Closed for TheGrind

[Ohia_Lehua]

"Kahr!" The black mouth cur jumped at the sound of his name and without making her wait jumped into the dodge 4x4 dually truck.

Gravel flew and the screech of the tires was quickly followed by the pungent smell of burnt rubber.

"I swear!" The voice choked back tears of frustration. There was no use, no matter what she did or didn't do they were going to fight. "And I'm tired of it.n Bloody god damn tired of it!" Her hand fished into a fight ball slammed down on the steering wheel.

Kahr gave a soft whine and laid down across the bench seat. Kahr used to be Thomas' dog but when he became too good for the country life he not only ignored his wife but abandoned his dog.

"Gosh, I don't mean to be yelling at you." Joss sighed feeling herself calm down as she gentled her voice and petted Kahr's head. His ears perked but he didn't move and Joss continued to pet him her eyes zoning out on the coming night and her body driving on autopilot. This wasn't the city where she had to worry about traffic or other cars, no. This was a small town about 45 minutes away from the city where gravel and stones paved the roads.

The fight was the same as always. She needed to grown up. Joss felt neglected. She didn't care about the 'us' of the relationship. Joss wanted Thomas home for more then just a shower and some sleep.

"I do try." Whispered the young lady of 26 years of age. "I mean I know you don't see me out of dusty torn jeans, cotton shirts and boots with my hair up but tonight I tried." Kahr lifted his head and looked up intently at the woman. "I did my hair all nice, put make-up on my face and even wore one of those frilly lacy things that he bought me and the first thing out of his mouth?" Joss' hands tightened on the steering wheel and she breathed deep calming herself. "You know it doesn't matter anymore."

And like that it was as if a switch turned off. Things were pushed to the back of her mind and covered with happier thoughts. The hurt and loneliness was replaced by the cold numbness that she was too familiar with.

A few minutes later and she pulled into her favorite bar, The Tack House. The food was great, the beer frosty and the bar fully stocked. It was just an added bonus that her best friend and her husband owned the place and that aside from a decent playlist on the jukebox there was live music on Fridays and Saturdays and his just happened to be a Friday.

The building was just an old barn house that they fixed up with a nice wide front porch complete with a horse hitch bar that two horses were already ties to. The only thing missing was the red paint.

"Come on." Joss got out of the truck and held the door open for Kahr and watched as he sniffed hello to the horses there and then take his place on the porch near the end by the rocking chair. Kahr was well trained and with as often as they were here it was almost like his second home and he knew the rules and Joss didn't even give him a second thought as she went inside.

"Well hey there girlie!" Hank was 6' 4" and every inch of that was pure country boy stock and whipped by his 5' 3" wife Katie. "You look like you need to eat."

"And drink." Finished Katie coming out from the doors leading to the kitchens. "I'd hug you..." She half smiled with her arms filled with plates.

"I'll get it when you're not hunkered down with all that." Joss smiled getting a hug from Hank over the bar.

"Here you go and you can tell Katie all about it." Hank might put off an aura of big and bad but if you spent five minutes with the man you would learn that he's the biggest softie. He's stopped on the side of the road to shoo sunning turtles off the pavement to the side so they don't get hurt. That paired with his slow driving was one of the main reasons Katie drove everywhere when they went together.

"Talk his ear off, he deserves it after the comment this afternoon." Teased Katie hurrying back to the kitchen.

"Oh no, what did you do now." Joss eyed the big man from behind her captain and coke.

The small talk went on for a while and after a few more drinks and a burger pushed on her by the happily married couple, Joss made her way towards the back where the pool tables and darts were.

 

[TheGrind]

Even after a forty five minute drive away it could still be hard to see all the stars in the sky. The range had been grazed over long ago and all that was left was a promise that once upon a time, life had been simple. It was a world Dustin had grew up in and had come to love. The city was in close proximity but he was the kind who took what he wanted from it rather than the other way around. So many of the town’s residents had come and gone and come again that it would’ve been hard to keep track of if the town hadn’t been so damn small. But that was its allure.

Work was done for the day and Dustin found himself in the bar with a small group of friends. Most of them had turned into self-proclaimed weekend warriors but they weren’t even that. They were worse than that. Almost all of them were married in their twenties. It wasn’t quite the role Dustin had decided to take on. At least not yet but it was the role he had found himself in.

Dustin and Ryan were the only two left of the group that had started out earlier that night. A pool table, a jukebox, and some chairs and tables were enough to keep the back from getting dull most nights. It was why he came to The Tack House. It was simple, he knew what to expect and the regular crowd was great. And the women who passed through were even better. His wife three years ago probably would’ve thrown herself into a jealous rage if she knew he had those thoughts but now he wasn’t so sure she cared anymore.

It didn’t take long before a new band took the stage and the eight ball slammed into its side pocket. When Joss came into the room both men looked her way but only Dustin’s eyes settled on her long enough to show he had more than a passing interest in the girl. Ryan took his last drink of the night and some cash from his wallet, leaving both at the counter before he said a last word to the bartender and called out his farewell to the room. A few answered saying they’d see him the following night and he left.

Without a friend to hang around him Dustin took the pool cue and stuck it along the side of the table, seemingly protecting two of its pockets as he picked up his bottle of beer from the nearby table and took a long drink. His eyes found the girl again and lingered for a moment longer before he reminded himself that he was married and that he shouldn’t go talk to her. Dustin’s country roots grabbed hold of him and kept him grounded near the bar where he spent a little more time drinking and a little less thinking as he playfully flirted with the new girl tending bar.

 

[Ohia_Lehua]

The captain and cokes were doing their job. They blunted her anger and replaced it with a bubbling giddiness that she could blame on the carbonation and alcohol. She wasn't anywhere near drunk but happily buzzed with a wide smile Joss couldn't deny. She had been so near to crying when she got here that it was almost embarrassing. Sex was non existing in her marriage and tonight she had tried to rekindle the passion between her and Thomas but it backfired when he rejected her.

Joss jammed the quarters into the pool table slots and with a bit more force then needed pushed the metal crank in. The sound of free falling balls followed and Joss stood up to grab a stick thing off the wall. Yeah that was how much she knew about pool. Now horseshoes was her game but it was impossible to find a bar that had one inside. "They should really consider pulling them in all bars." She told herself with a nod putting the stick on the table as she went about to find the triangle thing that the balls went into. Oh sure she had played pool before but it was always one of the guys that made the table and broke. When the search for the triangle came up empty she pulled out all the balls and put them on the table determined to do it manually.

So by played poll before it was more like once or twice. Joss knew that the balls went stripe, solid, stripe, solid and she had figured that they went in numerical order. They didn't. And making a triangle by hand was turning out to be harder then she thought. "Ah screw it!" Joss just wanted something to hit and the darts were plastic and that took out all the fun. "A big pile it is!" She muttered grouping all the balls together, including the all white one. "Oh wait I need that one." She laughed at herself picking the ball out of hte near center and squishing the balls back together again.

 

[TheGrind]

Dustin had busied himself at the bar but the reminder of that woman kept the attention of his eye every few minutes. Already at the pool table and she looked completely lost, out of her element. Maybe she was one of the girls from the city, he told himself. The kind who called a fiddle a violin even when the devil goes down to Georgia. Even with those marks against her, those instant assumptions she seemed completely oblivious to everything around her which meant she wasn’t looking at him but that was a problem he was about to remedy.

Finishing his beer he ordered another, the condensation already beginning to brew against the glass. Pulling himself away from the stool he walked across the room until he reached the pool table Joss was jostling with and without a word he set the bottle on the edge of the table while he reached underneath, withdrawing the triangle. As he rose with it in his hand he held it up for a brief moment to show her his find as he offered a smile and laid it on the table.

“I saw you were having some trouble over here,” he began as he walked toward her end of the table, dragging the triangle with him. “Maybe I can help you out a little here,” he commented as he began moving the mess she had made into the triangle. “Just think of them like people. The closer they are, the better,” he smiled at himself as he settled the eight ball where it belonged. As he tightened the group together, steering them toward the right spot he removed the triangle, offering his hand with his name, “The name’s Dustin by the way.”

 

[Ohia_Lehua]

Joss looked up at the voice. It wasn't someone she knew but she had noticed him when she had first walked in and scanned the room. "Yeah pool isn't my game. It-" She was about to say that it was Tom's but she didn't want to think about him tonight. "I'm more horseshoes and darts with real tips and a cork board." Joss smiled taking a step back from her mess on the table to watch him do it the right way.

"Joss." She took the hand that was offered and gave it a firm handshake. It wasn't a lily handed fingered hold where you touched a little as the other persons hand as possible. Joss had nothing to hide and she wasn't ashamed of the callouses she had worked hard to get. True they weren't the rough hands of some of the wrangler boys but they told a story by themselves that spoke of horses and hard work.

"Care to teach me the finer points on this game since your friend seems to be gone?" She had just been planning on trying to hit the balls by number order into the pockets but if she could learn the rules to the strip and solid game maybe it would stop just being Tom's game and it could be her's too. Then maybe she wouldn't avoid the spaces where pool tables were.

It was still hard for Joss to remember the good times when Tom, her and all their friends used to go to the Old Mill before it burned down and hang around the pool tables as the men played and the women talked, sung, drank and danced. Joss closed her eyes and looked away pushing the memories back of when her smile was more then just a front and she was happy, truly happy instead of acting happy so that the people around her didn't worry.

 

[TheGrind]

“Joss,” he repeated easily. “A pleasure, I’m sure,” he led as he held her hand a little longer than he would’ve anyone else. He noticed her hands were a little rougher than some of the other girls but he didn’t mention it. Instead he decided that he probably shouldn’t have judged her so soon. But if a girl had that kind of attitude he wondered why he hadn’t seen her around here before.

When she asked for a little help to learn the game he answered with a smile, “Its an easy game but can be hard to get down when you first get started. Betting money makes it interesting, betting clothes even more interesting,” he teased. “But we’ll make this as painless as possible and just shoot around for fun.” As he stole a cue from the wall he added, “Basically if you sink a solid or stripe, you’re stuck with one or the other the rest of the game.” He nearly added that it was much like a marriage but decided to bite his tongue, hiding the thought.

It didn’t matter to him who broke and he decided to forgo the rules, asking instead, “So, do you wanna break?” There was little doubt in his mind that she’d broken a few balls in her past. She surely had the look for it but the attitude, he decided to wait and see if it were there. If it wasn’t the night could end up being a decent diversion from what he was used to.

Then he added almost as an afterthought, “You do know how to shoot, right?”

 

[Ohia_Lehua]

She got that much but what if you hit both in at the break. What then? Joss just let the question go and figured if it came up she could as then. "Betting more or clothes." She laughed enjoying Dustin's humor. "Pick a different game and I might play along with you cloth for cloth." She teased in return wiggling her eyebrows.

Breaking was something that she tried to avoid. Tom was a ball buster for rules and when she played with him it was just too much to be the first shot. So normally she let him break and then waited for him to miss a shot and then just tried to hit her balls in a pocket. There wasn't any skill on her side, mainly just random placed luck because she wasn't a 100% sure on the finer points. She just figured if you hit the white ball towards your ball at a fair enough angle that it would go in and straight hits were her best chance to make it.

"Give me a pistol, rifle or bow and my answer would be yes. But the art to hitting the white ball towards the group of colored balls in hopes that you make one in, not really." Joss answered as she picked up her stick and moved to the side opposite the balls. "I get hitting it really hard to break the balls apart but my aims never been right with this game." She admitted bending over to line up her stick with where she wanted the white ball to go. She was aiming at the point ball and hoping that something would go in as she pulled back the stick.

 

[TheGrind]

The girl was playful and he couldn’t help but like her at once. He listened to hear easily as she rattled off things she was better at but he was infinitely more interested in the way she walked around the table and toward the lone ball at the other end of the table. As she told him about her lack of confidence when it came to lining up shots he began to follow her, leaving behind the pool cue he was going to use.

“Its more than just power,” he began a smile as he reached the corner pocket, beginning to move behind her. “You also have to aim.” And while he was sure she understood this point as well, it was one few honestly attempted. And as he grabbed hold of the reared back cue with one hand, he leaned in behind her, which he was sure was something else few did around her. But she seemed like she could take it and if she couldn’t, it was looking to be an early night anyway.

His hand slid along the base of the cue until it met her hand, where he stopped. Dustin gripped the stick there as he leaned in toward her as he spoke behind her ear, “Make sure your hand is steady and is in a position that’s comfortable for you on the table. The less friction the better. Some people use chalk but who wants to walk around with a blue hand all night?" He smiled to himself even though she couldn't see, "And don’t be afraid to bend low over the table if you need to. Trust me, you don’t have anything back here to be ashamed of.”

When he was finished he released his gentle grip on the stick, saying, “And when you’re ready just power through.” What he told her was something everyone knew even if they didn’t use it. More than anything it was just an excuse to get close to the girl And if she were as bad as she said she was then it was going to be a long game but he knew he wouldn’t mind it at all.

 

[Ohia_Lehua]

Joss watched her new friend round the table towards her happy to get help in this game she had never once tried to master but was willing to try. "More then just power, aim." She nodded making notes in her mind. If someone was willing to take the time to teach her to properly play the game she was going to make sure she showed him that not only was she listening but she was trying her hardest.

Now Joss wasn't sure if it was because before the Tack House she was all prepped to get herself some or what but when Dustin stepped behind her and leaned in she was too late in stopping herself from arching back into him. Hopefully he would just count it a positioning but when his hand touched her and he whispered in her ear she knew he must have heard the heavy exhale of breath.

"Okay, right. got it." Joss nodded feeling Dustin back away from her. "Bend low to the table..." She said more to herself then to Dustin and bent at the hips, her ass pointed out and her chest just hovering over the green felt of the table. She had always been thoughtful of Tom and other guys looking at her when she bent over like this but tonight that was the last thing in her mind as she aimed her shot down the pool stick. "And power through." She smiled drawing back and following through with her hit.

The white ball was just a hair off form where she had been aiming at but it was a vast improvement from any other shot she had made in her not so vast pool game history. "Oh I hit where I wanted!" Joss cheered for herself watching the balls scatter after the satisfying crack of making her shot. There was no order or direction in which the balls went. Twice she thought she was going to make a ball in and both time another ball from a different direction ran into it's course and knocked it away from it's targeted trajectory. It was once the balls started to slow that Joss began to lose hope that she could be good at this game, when low and behold the all blue two ball slowly rolled it's way to the left center pocket. "Come on, you can do it. Go, go. I believe in you." She urged the ball her eye glued to it and nothing else.

The one other time that Joss had broken she hadn't made any balls in and Tom declared her the loser. She didn't understand it and laid all her hopes for not failing in that one blue ball.

"No---" It rolled to a stop and tittered on the edge of the pocket toying with Joss until the very last second when it fell in. "Woohoo!" She clapped raising her stick into the air. True it was childish to be so excited about so little of a thing but after the night she had Joss was clinging to anything that made her smile. "I made it in." She smile triumphantly thumping the butt of her stick on the ground in front of Dustin.

"Look at that. What a great teacher you are." She praised waving her hand over the table showing him the results in case he had missed it. "Wait-" A sudden thought came to her and she tried to think back. "It doesn't matter that it wasn't the one ball right? Just that it wasn't the white or black ball, correct?" Joss asked a black cloud dimming her smile and turning the corners of her smile. "Because I think the rules should be excused if that's the case."

 

[TheGrind]

Dustin was easy to ignore those little signs. The movement of her body as he approached, the sigh of her breath. He wasn’t as young as he used to be but he was also married and despite the troubles there, had dismissed the signs as nothing but white noise. Still, despite the ring that wasn’t on his finger he took a few steps back from her as she bent over the table, admiring the view she was presenting him. It was wrong but it was also irresistible. Even after he heard the balls crack at the other end he held his gaze a moment longer until she started shouting her excitement.

He wasn’t too surprised at how well she was able to hit her mark after those disparaging comments about herself as he learned long ago to discount anybody. Finally that blue ball dropped and she turned, facing him. She seemed so happy over something so common but Dustin wasn’t about to let her celebrate alone. He permitted a smile and was about to say something before she began wondering aloud about the rules again.

“Its perfect,” he spoke still with a lighthearted smile. “Now you just have to do the rest.”

Dustin half turned toward the bar counter signing for a pair of shots as he turned back to Joss. “I think its time for a little celebration,” he held onto his smile as the shot glasses came and were sat on the ledge of the pool table. He picked up one shot of 100 proof whiskey, handing it to her as he took the other. “Now don’t make me drink all alone. And the more you drink the better chance I have at winning the game.”

Dustin raised his glass slightly before downing the liquor into his throat. “Let’s see you get lined up for your next shot.” Then he clarified, “On the table. You can challenge me at the bar later on.”