Marina

You saw when he’d get to a hotel on the state line, when he’d stop for McDonalds for the 4th meal in a row, when he’d stop at the gas station. You would watch as he made countless of drives, several hours long - over and over. You saw when he’d start heading back to Lehigh, though he never stayed long. He would be in town to get fresh clothes, update Roy, and maybe get a few minutes of sleep. You began to notice that he would text you as his icon would be passing familiar places to you. 

Sometimes he would text, and you’d notice he had just passed by the salon. Other times it would be passing by your favorite coffee shop. But more often then not, he would text you as he was passing your house driving up the country road to get back onto the highway taking him further and further from you.

It would always be something small.

🐊: saw that lucys released their summer drink menu. lemme guess, your favorite is the strawberry refresher?

🐊: hows geico doin

🐊: you gonna go that rodeo? a couple of the ranchers are bull ridin in it this year. let me know and I can probably get you snuck in to see those lil highland cows the kids are showin

🐊: yards gettin long, ill call dalton and get him to come cut it sometime this week. its snake season so wear your tall boots in case.

And occasionally,

🐊: miss u.

You’d respond, but he wouldn’t ever keep up the conversation - you couldn’t tell if its because he didn’t want to or if it was because he got busy. Regardless, you really fucking missed him.

The house grew cold, despite the summer heat rolling in. It seemed as though the house missed him just as much. It groaned at invisible steps that it wished Gator would be taking across its surface. The afternoon light refused to shine in where it usually did, unwilling because it knew it was going to catch itself in his beautiful hazel eyes. The wind even whispered through drafty areas in the home as if saying ‘when is he coming back?’ Or ‘is he avoiding us’? God, you wish you knew.

You knew he was in town, but you knew that ‘in town’ meant he was here for 2 hours tops and that every waking moment was filled with something important he had to do. It didn’t stop you from watching that app. The second you saw his icon turn down the country road, you sprung out of bed. You were determined to make today the day that he finally stopped.

There was about 8 minutes in between where he was and your home, you had to think quick. You threw on one of his black stark county sheriffs t-shirts and a pair of cut off shorts (your shortest ones), pulled on some sneakers and ran out the front door.

You pulled out the long extension hose from the side of the house and filled up a 5 gallon bucket full of water, then you added the soap. There was nothing that said ‘stop here’ more than a hot woman washing her car while being dripping wet, right? 

You there your hair up into a messy bun and shook it a little, trying to make it look like this wasn’t completely arranged. Your 4runner was shocked as you began hosing it down - the only person who had hand washed her was Gator.

Allowing the water to spray you every once in a while to keep up the act, you slide out your phone to see his location.

1 minute away.

Show time.

You run around the back of the car, allowing yourself to be the first thing he sees. Giving it a close spray, the water bounces off of the metal and drenches the front of your shirt, water dripping down your legs and dribbles on your neck.

The cold water instantly hardening your nipples, which you did deliberately - choosing not to wear a bra.

Gravel.

You hear him before you see him, the engine roaring louder behind you.

Lights, camera, action - superstar!

You flip your head over your shoulder, innocently, like this wasn’t apart of your masterful plan for the past week.

He threw open the door to his truck and plopped one foot onto the running board and stood up on it - torso leaning in between the door frame and the cab.

“You gotta work top to bottom. Otherwise all that shits gonna fall down and you’ll have to clean the sides again. Thats basic knowledge, sweet.”

His eyes lowering at your soaked tits in his shirt, just for a second.

“But how am I supposed to get up there?” You say, kinda serious actually.

“Gimme the hose and I can spray it from right here.”

You listen. Water keeps sliding down your hand from the leaking nozzle, ultimately dripping off your body at the elbow. You make your way towards him, the movements making your breast move along with it - nearly hypnotizing him.

You reach up and give him the hose, his fingers momentarily grazing your hand.

He begins spraying the top of your vehicle until all the grime is gone. He lowers it back down to you, before he finally hops out of the truck.

There is something inside of you that died and went to Heaven when he slammed the door. Meaning he actually was going to stand here with you for a minute, though he left the engine running.

“Hows the assignment?” You ask.

“Shit.” He responds, flat.

“You getting some sleep?”, you knew the answer.

“Fuck no.”

“Miss me?”, you reach.

“Always.”, he looked at you like he was mourning.

It made you smile hearing it, but didn’t like what it cost you.

“You changed your hair”, he says as he begins smirking - letting his guard down.

You smile. He noticed your hair.

“Yeah, added some blonde highlights. One of the girls needed a model and figured it was time for a change.”

“Doesn’t look bad.” He mumbles, still grinning.

You laugh, looking to the ground at your wet sneakers.

“Is that your way of saying it looks good or that you don’t like it at all, but you don’t wanna hurt my feelings?” You giggle out.

He straightens, and gives you a soft smile. You missed his fucking smile so much. Damn near took everything inside of you not to pull out your phone and take a picture.

“You look good no matter what you do. I just didn’t expect you to change it… well, I guess I'm just more shocked because if you did change it - that just, well, that just seems like you would’ve sent me a picture or something. At least told me about it.” He rambles, clearly uncomfortable. 

The distance had been hard for him. Harder than it was for you, by a long shot. With the lack of sleep, work load, junk food, knowledge of Wade still being in town, not being able to keep him away from you, and most of all… not being with you everyday? Yeah - Gator was close to falling apart. But he couldn’t show that to a soul. They see that as a weakness in his line of work, that makes you a target. People go digging for a way to take him down and you’re the only thing on the list that could debilitate him.

“Would you have wanted me to tell you about it? To send you a picture?”, you respond softly to the admission.

“Yes. God, you have no clue how desperate I am for some normalcy while Im out there”, he says with an exhausted laugh, rubbing his hand down his face, “Its not been great… if I'm being honest with you.”

You didn’t know anything about what he was doing. He didn’t say, and you didn’t ask. You had been invited back to the ranch after church last Sunday and Wade and Roy were talking - they had mentioned drug trafficking? That sounded fucking dangerous, enough where you lost your appetite, meanwhile everyone else continued on. You hated the idea of Gator being out there.

“Want to come in? You can tell me about it?”, you offer, “I made pie this morning, cherry - its so good.. I may or may not have had a slice for breakfast and another for lunch.” 

He laughed at that. Fuck you Gator and your perfect laugh. 

“I would love that, but.. I gotta get on the road.” He got quiet.

Your heart dropped, even thought you knew it was coming.

“Oh, yeah - yeah, now worries! Hey, I can grab you a slice real quick and you can come say hi to geico.” You turn, not even waiting to see if he’d follow, he always did - fuck, what if he’s not?

You turn to look, and he’s only a couple steps behind you. Your body relaxes.

You kick off your wet sneakers outside, and pull off your socks before you go in - drenched from the water hose.

He watched every movement you made like a fucking hawk.

As soon as you pulled your screen door open, the smell of the fresh baked pie swirled out into the air and met Gator on the front porch. It was like a welcome home gift from the house.

“Smells delicious, oh my god.” He genuinely almost moaned out, “Ive been eating nothing but shit on the road, you fuckin spoiled me to death and now im suffering.”

Your heart broke and warmed all at the same time.

He made his way over to the terrarium system Geico was in.

“Hey buddy, your mama taking good care of you?” He sweet talked him, giving his head a little scratch, “Ive missed you..”

You smile as you pull out a knife from the drawer. The pie dish was sitting on the counter and you slid it over to you, making the glass rattle against the countertop.

That tore his attention back over to you. He began moving into the kitchen.

Ever so quiet, you didn’t even realize he was leaning against the counter looking at you from behind. You thought he was still saying his hellos.

You push up onto your tippy toes and open up one of the top cabinets and reach for a piece of Tupperware to pack his pie away in - then you heard him clear his throat.

You knew he must be staring at your ass, so you whip around to catch him in the act.

He absolutely was, and unashamedly at that.

“So in the past few weeks did you grow a couple inches on me, or have you always been able to reach that shelf and just pretended to be helpless so id get in there for you?”

Caught ya.

You tucked your lips into each other, trying not to laugh. It was so true, you always could - you just liked him to do it for you. Just like you knew how to change your oil in the car, but had him do it for you. Just like you could move the couch, but you liked him to do it so you could watch his muscles. Just like you knew how to swim, but pretended you were no good so that he’d keep you close and wrap an arm around you - you were swim captain in high school. Worked as a lifeguard in the summers for a couple years. Still held your certification, but he didn’t need to know any of that.

You liked Gator feeling needed. Because he liked being needed.

“I must’ve grown, Gator Bug!”, you say with fake astonishment, shaking your head like you didn’t have a clue. You walk over to him, swiping a finger into the cherry pie on your way.

You bring it to your mouth and run your finger over your tongue before closing your mouth around yourself and sucking it clean.

He could feel everything inside of him getting tense, he wanted you badly. And he wanted you in every way. Fuck, he missed you.

His hands shook, holding himself back. His call time for his team was in 3 hours, and he was now 3 hours away… definitely overstayed - but who the fuck could blame him. Look at you.

Hair a mess, falling out of the bun. Fresh face, you hadn’t worn any makeup today - skincare was making you glow. Your lips were slightly stained from the cherry pie a beautiful flushed pink, making you eyes look even greener than usual. There you stood in his damp t-shirt, nipples still peeking through. And his favorite cut off shorts. Barefoot. Fuck - you were irresistible.

“I gotta go baby…”, trying the pet name to see how you’d react.

Your heart skipped a few beats before you took a step back. Reaching for the to-go container, you sliced a hefty piece and placed it inside and sealed up the lid. 

“Come get more later, okay?”, you whisper, pretending like this is just another shift and that he is gonna come crawl into your bed at some ungodly hour and hum into your ear until you slipped back into sleep - dreaming about him, as usual.

“As soon as I'm off, I’ll come straight here babygirl.”, a sad promise he knew would take a while to fulfill.

“Gator. Call me.”, You cross the kitchen floor and slide your arms around his waist.

He wraps his arms around you immediately, feeling like home. Even though he was squeezing you, you felt like you could finally breath for the first time in weeks.

“I will try to call.”

“No, you will call. I know you spend hours on the road. You can give me 20 minutes of your time every once in a while. Ive hadn’t gone a day without you for two whole fuckin years and then you ghost me for three weeks, I hate it.” You mouth back.

“You know why I didn’t call… I told you - its way too dangerous.”, he shoved back, arms still around you as he spoke into the side of your hair, inhaling deep so he can get the smell of your vanilla shampoo.

You huffed in annoyance and tried to pull back, he just squeezed tighter and placed a hand on the back of your head to bring you back to his chest.

“Gator bug, nothin is gonna happen to me!”

“If I get caught, they will go through my phone and find a reason to get me to talk. You’re the only thing that could. Seeing multiple call logs with you, a million texts? No. I cant do that.”

“Then get a fuckin burner and if you think you’re bout to get smoked out, then you destroy it.”

His entire body shook in laughter, shaking you along with it.

“See… this is why I want you to stay out of this, baby. You just described like every spy movie scene I've shown you. This is so much scarier than watching it on a screen, honey.” He started to laugh, until he thought about the reality and it made him swallow it.

“Ive been safe, Gator bug. Ive got my gun, Ive got my taser and pepper spray. Ive got that nail bat thingy you made. I have a large collection of high heeled shoes that im sure can be pretty dangerous. And the ranch is less than 10 minutes from here - Im good, I swear.” You whisper into his shoulder.

“But… Im not at the ranch.”

“Yeah but like… Roy is.” You hesitate.

“And… and were you gonna say Wade?”

You inhale slowly, taking a breath of his musky smell - you could bathe in it.

“Well, I mean I wasn’t gonna say it but yeah he is there too, and all the ranch hands. If something bad happened-”

“Yeah, tell me who you’d call. If something bad happens… who are you calling?” He begins to firm his voice, he is on edge, “and don’t you dare say me because you know I'm almost never here.”

“Well if its serious, I’d call the cops, then Roy, and then you - just to let you know.” You start, “But if its not serious…”

“You call Wade?”

“Now thats not fair! Gator, I-”

“Yeah, he called to tell me all about the fox trying to get the hens and he came over and set up the trap. He also told me that you had a flat and he fixed that for you-”, He begins going off.

You fight back, him still holding you to his chest, “No no no, he found me on the side of the road while I was grabbing my spare. I never asked for his help, he just did it! Now… I did call him about the fox, BUT it was because I was asking if I could come get a trap for it and I knew it was in your barn - I didn’t want to go in there next to the apartment and be in there with him again-”

“Again? What the fuck do you mean again? You were in my apartment with him?!” He got loud.

“It was that Sunday at the ranch, when we went shootin.”

He relaxed and smiled at the memory, “Oh, so when he interrupted us?”

“Well… I mean, not exactly. He walked in while I was there looking for my phone.”

He stilled.

“Tell me everything.”

You finally pulled back, and this time he let you.

“He just said some shit about you and me… thats all.” You lie.

He can see right through it… fuckin cop.

“Everything…”

“He told me that I deserved someone who just wants me, and doesn’t fuck the whole town. Said he could be worth my time, and you never were.”, you spill it all.

Gators jaw tightened, as his his grip on your waist. His tongue rested on the front of his teeth, trying to hold the words inside.

His eyes looking anywhere but you. He scanned the kitchen, noticing the pie dish - it looked phenomenal. Then his eyes landed on the clock on the microwave, he winced - he knew he had to leave. And then he saw it, and nearly broke his jaw with how tight he squeezed it.

He shook his head, trying to ignore what he was looking at in your sink.

He knows he doesn’t have time to unpack it now, he has to leave.

“Babygirl, I have to go okay? I needed to be on the road like a long time ago - Ive got a team meeting I need to make.” He pulls you in for a tight hug, then placing his lips on your temple.

You pull back and look at him, nearly in tears. You don’t want him to leave. You don’t want your house to be empty again, your driveway to be void of that big f150, or his boots being gone from beside your slippers. In fact, you don’t want him to leave ever again.

You slide your hands up his chest. One rests on the back of his neck and the other at his jaw.

He wants to kiss you as badly as you want to kiss him.

So, fuck it - he does.

He leans in and you gasp, eagerly leaning in the close the distance.

The moment he touches you, you stop worrying, overthinking, spinning - he wanted this just as badly. He didn’t want to ice you out. 

The kiss was deep, yet soft. And desperately slow. He memorized every movement you made - knowing that he would have to survive off it this moment for who knows how long.

You knew he was goin back and things were gonna be quiet again - but this time you knew how he felt.

But he wrestled with how you felt… not about him - but about him…

His mind keeps drifting back to the sight of your sink.

Your Winnie the Pooh mug.

Next to the green and pink floral mug.

His mug.

In the sink.

Dirty.

————

a/n 💌 STICK WITH ME YALL ITS WORTH IT