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Allie has been in Cannon Shoals almost two years, and she's managed to avoid bad decisions. But it's getting harder.

Back to Cannon Shoals with some pretty typical Shoals stuff. Allie isn't a bad person, but her circle of friends ain't great for good advice. Like stoats. After her return to Cannon Shoals in "Take the Long Way Home" she's had a hard time coming to terms with her ex's new wife, her place in the town, and her future. Thanks to Spudz for coming down to the bar with me after work and helping me get this one out the door.

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

"And Shadows Still Remain," by Rob Baird

---

...And they said "Isn't it a shame, you know? Isn't it a shame?" And we lied too-- What else could we do?

Stef Kelly's lyrics faded with the last of the electric guitars, and Allison took a deep breath and relaxed. Back before, back when nobody thought the band would ever have a reason to outgrow 'the Knot-Bumpers' as a name, Stef sang for them, too. Now Roger Hall had taken that over, and she had to admit the dog had a good voice. Gravelly. It fit the tone of the song, which Stef had written the week before.

Allison liked some of the poetry--there was a bit about the main character paying the ferryman with a maxed-out credit card she found particularly poignant. The ocelot only wished she was better at playing guitar; six months of effort hadn't really done much for her skills, so far as she could tell.

"You're getting better," Sam Benson promised, when they started to pack up. "We all have a lot to relearn." The tiger was one of the original members of the band. A lumberjack's son, he'd also come up with the name--knot-bumping meant cutting the knots off a log so it could be put on a truck cleanly.

Not that he'd meant it cleanly, of course.

Allison hadn't been part of the band before she'd left Cannon Shoals the first time. She'd just helped them with their equipment, and convinced her boss Jim Riggs to let them use his shed as a practice space. Plus she'd kept them in pot, which turned out to be the band's primary fuel.

And she'd given Stef pep talks when he had doubts about his talents as a writer or a singer or a guitarist or... well, anything, really; his parents hadn't thought very highly of his musical ambitions.

Allison's dad hadn't been fond of it either. Maybe nobody really was. Her old friend Danny Hayes came to watch them practice--but only once, and it had resulted in his nickname for her: 'Racket.' In some objective sense, the Knot-Bumpers were a colossal waste of time. Objectivity didn't matter. The only important thing was Stef's opinion, and as long as her boyfriend wanted to be part of it she'd stick by him.

Of course six years changed things. Now she was playing with them. Now she paid Riggs for his shed the same way she rented her apartment from him. Now Roger could mix everything right on his laptop. Now Stef sang backup.

And of course he wasn't her boyfriend anymore, because he'd up and gotten married. Telling herself she'd made peace with that was an uphill battle for the ocelot.

"You are getting better," Stef promised, talking about the guitar.

She'd volunteered to drive him home, just like in the old days. Same old Jeep Cherokee, too, with REO Speedwagon on the radio and the phone charger Roger jerry-rigged from her temperamental cigarette lighter. And I meant every word I said...

The car was the same, and the characters were the same--only the scene was different. A black title card: Six Years Later... "Don't give me that look," the fox said, teasingly--misreading the look, but she wouldn't argue. "I can tell you you're straight-up good, too, but you wouldn't believe me."

"Am I 'straight-up good'?"

"No."

Allison laughed at his dependable honesty. "Then I'll have to settle, right?" Her paw thumped the steering wheel. "And I meant, every word I said--when I said that I loved you, I meant that I loved you forever..."

She could see his head nodding along to the music, and he sang half of the chorus, under his breath. "You know what, though? You know I heard the Cure the other day on this station?"

"What Cure, though?"

"'Mint Car.' I guess that's classic rock now? It came out in '96--not like I want to go all 'grumpy old man,' but... it's so weird to hear it with Speedwagon."

Times change, that was the flippant answer she utterly refused to give. As long as she didn't acknowledge the change, it could be ignored. Sometimes Stef ignored it, too, or at least he didn't ask the ocelot to explain why she took the long way back to his house on the harbor side of Cannon Shoals.

"Thanks for dropping me off," he said, when she pulled into his driveway. "Same time next week?"

"Maybe. I actually don't have plans for the rest of the evening. You want to get dinner maybe? Or, like, I can cook something if you want."

"I'm okay... a little beat. Appreciate the offer, though."

"What about tomorrow? You said Mary was gone at some conference, right? We should take advantage of it... like go hiking or something. Get out of this damned place."

"Just you and me?"

"Yeah? Why not?"

"Mary isn't exactly your biggest fan, you know."

Allie made no attempt to keep her laughter polite. "I know. The feeling's mutual, don't worry. She's not here, that's why I'm not inviting her along."

The fox lowered his ears, fingers tightening on the doorknob. "It doesn't really look... good. She'd be unhappy."

"She doesn't get to pick your friends, Stef. She's not your owner, just your wife."

"'Just.' Yeah." He'd echoed her word with more derision than the ocelot had genuinely used. "But she knows that we used to be... a thing, and the argument would be..."

"The argument with her, or with me?" He gave her a funny look, and his ears drooped further. "I'm saying we're friends, you know? We're just friends. Yeah--just, I said it." And that time, she was dismissive.

"Allie..."

"So why not do something for a change. It's beautiful weather."

"Allie. Allie, I'm super happy you're back, you know that... I'm stoked the band is actually a thing, and--yeah, it's great, but I can't... I just... Mary's kinda, uh.... skeptical of it as it is."

"So she'd keep you from going hiking?"

"No. Well... yes? Or--no, I guess, but she wouldn't approve."

"And do you think she has the right to tell you not to?"

He denied that faster, but not much more firmly. "No. I'm not saying I like it, Allie. I..." He sighed heavily, and finished turning the knob, pushing the door open and taking a step inside without looking back at her. "I don't want to fuck things up."

"With her?"

"With you, too. Let me think on it, okay? Can you give me that much?"

"You think I'm gonna fuck things up?"

He picked up on her irritation, and met it in kind. "I think you don't consider what you're doing. Come on, Allie, don't push things."

"No? Until you're done 'thinking on it'?"

"Maybe you should do some of that, yourself," the fox shot back, and avoided meeting her eyes as he started to close the door. "Only saying... back off a little."

"Sure, Stef. Jesus, I'll let you think on it as long as you goddamned want." He shut the door harder than he meant to, and it thunked awkwardly, and she raised her voice just below a shout. "And fix that damned hinge! Speaking of fucked up!"

She knew that they had never really resolved the tension that remained ever since the afternoon of her last day. August 10th, before she'd gone home in the evening and not known it wasn't home anymore until she walked in the door. They'd driven up into the state park and gone hiking, and walked out to where you could just hear the surf if you payed attention--well off the beaten track, nothing but trees around them.

Stef had a tape recorder with the band's last session on it and he wanted to work on the lyrics, and he'd brought a big box of blackberries and she'd brought a joint. And it seemed like they'd probably fucked at some point--she remembered lying next to him, and the light filtering through the trees, and the lingering hint of blackberries in her muzzle. His parents had the plants growing wild; even now Stef tended bushes in his garden...

Even now. The sense that her view of history might not be simple nostalgia was the feeling she'd never quite been able to shake, two years after coming back to Cannon Shoals and six after that godforsaken summer day when she'd run off because everything seemed broken and she didn't know how to fix it.

Stef wasn't completely happy with his marriage, and though Allison personally thought his wife was dumb as a fucking post she wasn't completely oblivious. She knew it was really Allie's idea to reunite the band, and maybe she knew that left to his own devices Stef would've agreed to go hiking in an instant.

Hiking or, probably, anything else.

His mom, Pamela, outright called the ocelot a 'bad influence.' Pam Kelly had been the one who told her he wasn't home when she called, until at last Allie stopped wasting her quarters in Cheyenne. And that was just because of the band, and his focus on music instead of college. She didn't know the rest of it.

Like the incident in the summer before 10th grade they'd gotten drunk off wine coolers and woken up two miles up Blackberry Creek in the state forest.

The late night he'd dared her to break into the junkyard, and she'd dared him right back to steal the pile of letters from the old Arctic Circle sign. He'd only been able to carry six, and they'd 'borrowed' her dad's pistol and shot them into pieces in the middle of the woods.

The overnight trip to Portland, where at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry she'd nipped his ear and told him she had a life sciences experiment of her own. Just dumb teasing--but that night in the hotel room their chaperone passed out a bit too hard, and Stef confirmed nearly all of her hypotheses...

The time they'd convinced Jamie Findlay, the skittish and quirky Border Collie girl who was now dating Allison's boss, to climb the KCNS-FM radio tower, and she'd somehow managed not to kill herself and they celebrated by getting stoned and taking Allie's Jeep up into the Martin-Barlow properties south of town where nobody would bother or chide or save them.

The first joint, which she'd scored off an older kid at Matthew Rex, and every one after that.

The brick they'd put through the window of the design studio that bought Roger Hall's apartment and hiked the rent until he had to move back in with his folks for a bit.

If Pam Kelly had been the swearing type, "don't let Allison Navarro fuck things up for you" would've been exactly how she phrased her opinion. But truthfully, Allison could still feel the brick's heft in her paw, and how good it had felt to hear the glass shatter, and the thing of it was...

She swung the Cherokee over to the side of the road and got out. It wasn't a valid parking spot, sure, but she was friends with most of the town cops and who gave a fuck, really?

The big steel bridge spanning the Neatasknea River's mouth had no pedestrian access; despite the lateness of the hour she didn't want to take her chances with a log truck, so she stayed at the northern edge of the bridge, lit a cigarette, and watched the light dim to nothing out on the Pacific.

The thing of it was Pam Kelly's wisdom, and Mary's, too. She wouldn't have been so defensive about it otherwise. "You doth protest too much," she told herself.

The silhouette of a lone fishing boat broke the ripples of dark water; the lights on its mast joined only so many stars. Which one? Her friend Ryan worked on a halibut boat--they were also just friends, and though probably it could've been more...

Why can't you finish the thought, huh? She hadn't let it become anything more because... because secretly you still think it's you and Stef. Not now, no, maybe not now. But fifty years from now, when they're writing your obituary, there it'll be. "Allison Kelly leaves behind..."

What? You know you didn't pick up bass guitar because you thought you needed a hobby. No? Tell me I'm wrong, Allie. Allison Gabriela Navarro, tell me I'm wrong. Say it. Say you'd go down to the dock right now and meet Ryan's boat coming in and ask him what he's doing this weekend. Go on.

"Really oughta give these up," she muttered to the nearly finished cigarette, and crushed it out beneath her boot.

Allison split the difference by not going straight home. Instead she went to Annie's, the dive bar on 2nd and Lincoln, halfway between the bridge and the harbor. The boat coming in didn't look anything like the Katie Coefeld, but who knew? Maybe Ryan would be there anyway.

He wasn't, though she knew the rest of the crowd almost as well. Yong Riley was chatting with Fitzgerald Butcher, probably about the ship they both worked on. Carl MacRory was watching Brit Kendrick and Eric Sutton play an awful game of pool. Dan Hayes and his partner Carlos Ortiz, occupying a booth against the wall, seemed to be engaged in some kind of heated argument.

Drifting closer on her way to the bar, the discussion proved to be about the most recent Star Wars movie--Allie never really heard them talking about police work the way that the fishermen went on about their jobs. Cannon Shoals was probably too boring for that.

She caught up with Shelly, the barkeep, until any more introspective thoughts had mostly vanished. Just like Annie's, Shel was timeless. The lioness had taken over from Annie in the long-distant past; she'd be around when the rest of Cannon Shoals crumbled into Neatasknea Bay.

An hour later, Allie heard rustling from one of the booths and turned to see that Carlos Ortiz had gotten up to leave. Danny thumped the coyote's shoulder and then, noticing that she was watching, waved Allison over. "Hey. Busy?"

The ocelot went to join him, taking his partner's vacated seat. "Nah. Yo, Danny."

"Yo. Ain't seen ya around for a bit."

She shrugged. "Trying to turn over a new leaf or something. I dunno."

"Really?" At least Danny was easy to read; the stoat wore his emotions on his sleeve and in his sharp-edged face. His question had been shot through with abundant skepticism. "So ya came to the bar 'cause..."

"Boredom?"

"That, an' something's on your mind. Out with it."

"I dunno."

"Out with it," he repeated with a groan. "Otherwise I'll get bored, too."

"Fine. I've been back here for almost two years, Danny. I don't know why. I don't know why I came. Not to the bar, I know that. The town, though--and I don't know why I stayed."

He took a long drink of the awful beer that, so far as she could tell, the stoat drank because he didn't care about that any more than he cared about anything else. "Okay."

"So what's the point?"

"What do you mean?" Allison blinked, and Danny pointed to her mostly full glass. "Keep drinking. It's good for you."

It wasn't. Then again, nothing special about that. He watched her carefully while she sipped at the pale, tasteless lager. "When I was out in Cheyenne... when I was gone, I never thought about coming back for... me, you know, Danny? Does that make sense?"

He shook his head.

"I didn't know if it was home or what. If you look at it, the Shoals is just some shitty dead-end town, you know? Why would I come back?"

"No offense taken, by the way."

"Do you take offense at anything?" The ocelot sighed into her beer, and took another drink. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I just mean that most people don't move here for work or anything. I figured things would be different than they are."

"You and that fox guy would get back together."

"We've been good, Dan. Nothing's happened. I just think it would take a little push..."

"So why don't you?" Rather than elaborating in response to her baffled expression, the stoat finished his beer and slipped from the booth to order another. A minute later he was back, thumping it down on the table and staring expectantly at her, for some reason. Like she'd been the one to say something dumb. "Well?"

"It doesn't work like that?"

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not a sociopath like you, Danny," she said; he wouldn't take offense at that either and she didn't bother to apologize for it. "He's married." He was still staring. "He's married, c'mon."

"So?"

The best way to think about the stoat, Allison decided, was that he had certain useful properties. He had never, to the best of her knowledge, attempted to dissuade her from anything stupid. He was not trying now. "Do you actually mean that? Haven't you thought about getting married?"

"Racket."

"What?"

Danny crossed his arms. "If the day you came back ya wound up talkin' to Alex Page, and he said: 'oh, since you been gone, Dan Hayes got hitched and moved out to Salmon Run; kid's on the way'--how the fuck hard would you have laughed?"

"Pretty hard," she admitted. "But I didn't ask if you'd got married, I asked if you considered it. Some people take it pretty seriously."

"Fewer than you'd think," the stoat answered immediately, and grinned the kind of odd, dangerous grin she wasn't on the wrong side of very often. "Look, Racket, it's pretty obvious, okay? You don't feel guilty about wanting the guy. You don't even feel guilty about not feeling guilty about it. So why the fuck are you dancin' around it?"

She couldn't help thinking about what he'd said to her. "He asked me not to fuck things up for him."

"Let me get this straight, then." He leaned back against the wall, staring the ocelot down across the table and his long torso. "He wants you to be his conscience. And you want me to be yours?"

"Not exactly."

"Because it sounds like he needs you to play nice so he has an excuse. And it sounds like you're expectin' me to go all Jiminy Cricket, like 'if you can't say anythin' nice...'"

"That isn't even the right movie. I--"

"Later, Disney princess. Just say what ya goddamn mean, okay?"

Maybe he had been right about the beer. Weak as it was, polishing her glass off seemed to help things a little. "I want to get back together with him. But I don't want it to be selfish... I mean, obviously he's better for me than... what I have, which is nobody? But I don't want to be worse for him than she is. I want the happy ending, Dan."

"Okay," he said. "Now you're being honest, at least. Just dumb."

Allie sighed. "Thanks. Look, I need to get some fresh air. You in?"

"Sure. Seats are kinda shitty anyway." He got up with her, and held the door to the comfortable, lazy late-spring night. "You need fresh air, or the complete goddamn opposite? Yeah, that's what I thought."

Guilty as charged, she fished out her lighter, tapped a cigarette free, and waited for it to catch. "Another bad habit, I guess. You don't smoke, do you?"

Danny, relaxing against the sign that reminded them smoking was prohibited within ten feet of the entrance, shook his head affably. "Nah. Don't do drugs. I mean, I'm a cop." He paused before grinning. "They don't pay me enough to buy 'em."

"Evidence locker?"

"Yeah, five pounds of shitty homegrown weed? Sign me the fuck up. For real, I dunno; don't like drugs."

Allison took a slow drag on the cigarette, eyes going crossed and unfocused to watch the fuzzy glow steadily brighten. She reached out and took her beer back from him. "Ain't I seen your apartment a couple weeks back and your fridge was a case of stout and half a spice cake?"

"Beer isn't really a drug," he said, which mostly meant that he was making up his own rules again. "Besides, I probably had some eggs and ramen and shit."

"How are you and the dog girl getting on? Don't give me that look, Danny. You're good enough for spice cake," she pointed out. "So you can't be nothing."

"Pretty much. You know I got friends I don't fuck, right? Or were you just waiting your turn?" His eyebrows arched with the mocking glare he must've been practicing for the better part of three decades. "Don't answer. Look, Racket, d'you want me to tell ya to steal Stef from his bitch or what?"

"Danny." She fidgeted, twisting the lit cigarette between her fingers. "Danny, something has to fucking matter."

"No it doesn't."

"Yes," she insisted. "It does. I can't just... I can't do that just because it... it would feel good. We're supposed to be better than that. That's what animals do."

The weasel's laugh was short and harsh. "Get over yourself, Racket."

"Christ, Danny, what now?" She liked the stoat, but fuck, he could be an asshole when he wanted.

"You're mixin' up instinct and purpose. Animals don't think about anything. They don't got to; it's all biology and shit. I mean, we got biology, too, but you can do somethin' 'cause you want to. I want to go home and play video games--ain't 'cause my hormones are wired that way, and sure as fuck ain't 'cause that's some master goddamn plan."

"So why not just... bust into the Wal-Mart and steal a new television?"

"'Cause I'd get arrested, and I'd rather not be arrested. Morality didn't come on no tablets, Racket. Just convenient, that's all."

"Convenient?" She finished her cigarette, pulled out the pack to mull a second one, and let better nature replace the Marlboros in her purse. "How do you figure?"

"Isn't it? We got a social contract. People play by the rules 'cause they want to, and they want to 'cause it does right by 'em."

"That's all it is?"

"Mmhm. We got a system where I don't get to break into stores, and other people don't get to break into my apartment. And you know what? On balance it works out best for most people that we ain't gotta sit behind the door with a shotgun. Most people. Not all. Some homeless guy liftin' a pack of Twizzlers an' a 40 from Riggs' store 'cause he can't afford food probably don't feel like it's so immoral, does he?"

"No. Of course not." She didn't bother to say that she spoke from experience. She did, however, light another cigarette. "So as far as you're concerned, there's no plan. No bigger story, no greater purpose... does that not bother you?"

"Fuck no. Do you realize how fuckin' awful that would be?"

"I guess not. How awful would it be?"

"You ever watch one of those horror movies, Racket? Like there's that dumb police fuck or whatever who doesn't believe there's really a monster, and the whole time you're thinkin' 'don't be such a dipshit, asshole' and they do anyway? And then they get killed?"

"Yeah? I don't know where you're going with this, Danny."

"Why do you think they act so goddamn retarded?"

Slightly frustrated, the ocelot sighed and worked through another quarter of the cigarette. "Beats me. They're... blinded by their worldview, I guess. They have some comfort zone they can't get out of."

"No. They do it 'cause they don't exist. They're just characters. Somebody made them, and they're just doin' what that prick wants. That's what having a purpose means, Racket."

She was not willing to concede the point. "I don't know that I entirely agree with that. Maybe our purpose is just... I don't know. Maybe it's..."

He was staring at her fiercely. "You want that gamble? You want to gamble your purpose ain't just gettin' killed offscreen in the second act? Ya gotta live a life you're happy with. You. 'Cause Racket, tell ya what. If we got an actual purpose--one we didn't make ourselves--none of this shit matters. We're all just characters, this fuckin' town's just a goddamn prop, and Stef's marriage is just a plot device. I don't buy that."

"So just... do whatever I feel like?"

"At least stop kicking yourself for feeling like it. Don't change shit, anyway. Or take the other option, which is to just fuckin' enjoy yourself--not like he's the only fish in the sea."

"If all I wanted was settling down, Danny, I wouldn't do it here. Sacramento, Portland, Boise... Prospects are a lot better."

"Don't have to be marriage. Not like I'm saying gettin' laid would fix all yer problems, Racket, but maybe it'd calm ya down at least."

"Does it calm you down?"

Danny snorted, and swigged the last of his beer. "Me? Fuck, yeah. I'm a goddamn zen monk. Why do you think I'm so good at advice?"

He didn't want to get another drink, and on balance the ocelot figured she could do without it, too. She thanked him for his pearls of uncouth wisdom, and promised to catch up with him more often--and walked home, turning over what he'd said.

Allison couldn't quite bring herself to accept the stoat's worldview. On the other hand, she had nothing to counter it with. Except, possibly, the sense that it was largely self-serving for Danny. And that didn't help, because she was doing the same thing when you got down to it.

Just enough better judgment kept her from going back to Annie's for a second helping of advice after work the following day. She wanted company, though, and the Stef situation was still a live wire. That put her at the Chain and Capstan, which like all of Cannon Shoals' bars was on the way home if you decided it was.

Caps did have some differences. Annie's was a dive, and Shelly had a habit of tossing foreigners out if they were too dumb to make the decision on their own. Caps was right off US-101, close to one of the nicer hotels, and got some tourists in now and then. It also had a theme, if 'shitty fake-pub' counted for a theme.

And there was live music.

Allie didn't know anyone in the Unindicted Co-Conspirators directly; they were a few years younger than her and the band had sprung up while she was in Wyoming. The Chain and Capstan was also their only venue.

Quarantine would've been a more appropriate word. Their treatment of Led Zeppelin was more well-intentioned than talented, and more boisterous than either. She watched with some bemusement as the set finished, and was not entirely surprised to find she'd gone through a drink and a half.

At least they looked like they were having fun. She put $1.43 in loose change in the straw fedora that got passed around, and when one of them wandered over to the bar and pointed to the empty stool next to her, she made room. "Well, what do you think?"

She thought the deer--their drummer--was smart enough to be joking. "Better than the original," she said.

His grin confirmed her suspicions. "We have a CD if you want it."

"That's... alright. I only listen to vinyl. Does anybody call you on that bluff?"

"Not really. They don't call us anything. What about you, huh? What do you get called?" He leaned against the bar, resting the elbow of a nicely muscled arm on it, and waited expectantly for her reply.

"Allie."

"Nice. I'm Jessie. Thanks for coming to our show, Allie."

"Don't mention it. Is this a regular thing for you? I stopped by maybe three months back and you guys were on."

The deer laughed. "What's a 'regular thing,' anyway? We're here all the time. The Unindicted Co-Conspirators aren't a thing, like, like we'd get signed or anything. It's just fun. Don't you hang out with Steffan and Roger? I think I remember you guys from high school."

"Yeah."

"So it's like that. He thought about coming down here? It's not like the money's great, but what else are ya gonna do..."

"They're still pretty rusty."

But the deer just laughed again, louder. "You heard us play. I heard a rumor that it's kind of a hobby to get stoned and come make fun of us. Hey, I don't blame anybody."

Allie liked him. He had a good sense of humor, and a good smile to go with it. She let the deer pick up the next round of drinks, pointing out that she'd already kind of paid for one. Snickering, Jessie retorted that charity didn't count.

When the drinks arrived, he explained the origins of the Unindicted Co-Conspirators: inspired, he averred, by the Knot-Bumpers, "but without all the... ambition and skill." It was entirely a hobby, and a secondary one at that--the gang was principally a bowling group, but the nearest alley was up the coast and that limited the drinking they could do there.

And they wound their way through the routine of small-talk. He was the oldest kid in his family, his kid brother played football and thought he could make something of it, his parents were fairly new to the Shoals but it was the only home he'd ever known.

"Same," the ocelot said with a nod. "I guess the 80s were a good time."

"That's what pop says. Unless he's just nostalgic for the music."

"Let me guess, he's one of the Martin-Barlow crew?"

"Yep. He's a lumberjack and he's... more okay than he was before they reopened. Is that your calling? No, you work at..." He looked at her, biting his lip and trying to recall. "The marine supply? You were class of... hm..."

She held up her paw, waving it to silence him. "Don't do the small-town, everybody-knows-everybody guessing game. I graduated in 2007, but then I left for a few years. Yeah--'you came back?' I know, I know."

"No, I did too."

"You did?"

The way Jessie smiled, she figured the deer heard it about as often as she did. "Oh, yeah. I moved to San Francisco after high school... figured that it would be easier to find work there."

"What do you do?"

"Screw around with electronics, I suppose, ever since AV club at Matty Rex. I had a job at a company that refurbished soda machines. Started out cleaning them, then... worked my way up. Wasn't bad, really."

"Something brought you home?"

"They were paying me about two grand after taxes. My apartment was twelve hundred... then it was sixteen hundred... then I moved to Oakland...Eventually you realize you're spending ten dollars and a nickel for every ten dollars you're making. When the company folded, I didn't really have any choice but moving back home."

"Shit, man..."

He gave one of those helpless, what-can-you-do shrugs that suggested he'd made peace with it. "Whatever. My friend said the workspace is a studio now. It's kinda funny, you'd still find these oldtimers who'd talk about how Dogpatch is so shitty and run-down. Nah. World moved on. Like it did up here, and we don't even got anything like Dogpatch. My buddy Sean keeps saying he'll try to get me at least a few hours at Whitewater, but, well... been two years. Plus his girlfriend is full-time there now."

"That's the DSL company, right?"

"Yup." Jessie twirled his glass around slowly, as if to see how much of the jack and coke was left. The leftover ice cubes had the unsettling clink of rattled handcuffs. "It goes, like... there's water. And blood is thicker than water. I think friendship is thicker than blood. And if you're a dog, well, knots are even..." He caught himself. "Sorry, didn't mean to be rude."

"Whatevs." She raised her head to catch the bartender's eye, and gestured between their two empty drinks. "So what do you do now?"

"Polish up my Grammy speech," he joked, adding the winking self-deprecation that gave any bitterness plausible deniability. "Nah, I run errands. It isn't bad. Were you here when the mill shut down?"

"No. I heard some stuff on the news, but..."

Jessie shook his head in a slow, dramatic toss. "Woof. So here's my timeline, okay? I moved back in March. 2014. Got a job as a janitor at the IGA in April--ten hours a week. No big deal, 'cause it's a temporary thing: cousin says his boss is looking to hire up in Oak Valley. I finally get an interview in July. This guy--down to earth guy, real cool and all--says 'come back next week and we'll sign the papers.' Next week, they shut everything down. Oh well."

"Ugh." It was all she really knew to say. Danny had talked about the riots, too, but then his perspective was a bit different. He was a cop, after all. And a sociopath.

"It was really shitty here for a while. But, I mean... you know, whatever, right? The mill's running again. I work for Gary Pierce, down at the parts co-op, picking up stuff and making deliveries... it's not union or anything, but it's steady. Got my own place finally. You?"

"The Beachcomb-Inn, the hotel."

"You stay there?"

She rolled her eyes. "I work there."

The bartender came back with their drinks; Jessie lifted his for a toast. "To getting by, then, huh?"

"Oh, yeah."

"What's your story, though?"

With the live show finished, Caps had switched to the radio. She had to contend with Blondie, drizzled through the old speakers. Seemed like the real thing, but I was so blind... "Eh," she said, noncommittally.

"Oh, c'mon. It's your turn."

Love is so confusing, there's no peace of mind. "When my dad remarried, his wife kicked me out. I didn't have anywhere to go. I had a part-time job at Jim Riggs' gas station, but not enough for rent, even out here. So I got in my truck and headed as far away as I could get."

"Where was that?"

Phrasing things in terms of her dad and stepmother--she hadn't said more than a sentence to either of them since returning--kept things easy. "Cheyenne, Wyoming, when I ran out of gas money. I found work at a truck stop... which wasn't really any different than working for Riggs. My friend says it, yanno? Pluska change."

"Saw."

"Saw what?"

"Plus ça change. It's French. Didn't you take French? I thought everybody took French at Rex because Chuck Wendell was so cute. Didn't you?"

"Well, yeah, of course. Sure, he's cute; he's an otter. But I took Spanish, anyway."

"Don Shavers?"

She shrugged. "I wasn't a good student. We spoke Spanish at home, so like... it was easier for me. You thought Chuck was cute?" Cannon Shoals tended to look down on anyone who didn't work at the mill or the docks. Chuck and his wife Jenny, who ran a knick-knack store, were the exception that proved the rule.

No doubt partly it was their long history in the town; they were third-generation Shoalies. And partly it was because there had to be some eccentrics around. Even if most of them escaped to San Francisco. She wondered if that destination was itself telling, but Jessie's shrug said otherwise. "Objectively. Maybe if I was a girl it'd be different. So what was Cheyenne like?"

"Cold, but other than that okay. It was funny, I guess. I roomed with this girl, and we used to talk about going to Denver, instead? It was close, right? But for some reason we never made it. We spent a year in a shitty SRO, every fucking week going: this is when we're gonna move. Nope. Then we got a real apartment, and ran out of good reasons to leave."

"So why did you?"

"Lara got comfortable... but me, I wanted to do somethin' else." She'd been a shift manager at the truck stop by then, with a little bit of money scraped together. Stef still wasn't answering her calls. After two years in Wyoming, she didn't see things changing for the better. "We kinda wound up breaking up."

"Oh. Wait, so you're... uh..."

Now it was her turn; the irony wasn't lost on her. "No. I dunno what I am. I dated a girl in Sacramento, too, but... it... didn't work out." There had been, if the ocelot condemned herself to self-reflection, a lot of those problems. 'Irreconcilable differences,' as mom's lawyer put it to her dad, and as her dad's new lover was too dumb to put it to Allie.

Jessie took it in stride. "Sacramento, and then here?"

"Yep, two years, then I came back here in October 2015. During that big storm, which should've been an omen or something, if I believed in those."

Fortunately, he didn't think of asking her what she did believe in. His mind was on other things, and though the conversation wandered for another round of drinks and another twenty minutes of sizing each other up her thoughts were headed in the same direction. At last, closing the tab, he asked if she wanted to get out of here.

So they wound up outside, and when she tapped a cigarette from her pack Jessie bummed one off her, muttering about how he'd given them up but it didn't really count if they weren't his and she laughed with him. "Sure. Whatevs. I won't judge your bad habits."

"Thanks. Uh. I'd invite you to my place, but it's nothing special. I got a television, I guess?"

"Did you actually want to watch television?"

"Not really."

She laughed again; it would've been easy even without a few drinks. He seemed to draw it out of her. "I didn't think so. 'Shitty satellite reception and chill' doesn't sound right."

The deer checked to make sure his van was locked and left it in Caps' parking lot for the next morning. He lived on 4th and McKinley--all of five blocks away. It required crossing 101, and though there wasn't any traffic he dared her to race across the highway anyway, like they were back in junior high school.

She did, of course. And she appreciated how he stayed on Adams Street all the way to 4th; most of the places on Adams, at least, were still in business. Down on McKinley, for example, was Mercado's video store--not only was it closed, but nobody'd even had enough interest in the real estate to take down the logo. As though Tommy Mercado might just show up and flick the neon sign on and they could go rent Titanic and stay up until 2 in the morning and talk about everything would be like when they were out in the world, grown up, finding adventure...

"Here we are. Like I said, nothing special..."

"You got a house and everything, though," the ocelot countered. "So you're doing better than me."

It wasn't a big house, and not all that impressive. Plus, he explained, he was renting. The local credit union wasn't about to help a delivery driver get a mortgage. This, like more than a few in Cannon Shoals, was owned by out-of-towners who'd picked up the properties as investments.

"Don't sell it short," Allie said. "It's cozy."

"Yeah." Jessie kicked his boots off and nudged them in the direction of a rack by the door, then headed off further inside. "You want another drink? I got Kahlua, if you'll take a white russian made with 2%."

"That's fine."

She removed her own shoes and took a seat on his couch, 70s-vintage plaid and entirely at odds with the worn leather easy chair next to it. He'd obviously made do with what he could. Jessie joined her and put two glasses on the coffee table, drafting Car & Driver into service as a coaster. "So, uh..."

"Mm?"

"So I've... actually got Netflix, if you want the full experience. But we can only watch for like twenty minutes."

She took a sip of the white russian and gave him a wry smile. "Is all your foreplay like that?"

"Nah. The home Internet's too slow, so I gotta use my phone and I don't have a lot of data left. But if you want..."

"It's okay." Allison had already decided where the rest of the night was going to go. She pushed herself up on the sofa, leaning back and against the deer's side. "What's on the actual television?"

He thumbed the remote, and the TV came up on the opening minutes of one of the newer superhero movies. Stuff like that had never interested her--more Danny and Sam Benson's territory--but it seemed mindless enough for white noise. "It's crazy," Jessie said.

"What is?" She craned her head to look up at him, upside-down.

The deer put an arm around her obligingly and gestured with his other paw towards the screen. "I read in a magazine that they don't even... like this... um, whatever this is, this alien planet or something. It's not real."

"Of course not."

He tilted his head down with a pained stare. "I mean there's no set. It's just a big green room. They do it all with computers. That's the crazy thing. Can you imagine getting paid twenty million bucks to stand in a green room and pretend it's Mars or something?"

"Must be hard, though; that's why they pay them so much."

"I guess." On the television, one of the actors was thrown up against a wall and knocked a hole clean through it. "That would hurt, you know?"

"For me..." She laughed at the ridiculousness of her own thoughts, but kept talking. "For me, sometimes I'm at this point where... I see that and I think... fuck, that's gonna be such a pain to clean up. Maintenance is gonna have to come in. They're gonna have to shut off the water... everybody else in that office is gonna be so pissed 'cause the bathrooms don't work and the power tools are makin' noise..."

"Fair point," Jessie said. "I bet it's expensive. They can't have insurance."

"Nah."

"Show up at State Farm in your best costume, like, 'hey I need liability that covers ramming a robot tank off the road into a gas station. So basically I need liability for gas stations, too.'"

Allison giggled at the mental image. "'What kind of vehicle, sir?' 'Uh, it's a loaded 2016 Batmobile.'"

"'Are you the only registered owner?' 'Oh, that's a secret.' You know--fuck, you know what? You know he gets a low-mileage discount. I gotta use my van for the deliveries and the insurance company got all on my case about that..."

"The deductible is still a killer. Plus, he's got parking, and that's gotta be tough in the big city."

"You think? Because if I was a meter maid, I wouldn't ticket him."

She pondered it, and while she pondered she wriggled closer to the buck. He was nice, and warm, and the silly conversation was a good distraction. "True. that would suck. I bet it always happens at the end of your shift, when your feet are tired and you want to go home and there's, like, Batman. With an expired meter."

"And you're below quota, so you gotta write the ticket, but you know he's gonna--or like--he comes out of this smashed fuckin' bank, draggin' Magneto behind him in handcuffs, like... 'I'm only two minutes over!'"

"You know it's been at least thirty."

"Oh, I know," the deer agreed. "I bet he doesn't tip, either. I bet Alfred didn't teach him that. I bet--"

"Jessie."

"What?"

"Kiss me."

"You're upside-down."

The ocelot twisted herself around with moderate grace, rolling halfway onto his chest. He ducked his head down and did as she'd asked. And then, that hurdle being crossed, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled the ocelot close.

His muzzle tasted like white russian--hers did too she was sure--but it only mattered until they were both drunk on each other, instead. Things started happening out of order. Jessie stabbed the remote until the television turned off. Her shirt was gone. His fingers pushed into her fur until his paw was at her chest and he squeezed her, his weight pinning her against the back of the sofa as she squirmed and arched.

He'd lost his shirt, too. Fuck, he had a good body. She'd picked well. Was it her pick? Maybe it had been his idea? Maybe--and then his lips were fierce and hot and tight on hers, and their tongues met and she moaned gratefully, deciding it could all be figured out later.

How later, she didn't really know. She didn't even know how much later it was when, panting, he paused with his fingers halfway inside her jeans and asked if they might, perhaps, retire to the bedroom. That was the gist, anyway--shouldbedroom was the actual phrase.

"Mm?"

"'Cause--it's--got a bed." They were both pretty out of breath.

"Yeah?"

"An' my condoms."

"Yeah?"

"Mmhm."

She got up, if a little reluctantly--like there was some delay between her mind telling her limbs to work and their obedience--so that he could stand. "Go on," she said. On second thought, she hooked her finger into his belt. "Wait. This? All the way off. I want to see what I'm getting."

Jessie turned around, eyes dancing with a knowing smirk. The buck slipped his belt open, shoving his jeans and boxers down with the ease of someone who knew showing off wouldn't take much work. The short, white fur of his chest and belly formed a perfect line down to his crotch, pointed right to the proud crimson of his tapered cock. "And?"

Allison let herself stare--what was the harm?--and then raised her paw, pointing sharply to the open bedroom door behind him. He grinned, and his short tail lifted and flicked when she smacked his rear to hurry him along. She paused to shimmy out of the rest of her own clothes, making the best time she could despite a momentary distraction when she heard the squeak of yielding bedsprings.

He was on his back, looking at her, when she made her way to the doorframe. The ocelot nodded questioningly to the lightswitch, but he shook his head. "No fuckin' way. You're too hot for that." His expression said the same thing: lust sharpened his hungry gaze as his eyes swept her.

It was one more step she was happy enough to skip. She pounced onto the bed, and the springs yelped again despite the lightness of the ocelot's build. Allison crawled up to him, and seized his muzzle in an approving kiss.

"Sh...mmf. Shoulda said I wanted to see what I was getting." The buck's realization, forced breathily through shallow panting, came with a grin that she couldn't help blanketing in another kiss. "Too distracted to be clever..."

"Oh, are your thoughts... elsewhere?" Allie put her paw on his chest, using it to steady herself as she swung her leg over his to straddle him--not without difficulty, considering his size.

She didn't have to do much. Jessie's cock was already there, its hard warmth throbbing against the spotted fur of her thigh. One careful wriggle pushed him up further, nuzzling her soaking pussy, and she settled down onto him.

He entered her easily, the pointed head of his shaft working smoothly between her lips and spreading her open. Allie took her time, increasingly grateful for it as he sank deeper and deeper. Her eyes shut and she gasped, feeling his heat force its stretching, filling path inside her.

Finally she was resting on him, with the buck's entire length hilted, and she opened her eyes at the sound of his groaning to find his face clouded with pleasure. Heavy pressure bumped softly against her rump before tightening--he was squeezing her, his fingers radiating pleasant warmth into her rear.

Allison rocked her hips hesitantly back and forth. His cock tugged at her, pushing against her walls and sending little jolts rippling through the ocelot that curled her tail and flattened her ears.

She raised herself at last, until only an inch of the deer's glorious shaft was still inside. Enough to tease her, but even as she thought that the ocelot decided she was done with teasing--sliding down swiftly to fill herself with him. Jessie groaned again, and clutched her hips with both paws, guiding the feline as she started to ride him in earnest.

Allie gave up on pacing herself within a dozen strokes. Kneading her fingers into his nice, broad chest for leverage she pumped her hips in a quick, purposeful rhythm. "Jessie..." When she moaned his name the buck's hips lifted, and as she ground against him a delicious tingle raced through her nerves before fading.

He was so big, so deep and hot in her... and so totally hers, his nice, strong body beneath her completely the ocelot's own. A purr bubbled up into her throat, spilling between the sharp fangs of her open, blissful grin. He groped her, and she thrilled as his fingers found their way through her spots.

Her hips worked faster, stroking his slick warmth against her clit with every thrust. The tingling pressure ebbed less and less each time. Then it stopped receding at all--just kept building, stronger and stronger. Allie bucked on him heedlessly. She rode him hard, losing control, starting to cry out...

Climax didn't hit so much as engulf the ocelot, crashing against her and twisting her senses up into something white-hot and charged like an electric fence. Allison shoved her head against his shoulder and squealed as it surged through her, rolling into her quaking frame and leaving behind a buzzing, twitching tangle of nerves.

"Fuck, Jessie... oh, fuck that was good..."

"For real... you're goddamn amazing..." She kissed his broad, soft nose in thanks. She'd needed the release more than she realized... not that it had been that long, but he'd been satisfyingly intense.

And still hard--his breath hissed when she wiggled her hips and he bobbed and twitched inside her. Fuck, there's something to be said for skipping knots. Unless... "Did you cum, babe?"

He shook his head. "No. Was pretty close, but you got a little... crazy."

"Did I claw you?"

"Didn't break the skin."

Allie nosed her way into a kiss, holding it until she was trembling. "We should get you off."

"Probably won't... take much," he admitted.

At first that was alright: she thought she might be too sensitive for much else. But as she lifted her hips up and his shaft slipped free the first thing she felt was disappointment and then a giddy sense of anticipation at knowing she could have him again--would have him again--and was already purring huskily into his ear. "Ready?"

"You want to get on your hands and knees first?"

"Are you asking or telling, Jessie?"

He grunted at the pressure of feline teeth on his ear. "Get up and bend over right goddamned now."

The way the last words ran together did the trick for her, that obvious need in the buck's voice that kept him all curt and tense. Allie pulled off him, settling on all fours obligingly. Biting her tongue; holding her breath as he sat up behind behind her.

He pushed inside hard, quick, and all-at-once. She mewled gratefully at the sharp penetration and before the last of it was out Jessie had started thrusting in earnest. "Allie... oh, that's good... your pussy feels so good..."

And he was slamming himself into it like he meant every word. Allison groaned and pawed at the bedsheets, trying to push back into his relentless, eager pounding. She had a new appreciation for his strength, the power he'd kept decently harnessed when she was riding him, when she was taking him for all she was worth...

Now he was giving it back in spades. Fucking her--pure, raw energy in every plunge that forced that long, pulsing, gloriously warm cock into her eager cunt. Holding nothing back, he rutted an evening's worth of lust into the spotted cat. His paw swatted her lashing tail--then grabbed for it, right near the base, pulling her into him as he fucked her deep and hard.

He might well just have been using her for the restraint he showed and as the notion occurred to her the ocelot found she loved it. She loved the thought of his desire taking over, the way he hilted into her so forcefully in his powerful need. The twinges of her own release were starting to pulse, too.

She dropped onto one shoulder to rub at her clit, helping it along. Her head jammed into the mattress, filling one ear with the wailing of the bed's futile protests. The squeaking of abused springs grew faster and faster before becoming erratic; she could hear it even over her panting, and the buck's urgent groans. He was close, she knew it, and the impulse to join him was demanding as hell.

Jessie grunted, and abruptly his thrusting changed into sharp, ramming strokes. Three of them, each pushing him a little deeper. On the third both his paws grabbed at her haunches and a shudder started in his fingers as he held her close.

His cock swelled and jumped in her waiting cunt. The feeling of him throbbing, cumming deep inside her, swept the last resistance to the ocelot's own peak away. Gentler than the first, subtler, but more than enough to draw a gusty moan at the pleasure rolling through her.

The buck gasped at the sudden, clenching pressure, jolting into her with a fresh, hammering thrust. And until she came down Allie was aware of every quiver in their shared climax, every spasm that gripped his cock and magnified the rhythm of its jerking pulses as his warm, sticky load filled the condom.

He stayed behind her for half a minute, torn between wordless grunts and heavy panting. When he withdrew, it was as if he'd been the last thing keeping her upright--she sagged, sprawling onto the well-messed bed. She dimly processed the sound of him getting up, then returning...

Then the warmth of his lips on the back of her ear, which gave her enough strength to roll drunkenly over and face him. Jessie looked at her expression, grinned, and nodded. "Agreed."

"Mmf."

He read between the lines and joined her back in bed. His arms encircled her, and he nuzzled her ear. "Remember how I said you were amazing..."

"Yeh."

"You were really fucking amazing."

Allison mustered up the willpower to kiss the side of his nose. "Speak for yourself. Oh, God, your cock..."

"Is worn out. Like me. Like you. Now, maybe if..."

The last of his sentence fell on deaf, drained ears.

Morning light roused her. The 1462nd Saturday of her existence began in soft yellow, and the hiss of running water, and the smell of breakfast cooking. Allison couldn't find where her clothes had gone. Instead she borrowed one of Jessie's shirts. It came down to her thighs, and the faded artwork advertised a band and concert she'd never heard of, but it smelled clean and that would have to do.

The deer grinned, waving at her when he saw the ocelot in the doorframe of his kitchen. "Oh, hey. I didn't want to wake you up. You sleep okay?"

"Mm-hm."

He abandoned what he was doing and crossed the kitchen to join her. "Interesting fashion statement, though. I didn't fancy you a fan of Esri."

"Never heard 'em. I just couldn't find my shirt." She weighed how bad her morning breath was liable to be, brushed it off, and let the buck kiss her when he leaned down for it. His arms felt as good around her as they had the night before. "Hope you don't mind?"

"No. Your shirt's in the living room. Where you left it."

"Did I? I guess I did."

"Mm-hm." Jessie let her go so he could attend to his work. "I'm making breakfast. Or, rather, the machine is. You put stuff in it and you get, like, a breakfast sandwich. It's sort of like McDonald's without having to drive all the way to Newport."

"There's a sales pitch for you..."

"Well, food's food, though."

He'd made a fruit salad, too: pineapple chunks, and grapes, and the military-grade kiwifruit the IGA sometimes subjected its customers to. No fresh berries. It didn't taste like much, but she appreciated the effort.

"If you want to stick around, that's cool. If you don't..."

"I work in a few hours. I guess the co-op is closed today, huh?"

"Yeah. Well, it isn't closed, but we don't make deliveries on the weekends, so I don't have anything to do." The way he said it, except maybe you was pretty clear. They wound up taking a shower, sort of. And when she made to leave the first time, her paw was on the door knob when his arms slipped around her, and she felt his bulge pushing against her rear, and her jeans were in an untidy heap fifteen seconds later.

"Call me," he panted into the ocelot's ear, when she gathered together enough responsible impulses to extract herself. On the walk to her home, she went from thinking about turning right back around to thinking she would at least call him to wondering what the fuck she'd even done.

At some level it was obvious. They had some rapport. Not just in bed, either--though fuck, but he'd been satisfying. Simplicity itself. A good time, and... well, why not something more? She could stick around, watch his band instead of Stef's... hell, move in with Jessie, and develop a taste for ersatz McMuffins.

That was, at least, the premonition that flashed through her thoughts.

Back in her apartment, a second shower and fresh clothes made her feel more presentable, although not appreciably more settled. It wasn't worth asking Danny for advice; she already knew what he'd say. Did you enjoy it? Yes. So then, what's the problem?

She'd explain that it just wasn't the same thing, and maybe he'd even understand what had her so terrified. Maybe she could get him to understand how clearly she saw herself, five years older, waxing effusive about some gimmick sandwich machine.

It was just that he'd throw that back in her face, too. Sounds like ya already know the answer, Racket. Knowing and being willing to confront it were two very different things.

Allison wound up at the Beachcomb-Inn early. Not that they had shifts, really, but she'd told Zach she would be there "by" ten, and given that it was still fifteen minutes away she lit a cigarette and took a seat on the curb, still cool despite the midmorning sun.

Zach joined her a minute later; he must've seen her making her way up the sidewalk. "Morning, Allie. You okay?"

"I think I might leave." She got the words out as quickly as she could; the rest of the explanation might come later, but it needed to be out in the open before she lost her nerve.

Zach didn't seem to be all that shocked. There was no gasp, no tense surprise in his features. The red squirrel sat down in front of her, leaning back on his paws with the fingers spread against the warming asphalt. "Soon?"

"Ish, yeah. I'll tell you first before I actually hit the road. I think I can do that."

"You think?"

She didn't want to overpromise, that was all. "I'm bad tying up loose ends. But I want to be better. I really do."

"Well, I kind of knew you were a wanderer when I asked dad to let me hire you, so it's not... don't take that the wrong way, though? It's not like I wouldn't miss you. I don't have a replacement or anything."

"What about Joan?" Zach's girlfriend spent a fair amount of her free time hanging out at the hotel anyway. So near as Allie could tell, the Border Collie was--at best--always between odd jobs.

"We've talked about it, but it's not great for her. The details are..." He shrugged awkwardly. "Do you have something else lined up already?"

"No. I probably wouldn't go back east. I might try Washington, though, or even Portland or something. Or Sacramento, that'd be easiest. I'll look into things a bit more, but I wanted you to know, okay? I didn't want to be able to just... fuck off and vanish."

"Appreciated." He watched her smoke the cigarette down, and she could see him trying to figure out the best way to ask his question--his lip twitching; his bushy tail curling around him. "Can I... did something happen?"

"The opposite."

"You and Stef, huh?"

She tapped the last cigarette free sharply and crumpled the empty pack into a tight ball. "I'm gonna make a mistake if I stick around." Unlike Danny, Zach didn't say anything to challenge her. No glare, no derisive comeback. She had to choose to keep explaining on her own. "This whole thing kind of didn't work out."

"In what way?"

"I fucked it up. You know? This?" She held up the cigarette, shook her head, and lit it anyway. "Didn't give this up. Didn't get outta Riggs' place. Can't... can't make peace with Steffan. I thought I could. I honest to God thought I could, Zach."

"You had a pretty good run, though, if you think about it, right? It's almost been two years. You should know by now if it's not going to work out."

"That's kind of what I'm worried about. I haven't stayed in one place for more than two years since I left... part of me hoped it wasn't going to become a pattern. Maybe the next time, though, right? Maybe Sacramento will do it. Or Seattle, yeah, I was kind of thinking Seattle..."

"When do you figure you'll know?"

Having it out in the open took a load off her shoulders. "Soon. I'll get things together here first. I'm serious, I will tell you. Won't just vanish."

Zach pushed himself upright, and gave her a friendly smile. "I trust ya, Allie. And hey, actually. It's a light day, okay? Not going to get many people on Sunday morning... if you've got stuff to take care of..."

"Don't want to leave you hanging."

The squirrel grinned, genuine enough--but dry. "Shouldn't I get used to working alone?"

Even just telling him about her intentions made things easier. She checked her bank account, and looked over the folder of receipts she kept for the Jeep. It was in good shape. A lot of things were in good shape.

Just not her.

It would be best to get the hard part over first; she practiced what she'd say, trying one variation after another. The walk ended before she'd found one she liked, but Allison felt that she was committed.

She knocked sharply, and a few seconds later heard Steffan muttering behind the door--hold on, hold on. When he opened it, the fox's head tilted sharply. "Oh--uh, hi?"

"Hey, Stef."

"Sorry, I was working out back in the garden. I didn't know you were coming over."

"I didn't tell you." He could sense something was up, and stepped back from the door to let her in. She got two feet into the foyer before halting. "Actually... no, it's fine. I'm not gonna be long."

"Something the matter?"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for not listening to you, and... well. Everything."

Stef was treading carefully. "You don't have to apologize."

"But I want to. And I wanted to say that I'm, ah... I'm gonna leave town again. I'm not going to disappear this time. You've got my number, so... so there's that... and I'll visit and stuff."

His head slowly straightened; he swallowed, and Allison found herself wondering how long he'd known it was coming--how long he'd known it was the only real outcome since the day she'd been back. He needed to ask 'where to,' or 'when'--but instead, swallowing a second time, he went with: "Why?"

In some alternate universe, the ocelot and the fox were up on stage, reading prewritten lines and working through predetermined emotions; living up to their purpose. The lights dimmed. "Cannon Shoals isn't the right place for me. I've still got friends in Sacramento and I think I can get a new job at my old company... I left on pretty good terms. The weather's not great, and the rent's not cheap, but I think I can make a go out of it."

In the real world she had said nothing. Stef coughed. "I mean. Well. Why now?"

"Cannon Shoals isn't the right place for me. I've still got--"

"That's not... I didn't--the day before yesterday, I--I was just stressed. I didn't mean to make it sound like... that."

Her muzzle worked for a few more seconds. "If I stay, I am gonna fuck things up, Stef. I got the wrong priorities I guess somewhere--I gotta figure it out and this isn't the place for it."

"You're not happy here."

"It isn't even that. I want it to be. I haven't stayed more than two years in one place since I got kicked out, Stef, and I--I want it to be like I'm just unhappy or something, but I'm not. I'm happy."

"If you're happy, you don't have to go anywhere. I can..."

"I dunno what I thought was going to happen when I came back. It's not about you, Stef. It's not. Kind of."

"Kind of?"

Allison began to know that when she left she would, in fact, stop talking to him. Maybe stop talking to all of them, just block the whole area code and forget the town existed; that it was no longer worth anything but honesty. "It's not about you. It's that the last time I felt anything mattered, it was back when we were together. I went through all this... goin' down to the pier to drink with Dan, and getting the band together, and making up with Jamie and Jim Riggs, and putting money in the box for the fireworks on the Fourth and fucking all of it like it would be 2011 again and I'd be twenty and we'd figure out something--"

"But--"

"Fuck, Stef. It's not about being happy. I love Jim and the fireworks and the band. I just wanted it to be more than that, which it can't be. That wasn't fair to you, and you don't even see it the same way--"

She didn't really have the words for it--how close he still felt to that day in August. And you could tell yourself that it was gone forever, and she did, but still in the smell of coffee at Stach's and the sound of water on the pier it was so fuckin' easy to think that maybe somewhere it wasn't, that she could open a dust-covered box and August 11th would be waiting for her and it could be whatever she wanted. The ocelot didn't know how to explain that the real problem, the real crux of it, was that she'd left. And Stef hadn't, and he knew the truth about August 11th and all the days that lurched behind it.

"--and I didn't think we could just pick up, not you and me or me and anybody, Stef, Christ, I know that--but I just wanted to be that person again. Somebody who didn't have to wonder why they were here." Unlike you.

Unlike you, she didn't add and didn't have to. Because it was clear that he'd moved on; that he didn't feel the same way. That when she called herself a bad influence he saw through the desperation of her own admission. That he could throw it back in her face the way Danny had, and she could leave, and close the door on everything, and there'd be California and maybe... maybe...

And the door did close, with the grating clunk of one bent hinge. And his lips on hers tasted of blackberries.