay!" He pulls me back up and holds my hands once we sit on the couch. "I promise that you'll always be my last dance."
The laughter stopped, the air settled, and the kiss started.
Coyotes howl. The chill of the night nips at my fingertips and my nose, the tips of my ears safe just this once under my hair.
His stubble and scruff on his upper lip and chin tickling me slightly. I retract and get a good look into his eyes. Hope circles around the swimming pool of love and affection as he embraces me in a hug and holds me as though he's sheltering me from harm. He's warm, my arms having nowhere to go but to rest on his chest. The thump of his heart makes his feelings known, steady breathing being only a facade.
"Dell," I whisper, a puff of steam escaping my mouth and dispersing in the cold.
"Mona," his tone is sweet like nectar.
I pat his chest a few times. His finger lifts my chin up, and he leans down to bring me in for another peck. He eases into it and shields me from the cold with his own warmth. My fingertips push through the holes in his sweater and stop at his undershirt. A gentle moan with a low grumble comes from him. We stop. I smile at him.
"You're not a ruffian," I sigh. "You're my gentle dear."
He laughs quietly and looks out the window, lowering his arms to give me more freedom of movement. "Well, would you look at that?"
Moths twinkle in the floodlight as they gracefully dance their way through the air. A draft blows through the loft and shakes me, causing Engie to rub his hand up and down my arm. I giggle and reach my opposite arm over to his. Our stiff fingers intertwine.
Salvador pops in from the hatch on the floor. "The two of you should come down now, it's literally midnight and Darlene wants you inside." We look over at him, and he gasps slightly in realization. "I'll, uh, leave you two alone."
He closes the hatch, and we both laugh again. Engie prompts us to stand, and we rise from the couch. Leading me over to the window looking out at the rest of the ranch, he keeps his arm around me and our hands stay together. It's easier to hear Sam and Josie's excited chattering coming from the house, Salvador selling us out to Darlene.
"Can't have shit with this family, huh?" Dell yells. Darlene yells encouragement back at him. I laugh and pull him back over to me, raising my hands to his cheeks and rubbing the tip of his nose with my thumb. "I love you, Mo."
"I love you, Dell."
Darlene calls for the two kids to settle down from below, signaling it's midnight. Engie wastes no time in pressing his lips to mine. He pulls away with a smile. "Merry Christmas, darlin'."
"Merry Christmas, dear."
We kiss again but are quickly stopped by the sudden hollering that's happening outside the barn this time. We both look down to see just Darlene- the crazy woman- egging her son on, as this is probably the first time she's seen him like this.
"Aw, go to Hell, Mama!" He jeers at her, only provoking her to grow louder.
I turn his head to have his face toward me, his face turning pink as he frowns. I kiss him again and the singular voice below almost turns mocking with the "awing" she has going on. I whisper to him. "Well, I know you're shy, so I'll ask: Dell, would you like to be my boyfriend?"
He kisses my check and rests his head in the crook of my neck. "Boy, would I ever." I pat his shoulders, and we both go down into the barn. Darlene meets us at the bottom of the ladder, and I'm certain this woman was crying beforehand. "D'aw, y'all went and made my Christmas."
"Ma--" He rubs the back of his neck with a frown that quickly turns into a smile when I grab his hand. He gets giddy, almost as though he's a small child that has just received a gift. Woozy embarrassment hides in his voice. "She's my girlfriend, Ma."
She smacks her hands on her thighs. "Well, fye-nah-lee!" I pull Engie to lead us into the house, and Darlene closes her cardigan and crosses her arms. "I made hot chocolate."