Chapter 14: Smirks and Sideways Glances
It was a slow Saturday.
Cathy scanned the seventh bottle of weed killer, the customer—an older man, with sun-leathered skin and a trucker’s cap—leaning on the counter as he detailed an ongoing battle with crabgrass, which Cathy surmised was invasive or something.
“So you think this concentrate’s better than the granular stuff for my perimeter?” he asked, and Cathy--whose knowledge of lawns began and ended with ‘green is good’--forced a smile and mumbled something about the instructions on the back. She pointed at the label, her finger leaving a smudge on the dusty plastic bottle.
“The, uh, diagram here seems pretty straightforward,” she said.
The customer squinted at her, then leaned back, his boots scraping on the worn linoleum. He placed his palms flat on the counter.
“Is there a man around this place? Maybe someone who knows something about something?"
"Let me see if I can get ahold of my manager for you," she said, tightening her smile. She thumbed the cracked plastic button on the intercom and listened to the sound of her voice boom across the nearly empty store. “Nick to the front register, please. Nick?”
The sun-leathered customer drummed his thick fingers next to the cash drawer. Nick did not answer her summons. They stood in the growing silence, a pool of awkwardness spreading between them. Finally the man let out a sharp, skeptical snort through his nose, his patience visibly exhausted, and he shoved his bottles of weedkiller toward the scanner.
Cathy mechanically passed the item over the glass. The beep grated loudly in the quiet. She was almost relieved when he slapped his cash onto counter, then snatched his change and his receipt and stalked out the exit. Still, she found herself rolling her eyes at his back and mouthing his words to herself, once he was gone. 'Is there a man around?' She didn't say the words out loud, of course. But men were like that, weren't they? They wouldn't talk to her like that if she were Sarah. She knew that. 'Is there a man around?'
Sarah was out today. The same for Mr. and Mrs. Lopez. Nick was around here, somewhere, and James, too, but when the owners were gone and Sarah wasn't there to ogle, it was nearly impossible for Cathy to track them down when she needed them. Fortunately, Saturdays were usually pretty slow, at least for her. As long as she stayed near the register, Saturdays went fine.
Finally Nick appeared--of course he did, now that he was no longer needed. His eyes, flat and assessing, scanned her from behind the counter.
“You rang?” he asked. He didn’t move to help, just watched her, a slow smile touching his lips.
"Never mind," she replied. "A customer wanted to ask questions about weed killer. He left though."
Nick nodded, but he didn't leave. That was weird, by itself. Normally Nick was always in a hurry to get back to the break room and doomscroll on his phone. But he just stood there, looking at her with that smirk, like he knew exactly what the customer had said about women not knowing anything on the job.
“James has been showing me pictures,” Nick said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. “Of that Alyssa girl, from the concert.” He leaned closer, the smell of stale coffee and gasoline on his breath. “You remember? She’s got those great tits, you know?” He watched her face, his eyes sharp and probing. "You're into that stuff too, right?"
Cathy felt a jolt, cold and electric, straight down her spine, but she kept her face smooth. Normally Nick wasn't this direct.
She didn't know how to respond. "Don't be weird," she said at last. "We're at work, Nick. Be professional, or something."
He shrugged. "Sorry. I thought it was cool." He looked around, as if to check for customers. There were none. He shrugged again. "You're still dating that guy, right? That little one?"
Cathy blinked. "Who? Jason?"
That made Nick grin. His pearly teeth gleamed bright against his dark skin. "Yeah, you know the one. The chubby little dude who doesn't say a lot. You're still together?"
She nodded, starting to flush. Was Nick hitting on her? Why did he care?
"We're together," she said. "He's actually--we're actually living together," she added, to make it clear they were committed. Nick had never shown any interest in her private life before. "Why do you ask?"
Again Nick shrugged. "James and I were talking," he explained. "It seemed like you kinda liked that girl in the shower the other day, you know? Maybe you were gay or something, and that's why you seem horny all the time. But I told him you had a little boyfriend."
Cathy realized her mouth had fallen open and snapped it shut. "I'm not--" she lowered her voice. "I'm not horny all the time," she hissed. "What are you talking about?"
Nick spread his hands wide in a gesture of innocence. "It wasn't me," he said. "It was James who said it. I said you had a boyfriend. That's why I asked, like, just to check, you know?"
Cathy stared at the chipped laminate of the counter, at Nick’s smug, expectant face. It clicked then, the manufactured concern, the gleam in his eye—this was just another slow-day diversion for him, like rearranging already-neat shelves or testing the spray of every hose nozzle.
“Yeah, I have a boyfriend,” she said, her voice flattening. “We’re very happy together, actually. We have a lot of fun.” She met his gaze directly. “Not that it is any of your business."
His smile widened, a genuine flash of amusement that crinkled the corners of his eyes. He held up his hands in mock surrender, taking a step back from the counter.
“Whoa, okay, sorry,” he said. "I didn’t mean to touch a nerve. My bad. I was just making conversation, you know? You called me up to the front of the store, right? It looked like maybe you were bored or something. My bad. You just keep up the good work, Cathy.”
But even after he was gone, Cathy felt uneasy. Angry, a little, but mostly uneasy.
Angry, a little, but mostly uneasy.
She punched the ‘No Sale’ button on the register just to hear the drawer slam open, then shoved it shut again. The metallic clang was satisfying. A few paint-stirring sticks rattled in their bin near her elbow. She straightened them. She restocked the penny nails. She wiped down the glass of the display case. But still, Nick’s words kept playing on a loop in her brain.
That little one. The chubby little dude. Your little boyfriend.
He’d said ‘little’ three times. Maybe four. It was deliberate. It had to be. It wasn’t just an observation about Jason’s height, or his build.
A woman bought a gallon of eggshell latex, and Cathy managed the transaction in total silence, handing over the receipt with a stiff smile. As the door chimed shut, her mind raced ahead, connecting dreadful dots. James called her maybe-gay. They talked about her being horny. Nick zeroing in on Jason, his size, his quietness.
A cold knot formed in her stomach. Did they know? Was it possible? The idea was insane, but it erupted in her mind fully formed and terrifying. Had someone seen something? Heard something?
Maybe Jason had said something? Bragged to someone, or complained?
No. He wouldn’t.
But Nick had been fishing. The more she thought about it, the more sure she became. His questions weren’t idle. They were a test. A series of little probes to see if she’d flinch, to confirm the gossip. You’re still dating that little one? He was mocking Jason, sure. But beneath that, he was mocking her. The implication was clear: she had unmet needs, and a guy who couldn’t meet them.
They were a joke to him. A tiny, pathetic secret he thought he’d uncovered.
The heat that flooded her face then was pure, undiluted shame. It was one thing for her to use those words herself, to twist them into something powerful for just the two of them. It was another thing entirely for Nick to stand there, grinning, like knew a single damn thing about Jason’s body, or about what she wanted.
Her hands trembled slightly as she stacked a new box of caulk tubes on the shelf behind her. The cardboard was cool and dusty. She felt exposed, as if the fluorescent lights were X-rays, revealing not her skeleton but her deepest, most vulnerable intimacies. Nick’s smirk felt permanently etched onto the air behind the counter.
The bell over the door jingled. Cathy turned, plastering on her customer-service face, her mind still screaming. She would just get through this shift. She would get home and see Jason, to look at him and somehow know, immediately, if he was telling her coworkers, insanely, about his inadequacy. Of course he wasn't. But she would still find out.
She turned, her customer-service smile already forming, a tired muscle reflex.
The figure silhouetted against the bright rectangle of daylight was tall, broad-shouldered, and instantly, gut-wrenchingly familiar.
It wasn't just 'a customer.'
It was Evan.
Her smile died on her lips. Her hands, which had been arranging tubes of silicone, froze. Every part of her went still and cold, like a circuit had blown. He stood there for a moment, letting the door swing shut behind him, his eyes scanning the aisles before landing on her. He looked the same. Of course he did. His dark hair was shorter, maybe, but still perfectly tousled. He wore a simple grey t-shirt that stretched across his chest, and his posture was that same easy, occupying slouch. She swallowed, her throat dry.
“Hey, Cath.”
He stopped a few feet from the counter, not quite closing the final distance.
“Evan.” Her own voice sounded thin, stripped of any register. “What are you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood. Figured I’d stop by.” He shrugged, the gesture effortlessly dismissing two years of silence. His eyes, a flat, unremarkable brown, drifted over her apron, the logo of the store, the dusty register.“ You look good.”
She didn’t answer. The compliment felt like a pat on the head. It was what you said to a dog you hadn’t seen in a while.
“Can we talk?” he asked, shifting his weight. He leaned one elbow on the counter, invading the professional barrier. “Just for a minute. I want to see how you're doing after--well, you know.”
Cathy did know. She shook her head. “It's not a good time. I’m working.”
“Come on, Cathy.” His smile was patient, slightly pitying. It was the look he used to give her when she was being difficult about something trivial. “If I can drop everything in the middle of the night, maybe you can give me five minutes?”
She glanced toward the back. The store was a empty, silent graveyard. They were alone.
“Fine.” The word tasted bitter. “It's a slow day. What do you want?”
He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture she remembered as a prelude to a lecture. "I just wanted to say it was really great to see you again the other night. Even with all the chaos."
His words conjured up the humid darkness of his truck, the feel of the vinyl seat sticking to her bare legs. She remembered the panic, the shame, but also the bizarre thrill of being so completely compromised—drunk, half-naked, pressed between him and Jason in the frantic scramble to escape certain doom. A remnant of those emotions--fear and a humiliating, electric awareness--bubbled up now again, with heat flooding up her neck and across her cheeks.She crossed her arms, turning the flush into what she hoped looked like indignation.
“Is that all?” she asked. "Because I said thank you, didn't I?"
“No.” He leaned in closer, lowering his voice. “I mean yes, you did say thank you. But that's not all." He cleared his throat. "Look, I’ve been worried about you. That whole situation was fucked up. Jason seems like an okay guy, I guess. But it's obvious he can’t protect you, Cathy.”
She stiffened, her fingernails digging into her biceps. “He did protect me. We got out, didn’t we?”
“Did he?” Evan’s gaze was steady, insistent. “Who picked you up, exactly?"
She didn't answer.
He continued. "You need someone who can handle emergencies, you know? Someone who can give you what you really need.” He paused, letting the implication settle in the space between them. “A strong male presence.”
A strong male presence. The phrase was so ridiculously, blatantly him. It clicked into place with a sickening clarity. A strong male presence. He was just like Nick. Just like every man, ever, always thinking with their dick, about their dick size.
Her flush deepened--but now it was fueled by a genuine anger. She understood his crude translation. Evan was saying she needed a bigger dick. His dick, specifically.
“You have no idea what I need,” she said.
He sighed, as if she were a child refusing medicine. “I think I do. I’ve always known." His eyes dropped briefly to her body, a quick, possessive scan.“We should have never broken up, Cathy.”
Suddenly a new memory surged forward in her mind, sharp and clear--Evan's hand, not just guiding her, but lingering, fingers curling possessively into the flesh of her ass as she’d stumbled from the cab of his truck.
“Don't think I don't remember,” she muttered. "You grabbing a handful of ass on my way out the door?"
But Evan didn’t flinch. He offered a shallow, apologetic smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He wouldn't let her steer the conversation. He never would.
“I was keeping you steady. You were a mess.” He pushed off the counter, his looming height suddenly oppressive. “Think about it, Cath. You’re playing a dangerous game with a boy. Don’t you want a man?”
Before she could summon a reply, the bell chimed. An elderly couple shuffled in, heading for the potting soil. The spell broke, ruining the illusion of their privacy. Evan straightened up, his public mask sliding back into place—friendly, harmless.
“We’ll talk soon,” he said, not a question. Then he left.
It occurred to Cathy, a moment later, that there was no necessary reason to blame Jason for any rumors going around her workplace about his shortcomings, if indeed there were any such rumors going round. She watched Evan disappear into the gardening aisle behind the elderly couple and realized that nothing was stopping him from gossiping with either Nick, or with James, about anything he had seen that evening.
At least Evan didn't know the whole story--what had she told him? Something about kids playing a prank? She could hardly remember. She tried to recall the details of his rescue, and the details of the tale she had spun for him in her half-stupor, but all she could remember clearly was the way the cab had seemed to tilt, and how relieved she had been to escape the worst consequences of her misadventure. Had she admitted to getting pissed on? To getting stuffed in a trunk? And more importantly, was Evan gossiping with her coworkers behind her back, secretly laughing about her boyfriend's tiny little penis and God knew what else?
The thought hooked into her, a barbed and shuddering thing.
She would tell Jason about it tonight.