“I got one more.”
She hums. “Hurry up with your shift. You get a package out late, and I’ll have no choice but to give you that last write-up, Medley.”
I swear, this woman is the devil. She’s perfectly happy to overlook that I’m doin’ her and her hateful mouth a favor by workin’ this shift today. If she fires me, no packages are gettin’ delivered on time, but that seems to have slipped her mind. Again.
I take a deep breath, because as much as I’d like to call her bluff and tell her she can kick rocks, I need the money. “Yes, ma’am,” I concede, hatin’ myself a little more every day that I put up with this crap.
She hangs up without another word, and I let out a string of curses includin’ what she could stick up her ass and pull out on Sunday. Spoiler, it ain’t a Bible.
I realize, in my haste to get the hell out of dodge, I haven’t checked the address of my last package of the day. Usually, I wait a bit in the warehouse and map out all my destinations for the day so I can be as efficient as possible, but today, Patricia was moanin’ at me to get goin’, so I didn’t have the time to plan it all out.
I park on the side of the road real quick and scrabble to the back of my truck to grab the last package. It’s a big damn box, but luckily, it ain’t too heavy. I shift it over so I can read the address, and then frown at the unfamiliar road. I know all the streets around Sweetgreen—it’s one of the only boons to havin’ this job. I know all the shortcuts and every location around, but I’ve never heard of this place.
Snaggin’ my phone from the holder, I pop in the address to my GPS, and my jaw drops at the location. It’s way out in BFE, on some street I’ve never even heard of. It’s about a spit’s toss away from the Okefenokee Swamp, and the recipient is someplace called Hairy Dog Tavern. I thought I knew every bar in town, but I guess not.
Accordin’ to my GPS, it’s gonna take me thirty-four minutes to get there, and this package is due in...thirty-two minutes.
“Well, that most certainly puts me up shit creek without a paddle, and Lord knows I’m not a good swimmer.”
Peachy. Just peachy.
2
I haul ass back up to the driver’s seat and hit the pedal to the metal. There’s a damn governor on this truck that makes it so it can’t go over sixty, which means I’m gonna be cuttin’ it real damn close to deliverin’ this package on time.
I really can’t afford to tempt fate with this whole firin’ thing, so I can’t be even a minute late gettin’ this package dropped off and scanned before the time’s up. Swift Shipping Services doesn’t give a Georgia peach about anythin’ other than deliverin’ packages on time.
Patricia has had it out for me since our company’s mechanic, Bob Grace, winked at me one day. It’s common knowledge that Patricia has had a lady boner for him for years, and she doesn’t take kindly to competition. Not that I’d ever touch the pot-bellied, gapped-tooth misogynist. Not in a million years.
I race down the highway, cuttin’ off cars and takin’ as many shortcuts that I know about, pushin’ the truck and its speed restrictor all the way to the max.
Good thing I don’t have any more packages in the back because I have to make some jerky turns and tire-squealin’ stops that would definitely send boxes slidin’ all over the damn place.
I take a quick moment to curse Ms. Jonay to a future filled with nothin’ but broken porcelain dolls as I wipe sweat from my brow. I turn the vent in the truck on high, but it just blows more hot air, and I quickly shut it off.
SSS may value on-time delivery, but they certainly don’t value human life as they do their best to cook drivers to a crispy well-done on a regular basis thanks to the lack of air-conditionin’ in their trucks. So from seven a.m. until whenever I get done deliverin’ hundreds of packages every night, I’m sweatin’ worse than a hooker in church, because this thing only has a vent.
Luckily for me, their hideous dark purple uniforms are fairly good at hidin’ the sweat spots I regularly sport. I reach over and let my door slide open. A strand of my mint green hair is pulled out of my messy bun by the whippin’ wind that fills the cab of the truck. It’s technically illegal to drive with it open, but since I prefer not to know what it feels like to be bacon cookin’ in the skillet, I ignore that little rule.
I tuck the piece back into the elastic that tames my windblown strands. I can’t wait to get home tonight and pull this tousled bun out. I have hair down to my butt, and between the heavy bun and the sweatin’, I usually end my shifts with a headache that’s immediately made better when I let my hair down so my scalp ain’t screamin’ at me.
I try not to think about the way I’ll style it to go out this weekend. Or the way I hope some charmer will wrap it around his hand as he does me right and makes sure I have at least two orgasms before he passes out on top of me. I’m gonna make sure I enjoy my three-day break. But first, I gotta take care of this package.
My gray eyes constantly dart over to the clock on the dash as I speed down the highway, and I watch as I run closer and closer to the cut-off delivery time.
Twenty minutes left.
Ten.
Five.
By the time I hit the dirt road with Okefenokee ahead, the heavy swamp air is flowin’
