Page 30 of Soft Flannel Hank

“I was. Wanted to pick her brain about something.”

“You mean you wanted to get dirt on someone.”

“Something like that.”

“Well, you just missed her. I just dropped her off at the cabin. She’s letting some woman stay there and wanted to help her ‘make it cozy,’” Jamie said with air quotes.

“You meet her?”

“Yeah, briefly. She’s beautiful. Tall. Curvy. Bright red hair. Freckles. Esther is her name.”

Hank had felt the tension rising with every new descriptor but felt like his literal guts were going to fall out of his literal asshole when Jamie said her name.

Esther.

He didn’t know how to feel. The optimistic, hopeful parts of him wanted to think that maybe Esther had met Magda and learned about the vacant cabin and been so excited about it that she’d jumped. That she hadn’t just left him in the lurch and dropped him like a bad time.

But the larger part of his brain, the louder, more unforgiving parts, couldn’t help but remember that she’d checked out of the motel before Magda ever even got out of bed in the morning. She had left Alice with cash and a vague excuse about “something coming up.”

“Esther, you say?” Hank tried for nonchalance. It couldn’t be her. He shook the possibility off entirely. Sure, she read tarot and maybe knew about vampires and was from the South, but a “notorious” witch who had attempted murder? Not likely. He would have picked up on something like that. He was a better judge of character than that.

Right?

“Yeah. She seems nice.”

Nice people don’t lie to other nice people.

“Well, that’s good,” Hank said, still fighting to sound casual.

“You could head over. Mom’s gonna be there for a while she said.”

Hank wanted to see Esther again about as much as he wanted an unmedicated appendectomy. He didn’t have any confidence in himself not to ask her why she left like that, and he sure as hell didn’t want to hear the answer to that question. Besides, he’d been wrong about her liking him. Maybe he’d been wrong about everything. Maybe he’d taken a vicious killer home with him and started falling for her, and—

Fuck.

“I’ll do that.”

Jamie was quiet, wringing the rag in his hands and looking at the cracked driveway beneath his feet. Hank knew exactly how he felt. How did you segue into saying goodbye to someone who hadn’t been sure they’d ever see you again? To say “I’ll see you around” felt too trite, but to say anything more than that felt too heavy.

“You should come over sometime, Jamie,” Hank said. “We can watch a game or something.”

Jamie smiled brightly, relaxing. “Name the time and I’ll be there, bud.”

Hank nodded and got into the truck. He took a long sip of his coffee before pulling out of the driveway.

The access road to the cabin was about a quarter mile from Magda’s driveway on the road. He turned on the truck stereo. He didn’t remember what CD was in the changer after months of silent driving, but Meatloaf’s voice broke through the tight silence, crooning that he would do anything for love.

Hank snorted but felt his anxiety rising with every single crescendo in the song. He needed to pull himself together. He was going to talk to Magda. He could be polite to Esther. Hewouldbe polite to Esther. They were adults. And he’d been polite to people who’d done far worse to him than fuck his brains out and make him realize how empty his life had been before abandoning him to the silence again.

Okay. Fine. Maybe nobody had ever done anything quite like the second thing so he didn’t have experience being kind to that sort of person, but he would do it.

He was Hank Dove, and goddammit, he was polite if he was anything.

As Meatloaf’s voice escalated in volume and intensity, Hank found himself drumming on the steering wheel. He felt that same slow build of adrenaline that he used to get before running onto the football field on a Friday night in high school all those years ago. Steady amp in the bloodstream, a heavy baseline in the chest.

He was going to pretend that she didn’t affect him at all. That he hadn’t been to the motel the morning before. That he hadn’t bought her flowers. That she hadn’t utterly decimated him.

He was going to knock on that door and say,“Esther? Wow, what a small world. Is Magda here? Jamie said she was.”Hank could be cool. Cool as a cucumber.